‹Judgment.›—I admit, with Storch, that value results from a judgment formed, provided it is granted me that the judgment so formed is not upon the utility of things, but on the utility of ‹services›. Thus I hope to satisfy Economists of all shades of opinion. I [p170] admit them all to be right, because all have had a glimpse of the truth in one of its aspects. Error is no doubt on the reverse of the medal; and it is for the reader to decide whether my definition includes all that is true, and rejects all that is false. I cannot conclude without saying a word on that ‹quadrature› of Political Economy—‹the measure of value›; and here I shall repeat, and with still more force, the observation with which I terminated the preceding chapters. I said that our wants, our desires, our tastes, have neither limit nor exact measure. I said also that our means of providing for our wants—the gifts of nature, our faculties, activity, discernment, foresight—had no precise measure. Each of these elements is variable in itself—it differs in different men—it varies from hour to hour in the same individual,—so that the whole forms an aggregate which is mobility itself. If, again, we consider what the circumstances are which influence value—utility, labour, rarity, judgment—and reflect that there is not one of these circumstances which does not vary ‹ad infinitum›, we may well ask why men should set themselves so pertinaciously to try to discover a fixed measure of Value? It would be singular, indeed, if we were to find fixity in a mean term composed of variable elements, and which is nothing else than a Relation between two extreme terms more variable still! The Economists, then, who go in pursuit of an ‹absolute measure of value› are pursuing a chimera; and, what is more, a thing which, if found, would be positively useless. Universal practice has adopted gold and silver as standards, although practical men are not ignorant how variable is the value of these metals. But of what importance is the variability of the measure, if, affecting equally and in the same manner the two objects which are exchanged, it does not interfere with the fairness and equity of the exchange? It is a ‹mean proportional›, which may rise or fall, without, on that account, failing to perform its office, which is to show the ‹Relation› of two extremes.