CHAPTER XL 
ON THE CAUSES OF VALUE, 
IT may seem, that an inquiry into the causes of 
value should have had an earlier place in the 
present treatise ; but it is in reality the natural 
method of proceeding to make ourselves ac- 
quainted with the nature of an effect, before we 
attempt to investigate its causes. Although, in 
point of time, a cause must precede its effect, 
yet in the order of our knowledge the case is 
commonly reversed, and we ascend from the 
phenomena before us to the active principles 
concerned in their production. 
Our first object in this investigation must be 
to ascertain what is really meant by a cause of 
value, or what is its true nature, that we may 
have some criterion which will show us, on the