At last, after the flat disks or coins had been for some time in circulation, and the community had found out, by repeatedly weighing and testing them, that each disk represented a constant weight of gold of uniform purity, the idea came at once to every one that the only use of the fanciful images and inscriptions on the disks was to officially testify to the fact of their uniformity of weight and value; and then every body wondered that he could have been so stupid as not to have before recognized the idea and adopted it, in place of every man weighing, cutting up, and testing his gold every time he desired to part with or receive it in making an exchange. An arrangement was accordingly at once made for a public establishment--afterward called a mint--to which every person who so desired could bring his gold and receive it back again after it had been divided into suitable pieces of determinate weight and fineness; the fact that the weight and fineness of each piece had been so proved being indicated by appropriate marks upon the metal. And in this manner "coined money" first came into use on the island. And by this time, also, the money which Robinson Crusoe found in the chest, and which, when it first came into his possession, had neither utility, value, nor use as a standard, or measure of value, had gradually acquired all these several attributes: utility, when the material of which it was composed became capable of satisfying some human desire for it, as an ornament, as a symbol of worship, or for some mechanical or chemical purpose; value (the sole result of labor), when it became an object of or equivalent in exchange, or acquired a power of purchasing other things; a standard, or measure of value, when its purchasing power, by reason of various circumstances, was found to be, if not absolutely permanent, at least more permanent, on the average, than that of any other commodity. The conversion of money into coin was something purely artificial, and the result of law, or statute enactments, the sole object of which was simply to make the money (previously in use) true and in the highest degree convenient. But, as has already been pointed out, money came into use in the first instance without statute, and was the result, as it were, of men's instincts; and the subsequent choice by them of gold, in preference to any other commodities for use as money, was for reasons similar to those which induced men to choose silk, wool, flax, and cotton as materials for clothing; and stone, brick, and timber as materials for houses. It was the thing best adapted to supply the want needed.