In the production of corn which appeases our hunger, we remark something analogous to what takes place in the formation of water which quenches our thirst. The ocean, which is the theme of the poet’s inspiration, offers to the Economist also a fine subject of meditation. It is this vast reservoir which gives drink to all human creatures. And yet how can that be, when many of them are situated at a great distance from its shores, and when its water is besides undrinkable? It is here that we have to admire the marvellous industry of nature. We mark how the sun warms the heaving mass, and subjects it to a slow evaporation. The water takes the form of gas, and, disengaged from the salt, which rendered it unfit for use, it rises into the high regions of the atmosphere. Gales of wind, increasing in all directions, drift it towards inhabited continents. There it encounters cold, which condenses it, and attaches it in a solid form to the sides of mountains. By-and-by the gentle heat of spring melts it. Carried along by its weight, [p273] it is filtered and purified through beds of schist and gravel. It ramifies and distributes itself, and supplies and feeds refreshing springs in all parts of the world. Here we have an immense and ingenious industry carried on by nature for the benefit of the human race. Change of form, change of place, utility, nothing is wanting. But where is ‹value›? Value has not yet come into existence; and if what we must call the work of God is to be paid for (it would be paid for if it possessed exchangeable ‹value›)—who could tell the ‹value› of a single drop of this precious liquid? All men, however, have not a spring of pure water at their door. In order to quench their thirst they must take pains, make efforts, exert foresight and skill. It is this ‹supplementary› human labour which gives rise to arrangements, transactions, ‹estimates›. It is here, then, that we discover the origin and foundation of value. Man is originally ignorant. Knowledge is acquired. At the beginning, then, he is forced to carry water, to accomplish the supplementary labour which nature has left him to execute with the ‹maximum› of trouble. It is at this stage that water has the greatest ‹value› in exchange. By degrees the water-carrier invents a barrow and wheels, trains horses, constructs pipes, discovers the law of the siphon, etc.; in short, he transfers part of his labour to the gratuitous forces of nature; and, in proportion as he does so, the value of water, but not its utility, is diminished.