Excerpt from Appreciation of Gold: An Essay I regret that this paper is so long; I should have cut it down, had I not been much interrupted during its progress. I wish to make one explanation. I have no prejudice against the use of silver as money. It appears to me to suit some nations and not others - why, it is not useful to discuss here. The larger part of the population of the world appear to prefer it but that fact is hardly an argument for the resumption of its use by us. Formerly we used it as our standard and our legal tender money. To John Locke it seemed the one natural money. We gave it up for reasons which appeared to very competent men to be sufficient. I cannot see anything in the events which have happened to induce us to take it up again. It has not become more stable in value in recent years, and it seems likely to be less stable than ever. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.