124.  And as economists have lost sight of this great function of money in relation to individual rights, so they have equally lost sight of its function as a representative of good things.  That, for every good thing produced, so much money is put into everybody’s pocket, is the one simple and primal truth for the public to know, and for economists to teach.  How many of them have taught it?  Some have; but only incidentally; and others will say it is a truism.  If it be, do the public know it?  Does your ordinary English householder know that every costly dinner he gives has destroyed forever as much money as it is worth?  Does every well-educated girl—­do even the women in high political position—­know that every fine dress they wear themselves, or cause to be worn, destroys precisely so much of the national money as the labor and material of it are worth?  If this be a truism, it is one that needs proclaiming somewhat louder.

125.  That, then, is the relation of money and goods.  So much goods, so much money; so little goods, so little money.  But, as there is this true relation between money and “goods,” or good things, so there is a false relation between money and “bads,” or bad things.  Many bad things will fetch a price in exchange; but they do not increase the wealth of the country.  Good wine is wealth, drugged wine is not; good meat is wealth, putrid meat is not; good pictures are wealth, bad pictures are not.  A thing is worth precisely what it can do for you; not what you choose to pay for it.  You may pay a thousand pounds for a cracked pipkin, if you please; but you do not by that transaction make the cracked pipkin worth one that will hold water, nor that, nor any pipkin whatsoever, worth more than it was before you paid such sum for it.  You may, perhaps, induce many potters to manufacture fissured pots, and many amateurs of clay to buy them; but the nation is, through the whole business so encouraged, rich by the addition to its wealth of so many potsherds,—­and there an end.  The thing is worth what it can do for you, not what you think it can; and most national luxuries, nowadays, are a form of potsherd, provided for the solace of a self-complacent Job, voluntary sedent on his ash-heap.

126.  And, also, so far as good things already exist, and have become media of exchange, the variations in their prices are absolutely indifferent to the nation.  Whether Mr. A. buys a Titian from Mr. B. for twenty, or for two thousand, pounds, matters not sixpence to the national revenue; that is to say, it matters in nowise to the revenue whether Mr. A. has the picture, and Mr. B. the money, or Mr. B. the picture, and Mr. A. the money.  Which of them will spend the money most wisely, and which of them will keep the picture most carefully, is, indeed, a matter of some importance; but this cannot be known by the mere fact of exchange.