1884.] THINGS WHICH SEEM WORTHLESS. • 87 



yet it must be true that all real service is valuable, and that which 

 renders it is worth something. 



I think we shall find this measure of value a very comprehen- 

 sive one. It is not only good for those things which may or may 

 not go to market, but it will also measure those intangible treasures 

 which we have agreed to include within the scope of our inquiry. 



If we ask, What is health worth, or relief from pain, or escape 

 from danger, or deliverance from fear, or sympathy in trouble, or 

 the society of friends, this measure will give us the answer for 

 which we should turn in vain to the reports of any market. They 

 are worth the value of the service they render, but it is only indi- 

 rectly that money, which measures market values, has any power 

 to command them, and it is utterly incompetent to indicate' their 

 value. It may be said further, as in the line of accurate defini- 

 tion, that the real value of a thing is in its capacity to render ser- 

 vice rather than in the service actually received from it. The 

 service received is controlled by limitations that belong to our- 

 selves. "We may be unconsciously served, and served even 

 against our will, but we can never be served beyond the limits of 

 our capacity to receive and appropriate service. Food, beyond 

 what a man can eat and digest, has for him only the commercial 

 value. 



Clothing, except for comfort and adornment, belongs in the 

 same category. So much of each as he needs, and only that, he 

 gets the real value of. If he have no appreciation of the beauti- 

 ful ; all the wealth of nature and art in this direction can have no 

 value to him. Limitations of value such as these, partial in regard 

 to some things, total as to others, plainly attach to the person 

 rather than the thing. 



It may be said further in the same line, that the value which is 

 based on service is not of necessity conditional upon, or limited 

 by, ownership. A rich man's money may create and maintain a 

 beautiful garden, -where everything combines to* please the eye and 

 satisfy that hunger for beauty of form and color, the germ of 

 which must, it would seem, be the common property of humanity; 

 but the rich man's money, thus expended, may render a larger 

 service, and so be actually worth more to his poorer neighbor than 

 to himself. It should, I think, be a great source of satisfaction to 

 those who hunger for beauty, but have not the means to purchase 

 largely of beautiful things, that so much of this element is abroad 



