counters in a game which could not well or briskly go on without counters. But men were in danger of overlooking—and did overlook—the fact that this value was artificial, and deluded themselves with the idea that it was natural. They made a fetich of gold—a master, not a servant, of society.
Morton decided to make a radical change in the denominations of the currency. He had often noted the cumbrousness of accounts in English currency, and the labor of making calculations in it, owing to the irregular ratio of the denominations to each other. He conceived that a currency in which the denominations bore a decimal ratio to each other would render calculations in money infinitely easier. Then, too, the English pound was too large for a unit, and the shilling was too small. There was in circulation in European commerce a silver coin called in Dutch and Spanish daler, in English dollar. Its value was somewhat less than that of the English crown or five-shilling piece. This was a convenient size for a unit, and Morton adopted it as such. The tenth of it he called dima, from the Latin decima, and the hundredth part cent, from centum.
