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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13488 ***
+
+AN ESSAY ON MEDIÆVAL ECONOMIC TEACHING
+
+by
+
+GEORGE O'BRIEN, LITT.D., M.R.I.A.
+
+Author of 'The Economic History of Ireland in the Seventeenth Century,'
+and 'The Economic History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century'
+
+1920
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TO THE REV. MICHAEL CRONIN, M.A., D.D.
+UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S NOTE
+
+I wish to express my gratitude to the Rev. Dr. Cronin for his kindness
+in reading the manuscript, and for many valuable suggestions which he
+made; also to Father T.A. Finlay, S.J., and Mr. Arthur Cox for having
+given me much assistance in the reading and revision of the proofs.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER I
+  INTRODUCTORY
+    SECTION 1. AIM AND SCOPE OF THE ESSAY
+    SECTION 2. EXPLANATION OF THE TITLE
+      § 1. Mediæval
+      § 2. Economic
+      § 3. Teaching
+    SECTION 3. VALUE OF THE STUDY OF THE SUBJECT
+    SECTION 4. DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT
+
+
+  CHAPTER II
+  PROPERTY
+    SECTION 1. THE RIGHT TO PRODUCE AND DISPENSE PROPERTY
+    SECTION 2. DUTIES REGARDING THE ACQUISITION AND USE OF PROPERTY
+    SECTION 3. PROPERTY IN HUMAN BEINGS
+
+
+  CHAPTER III
+  DUTIES REGARDING THE EXCHANGE OF PROPERTY
+    SECTION 1. THE SALE OF GOODS
+      § 1. The Just Price
+      § 2. The Just Price when Price fixed by Law
+      § 3. The Just Price when Price not fixed by Law
+      § 4. The Just Price of Labour
+      § 5. Value of the Conception of the Just Price
+      § 6. Was the Just Price Subjective or Objective?
+      § 7. The Mediæval Attitude towards Commerce
+      § 8. _Cambium_
+    SECTION 2. THE SALE OF THE USE OF MONEY
+      § 1. Usury in Greece and Rome
+      § 2. Usury in the Old Testament
+      § 3. Usury in the First Twelve Centuries of Christianity
+      § 4. The Mediæval Prohibition of Usury
+      § 5. Extrinsic Titles
+      § 6. Other Cases in which more than the Loan could be repaid
+      § 7. The Justice of Unearned Income
+      § 8. Rent Charges
+      § 9. Partnership
+      § 10. Concluding Remarks on Usury
+    SECTION 3. THE MACHINERY OF EXCHANGE
+
+  CHAPTER IV
+  CONCLUSION
+
+  INDEX
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+
+
+SECTION 1.--AIM AND SCOPE OF THE ESSAY
+
+
+It is the aim of this essay to examine and present in as concise a
+form as possible the principles and rules which guided and regulated
+men in their economic and social relations during the period known as
+the Middle Ages. The failure of the teaching of the so-called orthodox
+or classical political economists to bring peace and security to
+society has caused those interested in social and economic problems to
+inquire with ever-increasing anxiety into the economic teaching which
+the orthodox economy replaced; and this inquiry has revealed that each
+system of economic thought that has from time to time been accepted
+can be properly understood only by a knowledge of the earlier system
+out of which it grew. A process of historical inquiry of this kind
+leads one ultimately to the Middle Ages, and it is certainly not too
+much to say that no study of modern European economic thought can be
+complete or satisfactory unless it is based upon a knowledge of the
+economic teaching which was accepted in mediæval Europe. Therefore,
+while many will deny that the economic teaching of that period is
+deserving of approval, or that it is capable of being applied to the
+conditions of the present day, none will deny that it is worthy of
+careful and impartial investigation.
