ated, I should
still arrive at the frightful conclusion that I am driven to choose
between the Desirable and the Good, I would reject the science, plunge
into a voluntary ignorance, above all, avoid participation in the
affairs of my country, and leave to others the weight and responsibility
of so fearful a choice.

XV.

RECIPROCITY AGAIN.

Mr. de Saint Cricq has asked: "Are we sure that our foreign customers
will buy from us as much as they sell us?"

Mr. de Dombasle says: "What reason have we for believing that English
producers will come to seek their supplies from us, rather than from any
other nation, or that they will take from us a value equivalent to their
exportations into France?"

I cannot but wonder to see men who boast, above all things, of being
_practical_, thus reasoning wide of all practice!

In practice, there is perhaps no traffic which is a direct exchange of
produce for produce. Since the use of money, no man says, I will seek
shoes, hats, advice, lessons, only from the shoemaker, the hatter, the
lawyer, or teacher, who will buy from me the exact equivalent of these
in corn. Why should nations impose upon themselves so troublesome a
restraint?

Suppose a nation without any exterior relations. One of its citizens
makes a crop of corn. He casts it into the _national_ circulation, and
receives in exchange--what? Money, bank bills, securities, divisible to
any extent, by means of which it will be lawful for him to withdraw when
he pleases, and, unless prevented by just competition from the national
circulation, such articles as he may wish. At the end of the operation,
he will have withdrawn from the mass the exact equivalent of what he
first cast into it, and in value, _his consumption will exactly equal
his production_.

If the exchanges of this nation with foreign nations are free, it is no
longer into the _national_ circulation but into the _general_
circulation that each individual casts his produce, and from thence his
consumption is drawn. He is not obliged to calculate whether what he
casts into this general circulation is purchased by a countryman or by a
foreigner; whether the notes he receives are given to him by a Frenchman
or an Englishman, or whether the articles which he procures through
means of this money are manufactured on this or the other side of the
Rhine or the Pyrenees. One thing is certain; that each individual finds
an exact balance between what he casts in a