ABSTRACT
If it is true that general acceptability is the essential characteristic of a currency, one might suppose it impossible to produce any currency which could displace gold. Gold is acceptable at all times and at all places. This for two reasons: the first, more important in the past, lies in the fact that it has a high value apart from its value as money; the second, of the greatest importance now, arises from the fact that it is the medium in terms of which contracts of all kinds are expressed, and consequently the means by which those contracts may unfailingly be discharged. Gold is then the one universally acceptable medium in this sense that it is the ultimate means by which transactions between any two parties may at all times be discharged throughout the greater part of the world.
