The end is an imperfect reconciliation between the empirical and philosophical accounts. 3. The simpler and more familiar parts of Ricardo’s theory may be considered first. His doctrine, it should be observed, is by no means absolute or unconditional. (1) Utility is a condition essential to value, but no more. The quantitative discrepancy between utility and exchange value seems as obvious to Ricardo as to Smith. In a letter to Say he expressed his whole theory with respect to utility even a little more concisely than in the _Principles_: “The utility of things is incontestibly the _foundation_ of their value, but the degree of their utility cannot be the measure of their value.” “The difficulty of [a thing’s] production is the sole measure of its value.”[50] When arguing against Smith’s corn-measure in Chapter XXVIII (Gonner ed.), our author exclaims: “What can value have to do with the power of feeding and clothing?” as if the instantaneous answer should be, “Nothing whatever.” This curious slip is mentioned only to show how far utility was removed from value in Ricardo’s habitual thought. (2) “Possessing utility, commodities derive their exchangeable value from two sources: from their scarcity, and from the quantity of labour required to obtain them.”[51] This proposition has occasioned the claim of the “Austrian” writers that the Ricardian theory of value is “dualistic.” Not all economists have acquiesced in this criticism, for there are those who hold the labor-cost and utility theories to be but two parts of one larger, consistent, whole. Among these latter economists, one of the most uncompromising in his attitude is Professor Heinrich Dietzel, of Bonn, who asserts that Ricardo’s explanation is not dualistic, because the utility and cost views are perfectly reconcilable.[52] Still it appears fair to say that, whether or not some later writer can construct a theory which is itself not dualistic and which is still in inner harmony with what Ricardo _meant_ to say, what Ricardo said was dualistic. Textually, formally, his proposition is dualistic, for an intelligent contemporary reader would interpret his thought as such. Commodities derive value from two sources, and the law of the one kind has no applicability to the other kind of goods. (3) The value of scarcity goods is “wholly independent of the quantity of labor originally necessary to produce them.” This is because “no labor can increase the supply of such goods.” These commodities are, however, an unimportant element in the market. (4) The labor-cost regulation of values applies only to goods in the production of which competition acts without restraint.