90. Influence of the rate of interest of money on all
lucrative enterprizes.
The price of the interest may be looked upon as a kind of
level, under which all labour, culture, industry, or commerce,
acts. It is like a sea expanded over a vast country, the tops of
the mountains rise above the surface of the water, and form
fertile and cultivated islands. If this sea happens to give way,
in proportion as it descends, sloping ground, then plains and
vallies appear, which cover themselves with productions of every
kind. It wants no more than a foot elevation, or falling, to
inundate or to restore culture to unmeasurable tracts of land. It
is the abundance of capitals that animates enterprize; and a low
interest of money is at the same time the effect and a proof of
the abundance of capitals.
