So far, those who call value a quality have accepted it as a quality which is measured by the test of exchange. And so long as this is true, the practical reasoning of one school must be surprisingly like the practical reasoning of the other. Strength is a quality, but if wood-chopping be made the official measure of it, it might as well be a mere relation between working time and woodpiles. In such a case it is not strength or power in general that is being measured, not even muscular strength, but merely power-to-chop-wood. Similarly value may be considered as a quality like strength, and called "social marginal utility"

or

power in motivation," but when it is measured no one thinks of using a psychological laboratory for the purpose. The thing really measured is motivation as registered in one particular kind of action, it is not utility in general but the power utility has to produce one kind of effect. The runner may think of his speed as his personal quality and the judge of the races may think of it as a relation between yards and seconds, but to both alike the tape and the stop-watch tell the story of the speed attained in the contest.

Is it possible that some day there will be economists who think of value not only as a quality, but as a quality which may be measured in ways that would conflict with the measure of the exchanges? Perhaps we shall be called on to distinguish between "social value " and exchange value" as Wieser distinguished between "exchange value" and "natural value." If such a distinction is made, it will furnish a difference that will call loudly for settlement.

J. M. CLARK.

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.

THE CONCEPT OF VALUE FURTHER

CONSIDERED

SUMMARY

I. Relation of value concept to causal theory of value, 675. — II. Various roots of relative conception of value: “ Relativity of Knowledge," 676. Geometrical conceptions of relativity; parallel argument for relativity of value, 677. — Doctrine of fixed sum total of values, 680. — Haney's expressions, 681. — Usage in English, French and German, 681. III. General rise or fall of values, 682. Can one good alone have value? 683. Abstract v. concrete ratios, 684. — "Rate of exchange as abstract ratio, 685. "Rate of exchange useless for economic analysis: views of J. B. Clark, Böhm-Bawerk, Carver and C. M. Walsh, 685. — IV. Illustrations of need of absolute value concept, 687. — Fisher's "general price level" an indefensible substitute, 688. -Shift in Laughlin's argument, 690. — V. Speed and value as ratios, 691. The "mathematician's fallacy," 692. — Differences between measurement of speed and measurement of values, 693. - VI. "Rate of exchange as price," 695. — VII. Different consequences of absolute and relative value concepts in economic analysis, 695. - (1) Value a wider concept than exchange, 695. — Value in sociology and in economics, 696. Value and exchange in socialistic state, 696.- (2) Value and exchangeability not correlated, 697. — Nor do prices always correctly express values, except in static theory, 698. - Values as causes of prices, 698. - Temporal relation of cause and effect, 698. (3) Prices often partly controlled by non-economic values, 699. Law, custom, and morals in relation to prices, 699. — Exchange theory of value cannot shirk consideration of these cases, 702. - VIII. (4) "Power in exchange" as equivalent of value, 702. — IX. (5) Schumpeter's use of relative concept as regards land value, 703. — X. Conclusion, 705.

I

IN what follows, I shall regard myself more as Professor Clark's collaborator in a symposium than as his opponent in a debate. At certain points I shall definitely join issue with him, at certain points I shall build upon

his analysis, and I shall try to answer the questions he raises as to the implications of the social value theory. But I shall allow myself a wider range than the topics specifically raised by him, because I do not think that he has included enough considerations to furnish a solution to his problem. I welcome the opportunity which his criticism of some of my doctrine gives to go over the ground again, taking account not only of his views, but also of the views of some other critics.

At the outset, I concur with Professor Clark in the view that it is well to divorce as far as possible the terminological, formal, and logical aspects of the question from the more important questions of causation. This distinction is emphasized in my Social Value. I shall give the major part of my attention to arguments drawn from considerations of logic and scientific method, rather than to arguments based on my own general theory of value. That the two problems cannot be entirely divorced, however, is well enough illustrated in Professor Clark's own paper, particularly in the following (p. 672): "We think of a bushel of wheat having exchange value before it is sold. But so far as this quality, or relation, to which the sale gives a quantitative measure, is the result [italics mine] of previous sales of other bushels and of the whole state of mind of the people concerned that has grown out of settled habits of exchange, it would hardly seem worth debating which comes first in the social scheme of things. It is much like the question of the relative priority of the chicken and the egg." If I could accept this as a theory of the causes governing the value of the bushel of wheat, I might find it easier to concur in Professor Clark's view as to the definition of value. But I do not believe that the passage contains, even in embryo, an adequate theory of the causes governing values.

