NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 235

its employment. Conceding this for the sake of argument,
we may yet remark, that it is an apology inapplicable in the
present case, because he had already given us his definition
 of value, and was therefore bound to adhere toit, by the
very principle here supposed to be offered in extenuation.
If he had a right to use the term in any sense he pleased,
he had no right to destroy the essence of his own definition
 by an epithet annexed to the term defined. His definition
 of the term, as the power of purchasing, makes it
essentially relative to something to be purchased, and it is
annihilating his own meaning to transmute value, by the
force of an epithet, into something in which no relation of
this kind is implied.
It may still possibly be urged, that Mr. Ricardo is not
liable to the charge of having deviated from his definition of
value, that he has strictly adhered to one meaning, and that
the term real has not the neutralizing effect here assigned
to it. If this were true, we might of course substitute the
definition for the term, which would yield some curious results.
 The real value of an object in this case must be
its real power of purchasing or commanding other objects
in exchange; and we have already seen, that a power of
commanding in exchange can be expressed only by a quantity
 of the commodity commanded. What then is the commodity
 in which real value can be expressed? Mr. Ricardo
tells us, that the value of a thing in money, hats, coats, or
corn, is only nominal value. In what commodity then shall