He, like Sismondi, had to defend himself against the suspicion that he is opposing technical progress, but, less ruthless, he compromises with the evasion that the evil emerges only gradually. 'To elucidate the principle, I have been supposing, that improved machinery is _suddenly_ discovered, and extensively used; but the truth is, that these discoveries are gradual, and rather operate in determining the employment of the capital which is saved and accumulated, than in diverting capital from its actual employment.'[197] Yet the problem of crises and accumulation continued to worry Ricardo also. In 1823, the last year of his life, he spent some days in Geneva in order to talk the problem over face to face with Sismondi. The result of these talks is Sismondi's essay 'On the Balance Between Consumption and Production', published in the _Revue Encyclopédique_ of May 1824.[198] In his _Principles_, Ricardo had at the crucial points completely accepted Say's trite doctrine of harmony in the relations between production and consumption. In chapter xxi he had declared: 'M. Say has, however, most satisfactorily shown, that there is no amount of capital which may not be employed in a country, because demand is only limited by production. No man produces, but with a view to consume or sell, and he never sells, but with an intention to purchase some other commodity, which may be immediately useful to him, or which may contribute to future production. By producing, then, he necessarily becomes either the consumer of his own goods, or the purchaser and consumer of the goods of some other person.'[199]