DEMAND

6i

value  is  not  conceivable  as  a  quantity,  or  at
most  is  barely  conceivable  as  a  quantity,
whereas  economic  values  are  conceivable  as
quantities  and  are  moreover  measurable. 1
It  is  true  that  the  thorough-going  Utilitarians
thought  of  absolute,  value  as  a  quantity—
as  a  simple  sum  of  economic  values  viewed  as
atoms  of  pleasure,  or  whatever  else  they  liked
to  call  the  feeling  elements  which  in  their
philosophy  they  treated  arithmetically—but
once  the  atomistic  view  of  experience  is
departed  from,  and  economic  value  becomes
merely  the  expression  of  preferential  relations,
absolute  value  is  shifted  on  to  a  plane  of  its
own  where  measurement  may  be  impossible.
For  what  after  all  are  the  economic  values  ?
It  has  been  laid  down  above  that  they  represent ­
  no  more  than  preferences.  Now  these
preferences  have  their  origin  in  our  implicit
notions  of  absolute  value  and  mean  no
more  than  relative  degrees  of  imagined
conduciveness  to  this  absolute  value.  And
evidently  the  thing  to  which  economic  goods
conduce  cannot  be  measured  against  the
means  by  which  it  is  brought  about,  if  these
1  My  colleague,  Professor  Unwin,  suggested  to  me
the  significance  of  this  point,  particularly  in  relationto
  the  seeming  conflict  between  economic  and  idealistic
points  of  view,