 The quantity theory of money also entails the neutrality of money. Hume broached a series of thought experiments, whereby the quantity of money in a nation doubled or halved overnight, or was reduced by an even greater amount, four-fifths (“Of Interest” [1987: 299]; “Of the Balance of Trade” [1987: 311]). He argued that this would have no lasting effect. In the case of an increase, prices would rise commensurate to the increase in money as dictated by the quantity theory. As a result, imports would surge because foreign goods were favorably priced, and the specie would flow out almost immediately and prices return to their original level, hence what came to be known as the specie-flow mechanism. Earlier contributors, such as Mun, had already argued that money would follow trade, and hence that the quantity of specie in England would reflect the balance of trade. If the balance was favorable, such that exports exceeded imports, the nation’s coffers would be augmented. Hume extrapolated from Mun’s one nation to the entire globe. Imposing the metaphor of the world’s oceans, Hume argued that it was no more possible to stockpile specie in a nation than to dam the oceans and raise them above sea-level. Each nation would see its domestic prices rise or fall in accordance with the quantity of money, and hence the strong propensity for the global supply of money to equilibrate in each nation in line with the balance of trade. It rested on a clear understanding of the distinction between the nominal and the real.