66 JV. G. Langworthy Taylor 



duction theory of value is simple, the tracing of it out in actual 

 life is extremely complex. The marginal theory of value, how- 

 ever, enables one to arrive at a measure from the side of the 

 consumer, who is a person more easily reached'^" than the 

 producer. 



§ 3. The " marginal " theory simply states that any mass of 



goods is valued in proportion to the utility of the last portion 



The mar- consumed. If one suppose that equal doses^^ of goods are 



fheory"of'*^ offered for consumption, he must note a diminishing satisfaction 



values affords from each successive one. until satiation, all lapse of time or other 



a basis for a .... ... 



psychoioguai Variation in circumstances being eliminated from consideration. 



comparison of What a man is willing to give, under these conditions, for any 



weifarT*of"*^ dosc, is what he will give for the last, because any other, if taken 



deiitor and i^st. would havc given the same satisfaction as the one actually 



creditor, 1 1 t 1 ^• rr ■ 



selected. It does not make any difference which comes last — 

 one is bound to be last ; and since any one may be last, he will not 

 pay for it more than he would for the last. The utility of the 

 last dose, therefore, and the paying for the producing of it, 

 establish the value for all. It is not necessary to go so far as to 

 maintain that it measures the price for the case when all the 

 doses are united into one and sold in a lump. In that case one 

 big dose is substituted for the preexisting little ones, and it is 

 estimated and valued anew ; but the marginal fixes the value of 

 any and every dose, if the commodity is sold dosewise. What 

 valuation means, then, is that all of the items that make up the 

 stock of the market are appreciated according to the utility of the 

 last dose, which is simply a more refined way of saying that 

 value stands in some inverse ratio to the quantity of goods thrown 

 on the market. The marginal law states the relation of supply 

 to value more exactly. 



The total value in a stock of goods is the number of doses 

 multiplied by the utility of the last dose. There is no more 



'*The difficulty in the case of the cost-of-production theory and of its 

 various forms has been well brought out by Professor H. J. Davenport 

 in his book Value and Distribution. 



■"The term "dose" has been consecrated by Mill, Marshall, and other 

 writers. 



180 



