How far can this simple action go? Demand increasing, Supply remaining as before, market-rate rises: how far can it rise from this cause? Here we must remember that Demand not only acts upon Value, but also Value reacts upon Demand. As Value rises, the number of those whose means or inclinations enable them to purchase at the new rate is constantly diminished: there are ten persons who may wish an article at one dollar, of whom not over four will wish it at two dollars, and perhaps only one at three dollars. Every rise in market-rate then, under the impulse of enlarged Demand, tends to cut off a part of that Demand, that is, to lessen the number of those who will purchase at the increased price; and the rate consequently can only rise to that point, whatever it be, where an equalization takes place between the Supply and Demand, between the quantity of flour, for example, offered at the enhanced rate, and the quantity of money in the hands of those willing to exchange it for flour at the higher rate. Just so in the reverse way, when Demand is slackened, Supply continuing as before, the market-rate is sure to decline; but declining rates tend strongly in turn to increase the demand by bringing the article within the range of a larger number of purchasers; Society is like a pyramid, each lower stratum is broader than the one above; and so the decline of rates under a weaker Demand is arrested by a stronger Demand coming from a wider circle of buyers, and a new market-rate is determined at the point of equalization between the new Demand and the old Supply. Thus every rise or fall of Demand tends to check itself, and will check itself in all the great classes of valuables, even without any variations in the Supply; everything oscillates under the variations of Demand; while the point of stable equilibrium, if we may use the expression of anything so unstable as Market-value, is always the equation of Supply and Demand.