100

ON MEASURES

their variations in value with regard to each
other, and money would be the measure of
value or medium of comparison which we employed.
 This is evidently using money for a
measure of value in the same manner as in the
first case, the only difference being that we
apply it to two periods, and make a subsequent
 comparison of the results obtained from
pach.

We have therefore not yet arrived at the
sense in which the term is employed by economists,
 who are desirous of measuring the value
of commodities at different periods. They do
not wish to compare the mutual value of two
commodities, or the relation subsisting between
two commodities at one period, with the relation
 subsisting between them at another period,
for this would be effected by a simple reference
to their prices. They state their object to be,
to find some standard commodity by which they
might measure the value of the same object a,
at two or more different periods, or, in other
words, its fluctuations in value.