74 ON COMPARING COMMODITIES

tion; for that nobody ever imagined the possibility
 of comparing the value of any commodity
 at one period with its value at another,
without reference to some other object, the bare
notion of such a comparison being absurd, and
scarcely susceptible of being stated in intelligible
 language; and further, that when the
value of a commodity in one year is compared
with its value in another, the very terms necessarily
 imply a reference to other articles, and
are always so considered.
A slight inspection, however, of our principal
 writers will prove, that if I am fighting
with a shadow, which I by no means deny, it is
not one of my own creation. When Mr. Ricardo
tells us, that a commodity always produced by
the same labour is of invariable value, he implicitly
 maintains all I have been attempting to
disprove. By the epithet invariable he clearly
means, that its value at one time will be precisely
 the same as its value at another, not in
relation to other commodities, for he supposes
all other commodities to vary, but in relation to