From which we see
that the exchange is between efforts, [time and] labor. It is
certainly not for hydrogen gas that I pay, for this is everywhere at
my disposal, but for the work that it has been necessary to accomplish
in order to disengage it; work which I have been spared, and which I
must refund. If I am told that there are other things to pay for, as
expense, materials, apparatus, I answer, that still in these things it
is the work that I pay for. The price of the coal employed is only the
representation of the [time and] labor necessary to dig and transport
it.
We do not pay for the light of the sun, because nature alone gives it
to us. But we pay for the light of gas, tallow, oil, wax, because here
is labor to be remunerated;--and remark, that it is so entirely [time
and] labor and not utility to which remuneration is proportioned, that
it may well happen that one of these means of lighting, while it may
be much more effective than another, may still cost less. To cause
this, it is only necessary that less [time and] human labor should be
required to furnish it.
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