MR. MERCHANT: Hold on just a minute before you go any further, as I want to know whether anyone here can tell me what intrinsic value is. We heard so much about that during the campaign of 1896; and I want to know whether there is anything in it or not. I ran up against the same expression in one of the books that I thumbed away back in 1896. And today you sometimes hear men say that gold has intrinsic value. Now, according to your definition, if no one could use gold, or rather did not use it and you could not exchange it for anything else, it would not have value. MR. BANKER: Precisely so. Nothing is more absolutely true than that. Gold, like everything else, gets its value from the demand for it, which comes from its use and its consequent exchangeability. MR. LAWYER: That is undoubtedly true, all the value that gold has arises from its use and exchangeability, and its exchangeability arises from its universal use. It may be said, possibly, that the value of anything is measured by the use to which it can be put; but I believe that it is all covered by the latter part of the definition given by Mr. Manufacturer: _The value of anything is any other thing for which it can be exchanged._ Anything has value when it is exchangeable; when it is not exchangeable it has no value. What is really more in keeping with our common everyday language, is the definition of the Roman Law, "The value of anything is what it can be sold for." MR. BANKER: Yes, that is true in one sense, but I think we had better make a distinction between receiving money and something else. If you exchange anything for money, the amount of money received is more properly called its price. MR. LAWYER: You are right; I think we should make just that distinction: "The value of anything is the thing you receive in exchange for it." _The price of anything is the money you receive in exchange for it._ Of course in everyday conversation, we are constantly using value and price indiscriminately. We ask, what is the value of something, when we want to know the price of it. UNCLE SAM: Well, you have made short work of two topics or points raised already. MR. FARMER: Yes, and if we keep our noses to the grindstone, our eyes on the sickle we are grinding, and our feet on the ground, we'll make headway right along. MR. LABORINGMAN: I think anybody can understand this subject, at least so far anyway. We may get over our heads before we get through, but I know I'm all right yet. UNCLE SAM: The great thing to do in a discussion of this kind is just what you do in any other matter. Talk common sense. Just talk horse sense. Do you know I flatter myself that the common sense of the American people is the wealth of the country?