Professor Seligman calls my attention to a most interesting forty-page discussion of the theory of value by W. F. Lloyd, _A Lecture on the Notion of Value, as Distinguishable not only from Utility, but also from Value in Exchange_. The lecture was delivered before the University of Oxford, in Michaelmas Term, 1833, and published, in accordance with the rules of the foundation which provided funds for the lecture, in London, 1834. The writer insists on the conception of value as absolute, and devotes pp. 30-40 to a defense of the absolute conception. He cites the passage in Adam Smith referred to _supra_, in which Smith distinguishes real dearness from apparent dearness (introductory part of chap. VIII of bk. I). The most striking thing about this lecture, however, is its anticipation of Jevons's doctrine of marginal utility, and its emphasis upon the subjective character of value. The word, margin, is used in virtually the sense in which Jevons uses it, on p. 16. The book is very rare,--only three copies, one in Professor Seligman's library, one in the British Museum, and one in the Goldsmiths' (formerly Foxwell) Library in London, are known to exist. It seems to have made no impression upon the economists of the time of its publication. A reprint to-day would enable the economic world to do belated justice to a very acute and original thinker. _Cf._ Professor Seligman's article "On Some Neglected British Economists" in the _Economic Journal_, vol. XIII, esp. pp. 357-63. [202] _Principles_, bk. III, chap. XV, par. 2. [203] _Leading Principles_, editions of 1878 and 1900, pp. 12-13. [204] _Psychologie Economique_, vol. I, pp. 77-78. [205] Scott, _Money and Banking_, 1903 ed., p. 60. [206] _Cf._ Schumpeter, _Quar. Jour. Econ._, Feb., 1909, pp. 226-27. [207] See _supra_, p. 163, n. [208] _Cf._ p. 50, n. It is sufficiently clear, I trust, that this argument is concerned with the relativity of _knowledge_, and not with the relativity of _value_. We can _know_ things only in terms of our "apperceptive mass," but that does not mean that things _exist_ only by virtue of our apperceptive mass. And even knowledge is relative only when it is "_Knowledge-about_." _Cf._ James, _Principles of Psychology_, vol. I, p. 221, and _The Meaning of Truth_, p. 4, n. [209] Marshall accords a limited recognition to our doctrine. See _Principles_, 1907 ed., p. 35, where he indicates that certain parts of the theory of value assume the prevailing ethical standards of our Western civilization, and that prices of various stock exchange securities are "normally" affected by the patriotic feelings of purchasers, and even brokers, etc. CHAPTER XVIII THE THEORY OF VALUE AND THE THEORY OF PRICES (_concluded_)