property has always attached itself by preference to objects of
the most immediate utility, to MADE VALUES, if I may so speak;
so that the scale of values might be fixed by the progress of
appropriation.

In his work on the "Liberty of Labor" M. Dunoyer has positively
accepted this principle by distinguishing four great classes of
industry, which he arranges according to the order of their
development,--that is, from the least labor-cost to the greatest.

These are EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRY,--including all the semi-barbarous
functions mentioned above,--COMMERCIAL INDUSTRY, MANUFACTURING,
INDUSTRY, AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRY. And it is for a profound reason
that the learned author placed agriculture last in the list.
For, despite its great antiquity, it is certain that this
industry has not kept pace with the others, and the succession of
human affairs is not decided by their origin, but by their entire
development. It may be that agricultural industry was born
before the others, and it may be that all were contemporary; but
that will be deemed of the latest date which shall be perfected
last.

Thus the very nature of things, as well as his own wants,
indicates to the laborer the order in which he should effect the
production of the values that make up his well-being. Our law of
proportionality, then, is at once physical and logical, objective
and subjective; it has the highest degree of certainty. Let us
pursue the application.

Of all the products of labor, none perhaps has cost longer and