46. Variations in the value of gold and silver, compared with
the other objects of commerce, and with each other.
This value is susceptible of change, and in truth is
continually changing; so that the same quantity of metal which
answered to a certain quantity of such or such a commodity,
becomes no longer equal thereto, and it requires a greater or
less quantity of silver to represent the same commodity. When it
requires more, it is said the commodity is dearer. when it
requires less, that it is become cheaper; but they may as well
say, that the silver is in the first case become cheaper, and in
the latter dearer. Silver and gold not only vary in price,
compared with all other commodities, but they vary also with each
other, in proportion as they are more or less abundant. It is
notorious, that we now give in Europe from fourteen to fifteen
ounces of silver for one ounce of gold; and that in former times
we gave only ten or eleven ounces.
Again, that at present in China, they do not give more than
twelve ounces of silver for one ounce of gold, so that there is a
very great advantage in carrying silver to China, to exchange for
gold, to bring back to Europe. It is visible, that, in process of
time, this commerce will make gold more common in Europe, and
less common in China, and that the value of these two materials
must finally come in both places to the same proportion.
A thousand different causes concur, to fix and to change
incessantly the comparative value of commodities, either with
respect to each other, or with respect to silver. The same causes
conspire to fix and vary the comparative value, whether in
respect to the value of each commodity in particular, or with
respect to the totality of the other values which are actually in
commerce. It is not possible to investigate these different
causes, or to unfold their effects, without entering into very
extensive and very difficult details, which I shall decline in
this discussion.
