The process of bourgeois production initially takes possession of 
metallic currency as an existing and ready-made instrument, 
which, although it has been gradually transformed, always retains 
its basic construction. The question, therefore, why gold and 
silver, and not other commodities, serve as the material of money 
lies outside the confines of the bourgeois system. We _ shall 
therefore summarise only the most important aspects. The answer 
is simply that the specific natural properties of the precious 
metals, i.e. their properties as use values, correspond to the 
economic functions which make them more capable than all the 
other commodities of being the vehicles of money functions. 

Like labour time itself, the object to be recognised as its specific 
embodiment must be able to express purely quantitative differ- 
ences, thus presupposing identical, homogeneous quality. This is 
the first condition for the functioning of the commodity as a 
measure of value. If, for instance, one evaluates all commodities in 
terms of oxen, hides, corn, etc., one has in fact to measure them 
in ideal average oxen, average hides, and average corn, since there 
are qualitative differences between one ox and another, one lot of 

corn and another, one hide and another, there is a difference in 
the use value of the specimens of one and the same kind. This 
requirement of absence of qualitative differences regardless of 
time and place, and hence, the requirement of equality at equal 
quantity is the first requirement from this aspect. 

The second, which also springs from the necessity of presenting 
a merely quantitative difference, is great divisibility and subse- 
quent combination of the parts so that, depending on the 
magnitude of the value of the [B’-14] commodity, the universal 
equivalent can be cut up into parts, without thereby damaging its 
use value. Gold and silver, as simple bodies, with a purely 
quantitative division, can be brought to one and the same degree 
of fineness. Sameness of quality. Similarly divisible and recombin- 
able. 

It can even be said of gold that it is the earliest known metal, 
the first discovered metal. In the great gold sluices, the rivers, 
Nature itself undertakes the work of the art and hence requires on 
the part of man in finding it no more than very crude work and 
neither science nor developed instruments of production. 

“THE PRECIOUS METALS UNIFORM IN THEIR PHYSICAL QUALITIES, SO THAT EQUAL 
QUANTITIES OF IT SHOULD BE SO FAR IDENTICAL AS TO PRESENT NO GROUND FOR 
PREFERRING THE ONE TO THE OTHER. THIS IS NOT THE CASE WITH EQUAL NUMBERS OF 
CATTLE AND EQUAL QUANTITIES OF GRAIN.” 4 

Gold is, besides, found in a purer state than all the other metals: in a native, 
crystalline form, in separate pieces: “separated from the usually occurring bodies”, 
seldom alloyed with any other, except silver. Gold “isolated, individualised”. 

“GOLD DIFFERS REMARKABLY FROM THE OTHER METALS, WITH A VERY FEW EXCEP- 
TIONS, IN THE FACT, THAT IT IS FOUND IN NATURE IN ITS METALLIC STATE’ (the other 
metals are found in minerals (in their chemical being). “IRON AND COPPER, TIN, LEAD, 
AND SILVER ARE ORDINARILY DISCOVERED IN CHEMICAL COMBINATIONS WITH OXYGEN, 
SULPHUR, ARSENIC, OR CARBON; AND THE FEW EXCEPTIONAL OCCURRENCES OF THESE 
METALS IN AN UNCOMBINED, OR, AS IT WAS FORMERLY CALLED, VIRGIN STATE, ARE TO BE 
CITED RATHER AS MINERALOGICAL CURIOSITIES THAN AS COMMON PRODUCTIONS. GOLD, 
HOWEVER, IS ALWAYS FOUND NATIVE OR METALLIC... AGAIN GOLD, FROM THE CIR- 
CUMSTANCE OF ITS HAVING BEEN FORMED IN THOSE ROCKS WHICH ARE MOST EXPOSED TO 
ATMOSPHERIC ACTION IS FOUND IN THE DEBRIS OF THE MOUNTAINS; ...the FRAGMENTS of 
these ROCKS BROKEN OFF, ... BORNE BY FLOODS INTO THE VALLEYS, AND ROLLED INTO 
PEBBLES BY THE CONSTANT ACTION OF FLOWING WATER... Gold is deposited because of 
its specific gravity. So it is found in riverbeds and in alluvial deposits. Alluvial gold 
was the first gold to be discovered.” (River-sluicing learnt before mining)... 

“GOLD MOST FREQUENTLY OCCURS PURE, OR, AT ALL EVENTS, SO NEARLY SO THAT ITS 
METALLIC NATURE CAN BE AT ONCE RECOGNISED, whether in alluvial deposits or in 
QUARTZ VEINS... RIVERS ARE, INDEED, GREAT NATURAL CRADLES, SWEEPING OFF ALL THE 

LIGHTER AND FINER PARTICLES AT ONCE, THE HEAVIER ONES EITHER STICKING AGAINST 
NATURAL IMPEDIMENTS, OR BEING LEFT WHEREVER THE CURRENT SLACKENS ITS FORCE OR 
VELOCITY... IN ALMOST ALL, PERHAPS IN ALL THE COUNTRIES OF EUROPE, AFRICA, AND 
ASIA, GREATER OR SMALLER QUANTITIES OF GOLD HAVE FROM EARLY TIMES BEEN WASHED 
BY SIMPLE CONTRIVANCES FROM THE AURIFEROUS DEPOSITS, ETC.” [Lectures on Gold for 
the Instruction of Emigrants about to Proceed to Australia. Delivered at the Museum of 
Practical Geology. London, 1852, pp. 171-72, 8, 10, 12, 93-94]. 

The washing and digging of gold are perfectly simple works, while 
MINING (SO also GOLD-MINING) IS AN ART REQUIRING THE EMPLOYMENT OF CAPITAL and 
more COLLATERAL sciencrs and arts than any other industry.//The 

washing of ore taken care of by Nature.// 

Exchange value as such implies a common substance and the 
reduction of all the differences to merely quantitative ones. In the 
function of money as measure, all values are reduced first of all to 
merely different quantities of the standard commodity. That is the 
case with the precious metals, which, therefore, appear as the 
natural substance of exchange value as such. 

“A peculiar feature of metals is that in them alone all relations are reduced to a 
single one, namely, their quantity, for they have not been endowed by Nature with 
any difference of quality either in their internal composition or in their external 
form and structure” (Galiani, I.c. [Della Moneta], pp. 126-27). 

( SAMENESS OF QUALITY IN ALL PARTS OF THE WORLD; ADMIT OF MINUTE DIVISION AND 
EXACT APPORTIONMENT.) 

This merely quantitative difference is just as important for 
money as means of circulation (coin) and means of payment, since 
money, a single piece of money, has no individuality, and the 
important thing is that what has to be returned is merely an equal 
quantity of the same material, but not the same piece: