CHAPTER III

UTILITY

§1

WE have seen that all wealth and property imply prospective
 services or “desirable events.” It is the desirability
 of these future expected services which gives meaning
to all economic phenomena. It would therefore be impossible,
 in any full view of the subject, to confine ourselves
 strictly to the study of objective wealth, property,
and services. In the present chapter we shall consider
briefly the subjective or psychical element in economics.
Wealth is wealth only because of its services; and services
 are services only because of their desirability in the
mind of man, and of the satisfactions which man expects
them to render. Indeed, the desirability of services is
implied in their very definition as “desirable events.”
The mind of man supplies the mainspring in the whole economic
 machinery. It is in his mind that desires originate,
and in his mind that the train of events which he sets
going in nature comes to an end in the experience of subjective
 satisfactions. It is only in the interim between the
initial desire and the final satisfaction that wealth and its
services have place as intermediaries.
We are thus led to consider two new concepts, — that
of “desirability” and that of “satisfaction.” Both of
these enter into our consideration only as they are applied
to the three economic elements, — wealth, property,
services. To avoid unnecessary repetitions, we may treat
these three elements under the one rubric of “goods.”
41