Has the water, then, changed its nature? Has the Value, which was but now in the service, become materialized and incorporated in the water, as if it were a new chemical element? Has a slight modification in the form of the arrangement between my neighbour and me had the power to displace the principle of ‹value› and change its nature? I am not purist enough to find fault with your saying that the ‹water is worth twopence›, just as you say ‹the sun sets›. But we must remember that metaphors and metonymies do not affect the truth of facts; and that, in strict scientific language, value can no more be said to reside in the water than the sun can be said to go to rest in the sea. Let us attribute, then, to things the peculiar qualities which belong to them—to air, to water, ‹utility›—to services, ‹value›. We may say with propriety that water is ‹useful›, because it has the property of allaying thirst; and it is the service which ‹has value›, because it is the subject of a convention previously debated and discussed. So true is this, that if the well is brought nearer, or removed to a greater distance, the Utility of the water remains the same, but its value is diminished or increased. Why? because the ‹service› is less or greater. The ‹value›, then, is in the ‹service›, seeing that it is increased or diminished according as the service is increased or diminished. The ‹diamond› makes a great figure in works of Political Economy. It is adduced as an illustration of the laws of Value, or of the supposed disturbance of those laws. It is a brilliant weapon with which all the schools do battle. The English school asserts that “Value resides in labour.” The French school exhibits a diamond, and says—“Here is a commodity which exacts no labour and yet is of immense value.” The French school affirms that the foundation of value is utility, and the English school immediately brings forward the diamond in opposition to the [p140] illustrations drawn from air, light, and water. “The air is very useful,” says the English Economist, “but it possesses no value; the ‹utility› of the diamond is almost inappreciable, and yet it possesses more ‹value› than the whole atmosphere;” and the reader is inclined to say with Henri Quatre—“In sooth, they are both right.” They end by landing themselves in an error more fatal than both the others, and are forced to avow that ‹value› resides in the works of nature, and that that value is ‹material›. My definition, as it seems to me, gets rid of these anomalies, and is confirmed rather than invalidated by the illustration which has been adduced.