ADVERTISEMENT
TO THE
SECOND EDITION.
Not many years had elapsed after the first edition of this work, when it became known to all with whom Mr. Malthus had the opportunity of communicating on the subject, or who were acquainted with his last publications, that his opinions on the subject of value had undergone some change.
Having formerly assumed, in common with most other Economists, that there was no perfectly accurate and unvarying measure of value, he had proposed a mean between corn and labour, as being the nearest approximation to it, which could be found.
But maturer reflection led him to a different view; and he subsequently became convinced that the standard of which he had been in search must necessarily reside in some one unalterable object, which had a fixed and permanent existence; rightly judging, that it would be impossible to establish any satisfactory conclusions respecting the rise or fall in the value of commodities, unless there existed a real test, which could, at all times, be practically referred to.
