that Greek question-" Who first invented sneezing?" For my own part, the eldest author, in whom I remember to have traced this distinction formally developed, is Plautus-contemporary with Hannibal. He, in his "Asinaria," has occasion to introduce a lively scene on a question of prompt payment between Argyrippus, a young man then occupied in sowing wild-oats, and Cælereta, a prudent woman settled in business on her own account. She is in fact a lena—which name, however, did not bear so horrid a construction under Pagan morals as most justly it does under Christian: and, in that professional character, she is mistress of a young beauty with whom Argyrippus had celebrated a left-handed marriage some time back, which connexion he now seeks to renew upon a second contract. But for this a price is asked of sixty guineas. The question which arises between the parties respects the propriety of the household economy for the present going on upon tick, which Argyrippus views as the sublimest of philosophical discoveries; whilst the lena violently resists it as a vile one-sided policy, patronized by all who happened to be buyers, but rejected universally by sellers. The following is the particular passage which concerns the present distinction between value in use and value in exchange "ARGYR. Ubi illæc quæ dedi ante? "CÆLER. Abusa: nam, si ea durarent mihi, Mulier mitteretur ad te: nunquam quicquam poscerem. Cætera, quæque volumus uti, Græcâ mercamur fide. Si as habent, dant mercem: eâdem nos disciplinâ utimur. ARG. What has become of those sums which in times past I Save you? CEL. All spent, sir-all consumed; for, believe me, if those monies still survived, the young woman should be dispatched to your house without another word: once paid in full, I'm not the woman that would trouble you for a shilling. Look here:-the successions of day and night, water, sunlight, moonlight-all these things I purchase freely without money; but that heap of things beside, which my establishment requires, those I pay for on the old terms of Grecian credit.* When I send for a loaf to the baker's, for wine to the vintner's, certainly the articles are delivered; but when? Why, as soon as those people have touched the cash. Now, that same practice is what I in my turn apply to others. My hands have still eyes at their finger-ends: their faith is strong in all money which actually they see. For "caution," as you call it—for guarantees— they are nothing: security be d- -d; and that's an old saying. The latter part of the speech wanders off into the difference between the system of prompt payment on the one hand, and of credit on the other. But the part in Meaning-no credit at all, but ready money. One incomprehensible old commentator pretends that Plautus, in this phrase, designed a compliment to Greek integrity! He is obliged, however, to confess, as the true ground of the saying, that “Fluxæ fuerunt olim admodum fidei Græci: idcirco Græcus Græco non fidebat, nisi præsenti et numeratâ pecuniâ." Meantime, though the fluxa fides of the unprincipled Greek was quite undeniable, and, in fact, ruinous to the fiscal service, yet, doubtless, the general want of capital amongst sellers contributed to this absence of credit almost as much as the universal want of probity in the buyers. italics confines itself to the difference between value in use and value in exchange-between the class of things valuable which could be had for nothing, and that other class of things valuable which must be paid for: secondly, which must also be paid for on the spot. The former class is a limited class; the latter so extensive, that she makes no attempt to enumerate the items: she simply selects two, bread and wine, as representative items-one of which is the more striking, because it represents a necessity already provided for by nature in the gratuitous article of water. Here, then, already two centuries before the Christian era, in the second or chief Punic war, is the great distinction brought out into broad daylight between the things useful to man which are too multiplied and diffused to be raised into property, and the things useful to man which are not so multiplied and diffused, but which, being hard to obtain, support the owner in demanding a price for them. Many people fancy that these two ideas never are, nor could be, confounded and some people fancy, amongst whom was Mr Malthus, that in the intercourse of real life the word value, or valuable, never is employed at all, rightly or not rightly, in the original sense as implying mere value in use, but that (except amongst affected or pedantic talkers) this word "value" must always indicate some sort of value in exchange. We never, therefore, according to Mr Malthus, use or could use such a phrase 66 as a valuable friend," or "a valuable doctrine." It would be impossible to say that "we ascribed great value to any deliberate judgment of such a judge;" or that "the friendship of a wise elder brother had proved of the highest value to a young man at Cambridge ;" or that "the written opinion, which we had obtained from Mr Attorney-General, was eminently valuable." Literally, it is terrific to find blank assertions made by men of sense so much in defiance of the truth, and on matters of fact lying so entirely within an ordinary experience. Full fifty times in every month must Mr Malthus himself have used the word "value" and "valuable " in this very natural sense, which he denounces as a mere visionary sense, suggested by the existing books. Now, to show by a real and a recent case, how possible it is for a sensible man to use the words value or valuable in this original sense, not merely where a pure generic usefulness is concerned, but even in cases which must forcibly have pointed his attention to the other sense (the exchange sense) of the words,-I cite in the note below a striking instance of such a use,* from this *“A striking instance of such a use:"-It occurs in a very useful letter (under date of Dantzic, January 21, 1843) on the Baltic corn-trade, from a writer evidently familiar with the subject, and authenticating his statements by a real signature. The object of the writer, Mr J. L. Stoddart, is to expose the true and ultimate operation of all fixed duties considered as protections to the homegrower, under those dreadful fluctuations in price which not man but nature causes, and which "cannot be avoided, in spite of the philosophers, who dream they have discovered the philosopher's day's paper (the London Standard) for February 27th, 1843. may Value in use, therefore, is an idea lurking by possibility under the elliptical term "value" quite as natustone for steadying prices." The purpose and the execution of this gentleman's letter are equally excellent; but the use which he makes of the word value, was so perplexing to me in its particular position and connexion, that at first I apprehended some gross misprint. After one introductory sentence, in which he describes himself as a neutral observer under the advantage of being "removed from the excitement of the struggle between manufacturer and agriculturist," Mr Stoddart goes on to say, that "the value of Dantzic wheat, on an average of export, varies from 5s. to 8s. per quarter ABOVE the value of British average wheat;" and after this astounding statement he adds another not at all less so-viz. that Baltic wheat collectively by which is not meant wheat opposed to the Dantzic wheat, but so understood as to include the Dantzic wheat with safety "be estimated on an average to be 5s. ABOVE the value of the growth of the British Islands." Could I trust my own eyes? Undoubtedly I was aware, and had repeatedly used that conviction in print, that the extreme difference between English wheat and foreign would never turn out such experimentally as to justify the monstrous delusions of the Corn-Law agitators. Well I knew that the working poor man would find the ultimate bonus upon his bread to be next to nothing under whatsoever changes of the Corn-Law; assuming even the stationariness of wages, and assuming also that no such reaction of evil should arise from the injury to our domestic agriculture as unavoidably would arise. All this I knew. But still, though pretty doubtful, and in the issue liable to be dangerously disturbed, any difference which did exist between the prices of Baltic and English wheat was undeniably in favour of the first. That was notoriously the cheaper; if not, how should importation need any legal restraint? Here was the perplexity; but one moment cleared it up. It was a verbal equivoque. Mr Stoddart had pronounced the Baltic wheat by 5s. on a quarter ABOVE the English |