1830.] 
On Value . 
235 
Our Maker, in dooming mankind to a life of exertion and trial, did not, in most 
cases, (as far we may presume to judge,) deem it necessary to set in operation more 
than one sufficient cause for producing the effect desired. In the case now under 
consideration, he, it would appear, supplied in unlimited abundance all substances 
essential to our existence, with one exception. Of air, water, and I may add heat, 
light, &c., there was made no present, or pressing deficiency ; but ot food, the 
nutriment of the human body, he ordained that there should be a present de- 
ficiency: and he so organized that which constitutes our food, that it should be 
within the scope of man’s own powers to increase its quantity, by the exertion of 
labour. He endowed it with the principle of reproduction, and increase; and 
placed a little only, originally, at man’s disposal. These were hi? nnmuta de 
decrees. “ Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the 
face of all the earth ; and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, 
to you it shall be for meat.” And again : “ In the sweat of thy face slialt thou eat 
bread, till thou return into the ground.” 
Although, then, all the bodies above mentioned, are of equal value to man with 
food, stilfas the necessity was not created, for setting human exertions in the op- 
posite scale to stated quantities of these ; and as they were not so constituted as to 
be periodically furnished in accordance with the recurring wants, and consequent 
exertions of man, there could exist no index by which he could know, specifical- 
ly, the value of any given quantity of any of them. 
* This is not the case, however, with food. Man was doomed to be stimulated to 
exertion, through the means of hunger and want ; and was immediately necessitated 
to make exertions, whereby he might avert these calamities. 
A hungry man cannot fail to be acutely sensible of the existence of value in 
food. Food, (given on the terms decreed by the Almighty, sparingly, and as a 
compensation for exertion,) to be available to man’s use, must be obtainable in re- 
turn for some sacrifice, which it is within the power of man to bestow ; if it were 
otherwise, lie must perish. Man is under the influence of the procreative princi- 
ple ; his numbers, therefore, particularly in the ages Which precede the knowledge 
of the arts of production, must be pressing against the means of subsistence ob- 
tainable. 
When man’s numbers are pressing against these means of subsistence, the very 
utmost exertion of every individual must be made in obtaining this subsistence. 
To obtain, therefore, that food which suffices for a man’s support, the amount of 
the exertion made by each, must be the utmost each can offer. And as the power 
of making exertion,* enjoyed bv men, is nearly the same in all, the estimation, in 
which a sufficiency of food is held, must he determinate, and easily known ; being 
somewhat superior to the estimation in which the sacrifice is held, which is vo- 
luntarily made in procuring it, and which is the utmost man can bestow. 
The value then of nutriment, unlike, the value of air, or water, or heat, is sus- 
ceptible of specific determination and appreciation, in consequence of tbe necessity 
which thus exists for weighing, in one scale, a given quantity of food, equal to the 
support of a man ; and in the other, a given quantity of exertion, regarding the 
worth of which exertion, all men must be agreed. 
Value then is to be treated as an original and independent existence in certain 
bodies ; and it must positively inhere, (virtually, as has been already explained,) 
in these bodies, whether man exerts his labour or not, in procuring them ; and 
man must be acutely sensible of its existence before he can be tempted to labour 
in obtaining them : And as it is only in the case of the valuable bodies, consti- 
tuting food, (the primary description of wealth,) that man has the power of facili- 
tating their increase through the means of his exertions ; so it is these alone 
which are susceptible of specific valuation, or of being estimated at certain quan- 
tities of that which is in immediate connexion with the consciousness and percep- 
tions of the moral agents, who are the sole percipients, and appreciators of value. 
We may, therefore, pass from the consideration of that value which is not sus- 
ceptible of appreciation, and which equally inheres virtually in all the different 
bodies on which man’s existence as much depends, as upon food, as not being 
the subject of our investigation. That appreciable value, however, which exists in 
food, and which, from the circumstances of its own organization, together with 
those of man on earth, is capable of exercising an influence on his feelings and 
actions, is the subject of our investigation ; and, therefore, when the word value 
occurs in this discussion, without any adjunct, it must be understood, as that 
value which is appreciable, and which appertains exclusively, as we shall hereafter 
see, to all descriptions of wealth ; but originally, and independently to wealth of 
the primary description. 
