68. The true idea of the circulation of money.
We see by what has been just now said, how the cultivation of
lands, manufactures of all kinds, and all the branches of trade,
depend on a mass of capital, or the accumulation of personal
property, which, having been at first advanced by the
undertakers, in each of these different branches, ought to return
to them again every year with a regular profit; that is, the
capital to be again invested, and advanced in the continuation of
the same enterprizes, and the profits employed for the greater or
less subsistence of the undertakers. It is this continued advance
and return which constitutes what ought to be called the
circulation of money: this useful and fruitful circulation, which
animates all the labour of society, which supports all the
motion, and is the life of the body politic, and which is with
great reason compared to the circulation of the blood in the
human body. For, if by any disorder in the course of the expenses
of the different orders of society, the undertakers cease to draw
back their advances with such profit as they have a right to
expect; it is evident they will be obliged to reduce their
undertakings; that the total of the labour, of the consumption of
the fruits of the earth, of the productions and of the revenue
would be equally diminished; that poverty will succeed to riches,
and that the common workman, ceasing to find employ, will fall
into the deepest misery.
