Valuation : its nature and laws being an introduction to the general theory of value

Front matter

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Preface

The “ point of view,” the unexpressed assumptions in the halflight of which any book, even the most " scientific,’ ’ is written, and which sometimes find their way into the preface, are often more informing and more interesting than the book itself. This should be eminently true in the case of a book on Values, for here, if anywhere, the writer might, perhaps, be permitted to wear his heart on his sleeve. It is not my purpose, however, to add this glimmer of possible human interest to an otherwise dull book. In so far as the statement of such presuppositions may have any significance for the main developments of the book, they are presented with due objectivity and detachment in the Introduction, and carried — with equal care, it is to be hoped — to some of their more obvious conclusions in the final chapter. It is unnecessary to anticipate them here. But with regard to the more general background — the relation of such a book to the characteristic assumptions of the time — the situation is different. Here a prefatory word may be a word in season ; it may not only illuminate some of the dark places, but may even give the key to an appreciation if not to a complete understanding of the entire discussion.

Until recently there was little question as to what should be the suppressed major premise of any serious inquiry, whatever its subject-matter might be. To science and the scientific method belonged the whole “ choir of heaven ” as well as the " furniture of earth.” To leave this assumption unquestioned was felt to be the only correct attitude, and where its acceptance was not whole-souled, half-hearted imitation took its place.

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Vll viii Preface

For some time, it is true, this assumption has not been without its disquieting effects upon life and art, upon morals and religion. The sophistication and even pruriency of thought and feeling to which some of the expressions of the scientific spirit have given rise, have led to a reaction against intellectualism which if not widespread is at least profound. But it was not until the triumphant march of science led to the soul and its inmost values that this reaction took definite form. The realisation of the capacity for large ineptitudes no less than for small futilities, which an uncriticised application of scientific method may display, has led to a questioning of its most fundamental assumptions. Vague distrust has developed into outspoken alogistic and even misologistic tendencies, until the counter-assumption, that values lie beyond the ken of knowledge and science, bids fair to rival its opponent in honour. In our theory as well as in our practice we have reached a point of equivocation, not to say contradiction, at which we must either take refuge in a new doctrine of “two-fold truth” or else, if there is any practical meaning in the principle of the dialectic, await with patience a middle ground of unification.

In the meantime, this dilemma of the Time-Spirit demands a new and rigid alignment of principles, and any book which enters the “ fighting-zone ” owes it to itself to be clear on this point. The present work places itself frankly on the side of knowledge rather than of edification, in the full belief that the latter presupposes the former. For better or for worse, we are caught in the grip of an immitigable will to know, a will to know which claims for its province “ the human soul and its limits, the entire range of its hitherto acquired experiences, the entire history of the soul and its still unexhausted possibilities.” Short of this we cannot stop except by the loss of the energy of this will which means the decadence of values as well. Nor does it shun the bringing together of the concepts of value and science. If science when it has followed this track has sometimes shown

Preface ix

qualities meriting the term “ dismal,” it does not follow that when it has penetrated more deeply it may not be “ gay.” We may well believe that the period of a crude and external dominance of the human spirit by an inhuman conception of science is approaching its zenith, if indeed it has not already begun to decline ; but it would be a mistake to infer that with such decline will go that deeper and more intimate control of the individual and social will alike which is made possible through the interpretation of their meanings in terms of reflective thought. Because certain limited conceptions, as well as unlimited claims, of science are being modified, it does not follow that the power of science, in the older and better use of that term, will be lessened. Rather may we confidently look for its increase. For faith and feeling also make unlimited claims which only the discipline of the scientific spirit enables us properly to appraise. There will always be new ventures in faith and science alike, and new ventures must always be followed by new evaluations. But such evaluations are not to be secured by reference to a closed system, either of truths or of values, but only by that orderly progression from actualities to possibilities and certainties which is the method of science. In the interest of true evaluations, the present time is committed to the full development of all that is implied in the concept of science rightly understood.

In comparison with this task — in its larger aspects by no means that of the merely technical philosopher, the aim of the following pages is much more modest. Limited as they are to certain “first works” which must in the nature of the case be largely technical, the writer must be content merely to hope that they may affect, at least indirectly, the larger issues.

