A HISTORY OF THE CURRENCIES OF THE He knoweth not the law who knoweth not the reason thereof. LORD CHIEF JUSTICE COKE. SECOND EDITION. NEW YORK: H. V. AND H. W. POOR, 68 BROADWAY. LONDON: HENRY S. KING AND CO., 65 CORNHILL. 1877. то GEORGE S. COE, PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN EXCHANGE BANK, AND CHAIRMAN OF THE NEW YORK CLEARING HOUSE ASSOCIATION, IN TOKEN OF ESTEEM FOR HIS CHARACTER, AND IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HIS EARNEST AND INTELLIGENT LABORS FOR THE REFORMATION OF OUR CURRENCY, THIS WORK IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED. Harden PREFACE. In the following pages the subject of Money has been treated as coming within the range of the exact sciences; the conclusions being assumed to be in the nature of demonstrations. That they wholly contradict those laid down in the books, which have been accepted as fundamental truths for more than two thousand years, is due to the fact that a subject which could only be made to yield to rigid analysis has been treated after the manner of Aristotle and the Schools. Although the laws of Money are assumed to be sufficiently laid down in the first part of the work, the writer, from the universal prevalence of erroneous opinions, has lost no opportunity of illustrating them in the discussions which follow. If he have not in all cases clearly established the connection between his conclusions and premises, the reason will, he believes, be found in the fact that he has not, with all his efforts, yet been able entirely to emancipate himself from the methods of the Economists and Schoolmen. BROOKLINE, Mass., 1877. |