232 Mr. Faraday on 



Thoughts on Credit Money, and on the Function of 

 the Precious Metals as Distributors of Wealth. 

 By F. J. Faraday, F.L.S., F.S.S. 



(Received April yth^ i8gi.) 



Toutes les theories sociales feuvent et 

 doivent sinspirer de trots idees : I'idee de 

 justice, I'idee d'utilite, et I'idee de liberie 

 tndividuelle. — Paul Leroy-Beaulif.u. 



I. 



The inequality in the distribution of wealth has become 

 the peculiar economic problem of the age. It is not denied 

 that the position of the working-classes has improved with 

 the progress of science and its application to industrial pro- 

 duction ; and no scientific mind dreams of the possibility of 

 an absolutely equal distribution of wealth. The natural 

 inequalities of mankind will continue to exist ; a complete 

 levelling would be in the economic world what the dissipa- 

 tion of energy would be in the physical universe. In 

 a former paper, read before the Society (ProceedingSy 

 Vol. XXVI., 1887), I remarked that different qualities of 

 labour might be regarded as different quantities of labour ; 

 and, adopting the idea of a unit of labour, which seems 

 to underlie the teachings of Rodbertus and Karl Marx, as 

 the measure of payment, the skilled labourer would still, 

 necessarily, receive a greater reward than the unskilled in 

 proportion to the greater quantity, or number of units, of 

 his labour, and would, therefore, be a relatively wealthier 

 man. 



But, while rejecting the illusions of the collectivists, and 

 admitting that the position of the working-classes has 

 improved, all thoughtful men are disposed to ask the 



