Thus are men enabled to build dwellings, to
prepare clothing, and to supply all the ingenious comforts and
enjoyments which make up the products of industry. On the other
hand, the value of money is only indirect. It cannot be itself
enjoyed, nor be used directly for enjoyment; it is, however, a means
towards this, and of all outward things it is of the highest utility.
We may found a real definition of money provisionally upon these
considerations. It may thus be defined as the universal means of
carrying on the industry of men in exchanging intercommunications with
each other. Hence national wealth, in so far as it can be acquired
by means of money, is properly only the sum of the industry or applied
labour with which men pay each other, and which is represented by
the money in circulation among the people.
The thing which is to be called money must, therefore, have cost
as much industry to produce it, or even to put it into the hands of
others, as may be equivalent to the industry or labour required for
the acquisition of the goods or wares or merchandise, as natural or
artificial products, for which it is exchanged. For if it were
easier to procure the material which is called money than the goods
that are required, there would be more money in the market than
goods to be sold; and because the seller would then have to expend
more labour upon his goods than the buyer on the equivalent, the money
coming in to him more rapidly, the labour applied to the preparation
of goods and industry generally, with the industrial productivity
which is the source of the public wealth, would at the same time
dwindle and be cut down.
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