nt is and ought to be nothing
whatever but _common force_ organized, not to be an instrument of
oppression and mutual plunder among citizens; but, on the contrary, to
secure to every one his own, and to cause justice and security to reign.

What Is Money?

"Hateful money! hateful money!" cried F----, the economist,
despairingly, as he came from the Committee of Finance, where a project
of paper money had just been discussed.

"What's the matter?" said I. "What is the meaning of this sudden dislike
to the most extolled of all the divinities of this world?"

F. Hateful money! hateful money!

B. You alarm me. I hear peace, liberty, and life cried down, and
Brutus went so far even as to say, "Virtue! thou art but a name!" But
what can have happened?

F. Hateful money! hateful money!

B. Come, come, exercise a little philosophy. What has happened to
you? Has Croesus been affecting you? Has Mondor been playing you false?
or has Zoilus been libelling you in the papers?

F. I have nothing to do with Croesus; my character, by its
insignificance, is safe from any slanders of Zoilus; and as to Mondor--

B. Ah! now I have it. How could I be so blind? You, too, are the
inventor of a social reorganization--of the _F---- system_, in fact.
Your society is to be more perfect than that of Sparta, and, therefore,
all money is to be rigidly banished from it. And the thing that troubles
you is, how to persuade your people to empty their purses. What would
you have? This is the rock on which all reorganizers split. There is not
one, but would do wonders, if he could only contrive to overcome all
resisting influences, and if all mankind would consent to become soft
wax in his fingers; but men are resolved not to be soft wax; they
listen, applaud, or reject, and--go on as before.

F. Thank heaven, I am still free from this fashionable mania. Instead
of inventing social laws, I am studying those which it has pleased
Providence to invent, and I am delighted to find them admirable in their
progressive development. This is why I exclaim, "Hateful money! hateful
money!"

B. You are a disciple of Proudhon, then? Well, there is a very simple
way for you to satisfy yourself. Throw your purse into the Seine, only
reserving a hundred sous, to take an action from the Bank of Exchange.

F. If I cry out against money, is it likely I should tolerate its
deceitful substitute?

B. Then I have only one more guess to make. You are a ne