The history of prices, and the settled habits of exchange, do not seem to me particularly significant elements out of which to construct a theory of value. But my chief concern at present, as Professor Clark's, lies in the formal and logical aspects of the value concept, to which I now turn.

II

The notion of value as relative is Protean. Or perhaps, since old Proteus was, somehow, the same individual despite his many forms, it is better to say that many different notions, having different philosophic roots, go by the name of the relative conception of value. One root is the psychological doctrine that feelings can exist in the mind only if in contrast with something else the contrast being made more fundamental than the feelings contrasted. A single feeling is an impossibility. This doctrine lies at the root of Simmel's theory of relativity, and has been made some use of by Professors Seligman and Pantaleoni. I have dealt with this type of doctrine elsewhere,1 and for the present shall simply say that I regard the doctrine as psychologically untenable,' and that I do not consider the inference drawn from it with reference to the nature

1 Social Value, pp. 19-20, n., and ch. 10.

2 Cf. William James' criticism of the contention that " semper idem sentire ac non sentire are the same. "The Relativity of Knowledge,' held in this sense, it may be observed in passing, is one of the oldest of philosophic superstitions. Whatever facts may be cited in its favor are due to the properties of nerve-tissue, which may be exhausted by too prolonged an excitement. But if we physically could get such a feeling that should last eternally unchanged, what atom of logical or psychological argument is there to prove that it would not be felt as long as it lasted, and felt for just what it is, all that time?" The Meaning of Truth, p. 4, n. Cf., also, James' Principles of Psychology, II, pp. 9 ff. Knowledge, I should maintain, is relative only when it is "knowledge-about." 'Knowledge of Acquaintance " is absolute, i. e., is a term of the "knowledge-about " relationship. Cf. James' Principles of Psychology, vol. i, pp. 221, 222. Cf., also, Dewey's Studies in Logical Theory, chs. 1-4, esp. ch. 3. I am content to rest my view of the matter on authority here, noting that Bergson's view is essentially the same as that of James and Dewey. (Time and Free Will, passim.) All three of these thinkers need terms before they can talk about relations.

of value a proper inference even if the doctrine were sound.

More commonly the doctrine has its roots in geometrical conceptions. Values are treated like spatial magnitudes, which are measured by comparison with other spatial magnitudes, and the argument for the relativity of values runs on all fours with the argument for the relativity of space.

In a recent brilliant article, the French philosophical physicist, Poincaré,1 maintains the thesis that if all dimensions were doubled, we should not know it. Houses would be twice as high, but then foot-rules would be twice as long, and all things would remain in the same relation to one another as before. Whence, he concludes, the relation is the all important thing. Absolute distance is a chimaera. Now this notion is subject to the criticism that it confuses existence with knowledge of existence, and confuses quantity with measurement of quantity. Moreover, in its very statement, it assumes absolute distance: it assumes an absolute distance to be doubled. But we do not need these considerations to dispose of the doctrine. The proposition that we should not know that such a change

1 "The Relativity of Space," Monist, April, 1913. Suppose that in the night all the dimensions of the universe became a thousand times greater; the world will have remained similar to itself, giving to the word similitude the same meaning as in Euclid, Book VI. Only what was a meter long will measure thenceforth a kilometer, what was a millimeter long will become a meter. The bed whereon I lie and my body itself will be enlarged in the same proportion. When I awake tomorrow morning, what sensation shall I feel in the presence of such an astounding transformation? I shall perceive nothing at all. The most precise measurements will be incapable of revealing to me anything of this immense convulsion, since the measures I use will have varied precisely in the same proportion as the objects I seek to measure. In reality, this convulsion exists only for those who reason as if space were absolute. If I for a moment have reasoned as they do, it is in order the better to bring out that their way of seeing implies contradiction. In fact it would be better to say that space being relative, nothing at all has happened, which is why we have perceived nothing (p. 163)." It will be noticed that Poincaré repudiates at the end of this quotation the assumption that an absolute space has been altered, but it is only by making that assumption that he could even state his argument. And the same assumption recurs at every point in the whole of the article. The very notion of relativity is meaningless and unstatable except as there are assumed absolute terms for the relations.