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If you except corn, and such other vegetables as are raised

altogether by human industry, that all other sorts of rude

produce, cattle, poultry, game of all kinds, the useful fossils

and minerals of the earth, etc. naturally grow dearer, as the

society advances in wealth and improvement, I have endeavoured to

shew already. Though such commodities, therefore, come to

exchange for a greater quantity of silver than before, it will

not from thence follow that silver has become really cheaper, or

will purchase less labour than before; but that such commodities

have become really dearer, or will purchase more labour than

before. It is not their nominal price only, but their real price,

which rises in the progress of improvement. The rise of their

nominal price is the effect, not of any degradation of the value

of silver, but of the rise in their real price.

_Different Effects of the Progress of Improvement upon three

different sorts of rude Produce._