without charge
or deduction. But coinage is free without being gratuitous when any
citizen may bring metal to the mint, whenever he chooses, to be coined
subject to the seigniorage charge.

[Footnote 1: See Vol. I, pp. 15-16 and 50-53 for an introductory
statement of the origin of money in connection with markets.]

[Footnote 2: See ch. 5.]

[Footnote 3: See Vol. I, p. 43, on the decline of barter.]

[Footnote 4: "I will ... refine them as silver is refined, and will
try them as gold is tried." Zech. xiii, 9. "I bought the field ...
and weighed him the money, even seventeen shekels of silver. And I ...
weighed him the money in the balances." Jer. xxxii, 9, 10. A shekel
was 224 grains, troy weight, which is about equal to six-tenths of the
pure metal in a silver dollar to-day and worth now about twenty-four
cents in gold. At that time, however, the purchasing power of silver
was many times greater than it now is.]

[Footnote 5: From the French _coin_, in turn from Latin _cuneus_,
wedge, suggestive either of an earlier wedge-shaped piece, or of a
wedge-shaped mark on the piece. The German word _Muenze_ is from the
Latin _moneta_ (as is the English _mint_, the place where coins are
made), which meant money, that name being taken from the temple of
Juno, called _Moneta_, where coins were made.]

CHAPTER 4

THE VALUE OF MONEY

Sec. 1. Standard-commodity money. Sec. 2. Alternative uses of the money-good.
Sec. 3. Money as a valuable tool. Sec. 4. Relative importance of
money. Sec. 5. Concept of the individual monetary demand. Sec. 6. Concept
of the community's monetary demand. Sec. 7. The money-material in
its commodity uses. Sec. 8. The general level of prices. Sec. 9. Effect of
increasing gold production. Sec. 10. The quantity theory of money. Sec. 11.
Interpretation of the quantity theory. Sec. 12. Practical application of
the quantity theory.

Sec. 1. #Standard-commodity money#. The actual money in use in almost
every country to-day consists of a wide and confusing variety: gold,
silver, nickel, copper, paper in various forms, issued by various
authorities under various conditions as to amount and as to
seigniorage. But among all the kinds, in each country some one kind
is found standing preeminent and in a peculiar position, as the
_standard_ money to which the value of all the other kinds of money is
in some manner adjusted. Usually this standard money is composed of
a material (gol