general or abstract term; but, is there any abstract idea corresponding to it? No such thing. It is the past participle of an old Anglo-Saxon verb, signifying to speak; and means something spoken. An act, in like manner, is the past participle of a Latin verb, signifying to act; and means something acted, aliquid act-um. And what, in the next place, is value? It is the past participle of a French verb, signifying to be valued; and means something valued; something on which a value is set. But, if there can be no conception of value, distinct from the conception of something valued, it is this something which, in all possible cases, must be the instrument of valuation, or rather of expressing the degrees of value. The result then is, that an actual commodity of a known value, is this instrument; and that an ideal standard is a thing inconceivable.

It would be whimsical, if a philosopher, who has been one of the most successful in proving the non-existence of general ideas, should be found to have been a patron of the ideal standard. Yet this notion has been imputed to Bishop Berkeley, who, in a tract of his, entitled the Querist, talks of money as merely a token or counter. But those expressions, when explained by the context, mean something very different; and we are persuaded that Berkeley was by far too close a thinker, and pursued the consequences of his ideas with too clear an eye, to admit, upon reflection, a notion so evidently at variance with one of his fundamental doctrines. * Those who are enamoured

* When the expressions of Berkeley are considered, with reference to his object, we conceive that they cannot be regarded as in the least degree implying a fixed opinion respecting a standard of valuation; they are merely illustrations directed to a very different end. It was the great object of the Querist, and of most of the other political tracts of its admirable author, to persuade the people of Ireland that they had vast internal resources of which they might avail themselves by their own exertions; and that sloth was the great evil with which they had to contend. But, to attain his end, he had to surmount huge prejudices. The restrictions under which Ireland was then placed, in regard to foreign trade, was the universal subject of complaint; the advantages of foreign trade were exaggerat ed. According to the theory which then prevailed, foreign trade was reckoned the only means of bringing money into the country: money was, par excellence, riches. Without money, no circulation; and without circulation, no industry: therefore, Ireland could not be otherwise than slothful. This is clearly the train of reasoning which it is the object of the Querist to oppose: and it completely explains the brief expressions which he uses concerning money. He was anxious to persuade his countrymen, that money was not riches;

and

moured of the ideal standard of value are wrong to confine themselves to that sole particular. The idea is equally applicable to various other cases. The term weight, for example, is one of exactly the same class with the term value; and as much in want of a fixed standard. We have denominations of weight, too, in the terms pounds, ounces, and grains, as we have of value in the terms, pounds, shillings, and pence; and we account by means of the former, in the same way as by means of the latter. It may be asserted, with the very same reason, that the pound, when it means weight, denotes an ideal standard of weight, as it can that the pound, when it means value, denotes an ideal standard of value. If it be said that we weigh with a real pound, is it not equally true that we go to market with a real guinea? If it be said that we put the pound weight at one end of a balance, and the commodity with which we compare it, at the other, and thus ascertain its weight; this is true;-and we ask, what is the import? Nothing more than this,-that you have a mechanical process by which you compare one weight with another; but that, in comparing one value with another, you have no mechanical process, and the comparison is merely mental. That the one comparison, however, is mental, and the other mechanical, in no degree changes the nature of the operations. Nothing, in

deed,

and that, if they could not get money, they could do without it. He endeavours earnestly to impress the notion, that riches consist in valuable commodities; and that money is only useful to facilitate the exchange of these commodities for one another. He therefore calls it a token,-a counter; but it is evident that these are merely used as words of illustration, to signify that money serves the purpose of making exchanges; and that, if exchanges could be made without it, money might be dispensed with. He never once alludes to a standard of value; and if any one will examine what meaning can be attached to the terms token and counter, in this case, he will find how the idea or theory vanishes away. Money, he says, is a token ;-but a token of what? A token, certainly, of a value of a particular amount. It is a value, therefore, of a particular amount, which is your standard of value; and of this particular value you can form no conception, but by applying it to a particular commodity The commodity to which, from habit and convenience, we always apply it, is coined gold and silver. What, again, is a counter? Why, it is something with which to count. Money, then, is something with which to account. This can have no meaning, but that the denominations of money are useful with which to express the value of commodities. But how does it express the value of commodities? Simply, by naming a certain quantity of coined gold and silver.

deed, can more happily illustrate either the process of comparing values, or the necessity in general of having recourse to individual objects in applying abstract terms. No term is more clearly general than weight; nothing, too, is more general than our language, when we talk of a pound weight; yet, whenever we come to form an estimate, to make a comparison, can we make use of the general idea? Or, is there any general material pound, which can be put at the one end of the balance? Is it not an individual body, weighing a pound, which we are obliged to employ ?

It only remains, therefore, to be confidered, whether the term 'measure of value,' can have any meaning; and what that meaning is. In the refult of this inquiry, we hope to find a fatisfac tory answer to the queftion What is money?"