+
+There is thus a demand for information upon the subject dealt with in
+this essay. On the other hand, the supply of such information in the
+English language is extremely limited. The books, such as Ingram's
+_History of Political Economy_ and Haney's _History of Economic
+Thought_, which deal with the whole of economic history, necessarily
+devote but a few pages to the Middle Ages. Ashley's _Economic History_
+contains two excellent chapters dealing with the Canonist teaching;
+but, while these chapters contain a mass of most valuable information
+on particular branches of the mediæval doctrines, they do not perhaps
+sufficiently indicate the relation between them, nor do they lay
+sufficient emphasis upon the fundamental philosophical principles out
+of which the whole system sprang. One cannot sufficiently acknowledge
+the debt which English students are under to Sir William Ashley for
+his examination of mediæval opinion on economic matters; his book
+is frequently and gratefully cited as an authority in the following
+pages; but it is undeniable that his treatment of the subject suffers
+somewhat on account of its being introduced but incidentally into a
+work dealing mainly with English economic practice. Dr. Cunningham
+has also made many valuable contributions to particular aspects of the
+subject; and there have also been published, principally in Catholic
+periodicals, many important monographs on special points; but so
+far there has not appeared in English any treatise, which is devoted
+exclusively to mediæval economic opinion and attempts to treat the
+whole subject completely. It is this want in our economic literature
+that has tempted the author to publish the present essay, although he
+is fully aware of its many defects.
+
+It is necessary, in the first place, to indicate precisely the extent
+of the subject with which we propose to deal; and with this end in
+view to give a definition of the three words, '_mediæval, economic,
+teaching_.'
+
+
+
+SECTION 2.--EXPLANATION OF THE TITLE
+
+
+§ 1. _Mediæval_.
+
+Ingram, in his well-known book on economic history, following the
+opinion of Comte, refuses to consider the fourteenth and fifteenth
+centuries as part of the Middle Ages.[1] We intend, however, to treat
+of economic teaching up to the end of the fifteenth century. The best
+modern judges are agreed that the term Middle Ages must not be given
+a hard-and-fast meaning, but that it is capable of bearing a very
+elastic interpretation. The definition given in the _Catholic
+Encyclopædia_ is: 'a term commonly used to designate that period of
+European history between the Fall of the Roman Empire and about the
+middle of the fifteenth century. The precise dates of the beginning,
+culmination, and end of the Middle Ages are more or less arbitrarily
+assumed according to the point of view adopted.' The eleventh edition
+of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ contains a similar opinion: 'This
+name is commonly given to that period of European history which lies
+between what are known as ancient and modern times, and which has
+generally been considered as extending from about the middle of the
+fifth to about the middle of the fifteenth centuries. The two dates
+adopted in old text-books were 476 and 1453, from the setting aside
+of the last emperor of the west until the fall of Constantinople. In
+reality it is impossible to fix any exact dates for the opening and
+close of such a period.'
+
+[Footnote 1: _History of Political Economy_, p. 35.]
+
+We are therefore justified in considering the fifteenth century as
+comprised hi the Middle Ages. This is especially so in the domain
+of economic theory. In actual practice the fourteenth and fifteenth
+centuries may have presented the appearance rather of the first stage
+of a new than of the last stage of an old era. This is Ingram's view.
+However true this may be of practice, it is not at all true of theory,
+which, as we shall see, continued to be entirely based on the
+writings of an author of the thirteenth century. Ingram admits this
+incidentally: 'During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the
+Catholic-feudal system was breaking down by the mutual conflicts of
+its own official members, while the constituent elements of a new
+order were rising beneath it. The movements of this phase can scarcely
+be said to find an echo in any contemporary economic literature.'[1]
+We need not therefore apologise further for including a consideration
+of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in our investigations as to
+the economic teaching of the Middle Ages. We are supported in doing
+so by such excellent authorities as Jourdain,[2] Roscher,[3] and
+Cossa.[4] Haney, in his _History of Economic Thought_,[5] says: 'It
+seems more nearly true to regard the years about 1500 as marking the
+end of mediæval times.... On large lines, and from the viewpoint of
+systems of thought rather than systems of industry, the Middle Ages
+may with profit be divided into two periods. From 400 down to 1200,
+or shortly thereafter, constitutes the first. During these years
+Christian theology opposed Roman institutions, and Germanic customs
+were superposed, until through action and reaction all were blended.
