_ 73 Schäffle_, N. Œkonomie, 10. In the German language, this same word is used to designate utility, and sometimes useful objects (so called values). A clear distinction, however, should be made between utility and value in use. Utility is a quality of things themselves, in relation, it is true, to human wants. Value in use is a quality imputed to them, the result of man’s thought, or of his view of them. Thus, for instance, in a beleagured city, the stores of food do not increase in utility, but their value in use does. Compare _Schäffle_, System, III, I, 170. _ 74 Genovesi_, Economia civile (1869), II, I, 7. _L. Say_, De la Richesse individuelle et de la Richesse publique (1827), 29, estimates the value of goods according to the degree of discomfort attendant on the privation of them. _ 75 Friedländer_ has, however, made a general attempt in this direction. Theorie des Werthes (Dorpat, 1852). But says _Th. Fix_ (Journal des Economistes, 1844, IX, 12): “It is as impossible to establish a scale of values, as it is to find an exact mathematical and permanent measure of our wants, passions, desires, tastes and fancies.” 76 Compare _Knies_, Geld und Credit, 1873, I, 126 ff. The very respectable attempt made by _A. Samter_, Sociallehre (1875), with the idea society-value (_Gesellschaftswerth_) covers too nearly the idea of value in exchange. Further research will here have to be made, with the idea of “impotent need,” inasmuch as, from a high ethical, national-dietetical point of view, the question is asked whether, to what extent, and how, “impotent need” may be made a potent one. _ 77 Friedländer_, loc. cit, 50. If too many copies of the very best book be published, there is a certainty that a number of them will remain little better than waste paper. _ 78 Schäffle_, System, II, aufl., 55. See also his Kapitalismus und Socialismus, 1870, 31, 35, 43. 79 Thus _Kleinwächter_ (Hildebrand’s Jahrbücher für N. Oek. und Statistik, 1867, II, 318), defines value in exchange=value in use + costliness. According to Schäffle, it is “a covert comparison between the cost-value and the value in use of the two kinds of goods to be exchanged.” (Kapitalismus und Socialismus, 35.)