CHAP. XX.

INCREASED PRICES.

99

kinds of articles were adjusted. When any com-modities were sold, the buyer would complain ofthe quantity of money he must pay, and thatwould leave a deep impression on his mind, whichwould not be removed by the higher price hewould obtain for what he sold. All would wishto buy cheap, but to sell dear. The gratificationof the last wish is more than destroyed by the non-gratification of the first. This was evidentlythe case with the individuals whose views aredescribed by themselves in the dialogues. Everyone who produced more than he consumed wouldfind at the end of a few years that his wealth,estimated as wealth commonly is in money, hadincreased considerably beyond his expectation.Every one who consumed more than he pro-duced would in a few years find that his wealth,estimated in the same manner, had diminishedmore than he had anticipated. This conditionof the two classes would have a beneficial effecton the aggregate wealth of the community. Theproducers would be encouraged to more strenuousexertions, and the consumers would be inducedto adopt a greater degree of parsimony. Thatportion of society who are both producers andconsumers, and they are probably by far thelargest class, would find little or no alteration intheir condition, except as far as the small dif-ference on the excess of their production over theirconsumption, or the contrary, which in most

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