(2) There is a greater inherent _uncertainty_ in values connected with credits than in those connected with commodities, or than with those connected with personal services. We have already seen repeatedly that Value has its sphere of operations in the Past, in the Present, and in the Future. There is some uncertainty connected with what _has been done_ in reference to value, since the market may prove to have been miscalculated, and the commodities to have become unsuitable; there is perhaps more uncertainty connected with what _is now being done_ in reference to value, because the services bargained and being paid for may prove to be less steady and skilful than was supposed; but in the very nature of the case there is still greater uncertainty connected with what _is to be done_ in relation to its value, because in the first two cases some at least of the conditions are already fixed, while in the last one all of them are at least open to hazard. There is sufficient certainty in all three of the grand divisions of Time to justify, and probably to reward, operations in each in reference to value under the peculiar limitations and conditions of each, but credits are naturally more sensitive in the law of their value than either commodities or services. (3) Largely in consequence of what has just been expressed under the last head, credit-exchanges are more likely than commodities-exchanges or than services-exchanges to become unduly multiplied and consequently to fail of ultimate realization. The majority of men are sanguine in relation to the future. Unless they are in actual contact with their limitations, they are apt to belittle the rigidity and inevitableness of such limitations. As the outcome of this, promises are apt to overpass the powers of fulfilment. No more bales of cotton of any one year's crop can be actually delivered to buyers, than have been actually grown and marketed; the services of no more men in any capacity can be contracted for and rendered, than there are men able and willing to work; here are impassable limits; but the field of the future is buoyant with possibilities; and hence credits, whose sphere is the future, though legitimate and potent under the proper conditions, lie in a field whose limits are invisible, and within which _Hope_ is ever a tempter to overdoing.