Page:Philosophical Review Volume 11.djvu/269

No. 3.] value is a function of two energies, abstractly conceived as located in different social groups, energies capable of measurement in terms of intensity and extensity of demand, and intensity and extensity of supply. In its inner aspect, such a reaction may get an additional imputed value, over and above the outer social value, a complementary value which arises as the resultant of its harmonious grouping with other dispositional values in the personality. Now, an examination of this principle of complementary values, as it is used to explain the origin of personal values, shows that, though apparently an extension of the quantitative principle, in reality it introduces a measure of value which is æsthetic and qualitative. This comes out clearly in Professor Patten's account of the origin of ethical values as complementary to economic. It consists in correcting the old concept of consumption, too objectively conceived, by the introduction of a subtler qualitative and æsthetic element. The older doctrine of consumption does not take into account all the elements of pleasure and utility. Besides the gross quantity of the goods, and the relation of this quantity to the capacity of the elemental wants, there are in all groups of goods capacities for rearrangement, which are outside the category of quantity, that is, are æsthetic. A group of goods, harmoniously arranged, is able to give indefinitely greater pleasure than the mere sum of the separate utilities of each of the component parts of the group. In addition, then, to the utility element of a group of goods, there are complementary goods which arise out of the harmonious grouping of the components. This complement, or increase of pleasure, is then imputed to the utility of the elements of the group. Now, since "æsthetic goods may be said to be goods without the point of satiety which is found in simple economic goods," and since "simple æsthetic ideals seem to be the result of the blending of distinct groups of pleasures into one group, and the æsthetic pleasures seem to be the largest harmonious grouping of pleasures that society can produce," it would follow that progress, in the sense of increase of value, would be assured for given groups of goods either in the subject or in the objective social order. The bearing of this