Money must not be
estimated by its numerical quantity: if the metal, that is merely the sign of
wealth, was wealth itself, that is, if the happiness or the benefits that
result from wealth were proportional to the quantity of money, men would have
reason to estimate it numerically and by its quantity, but it is barely
necessary that the benefits that one derives from money are in just proportion
with its quantity; a rich man of one hundred thousand ecus income is not ten times
happier than the man of only ten thousand ecus; there is more than that what
money is, as soon as one passes certain limits it has almost no real value, and
cannot increase the well-being of its possessor; a man that discovered a
mountain of gold would not be richer than the one that found only one cubic
fathom.
