st confusing value with
cost, or with price. _Value is the life-giving power of anything; cost,
the quantity of labour required to produce it; price, the quantity of
labour which its possessor will take in exchange for it._[11] Cost and
price are commercial conditions, to be studied under the head of money.

13. 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 enlivening or animating the senses and heart.

It does not in the least affect the intrinsic value of the wheat, the
air, or the flowers, that men refuse or despise them. Used or not, their
own power is in them, and that particular power is in nothing else.

14. But in order that this value of theirs may become effectual, a
certain state is necessary in the recipient of it. The digesting,
breathing, and perceiving functions must be perfect in the human
creature before the food, air, or flowers can become of their full value
to it. _The production of effectual value, therefore, always involves
two needs: first, the production of a thing essentially useful; then the
production of the capacity to use it._ Where the intrinsic value and
acceptant capacity come together there is Effectual value, or wealth;
where there is either no intrinsic value, or no acceptant capacity,
there is no effectual value; that is to say, no wealth. A horse is no
wealth to us if we cannot ride, nor a picture if we cannot see, _nor can
any noble thing be wealth, except to a noble person_. As the aptness of
the user increases, the effectual value of the thing used increases; and
in its entirety can co-exist only with perfect skill of use, and fitness
of nature.

15. Valuable material things may be conveniently referred to five heads:

(i.) Land, with its associated air, water, and organisms.

(ii.) Houses, furniture, and instruments.

(iii.) Stored or prepared food, medicine, and articles of bodily luxury,
including clothing.

(iv.) Books.

(v.) Works of art.

The conditions of value in these things are briefly as follows:--

16. (i.) Land. Its value is twofold; first, as producing food and
mechanical power; secondly, as an object of sight and thought, producing
intellectual power.

Its value, as a means of producing food and m