Kitabı oku: «Memorials and Other Papers — Volume 2», sayfa 20

SECTION III

Phćd. I am satisfied, X. But Philebus seems perplexed. Make all clear, therefore, by demonstrating the same result in some other way. With your adroitness, it can cost you no trouble to treat us with a little display of dialectical skirmishing. Show us a specimen of manoeuvring; enfilade him; take him in front and rear; and do it rapidly, and with a light-horseman's elegance.

X. If you wish for variations, it is easy to give them. In the first argument, what I depended on was this—that the valuation was inaccurate. Now, then, secondly, suppose the valuation to be accurate, in this case we must still disallow it to Mr. Malthus; for, in columns five and six, he values by the quantity of producing labor; but that is the Ricardian principle of valuation, which is the very principle that he writes to overthrow.

Phćd. This may seem a good quoad hominem argument. Yet surely any man may use the principle of his antagonist, in order to extort a particular result from it? X. He may; but in that case will the result be true, or will it not be true?

Phćd. If he denies the principle, he is bound to think the result not true; and he uses it as a reductio ad absurdum.

X. Right; but now in this case Mr. Malthus presents the result as a truth.

Phil. Yes, X.; but observe, the result is the direct contradiction of Mr. Ricardo's result. The quantities of column first vary in value by column the last; but the result, in Mr. Ricardo's hands, is—that they do not vary in value.

X. Still, if in Mr. Malthus' hands the principle is made to yield a truth, then at any rate the principle is itself true; and all that will be proved against Mr. Ricardo is, that he applied a sound principle unskilfully. But Mr. Malthus writes a book to prove that the principle is not sound.

Phćd. Yes, and to substitute another.

X. True; which other, I go on thirdly to say, is actually employed in this table. On which account it is fair to say that Mr. Malthus is a third time refuted. For, if two inconsistent principles of valuation be employed, then the table will be vicious, because heteronymous.

Phil. Negatur minor.

X. I prove the minor (namely, that two inconsistent principles are employed) by column the ninth; and thence, also, I deduct a fourth and a fifth refutation of the table.

Phćd. Euge! Now, this is a pleasant skirmishing.

X. For, in column the last, I say that the principle of valuation employed is different from that employed in columns five and six. Upon which I offer you this dilemma: it is—or it is not; choose.

Phil. Suppose I say, it is?

X. In that case, the result of this table is a case of idem per idem; a pure childish tautology.

Phil. Suppose I say, it is not?

X. In that case, the result of this table is false.

Phil. Demonstrate.

X. I say, that the principle of valuation employed in column nine is, not the quantity of producing labor, but the quantity of labor commanded. Now, if it is, then the result is childish tautology, as being identical with the premises. For it is already introduced into the premises as one of the conditions of the case Alpha (namely, into column two), that twelve quarters of corn shall command the labor of one man; which being premised, it is a mere variety of expression for the very same fact to tell us, in column nine, that the one hundred and fifty quarters of column the first shall command twelve men and five tenths of a man; for one hundred and forty-four, being twelve times twelve, will of course command twelve men, and the remainder of six quarters will of course command the half of a man. And it is most idle to employ the elaborate machinery of nine columns to deduce, as a learned result, what you have already put into the premises, and postulated amongst the conditions.

Phćd. This will, therefore, destroy Mr. Malthus' theory a fourth time.

X. Then, on the other hand, if the principle of valuation employed in column nine is the same as that employed in columns five and six, this principle must be the quantity of producing labor, and not the quantity of labor commanded. But, in that case, the result will be false. For column nine values column the first. Now, if the one hundred and fifty quarters of case Alpha are truly valued in column first, then they are falsely valued in column the last; and, if truly valued in column the last, then falsely valued in column the first. For, by column the last, the one hundred and fifty quarters are produced by the labor of twelve and a half men; but it is the very condition of column the first, that the one hundred and fifty quarters are produced by ten men.

Phćd. (Laughing). This is too hot to last. Here we have a fifth refutation. Can't you give us a sixth, X.?

X. If you please. Supposing Mr. Malthus' theory to be good, it shall be impossible for anything whatsoever at any time to vary in value. For how shall it vary? Because the quantity of producing labor varies? But that is the very principle which he is writing to overthrow. Shall it vary, then, because the value of the producing labor varies? But that is impossible on the system of Mr. Malthus; for, according to this system, the value of labor is invariable.

Phil. Stop! I've thought of a dodge. The thing shall vary because the quantity of labor commanded shall vary.

X. But how shall that vary? A can never command a greater quantity of labor, or of anything which is presumed to be of invariable value, until A itself be of a higher value. To command an altered quantity of labor, which (on any theory) must be the consequence of altered value, can never be the cause of altered value. No alterations of labor, therefore, whether as to quantity or value, shall ever account for the altered value of A; for, according to Mr. Malthus, they are either insufficient on the one hand, or impossible on the other.

Phil. Grant this, yet value may still vary; for suppose labor to be invariable, still profits may vary.

X. So that, if A rise, it will irresistibly argue profits to have risen?

Phil. It will; because no other element can have risen.

X. But now column eight assigns the value of a uniform quantity of corn—namely, one hundred quarters. In case Alpha, one hundred quarters are worth 8.33. What are one hundred quarters worth in the case Iota?

Phil. They are worth ten.

X. And that is clearly more. Now, if A have risen, by your own admission I am entitled to infer that profits have risen: but what are profits in the case Iota?

Phil. By column four they are twenty per cent.

X. And what in the case Alpha?

Phil. By column four, twenty-five per cent.

X. Then profits have fallen in the case Iota, but, because L has risen in case Iota from 8.33 to ten, it is an irresistible inference, on your theory, that profits ought to have risen.

Phćd. (Laughing). Philebus, this is a sharp practice; go on, X., and skirmish with him a little more in this voltigeur style.

N.B.—With respect to "The Templars' Dialogues," it may possibly be complained, that this paper is in some measure a fragment. My answer is, that, although fragmentary in relation to the entire system of Ricardo, and that previous system which he opposed, it is no fragment in relation to the radical principle concerned in those systems. The conflicting systems are brought under review simply at the locus of collision: just as the reader may have seen the chemical theory of Dr. Priestley, and the counter-theory of his anti- phlogistic opponents, stated within the limits of a single page. If the principle relied on by either party can be shown to lead into inextricable self-contradiction, that is enough. So much is accomplished in that case as was proposed from the beginning—namely, not to exhaust the positive elements of this system or that, but simply to settle the central logic of their several polemics; to settle, in fact, not the matter of what is evolved, but simply the principle of evolution.