+This was the reconstruction; it was the "stormy struggle" to found a
+new ecclesiastical and civil system. From 1200 on to 1500 the world
+of thought settled to its level. Feudalism and scholasticism, the
+corner-stones of mediævalism, emerged and were dominant.'
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Mémoires sur les commencements de l'économie politique
+dans les écoles du moyen âge_, Académie des Inscriptions et
+Belles-Lettres, vol. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Geschichte zur National-Ökonomik in Deutschland_.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Introduction to the Study of Political Economy_.]
+
+[Footnote 5: P. 70.]
+
+We shall not continue the study further than the beginning of the
+sixteenth century. It is true that, if we were to refer to several
+sixteenth-century authors, we should be in possession of a very highly
+developed and detailed mass of teaching on many points which
+earlier authors left to some extent obscure. We deliberately
+refrain nevertheless from doing so, because the whole nature of the
+sixteenth-century literature was different from that of the fourteenth
+and fifteenth; the early years of the sixteenth century witnessed the
+abrogation of the central authority which was a basic condition of
+the success of the mediæval system; and the same period also witnessed
+'radical economic changes, reacting more and more on the scholastic
+doctrines, which found fewer and fewer defenders in their original
+form.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cossa, _op. cit._, p. 151. Ashley warns us that 'we must
+be careful not to interpret the writers of the fifteenth century by
+the writers of the seventeenth' (_Economic History_, vol. i. pt. ii.
+p. 387). These later writers sometimes contain historical accounts
+of controversies in previous centuries, and are relevant on this
+account.]
+
+
+§ 2. _Economic_.
+
+It must be clearly understood that the political economy of the
+mediævals was not a science, like modern political economy, but an
+art. 'It is a branch of the virtue of prudence; it is half-way between
+morality, which regulates the conduct of the individual, and politics,
+which regulates the conduct of the sovereign. It is the morality of
+the family or of the head of the family, from the point of view of the
+good administration of the patrimony, just as politics is the morality
+of the sovereign, from the point of view of the good government of the
+State. There is as yet no question of economic laws in the sense
+of historical and descriptive laws; and political economy, not yet
+existing in the form of a science, is not more than a branch of that
+great tree which is called ethics, or the art of living well.'[1] 'The
+doctrine of the canon law,' says Sir William Ashley, 'differed from
+modern economics in being an art rather than a science. It was a body
+of rules and prescriptions as to conduct, rather than of conclusions
+as to fact. All art indeed in this sense rests on science; but the
+science on which the canonist doctrine rested was theology. Theology,
+or rather that branch of it which we may call Christian ethics, laid
+down certain principles of right and wrong in the economic sphere;
+and it was the work of the canonists to apply them to specific
+transactions and to pronounce judgment as to their permissibility.'[2]
+The conception of economic laws, in the modern sense, was quite
+foreign to the mediæval treatment of the subject. It was only in
+the middle of the fourteenth century that anything approaching a
+scientific examination of the phenomena of economic life appeared,
+and that was only in relation to a particular subject, namely, the
+doctrine of money.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Rambaud, _Histoire des Doctrines Économiques_, p. 39. 'It
+is evident that a household is a mean between the individual and
+the city or Kingdom, since just as the individual is part of the
+household, so is the household part of the city or Kingdom, and
+therefore, just as prudence commonly so called which governs the
+individual is distinct from political prudence, so must domestic
+prudence (oeconomica) be distinct from both. Riches are related to
+domestic prudence, not as its last end, but as its instrument. On the
+other hand, the end of political prudence is a good life in general as
+regards the conduct of the household. In _Ethics_ i. the philosopher
+speaks of riches as the end of political prudence, by way of example,
+and in accordance with the opinion of many.' Aquinas, _Summa II_. ii.
