n have you to suppose that if
gold were suddenly to become as abundant as silver, it would not require
as much of one as of the other to buy a house?

B. You may be right, but I should prefer your being wrong. In the
midst of the sufferings which surround us, so distressing in themselves,
and so dangerous in their consequences, I have found some consolation in
thinking that there was an easy method of making all the members of the
community happy.

F. Even if gold and silver were true riches, it would be no easy
matter to increase the amount of them in a country where there are no
mines.

B. No, but it is easy to substitute something else. I agree with you
that gold and silver can do but little service, except as a mere means
of exchange. It is the same with paper money, bank-notes, &c. Then, if
we had all of us plenty of the latter, which it is so easy to create, we
might all buy a great deal, and should want for nothing. Your cruel
theory dissipates hopes, illusions, if you will, whose principle is
assuredly very philanthropic.

F. Yes, like all other barren dreams formed to promote universal
felicity. The extreme facility of the means which you recommend is quite
sufficient to expose its hollowness. Do you believe that if it were
merely needful to print bank-notes in order to satisfy all our wants,
our tastes and desires, that mankind would have been contented to go on
till now, without having recourse to this plan? I agree with you that
the discovery is tempting. It would immediately banish from the world,
not only plunder, in its diversified and deplorable forms, but even
labour itself, except the Board of Assignats. But we have yet to learn
how assignats are to purchase houses, which no one would have built;
corn, which no one would have raised; stuffs, which no one would have
taken the trouble to weave.

B. One thing strikes me in your argument. You say yourself, that if
there is no gain, at any rate there is no loss in multiplying the
instrument of exchange, as is seen by the instance of the players, who
were quits by a very mild deception. Why, then, refuse the philosopher's
stone, which would teach us the secret of changing flints into gold,
and, in the meantime, into paper money? Are you so blindly wedded to
your logic, that you would refuse to try an experiment where there can
be no risk? If you are mistaken, you are depriving the nation, as your
numerous adversaries believe, of an immense advantage. I