Note 25 — Chapter VI · ON THE DEFINITION AND APPLICATION OF TERMS BY MR. MILL, IN HIS “ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.”

It is quite astonishing that political economists of reputation should be inclined to resort to any kind of illustration, however clumsy and inapplicable, rather than refer to money. I suppose they are afraid of the imputation of thinking that wealth consists in money. But though it is certainly true that wealth does not consist in money, it is equally true that money is a most powerful agent in the distribution of wealth; and those who, in a country where all exchanges are practically effected by money, continue the attempt to explain the principles of demand and supply, and the variations of wages and profits, by referring chiefly to hats, shoes, corn, suits of clothing, &c., must of necessity fail.