{0 
ON REAL AND 
is indicated, the word conveys no information. 
Now as the terms nominal and real do not de- 
note any thing in this way, they stand in the 
predicament just mentioned, they convey no 
precise information, and are liable to engender 
continual disputes, because their meaning is ar- 
bitrarily assumed. 
In a subsequent chapter on the value of labour, 
[ shall probably have an opportunity of ex- 
amining some of the positions of this writer, 
founded on his doctrine of the real value of 
wages. At present it will be sufficient to confine 
ourselves to the value of commodities. Follow- 
ing Mr. Ricardo, he appears entirely to lose 
sight of the relative nature of value, and, as] have 
remarked in the preceding chapter, to consider it 
as something positive and absolute; so that if 
there were only two commodities in the world, 
and they should both from some circumstances or 
other come to be produced by double the usual 
quantity of labour, they would both rise in real 
value, although their relation to each other would 
be undisturbed. According tothis doctrine, every