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THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

real wealth and prosperity of the world, to the real value ofthe annual produce of the land and labour of mankind. Itsnominal value, the quantity of gold and silver by which thisannual produce could be expressed or represented, would, nodoubt, be very different; but its real value, the real quantityof labour which it could purchase or command, would be pre-cisely the same. A shilling might in the one case representno more labour than a penny does at present; and a pennyin the other might represent as much as a shilling does now.But in the one case he who had a shilling in his pocket,would be no richer than he who has a penny at present; andin the other he who had a penny would be just as rich as hewho has a shilling now. The cheapness and abundance ofgold and silver plate would be the sole advantage which theworld could derive from the one event, and the dearness andscarcity of those trifling superfluities the only inconveniencyit could suffer from the other.

Conclusion of the Digressions concerning the Variationsin the Value of Silver .

The greater part of the writers who have collected themoney prices of things in ancient times, seem to have consi-dered the low money price of corn, and of goods in general,or, in other words, the high value of gold and silver, as aproof, not only of the scarcity of those metals but of the po-verty and barbarism of the country at the time when it tookplace. This notion is connected with the system of politicaleconomy which represents national wealth as consisting inthe abundance, and national poverty in the scarcity, of goldand silver; a system which I shall endeavour to explain andexamine at great length in the fourth book of this inquiry. Ishall only observe at present, that the high value of the pre-cious metals can be no proof of the poverty or barbarism ofany particular country at the time when it took place. It isa proof only of the barrenness of the mines which happenedat that time to supply the commercial world. A poor country,as it cannot afford to buy more, so it can as little afford topay dearer for gold anil silver than a rich one; and thevalue of those metals, therefore, is not likely to be higherin the former than in the latter. In China , a countrymuch richer than any part of Europe , the value of the pre-cious metals is much higher than in any part of Europe .As the wealth of Europe , indeed, has increased greatly since