OF VALUE.

merely the relation in which two objects stand
to each other as exchangeable commodities.
In the circumstance, that it denotes a relation
 between two objects, and cannot be predicated
 of any commodity without an express or
implied reference to some other commodity,
value bears a resemblance to distance. . As we
cannot speak of the distance of any object
without implying some other object, between
which and the former this relation exists, so we
cannot speak of the value of a commodity but
in reference to another commodity compared
with it. A thing cannot be valuable in itself
without reference to another thing, any more
than a thing can be distant in itself without reference
 to another thing.
It follows from this view of value as a relation,
 that it cannot alter as to one of the objects
compared, without altering as to the other. It
would be an absurdity to suppose, that the value
of A to B could alter, and not the value of B to
a; that a could rise in value to B, and B remain
 stationary in value to A ; an absurdity of
much the same kind as supposing, that the dis-