32 SEVENTEENTH REPORT. 



things needful, but it affords the only intelligible data for an intelli- 

 gent comparison between the quantitative gravities of widely dif- 

 ferent and apparently unrelated hindrances, upon which, in the 

 very nature of the case, the equitable division of labor, by and 

 through an exchange of its products, on a competitive basis, is auto- 

 matically secured. The impelling power of the incentive to labor, 

 or to make sacrifices, involving labor, to the end that the availability 

 of objective things may be secured for our employment, is de- 

 termined by an intelligent consideration of the gravity of an antici- 

 pated need to which it can minister. Hence it is that over and 

 against the anticipated impairment that threatens to develop as a 

 consequence of our failure to provide a means of ministering to an 

 impending need must be set the anticipated impairment of well- 

 being that, as labor cost, is an inevitable attendant upon the task 

 of rendering such means available for our employment. 



Balancing these two separate, distinct, and (quantitatively con- 

 sidered) independentl}' variable forms of impaired well-being, the 

 one against the other, to the end that their quantitative importance 

 as factors in our subsequent well-being may be satisfactorily de- 

 termined, we shall find this: Unless the anticipated impairment 

 incident to the deprivation of the product under consideration ma- 

 terially exceeds the anticipated penalty of cost necessarily attend- 

 ant upon the labor of surmounting the hindrances that lie in the 

 way of its availability for use, no advantage, or gain^. can result 

 from its production ; and in the absence of anticipated gain there 

 can be no rational incentive to labor, or, for that matter, to eco- 

 nomic activity of any sort. 



It should not be diflicult to differentiate sharply between tJiese 

 two separate, distinct, and usually alternative forms of impaired 

 well-being, one of which must certainly afflict us. That they are of 

 equal importance, in direct proportion to their respective gravities, as 

 factors in our subsequent well-being, may well be taken for granted. 

 But that there is no necessary quantitative relation between their 

 respective gravities becomes apparent when we reflect that they 

 are based upon separate and unrelated data. The first, based upon 

 the anticipated gravity of an impending need, affords us our only 

 reliable data for an intelligent determination of the quantitative 

 utility of an objective thing endowed with capacity to minister to 

 it; while the second, that, as cost, is no less wholly-contingent upon 

 the anticipated gravity of the hindrance to be surmounted, in order 

 to secure the availability of such needful product, affords us equally 

 reliable data for an intelligent determination of the utility of a 

 service, that, by supplying the product in question, relieves us of 



