main more or less fruitless as in the case of his contemporary, Hobbes, but leads up to his Political Arithmetic, the first form in which Political Economy is differentiated as an independent science.
He defines exchange value, however, just as it appears in the process of exchange of commodities, viz. as money; and money he defines as an existing commodity, gold and silver. Laboring under the ideas of the monetary system, he declares the special branch of labor which is devoted to the production of gold and silver as the labor which determines exchange value. What he really means is that the labor of members of society must pro-
creased, and "the King and his Subjects would thereby become more Rich and Strong." (Political Arithmetick, ch. 4, p. 285.) Or in the chapter of his Political Arithmetic in which he proves that England's mission is the conquest of the world's market at a time when Holland still played the leading part as a trading nation and France seemed to be on the way of becoming the ruling trading Power: "That the King of England's Subjects, have Stock competent and convenient, to drive the Trade of the whole Commercial World" (l. c., ch. 10, p. 311). "That the Impediments of England's greatness are but contingent and removable" (l. c., ch. 5, p. 298). A singular humor pervades all his writings. Thus, he shows that it was by material means that Holland—at that time the model country with English economists, just as England is with continental economists to-day—conquered the world market "without such Angelical Wits and Judgments, as some attribute to the Hollanders" (l. c., p. 258). He advocates "Liberty of Conscience" as a condition of trade, because "Dissenters . . . are . . . patient Men, and such as believe that Labour and Industry is their Duty towards God," and "They believe that . . . for those who have less Wealth, to think they have
