234 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

In adopting this passage, however, Mr. Ricardo makes
no use of the new kind of value introduced to his readers,
and we hear nothing more of real value, till he applies
the epithet to the value of wages, in the sense mentioned
 in the text. See pages 11 and 12 of the Principles
of Pol. Econ. and Taxation, third edition. At page 15
he introduces another kind of value, which he terms *¢ absolute,”
 in a sense which 1 have not been able to seize,
but this is only incidentally, and no consequences are deduced
 from it. At page 41 he says, * when commodities
varied in relative value, it would be desirable to have the
means of ascertaining which of them fell and which rose
in real vaiue.” "This appears to be the first passage in which
relative value and real value are fairly placed in contrast;
and we gather from it, that the value, which he calls real,
is not of a relative nature. We subsequently come to the
passage quoted in the text, wherein he uses the phrase real
value as synonymous with the quantity of labour and capital
 empleyed in producing a commodity : whence it follows,
that the real value of an object has no relation to the quantity
 of any other object which it will command, but solely
bo the cost of production, or rather it is the cost of production
 itself. If the cost of production is always the
same, the real value is always the same.
It may perhaps le contended, that Mr. Ricardo had a
right to use the term real value in any sense he chose, and
that all which could be required of him was consistency in