It is impossible to refer what is proposed as a standard to any _other_ measure, because, in that case, the other measure would be the standard. But if it can be shown, that any object, the value of which is composed of two elements, is of such a nature that while the value of one of these elements increases, the value of the other decreases exactly in the same degree, such object must be of a constant value. If the values of two variable quantities, _X_ and _Y_, be equal to the constant value _A_, it follows that, in all the variations to which _X_ and _Y_ are subject, whatever value _X_ gains must be lost by _Y_, and whatever value _Y_ gains must be lost by _X_. The converse of this proposition must also be true, that is, if the value of any object be made up of the variable values of two other objects, and it can be shown that, from the nature of these two objects, whatever increase of value one of them gains, must necessarily be lost by the other, and vice versâ, it follows that the value of the object, to which the two others are equal, must be constant. Now it has appeared that the variable values of the labour and of the profits which compose the value of the variable quantity of corn awarded in wages to a given number of labourers, must necessarily be such, that, as the quantity of labour required to produce them increases, either from difficulty of production or from the greater quantity of produce awarded to the labourer, all the value thus gained by labour is lost by profits; and as the quantity of labour required to produce them is diminished, either by facility of production or the small quantity of produce awarded to the labourer, all the value which is gained by profits is lost by labour. Consequently, the value of the variable quantity of produce which, under different circumstances, forms the wages of a given number of men, being composed of the values of the two elements, labour and profits, varying as above described, must be constant, and may therefore, with propriety, be proposed as a standard measure. I have entered at some length into the details which show the necessary constancy of the value of labour, on account of its great importance; but, in reality, it follows directly from the manner in which the natural value of commodities and of wages is estimated, that when the labourer earns a greater or a smaller quantity of money or necessaries, it is not the value of labour which varies, but, as Adam Smith says, “it is the goods which are cheap in the one case and dear in the other.” If labour alone, without any capital, were employed in procuring the fruits of the earth, the greater facility of procuring one sort of them compared with another, would not, it is acknowledged, alter the value of labour, or the exchangeable value of the whole produce obtained by a given quantity of exertion. We should, without hesitation, allow that the difference was in the cheapness or dearness of the produce, not of the labour.