On his first approach to the question of value, he describes the causes which determine it much more inaccurately than Mr. Ricardo. He says, that “the value of commodities is determined by the _quantity_ of capital and labour necessary to produce them.”[12] But this is obviously untrue and quite inconsistent with what he says afterwards respecting the regulator of value. It may be correct, and I fully believe it is, to estimate the value of labour by its _quantity_; but how can we estimate the value of different kinds of machinery, or different kinds of raw materials by their _quantity_? The _quantity_ of raw material contained in a coarse and thick piece of calico, as compared with a very fine and thin piece of muslin, worked up by the same quantity of labour, may be four or five times greater, while the value of it, and the degree in which it affects the value of the commodity, may be actually less. We cannot, in short, measure the value of any product of labour by its bulk or quantity; and it must therefore be essentially incorrect to say, that the value of commodities is determined by the quantity of capital and labour necessary to produce them. Proceeding afterwards to investigate more minutely what it is, which in the last resort determines the proportion in which commodities exchange for one another, he observes, that “as all capital consists in commodities, it follows, of course, that the first capital must have been the result of pure labour. The first commodities could not be made by any commodities existing before them. But if the first commodities, and of course the first capital, were the result of pure labour, the value of this capital, the quantity of other commodities for which it would exchange, must have been estimated by labour. This is an immediate consequence of the proposition which we have just established, that where labour was the sole instrument of production, exchangeable value was determined by the quantity of labour which the production of the commodity required. If this be established, it is a necessary consequence that the exchangeable value of all commodities is determined by quantity of labour.”[13] Now this necessary consequence, which is here so confidently announced, does not appear to me to follow either from this statement, or from any thing which is said subsequently. Allowing that the first commodities, if completed and brought into use immediately, might be the result of pure labour, and that their value would therefore be determined by the quantity of that labour; yet it is quite impossible that such commodities should be employed as capital to assist in the production of other commodities, without the capitalist being deprived of the use of his advances for a certain period, and requiring a remuneration in the shape of profits.