Indeed so strongly does the idea of value rest upon the estimation of the mind that it is not even necessary for an article to possess in reality any desirable quality whatever in order to have value. It will be sufficient if such quality is popularly attributed to it. Numbers of instances could be cited in which there was present no element of value except limitation of quantity, added to a mere belief, or conception of the mind, that the article had desirable qualities. Many will remember that a few years ago a herb called "Cundurango" was introduced into this country from Central America. It was generally believed to possess healing qualities in cases of cancer, and so came to have great value. As soon as this popular illusion was dispelled the article ceased to have even the slightest value. Land being indestructible and irremovable, is believed to be the embodiment of the idea of intrinsic value. Take, then, a lot on Madison Avenue, New York; it is worth perhaps a thousand times as much as a lot of equal size in a village remote from the city. What proportion of its high price is derived from what is called its greater "intrinsic" value? A lot on that fashionable thoroughfare has no intrinsic attribute, or quality, that is not equally the attribute or quality of the village lot. The difference in its value, or, more correctly, the difference in the estimation in which it is held, as compared with that attaching to the village lot, is derived wholly from circumstances that are extrinsic, not from qualities that are intrinsic. The action of society in utilizing land in the neighborhood of the city lot by building up around it gives that lot a value greater than one of equal size elsewhere. But in order that a thing may subserve a useful or beneficent purpose it is not necessary that the quality which enables it to subserve that purpose should be intrinsic or inherent in the thing itself. To apply this reasoning to the subject under discussion--whatever intrinsic qualities the metal, gold, may possess, they confer no force whatever on gold-money. WHAT IS MONEY? The money of a country is that thing, whatever it may be, which is commonly accepted in exchange for labor or property and in payment of debts, whether so accepted by force of law, or by universal consent. Its value does not arise from the intrinsic qualities which the material of which it is made may possess, but depends entirely on the extrinsic qualities which law, or general consent, may confer. Money is of transcendent importance to civilization. It is the physical agency to which society has assigned the function of measuring all equities, and it is the sole agency upon which that incomparable function has been conferred. It is in terms of money that society computes the material value of all human sacrifice, alike the highest effort of genius and the daily toil and sweat of the millions who labor.