640 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
nomena, they are not only known in consciousness as subjective, but are also known as objective, being revealed by associates to associates by all the methods of self-revelation that have been mentioned in this section.
Accordingly, the question, " What is of worth ? " is answered empirically by answering the question, "What do men value?" and the relative value of different experiences is determined by the concurrent testimony of the competent, as questions are answered about other phenomena that are public and describable.
It is true that the only competent witnesses concerning the value of a given kind of experience are those who have had such experience, but it is equally true that the only competent witnesses concerning a kind of external phenomena are those who have observed them. No single individual is a competent witness con- cerning external phenomena that he has not observed, any more than concerning valuings that he has not experienced. A witness can tell how a given experience that he has had compares in value with other experiences that he has had. Man is the measure of all things that is, of all experience only when he has had all kinds of experience. But each can observe his own valuings and in the sense explained above he can describe them. Some kinds of valuings are so universal that practically all men are competent to testify concerning them. Other kinds of valuings are less nearly universal, yet those who have experienced them can sufficiently describe them so that others, who have never had the like, can desire them and be taught to seek them. Those are the most competent witnesses concerning human valuings whose experience has been richest, especially in those types of worth- experience which are higher than others by common consent of those who have had these particular types of experience together with the widest range of other worth-experiences with which to compare them.
It is true, as above set forth, that the affective element in valuation cannot be described in the same way as external phe- nomena. But it can be named, and its presence and its kind can therefore be expressed in the form of a judgment, and the affec- tive element is regularly an element in an experience all of which
