Services always intervene to bring out the principle of value. In most cases the anterior labour probably renders a less amount of service than the new labour, but this is not an absolute law which admits of no exception. If the anterior labour renders a less amount of service than the new, as is nearly always the case, a greater quantity of the first than of the second must be thrown into the scale to establish the equiponderance, seeing that the equiponderance is regulated by services. But if it happen, as it sometimes may, that the anterior labour renders greater service than the new, the latter must make up for this by the sacrifice of quantity. [p180] VI. WEALTH. We have seen that in every commodity which is adapted to satisfy our wants and desires, there are two things to be considered and distinguished: what nature does, and what man does,—what is gratuitous, and what is onerous—the gift of God and the service of man—‹utility› and ‹value›. In the same commodity the one may be immense, and the other imperceptible. The former remaining invariable, the latter may be indefinitely diminished; and is diminished, in fact, as often as an ingenious process or invention enables us to obtain the same result with less effort. One of the greatest difficulties, one of the most fertile sources of misunderstanding, controversy, and error, here presents itself to us at the very threshold of the science— What is ‹wealth›? Are we ‹rich› in proportion to the utilities which we have at our disposal,—that is, in proportion to the wants and desires which we have the means of satisfying? “A man is rich or poor,” says Adam Smith, “according as he possesses a greater or smaller amount of ‹useful› commodities which minister to his enjoyments.” Are we ‹rich› in proportion to the ‹values› which we possess,—that is to say, the ‹services› which we can command? “Wealth,” says J. B. Say, “is in proportion to Value. It is great if the sum of the value of which it is composed is great—it is small if the value be small.” The vulgar employ the word Wealth in two senses. Sometimes we hear them say—“The abundance of water is Wealth to such a country.” In this case, they are thinking only of utility. But when one wishes to reckon up his own wealth, he makes what is called an Inventory, in which only commercial Value is taken into account. With deference to the ‹savants›, I believe that the vulgar are [p181] right for once. Wealth is either ‹actual› or ‹relative›. In the first point of view, we judge of it by our satisfactions. Mankind become richer in proportion as they acquire a greater amount of ease or material prosperity, whatever be the commodities by which it is procured. But do you wish to know what proportional share each man has in the general prosperity; in other words, his ‹relative wealth›? This is simply a relation, which value alone reveals, because value is itself a relation.