Answ. Because it is perplexed with jargon.
Answ. This I ascribe chiefly to the introduction of a money-jargon, employed by people who have had the management of mints, or who have been practical merchants, without knowing any thing of the theory of their business.
The denominations of coin are confounded with the intrinsic value of it.
As long as money went by weight, and was considered as gold and silver bullion, the whole doctrine of it remained clear and intelligible: but the introduction of a numerary value, or denominations of money of accompt, sometimes attached to one quantity of the metals, sometimes to another; and the interest of Princes, which made them endeavour to persuade their subjects that the stamp of the coin was sufficient to give a value to it; has both introduced an unintelligible language, and has really involved the subject with so many extraneous circumstances, that when we consider every thing, the perplexity is not much to be wondered at.
I shall now endeavour to reduce all these perplexities under some general heads.
The terms metal, money, coin, bullion, and price, are all considered as synonimous.
1mo, The first is, confounding ideas quite different in themselves. The terms gold and silver, money of accompt, coin, bullion, and price, are often understood and made use of as synonimous, although no things can be more different.
The terms gold and silver should convey to us no other idea than that of pure physical substances.
What by money?