... portable, from including great value in small bulk;
... indestructible, and little liable to fluctuations of value.
Gold and silver unite these requisites in an unequalled degree, and have also the desirable quality of beauty. Gold and silver have therefore formed the principal medium of exchange hitherto adopted: usually prepared, by an appointed authority, in the form most suitable for the purposes of exchange, in order to avoid the inconvenience of ascertaining the value of the medium on every occasion of purchase.
Where the supply of money is left unrestricted, its exchangeable value will be ultimately determined, like that of all other commodities, by the cost of production.
Where the supply is restricted, its exchangeable value depends on the proportion of the demand to the supply.
In the former case, it retains its character of a commodity, serving as a standard of value in preference to other commodities only in virtue of its superior natural requisites to that object.
In the latter case, it ceases to be a commodity, and becomes a mere ticket of transference, or arbitrary sign of value: and then, the natural requisites above described become of comparatively little importance.
The quality by which money passes from hand to hand with little injury enables it to compensate inequalities of supply by the slackened or accelerated speed of its circulation.
The rate of circulation serves as an index of the state of supply; and therefore tends, where no restriction exists, to an adjustment of the supply to the demand.
Where restriction exists, the rate of circulation indicates the degree of derangement introduced among the elements of exchangeable value, but has no permanent influence in its rectification.