ch I could not have stated so shortly, _but_ by
metaphor.]

[43] [What follows, to the end of the chapter, was a note only, in the
first printing; but for after service, it is of more value than any
other part of the book, so I have put it into the main text.]

CHAPTER IV.

COMMERCE.

95. As the currency conveys right of choice out of many things in
exchange for one, so Commerce is the agency by which the power of choice
is obtained; so that countries producing only timber can obtain for
their timber silk and gold; or, naturally producing only jewels and
frankincense, can obtain for them cattle and corn. In this function,
commerce is of more importance to a country in proportion to the
limitations of its products, and the restlessness of its
fancy;--generally of greater importance towards Northern latitudes.

96. Commerce is necessary, however, not only to exchange local products,
but local skill. Labour requiring the agency of fire can only be given
abundantly in cold countries; labour requiring suppleness of body and
sensitiveness of touch, only in warm ones; labour involving accurate
vivacity of thought only in temperate ones; while peculiar imaginative
actions are produced by extremes of heat and cold, and of light and
darkness. The production of great art is limited to climates warm enough
to admit of repose in the open air, and cool enough to render such
repose delightful. Minor variations in modes of skill distinguish every
locality. The labour which at any place is easiest, is in that place
cheapest; and it becomes often desirable that products raised in one
country should be wrought in another. Hence have arisen discussions on
"International values" which will be one day remembered as highly
curious exercises of the human mind. For it will be discovered, in due
course of tide and time, that international value is regulated just as
inter-provincial or inter-parishional value is. Coals and hops are
exchanged between Northumberland and Kent on absolutely the same
principles as iron and wine between Lancashire and Spain. The greater
breadth of an arm of the sea increases the cost, but does not modify the
principle of exchange; and a bargain written in two languages will have
no other economical results than a bargain written in one. The distances
of nations are measured, not by seas, but by ignorances; and their
divisions determined, not by dialects, but by enmities.[44]

97. Of course, a system of i