The Alliance Independent

AN INVISIBLE REALITY.
Advanced Ideas Regarding the Nature of Money.—Matter and Spirit, and Their Union.

CAN MONEY BE SEEN AND FELT?

An Interesting Letter on an Interesting Subject by an Entertaining Writer.

RUSHVILLE, Neb., Feb. 20, 1893.

Editor Alliance-Independent:

Some time ago you gave your readers my article "What is Money?" I now beg space for the following notes and comments:

I will be as brief as my capacity to "boil down" makes possible, as I know your columns are valuable.

Every intelligent person, especially a reformer, knows how exceedingly difficult, and how nearly impossible it has been, and still is, for promulgators of any new theory or doctrine, however sound or useful it may prove to be, to get the world to practically acknowledge its worth.

Christ, Galileo, Columbus among others are examples.

The "popular" mind runs in grooves. A strange thing is apt to seem "ridiculous" to (almost) everybody. And who doesn't know that "truth is stranger than fiction?"

All advanced thinkers, theorists, innovators and reformers have realized the truth of these lines.

"He is thought a knave or fool
Or bigot plotting crime,
Who for the advancement of his race
Is wiser than his time."

The world has frequently been "confused" by the sudden announcement of "fine-spun" theories and historical doctrines; but the world's paroxysms on account thereof were not often the fault of the said theories and doctrines.

People in general and some individuals in particular are a good deal slower in confession than in conviction. Of this truth you yourself have daily proof and it is precisely because of this fact that political and other reforms are so hard to accomplish.

The above remarks are prefatory to what I want to say on the regular question to which I now come.

Language is a system of relative words or terms, every member relating to something not one of which however is itself that something. Our word "money" relates to a thing, and is not itself that thing. It doesn't matter so long as the thing to which it relates or to which we refer, is understood. The thing "money" is the same the world over, but the relative word or name relating to it differs among different people. The Sioux Indians some of whom pass the writer's house almost daily, call money by the relative name, "muzzahscow". Germans use the word "gelt" as their term referring to money, and so on through nations. So much for "definitions" of anything. A "potent" and "invisible reality" is evidently a thing (of some kind) different from the various relative names or terms used in speaking about or referring to it.

Now what is the thing itself? Well we will say that a hard wind is a "potent" and invisible reality. A rifle ball shot from a rifle while it is flying unseen through the air is a potent and invisible reality. The thing called life (of man or beast) is a potent and invisible reality. A man or horse which is a thing, is composed of two things united; one is matter and the other life or spirit. Both are realities whether separate or united. The matter or flesh is a visible reality. The life or spirit is an invisible reality; and whatever "potency" the man or horse has, as such, he gets from the invisible life or spirit element his "intangible essence" part, and not from the visible or material part.

A dead horse was never known to kick anybody. Now when a horse does kick we naturally or customarily say, and it is "proper" to say, "the horse kicked." But which really did the kicking, the visible reality or the invisible reality? We can easily see that the visible reality of the horse taken alone is a dead horse, perfectly impotent, and so the kicking must logically have been done by the potent and invisible reality—the life, the spirit which was using the visible reality, or the flesh, muscles and bones as an instrument, a vehicle, a conductor of manifested potency or power the same as Lorenzo Crounse and E. J. Rosecrans are being used respectively as governor of Neb. and sheriff of Sheridan county.

Well, what are we going to do about it if it be shown that we can't see money? Why, get all we honestly can of that thing called money, study the subject thoroughly not getting "disgusted" though somewhat "confused" till we understand it the same as we do other subjects.

From my other article I quote first as follows:

"Now I shall claim that by money is exclusively meant that particular something that is a legal tender for the payment of debts. Nothing else is money."

And second: "To show that the money quality or property or function is an invisible, intangible essence or entity take your legal tender U. S. money across the line (imaginary line) separating U. S. territory from that of some foreign government. The spirit of the law, the merely visible expression or evidence of which is stamped on your coins and bills which go with them to, but not across the (imaginary) line, and on the other side you will have your coins and bills absolutely intact and you can see them and feel them yet the money attribute can not be seen any more. You have coins and bills but no money. Not even the stamps (which are held by some to be the money though perfect as ever will make your coins and bills a legal tender money. They are dead and only the carcasses are left for what they are worth."

The first quotation is not disputed