This brings us to a question I have raised before, namely, whether the genetic, or historical account of a social situation, and the cross-section analysis of the same situation, necessarily agree.[118] Is it possible that when a commodity basis was necessary to start the thing, and when even in the modern world gold bullion, interconvertible with gold coin, remains the ultimate basis of the money-systems of all great commercial peoples, that you could withdraw the commodity support and keep money unchanged in value? Or could you even have any value left at all? Now in answer, I propose to admit the possibility of so doing. The forces which a cross-section analysis reveals are not necessarily identical with those which a theory of origins sets forth. Once the thing is set going, the forces of inertia favor it. A new theory, fixed in the minds of the people, say the quantity theory itself, might give them such confidence in their money that its value might be maintained. A fiat of the government, making the money legal tender, supplemented by the loyalty of the people, might keep up its value. I think there is reason to believe that this is a source of no little importance of value for the German paper money to-day, and, to a less extent, of the notes of the _Banque de France_. All these possibilities I admit. Value is not physical, but psychological. And the form of value with which we are here concerned, economic value _par excellence_, is a phenomenon of social, rather than individual psychology. Many and complex are the psychical factors lying behind it. Belief, custom, law, patriotism, particularly a network of legal relationships growing out of contracts expressed in terms of the money in question, the policy of the state as to receiving the money for public dues, the influence of a set of customary or legally prescribed prices, which tie the value of money to a certain extent to the values of goods--factors of this character can add to the value of money, and can, conceivably, even sustain it when the original source of value is gone. Social economic value does not rest on marginal utility. In general, utility is essential, as one of many conditions, before value can exist, even though the intensity of the marginal want served by a good bears no definite relation to its value. But in the case of the value of a money of the sort here considered, marginal utility is in no sense a cause of the value. Rather, the marginal utility[119] of such money to an individual is wholly a reflection of its social value, and changes when that social value changes. It is quite consistent with the general theory of economic value which I have set forth in _Social Value_, for me to admit possibilities of this kind. The value of money in such a case has become divorced from its original presuppositions. The paper, originally resting on a commodity basis, or the coins originally valued because they could be transformed into non-monetary objects of value, have become objects of value in themselves. Analogous phenomena are common enough in the general field of values, and are less common in the field of economic values proper than one might suppose. Thus, most moral values tend to become independent of their presuppositions. Moral values of modes of conduct have commonly arisen because those modes of conduct were, or were supposed to be, advantageous in furthering other ends. Morality, in its essence, is _teleogical_. Yet so far have the moral ideals become ends in themselves that it is possible to have great thinkers, like Kant and Fichte, setting them up as eternal and unchangeable categorical imperatives, regardless of consequences. Thus Fichte declares, "I would not tell a lie to save the universe from destruction." Older still is the dictum, "_Fiat justitia, ruat coelum._" Yet truth and justice, in the history of morals, and, in the view of most moral thinkers to-day, are of value primarily because they tend to preserve the universe from destruction, and would never have become morally valuable had they had the other tendency! Legal values manifest this tendency even more--one needs only to point to our vast body of technical rules of procedure in criminal cases, which persist long after their original function is gone, and after they have become highly pernicious from the standpoint of the ends originally aimed at. In the sphere of the individual psychology the phenomenon is very common. The miser's love for money is a classical example. The housewife who so exalts the cleanliness of her home that the home becomes an unhappy place in which to live, is an often-described type.