particular shape of the curve holds for any particular commodity would be difficult to prove. That it does not hold at all for the necessities of life is one of the commonplaces of economic analysis. Initial items in a stock of necessities have a very great value, when there are no other items of the stock, and the curve often descends very abruptly. Gregory King has undertaken to show, in terms of money, the shape of this curve for wheat in the England of his day. Other commodities have curves which behave very differently. While the argument from the part to the whole is not a valid argument in the presence of specific reasons making the whole obey different laws from the parts, it still, in the absence of such special considerations, does raise a strong presumption. And I must confess that I see no reasons why the curve for the totality of commodities should take the particular form of a rectangular hyperbola, instead of some other form. _A priori_, the presumption would seem to be that its form would be irregular. There is another point of view which seems to support Professor Seligman's contention, and that is the money-price viewpoint. At a given moment, each man has a definite quantity of money--or of bank-credit--which he can use in purchasing commodities. If he spends it for some commodities, he cannot spend it for others. As he joins one group, demanding one commodity, he must--at least to the extent of that amount of money--withdraw from other groups demanding other commodities. At a given instant, therefore, there is a definite demand-situation with reference to every item of every stock, and one can increase its money-price only by drawing upon the demand for others. But let a panic now come. Let these bank credits become unstable: let _social confidence_ be wiped out, and what happens to general prices and values? Does the value that leaves the general range of commodities all betake itself to the gold supply? That cannot be, for the supply of gold, as compared with the supply of other commodities, is well-nigh infinitesimal, and if the whole of the values that left the commodities went into gold, then every unit of gold would be tremendously increased in value, and prices in terms of gold would fall, not two-thirds, but a thousandfold. What has become of the values? They have simply been wiped out. A psychical change has taken place, a malady has afflicted the social mind, its integrity is shattered, doubt has taken the place of confidence, panic fear has replaced buoyant expectation, demoralization and disorganization have lessened the social psychic energy--or dissipated it in inchoate, unorganized individual activities. The sum total of values is lessened. Of course, the reverse may happen. Let confidence be restored, let the social psychic organization function normally once more and values rise again. As we have indicated in our discussion of the psychology of