[ MO ] 



and muft requeft you will do me the honor to lay my effay 

 before the Academy, for their infpedlion. 



There is perhaps no part of antiquities which throws greater 

 light on the hiftory of a country than the coins and medals of 

 different periods, when properly illuflrated ; as thereby feveral 

 articles relative to the manners and cuftoms of former times 

 receive an illuftration, which probably otherwife would be buried 

 in eternal oblivion. To whom mankind are indebted for fo ufe- 

 ful a difcovery as coins in the tranfadions of civil life, is not only 

 unneccflUry, but at this period impoffible to afcertain. 



Commerce, as it was the principal means of drawing the 

 human race from a vagrant and unfettled life, and thereby 

 conftituting civil fociety, gave rife, undoubtedly, to the invention 

 of money, as a convenient medium, in order to render the 

 tranfadions between individuals much more eafy and expeditious 

 than otherwife could be efFeded by the exchange of one com- 

 modity for another. 



Man, leading a favage and unfettled life, fubfifting on the 

 precarious acquirements of the chace, and the fpontaneous pro- 

 dudions of the earth, has little regard to any other property than 

 a fcanty fubfiftence from day to day ; he has therefore no occafion 

 for an article which, in every department of civil fociety, has be- 

 come fo beneficial and yet fo deftrudive to mankind. But no fooner 

 are the arts of civil life introduced, and private property in fome 

 meafure eftablifhed, than he finds himfelf furrounded by a thoufand 

 wants to which before he was an utter ftranger. Habitations, 



clothes, 



