could not live two minutes without it. We do not pay for it, because
Nature furnishes it without the intervention of man's labor. But if we
wish to separate one of the gases which compose it, for instance, to
fill a balloon, we must take some trouble and labor; or if another takes
it for us, we must give him an equivalent in something which will have
cost us the trouble of production. From which we see that the exchange
is between troubles, efforts, labors. It is certainly not for hydrogen
gas that I pay, for this is every where at my disposal, but for the work
that it has been necessary to accomplish in order to disengage it; work
which I have been spared, and which I must refund. If I am told that
there are other things to pay for; as expense, materials, apparatus; I
answer, that still in these things it is the work that I pay for. The
price of the coal employed is only the representation of the labor
necessary to dig and transport it.

We do not pay for the light of the sun, because Nature alone gives it to
us. But we pay for the light of gas, tallow, oil, wax, because here is
labor to be remunerated;--and remark, that it is so entirely labor and
not utility to which remuneration is proportioned, that it may well
happen that one of these means of lighting, while it may be much more
effective than another, may still cost less. To cause this, it is only
necessary that less human labor should be required to furnish it.

When the water-carrier comes to supply my house, were I to pay him in
proportion to the _absolute utility_ of the water, my whole fortune
would not be sufficient. But I pay him only for the trouble he has
taken. If he requires more, I can get others to furnish it, or finally
go and get it myself. The water itself is not the subject of our
bargain; but the labor taken to get the water. This point of view is so
important, and the consequences that I am going to draw from it so
clear, as regards the freedom of international exchanges, that I will
still elucidate my idea by a few more examples.

The alimentary substance contained in potatoes does not cost us very
dear, because a great deal of it is attainable with little work. We pay
more for wheat, because, to produce it Nature requires more labor from
man. It is evident that if Nature did for the latter what she does for
the former, their prices would tend to the same level. It is impossible
that the producer of wheat should permanently gain more than t