The difference between a representative conception and a thought proper may be illustrated by the case of the term 'Money.' Money may be either a materialised thought, i. e. a Representative Conception, or a Notion Proper. In the former case, money is identified with a piece of money. It is probably, in the first instance, embodied in coins of gold, silver, and bronze. In the second place, a wide gulf is placed between it and the other articles for which it is given in exchange. If other things are regarded as money, they are generally treated on the assumption that they can in case of need be reduced to coinage. The conception of money by the unscientific vulgar considers it separately from other commodities: and the laws which forbade its exportation gave a vigorous expression to the belief that it was something _sui generis_, and subject to conditions of its own. The scientific notion of money modifies this belief in the peculiarity and fixity of money. Science does so historically, when it can point to a time and a race where money in our sense of the word does not exist, and where barter takes the place of buying and selling. Science does so philosophically, when it expounds what may be called the _process_ of money,--the inter-action or meeting of conditions to which the existence of money is due. The notion of money, as given in the _Ethics_ of Aristotle, says that it is the common measure of utility or demand. When we leave out of sight the specific quality of an object, and consider only its capacity of satisfying human wants, we have what is called its worth or value. This value of the thing,--the psychological fact which is left, when all the qualities marking the objective thing are reduced to their social efficiency--is the notion, of which the currency is the representation, reducing thought to the level of the senses, and embodying the 'ideality' of value in a tangible and visible object. So long as this 'idea' of value is kept in view, the currency is comprehended: but when the perception of the notion disappears, money is left a mere piece of currency, the general notion being narrowed down to the coinage. Thus the notion of money, like other notions in their ideal truth, is not in us, nor in the things merely: it is what from a minor point of view, when we and the things are regarded under the head of want or need, may be called the _truth_ of both, the unity of the two sides. Thus considered, money falls into its proper place in the order of things. [Footnote 1: _Werke,_ ii. 529, 555.] [Footnote 2: Hegel's _Werke_, ii. 431: '_Wobei das Selbst nur repräsentirt_ und vorgestellt ist, da ist es nicht wirklich: we es vertreten ist, ist es nicht.' Cf. _ib._ 416.] [Footnote 3: _Philosophie der Religion,_ i. p. 137 seqq.] CHAPTER XXIV. FROM SUBSTANCE TO SUBJECT.