where previously it had been interrupted. Not merely an addition of new power, but the ratification of all the previous powers yet inchoate, had been the result. It was impossible to use adequately the initial powers of the science, until others had been added which distributed the force through the entire cycle of resistances.

In the present case, although the reader may fancy that such excessive solicitude for planting the great distinctions of value upon a true basis, is not likely to reap any corresponding harvest of results in subsequent stages of the science, further experience will satisfy him, that in all cases of dispute already existing, with the exception only of such as are still waiting for facts, and in all cases of efforts for the future progress of the science, it is really the ancient confusion overhanging this difficult theme of value which has been, or which will be, the sole retarding force. The question of value is that into which every problem finally resolves itself; the appeal comes back to that tribunal, and for that tribunal no sufficient code of law has been yet matured which makes it equal to the calls upon its arbitration. It is a great aggravation of the other difficulties in the science of Economy, that the most metaphysical part comes first. A German philosopher, who in that instance was aiming at anything but truth, yet with some momentary show of truth, once observed, with respect to the Catechism of our English Church, that it was the most metaphysical of books in a case which required the simplest. "I," said he, "with all my philosophy, cannot swim where these infants are to wade." For my own part, I utterly deny his inference. To be simple, to be easy of comprehension, is but the second condition for a good elementary statement of Christian belief, — the first is, to be faithful. There is no necessity that all things should be at the earliest stage understood, — in part

cal

they will never be understood in a human state, because they relate to what is infinite for an intellect which is finite. But there is a high necessity that, early in life, those distinctions should be planted which foreclose the mind, by a battery of prejudication and prepossession, against other interpretations, having, perhaps, the show of intelligibility, but terminating in falsehood, which means contradiction to Scripture. Now the condition of politieconomy is in this point analogous. Left to our own choice, naturally, none of us could wish to commence with what is most of all subtle, metaphysical, and perplexing. But no choice is allowed. Make a beginning at any other point, and the first explanation you attempt will be found to presuppose and involve all that you are attempting to evade; and in such a case, after every attempt to narrow the immediate question into a mere occasional skirmish, you will find yourself obliged to bring on the general conflict, under the great disadvantage of being already engaged with a separate question, that is, on the most embarrassed ground you could possibly have selected. The great conflict, the main struggle, comes on at the very opening of the field; and simply because that is too hastily and insufficiently fought out, are all students forced, at one point or other, to retrace their steps, nay, simply from that cause, and no other, it is possible at this day to affirm with truth, that, amongst many other strange results, no statesman in our British senate, and no leading critical review, has escaped that error in particular, that grossest and largest of errors, which is exposed in the fourth chapter, upon market value. It is because men are impatient of the preliminary cares, efforts, and cautions, such as unavoidably they submit to in mathematics, that upon what is known in Economy there is perpetual uncertainty, and for any inroads into what is yet unknown, perpetual insecurity.

The object of this section is, to obtain a better, a more philosophic, and a more significant expression for the two modes of exchange value than those of u and D, employed hitherto; and, at the same time, to explode the expressions adopted by previous writers, as founded upon a false view of their relations.

In any exchange value whatsoever, it has been agreed by all parties, that both u and D must be present; there must be a real utility or serviceableness before a man will submit to be affected by D,-i. e. before he will pay a price adjusted to the difficulty of attainment; and, versû vice, there must be this real difficulty of attainment before the simple fact of utility in the object will dispose him to pay for it, not by D in particular, but by anything at all. Now, though this is indispensable, yet, in the preceding section, it has been shown that, whilst both alike are present, one only governs. And a capital error has been in fancying that value in use (value derived from u) is necessarily opposed to value in exchange; whereas, being one horn of the two into which value in exchange divides, as often as the value in use becomes operative at all, it does itself become it constitutes value in exchange, and is no longer co-ordinate to exchange value, (in which case it is wealth,) but subordinate; one subdivision of exchange value.

Now, then, having shown, under two different sets of circumstances, the one element and the other will with equal certainty take effect and become dominant, I will request the student to consider what, after all, is the true, sole, and unvarying consideration which acts upon the mind of the purchaser in the first intention of wishing to possess. As regards the price, what acts is alternately u and D; sometimes one, sometimes the other. But not so with regard to the general purpose of buying

Here only one thing acts. No man ever conceived the intention of buying upon any consideration of the difficulty and expense which attend the production of an article. He wishes to possess, he resolves to buy, not on account of these obstacles,-far from it, but in spite of them. What acts as a positive and sole attraction to him, is the intrinsic serviceableness of the article towards

some purpose of his own. The other element may happen to affect the price, and, generally speaking, does affect it as the sole regulating force, but it can never enter at all into the original motive for seeking to possess the article; uniformly, it is viewed in the light of a pure resistance to that desire.

Here, then, present themselves two reasonable designations for supplanting U and D, which are far better, as being, 1st, in true logical opposition; and 2dly, as pointing severally each to its own origin and nature: u may be called affirmative, D negative. The latter represents the whole resistance to your possession of the commodity concerned; the former represents the whole benefit, the whole positive advantage, the whole power accruing to you from possession of this commodity. There is always an affirmative value, there is always a negative value, on any commodity bearing an exchange value,—that is, on any which can enter a market; but one only of these values takes effect at one time, - under certain circumstances the affirmative value, under other and more ordinary circumstances, the negative. And, accordingly, as one or other becomes operative, as it ceases to be latent and rises into the effectual force, we may say of it, that it has passed into the corresponding price; affirmative value into affirmative price, negative value into negative price. For price is value ratified or made effectual, – the potential raised into the actual.

Many years ago, in a slight and unfinished sketch off what is most peculiar to Ricardo, (bearing the title of "The Templar's Dialogues,") I made it my business to show that a general confusion had pervaded Political Economy between two cardinal ideas, - a measure of value, and a ground of value; that no writer within my knowledge had escaped this confusion; that the former idea was demonstrably a chimera, an ens rationis, which never could be realized; that, except in one instance, 12 (viz. when needed as a test of the variations, whether real or only apparent, between successive stages of a paper currency,) no practical benefit would be derived from the realization of such a measure; whereas, on the other hand, a ground of value is so indispensable an idea, that without it not one step can be taken in advance.

The author of "A Critical Dissertation on Value," who does me much honor in saying (p. xxv. of Preface) that this little sketch of mine it was which "first suggested" his own work, gives two different opinions in the same page (p. 171) as to the original delivery of this broad distinction. In the text he says, "The author of the 'Templar's Dialogues on Political Economy' is the only writer who appears to me to have been fully aware of this confusion of two separate and distinct ideas. He traces it partly to an ambiguity in the word determine." But in a foot-note on this same sentence he thus corrects himself: "This was written before I had seen the second edition of Mr. Mill's 'Elements,' in which the distinction is for the first time introduced. His language on the point, however, is not uniformly consistent, as will be shown in the next chapter." I apprehend that, if any such distinction has been anywhere insisted upon consciously by Mr. Mill, it will be difficult to establish a priority for him. The fragment called "The Templar's