After noticing the doctrines of Adam Smith, Mr. Ricardo, and myself, on the subject of real and nominal value, he says, “After the disquisition on the nature of value in the preceding chapter, the distinction of it in this way must appear to be merely arbitrary and incapable of being turned to any use. What information is conveyed or what advance in argument is effected, by telling us that value estimated in one way is real, but in another, is nominal?”[64] He afterwards goes on to say, in reference to a passage in the Templar’s Dialogues, “It would not, however, probably have been written, had the author attended to the simple fact, that value must always imply value in something, and unless that something is indicated, the word conveys no information. Now, as the terms nominal and real do not denote anything in this way, they convey no precise information, and are liable to engender continual disputes, because their meaning is arbitrarily assumed.”[65] These appear to me, I confess, to be very extraordinary observations. It must surely be allowed, that to compare a commodity either with the mass of other commodities, or with the elementary costs of production, is most essentially distinct from comparing it with some particular commodity named. And if so, writers are bound so to express themselves as to convey to their readers, which of the two they intend to refer to. Whether these writers have chosen the very best terms to express these ideas is another question; but that the ideas themselves are quite different, and that it is essential to the language of political economy that they should be distinguished by different terms, cannot admit of a doubt. It appears to me, therefore, almost inconceivable that the author should say, “What information is conveyed, or what advance in argument is effected, by telling us, that value estimated in one way is real, but in another, is nominal?” It might as well be said, that, in speaking of our planetary system, no information is conveyed by using different adjuncts to the term distance, in order to distinguish between the distances of the planets from the sun, and the relations of their distances to each other. And supposing it had been the habit of most writers to call the first distances real and the second relative, would it not be most strange to say that the distinction in this way of distance into two kinds is incapable of being turned to any use, as all distance is relative?