There is another remark which I would make here. In human life, inexperience and thoughtlessness precede experience and foresight. It is only in the course of time that men are enabled to foresee each other’s wants, and to make preparations for satisfying them. Logically, the ‹facio ut facias› must precede the ‹do ut des›. The latter is at once the fruit and the evidence of a certain amount of knowledge diffused, of experience acquired, of political security obtained, of a certain confidence in the future,—in a word, of a certain degree of civilisation. This social prescience, this faith in a future ‹demand›, which causes us to provide a present ‹supply›; this sort of intuitive acquaintance with statistics which each possesses in a greater or less degree, and which establishes a surprising equilibrium between our wants and the means of supplying them, is one of the most powerful and efficacious promoters of human improvement. To it we owe the division of labour, or at least the separation of trades and professions. To it we owe one of the advantages which men seek for with the greatest ardour, the fixity of remuneration, under the form of ‹wages› as regards labour, and ‹interest› as regards capital. To it we are indebted for the institution of credit, transactions having reference to the future, those which are designed to equalize risk, etc. It is surprising, in an Economical point of view, that this noble attribute of man, Foresight, has not been made more the subject of remark. This arises, as Rousseau has said, from the difficulty we experience in observing the medium in which we live and move, and which forms our natural atmosphere. We notice only exceptional appearances and abnormal facts, while we allow to pass unperceived those which act permanently around us, upon us, and within us, and which modify profoundly both individual men and society at large. To return to the subject which at present engages us. It may be that human foresight, in its infinite diffusion, tends more and more to substitute the ‹do ut des› for the ‹facio ut facias›; but we must never forget that it is in the primitive and ‹necessary› form of exchange that the notion of value first makes its appearance, that this primitive form is that of reciprocal service; and that, after all, [p176] as regards exchange, the product is only a ‹service foreseen› and provided for.