54 
POLITICAL ECONOMY 
inasmuch as the supply price (apart from the 
tax) of the smaller quantity is higher than 
that of the larger quantity. The price being 
thus doubly elevated, consumers’ surplus is 
doubly sacrificed. 
One minor difficulty arising out of the 
conception that a surplus as above explained 
is met with in consumption, may be at once 
stated and removed. It is derived from the 
fact that the initial demands for absolute 
necessities of life are indefinitely high. Any 
body, for example, would be ready to give 
all that he had for a little water rather than 
die of thirst. In cases of this character, in 
reckoning consumers’ surplus we must leave 
out initial demands ; but only very few of 
the particular things that we purchase happen 
to be strictly essential to the maintenance of 
life. 
The reader will not, of course, allow himself 
to fancy that consumer’s surplus exists 
anywhere as a separable sum of something 
which can be pointed to as the surplus and 
labelled as such. The bare idea is ridiculous ; 
and did it in any sense correspond with fact 
consumer’s surplus would have been discovered 
ages ago. It is on the contrary hidden in 
experience as the ether around us—if it exist 
—is hidden in everything. The consumer’s