OF VALUE.

129

For in the above comparison of cloth in 1600
and cloth in 1800, mark all that is specifically
ascertained.
If silver had been liable to variation in the
quantity of its producing labour, we should
still have been informed, from the same source
that supplied the information in the other case,
what was its relation to cloth, for this is equivalent
 to saying, that we should still have been informed
 of the prices of cloth at the two different
periods specified. These are historical facts,and
not deductions from the invariableness of the
labour employed in the production of silver.
Were this labour then a variable quantity, we
should still learn, that a yard of cloth in 1600
was 12s. and in 1800 6s. ; but we should, it is
alleged, be at a loss to discover, whether the
change in the relation between silver and cloth
had been owing to the former or the latter. This
then is the sole circumstance by which the two
cases are supposed to be distinguished, and in
fact it amounts to this; we could tell that, in
the former case, cloth in 1800 required only