ach utility. It may seem very theoretical to
say that a concrete thing, like a watch, a coat, a dining table, or a
roast fowl, is made up of such abstract things as utilities and that
each of these has its separate price; yet such is actually the fact,
and if goods were not valued in the market in this way, the prices of
all articles of comfort and luxury would be very much higher than they
are.

A man pays seventy-five dollars for an overcoat, but if he could not
get the service that the coat as a whole renders without paying five
hundred dollars for it, he would pay it; for otherwise he could hardly
get through a winter. No man who buys an overcoat worth seventy-five
dollars would refuse to pay more if that were the necessary condition
of having an overcoat at all. The garment as a whole is far from being
a "marginal utility" to any one; and yet there is something in it that
is so. This element is like the article D in the fourth bundle
referred to in our illustration. There is a particular utility in the
composite good for which the man pays all that it is worth to him; and
he would go without that utility if the seller charged more than he
does. The most important service that the coat renders is that of
keeping the man warm; but a very cheap garment would render that
service, and six dollars will buy such a garment. The man does not
need to pay more than six dollars for that one service. The supply of
cheap coats is such that the final one must be offered for six dollars
in order to induce certain poor purchasers to buy it, and that,
moreover, is all that it costs to make it. No one, therefore, is
obliged to pay more than six dollars for something that will keep him
warm, however much such a service may be worth to him. Coats of
another grade have a second utility combined with this one, since they
are made of better cloth and are more comely in appearance. Utilities
of an aesthetic kind are combined with the crude qualities represented
by the cheapest coats. The supply of coats of this grade is such that
they must be offered for twenty dollars in order to induce some one to
take the final or marginal one. What does this mean? It means that
this purchaser will pay fourteen dollars and no more in order to have
the second utility, consisting in comeliness, added to the first
utility, capacity to keep him warm. This man would give more than
twenty dollars rather than go uncloaked; for it is plain that, if he
will pay