As we have seen, the silver mine is the most divergently interpreted prop in the novel, whose "character" is that it has a different meaning to everybody. The phrase thus coyly undermines the rest of the sentence, with its over-insistence on "one common" uniting ideal. In fact, the San Tomé party is made up of irreconcilable factions and in Part Two will disintegrate. Indeed, the double meaning of "mine" as "personal possession" is in force here: reading at that level the "ever-present aim," which must be preserved "at every cost," is one's own private ambition. For the moment the various ambitions seem to coincide in a common cause, but the same "one" imperative of personal fulfilment is exactly what will destroy the party later.

On another note, "character" is a word Conrad uses very carefully in the novel, always referring to the unique value of human personality, which he lauds as mankind's only true treasure. Ascribing "character" here to the false treasure, the silver mine, underscores the misplaced value of the dream-ideal of the State.