cially of that type which is brought to
pass through negotiation, however commonplace and matter of fact it has
come to be in the processes of modern life, is one of the most important
inventions for the uses of civilization. The impulse of uncivilized men,
like that of children, is to seize upon every desirable object without
further consideration, even though it be already in the possession of
another. Robbery and gift are the most naive forms of transfer of
possession, and under primitive conditions change of possession seldom
takes place without a struggle. It is the beginning of all civilized
industry and commerce to find a way of avoiding this struggle through a
process in which there is offered to the possessor of a desired object
some other object from the possessions of the person desiring the
exchange. Through this arrangement a reduction is made in the total
expenditure of energy as compared with the process of continuing or
beginning a struggle. All exchange is a compromise. We are told of
certain social conditions in which it is accounted as knightly to rob
and to fight for the sake of robbery; while exchange and purchase are
regarded in the same society as undignified and vulgar. The
psychological explanation of this situation is to be found partly in the
fact of the element of compromise in exchange, the factors of withdrawal
and renunciation which make exchange the opposite pole to all struggle
and conquest. Every exchange presupposes that values and interest have
assumed an objective character. The decisive element is accordingly no
longer the mere subjective passion of desire, to which struggle alone
corresponds, but the value of the object, which is recognized by both
interested parties but which without essential modification may be
represented by various objects. Renunciation of the valued object in
question, because one receives in another form the quantum of value
contained in the same, is an admirable reason, wonderful also in its
simplicity, whereby opposed interests are brought to accommodation
without struggle. It certainly required a long historical development to
make such means available, because it presupposes a psychological
generalization of the universal valuation of the individual object, an
abstraction, in other words, of the value for the objects with which it
is at first identified; that is, it presupposes ability to rise above
the prejudices of immediate desire. Compromise by represe