OF VALUE. 
27 
of degrees; it may be greater or less; which 
means, that the former object may command a 
greater or smaller quantity of the latter. In 
no other sense can the power of one commo- 
dity to purchase another be said to increase or 
decrease. As the value of an object a, canbe 
Xpressed only by the quantity of some other 
object B, 50 an increase in the value of A, can 
be expressed only by an increase in the quan- 
tity of B. 
Simple as these conclusions appear to oe, 
and directly flowing from the definition of 
value universally adopted, Mr. Ricardo has 
drawn contrary inferences. Although he agrees 
with Dr. Smith, in defining value to express the 
power of purchasing, and although, in the very 
first proposition in his book, he speaks of the 
value of a commodity as synonymous with the 
quantity of any other commodity, for which it 
will exchange *, yet in another chapter of his 
* “The value of a commodity, or the quantity of any 
other commodity for which it will exchange, depends on the