The author is repeatedly dwelling upon the relative nature of value, as if he alone had considered it in this light; but no other writer that I have met with has ever appeared to me to use the term value without an intelligible reference expressed or implied to something else; and when the author says, in the passage above quoted, that value must always imply value in something which ought to be indicated, and that the terms nominal and real do not denote anything in this way, he appears to me, I own, to assert what is entirely without foundation. M. Say, for instance, in a passage quoted by the author in his notes,[66] observes, “There is this difference between a real and a relative variation of price; that the former is a change of value arising from an alteration of the changes of production; the latter a change arising from an alteration in the ratio of value of one particular commodity to other commodities.” Now is it possible to say with truth, that the real and relative values here described do not both refer to other objects, and that these objects are not so different as to require to be distinguished? The author may, perhaps, say, that if both expressions are meant to be relative, why use the terms real, positive, or absolute? The answer is, that the usage of our language allows it, and that nothing is more common than the use of the terms real, positive, and absolute, in contradistinction to relative, when the former terms have relation to some more general object, particularly to anything which is considered as a standard, whether accurate or inaccurate. Thus, in the illustration before adverted to, although all distances are relative, it would be quite justifiable to say, that if the earth was moving towards the farthest part of her orbit, her positive, absolute, or real distance from the sun was increasing, although her distance relatively to that of some other planet or comet, moving from the sun with greater velocity, was diminishing. Tall and short, rich and poor, are relative terms: yet surely we should be warranted in saying, that Peter was not only taller than his three brothers, but, really or positively, a tall man. In the first case he is said to be tall in relation to three individuals; but a stranger, knowing nothing of the height of these individuals, would obtain very little information from the statement. He would not know whether Peter was four feet, five feet, or six feet high: in the latter case, Peter is said to be tall in relation to the average or standard height of the race of men spoken of; and though the stranger might not have in his mind a perfectly accurate notion of this standard, yet he would immediately have before him the height of Peter within a few inches, instead of a few feet.