Page:Karl Marx - The Poverty of Philosophy - (tr. Harry Quelch) - 1913.djvu/95

 only necessary to explain why this particular function has devolved upon gold and silver rather than upon any other commodity. That is a secondary question which is not explained by the chain of the relations of production, but by the specific qualities inherent in gold and silver as material. If, after all, the economists on this occasion have "gone outside their own science and have made this a physical, a mechanical, and historical question, &c.," as M. Proudhon has reproached them with having done, they have only done what they ought. The question is no longer within the domain of political economy.

"What none of the economists," says M. Proudhon, "has either seen or comprehended, is the economic reason which has determined, in favor of the precious metals, the privilege which they enjoy."

The economic reason which no one, and with good cause, has either seen or comprehended, M. Proudhon has seen, comprehended, and bequeathed to posterity.

"But what no one has remarked is that, of all commodities, gold and silver are the first the value of which has been constituted. In the patriarchal period, gold and silver were bought and sold and exchanged in ingots, but even then with an obvious tendency to domination, and with a marked preference. Little by little monarchs took possession of them and set their seal upon them; and from this sovereign consecration sprang money, that is to say the commodity par excellence, which in spite of all the shocks of commerce, maintains a fixed proportioned value and makes itself accepted in payment everywhere. The distinctive feature of gold and silver, I repeat, arise from this that, thanks to their metallic properties, to the difficulties attending their production, and, above all, to the intervention of the public