Page:Malthus 1823 The Measure of Value.djvu/22

 worked up in commodities, we add the profits upon the whole advances for the time that they are advanced, we shall then make the proper allowance for the other element of value, and may expect to obtain a more accurate measure. If we had estimated the value of the labour advanced in money, or any other medium, we should of course estimate the profits in the same medium, and the natural price of the commodity estimated in such medium, would obviously be equal to the price of the accumulated and immediate labour expended on the commodity, together with the ordinary profits estimated upon such advances. But if, with a view to the natural conditions of supply, we consideronly the quantity of labour advanced, without reference to any other medium, we must of course estimate the profits in quantity of labour also, which will give us an amount of labour in proportion to which commodities will be found to exchange with each other, just in the same way as they would exchange with each other according to the quantity of labour employed on them, if labour had been the sole ingredient which had entered into their composition.

Thus, if a hundred days labour were employed upon a commodity, at two shillings a day, and