Of the inquiries through which Hume brought together the materials for these essays, the reader will have found a specimen in the notes, or _adversaria_ quoted above.[357:1] A comparison of these fragments of the raw material, with the finished result, develops this marked feature in Hume's method of working, that in the way to a short proposition, he has often read and thought at great length. The simplicity and unity of his writings were of more importance to him than the appearance of elaboration; and where others would be scattering multitudinous statements and authorities, he is content with the simple embodiment of results, conscious that inquiry will confirm in the reader's mind the justness of what he lays down. In some respects we can watch the progress of Hume's mind in connexion with these subjects; for in his allusions to commercial matters in his earlier works, he uses the common phraseology, such as "balance of trade," in a manner indicating an adherence to those ordinary fallacies of the day, which, when he came to examine them in his essays on "commerce," "money," "interest," "the balance of trade," "taxes," and "public credit," he extensively repudiated. His examination of the nature and value of money as a medium of exchange, is probably the best and simplest that, even down to this day, can be found. His theory, so far as it goes, has hardly ever been questioned; and indeed at present it may be said, that beyond it we know little with certainty, and that its author had at once discovered the limits at which full and satisfactory knowledge was, for nearly a century, to rest.[358:1] He shows that money is not in itself property or value; that it is a mere representative, which, if cheap or dear in its material, is just, in the same ratio, a cheap or a dear method of accomplishing a purpose. That if a community could conduct its transactions with a small quantity of money as well as with a large, it would, so far from being poorer, be the richer by so much as the superabundant money had cost. He examines those simple laws which, when there is no disturbing influence, have a tendency to equalize the distribution of the precious metals, through the cheapness of labour and commodities where they are scarce, the nominal enhancement where they are abundant. He notices with great clearness and precision the respective effects upon the community of a state of increase, and of a state of diminution of the available currency of a country. But he enters on few of those intricate monetary questions which are now so frequently the subject of discussion. Of inquiries into the causes which affect the quantity of money in a country, the moving influences from which arise gluts, drains, stagnations, and all the mysteries of finance, he shows us that he felt diffident; and on these matters, how little is the quantity of full satisfactory undisputed knowledge which we yet possess!