ON VALUE AND RICHES. 163

Mr. Ricardo, nevertheless, has been singularly
unfortunate in his attempt to discriminate them.
His elaborate chapter, which contains it, appears
 to me to be a remarkable tissue of
errors and uumeaning conclusions, arising from
his fundamental misconception of the nature of
value. Throughout the whole of this chapter,
he speaks of value as the positive result of labour
 : whence it follows, that the same quantity
of labour must always produce the same value,
however much its productive powers may have
increased. Riches, therefore, may be indefinitely
 multiplied, while no more labour is em
ployed ; but the value of the riches, under this
condition, remains invariably the same.
Such is the sum and substance of his argument.

 The error of stating the value to remain
 constant has been sufficiently considered.
There is still, however, an ambiguity or obscurity
 in the meaning of the term riches, which
requires to be cleared up. Mr. Ricardo has
regarded it as synonymous, sometimes, with
commodities, and at other times with abundance