the quantity of gold in existence.[124] But the world of commodities consists of an endless variety of use-values, whose relative values are by no means determined by their relative quantities. How, then, does Hume conceive this exchange of the volume of commodities for the volume of gold? He contents himself with the meaningless, hollow idea that every commodity is exchanged as an aliquot part of the entire volume of commodities for a corresponding aliquot part of the volume of gold. The process of the movement of commodities due to the antagonism between exchange value and use-value which commodities bear within themselves, and which manifests itself in the circulation of money, becoming crystallized in different forms of the latter, is thus done away with, giving place to the imaginary mechanical equalization process between the quantity of precious metals to be found in a country and the volume of commodities existing there at the same time. SIR JAMES STEUART opens his inquiry into the nature of coin and money with an elaborate criticism of Hume and Montesquieu.[125] He is really the first to ask this question: is the quantity of current money determined by the prices of commodities, or are the prices of commodities determined by the quantity of current money? Although his analysis is obscured by his fantastic conception of the measure of value, his vacillating view of exchange value and by reminiscences of the mercantile system, he discovers the essential forms of money and the general laws of the circulation of money, because he makes no attempt at a mechanical separation of commodities from money, but proceeds to develop its different functions from the different aspects of the exchange of commodities. Money is used, he says, for two principal purposes: for the payment of debts and for the purchase of what one needs; the two together form “ready money demands.” The state of trade and industry, the mode of living, the customary expenditures of the people, taken all together regulate and determine the volume of “ready money demands,” i. e. the number of “alienations.” In order to effect this multitude of payments, a certain proportion of money is required. This proportion may increase or decrease according to circumstances, even while the number of alienations remains the same. At any rate, the circulation of a country can absorb only a definite quantity of money.[126] “It is the complicated operations of demand and competition which determines the standard price of everything”; the latter “does not in the least depend on the quantity of gold and silver in the country.”[127] What then will become of the gold and silver that is not required as coin? They are hoarded or used in the manufacture of articles of luxury. If the quantity of gold and silver fall below the level required for circulation, symbolic money or other substitutes take its place. If a favorable rate of exchange brings