3. With the fate that awaited knowledge after the
Athenian Akademeia came to an end, the rekindled
intellectual activity of the Middle Ages found no other
authoritative guide than Aristotle's integrated philo-
sophical system. So, as the Scholastic doctors turned
their attention during the thirteenth century to man's
secular problems, they found Aristotle's ethical views
of economic life perfectly congenial to the Christian
teachings. Aristotle's thought that the basis of value
is χρεία offered to Saint Thomas Aquinas a splendid
ground for arguing that value represents the need of
the whole society, not the whimsical need of the indi-
vidual. Moreover, this need must reflect social justice,
without which any society is doomed. However, in the
end the Scholastics began to ask what value is, instead
of what it should be. It was Saint Antoninus who, about
the middle of the fifteenth century, reached the highest
point on a trail broken by Duns Scotus. In his explicit
formulation, the value of an object involves (1) its
quality in comparison with other similar objects, (2)
its scarcity, and (3) its complacibilitas—a notion equiv-
alent to that of utility as defined later by Galiani and
Bentham.
