Page:Malthus 1823 The Measure of Value.djvu/47

 The first and most important truth illustrated in the table is, that, from the division of value into labour and profits, and the mode in which profits are always estimated, it follows necessarily, that the quantity of labour required to produce the wages of a given number of men, with the addition of the profits upon these advances estimated in labour, must always be exactly the same as the quantity of labour which the wages will command, and must together always make up the constant quantity which appears in the seventh column. But the quantity of labour required to produce the varying wages of ten men is, under the different circumstances supposed, very different, as appears in the fifth column; and it is obvious, that while the numbers in the fifth column vary, the numbers in the seventh column, or the quantity of labour and profits united, cannot be constant, unless^ as the quantity of labour required to produce the wages often men increases, the quantity of* profits estimated in labour diminishes exactly in the same degree. But this, from what has before been stated, must, under the circumstances supposed, be the case. And it follows, that if the natural value of a commodity may be estimated by the labour and profits of which it is composed, the natural value of the corn