Money is valuable rather for the service which it performs than for the
material of which it is composed.
When we consider the transcendantly important character of the service
which money performs--when we reflect that, without it, the achievement
of an advanced civilization would be impossible, we can not escape the
conclusion that, compared with the value of that service, the commodity
value of any material on which the money function may be stamped is too
trifling to merit serious attention.
This will be made clear by reflection on the necessities of the
situation.
So long as society chooses to maintain the automatic or metallic
money-system, it must be obvious that to escape the evils that would
result from a sudden and overwhelming increase in the supply of the
money-material as compared with the entire stock in existence, and the
infinitely more serious evils that would result from a wholly
insufficient yearly addition to that stock, it must have on hand an
enormous accumulation of the metals on which the stamp is placed. It
must be manifest that no material would be fit for universal acceptance
for so important a function as money unless there were available so
great a quantity of it that no sudden shock could be inflicted on
society by ordinary fluctuations in the current yield, or in the current
consumption in the arts.
But, in the nature of things, a supply sufficient to effect that result
would be so enormous as practically to destroy the market value of the
material as a mere commodity if the money function and use were
withdrawn from it.