Page:Malthus 1823 The Measure of Value.djvu/39

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duce which commands ten labourers, 6, 7, 8, or 9 labourers be required, the proportion of the produce which goes to labour, in these different cases, will be $\scriptstyle {\frac {6}{10}}$, $\scriptstyle {\frac {7}{10}}$, or $\scriptstyle {\frac {8}{10}}$, leaving $\scriptstyle {\frac {4}{10}}$, $\scriptstyle {\frac {3}{10}}$ or $\scriptstyle {\frac {1}{10}}$. for profits.

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 show^n, 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 ap-