CHAPTER IV 
THE NOTION OF MONEY AND THE NOTION OF A MONETARY 
STANDARD 
§ 1. The notion of money and the notion of commodities— 
money of account and real money. 
IN the view of the classical economists money is 
essentially a commodity, and even “a commodity like any 
other,” as John Stuart Mill said. Doubtless this should 
be understood to mean that its economic characteristics 
are derived from its quality as a commodity, that its value 
will be determined like that of any other commodity and 
finally that monetary phenomena, which are commonly 
connected with the value of currency, can be explained by 
reference to the same laws which govern the exchange 
value of any commodity in a normal market. This idea 
doubtless has some foundation in history; for man does 
not appear ever to have “invented” money. Objects of 
common use such as domestic animals (e.g., sheep), 
foodstuffs or other objects capable of preservation, e.g., 
salted fish, furs, balls of lead, and, more commonly, 
precious metals, have been accepted in barter, with a view 
to further exchange, even when the recipient did not actually 
require them for his own use. Such commodities have 
thus become ordinary media of transactions or in other 
words instruments of exchange; and, as little by little 
the exchange of a given commodity for a currency com- 
modity took the place of the direct exchange of two 
commodities, required for immediate use, or in other 
words barter, the habit was formed of assigning to every 
commodity a value in terms of the currency commodity, 
which thus became the common standard of values. 
As the currency commodity came to be chosen more 
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