100

THE EFFECTS OF

CHAP. XX.

cases would be small. Whilst this process of thedeclining value of money was going on, those whowere in debt would discharge the demands uponthem, in proportion to the length of credit, withconsiderable gain; whilst, on the other hand, thecreditors would receive payment in money of lessvalue than that at the time when they had giventhe credit. In this case, taken thus, the creditorwould suffer a loss, and the debtor would have again ; but as commonly the “ borrower is servantto the lender,” the latter would be more thanindemnified by taking a rate of interest so muchhigher as to cover the anticipated decline in thevalue of money; for after a few years of the coursehere supposed all would act from analogy, andupon the principle that as commodities had beengradually increasing, so they would continue toincrease, or, which is the same thing, that thevalue of money would continue to decline. ThusBishop Latimer, preaching in 1548, anticipatedthat before long a pig would be worth a pound,an expectation that was verified when the “ Con-ceipte” was written, in 1581.

This mode of acting, if not of reasoning, fromanalogy is the most influential and the mostuniversal, and to it we owe the l’egular successionof agricultural labours; for the farmer ploughs andsows on no other principle but that because thesummers of past years have brought his corn toperfection, so that the next summer will produce