| 
ON REAL AND 
finition,” he says, “ of real value in exchange, 
in contradistinction to nominal value in ex- 
change, is the power of commanding the 
necessaries and conveniences of life, as dis- 
tinguished from the power of commanding the 
precious metals *.” 
Mr. Ricardo also makes a distinction, in the 
case of labour, between real and nominal value. 
“ Wages,” he says, “are to be estimated by 
their real value, namely, by the quantity of la- 
bour and capital employed in producing them, 
and not by their nominal value, either in coats, 
hats, money, or corn.” 
After the disquisition on the nature of value 
in the preceding chapter, the distinction of it 
in this way, into two kinds, must appear to be 
merely arbitrary, and incapable of being turned 
to any use. What information is conveyed, or 
* Principles of Pol. Econ. p. 62. 
t Principles of Pol. Econ. and Taxation, p. 50. He does 
not, however, confine his idea of real value to the case of 
labour only.— For a more particular examination of the 
nse which he makes of this term, see the Notes and lilus- 
trations at the end of the present Treatise, Note A.