Page:Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, A - Karl Marx.djvu/266

Rh monetary system was thus developed to its ultimate conclusions, Steuart's concrete conception of money was finally restored to its rights by THOMAS TOOKE. Tooke arrives at his principles not from any theory, but by a conscientious analysis of the history of prices of commodities from 1793 to 1856. In the first edition of his History of Prices which appeared in 1823, Tooke is still under the complete influence of the Ricardian theory, and vainly tries to reconcile it with actual facts. His pamphlet "On the Currency," which appeared after the crisis of 1825 might even be considered as the first consistent presentation of the views which were later given the force of law by Overstone. Continued studies in the history of prices forced him, however, to the conclusion that the direct connection between prices and the volume of currency, as it is pictured by the theory, is a mere illusion; that the expansion and contraction of currency which takes place while the value of the precious metals remains unchanged, is always the effect but never the cause of price fluctuations; that the circulation of money is in any event but a secondary movement; and that money assumes quite different forms in the actual process of production in addition to that of a circulating medium. His detailed investigations belong to a sphere outside of that of simple metallic circulation and can be discussed here as little as the investigations of WILSON and FULLARTON which belong