22.8. 8. The same Subject continued.
The Negroes on the coast of Africa
have a sign of value without money. It is a sign merely ideal, founded
on the degree of esteem which they fix in their minds for all
merchandise, in proportion to the need they have of it. A certain
commodity or merchandise is worth three ma-coutes; another, six
macoutes; another, ten macoutes; that is, as if they said simply three,
six, and ten. The price is formed by a comparison of all merchandise
with each other. They have therefore no particular money; but each kind
of merchandise is money to the other.
Let us for a moment transfer to ourselves this manner of valuing
things, and join it with ours: all the merchandise and goods in the
world, or else all the merchandise or manufactures of a state,
particularly considered as separate from all others, would be worth a
certain number of macoutes; and, dividing the money of this state into
as many parts as there are macoutes, one part of this division of money
will be the sign of a macoute.
If we suppose the quantity of specie in a state doubled, it will be
necessary to double the specie in the macoute; but if in doubling the
specie you double also the macoute, the proportion will remain the same
as before the doubling of either.
If, since the discovery of the Indies, gold and silver have
increased in Europe in the proportion of 1 to 20, the price of
provisions and merchandise must have been enhanced in the proportion of
1 to 20. But if, on the other hand, the quantity of merchandise has
increased as 1 to 2 — it necessarily follows that the price of this
merchandise and provisions, having been raised in proportion of 1 to 20,
and fallen in proportion of 1 to 2 — it necessarily follows, I say,
that the proportion is only as 1 to 10.
The quantity of goods and merchandise increases by an augmentation
of commerce, the augmentation of commerce by an augmentation of the
specie which successively arrives, and by new communications with
freshly-discovered countries and seas, which furnish us with new
commodities and new merchandise.
