36 
POLITICAL ECONOMY 
utility and the possession of individual 
goods. We are in danger of slipping into 
making baseless assumptions, and therefore 
of reaching unwarranted conclusions, when 
we rashly skip examining experience in the 
mass and hasten to deal at once with questions 
of detail. Let us ask then, What is the 
relation between utility and income ? bearing 
in mind that utility is to be taken simply as 
a label objectively representative of choice. 
There can be no doubt that in all ordin 
ary cases the utility which we get out of 
our incomes increases at a diminishing rate 
as income increases, at least after a time. 
We know this directly from our every day 
experiences, and it is not difficult to find 
subjective reasons for it. We always try 
instinctively to assuage our most rgent 
cravings first ; consequently when fortune 
brings us an augmentation of income we 
realise, if we have not realised it before, that 
the desires left to be appeased are less intense 
than those which received prior attention. 
There are cases to which the generalisation 
does not apply, for instance, cases in which the 
whole character of a person’s life is altered 
when his income has reached a certain figure, 
but such exceptions may be neglected for 
present purposes. The declaration that an