960 
Proceedings of the Royal Society 
different, being expressed in money values by a recent authority * as 
what we may take in round numbers as <£7, £14, and £30 respec- 
tively. How is this to be accounted for ? 
The ordinary method of meeting the difficulty is to distinguish 
ultimate products into necessaries, comforts, and luxuries, and to 
account for differences in consumption, by assuming a greater 
amount of the latter. To give this scientific precision, we may first 
distinguish the ultimate products into a definite quantity of 
necessaries, plus a variable amount of suyer -necessaries ^ and then 
inquire what is the quantity and what the quality of the latter. 
The food consumed in these two places cannot vary much in 
quantity, the necessary fuel (proteids, fats, amyloids, water) must 
like be present in each case ; how is the enormous difference in 
quality to be explained ? If one represents necessary alone, the 
other represents necessary -i- super-necessary : the former replaces 
structure and maintains the energies ; but the latter is only intel- 
igible when we anticipate and borrow a conception from physical 
physiology : it is addressed to the stimulation of the sense organs, 
gustatory, visual, and tactile, of the consumer — represents so much 
cesthesis. The variable super-necessary must henceforth therefore 
be termed the aesthetic element, and ultimate products are accord- 
ingly analysed into their necessary and their aesthetic elements. 
Trom the preceding discussion it is obvious that if population 
and duration of life be constant, all increase in ultimate products 
per unit time is expressible in terms of aesthesis, and it remains to 
investigate the relative amount of this. 
It is commonly assumed by economists of all schools, that in pro- 
duction the necessary element enormously predominates — in any but 
the very poorest communities, however, this conclusion has no justi- 
fication in observed fact. In the above case of Russian, Horseman, 
and Scot, even if we assume the consumption of the first as purely 
of necessaries, the element of aesthesis in the consumption of the 
last must be approximately (local differences in purchasing power 
being disregarded, especially as smallest for necessaries) measured 
by the difference in expenditure above mentioned, and must stand 
to the necessary element as say 3 to 1. So far, therefore, from 
calmly ignoring aesthetic considerations, a nearer approximation to 
* Mulhall, Balance Sheet of the World. 
