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mine it. It must at least be sufficient to replace that stock,with the ordinary profits.

Their highest price, however, seems not to be necessarilydetermined by any thing but the actual scarcity or plenty ofthose metals themselves. It is not determined by that of anyother commodity, in the same manner as the price of coals isby that of wood, beyond which no scarcity can ever raise it.Increase the scarcity of gold to a certain degree, and thesmallest bit of it may become more precious than a diamond,and exchange for a greater quantity of other goods.

The demand for those metals arises partly from theirutility and partly from their beauty. If you except iron, theyare more useful than, perhaps, any other metal. As they areless liable to rust and impurity, they can more easily be keptclean; and the utensils either of the table or the kitchen areoften upon that account more agreeable when made of them.A silver boiler is more cleanly than a lead, copper, or tinone; and the same quality would render a gold boiler stillbetter than a silver one. Their principal merit, however,arises from their beauty, which renders them peculiarly fitfor the ornaments of dress and furniture. No paint or dyecan give so splendid a colour as gilding. The merit of theirbeauty is greatly enhanced by their scarcity. With thegreater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of richesconsists in the parade of riches, which in their eye is neverso complete as when they appear to possess those decisivemarks of opulence which nobody can possess but themselves.In their eyes the merit of an object which is in any degreeeither useful or beautiful, is greatly enhanced by its scarcity,or by the great labour which it requires to collect any consi-derable quantity of it, a labour which nobody can afford to paybut themselves. Such objects they arewilling to purchase ata higher price than things much more beautiful and useful,but more common. These qualities of utility, beauty, andscarcity, are the original foundation of the high price of thosemetals, or of the great quantity of other goods for which theycan everywhere be exchanged. This value was antecedentto and independent of their being employed as coin, and wasthe quality which fitted them for that employment. Thatemployment, however, by occasioninga new demand, and bydiminishing the quantity which could be employed in anyother way, may have afterward contributed to keep up orincrease their value.