lished; but it has been determined by the feeling, value, the affection felt for the object. The ratio of exchange, the quantity of money, or money's worth, has been defined by the action of mind, of will, under the impulse of the feeling, value.

The force which is so visible at an auction pervades all exchanges. The sentiment that a commodity or service is desirable, compared with the counter feeling of the sacrifice to be endured for its acquisition, governs the very large class of transfers of property effected by bargaining. It rules at fairs, in the purchases of shorthorns and southdowns, in the speculative dealings of merchants and traders, in all the bazaars of the East. It matters not whether the motive at work be the desire of profit or that of acquiring an esteemed object; the governor of the exchange is the feeling called value. It is master of the situation, according as the internal, the mental circumstances of the case may be. It rules and decides amidst the distresses of scarcity, or the agonising surrender of some beloved object to necessity, or the needs of the hour, or the chances of a future market. If purchase is accomplished, the feeling is established that the object obtained, however trifling under other circumstances, is at the time a more desirable possession than the thing sacrificed with so much pain. A horse excited a stronger sense of value in Richard on the day of battle than his kingdom.

On the same principle, the fees of the great barrister or the eminent surgeon are regulated by the conflicting ideas of themselves and of their clients. The claim seems excessive; it is shrunk from as overwhelming; but on no other terms can the great speech or the skilful opera

tion be obtained, and the esteem felt for such service prevails. Still wider yet is the range which the judgment of the mind exercises in selling. Its decrees underlie those prices which are paid so readily and so naturally over all the shops. The signs of the struggle between the two values, the two opinions on the worth of the thing sold, are not plainly visible; and hence it is easy to be misled here as to their existence. Yet if consumers are struck in a particular part of their fortunes, if war or a bad harvest has raised expenditure, some articles formerly bought have had the regard for them smothered by other feelings; they are purchased in diminished quantities, or perhaps not at all. If we look at trade-unions we shall see the same spectacle. What are strikes but outbreaks of feeling, of ideas? The Unionist thinks that he can enforce a higher compensation for the sacrifice of his toil. If he conquers in the strike, he must be satisfied by higher wages; the feeling of value has prevailed, and raised prices proclaim a victory dictated by temper, sentiment, and ideas.

In the domain of labour, the feeling, value, is as paramount as in every other. In purchases which are guided by fancy, such as rare porcelain or jewels, the supremacy of sentiment is acknowledged; but for the vast buying and selling of ordinary commodities, the principle of cost of production is held to govern the market-price, and the thought of sentiment and feeling as ruling price occurs to but few minds. Nevertheless in the regulation of ordinary wages, the feeling of the reward which a man will require for placing his labour at the disposal of another plays an extremely important

part. A man will work rather than starve, but there are multitudes who deliberately prefer indifferent wages and a low condition of living to the efforts involved in hard continuous work. We have seen that such a temper is found to prevail in many races. They do not become rich because their regard for wealth, their feeling of value towards it, is inferior to their regard for ease.

The same mood of mind was formerly seen in the idleness of Irish labourers. A higher feeling is now producing greater exertions accompanied by corresponding satisfactions. The energetic Scotchman prefers hard work to lounging about. He values more the fruits of toil than the pleasures of idleness. Populations who found that the reward for toil was unequal to its severity have failed to keep up their numbers. Character, as everyone knows, exercises enormous power on the production of wealth, both in nations and in individuals, and the dominant element of character in this region is the quality, strength, and direction which its feelings of value possess. What is the miser, who slaves all his life through, and has accumulated a colossal fortune, of which he has had no other enjoyment than the gratification imparted by its increasing size, but an exhibition of the strength in a particular direction of the feeling, value?

The relation of value to utility now becomes evident. Many writers have identified the two as being two words for the same thing. To be useful and to be valuable appeared to them to be two equivalent expressions. The preceding definition of value points out the difference. Value resides in the mind, utility is a quality of an object. It is fitted by its nature to render

a service which is needed or grateful. That is the result of its material constitution. The perception of this capacity to render a grateful service excites a regard for that object, an appreciation of what it may do for the observer, it becomes cared for and esteemed, it is valued, and a desire to possess it is kindled, if that be practicable. Utility gives birth first to value and then to desire, and all the three qualities are entirely irrespective, as far as their nature is concerned, of the object being capable of being exchanged or sold.

It is further very important to observe that utility is coextensive with value and desire. Value is the personal feeling of the valuer. When an object is recognised to be capable of furnishing a gratification, and has kindled a desire for its possession, the sentiment of value has been created, and the sole essence of all these feelings is the wish to procure a gratification. Be the useful quality what it may, if it is able to excite the desire to obtain it, though that desire be a whim or a folly of any kind, if it generates a willingness to make a sacrifice in order to obtain possession of the object, or to resist the temptation of parting with it, then that utility has succeeded in giving birth to the feeling of value as truly as the noblest object of admiration and respect could have done. The principle is universal. Every utility recognised by any mind, and calling up a desire for its possession, brings value into existence, whatever may be thought of such a desire in respect of morality or rationality.

The cardinal fact that value is the offspring of utility, and that consequently, as every exchange is the transfer

possession enable its owner to command the labour of others so many days? or which is the same thing, Why is it necessary for the labourer to spend so many days in order to procure the commodity in question? Thus value and wages are the same phenomenon seen from two different points of view, and the answer which naturally suggests itself to both questions is, Because it has required just so many days' labour to produce the commodity." It is evident that the idea of esteem has here disappeared. In its place we have "so many days' labour;" or, we may suppose, such an amount of wages. Thus in reality we are brought to Mr Mill's definition, to market value, to command over a given quantity of commodities in exchange. Only for commodities days' labour is substituted, as being the regulator of the quantity of commodities given in exchange for the thing possessing value. Feeling has no place in this definition of value. The command of a day's work is made to be value.

It is unnecessary to say more to show the want of success which has attended the many attempts to answer that very natural, but very unmanageable question, What is value? The review of the diverse opinions expressed almost seems to justify the remark of one who himself embarked on this sea of troubles in an unpublished and extremely intelligent essay on value, the late Colonel Macdonald. "It cannot be denied that no science was ever buried under such a mass of unintelligible pages and hidden from the light of common sense by words without knowledge than the science of Political Economy; and yet ignorance and error here must be followed by evils more fatal to the comfort and