14 ON REAL AND crease ina kind of value called real, which has no reference to any other commodity whatever *. Apply to the position of this author the rule recommended in the last chapter: in- quire, when he speaks of value, value in what? and all the possible truth on the subject appears inits naked simplicity. The touch of this talis- man will show, that the paradox above quoted, * Unless it be to an imaginary commodity, to which, in assertions of this kind, there seems to be a latent refer- ence ; a commodity namely, always produced by the same labour. It is no matter, on this theory, whether such a commodity exists or mot. An object a is tried by this ideal standard, and if it is found that it would have risen in relation to it, had the standard existed, 4 is pronounced to have risen in real value—so that any one in a jocular mood might be tempted to define real value, ¢ value esti- mated by a standard which has only an imaginary existence.” Nor is the reference to such a standard always a merely tacit or latent one. Mr. Ricardo assigns as a reason for calling an alteration in wages a fall, that it would . appear to be a fall if the value of labour were estimated in an hy- pothetical standard of this kind.