22.3. 3. Of ideal Money.
There is both real and ideal money. Civilised
nations generally make use of ideal money only, because they have
converted their real money into ideal. At first their real money was
some metal of a certain weight and standard, but soon dishonesty or want
made them retrench a part of the metal from every piece of money, to
which they left the same name; for example, from a livre at a pound
weight they took half the silver, and still continued to call it a
livre; the piece which was the twentieth part of a pound of silver they
continued to call a sou, though it is no more the twentieth part of this
pound of silver. By this method the livre is an ideal livre, and the
sou an ideal sou. Thus of the other subdivisions; and so far may this
be carried that what we call a livre shall be only a small part of the
original livre or pound, which renders it still more ideal. It may even
happen that we have no piece of money of the precise value of a livre,
nor any piece exactly with a sou, then the livre and the sou will be
purely ideal. They may give to any piece of money the denomination of
as many livres and as many sous as they please, the variation may be
continual, because it is as easy to give another name to a thing as it
is difficult to change the thing itself.
To take away the source of this abuse, it would be an excellent law
for all countries who are desirous of making commerce flourish to ordain
that none but real money should be current, and to prevent any methods
from being taken to render it ideal.
Nothing ought to be so exempt from variation as that which is the
common measure of all. Trade is in its own nature extremely uncertain;
and it is a great evil to add a new uncertainty to that which is founded
on the nature of the thing.
