The Collected Writings of Thomas De Quincey, Volume 9A. & C. Black, 1897 |
Common terms and phrases
absurdity Adam Smith affirmative value amongst arise barouche capital cause cent century chapter circumstances column common connexion consequences constitution constitutional parties corn cost Dialogues difference distinction doctrine effect England English equally exchange value existing express fact force French French Revolution fund gold ground guineas hundred idea inference instance interest land law of value less logic London Magazine Malthus means measure of value ment mode natural natural price necessity never object original party Phad Phæd Phædrus Phil Philebus Phod Political Economy possible pounds principle producing labour purpose quantity of labour quarters question Quincey Quincey's Radical raised rate of profit reader real value reason Reformers relation rent Revolution Ricardo rise sense shillings simply soil suppose teleologic tendency things thousand guineas tion true truth value in exchange value of labour wheat Whig and Tory Whiggism whilst whole word
Popular passages
Page 228 - is that portion of " the produce of the earth which is paid to the landlord for the " use of the original and indestructible powers of the soil.
Page 203 - IN making labour the foundation of the value of commodities, and the comparative quantity of labour which is necessary to their production, the rule which determines the respective quantities of goods which shall be given in exchange for each other, we must not be supposed to deny the accidental and temporary deviations of the actual or market price of commodities from this, their primary and natural price.
Page 140 - D'S latent presence. Yet D is so far from exerting any positive force that the retirement of D from all agency whatever on the price — this it is which creates, as it were, a perfect vacuum, and through that vacuum u rushes up to its highest and ultimate graduation.
Page 93 - Value." any commodity could preserve an unvarying value, he goes on to say : " of such a commodity we have no knowledge, and consequently are unable to fix on any standard of value." And, again (at p. 343 of the same edition), after exposing at some length the circumstances which disqualify " any commodity, or all commodities together...
Page 40 - For this as for some other passages I was justly * attacked by an able and liberal critic in the New Edinburgh Review — as for so many absurd irrelevancies : in that situation no doubt they were so ; and of this, in spite of the haste in which I had written the greater part of the book, I was fully aware. However, as they said no more than was...
Page 428 - WHATSOEVER difference there may be in our notions of the freedom of the will metaphysically considered, it is evident that the manifestations of this will, viz. human actions, are as much under the control of universal laws of nature as any other physical phenomena.
Page 285 - Four times, and not twice, because the half-yearly dividends fall at one period for certain stocks, at a different period for other stocks ; by which means the disturbance, though reiterated more frequently, is lightened for each operation. Such is the fact, — what is the consequence ? " These demands for money, being only temporary, seldom affect prices; they are generally surmounted by the payment of a large rate of interest."— (P. 415.) Now, would it not be monstrous to urge that casual tilt...
Page 223 - From manufactured commodities always falling and raw produce always rising, with the progress of society, such a disproportion in their relative value is at length created, that in rich countries a labourer, by the sacrifice of a very small quantity only of his food, is able to provide liberally for all his other wants.
Page 429 - ... to detect some natural purpose in such a senseless current of human actions ; by means of which a history of creatures that pursue no plan of their own may yet admit a systematic form as the history of creatures that are blindly pursuing a plan of nature. Let us now see whether we can succeed in finding out a clue to such a history ; leaving it to nature to produce a man capable of executing it.
Page 443 - ... earth accomplished. Such a justification of nature, or rather of providence, is no mean motive for choosing this cosmopolitical station for the survey of history. For what does it avail to praise and to draw forth to view the magnificence and wisdom of the creation in the irrational kingdom of nature, if that part in the great stage of the supreme wisdom, which contains the object of all this mighty display, viz. the history of the human species— is to remain an eternal objection to it, the...