I have already stated that I decidedly differ from Mr. Ricardo, and it follows of course that I differ equally from the Templar, in thinking that the value of a commodity may be correctly expressed by referring to the producing labour alone; but compared with the expression of value proposed to be substituted by the author of the Critical Dissertation, it has a prodigious superiority. Let us try both, for instance, by the touch of the talisman recommended by the author himself. Let the question be the value of silver before the discovery of the American mines; and let us ask, as directed, value in relation to what? The Templar would answer, value in relation to the producing labour; and though in this answer a material ingredient of elementary value is omitted, yet I should collect from it some tolerable notion of the esteem in which silver was held at that time; and if I found, on comparison, that the producing labour was now three or four times less, I should be able, with tolerable certainty, to infer, that silver had grown more plentiful; and that four centuries ago a given quantity of silver was held in much greater esteem, that is, people would make a much greater sacrifice in order to obtain it, than at present. On the other hand, if the author of the Critical Dissertation should speak of the value of silver before the discovery of the American mines, and we should ask, value in relation to what? the answer would be, “I have repeatedly stated that to know the value of an article at any period is merely to know its relation in exchange to some other commodity;” consequently, we should know the value of silver in the fifteenth century, or the esteem in which it was held, by comparing it with calicoes, although we might know nothing at all about the difficulty or facility of obtaining calicoes at that time. And if we were to proceed, as in the former case, and, with a view to ascertain the esteem in which silver was held in the fifteenth century, as compared with the esteem in which it is held in the nineteenth, were to mark the relation of silver to calicoes in the two periods, it would appear, that as, owing to the improvements in the cotton machinery, a given quantity of silver would command more calicoes now than formerly, silver should be considered as being held in higher estimation now than four centuries ago. Yet no person, I believe, not even the author himself, would agree to this conclusion. He would probably say that the comparison was merely between silver and calicoes, and had nothing to do with anything else. If this be all he means, why does he confuse his readers by stating that value means the esteem in which a commodity is held? and why does he say that to know the value of an article at any period is merely to know its relation in exchange to some other commodity? If all he means by the value of a commodity is its relation to some other, why did he not at once say, without ever talking about