The first six chapters, beginning with “ definition and analysis,” and culminating in the chapter on the general laws of valuation, seek to lay the foundations for an understanding of the different types of value judgments, their implications and their limits. In the development of this portion, chapters

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Preface

iv. and v. are in a sense an interruption, since they are wholly psychological ; and, while they treat of matters necessary to the complete understanding of the more general topics that follow, might have been handled in separate sections as required. On the whole, it seemed better to bring them together in one systematic treatment. Chapters vn. to xm. inclusive apply these results to a genetic and synthetic investigation of the consciousness of value from its lowest to its highest levels. Without laying claim to comprehensiveness or completeness, it may be said, I think, that there is no significant form of worth experience which is not adequately enough treated to show its relation to the general system of values. Finally, in chapter xiv. an attempt is made to show the bearing of these results on what I have ventured to call the axiological problem of evaluation. The views which I have felt justified in presenting in the limited space of a single chapter represent but in outline certain philosophical conclusions to which the study of the phenomenology of valuation has led. The work was originally planned to be merely such a phenomenological study, and as such it must be judged, but the unity which the entire work gained by the addition of this chapter seemed to compensate for any inadequacies which the chapter might appear to have when viewed by itself. In this connection I wish to express my regret that Miinsterberg’s Philosophic der Werthe appeared too late for the utilisation, except in the last chapter, of any of the valuable suggestions which I have got from its study. While my general position has remained unmodified, I could not have remained uninfluenced, in many details at least, by his brilliant and persuasive presentation of a view which is essentially opposed to my own.

In acknowledging my indebtedness to recent writers for many of the ideas contained in these pages, I have first of all to express my specific obligations to the oral as well as written teachings of Professor Baldwin. My deeper sense of obligation

Preface xi

he has most kindly allowed me to express in the form of dedication. Of my indebtedness to Meinong and Ehrenfels, as well as to others of that school, my references to their works give visible proof. These do not, however, adequately suggest the valuable help that I have received, not only from their researches in this special field, but from all their writings. To the French psychologists, Ribot and Paulhan, whose studies in “ feeling ” have yet to be properly valued, I am also greatly indebted. In conclusion, I have to express my gratitude to Professor J. H. Muirhead, the editor of the Library of Philosophy, for his very kind interest in the work, as well as for many valuable suggestions and criticisms. My colleagues Professor G. A. Kleene and Professor Arthur Adams have also rendered me great assistance, the former with expert suggestions on points in economics, the latter in connection with the reading of the proof.

Chapters n., hi., and part of iv. have already appeared as articles in the Psychological Review. They have in each case been considerably modified to suit their present purpose. The general Introduction is an expansion and modification of a paper printed in the Philosophical Review under the same title.

December, 1908.

Chapter I Page

The Function of a General Theory of Value: its Nature and Sources . i The Psychological Problem and Method — The Presuppositional Method of Psychological Analysis : a form of the Genetic Method . . -9

The Axiological Problem and Method — Facts and Norms — Genesis and Validity . . . . . . . . .16

The Relation of the Psychological and Axiological Points of View . .18

Chapter II Definition And Analysis Of The Consciousness Of Value

The Judgment of Value — Worth Predicates as Affective- Volitional Meanings — Equivocations in Judgments of Value leading to Analysis of Presuppositions . . . . . . . .21

Values as Meanings of an Object for a Subject — The Subject of the Value Judgment — The Subject in Different Attitudes — Classification of Attitudes : Simple Appreciation, Personal and Over-Personal or Impersonal — The Object of the Value Judgment — Objects of Condition, Personal and Over-Individual Value — The Relation of Subject and Object . 26

Psychological Analysis of Worth Experience — Worth as Feeling with certain Cognitive Presuppositions — The Worth-Fundamental is Feeling, not Desire — The Presupposition of Reality not exclusively Existential Judgment : Criticism of Theory of Existential Judgment underlying this View — The Presupposition of Reality: Presumption, Judgment and Assumption of Existence of Objects — Analysis of these Cognitive Attitudes . 35

The Genesis and Relations of these Presuppositions — Genetic Levels of Valuation . . . . . . . . . 49

Resume of Definition and Analysis . . . . . -53

Chapter III Modes Of The Consciousness Of Value — Primary And Acquired

Appreciative Description of Feelings of Value : its Nature and Method . 55

The Fundamental Appreciative Distinctions in Feeling — Descriptions of Reality-Meanings of Feelings of Value, not of Simple Feeling

