Now, you know very well that the gold there is in the world cannot redeem or represent the values of the world. Were it a thousand times as valuable as it really is—that is to say, could the consent of the world be obtained to making the amount of gold which now represents one dollar to represent a thousand dollars—there would be a possibility of the gold in existence representing the value of the world; but as no such result as this is anticipated, it is in vain for you to cling to any such mythological and speculative theory.
Again: What terrible outrage would your conscience sustain if you would give a little calmer consideration to a proposition which you have always heretofore rejected without thought. With your gold you have been able to obtain that which you required to sustain and make life agreeable. These necessities, then, are the really valuable things of the world. What objection, then, can you make that can have the sanction, even of your own reason, to at once admitting that these are the only real values the world contains, and consequently—because legitimately—that whatever is money must be a representative of these valuables: and also and further, that anything bearing the name of money, which does not justly and fully represent the sum total of these, is not money in the true sense of that term.
Again: Money may be considered the negative pole of the battery of value. To all things there are two extremes and a mean, the evidence of perfection being that there is always an equilibrium sustained between the extremes through the medium of the mean. Products are positive existences which go forth to administer to the demands of human nature, and expend themselves in the negative returning force, money; which, in being brought back to the point which it represents, becomes a positive power itself, having the capacity to obtain labor which restores what has been expended, and thus the circuit is complete and nothing is lost; the same products exist and the same representation of them also exists. If, perchance the return of the products is not always immediately made, the power to return them is never lost, though that may be in a thousand years.
Thus it will be seen by all, if they will but give the necessary attention, that the proposed currency which shall be representative of the products of labor is not only the only natural money there can be, but that it can never appreciate nor depreciate, because every twelve months it is worth just one twenty-fifth part of itself—for it is believed that this per cent. of increase is the true balance between accumulation and production; if, on trial, this balance should be found too small, or too much in favor of production, it would be increased; and if found too large, or too much in favor of accumulation it could be reduced. This must be a subject of test, and when tested, legislation can increase or decrease the standard of value by making the “measure” larger or smaller, just the same as it does other “measures.”
We believe that the inauguration of such a money system would be the beginning of the “leveling down and the leveling up” of the capitalist and the laborer, and that such a thing as practical equality will be impossible under any less radical and comprehensive change from present systems. It is to be hoped that that large proportion of the whole people which is represented by the classes that desire to be “levelled up,” will give this most serious matter their most serious attention. We are aware that it is a subject but little understood, and that the prejudice of the people is in favor of the money god, gold. But, as in religion, so will it be in money; when reason and common sense are admitted to the debate, mythologic spectres and theoretic fancies will begin to assume their true shapes, and the realities to arise from the depths in which they have been confined.
New York, Nov. 25, 1870.
BASIS OF PHYSICAL LIFE.
THE UNITY OF LIFE, POWER AND MOTION.
I beg to present the following as the foundation for a series of articles which it is proposed to present in due time. At first glance it may be deemed too abstract for the purpose in view, but it must be remembered that all action is primarily derived from a common basis of life, and that it is from this basis all action must spring, because general principles only are deducible from it:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Although human conception cannot trace existence back to the time when “the Word was God,” the proposition is one which consciousness can accept without analysis, and define and understand as the Absolute in its broadest sense; but, when invested with the infinitude of phenomena and facts, the mind loses itself and gives way beneath the universal evidence that life, power and motion form a unit. Accepting, then, this proposition, without attempting to solve it, a basis is found from which to reason, and which we could not have discovered by reasoning backward from effects. God was in the beginning: the beginning was God. Acknowledging this, the mind cannot conceive of aught else existing in the beginning. He was the Supreme Whole, the great Central Heart, from and by which all things were to come. This truth should be fully accepted, for from it can be shown that the facts of the present are the legitimate outgrowth of this complete Oneness.