Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER 11 CONSUMPTION AND DURATION § 1. Consumptive and non-consumptive uses of goods. § 2. Direct uses, consumptive and durative. § 3. Indirect uses, consumptive and dura- tive. § 4. The single consumptive use. § 5. No economic goods absolutely durable. § 6. Inevitable depreciation. § 7. Using up of agricultural land. § 8. Artificial durability of agricultural land. § 9. Varying rates of depreciation of machinery. § 10. Repair of tools and machinery. § 11. Economy of repairs. 8 12. Production as betterment and repair of nature. § 1. Consumptive and non-consumptive uses of goods. . We have in the last two chapters considered two essential aspects that every use of a good exhibits. We have seen that every use is more or less direct or indirect (roundabout), according as the good acts directly upon the person using it or indirectly transmits its effect through some other good; this is the technical relation of uses (and of goods) to desires. We have seen next, that a use may be either present or future in varying degrees (and in either case may be valued); this is the time-relation of uses to desires. We now come to the consideration of yet another aspect of use, namely, the effect that the use has upon the duration of the object yielding the use (called the use-bearer). This may be termed the duration- relation of goods to desires. The apple is eaten and gone; the picture continues for years to impart beauty to the room. The lemonade quenches thirst once, the glass in which it is served may be used many times. The use that destroys the good (or its possibilities of further use) is a consumptive use. Coal is consumed and becomes ashes, smoke, and gas, as it is burnt to create heat for comfort, for cooking, and for steam- power. The white gloves are consumed when they beco...