OF VALUE. 
219 
him the usual compensation rather than employ 
their own capitals in producing a similar re- 
sult. Thus time is really a consideration which 
may influence both buyers and sellers; nor is it 
necessary here to enter into any metaphysical 
inquiry into its nature in order to prove its 
effects. 
The author of the Elements of Political 
Economy has made a curious attempt to re- 
solve the effects of time into expenditure of la- 
bour. « If,” says he, “the wine which is put 
in the cellar is increased in value one tenth by 
being kept a year, one tenth more of labour may 
be correctly considered as having been expended 
upon it *.” 
Now if any one proposition can be affirmed 
without dispute, it is this, that a fact can be 
correctly considered as having taken place only 
when it really has taken place. In the instance 
adduced, no human being, by the terms of the 
supposition, has approached the wine, or spent 
upon it a moment or a single motion of his 
* Elements, p. 97, 2d edition.