worth two pairs of such stockings. And thus it turns out that an element of value (which Mr. Horner and thousands of others have supposed to be of a distinct nature, and to resist all further analysis) gives way before Mr. Ricardo's law, and is eliminated; an admirable simplification, which is equal in merit and use to any of the rules which have been devised, from time to time, for the resolution of algebraic equations. Here, then, in a hasty shape, I have offered two specimens of the uses which arise from a better law of value; again reminding you, however, that the main use must lie in the effect which it will impress on all the other laws of Political Economy. And reverting for one moment, before we part, to the difficulty of Philebus about the difference between this principle as a _principium cognoscendi_ or measure, and a _principium essendi_ or determining ground, let me desire you to consider these two _essential_ marks of distinction: 1. that by all respectable economists any true measure of value has been doubted or denied as a possibility: but no man can doubt the existence of a ground of value; 2. that a measure is posterior to the value; for, before a value can be measured or estimated, it must exist: but a ground of value must be antecedent to the value, like any other cause to its effect. * * * * * DIALOGUE THE SIXTH. ON THE OBJECTIONS TO THE NEW LAW OF VALUE. _X_. The two most eminent economists [Footnote: The reader must continue to remember that this paper was written in 1824.] who have opposed the Ricardian doctrines are Mr. Malthus and Colonel Torrens. In the spring of 1820 Mr. Malthus published his "Principles of Political Economy," much of which was an attack upon Mr. Ricardo; and the entire second chapter of eighty-three pages, "On the Nature and Measures of Value," was one continued attempt to overthrow Mr. Ricardo's theory of value. Three years afterwards he published a second attack on the same theory in a distinct essay of eighty-one pages, entitled, "The Measure of Value Stated and Illustrated." In this latter work, amongst other arguments, he has relied upon one in particular, which he has chosen to exhibit in the form of a table. As it is of the last importance to Political Economy that this question should be settled, I will shrink from nothing that wears the semblance of an argument: and I will now examine this table; and will show that the whole of the inferences contained in the seventh, eighth, and ninth columns are founded on a gross blunder in the fifth and sixth; every number in which columns is falsely assigned. MR. MALTHUS' TABLE ILLUSTRATING THE INVARIABLE VALUE OF LABOR AND ITS RESULTS. (From p. 38 of "The Measure of Value Stated and Illustrated." London: 1823.) N. B.--The sole change which has been made in this reprint of the original Table is the assigning of names (_Alpha, Beta_, etc.) to the several cases, for the purpose of easier reference and distinction.