1871.] Science of Money. 321 



sake of easier carriage. Hesitatingly he does so, because he 

 has no other idea as to the bars than that of their use in 

 " The Arts," as we would now phrase it. Every article, in 

 fact, still belongs to the arts; and we can best realise our early 

 banker's case by supposing some modern ironmonger to be 

 bent on lightening work to his shopmen by doubling up some 

 portion of a large stock of brass rods or iron crowbars, which 

 he expected to remain long on hand, and whose frequent 

 shifting he wished to facilitate. Even with more hesitation 

 might the customers of our innovating banker receive these 

 altered bars, which, with the sole idea of the manufacturer 

 before them also, they would regard at first rather as things 

 tampered with and depreciated than as made more conve- 

 nient to their business. But the edge of the novelty gone, 

 habit and convenience would steadily plead for the rings, and 

 eventually they would penetrate everywhere by preference, 

 except to the manufacturer's forge. Thus there will at last 

 be two quite distinct articles — the bars and the rings, and 

 it can now be seen that they have respectively quite different 

 uses. 



We have already traced the probable origin of iron money 

 in Greece, and we have just seen how most likely arose the 

 copper-ring money of early Rome. Thus we reach a further 

 and most important stage of our subject, for money now 

 stands forth confessed, instead of being indiscriminately 

 mixed up in the general market. It is still, indeed, as much 

 as before, one among the articles of that market ; its use is 

 still as before for temporary or intermediate holding ; but 

 having now its own distinctive pattern, the mind can now 

 follow it into its own distinctive function. In short, although 

 money had previously come into actual existence, it has only 

 now come into differentially visible being. 



Money thus distinctively standing forth, one early conse- 

 quence is a distinctive name. A new idea occupies the 

 mind, and a new, or at least a distinctively applied, name 

 will be forthcoming for its recognition. This completes the 

 separation of the rings from the bars, or, in more customary 

 language, of money from merchandise. Let us attentively 

 follow the further effects. At the bar stage, it will be re- 

 membered, we had, equally as at the ring stage, the reality 

 of money, only that money had not become distinctively 

 visible — had not, as it were, emerged from merchandise. 

 We have seen that, even at the earlier stage, exchanges, as 

 a rule, had come to be for bars, and all values to be ex- 

 pressed in bars; but that the mind had not parted, in all 

 this, from the actual market of commodities. The bars 



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