es by means of agricultural and other products, such
as cattle, for example. The Latin word for cattle was _pecus_, and the
word _pecunia_, which came to signify money, accounts for the meaning of
our familiar word pecuniary. The earliest units for measuring became
unsuited to the increasing needs of growing trade, "business," or traffic.
Finally a unit called money was adopted in which the base was the value of
some weight of gold. Thus we see that money came to mean simply the
accepted unit for measuring, representing and expressing values of and in
wealth.

But what is wealth? I have said that the old conceptions of wealth,
capital and money--the conceptions that are still current throughout the
world--belong to the period of humanity's childhood--they are childish
conceptions. I have said that they must be replaced by scientific
conceptions--by conceptions fit for humanity's manhood. The change that
must be made in our conceptions of the great terms is tremendous. It is
necessary to analyse the current conceptions of wealth, capital, and
money--the childish conceptions of them--in order to reveal their falseness,
stupidity and folly. To do this we must enter the field of Political
Economy--a field beset with peculiar difficulties and dangers. All the
Furies of private interests are involved. One gains the impression that
there is little or no real desire to gain a true conception--a scientific
conception--of wealth. Everybody seems to prefer an emotional definition--a
definition that suits his personal love of wealth or his hatred of it.
Many definitions of wealth, capital and money are to be found in modern
books of political economy--definitions and books belonging to humanity's
childhood. For the purpose of this writing they all of them look
alike--they sufficiently agree--they are all of them childish. Mill, for
example, tells us that wealth consists of "useful or agreeable things
which possess exchangeable value." Of capital one of the simplest
definitions is this:

"Capital is that part of wealth which is devoted to obtaining
further wealth." (Alfred Marshall, _Economics of Industry_.)

Walker (in his _Money, Trade and Industry_) defines money as follows:

"Money is that which passes freely from hand to hand throughout
the community in final discharge of debts and full payment for
commodities, being accepted equally without reference to the
character or credit of the person who