180 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MONEY—DAVIDSON. 
unless the articles offered in exchange conform to his standard 
of taste. 
The inconveniences of this primitive state of barter are so 
evident that no race or tribe which has made the first step away 
from barbarism, can for long remain without some sort of 
medium of exchange. There is need of some commodity which 
will be readily received by every one, although at the moment 
he may not wish to corsume it, in the full assurance that he can 
easily, in his turn, exchange it for the article he does desire. 
Such an interposed commodity will greatly facilitate exchanges, 
and to all intents and purposes may be regarded as money. 
What this interposed commodity is depends almost entirely on 
circumstances. At first, almost any commodity which is 
esteemed by everybody in the community will serve the purpose. 
There is no more foundation for the idea that there was a 
sort of social contract regarding some one article to be used as a 
medium of exchange than there is for the other historical 
fiction that law and language are due to a primitive contract 
or convention. Ne one article has been adopted as if by natural 
right. The original medium of exchange was simply a market- 
able article with a recognized value. Metallic money has 
reached its present supremacy because in the struggle for exist- 
ence it has demonstrated its superiority. There is no natural 
desire for the precious metals ; and even for gold there does not 
seem to be any natural and inherent desire apart from its utility. 
The sacra fames auri is a fiction of the poet and a description 
of the civilized mind; and the first discover of a gold nugget 
possibly viewed it as a sort of substitute fora bead or a shell 
for a necklace. Even to this day, there are peoples who do not 
esteem gold, and will give nothing for it. The various British 
and Egyptian Soudan expeditions were compelled to take along 
with them bulky Maria Theresa dollars, because the Arab would 
not take gold in exchange. The taste of the Arab is for silver 
ornaments. He is no fanatical silver man desirous of seeing 
silver remonetised. Gold he could not, or at least was not 
accustomed to, use as ornaments for his person, his horse, or his 
