to febrile symptoms, had found itself excluded-suppose under this enlarged power, for the basis of the medicine, that the line u, expressing its utility value, should run up to triple or decuple of its present altitude, would that change disturb the present appreciation under D? Not by an iota. Nay, to press the principle to an excess, suppose u to become infinite-still, in all the cases where D is at all the regulative force, D will continue even under this change to be the sole force. Nay, suppose that, even concurrently with this increase to U-D, by some cheaper or briefer process for obtaining the sulphate, should descend; still, even in such a compound case, (vast increase for U-sudden decrease for D,) not the less, u would still continue inert-potentially capable, under the proper circumstances, of exerting an action which might centuple the price, and pitted against a decreasing force in D; nevertheless, so long as u was not in circumstances to exert the whole action, it could exert none at all; so long as D exerted any force, it would exert the whole.

20;

In the opposite case, where u, or the utility value, is suddenly called into action as the controlling force, it will generally be found that this force, in its extremity, has not only been latent previously as regards any effect upon the price, but latent as regards even the consciousness of the individual appreciator. This we saw in the

10

U

D

--10

case of the musical toy on the Canadian lake. The buyer had not, until a certain moment, been aware of the potential u which really existed to his own contingent appreciation. No necessity had ever arisen that he should enquire rigorously how much he would submit to give in the case of u becoming the operative force. So much of u as was requisite to sustain D, so much as corresponded to D, had always been within the consciousness of the purchaser; and how much further it was capable of ascending, had been hitherto a mere question of useless curiosity. But when a sudden and violent revolution in all the circumstances has arisen for the purchaser, when D is felt to have become infinite, the difficulty of obtaining the article (except by one sole anomalous chance) being now greater than any finite expression could measure,-What follows? Does the price become infinite, as it would do if it were supposed at all to follow D? No; but D, though vexatiously present to the calculations of the purchaser, is no longer operative it has become silent; and the alternate force u (now when the case has taken effect, that either U screwed up to its maximum must rule, or else the article must be lost) instantly steps into the place of D, and becomes exclusively operative. The dotted perpendicular line represents the sudden ascent of u to double of its preceding altitude. How much further it would ascend, must depend entirely upon the feeling and taste of the individual as regulating his wishes, and upon his disposable money as regulating his power.

C

Now, under this symbolic expression we may see at once the hyperbolic extravagance of that notion which has so often been cited with praise from Adam Smith, as though an object might be very great by its capacity in respect of D, and yet very little (or indeed nothing) by its capacity in respect of u. Diamonds, it is asserted, are trivial in respect of u, but enormously high on the scale measured by D. This is a blank impossibility. The mistake arises under a total misconception of what u indicates, as will be shown in a succeeding section. The countervailing proposition in Adam Smith, viz. that other and ordinary objects, such as water, may reverse these conditions, being trivial in respect of D, but vast in respect of u, is also false; false in the mode and principle of valuation. But this latter proposition is false only in fact; it is, at the same time, a very conceivable case: whereas the former proposition is false as to the very ideal possibility-it is inconceivable and monstrous. u may outrun D in any extent; and generally does so to some extent. It is rare that the whole potential utility value is exhausted by the cost or difficulty value. But the inverse case is monstrous: D can never outrun u by the most fractional increment. A man who would, in a case of necessity, give fifty guineas for an article rather than absolutely miss it, may habitually buy it for no more than three, simply because such is the price as squared to the scale of D. But it is impossible that a man, valuing the article (under the very ultimate pressure of u) at eight guineas,

should consent to give twelve, because D could not be overcome for less.

This latter part of the present section, viz. the symbolic illustration of the principles which control exchange value, may seem to the reader too long. Perhaps it is so; but he cannot pronounce it positively "de trop," for it enforces and explains this law, viz. that the two eternally co-present forces, essential to the idea of exchange, nevertheless govern alternately one by oneeach alternately becoming inert, and neither modifying the other by the smallest fraction, when that "other" is raised by circumstances into the true controlling principle. Now, this explanation never can be held useless, so long as it shall be remembered that Adam Smith, in a passage not seldom cited as a proper basis for a whole system of dependant political economy, has absolutely declared it possible for a man to pay, by any assignable sum, a greater price for a commodity than that same man conceives its uttermost intrinsic value to justify: he will give more than the maximum which he would give. Not by one iota less extravagant is the proposition fairly deducible from his words. Diamonds have no u value, he assures us—no use, (which is the one sole ground upon which, at any price, a man buys any thing at all;) and yet, because the D value is great, in spite of this " no use," many a man will give an enormous price for diamonds: which proposition is a fierce impossibility. And although, as will be seen in the proper section, the word

66

use " is here employed most abusively, and in a sense

unphilosophically limited; yet in the same proportion by which this distinction, as to the word "use," will redress some of the extravagant consequences deducible from the Smithian doctrine-in that same proportion will the famous antithesis upon diamonds and water, from which these consequences flow, vanish like a vapour; and thus will become available (against a party not within that writer's contemplation) a remark made by the critical dissertationist on value, (as well as by the late Mr Coleridge,) viz. that oftentimes these plausible paradoxes on that side which offers any brilliancy, will be found quite unsustainable; whilst on that side which can be sustained, they will be found empty truisms-brilliant so far as they throw up a novel falsehood; but where they reverberate a truth, utterly without either novelty or force. This remark was leveled by the dissertationist at others-chiefly (I believe) at Ricardo; but there is a luxury in seeing the engineer of so keen a truth, either in his own person, or that of his friends, "hoist by his own petard."

SECTION III. ON THE TRUE RELATIONS IN LOGIC OF THE EXPRESSIONS U AND D.

THERE is no one manifestation of imbecile logic more frequent, than the disposition to find in all controversies merely verbal disputes. Very early in life I came to be aware that this compendious mode of dismissing weighty questions-by alleging, that in fact they seemed rather