138 MEASURES OF VALUE.
Conclusions such as these are so obvious,
hat they would scarcely require to be for-
mally stated had they not been frequently over-
looked. -Even the author of the Templars’
Dialogues, who observes, “that Mr. Malthus,
in common with many others, attaches a most
unreasonable importance to the discovery of a
measure of value,” seems to sanction the pre-
vailing errors, when he goes on to remark, that
such a measure * would at best end in answer-
ing a few questions of unprofitable curiosity *.”
Sufficient, it is hoped, has been said to show,
that we are in possession of the only kind of
measure which can be had or conceived, and
that we must look for the gratification of our
curiosity, not to any measure of value whatever,
but to the records of former times, and a few
simple calculations from the data which they
farnish.

London Magazine for May 1824, p. 560.