OF VALUE.

21

stance of its being produced by a certain quantity
 of labour constitutes its value, independently
 of any other circumstances. Whatever
variations there might be in the quantities of
other things which this object commanded,
it would be still of the same value, because produced
 by the same labour.
These authors appear to have had an unsteady
 apprehension of a sufficiently distinct
Proposition, and one, too, on which they have
largely insisted, namely, that the values of commodities
 are in the same ratio as the quantities
of labour bestowed upon them. Sometimes
they have apparently construed this to mean,
that the value of any one commodity is in proportion
 to the labour employed upon it. Because
 the values of A and B, according to their
doctrine, are to each other as the quantities of
Producing labour, or, as it is sometimes ex-Pressed,
 are determined by the quantities of producing
 labour, they appear to have concluded,
that the value of a alone, without reference to
any thing else, is as the quantity of its pro-