Adam Smith’s definition, taken as it stands, however imperfect it may be, would still serve as a rough but useful standard of value in those cases where, in using the most ordinary forms of expression, some kind of standard is tacitly referred to, and no other more accurate one had been adopted. But how is this definition of Adam Smith to be interpreted? If we understand it in the sense usually conveyed by the terms employed, it is impossible to doubt that by the power of purchasing other goods is meant the power of purchasing other goods generally. Who, then, could have conceived before-hand that the author would have inferred from this definition that he was justified in representing the power of purchasing other goods by the power of purchasing any one sort of goods which might first come to hand?—so that, considering the value of money in this country to be proportioned to its general power of purchasing, it would be correct to say that the value of an ounce of silver was proportioned to the quantity of apples which it would command; and that when it commanded more apples, the value of silver rose—when it commanded fewer apples, the value of silver fell. It is, no doubt, quite allowable to compare any two commodities whatever together in regard to their value in exchange, and, among others, silver and apples. It is also allowable to say, though it would in general sound very strange, that the value of an ounce of silver, _estimated in apples_, is the quantity of apples it will command, provided that, by thus using the qualifying expression _estimated in apples_, immediately after the word value, we distinctly give notice to the reader that we are not going to speak of the exchangeable value of silver generally, according to the definition of Adam Smith, but merely in the very confined sense of its relation to one particular article. But if, without this distinct notice to the reader, we simply say that the value of an ounce of silver is expressed by the quantity of apples for which it will exchange, or, in the words of the author, that “the value of _a_ is expressed by the quantity of _b_, for which it will exchange,” nothing can be more clear than that we use the term value in a manner totally unwarranted by the previous definition, that is, in a sense quite distinct from that in which Adam Smith uses it in the description of value adopted by the author.