It is now, we truft, abundantly manifeft, that nothing can measure value, but value itself. Some afcertained value is affumed as a given quantity, and with this all other values are compared; and they are denominated either multiples or fractions of the affumed value, according as the refult of the comparison determines. Thus, a bar of iron is affumed by the blacks of the coaft of Africa as an ascertained value; and with this they compare the value of all other commodities. A gallon of fpirits, they fay, is of the fame value; but a flave is a hundred and fifty times that value. In the fame manner, an ascertained portion of gold or filver is affumed in Europe as a known value, and by a comparifon with this the value of all other things is estimated. There is a material difference, however, between the practical proceedings of the Africans and the Europeans. When the Africans eftimate the value of a purchafe in bars of iron, they have not, in general, the bars to give for it; they have only fome other kind of goods, and their purchafes and fales are mere barter,-though they estimate the value of the commodities given and received, by comparing it with a bar of iron. When the Europeans, however, make their estimates by comparison with afcertained quantities of gold and filver, they have the gold and filver ready to give for the commodity which is the object of purchase. The convenience of this is very great. When traffic is carried on by barter alone, it is, in the first place, very difficult to proportion payments to the commodity purchafed. If a man wants to purchase a hatchet, but has only a fheep to difpofe of, which is worth fix hatchets, he knows not how to accomplish his purpose. But the principal difficulty probably confifts in adapting to one another the objects of purchase and fale. The man who has the hatchet to fell, wants not to purchase a fheep, but a cloak; while the man who has the cloak to difpofe of has no occafion for a hatchet, but for fome

other

other commodity. In thefe circumftances, it becomes a matter of expediency for every man to provide himself, if poffible, with more or lefs of that commodity which moft people will be willing to purchase, and with which he can therefore moft readily procure the various articles for which he may have occafion. After the trial of various commodities, the course of affairs has every where, fooner or later, recommended the precious metals as the commodity for which moft people would be willing to exchange the articles of which they had to difpofe. At first, they are merely used in the unfashioned state, and are bought and fold, in the different exchanges, by weight, like any other commodity; and, in this cafe, felling a fheep for a piece of gold, or a piece of filver, of a certain weight, is vifibly the fame fpecies of tranfaction as felling it for a certain weight of falt, or of corn. The gold is the commodity purchased with the fheep in the one cafe; the falt or the corn is the commodity purchased with it in the other. Thus far the nature of purchase and fale, by means of the precious metals, is diftinctly understood, and no mysterious notions are attached to it. All the world fees, that it is a fimple exchange of one commodity for another. It is, in reality, a barter of two commodities, the value of which is equal. The one party has bought a fheep; the other party has bought a quantity of gold.

It would have been trifling to have brought this familiar process fo formally into view, were it not for the light it affords, to fhow the extreme fimplicity of the next step, which yet has been thrown fo much into darknefs and mystery, by the vague and indefinite terms employed about it. No fooner have the precious metals affumed the fhape, which is diftinguished by the appellation of money, than we have the phrases, fign of value,-measure of value,standard of value,-medium of exchange,-inftrument of barter,and many others, ascribed to them; and the procefs is now conceived to have entirely changed its nature. But, in reality, what is it that the coining of the precious metals performs? Nothing more than to fet a ftamp upon certain convenient portions of them, declaring authoritatively the weight and fineness of the piece upon which the ftamp is impreffed; thereby faving those, by whom it is purchafed and fold, the trouble of weighing it, or proving its quality. Still it is nothing more than a piece of metal, of a certain weight and quality, which is bought with the article we have exchanged for it, and which we regard as of equal value; and money is neither more nor lefs than that commodity which every man is willing to purchase with any other commodity of which he may have to difpofe; because he knows that all thofe perfons will be ready to buy it of him again, who may have any thing to fell which he fhall defire to purchase. This fimple account, founded

upon

upon fuch decifive confiderations, and which explains fo completely all the phenomena of money, writers feem in general to have miffed, (as men often mifs other advantages), by looking too high; by conceiving that the theory of money muft certainly involve in it fomething extremely magnificent and mysterious. With this imagination, and the aid of loofe and indefinite language, they have written books of very indifferent quality. Yet there were always fome obvious and remarkable appearances which might have taught them that money was nothing but a commodity bought and fold for its value, like other commodities; and that it rofe and fell, in its power of purchafing, exactly as its value, was enhanced or impaired. Whenever princes have debafed the coins of their realms, these coins have uniform:ly become depreciated in exact proportion to the debafement; and have never, for any length of time, continued to purchafe more than the metal, and the workmanfhip of the coin, were really worth. What other account can be rendered of this ftriking phenomenon, than that coins are mere commodities, fubject to the laws which regulate the purchase and fale of all other commodities?

Having thus afcertained the nature of money and coins, we are in a condition to fee clearly through the mystery of the measure of value;' and as the vague ideas entertained refpecting that measure have produced fo much confufion on the fübject of money, it may be useful to fubjoin a few reflections.

Men have occafion to compare values in two refpects; either in times very distant, or in times contiguous. Among the other properties of the precious metals, this is one,-that though they are fubject to very great alterations of value in times very remote, they change more slowly than perhaps any other commodity, and, during any fmall number of years, may be regarded as invariable. Within that number of years, therefore, they form a standard of comparifon very exact. They vary too confiderably in their value in places very far diftant from one another; but, in places not exceedingly remote, they are always of the fame, or very nearly the fame value; and thus, within a certain range of time and place, their value is fufficiently fixed to afford an inftrument of comparifon exact enough for the practical purposes of life. But, in all this, there is neither, mystery, nor meafuring; the value of one commodity is only compared with the value of other commodities; and as coin is the moft convenient fubject of comparison, the value of all other commodities is ufually expreffed by naming a correspondent quantity of that convenient fubftance. When we mean to exprefs the value of an acre of land, we do not say that it is worth fo many pounds weight of corn, or fo many pounds weight of flax. What we fay, however, is literally that it is VOL. XIII. NO. 25.

D

worth