NOMINAL VALUE. 
39 
what advance in argument is effected by 
telling us, that value estimated in one way is 
real, but in another nominal? The value of any 
commodity denoting its relation in exchange to 
some other commodity, we may speak of it as 
money-value, corn-value, cloth-value, according 
to the commodity with which it is compared ; 
and hence there are a thousand different kinds 
of value, as many kinds of value as there are 
commodities in existence, and all are equally 
real and equally nominal. We gain nothing in 
perspicuity or precision by the use of these 
latter terms, but, on the contrary, they entail 
upon us a heavy incumbrance of vagueness 
and ambiguity and unproductive discussion. 
Of the latter we have a good exemplification 
in the Templars’ Dialogues on Political Econo- 
my, dialogue the fourth, which contains much 
ingenious reasoning, founded altogether on this 
distinction. It would not probably have been 
written, however, had the author attended to 
the simple fact, that value must always imply 
value in something, and unless that something