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XIV

Contents

PAGE

abstracted from Cognitive Presuppositions — The Three-Dimensional Theory of Feeling : Interpretation — Correlation of Appreciative Meanings with Cognitive Presuppositions . . . . -59

Meanings Acquired by Development from the Fundamental Modes — Value- Movement — Acquired Meanings of Simple Appreciation — The Impellent Mode: Feelings of Obligation — The Semblant Mode: Esthetic Feeling 67 Acquired Meanings of Characterisation and Participation : Personal and Over-Individual Values . . . . . . .7 1

The Quantitative Meanings of Worth Feeling — Analysis of the Concept of Degree — Degree of Worth (Depth and Breadth) and Degree of Intensity : Independently Variable — Intensity-less Appreciation : Illustrations —

Theories of this Relation — Suggestion of a Genetic Theory to be developed later . . . . . . . .72

The Bearing of this Analysis on Further Problems . . . *78

Chapter IV The Psychological Basis Of A Theory Of Valuation

The Nature of Feeling and Will and their Relations — Dualistic Theories of Feeling and Will : Criticism — Monistic and Genetic Theory — Interpretation of the Monistic Theory : its Relation to the Definition and Analysis of the Consciousness of Value . . . . . .81

Further Analysis of Feeling : Structural and Functional — Feeling as a Kind of Sensitivity — The Appreciative Distinctions in Feeling as “ Forms of Combination ” of the Elements . . . .96

Correlation of Structural and Functional Analysis — Changes in Functional Meaning and Changes in Sensitivity : Passion and Emotion, Sentiment and Mood, and Affective Sign — Theory of their Genetic Relations . 103 Corollaries from the Preceding Theory — Their Significance for the Theory of Valuation ........ 108

Chapter V

The Acquirement of Recognitive and Generic Meanings on the Part of Feelings: The Problem . . . . . . .111

Affective Memory — Types of Affective Memory — The Criterion of Recognitive Meaning as applied to Feelings — Theory of Affective Memory . 113

The Generic Meanings of Feeling : Affective Generalisation — The Phenomena of Affective Continuity: Substitution, Subsumption, Transition 120 Psychological Theory of Generic Meanings of Feeling — Imageless Apprehension and Intensity-less Appreciation — The Process of Affective Generalisation . . . . . . . . 12 \

The Role of Affective Generals in Processes of Valuation — Worth Continuities : Illustrations . . . . . . . 133

Co?itents xv

Chapter VI

The Laws of Valuation : Their Nature and Range of Application — Economic and Extra-Economic Values — Classification and Interpretation The Law of the Threshold : General Meaning — Economic Thresholds, Upper and Lower : The Existence-Minimum and Final Utility — Modification of the Threshold through Acquired Meanings : Complementary Values — General Function of Threshold in Processes of Valuation — The Independent Variability of Hedonic and Worth Thresholds The Law of Diminishing Utility: Its Historical Significance and Relation to a General Theory of Value ......

The Psychological Basis of the Law : Dulling of Sensitivity with Repetition and Satiety — Critical Examination of these Laws — Their Application limited to Sense-Feelings and to the Hedonic Redundancies of Feelings of Value — Restatement of the General Law of Limiting or Diminishing Value .........

Extent of the Application of this Law : Its Application to all Instrumental Utility Values, but not necessarily to Intrinsic Ideal Values — The Law of Marginal Utility and its Explanation — Certain Limitations of this Law The Law of Complementary Values — As Modifying the Law of Limiting Value: In Economic Valuation; In Extra-Economic Valuation,

Ethical and Esthetic — General Characterisation of the Law : Its Psychological Basis — Interpretation .....

The Application of these Laws to Ideal Objects of Intrinsic Value — The Limits of this Application ..*...

General Conclusions : The Problem of the Limits of Acquirement of Value — Inferences from this Study of the Laws of Valuation — Their Bearing upon Further Studies .......

Chapter VII

Values of Simple Appreciation : their Origin and Nature — Objects of “ Condition ” Worth, Primary and Derived . ... .

Value Movements in General : Definition and Classification — Their Relation to the Laws of Valuation .......

Value Movements of Simple Appreciation: Ethical and Esthetic Values thus Acquired — Modification of Economic Values of Acquisition and Consumption ........

