Manual of Political Science; Arranged in Chapters, with Questions at the End of Each, and Preceded by an Introductiory Chapter (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1855 edition. Excerpt: ... 155 CHAPTER XV. MONEY. It has been already explained why money is the great and universal measure of value and medium of exchange among all civilized nations: other commodities being still used for commercial purposes among some barbarous tribes; as for instance, salt in Abyssinia, cowrie shells on the West Coast of Africa, dried fish in Newfoundland, tobacco in Virginia, and a few other locally abundant articles in other places. These, however, are very partial, exceptions, and do not practically invalidate the general rule. Money, subdivided as it is, is the material which most conveniently enables a man to divide the produce of his labour into as many submultiples for the purchase of as many different articles as he needs or pleases. It is necessary, at the same time, to guard against a very general delusion, that money is anything more than a commodity, the whole use of which consists in its convenience as a medium of exchange, as the representative of something which has been given or can be obtained for it. Unless employed in this way, it possesses no more real and practical value than the stones with which the streets are paved, except so far as the precious metals may furnish a beautiful material for certain manufactures. The most familiar example, perhaps, of the effects of such an error, is afforded by a passage in the history of Spain. The large quantities of gold bullion which the Spaniards found and seized, upon their conquest of Peru, induced them to believe that they had become the possessors of inexhaustible wealth. Ignorant of the uses of wealth, and of the fact that gold is valuable only as a means of stimulating commerce, they passed a law forbidding its exportation, and so prevented its being used in the only way in which the...