The value of money must be determined by the quantity of metal it contains; that is, it returns to what it was before, when princes had not yet stamped their effigy or seal upon pieces of metal; at that time 'neither copper, nor gold, nor silver were minted, but only valued according to their weight'; arbitrary signs were not accorded the value of real marks; money was a fair measure because it signified nothing more than its power to standardize wealth on the basis of its own material reality as wealth.