[7] Mill granted certain exceptions to the proposition that rent cannot “enter into price,” but placed no emphasis upon them. [8] _Wealth of Nations_, 2d Thorold Rogers ed., 1880, pp. 31-2. All subsequent page references are to this edition, volume 1. [9] P. 34. [10] Referring to the words just quoted, Mr. Ingram says: “This sentence, which on close examination will be found to have no definite intelligible sense, affords a good example of the way in which metaphysical modes of thought obscure economic ideas.” _History of Political Economy_, p. 94, note. [11] Chap. v. “Of the Real and Nominal Price of Commodities, or of their Price in Labour and their Price in Money.” Chap. vi. “Of the Component Parts of the Price of Commodities.” Chap. vii. “Of the Natural and Market Price of Commodities.” [12] P. 49. At the same time many important assertions in the “philosophical account” are not restricted to primitive conditions. [13] It is true that an article’s cost in labor may instead mean its cost in productive power. The cost in this case is at bottom the utility of some other article which might have been created by this productive power had it not been employed in making the first article. In the same sense we speak of a thing as costing money. [14] P. 29, in chap. iv. [15] It has been suggested by many writers that the germ of practically every theory of value is found in the _Wealth of Nations_. That is probably true, if we except the utility theory, which associates quantity of value with _quantity of utility_, a conception absolutely foreign to Adam Smith’s thought. [16] P. 31. [17] P. 49. [18] P. 34. [19] P. 30. [20] In this instance the word “standard” is used in a sense sufficiently general to include a regulator (_i. e._, a measuring cause) and a mere measure. A standard is “1. Any measure of extent, quantity, quality or value.” ... “2. Any fact, thing or circumstance forming a basis for adjustment and regulation.” _Standard Dictionary._ [21] What Adam Smith has to say of the relation of these standards, one to the other, comes in connection with the account for advanced society, where he discards the labor-cost standard but retains the labor-command measure. [22] P. 32. [23] _Ibid._ [24] Chap. x, of book i. [25] P. 106. [26] In one place Smith puts forward a naive and uncritical explanation of the reward to skill, comparable to his explanation of the division of labor as due to a propensity of men to truck and barter. “If ... one species of labour requires an uncommon degree of dexterity and ingenuity, _the esteem which men have for such talents will naturally_ give a value to their produce superior to what would be due to the time employed about it.” P. 49. [27] P. 34. [28] _Ibid._ [29] P. 35.