LITERARY NOTICES. 



701 



undertaking. A debt as an exchangeable 

 commodity is simply a " right of action." 

 It lies wholly in the future ; but it has a 

 present value ; and when put in the form 

 of a negotiable instrument can be bought 

 and sold equally with any material com- 

 modity. As instruments of credit can be 

 multiplied indefinitely beyond existing ma- 

 terial property, they form a distinct addi- 

 tion to existing wealth. 



All wealth being produced in order to 

 be exchanged, the problem of economics, 

 according to our author, is to determine the 

 conditions in conformity with which ex- 

 changes take place that is the law of value. 

 In arriving at this he sweeps aside the doc- 

 trine that value is due to labor, or is de- 

 termined by the cost of production. Cost 

 of production is simply the lower limit be- 

 low which the value of anything can not 

 stay for any considerable time and the thing 

 continue to be produced. The labor em- 

 bodied in anything bears no definite rela- 

 tion to its value. Many valuable things 

 have no labor whatever associated with 

 them. The sole cause of value, the author 

 contends, is demand. If anything will ex- 

 change for something else, it has value ; if 

 it can not be exchanged, it has no value. 

 Value, therefore, is not something which re- 

 sides in a thing, but is given to it by the 

 consumer. The same thing may consequent- 

 ly have very different values in different 

 times and places. Value always being a 

 ratio a relation between two things it 

 follows that intrinsic value is a contradic- 

 tion. The search for an invariable standard 

 of value which is based upon the conception 

 of intrinsic value is a wholly futile proceed- 

 ing. Money may, indeed, be a measure of 

 value that is, the medium in terms of 

 which all other values are reckoned and this 

 is quite sufficient. An invariable standard 

 of value is not only unobtainable, but would 

 be wholly useless if it were obtainable. 



With these two postulates, that anything 

 is wealth which can be bought and sold, 

 and that the value of anything depends 

 solely upon the relation between supply and 

 demand, the author undertakes a considera- 

 tion of the various problems of the science. 

 We can not here undertake to follow him 

 in his exposition, but will simply indicate 

 the scope of his inquiry. The first volume, 



which was published some five years ago, is 

 mainly devoted to establishing his proposi- 

 tions with regard to wealth and value. As 

 if afraid to get too far away from the 

 economists of acknowledged position, he 

 fortifies himself at every step by numerous 

 quotations from their works, showing that 

 they have at one time or another admitted 

 the validity of his own position. In the pres- 

 ent volume, which closes his discussion of 

 " Pure Economics," he considers the rela- 

 tion of labor to value, and the conditions 

 affecting the wages of labor. He scouts 

 the wage-fund theory, and contends, in 

 agreement with various other economical 

 writers, that the wages of labor come out 

 of production,; but he has nothing hopeful 

 to offer to wage-workers, simply content- 

 ing himself with admonishing them to keep 

 their numbers down. 



Upon the subject of the rent of land, 

 the auth'or is quite at variance with the 

 most authoritative economic teaching. He 

 has small respect for the Ricardian theory, 

 and maintains that Ricardo has uniformly 

 inverted cause and effect. He does not see 

 that land offers any special feature that 

 takes it out of the realm of other economic 

 quantities. The owner of a piece of land 

 has the right to the successive crops for- 

 ever, and its purchase-price is simply the 

 summation of the present value of the suc- 

 cessive future returns. The rent of land is 

 simply the interest on the purchase-price. 



Rights, or incorporeal wealth, the foreign 

 exchanges, the currency, Law's theory of 

 paper money, and a consideration of the 

 legislation affecting the Bank of England, 

 make up the remainder of the volume. 



Proceedings of the Colorado Scientific 

 Society. Vol.11. Parti. 1885. Den- 

 ver, Colorado. Pp. 36. Price, 50 cents. 



The most important paper in the report 

 is the address of the retiring president, 

 Richard Pearce, on the growth and work of 

 the society, particularly as they are related 

 to the interests of Colorado. It claims that 

 the science of mineralogy has been espe- 

 cially benefited by the society's labors, 

 through which a great many additions have 

 been made to the list of strictly Western 

 minerals. The most important achievement is 

 the discovery of three distinct new minerals. 



