Again, Frederick’s political economy was unfavourable to Prussian commerce. At Cüstrin he learned from Hille that the only trade by which a country can profit is that which adds to its stock of gold and silver. His father had carried this idea to its logical conclusion. He had seized the precious metals and locked them up. Like a timid farmer who thinks that the bank will break, he had hidden in his cellars the hoard which represented the economies of a lifetime. Frederick therefore found a treasure of more than twenty-six million marks, at a time when the weekly wage of a common soldier hardly exceeded one.
It seems clear that a policy of hoarding could be wise only when war was in sight. In time of war that Government would be happiest which had most coined money with which to pay its troops. But in time of peace not even Frederick William could take a breed from barren metal by keeping it locked up. Profit could be drawn from it in either of two ways. The coined metal might be spent to advantage, so that the State bought something, such as a school, or a farm, or a flock of sheep, which would in the future be worth more than the sum laid out. Or it might be lent to citizens who would pay for the use of it and establish with its aid some business which might be taxed. By locking up the surplus funds of the country, however, the King stifled commerce at the birth. Frederick did not detect the fallacy, and Germany waited till the nineteenth century for her commercial rise.
Though nimble-witted and fond of philosophy, the King was hardly profound. His lector, the Swiss de Catt, tells a significant story of his first discussion with a singular stranger on a Dutch vessel, whom he did not suspect to be the lord of Prussia. Frederick, he says,
“tried to prove that creation was impossible. At this last point I stood out in opposition. ‘But how can one create something out of nothing?’ said he. ‘That is not the question,’ answered I, ‘the question is, whether such a Being as God can or cannot give existence to what has yet none?’ He seemed embarrassed and added, ‘But the Universe is eternal.’ ‘You are in a circle,’ said I, ‘how will you get out of it?’ ‘I skip over it,’ said he, laughing; and then began to speak of other things.”