At such times, assertions like these, and the proposal of such a remedy, appear to me little different from an assertion, on supposed philosophical principles, that it _cannot_ rain, when crowds of people are getting wet through, and the proposal to go without clothes in order to prevent the inconvenience arising from a wet coat. If assertions so contrary to the most glaring facts, and remedies so preposterously ridiculous, in a civilized country,[51] are said to be dictated by the principles of political economy, it cannot be matter of wonder that many have little faith in them. And till the theories of popular writers on political economy cease to be in direct opposition to general experience; and till some steadiness is given to the science by a greater degree of care among its professors, not to alter without improving,—it cannot be expected that it should attain that general influence in society which (its principles being just) would be of the highest practical utility. CHAPTER VIII. ON THE DEFINITION AND USE OF TERMS BY THE AUTHOR OF “A CRITICAL DISSERTATION ON THE NATURE, MEASURE, AND CAUSES OF VALUE.” It might be thought that I was not called upon to notice the deviations from the most obvious rules for the use of terms in a _Critical Dissertation on the Nature, Measure, and Causes of Value_, by an anonymous writer. But the great importance of the subject itself at the present moment, when it may be said to be _sub judice_, the tone of scientific precision in which the dissertation is written, notwithstanding its fundamental errors, and the impression which it is understood to have made among some considerable political economists, seem to call for and justify attention to it. The author, in his preface, observes, that “Writers on political economy have generally contented themselves with a short definition of the term value, and a distinction of the property denoted by it into several kinds, and have then proceeded to employ the word with various degrees of laxity. Not one of them has brought into distinct view the nature of the idea represented by this term, or the inferences which a full perception of its meaning immediately suggests; and the neglect of this preliminary has created differences of opinion and perplexities of thought which otherwise could never have existed.”[52] Now it appears to me, that the author, at his first setting out, has in an eminent degree fallen into the very errors which he has here animadverted upon.