21.4. 4. The principal Difference between the Commerce of the Ancients and
the Moderns.
The world has found itself, from time to time, in different
situations; by which the face of commerce has been altered. The trade of
Europe is, at present, carried on principally from the north to the
south; and the difference of climate is the cause that the several
nations have great occasion for the merchandise of each other. For
example, the liquors of the south, which are carried to the north, form
a commerce little known to the ancients. Thus the burden of vessels,
which was formerly computed by measures of corn, is at present
determined by tuns of liquor.
The ancient commerce, so far as it is known to us, was carried on
from one port in the Mediterranean to another; and was almost wholly
confined to the south. Now the people of the same climate, having nearly
the same things of their own, have not the same need of trading among
themselves as with those of a different climate. The commerce of Europe
was therefore formerly less extended than at present.
This does not at all contradict what I have said of our commerce to
the Indies: for here the prodigious difference of climate destroys all
relation between their wants and ours.
