Say, then, was right in saying: "The happiness of this class (the consumers), composed of all the others, constitutes the general well- being, the state of prosperity of a country." Only he should have added that the happiness of the class of producers, which also is composed of all the others, equally constitutes the general well-being, the state of prosperity of a country. So, when he says: "The fortune of each consumer is perpetually at war with all that he buys," he should have added again: "The fortune of each producer is incessantly attacked by all that he sells." In the absence of a clear expression of this reciprocity, most economical phenomena become unintelligible; and I will soon show how, in consequence of this grave omission, most economists in writing their books have talked wildly about the balance of trade. I have just said that society produces first THE LEAST COSTLY, AND CONSEQUENTLY MOST NECESSARY, THINGS. Now, is it true that cheapness of products is always a correlative of their necessity, and vice versa; so that these two words, NECESSITY and CHEAPNESS, like the following ones, COSTLINESS and SUPERFLUITY, are synonymes? If each product of labor, taken alone, would suffice for the existence of man, the synonymy in question would not be doubtful; all products having the same qualities, those would be most advantageously produced, and therefore the most necessary, which cost the least. But the parallel between the utility and price of products is not characterized by this theoretical precision: either through the foresight of Nature or from some other cause, the balance between needs and productive power is more than a theory,--it is a fact, of which daily practice, as well as social progress, gives evidence. Imagine ourselves living in the day after the birth of man at the beginning of civilization: is it not true that the industries originally the simplest, those which required the least preparation and expense, were the following: GATHERING, PASTURAGE, HUNTING, and FISHING, which were followed long afterwards by agriculture? Since then, these four primitive industries have been perfected, and moreover appropriated: a double circumstance which does not change the meaning of the facts, but, on the contrary, makes it more manifest. In fact, property has always attached itself by preference to objects of the most immediate utility, to MADE VALUES, if I may so speak; so that the scale of values might be fixed by the progress of appropriation. In his work on the "Liberty of Labor" M. Dunoyer has positively accepted this principle by distinguishing four great classes of industry, which he arranges according to the order of their development,--that is, from the least labor-cost to the greatest.