But it is not
a question that greatly interests either the scientist or the
industrialist because there is not much to be learned from it and not
much to be made out of it. If the inventor of a process for making
cheap diamonds could keep his electric furnace secretly in his cellar
and market his diamonds cautiously he might get rich out of it, but he
would not dare to turn out very large stones or too many of them, for if
a suspicion got around that he was making them the price would fall to
almost nothing even if he did sell another one. For the high price of
the diamond is purely fictitious. It is in the first place kept up by
limiting the output of the natural stone by the combination of dealers
and, further, the diamond is valued not for its usefulness or beauty but
by its real or supposed rarity. Chesterton says: "All is gold that
glitters, for the glitter is the gold." This is not so true of gold, for
if gold were as cheap as nickel it would be very valuable, since we
should gold-plate our machinery, our ships, our bridges and our roofs.
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