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 effective effort and therefore has less value per gallon. When there is a river available the water has no economic value. It is a facility only and not an inducement.

What has confused the student of economics so long is the failure to distinguish between the cause of value (force), the condition of value (friction), and value itself (effective work).

In dynamics we recognize only one value, namely, effectiveness; but we recognize two contributing factors which go to make up this value: one is prime force; the other is resistance or facility, whichever way we care to express it.

The electrician has a different unit to measure each of these qualities. He measures cause by volts, condition by ohms, and value by amperes.

The economist, unfortunately for us, employs the same word for effort, facility and effect, calling them all value, as, for example, when he speaks of the value of effort, the value of an ample municipal water supply, and the value of a bottle of champagne. Curiously enough, the bottle of champagne—a luxury—is the only item on this list that has scientific economic value, since it is the only thing that has the quality of inducing effective effort.

Because our “measure of value” does not express our sentimental appraisement of the three qualities—effort, facility and effectiveness—we become confused.

Labor is effort, but is not value: it may be quite ineffective, as we all know.

An ample community water supply is a facility, but it is not value: it amplifies effort but does not call it forth.

The champagne, however, has economic value, since it is capable of commanding effective effort as its price; and such effort is rendered more effective by the municipal water supply, owing to the fact that it is not diverted by the necessity of having to stop and dig wells.

Long before we have defined economic value and learned to measure it, we have wasted countless time in trying to legislate it into motion. From an engineering point of view