d or silver) which is a commodity; but there are
many examples of paper money being for the time the standard. The
difficulties of the money problem must be attacked at the point
of standard-commodity money, where it is nearest to ordinary value
problems and is less complicated than when the various other kinds of
money and the various money substitutes are included.

We mean by standard money that kind, no matter what its form, which
serves in any country as the unit in which the value of other kinds of
money is expressed. The standard usually is a quantity of metal of a
certain weight and fineness, which, as a commodity, has a value also
in industrial uses. Coins of this standard are called full, or real,
money by some writers that deny the title of money to everything else.

Sec. 2. #Alternative uses of the money-good.# Let us consider the
problem of money-value as it would present itself if only one kind of
commodity money were in use. This doubtless was in large measure,
if not entirely, the case for a time in early societies after one
material had proved itself to be the best suited for the purpose. The
history of many kinds of money may, we have seen, be traced back to
a point where they were not money, but commodities with a direct
value-in-use. Such were ornaments, shells, furs, feathers, salt,
cattle, fish, game, and tobacco. Each of these materials has, in each
situation, a value which is the reflection of its power to appeal
to choice. Now, if to the commodity-use is added the money-use, this
increases the demand for that good. No new theory is required to
explain the value of a commodity as it gradually acquires the added
use of a medium of trade. The money use is one that works no physical
or visible change in goods except a slight unavoidable abrasion, and
at any time a person receiving a piece of commodity money may retain
it for its use-value, as food, ornament, tool, or weapon, or may
retain it for a time and then spend it as money. This case of value is
no more difficult than that of anything else having two or more uses.
For example, cattle are used for milk, for meat, and as beasts of
burden. Each of these uses is logically independent as a cause
of value, yet all are mutually related, the value of cattle to a
particular person being determined by the consideration of all the
uses united into one scale of varying gratification.

Sec. 3. #Money as a valuable tool.# Money is often, by a figure of
s