MONEY 295 



gives its possessor an option of acquiring whatever 

 he pleases that is within its value and is exposed 

 for sale. One who possesses a sovereign possesses 

 a sovereign's worth of choice, and, so far, has the 

 world at his disposal. Money, then, stimulates 

 our impulses by offering them every variety of 

 satisfaction. It gives full play to the desire for 

 liberty, for choice, which to a greater or less 

 degree is inherent in all men. Remuneration 

 that is offered in kind is far less stimulating, and 

 payment in food or in goods has passed out of 

 usage in all progressive communities. In some 

 parts of India a ploughman still works for thirty 

 bushels of grain, a blanket and a pair of shoes as 

 his yearly wages. There is nothing before him to 

 relieve the monotony of life, not even the chance 

 ot beggary. It is not surprising that the payment 

 of wages in truck that is to say, in goods, not in 

 money has been strenuously opposed by the 

 English working classes and has been prohibited 

 by law. Such a system starves the enjoyment of 

 life and the zest of industry. 



If we search for a fundamental difference 

 between the economic conditions of the present 

 day, and those, let us say, of ancient Egypt, we 

 may find it in the stream of money which per- 

 meates our society, passing through such a 

 multiplicity of channels as conduct the blood to 

 every recess of the body. It is ever-flowing : 

 the humblest family makes its daily purchases. 

 It passes in broad channels through the homes of 

 the rich : the poor receive rivulets only. But there 

 are no members of the community, except those 

 in workhouses, asylums and prisons, who do not 

 at least dip their fingers in the current. It is 

 surprising that human inventiveness so long fell 

 short of the discovery of money. The earliest 

 known coins were struck by the Lydians some 



