CHAPTER 1. ON THE NATURE OF VALUE. VALUE, in its ultimate sense, appears to mean the esteem in which any object is held. It de- notes, strictly speaking, an effect produced on the mind ; but as we are accustomed in other cases to give a common name to a feeling and to the cause which has excited it, and to blend them together in our thoughts, so in this case we regard value as a quality of external ob- jects. Colour and fragrance, for example, are words which designate both the cause and the effect, both the material quality which produces the feeling in the mind, and the feeling pro- duced. The philosopher, however, is the only one who discerns the distinction, and colour and fragrance are never thought of by the ge-