We wish to examine the support claimed for the set of axioms contained in The Foundations of Accounting Measurement by Yuji Ijiri.1 The purpose of those axioms is to enable an 'Axiomatic Structure of Historical Cost Valuation' to be developed (p. 87). And although that structure is intended to approximate conventional accounting (p. 88), it is in the nature of an ideal. Conventional accounting is recognized as a collection of many different principles and practices, some of which are mutually inconsistent. Accordingly, no consistent set of ideas can describe all of them (p. 88). Those instances, found in practice, of rules or methods that do not accord with a "pure" historic cost valuation system are listed as exceptions "that cannot be handled the same way in our system" (p. 98). No attempt is made to prescribe ways of eliminating these exceptions, or of overcoming those "different principles and practices, which, in some cases are mutually inconsistent." On the contrary, "the conventional accounting system [is taken] as given rather than ab inritio seeking to prescribe what we think an accounting system should be" (p. 88). Thus, those parts of conventional accounting which do not, accord with a strict interpretation of the historical cost principle are ignored. This is the nature of the ideal. It is adhered to, and "the valuation system of conventional accounting [is viewed] as though it consisted of a set of axioms on one hand and a set of valuation rules on the other. These are extracted from conventional accounting in such a way that they are not only necessary but also sufficient to explain most of the principles and practices in it" (p. 88).