Editorial note — BOOK I. OF POPULATION AND AGRICULTURE.

I. Every transition of money from hand to hand, for a valuable consideration, implies some service done, something wrought by man, or performed by his ingenuity, or some consumption of something produced by his labour. The quicker therefore the circulation of money is in any country, the more strongly it may be inferred, that the inhabitants are laborious; and vice versa: but of this more hereafter.