NOMINAL VALUE.

41

thing might at once become more valuable, by
requiring at once more labour for its production,
a position utterly at variance with the truth, that
value denotes the relation in which commodities
 stand to each other as articles of exchange.
Real value, in a word, is on this theory considered
 as being the independent result of labour;
 and consequently, if under any circumstances
 the quantity of labour is increased, the
real value is increased. Hence the paradox,
“ that it is possible for A continually to increase
 in value —in rea! value observe — and
yet command a continually decreasing quantity
of B*:” and this although they were the only
commodities in existence. For it must not be
supposed that the author means, that A might increase
 in value in relation to a third commodity
C, while it commanded a decreasing quantity of
B—a proposition which is too self-evident to
be insisted on; but he means that a might in-*

 Templars’ Dialogues, in London Magazine for May,
1824, p. 551.