of the most important problems of political economy,' says Espinas, 'is a signal of the approaching end of the Middle Ages and the dawn of the Renaissance.'[6] Dr. Cunningham adds his tribute of praise: 'The conceptions of national wealth and national power were ruling ideas in economic matters for several centuries, and Oresme appears to be the earliest of the economic writers by whom they were explicitly adopted as the very basis of his argument.... A large number of points of economic doctrine in regard to coinage are discussed with much judgment and clearness.'[7] Endemann alone is[8] inclined to quarrel with the pre-eminence of Oresme; but on this question, he is in a minority of one.[9] [Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 186.] [Footnote 2: _Quaest. super Lib. Eth._, v. 17; _Quaest. super Lib. Pol._, i. 11.] [Footnote 3: Quoted in Wolowski, _op. cit._, and see Roscher, _Geschichte_, p. 25.] [Footnote 4: _Op. cit._, p. 190.] [Footnote 5: _History of Economics_, p. 37.] [Footnote 6: _Op. cit._, p. 110.] [Footnote 7: _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, vol. i. p. 359.] [Footnote 8: _Grundsätze_, p. 75.] [Footnote 9: See an interesting note in Brants, _op. cit._, p. 187.] The principal question which Oresme sets out to answer, according to the first chapter of this treatise, is whether the sovereign has the right to alter the value of the money in circulation at his pleasure, and for his own benefit. He begins the discussion by going over the same ground as Aristotle in demonstrating the origin and utility of money, and then proceeds to discuss the most suitable materials which can be made to serve as money. He decides in favour of gold and silver, and shows himself an unquestioning bimetallist. He further admits the necessity of some token money of small denominations, to be composed of the baser metals. Having drawn attention to the transition from the circulation of money, the value of which is recognised solely by weight, to the circulation of that which is accepted for its imprint or superscription, the author insists that the production of such an imprinted coinage is essentially a matter for the sovereign authority in the State. Oresme now comes to the central point of his thesis. Although, he says, the prince has undoubtedly the power to manufacture and control the coinage, he is by no means the owner of it after it has passed into circulation, because money is a thing which in its essence was invented and introduced in the interests of society as a whole.