Memorials and Other Papers — Complete

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.