xxil 
PREFACE. 
which no subsequent severity of logic could 
compensate. 
Perhaps these remarks will serve to explain 
how it is, that Mr. Ricardo has been eulogized 
for his inexorable consistency in the use of 
words, and particularly for his sternly insisting 
on the true sense of the word value, and on 
using it only in one sense*. If the author of 
the following pages has been at all successful, 
in establishing the justdess of the strictures 
which he has hazarded, this praise must be al- 
lowed to be unfounded ; for itwill be seen, that in 
the case of the word value he has almost perpe- 
tually forsaken his own definition : yet an incon- 
sistency of this sort is by no means incompatible 
with a general strictness in the employment of 
terms. If the preceding observations are cor- 
rect, a writer may be rigorously consistent in 
* Templars’ Dialogues, Introduction.