Mr. Ricardo had stated repeatedly, that the value of the wages of labour must necessarily rise in the progress of society. He builds, indeed, the whole foundation of his theory of profits on the rise and fall of the value of labour. The table shows that, if we estimate the value of wages by the labour worked up in them, that is, by one element of value, Mr. Ricardo is right, and the value of wages will really rise as poorer land is taken into cultivation; but that, if we estimate the value of wages by the labour and _profits_ worked up in them, that is, by the two elementary ingredients of value, the value of wages will remain the same. The author says that, from the remarks he has made, the reader will perceive that Mr. Malthus’s “Table illustrating the invariable value of labour,” absolutely proves nothing;[81] and he concludes his chapter with observing, that his “cursory review evinces that the formidable array of figures in the table yields not a single new or important truth.”[82] I was not aware that it was ever expected from a tabular arrangement, that it should afford logical proofs of new propositions; but, if the author means that, taking the whole publication together, it contains nothing new or important, though I may be bound to believe it in relation to his own reading and his own views, I cannot help doubting it a little in regard to the reading and views of many others; and I am quite certain that, with regard to myself, the view I there took of the subject of value, and of the reasons for adopting labour as its measure, was, in many of its parts, quite new to me a year before the publication. In the first place; I had nowhere seen it stated, that the ordinary quantity of labour which a commodity will command must represent and measure the quantity of labour worked up in it, with the addition of profits. But, as soon as my attention was strongly drawn to this truth, the labour which a commodity would ordinarily command appeared to me in a new light. I had before considered labour as the most general and the most important of all the objects given in exchange, and, therefore, by far the best measure of the general power of purchasing of any one object; but after I became aware that, by representing the labour worked up in a commodity, with the profits, it represented the natural and necessary conditions of its supply, or the elementary costs of its production, its importance, as a measure, appeared to me very greatly increased.