It is only in so far as a
particular good comes to be taken by persons not specially dealing in
it, taken for the purpose of using it as a price-good to get something
else which they desire, that a thing has the character of money. The
thing called money thus is a durative good passing from hand to hand
in a community, and completing its use in turn to each possessor of it
only as he parts with it.

The use of money is of such social importance, that it would be
impossible for modern industrial society to exist without it. The
discussion of money touches many interests, it raises many questions
of a political and of an ethical nature. There are perhaps more
popular errors on this than on any other one subject in economics, but
the general principles of money are as fully understood and as firmly
established as are any parts of economics.

Sec. 2. #Qualities of the original money-good#. The selection of any
money-commodity has not been mere chance, but has been the result of
that object being better fitted than others to serve as a medium of
exchange. The main qualities that affected the selection of primitive
form of money were as follows: 1. Marketability (or saleability); that
is, it must be easy to sell. The first forms of money had to be things
which every one desired at some time and many people desired at any
time. That was the essential quality that made any one ready to take
it even when he did not wish to use it himself. Many kinds of food and
of clothing are very generally desired goods. But few of these classes
of goods have in a high measure certain other important qualities, now
to be named.

2. Transportability; that is, the money material must be easy to
carry, it must have a large value in small bulk and weight. To carry
a bag of wheat on one's back a few miles requires as great an effort
ordinarily as does the raising of the wheat, and the cost of carriage
for fifty miles even by wagon will often equal the whole value of the
wheat. Cattle, while not comparatively very valuable in proportion to
weight, and not possessing the other qualities of money in the highest
degree, have the advantage that they can be made to carry themselves
long distances, and therefore they have been much used as money in
simpler economic conditions.

3. Cognizability; that is, the money-good must be easy to know, and
to judge as to quality. If expert knowledge or special apparatus are
needed to test it in order to avoid co