other, only ruin themselves.

F. And, remember, that before you became a king, this same axiom had
led you by a logical process to the following maxims:--That which one
gains, another loses. The profit of one, is the loss of the
other:--which maxims imply an unavoidable antagonism amongst all men.

B. It is only too certain. Whether I am a philosopher or a legislator,
whether I reason or act upon the principle that money is wealth, I
always arrive at one conclusion, or one result:--universal war. It is
well that you pointed out the consequences before beginning a discussion
upon it; otherwise, I should never have had the courage to follow you to
the end of your economical dissertation, for, to tell you the truth, it
is not much to my taste.

F. What do you mean? I was just thinking of it when you heard me
grumbling against money! I was lamenting that my countrymen have not the
courage to study what it is so important that they should know.

B. And yet the consequences are frightful.

F. The consequences! As yet I have only mentioned one. I might have
told you of others still more fatal.

B. Yon make my hair stand on end! What other evils can have been
caused to mankind by this confusion between money and wealth?

F. It would take me a long time to enumerate them. This doctrine is
one of a very numerous family. The eldest, whose acquaintance we have
just made, is called the _prohibitive system_; the next, the _colonial
system_; the third, _hatred of capital_; the Benjamin, _paper money_.

B. What! does paper money proceed from the same error?

F. Yes, directly. When legislators, after having ruined men by war and
taxes, persevere in their idea, they say to themselves, "If the people
suffer, it is because there is not money enough. We must make some." And
as it is not easy to multiply the precious metals, especially when the
pretended resources of prohibition have been exhausted, they add, "We
will make fictitious money, nothing is more easy, and then every citizen
will have his pocket-book full of it, and they will all be rich."

B. In fact, this proceeding is more expeditious than the other, and
then it does not lead to foreign war.

F. No, but it leads to civil war.

B. You are a grumbler. Make haste and dive to the bottom of the
question. I am quite impatient, for the first time, to know if money (or
its sign) is wealth.

F. You will grant that men do not satisfy any of their wants
immediately with cro