Thus far we have thought it convenient to confine ourselves to the abstract quali ties and uses of money, and to explain such general principles only as are in troductory to the consideration of parti cular kinds of money, and of the modes of using and regulating them.
In all ages of the world, and in nearly all countries, metals seem to have been used, as it were by common consent, to serve the purposes of money. It is true, that other articles have also been used, and still are used, such as paper in highly civilized countries, and cowrie shells in the less civilized parts of Africa • but in all, some portion of the currency Africa; been and is composed of metals. We read of metals amongst the Jews, the Chinese, the Egyptians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans. In the earliest annals of com merce they are spoken of as objects of value and of exchange ; and wherever commerce is carried on they are still used as money. But as they were intro duced, for this purpose, in very remote times, it is not probable that they were selected because their value was supposed to be less variable than that of other com modities. More than two thousand years ago, indeed, Aristotle saw clearly (but what did he not see clearly ?') that the principal use of metallic money was that Its value was less fluctuating than that of most other substances (Ethic. Nicom.v. 5). But however clearly this great philoso pher may have observed the true charac ter of money, many ages after the cir culation of metals, those who first used them were men engaged in common barter, who considered their own conve nience and security without reference to any general objects of public utility. They must have used metals, not as a standard of value, but as an article of exchange, which facilitated their barter. All metals are of great utility and have always been sought with eagerness for various pur poses of use and ornament: but gold and silver are especially objects of desire. Their comparative scarcity, the difficulty and labour of procuring them, their ex traordinary beauty, their singular purity, their adaptation to purposes of art, of luxury, and display ; their durability and compactness ; must all have contributed to render them most suitable objects of exchange. They were easily conveyed from place to place ; a small quantity would obtain large supplies of other arti cles; they were certain to find a market; none would refuse to accept articles in payment which they could immediately transfer to others: and thus gold and silver naturally became articles of com merce, readily exchangeable for all other articles. before they were circulated as money, and were acknowledged as such by law and custom.
The transition of the precious metals from the condition of mere articles of ex change, amongst many others, to that of a recognised standard of value by which the worth of all other articles was esti mated, was very natural. Merchants carrying their wares to a distant market would soon find it necessary to calculate the quantity of gold and silver which they could obtain, rather than the uncertain quantities and bulk of other commodities. They would not know what articles it would be prudent to buy until they reached the market and examined their quality and prices : but a little experience would enable them to predict the quan tity of gold and silver which would be an equivalent for their own merchandise. Merchants, from different parts of the world, meeting one another in the same markets, and finding the convenience of assessing the value of their goods in gold and silver, would begin to offer them for certain quantities of those metals, instemd of engaging, more directly, in bartering one description of goods for another ; and thus, by the ordinary course of trade, without any law or binding custom, the precious metals would become the mea sure of value and the medium of ex change.
But when gold and silver had attained this position in commerce, they were not the less objects of barter; nor were they distinguishable, in character, from any other articles of exchange. They were weighed, and being of the required fine ness, a given weight was known as a de nomination of value, but in the same maw' ner only as the value 01 a bushel of wheat may be known. In the earliest ages gold and silver seem to have been universally exchanged in bars, and valued by weight and fineness only. The same custom ex ists at the present day in China. There is no silver coinage, "but the smallest payments, if not made in the copper tchen, are effected by exchanging bits of silver, whose weight is ascertained by a little ivory balance, on the principle of the steelyard." (Davis's China, c. 22.) Notwithstanding the ease with which gold and silver are divided into the smallest portions, each of which is of the same intrinsic purity and value as the others, the trouble of weighing each piece, and the difficulty of assaying it, render these metals in bars, or other un fashioned forms, extremely imperfect in struments of exchange, especially when they are used in small quantities. How ever accurately they may be weighed, it requires considerable skill and labour to assay them, which in small pieces would scarcely be repaid. Even in large quan tities the difficulty of assaying their fine ness, in countries which have made con siderable advances in the arts, is greater than might be expected. The Chinese affect much accuracy in the art of assay ing. The stamped ingots of silver in which their taxes are paid, are required to contain ninety-eight partsin a hundred of pure silver, and two per cent. only of alloy ; and strict regulations for main• tabling this standard are rigidly enforced. Hence we should naturally infer that the attention of merchants and of all persons dealing in silver would be par ticularly directed to the most accurate assays. Yet, at Canton, an enormous trade in opium has, for a long series of years, been conducted entirely in sysee silver, which has been found to contain so large an admixture of gold that it bears a premium of five or six per cent. for ex portation to England. (Davis's China,h 22.) If the Chinese have been unable to discover the presence of gold, which it would be their interest to appropriate, how difficult must it be to detect alloys of baser metals in gold or silver circulated amongst a people in the ordinary course of trade. To obviate this difficulty coinage was introduced, by which por tions of gold, silver, copper, and other metals have been impressed with distinc tive marks, denoting their character, and have become current under certain deno minations, according to their respective weight, fineness, and value. These coins have always been issued by the govern ment of each country as a guarantee of their genuineness ; and the counterfeit ing of them has been punished as a serious offence against the state.