sphere of this process, the sphere of money circulation. The theoretical assumption from which the school of economic weather prophets proceeds, comes down in the end to the illusion that Ricardo discovered the laws governing the circulation of purely metallic currency. The only thing that remained for them to do was to subject to the same laws the circulation of credit and bank-note currency.
The most general and most palpable phenomenon in commercial crises is the sudden, general decline of prices following a prolonged general rise. The general decline of prices of commodities may be expressed as a rise in the relative value of money with respect to all commodities, and the general rise of prices as a decline of the relative value of money. In either expression the phenomenon is described but not explained. Whether I put the question thus: explain the general periodic rise of prices followed by a general decline of the same, or formulate the same problem by saying: explain the periodic decline and rise of the relative value of money with respect to commodities; the different wording leaves the problem as little changed as