bimetallism as compared with the alternate standard. The latter predicts tendencies to arise from the play of certain forces. Those tendencies are the true effect of those forces. The question may be raised whether the means proposed would bring those forces into action, whether they would be as great as is expected, whether they would be counteracted by others, but there is no error as to the nature and operation of economic forces. Bimetallism predicts results, not tendencies. It assumes to measure the consequences and say what will result as a permanent state of things. It therefore involves the doctrine that legislation can control natural forces for definite results. If legislation cannot so control natural forces, then we cannot secure a concurrent circulation, giving the debtor the use of the whole mass of both metals with which to pay his debts. At a time like this, when the silver craze seems to be asserting itself as a mania, by sweeping away some who ought to be most staunch in their adherence to economic laws and most clear in their perception of economic truths, I may be pardoned for insisting most strenuously upon this distinction and upon its importance. Many of the American writers have been betrayed into error by not having examined these two plans and discriminated between them with sufficient care. It is very common to see arguments based upon the alternate standard and inferences drawn as to bimetallism which are entirely fallacious because they cross the gulf between the two theories without recognizing it. Bimetallism is so plainly opposed to fundamental doctrines of political economy that few European economists have felt called upon to discuss it. Here the case is different, and the more ground it wins, and the more danger there is that it will affect legislation, the more urgent is the necessity to resist every form of it.
Now my proposition is that a concurrent circulation,
