many forms of
which there are in effect only two, distinctly opposed; namely, the
acknowledgments of debts which will be paid, and of debts which will
not. Documents, whether in whole or part, of bad debt, being to those of
good debt as bad money to bullion, we put for the present these forms of
imposture aside (as in analysing a metal we should wash it clear of
dross), and then range, in their exact quantities, the true currency of
the country on one side, and the store or property of the country on the
other. We place gold, and all such substances, on the side of documents,
as far as they operate by signature;--on the side of store as far as
they operate by value. Then the currency represents the quantity of debt
in the country, and the store the quantity of its possession. The
ownership of all the property is divided between the holders of currency
and holders of store, and whatever the claiming value of the currency is
at any moment, that value is to be deducted from the riches of the
store-holders.

82. Farther, as true currency represents by definition debts which will
be paid, it represents either the debtor's wealth, or his ability and
willingness; that is to say, either wealth existing in his hands
transferred to him by the creditor, or wealth which, as he is at some
time surely to return it, he is either increasing, or, if diminishing,
has the will and strength to reproduce. A sound currency therefore, as
by its increase it represents enlarging debt, represents also enlarging
means; but in this curious way, that a certain quantity of it marks the
deficiency of the wealth of the country from what it would have been if
that currency had not existed.[41] In this respect it is like the
detritus of a mountain; assume that it lies at a fixed angle, and the
more the detritus, the larger must be the mountain; but it would have
been larger still, had there been none.

83. Farther, though, as above stated, every man possessing money has
usually also some property beyond what is necessary for his immediate
wants, and men possessing property usually also hold currency beyond
what is necessary for their immediate exchanges, it mainly determines
the class to which they belong, whether in their eyes the money is an
adjunct of the property, or the property of the money. In the first case
the holder's pleasure is in his possessions, and in his money
subordinately, as the means of bettering or adding to them. In the
second, h