has happened in the present case,) though a plausible sophism, which had been summarily crushed for the moment by a strong appeal to general good sense upon the absurd consequences arising, will infallibly return upon us when no such startling consequences are at hand. Now, therefore, with this sense of the critical step which next awaits us, let us move forward.

Sus

The idea of value in exchange having thus been analytically decomposed, the question which offers itself next in order concerns the subdivision of this idea. How many modes are possible of value in exchange? The general answer is, -two; and the answer is just there are two. But how are these two distinguished? How is it that they arise? Now here it is, in the answer to this question, that an infirm logic has disturbed the truth. Even Ricardo has not escaped the universal error. pensory judgments are painful acts. It is fatiguing to most readers, that a provisional view of the truth should be laid before them, upon which all the pains taken to appropriate and master it are by agreement to be finally found worthless. This refutation of error is better so placed as to follow the establishment of the truth, in which position the reader may either dismiss it unread, as a corollary which already he knows to be too much, - as an offshoot in excess; or, on the other hand, choosing to read it, will do so under the additional light obtained through the true doctrine now restored to its authority.

The difficulty which strikes us all upon the possibility of raising any subdivision under that generic idea of exchange value already stated, is this: The two elements

are, 1st, Intrinsic utility; 2d, Difficulty of attainment. But these elements must concur. They are not reciprocating or alternating ideas; they are not, to borrow a word from Coleridge, inter-repellent ideas, so that room

might be made for a double set of exchange values, by supposing alternately each of the elements to be withdrawn, whilst the other element was left paramount. This is impossible; because, by the very terms of the analysis, each element is equally indispensable to the common idea which is the subject of division. Alike in either case, if No 1, or if No 2, should be dropped out of the composition, instantly the whole idea of exchange value falls to the ground like a punctured bladder.

But this seems to preclose the road to any possible subdivision of the generic idea, because immediately it occurs to the student, that when no element can be withdrawn, then it is not possible that the subdivisions can differ except as to degree. In one case of exchange value there might, for instance, be a little more of the element A, and a little less of the element B. In some other case these proportions might be reversed. we subdivide the genus animal, we are able to do so by means of an element not common to the two subdivisions: we assign man as one subdivision, — brutes as the other,

But all this is nothing. When

- by means of a great differential idea, the idea of rationality; consequential upon which are tears, laughter, and the capacity of religion. All these we deny to brutes; all these we claim for man; and thus are these two great sub-genera or species possible. But when all elements are equally present to both of the subdividing ideas, we cannot draw any bisecting line between them. The two ideas lie upon one continuous line, differing, therefore, as higher and lower, by more and by less, but not otherwise; and any subdividing barrier, wheresoever it is made to fall between them, must be drawn arbitrarily, without any reasonable foundation in real or essential differences.

These considerations are calculated to stagger us; and at this precise stage of the discussion I request the read

er's most vigilant attention. We have all read of secret doors in great cities, so exquisitely dissembled by art, that in what seemed a barren surface of dead wall, where even the eye forewarned could trace no vestige of a separation or of a line, simply by a simultaneous pressure upon two remote points, suddenly and silently an opening was exposed which revealed a long perspective of retiring columns, architecture the most elaborate, where all had passed for one blank continuity of dead wall. Not less barren in promise, not less abrupt in its transition, this speculation at the very vestibule of political economy, at the point where most it had appeared to allow of no further advance or passage, suddenly opens and expands before an artifice of logic which almost impresses the feelings as a trick of legerdemain, not by anything unsound in its own nature, but by the sudden kind of pantomime change which it effects. The demand is, that you shall subdivide exchange value into two separate modes. You are to do this without aid from any new idea that has arisen to vary the general idea; you are to work with the two already contained in that general idea, sequently with ideas that must be common to both the subdivisions, and yet you are to differentiate these subdivisions. Each is to be opposed to the other, each is to differ, and yet the elements assigned to you out of which this difference is to be created are absolutely the same. Who can face such conditions as these? Given a total identity, and out of that you are to create a difference.

con

Let not the reader complain of the copious way in which the difficulty is exposed. After many hundreds of failures, after endless efforts with endless miscarriages, it is no time for refusing his own terms to the leader of a final assault. So many defeats have natuI am angry, the reader is

rally made us all angry.

angry; and that offer is entitled to consideration, even though it should seem needlessly embarrassed or circuitous, which terminates in the one object that can be worth talking about, viz. in "doing the trick," and carrying by a summary effort that obstacle which (whether observed or not observed) has so long thwarted the power of perfecting and integrating the theory of value. Once being convinced that it is a mere contradiction to solve the problem, the reader may be relied on for attending to anything offered as a solution by one who has almost demonstrated its impossibility.

Out of nothing, nothing is generated. This is pretty old ontology; and apparently our case at present is of that nature; for by no Laputan process of extracting sunbeams from cucumbers, does it appear how we can hope, out of two samenesses, to extract one difference; yet do it we must, or else farewell to the object before us. And, in order that we may do it, let us disembarrass our problem of all superfluous words; and, by way of sharpening the eye to the point of assault, let us narrow it to the smallest possible area.

What we have to do, is to consider whether (and now) it is feasible so to use a sameness as to make it do the office of a difference. With one single sameness this would peremptorily not be possible; for we could vary it no otherwise than by varying its degrees. Now, a difference in degrees is no substantial difference in logic; and the pretended subdivisions would melt and play into each other, so as to confound the attempt at sustaining any subdivisions at all. But, on the other hand, with two samenesses it is possible to move. A little reflection will show that there is a resource for making them alternately act as differences. In physics we see vast phenomena taking place all day long, which à priori might have been stated

as paradoxes not less startling than that of extracting a difference out of a sameness. One gravity rises through another gravity. True; it is specifically lighter; but still it has a specific gravity: and thus we find as the result, with the usual astonishing simplicity of nature, that the same machinery serves for sinking objects and for raising them. By gravity they fall; by gravity they rise. So also, again, that same ocean, which to nations populous and developed by civilization offers the main high-road of intercourse, was to the same nations, when feeble, the great wall of separation and protection. And again, in the case before us, monstrous as really is the paradox, yet it is true, that, by a dexterous management of two elements absolutely identical, all the effects and benefits may be obtained of two elements essentially different.

D.

Let us look more closely. The two elements are u and

If both elements are to be present, and both are to be operative, then indeed we have a contradiction in terms such as never will be overcome. But how if both be uniformly present, one only being at any time operative? How if both be indispensably present, but alternately each become inert? How if both act as motives on the buyer for buying at all, but one only (each in turn under its own circumstances) as a force operating on the price? This is the real case: this is the true solution; and thus is a difference obtained, such a difference as will amply sustain a twofold subdivision from elements substantially the same. Both are co-present, and always. Neither can be absent; for, if so, then the common idea of exchange value would vanish, the case epsilon or the case omicron would be realized. But each of the two is suspended alternately. Thus, by way of illustration, walk into almost any possible shop, buy the first article you see; what will determine its price? In ninety-nine cases