PROPERTY 
§ 2 
We need first to understand what is the nature of the uses 
or services of wealth. The services of an instrument of 
wealth are the desirable changes effected (or the undesir- 
able changes prevented) by means of that instrument. For 
instance, the services of a loom consist in changing yarn into 
cloth, or what is called weaving. Similarly, a plow per- 
forms the service of changing the soil in a particular manner; 
a bricklayer, of changing the position of bricks. A dam 
or dike performs the service of preventing the water from 
overflowing the land; a fence, of preventing cattle from 
roaming; a necklace, of sparkling or reflecting light, and 
thereby satisfying the love of beauty or the vanity of the 
owner. 
When services are described as desirable events, it is 
meant that they are desired or esteemed by the owner or 
owners, not necessarily by every one, or even any one, else. 
It may even happen that the events are distinctly distaste- 
ful to others. A factory whistle may be a nuisance to every 
one except the factory owner. 
In this connection it is important to distinguish between 
the uses or desirable events, and the utility or desirability 
of those events. The desirable service is a thing; it is 
usually objective. The desirability of the service, on the 
other hand, is a quality, and is purely subjective. It is 
a feeling toward the events, not the events themselves. 
In the present chapter we do not have to deal with the de- 
sirability, and it will form the subject of the next chapter. 
Each-sort of service is measured in its own appropriate 
unit. Sometimes the measurement is by number, i.e. 
obtained by simply counting the acts in which the specified 
service consists, as, for instance, in the case of the strokes 
of a printing press; sometimes the measurement is by time, 
as in the case of the day laborer; while sometimes the 
measurement of the services is expressed in terms of the