argument I am supposing money to be of an invariable value; in other words, to be always the produce of the same quantity of unassisted labour. Money, however, is a variable commodity; and the rise of wages as well as of commodities, is frequently occasioned by a fall in the value of money. A rise of wages from this cause will indeed be invariably accompanied by a rise in the price of commodities: but in such cases, it will be found that labour and all commodities have not varied in regard to each other, and that the variation has been confined to money.
Money, from its being a commodity obtained from a foreign country, from its being the general medium of exchange between all civilized countries, and from its being also distributed among those countries in proportions which are ever changing with every improvement in commerce and machinery, and with every increasing difficulty of obtaining food and necessaries for an increasing population, is subject to incessant variations. In stating the principles which regulate exchangeable value and price, we should carefully distinguish between those variations which belong to the commodity itself, and those which are occasioned by a variation in the medium in which value is estimated, or price expressed.