UTILITY. In economics the utility of a good is not con ceived to be its usefulness, as judged by any objective standard, but its importance to a consumer. Capacity to excite desire rather than to yield benefits or bestow happiness is the measure of a good's utility, in this technical sense, and only as the conduct of life is completely rational and guided by adequate foresight are the two capacities the same.
The law or principle of diminishing utility, which serves in economics as a logical foundation for the laws of demand, is merely a general statement respecting an obvious aspect of the way in which men apportion their time and their means. Sum marized, it is that progressively diminishing importance is at tached by a consumer to successive additional increments of a good. Diminishing utility has two aspects: absolute and relative. One suit of clothes is more important than a second, and a second is more important than a third. It is more important that in a cold climate one should have coal enough to keep one room warm during the winter than that a second, or a third or a fourth room should be heated. It cannot be said, however, that
all luxuries and particularly such as minister to the "desire for distinction," have different uses which can be ranked in an order of diminishing importance.
Marginal utility is the utility of the last increment (not neces sarily last in point of time) which the consumer thinks worth acquiring. (See also ECONOMICS and VALUE.) (A. Yo.) UTMAN KHEL, a Pathan tribe who occupy the hills to the north of Peshawar in the North-West Frontier Province of India. They claim to be descendants of Baba Utman, who accompanied Mahmud of Ghazni in his expedition into India in 997. The Utman Khel are a tall, stout and fair race, but in dress and gen eral customs follow the neighbouring peoples of Bajour.