Now proportionate return is secured by cross-conjunction. Let A be a
builder, B a shoemaker, C a house, D a shoe. The builder, then, must
get from the shoemaker the latter's work, and must himself give him in
return his own. If, then, first there is proportionate equality of
goods, and then reciprocal action takes place, the result we mention
will be effected. If not, the bargain is not equal, and does not hold;
for there is nothing to prevent the work of the one being better
than that of the other; they must therefore be equated. (And this is
true of the other arts also; for they would have been destroyed if
what the patient suffered had not been just what the agent did, and of
the same amount and kind.) For it is not two doctors that associate
for exchange, but a doctor and a farmer, or in general people who
are different and unequal; but these must be equated. This is why
all things that are exchanged must be somehow comparable. It is for
this end that money has been introduced, and it becomes in a sense
an intermediate; for it measures all things, and therefore the
excess and the defect-how many shoes are equal to a house or to a
given amount of food. The number of shoes exchanged for a house (or
for a given amount of food) must therefore correspond to the ratio
of builder to shoemaker.
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