The Ethical or Impellent Mode of Simple Appreciation : As the Result of Inward Value Movement — Pre-Ethical and Quasi-Ethical Impulsions and Obligations : their Sub-Personal and Sub-Social Character — Illustrations of Instinctive, Quasi-Ethical Obligations — Modification of Economic Valuation by these Acquired Obligations . .

.Esthetic or Semblant Mode of Simple Appreciation : as Special Form of the Value Movement toward Activity — Pre-Esthetic and Quasi- Esthetic Forms of Activity : Their Individual and Sub-Social Character Conditions of Movement to Activity in its Pre-Esthetic Form — The Special Differentia of the Esthetic .

Modification of Economic Valuation by Acquired Esthetic Values .

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Contents

Chapter VIII Personal And Over-individual Values — Their Origin

AND NATURE

PAGE

Personal and Over-Individual Values: their Origin and Nature — Their “ Common Meaning ” Presupposes Sympathetic Participation . .232

Sympathetic Participation (Einfuhlung) : its Relation to Simple Appreciation and Feeling ........ 234

The Psychology of Sympathetic Projection: Its Nature and Conditions —

The Inducing Conditions of Affective Projection . . . .236

Levels of Sympathetic Participation — The Presuppositions of Sympathetic Feelings : (a) Organic Sympathy, with Vague Presumption of Existence ;

(b) Rise of Assumption-Feelings and Emergence of Distinctions in Presuppositions— Sembling; ( c ) Judgment-Feelings: Conceptual Reconstruction of the Inner Life in Terms of Dispositions .... 244

Sympathetic Participation ( Einfuhlung ) as a Process of Valuation — The Nature of the Feelings of Value Involved : the Projected Feelings “Real” Feelings — Value Movements in Participation and Characterisation ......... 249

The Distinction between Personal and Impersonal Participation — Intensive and Extensive Projection : Resulting in Differences of Presuppositions of Feelings . . . . . . . 253

Chapter IX Personal Worths : Values Of Characterisation

Definition : The Personal Attitude in Valuation — The Presuppositions of this Attitude — The Ideal of the Personality — How assumed in all Judgments of Personal Worth ....... 260

The Character of the Ideal Person as determined by the Processes in which it is Constructed — Idealisation involved in Sympathetic Participation — Division of the Personality — Extrusion of the Negative Elements — Further Stages in Idealisation : ^Esthetic Individuation of the Person ; Acquirement of Complementary Value ..... 263

The Laws of Valuation as applied to Personal Worth — The Problem in the Light of our General Study — Special Examination of Feelings of Personal orth . • • • • • • . .270

The Activities of Idealisation and Characterisation — Not .Subject to the Law of Diminishing Value: Feelings of Personal Worth not Subject to Dulling of Sensitivity and Satiety ....... 272

The Effect of Idealisation on our Actual Feelings and Judgments — The Semblant Mode in Characterisation — Dispositions Created which affect Actual Judgment ........ 275

Absolute Personal Values : They exist as Practical Absolutes . . 277

Chapter X

personal worths — Continued

Analysis and Interpretation of the Concrete Judgments of Personal Worth : Imputation and Obligation — Definition of the Subject, Object, and Terms of Estimation Presupposed in such Judgments .... 282

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Difference between the Personal or Ethical and the Impersonal or Moral Standpoints ......... 288

The Relative Estimation of Personal Worth — The Thresholds and Norms of Personal Obligation and Imputation : Their Origin in the Processes of Sympathetic Participation . . . . . . .291

The Normal Threshold : The Norm of Characterisation — The Upper and Lower Limits of Personal Worth : The Characterisation-Minimum — How Presupposed in all Judgments of Personal Worth .... 293

Laws Governing Feelings of Personal Worth : as Illustrated in Imputation of Merit and Demerit and in Personal Obligation .... 298

The Axiological Question of the Validity of the Implicit Assumptions or Presuppositions of these Judgments ...... 309

Chapter XI Impersonal Over-individual Values

Definition : Over-Individual Values of Participation and Utilisation — The Impersonal Attitude in Valuation — The Morally Qualified Act and the Morally Qualified Judgment — Relativity of the Distinction between the Personal and Impersonal Attitude . . . . • 3 1 1

The Presuppositions of the Impersonal Attitude : Over-Individual Demands — Over-Individual Demands as Collective Desire and Feeling — Their Origin and Nature — Social Synergies : Demand and Supply — The Relation of Subjective to Objective Participation Value . . .31 7

