science of gain.680
All this accords well with the facts as now accepted, yet how utterly different is Aristotle’s standpoint from that of the modern historian of economic institutions is revealed by his last statement, and indeed by the setting of the entire passage.
His history of money is merely incidental to his purpose of showing that money is the parent and the very life of the false finance which he decries.
He is also more explicit than the other Greek theorists on the function of money. He clearly recognizes the two functions noted by Plato,681 but he deals with them in a much more detailed manner.
His discussion grows out of his theory of distributive justice presented in the Ethics.682 Money was introduced as the exchangeable representative of demand (ὑπάλλαγμα τῆς χρείας),683 since diverse products must be reduced to some common denominator.684 It is thus a medium of exchange, acting as a measure of all inferior and superior values, by making them all commensurable (συμβλητά).685