The Merchant of Venice is, above all, a paly in which the acquisition and accumulation of wealth have greater significance than as ends in themselves. When people procure wealth it gives them purchasing power, which can be converted into power that influences relationships. The reason Antonio can "hold the world but as the world" is that he is a man who has accumulated great wealth and has the means to get more without much care; his self-righteousness, which is in conflict with that of Shylock, comes from what he has, his wealth. However, wealth is "profoundly social," not personal. In addition, man cannot possess a thing in the true sense of the word. The thing that makes a man think that he possesses something is a conception which, like an exact pound of bloodless human flesh, does not exist in the real world; in exists only in the mind. Therefore, when two people insist on having justice done, their respective senses of justice, being such conceptions, cause a mutually destructive result the very mement they are achieved, for they are impossible to be realized in the real world. So all conflicting human relations, eapecially in the commercial world like the Venice of this play, need to be "seasoned" with mercy because it benefits both the giver and the taker. This is what the play as a whole means.