WEALTH OF NATIONS. 213 



lie was entitled, might receive some document ascer- 

 taining his claim to receive it when he wished, and he 

 who did not wish to part with it, but desired to have 

 the equivalent commodity immediately, might find the 

 document binding him to pay something for the delay, 

 in case the other party wished it : the former of these 

 inventions is money ; the latter is credit, or paper cur- 

 rency. In some rude countries shells have been used 

 for money ; in others, leather ; almost universally, how- 

 ever, the metals have been so employed, and chiefly 

 those which from their beauty and their scarcity, are 

 the most valuable ; gold, silver, and copper, though 

 sometimes iron has been so used. Bills of exchange 

 and promissory notes have greatly facilitated the opera- 

 tions of commerce, by enabling debts to be transferred, 

 so that there should be no necessity of employing either 

 goods or money to pay more than the net balance due 

 from one given country, or from one district of the 

 same country to another, upon the whole mutual 

 dealings of both countries or both districts ; and also 

 by enabling credit to do the office of coin, and thus 

 to economize the use of the precious metals. The 

 fifth chapter enters at large into the subject of the 

 coinage, and the variations, both in the actual amount 

 of gold and silver at different times existing in the 

 country, and in the real value of the precious metals 

 themselves, from the varying quantities yielded by the 

 mines of the world, and somewhat also from the varia- 

 tions in the demand for them ; these metals being like 

 all other commodities, liable to fluctuation from the 

 supply and the demand varying, and their value being- 

 measured by the goods or the labour they can pur- 

 chase. 



2. In a rude or perfectly natural state of society, 

 when each person enjoys the whole produce of his 

 labour, exchange would be regulated by the time of 

 labour, the hardness of the work, the perilous or dis- 

 agreeable nature of the occupation, the skill required 



