The second paper was written at the same time as the _Definitions in Political Economy_, and illustrates the rule laid down there, prescribing adherence, when possible, to the meaning which economical terms bear in the mouths of ordinary folk.[601] The _Definitions_, for example, repeat from (or with) the second paper, “when no second object is specified, the value of the commodity naturally refers to the causes” which determine “the estimation in which it is held” “and the object which measures it.”[602] “The natural value of a commodity at any place and time” is “the estimation in which it is held when it is in its natural and ordinary state,” as “determined by the elementary costs of its production,” or in other words, by “the conditions of its supply.” And the measure of the natural value of a commodity at any place and time is “the quantity of labour for which it will exchange at that place and time when it is in its natural and ordinary state.”[603] As a literary production the book written for the public is superior to the papers prepared for the men of letters. Next to the first _Essay on Population_, the critical parts of the _Definitions_ give the most pleasant examples of the author’s style. The two papers above mentioned are chiefly important as showing the importance which Malthus, unlike Ricardo, attached to the question of a measure of value.[604] A contemporary writer said very happily that the fault of Ricardo was to generalize too much, and of Malthus to generalize too little. Malthus, he added, is a keen observer but poor in analysis; he is “so occupied with particulars that he neglects that inductive process which extends individual experience throughout the infinitude of things,” and converts knowledge into science. “As presented by Mr. Ricardo, political economy possesses a regularity and simplicity beyond what exists in nature; as exhibited by Mr. Malthus, it is a chaos of original but unconnected elements.”[605] On the other hand, the testimony of a recent German writer is very different. Malthus, he tells us, resembles Ricardo in his sombre view of human life and frank statement of unpleasant facts. Their names are often associated, and no doubt both are children of their times. But their leanings were really unlike. Ricardo took up certain ideas of his time in their narrowest, clearest, and harshest form, and applied them wholly in the interest of capital. Malthus is far less narrow. His influence on economics has been much smaller than Ricardo’s; but he will be found “by far the more suggestive and less prejudiced of the two,” and, if he found more opponents, it is because he was less understood and less read.[606] The sprightly _Dialogues_[607] of De Quincey contribute nothing to the discussion on value; but they show how completely Ricardo had won the ear of the literary world, and how little pains the opponents of Malthus took to do him justice. Malthus reduced the