THE STANDARD OF VALUE. 



By Chatxncky P. Williams. 



The standard of value ! What is a standard of value? The ques- 

 tion will be variously answered. The technical philosopher will very 

 likely tell us that there is — there can be — no such thing as a standard 

 of value. A standard, must be something fixed and invariable. All 

 values change. A changeable standard, he will tell you, is an absurd- 

 ity — a misnomer. 



Yet, mankind through all history have, in practice, adopted some- 

 thing as a measure of values. It is a necessity of human association. 

 The existence of such a measure or the want of it has, through all 

 ages, marked the dividing line between the advanced nations and 

 those sunken in barbarism. It is a necessity of commerce — of the 

 interchange of all the products of industry. 



While in different times, many objects have served temporarily as 

 such measure, the general concensus of mankind, from the earliest 

 periods of history, has decided upon the metals gold and silver, as the 

 objects best adapted for such measure or standard. For more than 

 four thousand years of authentic history, these metals have served as 

 each standard for the most advanced peoples of the earth. In the 

 Mosaic records of the placing of Adam and Eve in the garden of 

 Eden, the land of Havilah is spoken of as the land "where there is 

 gold," and it is certified that "the gold of that land is good," (Genesis 

 ii, 11, 12.) Nearly two thousand years before the Christian era, Abram 

 traveled from Ur of the Chaldees to Canaan; and, after passing down 

 into Egypt, and returning, he is said (Gen. xiii, 2) to be "very rich in 

 cattle, in silver, and in gold." By the laws of Menes (variously 

 regarded as dating from about 3000 to 3900 B. C.) gold and silver 

 seem both to have been settled as money in Egypt, and their ratio of 

 relative value by weight, is prescribed as two and one-half of silver 

 to equal one of gold. (Faucher, page 11.) Delmar thinks that gold 

 *as the first metal produced by man. (History of Money, page 2.) 

 Strabo tell us that gold and silver were in use as money in the East 

 in the very early ages, and that the relative value of the two metala 



