378

INFLUENCE OF THE METALS.

CIIAP. XXX.

prices which it exhibits to the view. The onlyevil from the diminution of these metals isthe discouragement it may present to industryby the apparent loss, or lessened profit, when theresult of labour is’ reckoned in gold and silverand not in other commodities. It mattei’s littleto him who raises a bushel of wheat whether itis exchanged for a pennyweight or for an ounceof silver, provided it will procure for him thesame quantity of cloth, shoes, liquors, furniture,or other necessaries which may be desirable tohim. The relations of the different classes ofsociety to each other, but still more those ofdifferent individuals to each other, will be changed,but the change will be made very slowly, and bescarcely perceptible in one or two years, and evenat the end of a generation only noticed by thosewho look back with the means of comparing therange of prices at different periods.

In the twentieth chapter of this inquiry a viewhas been taken of the effect produced by an ad-vance of the prices of commodities, in general, atthe rate of five to one in the course of a century.The reflecting reader will easily perceive that anoperation of an opposite kind may take place,which may no more derange the general economyof states, and no more disturb the relations ofclasses of society to each othex 1 , than was ex-perienced between 1490 and 1590.