CHAPTER VI.

ON MEASURES OF VALUE.

WE now come to the consideration of a subject
 which has made a conspicuous figure in
the writings of political economists, and than
which, none perhaps has been a greater source
of error and confusion; I mean the measurement
 of value.

Our firstinquiry must therefore be directed to
the signification of the term. The analogies
suggested by the word measure seem to have
bewildered almost every author who has touched
on the subject. It has been taken for granted
that we measure value as we measure extension,
 or ascertain weight ; and it has been consequently
 imagined, that to perform the opera-