+50. 3, and see _Sent. III_. xxxiii. 3 and 4. 'Practica quidem scientia
+est, quae recte vivendi modum ac disciplinae formam secundum virtutum
+institutionem disponit. Et haec dividitur in tres, scilicet: primo
+ethicam, id est moralem; et secundo oeconomicam, id est dispensativam;
+et tertio politicam, id est civilem' (Vincent de Beauvais, _Speculum_,
+VII. i. 2).]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, vol. i. part. ii. p. 379.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Rambaud, _op. cit._, p. 83; Ingram, _op. cit._, p. 36. So
+marked was the contrast between the mediæval and modern conceptions
+of economics that the appearance of this one treatise has been said
+by one high authority to have been the signal of the dawn of the
+Renaissance (Espinas, _Histoire des Doctrines Économiques_, p. 110).]
+
+To say that the mediæval method of approaching economic problems was
+fundamentally different from the modern, is not in any sense to be
+taken as indicating disapproval of the former. On the contrary, it is
+the general opinion to-day that the so-called classical treatment of
+economics has proved disastrous in its application to real life,
+and that future generations will witness a retreat to the earlier
+position. The classical economists committed the cardinal error of
+subordinating man to wealth, and consumption to production. In their
+attempt to preserve symmetry and order in their generalisations they
+constructed a weird creature, the economic man, who never existed, and
+never could exist. The mediævals made no such mistake. They insisted
+that all production and gain which did not lead to the good of man was
+not alone wasteful, but positively evil; and that man was infinitely
+more important than wealth. When he exclaims that 'Production is on
+account of man, not man of production,' Antoninus of Florence sums
+up in a few words the whole view-point of his age.[1] 'Consumption,'
+according to Dr. Cunningham, 'was the aspect of human nature which
+attracted most attention.... Regulating consumption wisely was the
+chief practical problem in mediæval economics.'[2] The great
+practical benefits of such a treatment of the problems relating to the
+acquisition and enjoyment of material wealth must be obvious to every
+one who is familiar with the condition of the world after a century of
+classical political economy. 'To subordinate the economic order to
+the social order, to submit the industrial activity of man to the
+consideration of the final and general end of his whole being, is
+a principle which must exert on every department of the science
+of wealth, an influence easy to understand. Economic laws are the
+codification of the material activity of a sort of _homo economicus_;
+of a being, who, having no end in view but wealth, produces all he
+can, distributes his produce in the way that suits him best,
+and consumes as much as he can. Self interest alone dictates his
+conduct.'[3] Economics, far from being a science whose highest aim
+was to evolve a series of abstractions, was a practical guide to the
+conduct of everyday affairs.[4] 'The pre-eminence of morality in
+the domain of economics constitutes at the same time the distinctive
+feature, the particular merit, and the great teaching of the economic
+lessons of this period.'[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Irish Theological Quarterly_, vol. vii. p. 151.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Christianity and Economic Science_, p. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Brants, _Les Théories économiques aux xiii^{e} et xii^{e}
+siècles, p_. 34.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Gide and Rist, _History of Economic Doctrines_, Eng.
+trans., p. 110.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 9.]
+
+Dr. Cunningham draws attention to the fact that the existence of such
+a universally received code of economic morality was largely due to
+the comparative simplicity of the mediæval social structure, where
+the _relations of persons_ were all important, in comparison with the
+modern order, where the _exchange of things_ is the dominant factor.
