174 ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES
price movements in modern times, the proposition laid
down in that theory has by no means ceased to have
importance.
In the preceding discussion, no exact definition of money
has been laid down, though, in the drawing of a distinction
between the exchanges effected by credit and those in which
money was used some approach is made to drawing a line
between what is and what is not to be counted as money.
When a proposition is laid down in regard to money and its
relations, it is necessary to apply it only where money is
understood to mean the same thing as it meant when the
validity of the proposition was established. Even if the
proposition be equally valid for broad and narrow significations
 of the term “money,” the necessity of preserving the
same meaning throughout any one discussion makes the
precise formulation of a definition useful. Current usage
applies the term “money” sometimes in a loose, sometimes
'n a strict sense. But for this, the most useful definition
would be one limiting money to full-valued metallic money,
‘hat is to coins the stamp on which merely certifies the
weight and fineness, but which are as valuable as metal,
without the stamp, as they are as coin bearing the stamp.
All use of representative money could be included under
credit, except where the presence of the representative of
the money in circulation implied the holding of the money
for the specific redemption of the representative. In such a
case the money might be held to be effectively in circulation.
The employment of the word “ money ” to designate bankers’
loanable credit precludes the universal limitation of the word
to the narrower use. There is, in consequence, some convenience
 in employing the term occasionally in the one
sense, occasionally in the other, guarding against confusion
by care in calling attention to the passage from one meaning
to the other. The formal definition of General Walker, as
modified by Sidgwick, includes “that which passes freely
from owner to owner throughout the community, in final
discharge of debts and full payment for commodities.” This
definition, in its terms, contains an explanation of why the
ine is drawn as there shown. The universality of acceptance,