90 



converse of this, viz., that in which the monopoly lies 

 with the market, in which case the price is fixed by 

 the buyers, as, for instance, in auction sales without 

 reserve. This, however, is a species of sale, which, 

 in consequence of the greatness of the risk, is never 

 resorted to except in markets where the competition 

 is known to be such as to guarantee to the seller a 

 good, if not the highest price or in what may be 

 termed ' forced sales. 7 When we read that Mr. 



's property has gone to the 'hammer/ we need 



not to be told that he is no longer in a position to 

 put his own valuation upon it. There are very many 

 points in connection with this subject to be considered 

 before the phenomena of values and prices can be 

 rightly understood. My object, however, is not to 

 define laws, but simply to cite the different kinds of 

 valuations of property adopted in the ordinary busi- 



this contradiction how shall we extricate ourselves?" He then 

 lays down the following equation of value. " Demand and 

 Supply, the quantity demanded and the quantity supplied, will 

 be made equal ;" and defines "the value a commodity will bring 

 in any market" to be " no other than the value which in that 

 market gives a demand just sufficient to carry off the existing 

 or expected supply." Now this is quite intelligible to any 

 person with a tolerable knowledge of the subject, who reads 

 Mr. Mill's lucid explanation ; but his definition does not leave 

 it clear whether the value regulates, or is regulated, by the 

 demand, or neither, or both ; and as he uses the word value to 

 define both the operation and the result of it, we are not left 

 a very great choice of terms. Value is no doubt, as it were, 

 a compensating balance between demand and supply ; but how 

 to define the operation by which it adjusts itself, or is adjusted, 

 and at the same time express that the value will be highest 

 when the demand is greatest and the supply least, and vice 

 versa, is a difficulty the resort to mathematical phraseology 

 has not surmounted. 



