“If this be so, it is, no doubt, quite absurd in political economists to look for anything approaching towards an invariable measure of value, or even to talk of one commodity or object being more steady or constant in its value than another. At the same moment, bags of hops are as good a measure of the relative value of commodities as labour or money. With regard to money, indeed, the author particularly observes, that from the relations between corn and money, at two different periods, no other relation can be deduced; we do not advance a step beyond the information given. * * We cannot deduce the relation of value between corn at the first, and corn at the second period, because no such relation exists, nor, consequently, can we ascertain their comparative power over other commodities. If we made the attempt, it would be, in fact, endeavouring to infer the quantities of corn which exchanged for each other at two different periods of time, a thing obviously absurd. And further, money would not be here discharging a particular function any more than the other commodity. We should have the value of corn in money and the value of money in corn, but one would be no more a measure or medium of comparison than the other.”[69] From all this it follows necessarily that we must on no account say, that butter has been rising during the last month; if we do, we shall be convicted of the absurdity of proposing to exchange the butter which was consumed three weeks ago with the butter now on our table, in order to ascertain that a pound of the former will command less than a pound of the latter. For the same reason, we must not on any account say, that the value of wheat fell very greatly from 1818 to 1822, and rose considerably from 1822 to 1826. We must not venture to compare the value of the advances of a master manufacturer with the value of his returns; or, in estimating the rate of his profits, presume to prefer money, which generally changes slowly and inconsiderably in its power of setting labour to work, to hops, which change so rapidly and greatly, &c. &c. In short, the whole of the language and inferences of the business of buying and selling, and making money, must be altered and adapted to the new definitions and doctrines.