Page:Sir William Petty - A Study in English Economic Literature - 1894.djvu/62

433] (476). The mass of mankind are worth 20 years purchase, as well as land. This whole sum, divided by six millions, the number of people, gives the value of each individual—£69. Natural dearness or cheapness depend upon the amount of labor, for all wealth is the creation of labor past or present (477). This does not imply that the laborer is to receive all the profits. He quotes with approval the statute fixing the rate of wages, and desires that it should be adapted to the change of times (39).

Petty's distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic value is explained in a manuscript dialogue on selling diamonds, from which I take the following extract: "I will first take notice that the dearness and cheapness of diamonds depends upon two causes; the one intrinsic, which lies within the stone itself, and the other extrinsic and contingent such as are (1) the prohibitions to seek for them in the countries from whence they come. (2) When merchants can lay out their money in India to more profit upon other commodities, and therefore do not bring them. (3) When they are bought, upon fears of wars to be a subsistence for exiled and obnoxious persons. (4) They are dear near the marriage of some great person, where great numbers of persons are to put themselves in splendid appearances. For any of these causes, if they be very strong upon any part of the world, they operate on the whole. For if the price of diamonds should rise in Persia, it shall also rise preceptably in England, for the great merchants all the world over do know one another, do correspond, and are partners in most of the considerable pieces, and do use great confederacy and intrigue in buying and selling them."