CHAP. XX. INCREASED PRICES. 101 



the same effect on the labour on which he is 

 engaged at every seed time. The same mode of 

 acting on analogy would be applied to other 

 operations of industry. The weaver would per- 

 ceive that cloth had been constantly rising in its 

 money price ; he would conclude it would continue 

 to rise, because it had done so ; and this would 

 quicken his exertions, and induce him to bring 

 more cloth into the market. The same would be 

 the case with the producers of other articles, and 

 thus an impulse would be given to the productive 

 powers, which would continue as long as the increase 

 of the precious metals should continue to lessen 

 their relative value to other commodities. 



There seems no other way in which the increase 

 of the gold and silver can be beneficial to a whole 

 community. The intrinsic value of it bears but 

 a small proportion to the various other kinds of 

 wealth which communities possess, and the value 

 of it, like that of all other commodities, is regulated 

 by the common principles of supply and demand. 



It is probable that in all ages those metals have 

 cost more in their production than their value ever 

 repaid. And if the amount of human sufferings 

 in the earlier ages of the world could be reduced to 

 a money valuation, and to them were to be added 

 the evils derived from them by their derangement 

 of existing conditions in society, it would become 

 doubtful if the increase of industry, which at par- 

 ticular periods has been caused by it, has been 



