B. You are forgetting one great force, which is—­exchange.  If you acknowledge that this is a force, as you have admitted that crowns facilitate it, you must also allow that they have an indirect power of production.

F. But I have added, that a small quantity of rare metal facilitates transactions as much as a large quantity of abundant metal; whence it follows, that a people is not enriched by being forced to give up useful things for the sake of having more money.

B. Thus, it is your opinion that the treasures discovered in California will not increase the wealth of the world?

F. I do not believe that, on the whole, they will add much to the enjoyments, to the real satisfactions of mankind.  If the Californian gold merely replaces in the world that which has been lost and destroyed, it may have its use.  If it increases the amount of cash, it will depreciate it.  The gold diggers will be richer than they would have been without it.  But those in whose possession the gold is at the moment of its depreciation, will obtain a smaller gratification for the same amount.  I cannot look upon this as an increase, but as a displacement of true riches, as I have defined them.

B. All that is very plausible.  But you will not easily convince me that I am not richer (all other things being equal) if I have two crowns, than if I had only one.

F. I do not deny it.

B. And what is true of me is true of my neighbour, and of the neighbour of my neighbour, and so on, from one to another, all over the country.  Therefore, if every Frenchman has more crowns, France must be more rich.

F. And here you fall into the common mistake of concluding that what affects one affects all, and thus confusing the individual with the general interest.

B. Why, what can be more conclusive?  What is true of one, must be so of all!  What are all, but a collection of individuals?  You might as well tell me that every Frenchman could suddenly grow an inch taller, without the average height of Frenchmen being increased.

F. Your reasoning is apparently sound, I grant you, and that is why the illusion it conceals is so common.  However, let us examine it a little.  Ten persons were at play.  For greater ease, they had adopted the plan of each taking ten counters, and against these they had placed a hundred francs under a candlestick, so that each counter corresponded to ten francs.  After the game the winnings were adjusted, and the players drew from the candlestick as many ten francs as would represent the number of counters.  Seeing this, one of them, a great arithmetician perhaps, but an indifferent reasoner, said—­“Gentlemen, experience invariably teaches me that, at the end of the game, I find myself a gainer in proportion to the number of my counters.  Have you not observed the same with regard to yourselves?  Thus, what is true of me must be true of each of you, and what