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

of two useful things, there are two satisfactions implied in it, shows the absurdity of the widely-spread delusion that one man's gain is another man's loss. Whichever of the two parties to an exchange is considered, his only motive for making the exchange is his belief in gain. The man who sells me a hat does me, in my opinion, a greater service than the sovereign I give him can render. As well might one say that it is a loss to engage a good gardener at liberal wages, as if the flowers and fruits he produces are not, to the rich man's feelings, far more valuable than the money he gives as wages. A seller may make an excellent bargain with a man in imminent danger of starvation, and may reap an excessive profit. Nevertheless life is more valuable to the buyer than his coin, and the food is eagerly preferred to the money which would leave him to perish. Every exchange is manifestly a transaction in which both parties concur in recognising that they realise a gain, whatever be the nature of that gain. Why should either of them buy or sell unless a motive of advantage prompts them? It seems superfluous to dwell on such a truism, yet upon the ignorance of it, that obstinate absurdity, the mercantile theory, is founded. The belief is inveterate that it is good to sell and bad to buy, as if traders and sellers did not come into existence from a desire of buyers to obtain the services of the sellers.

It is obvious that the influences which act on the feeling called value are numberless. They vary with every impulse, every conception, every motive which acts upon human conduct. The man who was wont to live on the daintiest fare would give much money for a rat during the siege of Paris. He preferred the

saving of his life to the money with which he bought it. He valued the rat highly. For the same reason a bad harvest may send up the price of bread threefold. Many is the man who has preferred to sacrifice his all rather than violate a moral principle. He values duty at a higher rate than riches. The martyr sacrifices his life rather than abandon his religion. A nation submits to the suffering of higher taxation for the sake of preserving the national honour. Two feelings, two valuings come into play. The regard for honour is the stronger value. To think one's self rich enough, and to cease accumulating wealth in order to secure leisure and its enjoyments is an every day occurrence. Wealth sinks in the valuer's regard. Fashion changes its mood, and suddenly innumerable articles become almost unsaleable, which a short time previously commanded extravagant prices. The feeling of the mind is altered. Enthusiasm, passion, hope, despair, revolutionise the aspect which the world around wears to human feeling. Its feeling of value estimates every object in a different manner. All the endless circumstances which operate in every market act on value, tell upon the impressions of buyers and sellers as to the worth of commodities at the moment. Great bargains are constantly the result of altered values—not of prices, but of the creators of prices and of market-value-the hopeful or desponding feelings of the dealers. There is not a saleable thing in England which may not be at times the sport of feeling, that feeling which is expressed by the verb, I value.

It remains to notice a question which has given rise to much discussion. Is there a measure of value? and

uncomfortably high for his means, or in excess of his estimate of the horse's quality. Bargaining takes place, and ultimately the horse changes owners at two hundred and fifty guineas. Professor Perry has admirably pointed out, that in such a transaction, as indeed in every exchange, every sale, two desires and two efforts are at work. To these must be added two satisfactions. The sale is thus the result of six forces three on each side, all of them mental, all occupied in determining the strength of the feeling, I value, in the minds of two persons. The sportsman desires the horse and the dealer money, or which is the reality always underlying money, those commodities or services which the money will be able to purchase for him. Each man has to make an effort; the one to part with his horse, the other with his money. Lastly, on a comparison of these four feelings, working by pairs on each side, the sportsman comes to the conclusion that he has a higher feeling or esteem for the horse than for two hundred and fifty guineas. The dealer arrives at the opposite sentiment, and the exchange is accomplished. The result is the transfer of two properties, and two satisfactions, one in each of the minds of the buyer and of the seller. Here the nature of value is plainly discerned, the esteem, or caring for, felt for two things in the mind of each of two persons. Both value both the things exchanged. Each values more and prefers to have the thing which the other possesses than that which he himself holds. Each calculates, consciously or not, the severity of the effort he must make to obtain the object of his desire at the loss of what he must give away; and when all is

over each experiences a satisfaction on becoming the possessor of the article he values most. The bargaining itself is an antagonism of feelings, the sportsman struggling to buy the horse on such terms as will render the effort, the sacrifice endurable, the dealer striving to obtain money sufficient to reconcile him to the sale of his horse.

The same holds equally good of an exchange of services, or of a service against money. Professor Perry lays peculiar stress on the employment of the expression service in the place of commodities, but the difference is only one of detail. He admits that the man who supplies you with a barrel of apples has given in exchange a service equal to that of a physician who attends upon a fever. Quite true. The tailor who makes a coat for another man, or the manufacturer who wove the cloth does him a service, and it is that service that he is paid for. For all but an insignificant portion of purchases, the cost of articles exchanged is made up of payment for services, whether in the form of wages for labour or for the assistance of capital. All this is true, and it is highly important to study and understand this mechanism of trade. But the truth is equally expressed by speaking of the commodity itself. The coat sums up all the services rendered to produce it, and when all are counted up, their name is legion. From first to last, including the construction of tools and transport by sea and land, the services given to put a coat on a man's back would reckon up in thousands.

This explanation of the word value differs in essence from the sense attached to it in the expression that the value of a ton of iron is four pounds. The word here