In a Critical Dissertation on Value, which is introduced with a heavy complaint against all preceding political economists for neglecting the preliminary labour necessary to give a full perception of its meaning, it might naturally have been expected, that previous to the final adoption of the meaning in which it was intended to use the term, throughout the dissertation, the consideration, or number of considerations, which induce men to prefer one object to another, or to give two _b_ for one _a_, should be carefully investigated. But nothing of this kind is done. A definition of the value of an object by Adam Smith, which, as he afterwards clearly shows, requires explanation and modification, is arbitrarily adopted, or, in the language of the author, is “taken as the basis of his subsequent reasonings, without any further metaphysical investigation.” That this first general description of value in exchange by Adam Smith does not, without further explanation, convey to the reader the prevailing meaning which he himself attaches to the term, is obvious in many passages of his work, and particularly in his elaborate inquiry into the value of silver during the four last centuries. He there shows, in the most satisfactory manner, that, in the progress of cultivation and improvement, there is a class of commodities, such as cattle, wood, pigs, poultry, &c., which, on account of their becoming comparatively more scarce and difficult of attainment, necessarily rise in value; yet he particularly states, that this rise in their value is not connected with any degradation in the value of silver,[55] although it is obvious that, other things being the same, a pound of silver would have a smaller power of purchasing other goods. Nothing, indeed, can be clearer than that this general description of value requires further explanation. There is the greatest difference imaginable between an increased power in any object of purchasing other goods, arising from its scarcity and the increased difficulty of procuring it; and the increase of its power to purchase other goods arising from the increased plenty of such goods and the increased facility of procuring them. Nor is it easy to conceive any distinction more vital to the subject of _value_, as the term is generally understood, or more necessary to “a full perception of its meaning.” I cannot but think, therefore, that the author, under all the circumstances of the case, was not justified in adopting this definition of Adam Smith without further investigation. But the adoption of this definition by the author in so unceremonious a manner, though quite inconsistent with the declarations in the preface, and most unpromising in regard to any improvement of the science which might have been expected from the dissertation, is by no means the gravest offence which he has committed in the opening of his subject.