The intrinsic worth of any silk, woollen, or linnen manufacture, is less than the primitive value employed, because it is rendred almost unserviceable for any other use but that for which the manufacture is intended. But the intrinsic substance of a loaf of bread loses nothing by the modification, because the last cannot be consumed without the first. In a piece of silver plate curiously wrought, the intrinsic worth subsists entire, and independent of the useful value, because it loses nothing by the modification. The intrinsic value, therefore, is constantly something real in itself: the labour employed in the modification represents a portion of a man’s time, which having been usefully employed, has given a form to some substance which has rendred it useful, ornamental, or in short, fit for man, mediately or immediately. Let us now apply these distinctions to the different circumstances which attend consumption, in order to perceive their effects. The consumption of the intrinsic value of any commodity, takes place the moment the matter employed begins to diminish, and is compleated so soon as it is consumed totally. The consumption of the useful value proceeds in like manner, in proportion as the use it is put to makes the value of it diminish, or disappear altogether. Let us next take an example, and examine the effects of circulation in the purchase of things consumable, as to the vibration of the balance of wealth. (A) has a piece of coin, (B) has something which his labour has produced; they make an exchange. (A) hitherto has neither gained or lost, neither has (B); but (A) begins to make use of what he had purchased with his coin, and in using it a part disappears; that moment the balance begins to turn against him. (B) on the other hand, exchanges his piece of coin with another, whom we shall call (C), and gets in return a piece of wood; if (B) puts this piece of wood into the fire, in proportion as the wood consumes, the balance is returning to its level between (A) and (B), and is changing in favour of (C). If (B), instead of burning his wood, makes a beam of it for supporting his house, the balance will turn more slowly, because the wood is then longer in consuming: but if he makes some useful piece of furniture of one part of his wood, he may warm himself with the remaining part of it, and with the coin he gets for his work, may buy a beam for his house, and even food to eat. If (B) stops at this period, and works no more, he will find himself just upon a level with (A); so soon as his fire is burnt out, his beam rotten, and his food consumed, and the whole balance will be found in favour of (C), providing that by his industry he has been able to procure for himself all necessaries, and preserve the piece of coin entire. Here then is the spur to industry; to wit, the acquisition of this balance, which gives a relative superiority even among those of the lowest classes, and determines their rank as well as their