I go further. I affirm that value is estimated as much by the labour saved to the recipient as by the labour performed by the ‹cédant› [the man who cedes or makes it over]. Let the reader recall the dialogue which we supposed to take place between the two parties who bargained for the diamond. In substance, it has reference to no accidental circumstances, but enters, tacitly, into the essence and foundation of all transactions. Keep in mind that we here take for granted that the two parties are at entire liberty to exercise their own will and judgment. Each of them, in making the exchange, is determined by various considerations, among which we must certainly rank, as of the greatest importance, the difficulty experienced by the recipient in procuring for himself, by a direct exertion, the satisfaction which is offered to him. Both parties have their eyes on that difficulty, the one with the view of being more yielding, the other with the view of being more exacting. The labour undergone by the ‹cédant› also exerts an influence on the bargain. It is one of the elements of it, but it is not the only one. It is not, then, exact to say that value is determined by labour. It is determined by a multitude of considerations, all comprised in the word ‹service›. [p160] What may be affirmed with great truth is this; that, in consequence of competition, Value ‹tends› to become more proportioned to Effort—recompense to merit. It is one of the beautiful Harmonies of the social state. But, as regards Value, this equalizing pressure exercised by competition is quite external, and it is not allowable in strict logic to confound the influence which a phenomenon undergoes, from an external cause, with the phenomenon itself.[34] ‹Utility.›—J. B. Say, if I am not mistaken, was the first who threw off the yoke of ‹materiality›. He made out value very expressly [p161] to be a ‹moral quality›,—an expression which perhaps goes too far, for value can scarcely be said to be either a physical or a moral quality—it is simply a relation. But the great French Economist has himself said, that “It is not given to any one to reach the confines of science, and Philosophers mount on each other’s shoulders to explore a more and more extended horizon.” Perhaps the glory of M. Say (in what regards the special question with which we are now occupied, for his titles to glory in other respects are as numerous as they are imperishable) is to have bequeathed to his successors a view of the subject which is prolific and suggestive. M. Say’s principle was this—“‹Value is founded on Utility.›”