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X
. I will. Because barouches have altered in value, that is no reason why besoms should not have altered?

Phed
. Certainly; no reason in the world.

X
. Let them have altered; for instance, at the end of the five years, let them have been doubled in value. Now, because your assertion is this–simply by doubling in value, B shall command a double quantity of A–it follows inevitably, Phaedrus, that besoms, having doubled their value in five years, will at the end of that time command a double quantity of barouches. The supposition is, that six hundred thousand, at present, command one barouche; in five years, therefore, six hundred thousand will command two barouches?

Phed
. They will.

X
. Yet, at the very same time, it has already appeared from your argument that twelve hundred thousand will command only one barouche; that is, a barouche will at one and the same time be worth twelve hundred thousand besoms, and worth only one fourth part of that quantity. Is this an absurdity, Phaedrus?

Phed
. It seems such.

X
. And, therefore, the argument from which it flows, I presume, is false?

Phed
. Scavenger of bad logic! I confess that it looks so.

Phil
. You confess? So do not I. You die “soft,” Phaedrus; give me the cudgels, and I’ll die “game,” at least. The flaw in your argument, X., is this: you summoned Phaedrus to invert his proposition, and then you extorted an absurdity from this inversion. But that absurdity follows only from the particular form of expression into which you threw the original proposition. I will express the same proposition in other terms, unexceptionable terms, which shall evade the absurdity. Observe. A and B are at this time equal in value; that is, they now exchange quantity for quantity. Or, if you prefer your own case, I say that one barouche exchanges for six hundred thousand besoms. I choose, however, to express this proposition thus: A (one barouche) and B (six hundred thousand besoms) are severally equal in value to C. When, therefore, A doubles its value, I say that it shall command a double quantity of C. Now, mark how I will express the inverted case. When B doubles its value, I say that it shall command a double quantity of C. But these two cases are very reconcilable with each other. A may command a double quantity of C at the same time that B commands a double quantity of C, without involving any absurdity at all. And, if so, the disputed doctrine is established, that a double value implies a double command of quantity; and reciprocally, that from a doubled command of quantity we may infer a doubled value.

X
. A, and B, you say, may simultaneously command a double quantity of C, in consequence of doubling their value; and this they may do without absurdity. But how shall I know that, until I know what you cloak under the symbol of C? For if the same thing shall have happened to C which my argument assumes to have happened to B (namely, that its value has altered), then the same demonstration will hold; and the very same absurdity will follow any attempt to infer the quantity from the value, or the value from the quantity.

Phil
. Yes, but I have provided against that; for by C I mean any assignable thing which has not altered its own value. I assume C to be stationary in value.

X
. In that case, Philebus, it is undoubtedly true that no absurdity follows from the inversion of the proposition as it is expressed by you. But then the short answer which I return is this: your thesis avoids the absurdity by avoiding the entire question in dispute. Your thesis is not only not the same as that which we are now discussing; not only different in essence from the thesis which is now disputed; but moreover it affirms only what never was disputed by any man. No man has ever denied that A, by doubling its own value, will command a double quantity of all things which have been stationary in value. Of things in that predicament, it is self-evident that A will command a double quantity. But the question is, whether universally, from doubling its value, A will command a double quantity: and inversely, whether universally, from the command of a double quantity, it is lawful to infer a double value. This is asserted by Adam Smith, and is essential to his distinction of nominal and real value; this is peremptorily denied by us. We offer to produce cases in which from double value it shall not be lawful to infer double quantity. We offer to produce cases in which from double quantity it shall not be lawful to infer double value. And thence we argue, that until the value is discovered in some other way, it will be impossible to discover whether it be high or low from any consideration of the quantity commanded; and again, with respect to the quantity commanded–that, until known in some other way, it shall never be known from any consideration of the value commanding. This is what we say; now, your “C” contradicts the conditions; “until the value is discovered in some other way, it shall never be learned from the quantity commanded.” But in your “C” the value is already discovered; for you assume it; you postulate that C is stationary in value: and hence it is easy indeed to infer that, because A commands double quantity of “C,” it shall therefore be of double value; but this inference is not obtained from the single consideration of double quantity, but from that combined with the assumption of unaltered value in C, without which assumption you shall never obtain that inference.