The whole question is obscured by considering gold, when coined, as exclusively currency, whereas it is also merchandise. In this latter character it comes under the laws governing commerce in other articles. If we go back to Aristotle, we find a definition difficult to improve in our day. “It is agreed,” says this master of thought, “to give and receive in exchange _a substance which, useful in itself_, is easily managed in the usage of life: as, for example, iron, silver, or such other substance as shall have a determined dimension and weight, and which, in order to avoid the embarrassment of continual weighing, _shall be marked by a particular stamp as the sign of its value_.”[337] In quoting these words, Michel Chevalier, the political economist and new-made Senator of France, who has given much attention to this subject, rightly says that the whole question is admirably put and at the same time determined.[338] But the same idea has been presented by Adam Smith in his remarkable work on the Wealth of Nations. “The qualities,” he says, “of utility, beauty, and scarcity are the original foundation of the high price of those metals, or of the great quantity of other goods for which they can everywhere be exchanged. _This value was antecedent to and independent of their being employed as coin, and was the quality which fitted them for that employment._”[339] Therefore it must not be forgotten that coin is something more than money; it is merchandise also. In this character it plays a conspicuous part in the commerce of the world. It differs in bulk from the lumber of Maine, but it is just as much an article of merchandise.