recompence for the sake of which the work is done. Money is neither a
material to work upon, nor a tool to work with ; and though the wages of the
workman are commonly paid to him in money, his real revenue, like that of
all other men, consists, not in the money, but in the money's worth; not in
the metal pieces, but in what can be got for them.

The quantity of industry which any capital can employ, must evidently be
equal to the number of workmen whom it can supply with materials, tools, and
a maintenance suitable to the nature of the work. Money may be requisite for
purchasing the materials and tools of the work, as well as the maintenance
of the workmen ; but the quantity of industry which the whole capital can
employ, is certainly not equal both to the money which purchases, and to the
materials, tools, and maintenance, which are purchased with it, but only to
one or other of those two values, and to the latter more properly than to
the former.

When paper is substituted in the room of gold and silver money, the quantity
of the materials, tools, and maintenance, which the whole circulating
capital can supply, may be increased by the whole value of gold and silver
which used to be employed in purchasing them. The whole value of the great
wheel of circulation and distribution is added to the goods which are
circulated and distributed by means of it. The operation, in some measure,
resembles that of the undertaker of some great work, who, in consequence of
some improvement in mechanics, takes down his old machinery, and adds the
difference between its price and that of the new to his circulating capital,
to the fund from which he furnishes materials and wages to his workmen.

What is the proportion which the circulating money of any country bears to
the whole value of the annual produce circulated by means of it, it is
perhaps impossible to determine. It has been computed by different authors