in spite of the clear insight of Aristotle and his followers to the contrary. Enthusiasm for commerce had arisen with the recent expansion of the world-market, and men, seeing trade continually produce large fortunes, instinctively came to the conclusion that in trade—that is, exchange—is to be found the source of wealth, and that its symbol and agent, money, was its sole repository. This was the celebrated mercantile system; the great corollary from it being the doctrine of the balance of trade, so called, which declared it necessary to the prosperity of a country that the exports should always exceed the imports, inasmuch as by this means bullion flowed into the country, while otherwise there was a loss. The rise in prices, due to the influx of gold and silver from the newly discovered America, had dislocated the commercial relations of the time, and set men thinking on the nature of economic processes, while the attempts of government, arising out of the mercantile theory, to debase the coinage in the hope of thereby increasing their wealth, gave a practical turn to the various controversies.
Jean Bodin, a French writer, was author of "Les six livres de la Republique," and also of a book on witchcraft, in which he was a firm believer. The latter work, "Le Demonomanie des Sorciers," advocates the enactment of ferocious penalties against sorcery. In the person of Bodin it will thus be seen that the medieval and the modern curiously blend themselves. His most important economical treatise is a little tract against a Sieur Malestroict, who had denied that there had been a general rise of prices during the preceding three centuries. In this little book Bodin showed very conclusively that prices had risen, and also the cause of their rise: "The abundance of gold and silver, which is the wealth of a country, ought in part to explain the rise
