I foresee what may be advanced against this assertion of the non-mechanical nature of the economic principle. It may be said: What is not mechanical, is not measurable; and economic values, on the contrary, _are measured_. Although hitherto the unit of measurement has not been found, it is yet a fact that we distinguish very readily _larger_ and _smaller_, _greater_ and least _values_ and construct scales of values. This suffices to establish the _measurability_ and hence the essentially mechanical nature of economic value. Look at the _economic man_, who has before him a series of possible actions _a_, _b_, _c_, _d_, _e_, _f_, ...; which have for him a decreasing value, indicated by the numbers 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 ... just because he _measures_ value, he decides on the action a=10, and not on c=8 or f=6. And there is no fault in the deduction granted the existence of the _scale of values_, which we have just illustrated by an example. _Granted the existence_: but, supposing this to be an _illusion_ of ours? If the man in the example, instead of being the _homo oeconomicus_ were the _homo utopicus_ or _heterocosmicus_, not to be found even in imaginative constructions? This is precisely my opinion. The supposed _scale of values_ is an absurdity. When the _homo oeconomicus_ in the given example, selects _a_, all the other actions (_b_, _c_, _d_, _e_, _f_, ...) are not for him _values smaller than a_; they are merely _non-a_; they are what he rejects; they are _non-values_. If then the _homo oeconomicus_ could not have _a_, he would be acting _under different conditions_: under conditions without _a_. Change the conditions and the economic action--as is well known--changes also. And let us suppose that the conditions are such that, for the individual acting, _b_ represents the action selected by him; and _c_, _d_, _e_, _f_, ... those which he omits to do, and which are all _non-b_, _i.e._ have no value. If the conditions change again and it is supposed that the individual decides on _c_, and then on _d_, and then on _e_, and so on. These different economic actions, each _arising under particular conditions_, are _incommensurable_ amongst themselves. They are _different_; but each is perfectly adapted to the given conditions, and can only be judged _in reference to these conditions_. But then what are these numbers, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 ...? They are _symbols_, symbols of what? What is the _reality_ beneath the numerical symbol? The reality is the _alteration in the actual conditions_; and these numbers show a succession of changes: neither more nor less than is indicated by the alphabetic series, for which they are substituted.