People marvel at … things only because they rarely happen; but the causes for these are as apparent as for others … For example, at night a fearful man who sees a wolf in the fields, or a cat in his room, will immediately assert and judge that it is an enemy or a devil … because he fixes his imagination on these and fears them. And a person devout and rapt [in ecstasy] will judge that it is an angel … A vigorous imagining of a retained species, then, together with a small external appearance or with an imbalance of some internal disposition … produces marvelous appearances in healthy as well as in sick people.
Since money belongs to the community … it would seem that the community may control it as it wills, and therefore may make as much profit from alteration as it likes, and treat money as its own property.
I am of the opinion that the main and final cause why the prince pretends to the power of altering the coinage is the profit or gain which he can get from it.