ABSTRACT
Money remedies the three inconveniences, and thereby performs two distinct functions of high importance, acting as – a medium of exchange and a common measure of value. All exchanges will most readily be calculated and adjusted by comparison of the money values of the things exchanged. Money, when acting as a medium of exchange, circulates backwards and forwards near the same spot, and may sometimes return to the same hands again and again. Every person making a contract by which he will receive something at a future day, will prefer to secure the receipt of a commodity likely to be as valuable then as now. This commodity will usually be the current money, and it will thus come to perform the function of a standard of value. It is in the highest degree important that the reader should discriminate carefully and constantly between the four functions which money fulfils, at least in modern societies.