+He further draws attention to the changes which affected the whole
+constitution of society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
+and proceeds: 'These changes had a very important bearing on all
+questions of commercial morality; so long as economic dealings were
+based on a system of personal relationships they all bore an implied
+moral character. To supply a bad article was morally wrong, to demand
+excessive payment for goods or for labour was extortion, and the
+right or wrong of every transaction was easily understood.'[1] The
+application of ethics to economic transactions was rendered possible
+by the existence of one universally recognised code of morality,
+and the presence of one universally accepted moral teacher. 'In the
+thirteenth century, the ecclesiastical organisation gave a unity to
+the social structure throughout the whole of Western Europe; over the
+area in which the Pope was recognised as the spiritual and the Emperor
+as the temporal vicar of God, political and racial differences were
+relatively unimportant. For economic purposes it is scarcely necessary
+to distinguish different countries from one another in the thirteenth
+century, for there were fewer barriers to social intercourse
+within the limits of Christendom than there are to-day.... Similar
+ecclesiastical canons, and similar laws prevailed over large areas,
+where very different admixtures of civil and barbaric laws were in
+vogue. Christendom, though broken into so many fragments politically,
+was one organised society for all the purposes of economic life,
+because there was such free intercommunication between its parts.'[2]
+'There were three great threads,' we read later in the same book,
+'which ran through the whole social system of Christendom. First of
+all there was a common religious life, with the powerful weapons of
+spiritual censure and excommunication which it placed in the hands of
+the clergy, so that they were able to enforce the line of policy which
+Rome approved. Then there was the great judicial system of canon
+law, a common code with similar tribunals for the whole of Western
+Christendom, dealing not merely with strictly ecclesiastical affairs,
+but with many matters that we should regard as economic, such as
+questions of commercial morality, and also with social welfare as
+affected by the law of marriage and the disposition of property by
+will....'[3] 'To the influence of Christianity as a moral doctrine,'
+says Dr. Ingram, 'was added that of the Church as an organisation,
+charged with the application of the doctrine to men's daily
+transactions. Besides the teaching of the sacred books there was a
+mass of ecclesiastical legislation providing specific prescriptions
+for the conduct of the faithful. And this legislation dealt with the
+economic as well as with other provinces of social activity.'[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, vol. i. p.
+465.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Cunningham, _Western Civilisation_, vol. ii. pp. 2-3.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, p. 67.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Op. cit._, p. 27.]
+
+The teaching of the mediæval Church, therefore, on economic affairs
+was but the application to particular facts and cases of its general
+moral teaching. The suggestion, so often put forward by so-called
+Christian socialists, that Christianity was the exponent of a special
+social theory of its own, is unfounded. The direct opposite would be
+nearer the truth. Far from concerning itself with the outward forms
+of the political or economic structure, Christianity concentrated its
+attention on the conduct of the individual. If Christianity can be
+said to have possessed any distinctive social theory, it was intense
+individualism. 'Christianity brought, from the point of view of
+morals, an altogether new force by the distinctly individual and
+personal character of its precepts. Duty, vice or virtue, eternal
+punishment--all are marked with the most individualist imprint that
+can be imagined. No social or political theory appeared, because it
+was through the individual that society was to be regenerated....
+We can say with truth that there is not any Christian political
+economy--in the sense in which there is a Christian morality or
+a Christian dogma--any more than there is a Christian physic or a
+Christian medicine.'[1] In seeking to learn Christian teaching of
+the Middle Ages on economic matters, we must therefore not look
+for special economic treatises in the modern sense, but seek our
+principles in the works dealing with general morality, in the Canon
+Law, and in the commentaries on the Civil Law. 'We find the first
+worked out economic theory for the whole Catholic world in the _Corpus
+Juris Canonici_, that product of mediæval science in which for so
+many centuries theology, jurisprudence, philosophy, and politics were
+treated....'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Rambaud, _op. cit._, pp. 34-5; Cunningham, _Western
+Civilisation_, vol. ii. p. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Roscher, _op. cit._, p. 5. It must not be concluded
+that all the opinions expressed by the theologians and lawyers were
+necessarily the official teaching of the Church. Brants says: 'It is
+not our intention to attribute to the Church all the opinions of
+this period; certainly the spirit of the Church dominated the great
+majority of the writers, but one must not conclude from this that
+all their writings are entitled to rank as doctrinal teaching' (_Op.
+cit._, p. 6).]
