apparently a matter of Uie future rather than of the recent past, in spile of tUu great improvemeDla that have been made lo the use of credit. Tlie modern conventional imputation of stability to the money unit dates back to the r^lme of a " money ecoQomy," such a« prevailed uuder the circumetaoceg of handicraft and the earlier huckstering commerce, and It liolds its place in llis developed "credit economy" largely aa a aui^lval of this more el'*mvntary past phsM of economic life.
BUSINESS PRINCIPLES 86
of accounting, and the accounts are kept in terma of the money unit, not in terms of livelihood, nor in terms of the serviceability of the goods, nor in terms of the mechanical efficiency of the industrial or commercial plant. For business purposes, and so far as the business man habitually looks into the matter, the last term of all transactions is their outcome in money values. The base line of every enterprise is a line of capitalization in money values. In current business practice, variations from this base line are