should not have to labor; I should not even think. In such a
state, things would always be USEFUL, but it would be no longer
true to say that they ARE VALUABLE; for value, as we shall soon
see, indicates an essentially social relation; and it is solely
through exchange, reverting as it were from society to Nature,
that we have acquired the idea of utility. The whole development
of civilization originates, then, in the necessity which the
human race is under of continually causing the creation of new
values; just as the evils of society are primarily caused by the
perpetual struggle which we maintain against our own inertia.
Take away from man that desire which leads him to think and fits
him for a life of contemplation, and the lord of creation stands
on a level with the highest of the beasts.

But how does value in use become value in exchange? For it
should be noticed that the two kinds of value, although
coexisting in thought (since the former becomes apparent only in
the presence of the latter), nevertheless maintain a relation of
succession: exchangeable value is a sort of reflex of useful
value; just as the theologians teach that in the Trinity the
Father, contemplating himself through all eternity, begets the
Son. This generation of the idea of value has not been noted by
the economists with sufficient care: it is important that we
should tarry over it.

Since, then, of the objects which I need, a very large number
exist in Nature only in moderate quantities, or even not at all,
I am forced to assist in the production of that which I lack;
and, as I cannot turn my hand to so many things, I propose to
other men, my collaborators in various functions, to yield me a