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Phil
. Your thesis, then, as I understand it, is this: that if A double its value, it will not command double the quantity of B. I have a barouche which is worth about six hundred guineas at this moment. Now, if I should keep this barouche unused in my coach-house for five years, and at the end of this term it should happen from any cause that carriages had doubled in value, my understanding would lead me to expect double the quantity of any commodity for which I might then exchange it, whether that were money, sugar, besoms, or anything whatsoever. But you tell me–no. And vice versa, if I found that my barouche at the end of five years obtained for me double the quantity of sugar, or besoms, or political economists, which it would now obtain, I should think myself warranted in drawing an inference that carriages had doubled their value. But you tell me–no; “non valet consequentia.”

X
. You are in the right, Phaedrus; I do tell you so. But you do not express my thesis quite accurately, which is, that if A double its value, it will not therefore command double the former quantity of B. It may do so; and it may also command five hundred times more, or five hundred times less.

Phed
. O tempora! O mores! Here is my friend X., that in any other times would have been a man of incorruptible virtue; and yet, in our unprincipled age, he is content to barter the interests of truth and the “majesty of plain-dealing” for a brilliant paradox, or (shall I say?) for the glory of being reputed an accomplished disputant.

X
. But, Phaedrus, there could be little brilliancy in a paradox which in the way you understand it will be nothing better than a bold defiance of common sense. In fact, I should be ashamed to give the air of a paradox to so evident a truth as that which I am now urging, if I did not continually remind myself that, evident as it may appear, it yet escaped Adam Smith. This consideration, and the spectacle of so many writers since his day thrown out and at a fault precisely at this point of the chase, make it prudent to present it in as startling a shape as possible; in order that, the attention being thoroughly roused, the final assent may not be languid or easily forgotten. Suffer me, therefore, Phaedrus, in a Socratic way, to extort an assent from your own arguments–allow me to drive you into an absurdity.

Phed
. With all my heart; if our father Adam is wrong, I am sure it would be presumptuous in me to be right; so drive me as fast as possible.

X
. You say that A, by doubling its own value, shall command a double quantity of B. Where, by A, you do not mean some one thing in particular, but generally any assignable thing whatever. Now, B is some assignable thing. Whatever, therefore, is true of A, will be true of B?

Phed
. It will.

X
. It will be true, therefore, of B, that, by doubling its own value, it will command a double quantity of A?

Phed
. I cannot deny it.

X
. Let A be your carriage; and let B stand for six hundred thousands of besoms, which suppose to express the value of your carriage in that article at this present moment. Five years hence, no matter why, carriages have doubled in value; on which supposition you affirm that in exchange for your barouche you will be entitled to receive no less than twelve hundred thousands of besoms.

Phed
. I do; and a precious bargain I shall have of it; like Moses with his gross of shagreen spectacles. But sweep on, if you please; brush me into absurdity.