We were led to a similar conclusion by the analysis of the necessities of economic theory. Economic value as a quality, present in a good in definite, quantitative degree, regardless of the idiosyncrasy of the particular holder of the good, we found a necessity of economic thought. The argument may be briefly recapitulated, and a few points added. If goods are to be added together and a sum of wealth obtained, there must be a homogeneous element in them by virtue of which the addition can be made. We do not add a crop of wheat and a lead-pencil,[147] and a gold watch, and twenty dollars and a theatre ticket, on the basis of length or weight or other physical quality. Only by picking out the homogeneous quality, value, can we add them. We cannot compare two economic goods, and put them into a ratio, except on the basis of such a homogeneous quality. We have no terms for our ratios apart from quantities of value, and yet our ratios must have terms. We find economists speaking of value as the essential characteristic or quality of wealth. We find theorists speaking of money as a "measure of values"--a conception only possible if value be a quality of the sort of which we speak, present both in the money measure and in the thing measured in definite quantitative degrees. A point or two may be added. We find economists, notably the Austrians, undertaking the problem of "Imputation," breaking up the value of a consumption good into different parts, one part being assigned to the labor immediately concerned in its production, and other parts of that value to goods of the next "rank"--owned by people different from those who consume the good--and this value further subdivided among goods of remoter ranks,--the whole process possible only if the original value be an objective quantity of the sort described. We find a differential portion of a crop of wheat compared with the land which produced it, and spoken of as a percentage of the land, which is true only if the _value_ of each be considered--and indeed is meaningless, else. Or, we find merchants reckoning their gains in the form of money at the end of the year, as a certain percentage of their capital--which has consisted throughout the year of goods of various sorts. Everywhere in the economic analysis this conception of value has been essential for the validity of the analysis, and this is especially true when we come to the ultimate problems of monetary theory. We may ignore, sometimes, the element of value when dealing with non-monetary problems, in terms of quantities of money, simply because it is not necessary to refer to fundamental principles explicitly all the time. But when we come to the problem of money itself, we must make use of the value concept, and the value concept is implicit in the whole procedure.