Subjective Participation Value — The Individual’s Feelings of Participation Value as Determined by Social Sympathy — Extensive Sympathetic Participation— The Laws of Social Sympathy . . . .320

The Objective Participation Value of Dispositions as Deduced from the Laws of Social Sympathy — The Law of Marginal Participation Value . 328 Corollaries from the Law of Marginal Participation Value — The Laws of Social Synergy — Social Value Movements — Social Differentiation and Segregation — The Norms and Limits of Participation Value . . 331

The Limits of Acquirement of Social Over-Individual Value — The Question of Absolute Social Values ....... 342

CHAPTER XII impersonal over-individual values — Continued

Analysis and Interpretation of Concrete Moral Judgments — The Moral Value of an Act as determined by its Participation Value — Estimation of Moral Value in Terms of Egoism and Altruism — The Significance of these Terms .........

The Thresholds and Norms of Moral Judgment — The Norm of Participation : The “ Correct ” : The Normal Expectation of Social Participation — The Lower Threshold : The Participation-Minimum — How Developed in

Social Participation and Presupposed in all Judgments of Moral Value .

Laws Governing Objective Participation Value as reflected in Imputation of Praise and Blame and in Moral Obligation — Moral Obligation Relative, not Absolute .....

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Chapter XIII Page

The Relative Value of Different Classes of Worth Objects — The Levels of Valuation ......... 366

Rationalistic and Monistic Theories of Valuation — Criticism — Intuitionism and Scepticism ........ 368

Analysis of the Facts of Synthetic Preference as exhibited in Judgments of Obligation and Imputation of Value — Conflicts between the Ideals and Obligations of the Different Levels of Condition, Personal and Impersonal Over-Individual Values — The Resolutions of these Conflicts in Actual Experience : In so far as Uniform and Unequivocal, Reflections of the General Laws of Valuation — Break-down of these Laws at the Limits . 371 Conclusions from the Analysis of Synthetic Preference — Restatement of the Criticism of Monistic Theories — The Doctrine of Supreme Moments or Practical Absolutes — The Supreme Moments of Intrinsic Appreciation Transcend all Distinctions of Appreciative Description — The Bearing of these Conclusions on Larger Philosophical Problems . . . 378

CHAPTER XIV — Conclusion

Restatement of the Axiological Point of View — Reflective Evaluation — Normative and Factual Objectivity . . . . *384

Analysis of Axiological Distinctions of Reality and Truth employed in Reflective Evaluation — The Meanings of Existence : Outer and Inner —

The Meanings of Truth : Outer and Inner ..... 386

The Relation of Normative to Factual and Truth Objectivity — Their Meanings only Partially Identical: The Objectivity of Values not wholly Reducible to Existence and Truth — Proof of this Conclusion in the Value Judgments of Religion ....... 390

The Sufficient Reason or Sanction of Valuation — The Ground of Value —

The Rationalistic Criterion ; The Pragmatic Criterion ; Criticism — Formulation of the Sufficient Sanction of Valuation in the Light of the Ultimate Meaning of the Presupposition of Reality and of its Fulfilment 395 Axiological Necessity and Sufficiency — The Well-Founded Value — Axiological Possibility and Compossibility — Formulation of a Criterion of the Well-Founded Value ....... 405

Application of this Criterion to Specific Practical Problems — Again the Monistic Ideals . . . . . . . . 414

Philosophical Conclusions — Truth, Value, and Reality : Their Ultimate

Index .

• 429

VALUATION

ITS NATURE AND LAWS

Chapter I

I. The Function of a General Theory of Value

There has seldom been a time in the history of thought when the problem of “ value " has so occupied the centre of attention as at present. Fundamental changes in the actual values of mankind, giving rise to what has been well called " our anxious morality/' with its characteristic talk of creating and conserving values, have brought with them what may, without exaggeration, be described as a gradual shifting of the philosophical centre of gravity from the problem of knowledge to the problem of values. The problem of knowledge has itself become, in some quarters wholly, in others partially, a problem of value.

The historical causes of this, until recently silent, change of attitude are, in a general way, clear enough. The change from intellectualism to voluntarism, the rigorous discipline of the human soul through the almost universal application of the concepts of evolution and the struggle for existence, with their ideas of selective and survival values — these are explanations which immediately suggest themselves ; and yet they are but general and superficial characterisations of a still more fundamental crisis of the social will, a crisis which has its roots deep in the necessities of things, and which we are as yet scarcely able to understand.

