MONEY FALLACIES. 
BY 
Clarence Edward Dutton. 
ADDRESS AS RETIRING PRESIDENT. 
Delivered February 1^, 1891. 
It is the custom of the retiring president of this Society 
to offer an address upon an occasion fixed for that purpose 
by its general committee. Such addresses are expected to 
embody the understanding of the speaker concerning some 
scientific or philosophical subject which has specially en¬ 
gaged his study and reflection. In following the examples 
of my learned predecessors, I selected some months ago a 
theme in the domain of Political Economy which has been 
almost a life-long subject of interest to me, but which, apart 
from its pure philosophic interest, chances to touch, and even 
to underlie, one of the burning questions of the hour. In 
view of this coincidence I am reminded how in 1860 the 
power of political agitation, spreading among all men, so 
infected even the clergy that much was said about preaching 
politics in the pulpit. I am not unmindful of the dignity 
of this occasion, and the Philosophical Society would have 
lived and flourished in vain if it had not inculcated upon 
all its members the necessity of calmness and candor in 
treating all subjects admitted to its deliberations. 
I have selected the subject of Money Fallacies as the theme 
for this evening. It is a broader one than its title might at 
first suggest. Money is an institution as old as human so¬ 
ciety, and the daily, almost hourly, association of human 
ideas with its uses and abuses constitutes a force of human 
(359) 
45-Ball. Phil. Soc., Wash., Vol. 11. 
