110

ON MEASURES

two commodities, which we were désirous of
comparing, were expressed in different media,
there would be the same impossibility. Hence,
if in the case of value we were under the necessity
 of finding a counterpart to invariableness
of length in the instrument employed to compare
 the dimensions of two objects, it would be,
not invariableness of value in the commodity
used as a medium to compare the value of two
other commodities, but the condition that the
value of these commodities should be given
in relation to the same medium, or, in other
words, expressed in a common denomination.
From all this it appears, that the analogy universally
 supposed to exist in this matter is altogether
 imaginary, and the phrase, invariable
measure of value, proves to be absolutely destitute
 of a basis of meaning.

The doctrine which exacts invariableness in
a measure of value, furnishes one corollary,
which has been so frequently maintained and
so generally adopted, that although its refutation
 is contained in the preceding observations,