  Presenting race prejudice as sentiment governed by the association of ideas, Cooper explains that it is “impervious to reason” and “cannot be annihilated by rhetoric” (VAJC, 163).  Thus, rather than approach the question of the worth of Africans from the standpoint of sentiment, Cooper raises the existential and phenomenological question of the value of human persons, particularly persons of African descent in the American context. She then shifts her analysis of worth to market value, examining the notion of worth as determined by the value of material, labor, and in the case of persons, the vital importance of education (“Education, then, is the safest and richest investment possible to man” [VAJC, 168]).