Whatever the causes, the effects are everywhere in evidence. This gradual change in actual values has found a mouthpiece, if somewhat rhetorical and rhapsodical, in Nietzsche's cry of “ transvaluation of all values." But this cry has been

B echoed by other hearts and minds, and that which began as a species of poetry has passed into sober prose. Of chief importance is the transition from the accumulation of knowledge to its evaluation. To say nothing of the growing attempt to evaluate the results of physical science in the interests of a more comprehensive natural philosophy— a movement which may or may not have some connection with Nietzsche’s arraignment of science in its present form, we may find sufficient evidences of this change of heart in the social and moral sciences, where the problem ot value lies closer to the surface. “ While formerly,” we are told,

“ it was almost wholly the external structure of the social life, and the economic values which it produces, that received attention now it is the meaning of this life for the human soul, its spiritual origin and spiritual effects, which finds expression.

In short it is the problem of evaluation.

Corresponding to this change in practical attitude, has appeared the more theoretical consciousness of, as it were, a new side of reality. We have been scarcely aware, so we are told, that our entire life, on its conscious side, is one continuous series of feelings of value and evaluations, of explicit judgments and implicit assumptions of value ; and that it is only by reas0^ 0 the very fact, that they are valued, that the mechanically determined elements of reality in any sense have meaning for us. Far from being a mere fact among other facts, that which we mean by our evaluation of objects is something independent ol this world, and so little merely a part of it that it is rather the whole world seen from a special point of view. Over against a world of facts is set a world of values.

But if this growing consciousness of the problem of value has

indeed reached a point where we are conscious of a world of values, where the terms ethical, esthetic, and even truth values, are in every mouth, and where the thought of a speci “ theory of value ” is no longer novel, with it has also come the realisation that philosophy, and the philosophical disciplines which are traditionally concerned with values, are, m their present form, not quite in a position to take possession of the new world. It is true that for some time metaphysics has seemed to many to be but a theory of value ; but the traditional problems

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titles are Religion, Speech, Custom, Commerce, The State, Politics,

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as well as the traditional methods of that discipline are still such as to make the question of values subordinate to the question of " being.” Nor are the special sciences which deal with facts of value able, as such, to cope with the changes, in both form and content of discussion, which this new setting of the problem has brought about. An harmonious division of labour between economics, ethics, and aesthetics has produced results which, for various and sufficient reasons, do not meet the need. It is rather precisely because of this division of labour, unwisely conceived, that the results are unsatisfactory. More and more the conviction gains ground that a general theory of value, which shall comprehend in a systematic and scientific way all types of human values, is an absolute necessity.

II. The Sources of Such a Theory

It has been said that the most fruitful metaphysical thought of the present is to be found in the special sciences. While perhaps not quite true, such a statement has this element of truth, that it is within the special sciences that the most significant questions of philosophy first make their appearance. Similarly, the necessity of solving certain special questions of value within the sciences of economics, ethics, and aesthetics, has developed concepts the significance of which extends far beyond these limits, and which therefore afford the material for more general and systematic reflections.

Of first importance is the “ theory of value ” which economics has developed for its special purposes. Narrow as this theory is (for it is not so long ago that an economist, F. von Wieser, although of the opinion that he had fulfilled his intention of “treating exhaustively the entire sphere of worth phenomena without an exception,” did not once in his investigations go beyond the region of economic goods), nevertheless, the very limitation of its activities to a narrow range of problems has led to an intensive analysis of certain facts and laws of valuation which should have long since furnished an example to ethics, and which must now furnish both the stimulus and the discipline for any one who seeks to comprehend the larger field. But this limitation of interest has obscured wider relations, knowledge of which would have been fruitful for the special work of the economist himself, and, in some cases, has led to fallacies of both observation and inference, which a more philosophical treatment of facts would have corrected. These limitations are, however, being overcome. The

necessity of translating economic into sociological conceptions, of correlating economic with larger social values, has brought about a notable change. Indeed, much of the movement in the direction of a more general theory comes from economics itself. Gradually the opposition to theory in this sphere is giving way, and at the same time the feeling increases that economic values are but a special class of human worths, and that they can be understood only in their relations, especially in their relation to