But,

Dialogues was written at the end of 1821, and, to the best of my recollection, printed in the spring of 1822. Having never seen any edition whatsoever of Mr. Mill's "Elements" until this present return to the subject, (spring of 1843,) I obtained a copy from a public library. This happens to be the first edition, (which is clear from the fact, that no attempt occurs in this work at any distinction whatever between a "measure" and a "ground" of value,) and this bears the date of 1821 upon the titlepage. It seems probable, therefore, that the date of the second edition would be, at the earliest, 1822, -a question, however, which I have no means of deciding. be that as it may, two facts seem to discredit such a claim: 1st, that Mr. Mill, at p. iv. of the Preface, says, "I profess to have made no discovery"; whereas, beyond all doubt, a distinction which exposes suddenly a vast confusion of thought affecting the great mob of books upon this subject, is a discovery, and of very extensive use. 2dly, it turns out, from a charge alleged at p. 204, by the Dissertator on value, that Mr. Mill "confounds the standard with the cause of value." I understand him to mean, not that constructively Mr. Mill confounds these ideas, not that such a confusion can be extorted from his words though against his intention, but that formally and avowedly he insists on the identity of the two ideas. If so, there is an end of the question at once; for “ a standard of value" is but a variety of the phrase ". measure of value." The one, according to a scholastic distinction, (most beneficially revived by Leibnitz,) is a mere principium cognoscendi; the other (a ground of value) is a principium essendi.13 What qualifies an object to be a standard of value, that is, to stand still when all other objects are moving, — and thus by consequence qualifies it to measure all changes of value between any two objects,

showing, as on a delicate scale, how much of the change has belonged to the one object, how much to the other or whether either has been stationary: this is a thing which we shall never learn; because no such qualification can arise for any object, none can be privileged from change affecting itself. And, if liable to change itself, we need not quote Aristotle's remark on the Lesbian rule, to prove that it can never measure the changes in other objects. A measure of value is therefore not by accident impossible, but impossible by the very constitution of its idea; precisely as the principle of perpetual motion is not accidentally impossible, (by failure of all efforts yet made to discover it,) but essentially impossible so long as this truth remains in force, that it is impossible to propagate motion without loss. On the other hand, to seek for the cause or ground of value is not only no visionary quest, speculatively impossible and practically offering little use, but is a sine quû non condition for advancing by a single step in political economy. Everything that enters a market, we find to have some value or other. Everything in every case is known to be isodynamic with some fraction, some multiple, or some certain proportion, of everything else. For this universal scale of relations, for this vast table of equations, between all commodities concerned in human traffic, a ground, a sufficient reason, must exist. What is it? Upon examination it is found that there are two grounds, because there are two separate modes of exchange value, for which I have deduced, as the adequate designations, the antithetic terms affirmative and negative. And if the reader will look forward to Section IV., which arrays before him a considerable list of cases under each form, he will perceive, (what in fact is my object in exposing those cases,) simultaneously, a proof of the necessity that such cases should exist, and an

illustration of the particular circumstances under which each arises. But first, and before all other remarks which he will be likely to make on this Čevyos, - this two-headed system of cases, I anticipate the remark which follows; viz. that, such and so broad being the distinction between this double system of cases, it is not possible that former economists should have overlooked it. "Under some

name or other," he will say, "I am satisfied that these distinctions must have been recognized." He will be right. The distinction has been recognized, — has been formally designated. And what are the designations? Everywhere almost the same: the price, which corresponds to the difficulties, has been properly called the cost price, as representing in civilized societies the total resistance which is usually possible to the endless reproduction of an article. So far there is no blame: but go forward; go on to the opposite mode of price,— to that which I have called the affirmative price. By what name is it that most economists designate that? They call it "monopoly price," or "scarcity price." But monopoly, but scarcity, these are accidents; these are impertinences, —i. e. considerations not pertinent, not relevant to the case; or, to place the logic of the question under the clearest light, these express only the conditio sine quâ non, or negative condition. But is that what we want? Not at all: we want the positive cause technically, the causa sufficiens-of this antagonist price. That cause is found, not in the scarcity or the monopoly, - Aristotle forbid such nonsense! (how could a pure absence or defect of importation, how could a mere negation, produce a robust positive ens, a price of sixty guineas?) No; but in something that has existed antecedently to all monopoly or scarcity; in a strong affirmative attraction of the article concerned; in a positive adaptation of this

article to each individual buyer's individual purposes True, the accidental scarcity brings this latent affirmative cause into play; but for that scarcity, this latent cause might have concealed itself for generations, might never have acted. The scarcity it is, the absolute stoppage to all further receipts of the article from its regular reproduction, which has enabled something to rise into action as the regulator of price. But what is that something? You say, popularly, that the absence of a sentinel caused the treasury to be robbed: and this language it would be pedantic to censure, because the true meaning is liable to no virtual misconstruction. But everybody would censure it, if the abstraction of "absence" were clothed with the positive attributes of a man, and absence were held responsible for the larceny to the exculpation of the true flesh-and-blood criminal. The case is in all respects the same as to scarcity: the scarcity creates the opening, or occasion for "something" to supersede the D, or negative value; but that something is the U value, the affirmative value.

This must be too self-evident to require any further words: the technical term of "scarcity value," adopted as the antithesis of "cost value" by Ricardo, by Mr. M'Culloch, and many beside, will not be defended by anybody, except under the idea that the false logic which it involves is sure to undergo a correction from the logical understanding. But it is unsafe trusting too much to that. In the hurry of disputation it would be too late to revise our terms, to allow for silent errors, and to institute pro hac vice rectifications. It is indispensable to the free movement of thought, that we should have names and phrases for expressing our ideas, upon which we can rely at all hours as concealing no vestige of error. Now, against the technical term in possession, besides the con

clusive reasons already exposed, there may be alleged these two sufficient absurdities as consequences to which it is liable:

1st. That in any case of such scarcity actually realized, the scarcity could not be imagined to create a price; because neither as an absolute scarcity, nor as graduated to any particular point, could it have more relation to one price than to any other, to a shilling than to a thousand guineas. As rationally might it be said, that the absence of the sentinel, according to the degrees of its duration, had created the costliness of the articles robbed from the treasury.

2d. That if such a shadow as a blank negation could become a positive agency of causation, still there would arise many monstrous absurdities. One case will suffice as an illustration of all. Suppose the scarcity as to two articles to be absolute, in other words, the greatest possible, or beyond any finite degree, then if the scarcity were the acting cause of the new price, which has superseded the old D price, being the same in both cases, this scarcity must issue in producing the same price for both articles: whereas the true cause, which has been brought into action by the scarcity and the consequent abolition of D, being in reality the U, or utility value, (pushed to its maximum,) will soon show decisively that the one article may not reach the price of half a crown, whilst the other may run up to a thousand guineas.

It is useless to talk of "words" and "names as being shadows, so long as words continue to express ideas, and names to distinguish actual relations. Verbalism it is in fact, and the merest babble of words, which can suh, stitute a pure defect· so aerial an abstraction as a waxor an absence for a positive causal agency. Tlcome really scholastic trifling. The true agencies in tittle in