Analyses of Books. 255 
Mr. Geddes writes : — “ But the economist, continuing to 
explain that things have no other value, i.e., that phenomena 
have no other aspecft, merely expresses the indisputable fadt that 
ey lave no other aspect for him ; that the question of what 
oa and diamond may mean to physicist and physiologist has 
not occurred to him. . . Let us walk out into the world, look 
a out, try to express loaf and diamond in terms of acftual facft, 
and we find that physical and physiological properties or 
values can indeed be indefinitely assigned : the one is so much 
.1, its heat-giving power measurable in calorimeter, or in acftual 
units of work, the other a definite sensory stimulus, varying 
according to Fechner’s law.” 
(( much the same spirit Mr. Ruskin very justly says : — 
. Intrinsic value is the absolute power of anything to support 
life. A sheaf of wheat, of given quality and weight, has in it a 
measurable power of sustaining the substance of the body; a 
cubic foot of pure air, a fixed power of sustaining its warmth ; 
and a cluster of flowers of given beauty, a fixed power of enliven- 
ing or animating the senses and heart.” 
In this same connection we find another passage, which we 
must quote in illustration of those views of Ruskin which the 
author is advocating : — 
“ It is among the chief claims to honourable memory of the 
late Stanley Jevons that he called attention to the wasting coal- 
supplies of Britain, and demanded their economisation, thus 
gripping the essential facft that our coal is not merely an objecft 
of subjecftive value and therefore exchange, but the fixture and 
embodiment of a definite quantity of stored energy, within which 
our modern industrial activities find a stern and calculable limit. 
The question of coal-economy is then not in any wise the maxi- 
mising of the wealth of individual coal-masters or coal-percent- 
agers, as Mr. Ricardo would have explained, neither the increas- 
ing of miners’ wages, as their official economists would say, 
but in the relation of acftual supply to existing and future 
demand. In detailed criticism of the nature and purposes of 
such demand, and the taking definite acftion against that waste 
(of 99 per cent or so) in diffused heat and still better diffused 
soot, amid which the economist of market place and academe 
complacently preaches ‘ laissez-faire' and Mr. Ruskin the 
reverse.” 
True, indeed, but the teachings of Mr. Stanley Jevons, though 
their intent was doubtless as Mr. Geddes here contends, wrought 
little save evil. They were laid hold of as no unimportant 
facftor in the production of the fearful coal famine of 1872-73, all 
the consequences of which are not yet at an end. The orthodox 
economist would say bitter words and urge the doing of bitterer 
things against a robber-knight — could one exist in our happy 
days, who should build his castle by the Thames or the Great 
Northern Railway, and extort heavy toll on all commodities 
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