NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 247

always ¢* sufficient and more than enough,” — ¢ its quantity
alone is enough to regulate and determine its value, without
 considering any proportion between its quantity and
vent, as in other commodities.” Hence he argues, that so
long as the quantity of money in a country remains the
same, its value is invariable, and it will serve to measure the
varying value of other things. In his own words —.
Money, whilst the same quantity of it is passing up
and down the kingdom in trade, is really a standing measure
 of the falling and rising value of other things, in reference
 to one another : and the alteration of price is truly
in them only. But if you increase or lessen the quantity
of money current in traffic, in any place, then the altera~
tion of value is in the money : and if, at the same time,
wheat keep its proportion of vent to quantity, money, to
speak truly, alters its worth, and wheat does not, though it
sell for a greater or less price than it did before. For
money, being looked upon as the standing measure of
other commodities, men consider and speak of it still as
if it were a slanding measure, though, when it has varied
its quantity, it is plain it is not.”
In this passage may be remarked the same error, that I
have pointed out in other economists, of supposing an alteration
 in value can take place in one commodity, while
the commodity compared with it remains the same;
¢ money alters its worth and wheat does not.” Yet in the
subsequent paragraph, the sound sense of this profound