From what has been said, we may form a judgment of the various degrees of competition. A book not worth a shilling, a fish of a few pounds weight, are often sold for considerable sums. The buyers here are not merchants. When an ambassador leaves a court in a hurry, things are sold for less than the half of their value: he is no merchant, and his situation is known. When, at a public market, there are found consumers, who make their provision; or manufacturers, who dispose of their goods for present subsistence; the merchants, who are respectively upon the opposite side of the contract to these, profit of their competition; and those who are respectively upon the same side with them, stand by with patience, until they have finished their business. Then matters come to be carried on between merchant and merchant, and then, I allow, that profits may rise and fall, in the proportion of quantity to demand; that is to say, if the provision is less than the demand, the competition among the demanders, or the rise of the price, will be in the compound proportion of the falling short of the commodity, and of the prospect of selling again with profit. It is this combination which regulates the competition, and keeps it within bounds. It can affect but the profits upon the transaction; the intrinsic value of the commodity stands immoveable: nothing is ever sold below the real value; nothing is ever bought for more than it may probably bring. I mean in general. Whereas so soon as consumers and needy manufacturers mingle in the operation, all proportion is lost. The competition between them is too strong for the merchants; the balance vibrates by jerks. In such markets merchants seldom appear: the principal objects there, are the fruits and productions of the earth, and articles of the first necessity for life, not manufactures strictly so called. A poor fellow often sells, to purchase bread to eat; not to pay what he did eat, while he was employed in the work he disposes of. The consumer often measures the value of what he is about to purchase, by the weight of his purse, and his desire to consume. As these distinctions cannot be conveyed in the terms by which we are obliged to express them, and as they must frequently be implied, in treating of matters relating to trade and industry, I thought the best way was, to clear up my own ideas concerning them, and to lay them in order before my reader, before I entred farther into my subject. All difference of opinion upon matters of this nature proceeds, as I believe, from our language being inadequate to express our ideas, from our inattention, in using terms which appear synonimous, and from our natural propensity to include, under general rules, things which, upon some occasions, common reason requires to be set asunder. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAP. VIII. _Of what is called Expence, Profit, and Loss._