Negative (-) 0 1 3 6 10 15 21 28 36 45 55 -------------------------------------------------------- Residual (+) 10 18 24 28 30 30 28 24 18 10 0 That is to say, combining the positive and the negative elements, we get Residual Amounts corresponding to the marginal scale. Thus we see that the value of a stock increases with the increase of its units so long as the positive element is in the ascendant: _i.e._ so long as the increment of value obtained from the newly-acquired good is greater than the decrement of value which its addition causes to every good already in the stock. We may call this the “Up-Grade” of the movement of value. On the other hand, the value of a stock falls in the converse circumstances, and this marks the “Down-Grade” of value. Twice, then, in the development of value is zero touched—when we have nothing and when we have all: in the former case, because value has no object to which to attach; in the latter, because there is no subjective motive to attach it to anything. In practical life, we have mostly to do with the up-grade of value. In most of our possessions, we are so far from superfluity that increase of quantity involves increase of value; while the individual value of the single good sinks, that of the stock rises. And this is the reason why we usually measure wealth and riches by the sum of the values of their elements, and count it hard if the value of our property and our returns goes down. And this, again, is why it seems paradoxical when we find that the amount of goods and enjoyment of wealth and welfare has increased while their “value” has gone down. It does on rare occasions happen that individual branches of economy are for the moment forced on to the down-grade—as in the case of phenomenal weather producing a miraculous crop, or the discovery of new mineral strata of unsuspected richness, or great discoveries in machinery and processes, or, perhaps, the fact of producers extending too fast from overreaching greed or foolish overestimate of demand. But it is probable that the conditions of industry, as a whole, will never be favourable enough to bring production so near excess that the down-grade of value will be permanently entered on. All the same, the existence of what we call the “free gifts of nature” allows us no room to doubt that value disappears whenever superfluity is reached, and this gives us the best confirmation of the statement that it must decrease as we come near it. APPENDIX II THEORY OF VALUE: THE DEMAND SIDE Many of the difficulties in the Theory of Value arise from not keeping clearly before us that it is a Theory of Human Valuation; of the values which men do—not of what they should—put on things. The idea of “intrinsic value” dies hard.