or some purposes, and the coins already struck
were worth more in the manufacture of spoons and plate than to circulate
as coins. Prior to 1853, when the half dollars, quarter dollars and dimes
were coined at the ratio of sixteen to one, such coins could not be kept
in circulation, for the reason that they were worth more than their face
value. The law of 1853 reduced the weight of these coins so that their
market value as silver was sure to remain a trifle less than their face
value. The result was no further melting up of these small coins for use
in the arts or for bullion. This fact is only one illustration of what is
called Gresham's law, formulated in the time of England's base coinage
during the sixteenth century, but noticed centuries earlier, that _cheap
money always drives out a more costly money_. The principle is as constant
as human nature, that nobody will give a greater value when a less value
will serve the same purpose. For this reason, no country in recent times
has been able to keep both gold and silver as the actual standards of
value at the same time. Either the ratio must be changed with every
fluctuation of either metal, or one of the metals must be undervalued in
the system of coinage, as has been done in England for the greater part of
this century; or else the total coins of the cheaper metal must be limited
in amount, as has been done by the Latin Union in Europe during the last
twenty-five years. In either case the tendency is toward a single
standard. The commercial world prefers a stable, well understood unit to a
changeable one. And while the fluctuations of gold alone affect somewhat
the stability of prices, these are thought of less importance than the
necessary legal adjustments for new systems of coinage.

_Monometalism and bimetalism._--The discussion has led to two opposing
views, distinguished as monometalism and bimetalism. The monometalist
holds that since one metal only can, under ordinary circumstances, set the
standard of price, it is wise to choose the one subject to the least
fluctuation for the universal standard. The bimetalist holds that a
nation, or at any rate a group of nations, can fix by agreement the price
of gold and silver in terms of each other, when used as money. Since the
use of these metals as money makes the chief demand for them, it is
thought possible to make this legal ratio hold upon the total product of
both gold and silver. If, then, in any country the su