32 



MONEY MONGE. 



uev portions of property ; ami, on this account, a 

 small sum of money, in constant circulation, is of 

 far more benefit to a country than the possession of the 

 largest sums which remain locked up, and do not 

 cliange owners. A great quantity of money, there- 

 fore, is of no service to a country, unless there are 

 desirable things in that country, for the purchase of 

 which it is to be paid, and thus transferred from one 

 to another. When, therefore, more money flows 

 into any country than will pay for what the country 

 actually produces, money becomes of less value, and 

 the money price of merchandise greater. In this 

 case, it is better to procure the goods from countries 

 where their money price is less. The money will 

 thus be exported again, and procure a return of 

 cheap goods in its place. But, by this process, the 

 industrious part of the population are injured, and 

 those only receive profit who make these exchanges 

 of money for foreign goods. The labouring classes, 

 therefore, experience a scarcity of money, because 

 the articles which they produce do not command 

 a ready sale. In this manner, all the gold and 

 silver obtained by Spain and Portugal from South 

 America passed into foreign countries in exchange 

 for foreign necessaries. The only true means, then, 

 to remove and to prevent permanently a scarcity of 

 money, is to improve the state of domestic and 

 internal industry ; and their opinion is wholly des- 

 titute of foundation, who believe that a mere plenty 

 of money is sufficient to develop a healthy state of 

 domestic industry ; for the money does not produce 

 the goods, but follows their production. And money 

 will not stay in a country that does not contain 

 goods upon which it may be expended, but it seeks 

 those countries which produce the objects of desire. 



The worst of all means of supplying a scarcity of 

 money is the multiplication of those things (as paper 

 of all kinds) by which it is represented, or which are 

 used as substitutes for it ; for these circulating media 

 are only worth so much as can be obtained in real 

 value for them, and the scarcity of the precious 

 metals in the country, preventing those who de- 

 sire it from exchanging their money for them, the 

 value of this paper medium falls at once. Nor 

 does it help the case to base the value of this 

 money upon any thing else than the precious me- 

 tals ; for, if their value is expressed in any article 

 not so easily disposed of as gold or silver, as grain, 

 for instance, these bills for grain are worth no more 

 than the grain itself; and, if grain falls in value, 

 these grain-bills must of necessity sink with them ; 

 and, if the grain cannot be used as a means of pay- 

 ment, then they lose their value altogether. A cir- 

 culating medium fixed upon so insecure a basis can 

 never take the place of real gold and silver. The 

 truth of all these remarks is strikingly illustrated by 

 the history of the continental paper issued by the 

 American congress, during the revolution, and by 

 that of the celebrated French assignats, which, rest- 

 ing upon the credit of a people without money, and 

 without means of getting it, were soon found to be 

 of little worth, or of none at all. Nor is this contra- 

 dicted by the fact that the paper of the bank of Eng- 

 land remained good during the stoppage of specie 

 payments ; for the wealth and the productiveness of 

 this nation are so great as to render all transactions 

 safe in any paper authorized by its government ; and 

 that wealth and industry combined place it in a situa- 

 tion so far removed from most countries, that it 

 only forms, in this respect, a fair exception to a gene- 

 ral law. 



No certain estimate can ever be formed of the 

 quantity of money required to conduct the business 

 of any country ; this quantity being, in all cases, de- 

 termined by the value of money itself, the services it 



lias to perform, and the devices used for economising 

 its employment. Generally, however, it is very con- 

 siderable ; and when it consists wholly of gold and 

 silver, it occasions a very heavy expense. The wish 

 to lessen this expense has been one of the chief 

 causes that have led all civilized and commercial 

 countries to fabricate a portion of their money of 

 some less valuable material, such as paper. 



MONEY, STANDARD OF. See Standard. 



MONGE, CASPAR, a celebrated mathematician and 

 natural philosopher, born at Beaune, in 1746, studied 

 in the colleges of the fathers of the oratory at Beaune 

 and Lyons with such success that he became a 

 teacher at the age of sixteen. He was afterwards 

 employed at the military school of Mezieres, where 

 he assisted Bossut, the professor of mathematics, and 

 afterwards Nollet, professor of physics, whom he 

 succeeded. In 1780, he removed to Paris, on being 

 admitted into the academy of sciences, and became 

 the coadjutor of Bossut, in a course of lectures on 

 hydrodynamics at the Louvre. He quitted Mezieres 

 entirely in 1783, on being appointed examiner of the 

 marine, when he composed a Treatise on Statics, 

 afterwards used for the polytechnic school. In 1789, 

 like other friends of freedom, Monge indulged in ex- 

 pectations of the regeneration of France. Through 

 the influence of Condorcet, he was made minister of 

 the marine, in 1792, and he held, at the same time, 

 the portfolio of minister of war, during the absence 

 of general Servan with the army. He thus became 

 a member of the executive council of government, in 

 which capacity he signed the order for the execution 

 of Louis XVI. Shortly after, he resigned his func- 

 tions, in consequence of which he was exposed to 

 the persecution of the ruling party of the Jacobins, 

 against which he successfully defended himself. He 

 was then employed, together with other men of 

 science, in improving the manufacture of gunpowder, 

 and otherwise augmenting the military resources of 

 the country. The Normal school was founded, with 

 which Monge became connected; and he then publish- 

 ed his Geometric descriptive, one of his principal 

 works. Together with Berthollet and Guyton Mor- 

 veau, he principally contributed to the establishment 

 of the polytechnic school; after which, in 1796, he was 

 commissioned to go to Italy, and collect the treasures 

 of art and science from the countries conquered by the 

 French ; and the labours of Monge and his colleagues 

 gave rise to the splendid assemblage of works of taste 

 and genius, which for a time ornamented the halls of 

 the Louvre. In 1798, he went with Bonaparte to 

 Egypt, where he was again employed in the service 

 of science. On his return to France, he resumed his 

 functions as professor at the polytechnic school, in 

 the success of which he greatly interested himself. 

 The attachment which he manifested to Bonaparte 

 led to his being nominated a member of the senate, 

 on the formation of that body. The emperor bestow- 

 ed on him the title of count of Pelusium, the sena- 

 torial lordship of Liege, made him grand cordon of 

 the legion of honour, gave him an estate in West- 

 phalia, and, a little before he set out on his Russian 

 expedition, a present of 200,000 francs. The fall 

 of his benefactor involved him in misfortunes. He 

 was expelled from the institute in 1816, one of his 

 sons-in-law was exiled, and he was deprived of all 

 his employments. His faculties became disordered, 

 and he died July 28, 1818. Besides the works above 

 noticed, Monge published Description de VArt de 

 fabriquer les Canons (4to), and Application de 

 I' Analyse d la Geometric des Surfaces (4to), as well 

 as a multitude of memoirs on mathematical and phy- 

 sical science. His pupil Dupin has published an 

 Essai historique sur les Services et les Travaux 

 scientifiques de Monge. 



