principles, are in England known in substance through Jevons's 'theory of utility' and 'theory of exchange.' I can further refer my readers to Dr. Bonar's excellent essay on 'The Austrian Economists' in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, October, 1888. An account of the Austrian school by Dr. Böhm-Bawerk has appeared in the Annals of the American Academy. I regret that I have no space for the numerous comparisons which might be drawn between our views and the remarkable developments of the theory of value in England since Jevons.
The works to which I shall chieliy refer in what follows are Professor Menger's Grundsätze der Volkswirthschaftslehre, 1871, Dr. Böhm-Bawerk's Capital und Capitalzins, vol. i. 1884, vol. ii. 1889 (of which the first volume has been recently translated by Mr. Smart and the second volume is about to follow); also by the same author, 'Grundzüge der Theorie des wirthschaftlichen Güterwerths' in the Conrad'sche Jahrbücher, 1886; and Professor Sax's Grundlegung der theoretischen Staatswirthschaft, 1887. Besides these my own works, Ueber den Ursprung und die Hauptgesetze des wirthschaftlichen Werthes, 1884, and Der natürliche Werth, 1889. The Untersuchungen über die Theorie des Preises by MM. Auspitz and Lieben is on Jevonian lines.
The value of commodities is derived wholly from their utility, but the utility they afford is not wholly convertible into value. Commodities which may be had freely in abundance are of no value, however much utility they may afford. But those commodities too, which, because they are not to be had in sufficient quantity, are valuable for the sake of their utility, acquire a value which as a rule is less than their utility. The harvest, to which a nation owes the maintenance of so many millions of lives during a whole year, has a value which is no approximate expression of the service rendered. Nor ought it to be; the value should express, not the total utility, but only a part of it, 'the final degree of utility,' as Jevons said, the 'marginal utility' (Grenznutzen) as we say. The value of the harvest is reckoned by multiplying the supply, the quantity of in-gathered harvest-units, by the marginal utility. All the utility above the margin, all 'surplus utility' (Uebernutzen), including precisely that which relieves necessity in the highest degree, is neglected and finds no place in value at all.
I will tarry no longer over thm propositions familiar to every English student of Jevons. The Austrian school, it is true, assigns
