#71. What is Value?# In exchanging some goods for other goods, there arises the question, How much of one kind shall be given for so much of the other? Some things are said to be #valuable#, as in the case of a gold watch or a diamond ring, because in exchange for them we can get a great quantity of other articles. Ashes are of little or no value, because we cannot get anything in exchange for them. Now this word #value# is a very difficult one, and is employed to mean different things. We may say that quinine is valuable for curing fevers, that iron is valuable for improving the blood, or that water is valuable for putting out fires. Here we do not mean valuable in exchange, for quinine would cure fevers just as well if it cost a penny an ounce instead of some ten shillings. Water, if we can get it at the right time, puts out a fire whether it costs much or little or nothing. It is clear, then, that by valuable we often mean #valuable in use#. The words value and valuable are in fact #ambiguous#. (See Logic Primer, pp. 22-26, on The Correct Use of Words.) #There is value in use and value in exchange, and many things which would be commonly said to have little value in exchange have much value in use.# But of these meanings, "value in use" is nothing but the #utility# of a thing to us, that is, the utility of all such portions of it as we can actually employ. Thus, the value in use of water means the utility of the water that we drink, or wash in, or cook with, or water the roads with, and this utility is very great. But of course it cannot mean the utility of water which is not useful to us, but on the contrary hurtful, as in the case of floods, damp houses, wet mines, and so forth. We may now see how true was the remark of Genovesi, the Italian economist, that "#Exchange consists in giving the superfluous for the necessary#," or, as I should prefer to say, #the comparatively superfluous for the comparatively necessary#. He who has more than enough of one article has already enjoyed all the good which that article can do to him, but he probably needs supplies of other articles. The exchange, like an act of mercy, blesses both him who gives and him who receives, because what each receives in exchange is much wanted and has high utility. In England, for instance, we possess a great deal of coal, and France produces plenty of good wine. We could have little or no wine in England unless we got it from France or some foreign country, and France also is much in want of coal. It is obvious that there is a great gain of utility if we give some of our comparatively superfluous coal in exchange for some of the abundant wine of France.