NOMINAL VALUE. 41 thing might at once become more valuable, by requiring at once more labour for its production, a position utterly at variance with the truth, that value denotes the relation in which commodi- ties stand to each other as articles of exchange. Real value, in a word, is on this theory con- sidered as being the independent result of la- bour; and consequently, if under any circum- stances the quantity of labour is increased, the real value is increased. Hence the paradox, “ that it is possible for A continually to in- crease in value —in rea! value observe — and yet command a continually decreasing quantity of B*:” and this although they were the only commodities in existence. For it must not be supposed that the author means, that A might in- crease in value in relation to a third commodity C, while it commanded a decreasing quantity of B—a proposition which is too self-evident to be insisted on; but he means that a might in- * Templars’ Dialogues, in London Magazine for May, 1824, p. 551.