GLEANINGS 
IN 
SCIENCE. 
No. 23. — November, 1830. 
I . — On Mr. Ricardo' a System of Wealth and Value. 
I have endeavoured to prove, that if it he our desire to learn any thing' concern- 
ing wealth, we must admit the existence of positi\ r e value. I have also endea- 
voured to show the impossibility of arriving at any just conclusion regarding man, 
and his circumstances, through the means of relative value ; and further to es- 
tablish the necessity for keeping the two descriptions of value perfectly distinct 
in all our reasonings. As an example of the consequences of not attending care- 
fully to these principles, I now propose pointing out some of the errors into 
which the most celebrated of recent writers on Political Economy has fallen. 
If it be true, that there are in existence two distinct kinds of value; the real 
value, which cannot fail to be appreciated by the percipients of valuable properties 
in the bodies, constituting wealth ; and the relative value, by which these perci- 
pients may be subsequently guided, in bartering product against product : and 
if it be further true, that the road to a knowledge of how man is affected by the 
products, of which wealth is composed, is through real, and not through relative 
value ’ then it follows, inevitably, that no talents, however acute, that no intellect, 
however sound, can save a writer from continually running into fallacies, who 
conducts his reasonings, regarding wealth, on the false assumption, that relative 
value alone exists. , . , . t . 
But to conduct reasonings regarding wealth on this assumption, is niamh . y 
impossible; wealth and real value being inseparably connected : .accotrlmgly . thow 
even who deny the existence of real value, cannot, in discussing wealth, proceed 
one step even in their career, without unwittingly grantmg 1U ' 
consequently , continuai.y “ mil 
to value estimated in commodities; trom ine reiauous u p mnf.ision 
agents, to the relation of products among 
hence arising opens the way .0 ^ 
s i:r?irthL before ns 
he can point out, that there are two . • e wll ; c h can r i se ; that 
which cannot rise, is perfectly differe relative • a reasoner must 
there are two kinds of value or price, posithe J ra tefulto any band 
either be silenced, or at least so great y e ’^ ,1 g by which he feels himself 
which offers to lead him out of the logical into this difficuity, under- 
surrounded. Now Mr. Ricardo having g ricjition> To ena bl e him to do this, 
takes, in a manner of his own, to aid l , y manoeuvre.? which just 
however, a necessity, as may be ««PP° 8e ^h he lays"t down! that wealth and 
reasoning utterly rejects; for instance, a ^ .; nfund discussing wealth, 
value are perfectly distinct in their nature, he is w«tmuR > his reader 
and its properties, while he conceives h. alone ; and wher- 
also that he is, engaged with the considera made use 0 f to establish the 
ever arguments connected with relative va ut course, introduced ; 
conclusion he is at any time wealth, or positive 
a nd wherever the introduction of arguments. 
