uld it not be well to consult the sun and
the stars and ascertain exactly what has happened?"

Some demurred to this because, as they asserted, the gold standard was
unchanging and was always right no matter how much it might seem to be
wrong; others agreed that the philosopher's advice should be taken.
Upon consulting the sun and the stars it was discovered that what had
happened was that both clocks had gained in time but that the gain of
the silver clock had been very slight, while that of the gold clock had
been so great as to disturb all industry and destroy all correct sense
of time.

Nothwithstanding this demonstration, there were many who adhered to the
belief that the gold standard was correct and unchanging, and insisted
that what appeared to be its aberrations were not in reality due to any
fault of the gold clock, but to some convulsion of nature by which
the solar system had been disarranged and the planets made to move
irregularly in their orbits.

Some of the people also remembered having heard at the village inn, from
travellers returning from the East, that silver clocks were the standard
of time in India and other barbarous countries, while in countries of a
more advanced civilization gold clocks were the standard. They therefore
feared that the use of the silver clock might have the effect of
degrading the civilization of the village by placing it alongside India
and other barbarous countries. And although the great mass of the people
really believed, from the demonstration made, that the silver standard
of time was the better one, yet this objection was so momentous that
they were puzzled what course to pursue, and at last advices were
consulting the manufacturers of gold clocks as to what was best to be
done.

Now our gold standard men are in the position of those who first refuse
to look at anything beyond the two things, gold and silver, to see what
has happened, and who, when it is finally demonstrated that all other
things retain their former relations to silver, still persist that the
law which makes gold an unchanging standard of measure is more immutable
than that which holds the stars in their courses. If they will compare
gold and silver with commodities in general, to see how the metals have
maintained their relations, not to one another but to all other things,
they will find that instead of a fall having taken place in the value of
silver, the change that has really taken place is a