[62] It is pointed out (e.g., by Davenport in his _Economics of Enterprise_, pp. 53-54) that, mathematically, in a market where large numbers of buyers and sellers confront each other with their respective maximum and minimum valuations on the commodity this interval within which price must fall becomes indefinitely small to the point of vanishing. This is doubtless in accord with the law of probability, but it would be an obvious fallacy to see in this any manner of proof or presumption that therefore the assumptions as to the nature of the individual valuations upon which such analysis proceeds _are true_. In a large market where this interval is supposed to be a vanishing quantity is there more or less higgling and bargaining than in a small market where the interval is admittedly perceptible? And if there _is_ higgling and bargaining (_op. cit._, pp. 96-97), what is it doing that is of price-fixing importance unless there be supposed to be a critical interval for it to work in? Such a use of probability-theory is a good example of the way in which mathematics may be used to cover the false assumptions which have to be made in order to make a mathematical treatment of certain sorts of subject-matter initially plausible as description of concrete fact. [63] As I have elsewhere argued ("Subjective and Exchange Value," _Journ. Pol. Econ._, Vol. IV, pp. 227-30). By the same token, I confess skepticism of the classical English doctrine that cost can affect price only through its effect upon quantity produced. "If all the commodities used by man," wrote Senior (quoted by Davenport, _op. cit._, p. 58), "were supplied by nature without any interference whatever of human labor, but were supplied in precisely the same amounts that they now are, there is no reason to suppose either that they would cease to be valuable or would exchange at any other than the present proportions." But is this inductive evidence or illustrative rhetoric? One wonders, indeed, whether private property would ever have developed or how long modern society would tolerate it if all wealth were the gift of nature instead of only some of it (that part, of course, which requires no use of produced capital goods for its appropriation). [64] Certain points in this discussion have been raised in two papers, entitled, "The Present Task of Ethical Theory," _Int. Jour. of Ethics_, XX, and "Ethical Value," _Jour. of Phil., Psy., and Scientific Methods_, V, p. 517. [65] Cf. also John Dewey, _Influence of Darwin upon Philosophy_, and Dewey and Tufts, _Ethics_, Ch. XVI. [66] _International Journal of Ethics_, XXV, 1914, pp. 1-24. [67]_ Dreams of a Spirit Seer._ [68] Cf. A. W. Moore, _Pragmatism and Its Critics_, 257-78. [69] Croce, _Philosophy of the Practical_, pp. 312 f. [70] G. E. Moore, _Principia Ethica_, p. 147. [71] _Ethics_, ch. V. [72] G. E. Moore, _Principia Ethica_, p. 149. [73] Rashdall, _Is Conscience an Emotion?_ pp. 199 f. [74] _Ibid._, 177.