120 Economy of Machinery and Manufactures. 



deem it the standard of safety and happiness, as it was of utility and 

 value. This latter is its true estimate. It is the criterion of value — 

 and the medium, wherewith wants may be supplied, pleasures pur- 

 chased, and property preserved. It represents houses, lands and 

 ships without defect of tide, or risk ; it may be laid up as a future 

 provision for the real wants of life, or the unreal fancies of the im- 

 agination, and will neither perish nor go out of fashion. It is in uni- 

 versal request — it sets in motion the labor saving machine, and sus- 

 tains the manufactory, it procures with equal certainty, a blanket for 

 a peasant or a diadem for a prince. This versatility of power led 

 men to view it as possessing, inherently, those advantages which it 

 only procures.* The fact, that it will procure them, constitutes its 

 intrinsic value, and its utility stopping at that point where it is made 

 a standard, it can never rise far above or fall much below its par 

 value. It is this comparative immutability, which in all countries, 

 makes it a standard of value less subject to change than any other. 



The irregular distribution of specie is the principal cause of its 

 variation. When it becomes scarce in any country, from the ordi- 

 nary transactions of commerce, a small rise upon its nominal value, 

 will occasion its speedy return to a market, whence it was with- 

 drawn, until it declines to its par value. 



Nor can its scarcity and high value in time of war, invalidate the 

 argument. The high price, which " an agricultural laborer" might 

 command on the plains of depopulated Poland, would equally affect 

 the unit proposed as a standard by Mr. Malthus. In such cases, all 

 standards are set aside — right and order lose their hold upon men — 

 the foundations are upturned, and laws and the accepted opinions of 

 long ages are then of no force. But as a standard for estimating 

 values, allowing for the variations, none, it is believed, so convenient, 

 or approximating so nearly to a permanent and fixed criterion, has 

 yet been employed, as gold and silver coin. 



Although the standard for comparing values, at distant times, may 

 not be mathematically exact, yet it is evident, that there has been a 

 great diminution in the cost of manufactured products, compared 

 with former ages, as well as with more modern times. The wife of 

 the Emperor Aurelian besought him to purchase for her a robe of 

 purple silk, which he refused, because it would cost more than twice 



* The precious metals have a high value from the use made of them in the arts, 

 either of utility or ornament ; but it is believed that at no time has the demand for 

 them in the arts raised their value materially. 



