Le ON MEASURES stand by a measure of value, is some commodity which would serve as a medium to ascertain the relation subsisting between two other commodities, that we had no means of bringing into direct comparison. Thus, if I wished to know the relation in exchange between corn and cloth, and there happened to be no instance of direct barter of one of these commodities for the other, I could acquire the desired information only by ascertaining their relations to a third commodity. Supposing this commodity to be money, if a yard of cloth were worth L0s., and a bushel of corn 5s., I should learn immediately that a yard of cloth was worth two bushels of corn, and would have an equal power of commanding all other things in exchange, silver in this instance being the commodity employed as a measure. This kind of measure of value, which is merely a medium of comparison, and obviously quite dissimilar to a measure of length, is the only one which it is possible to have; and although money is the measure generally employed, and by far the