+
+There is not to be found in the writers of the early Middle Ages, that
+is to say from the eighth to the thirteenth centuries, a trace of any
+attention given to what we at the present day would designate economic
+questions. Usury was condemned by the decrees of several councils, but
+the reasons of this prohibition were not given, nor was the question
+made the subject of any dialectical controversy; commerce was so
+undeveloped as to escape the attention of those who sought to
+guide the people in their daily life; and money was accepted as the
+inevitable instrument of exchange, without any discussion of its
+origin or the laws which regulated it.
+
+The writings of this period therefore betray no sign of any interest
+in economic affairs. Jourdain says that he carefully examined the
+works of Alcuin, Rabanas Mauras, Scotus Erigenus, Hincmar, Gerbert,
+St. Anselm, and Abelard--the greatest lights of theology and
+philosophy in the early Middle Ages--without finding a single passage
+to suggest that any of these authors suspected that the pursuit of
+riches, which they despised, occupied a sufficiently large place in
+national as well as in individual life, to offer to the philosopher a
+subject fruitful in reflections and results. The only work which might
+be adduced as a partial exception to this rule is the _Polycraticus_
+of John of Salisbury; but even this treatise contained only some
+scattered moral reflections on luxury and on zeal for the interest of
+the public treasury.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Jourdain, _op. cit._, p. 4.]
+
+Two causes contributed to produce this almost total lack of interest
+in economic subjects. One was the miserable condition of society,
+still only partially rescued from the ravages of the barbarians, and
+half organised, almost without industry and commerce; the other
+was the absence of all economic tradition. The existence of the
+_Categories_ and _Hermenia_ of Aristotle ensured that the chain
+of logical study was not broken; the works of Donatus and Priscian
+sustained some glimmer of interest in grammatical theory; certain rude
+notions of physics and astronomy were kept alive by the preservation
+of such ancient elementary treatises as those of Marcian Capella; but
+economics had no share in the heritage of the past. Not only had the
+writings of the ancients, who dealt to some extent with the theory of
+wealth, been destroyed, but the very traces of their teaching had been
+long forgotten. A good example of the state of thought in economic
+matters is furnished by the treatment which money receives in the
+_Etymologies_ of Isidore of Seville, which was regarded in the early
+Middle Ages as a reliable encyclopædia. 'Money,' according to Isidore,
+'is so called because it warns, _monet_, lest any fraud should enter
+into its composition or its weight. The piece of money is the coin of
+gold, silver, or bronze, which is called _nomisma_, because it bears
+the imprint of the name and likeness of the prince.... The pieces of
+money _nummi_ have been so called from the King of Rome, Numa, who was
+the first among the Latins to mark them with the imprint of his image
+and name.'[1] Is it any wonder that the early Middle Ages were barren
+of economic doctrines, when this was the best instruction to which
+they had access?
+
+[Footnote 1: _Etymol_. xvi. 17.]
+
+In the course of the thirteenth century a great change occurred. The
+advance of civilisation, the increased organisation of feudalism, the
+development of industry, and the extension of commerce, largely under
+the influence of the Crusades, all created a condition of affairs in
+which economic questions could no longer be overlooked or neglected.
+At the same time the renewed study of the writings of Aristotle served
+to throw a flood of new light on the nature of wealth.
+
+The _Ethics_ and _Politics_ of Aristotle, although they are not
+principally devoted to a treatment of the theory of wealth, do in
+fact deal with that subject incidentally. Two points in particular
+are touched on, the utility of money and the injustice of usury.
+The passages of the philosopher dealing with these subjects are of
+particular interest, as they may be said, with a good deal of truth,
+to be the true starting point of mediæval economics.[1] The writings
+of Aristotle arrested the attention, and aroused the admiration of
+the theologians of the thirteenth century; and it would be quite
+impossible to exaggerate the influence which they exercised on the
+later development of mediæval thought. Albertus Magnus digested,
+interpreted, and systematised the whole of the works of the Stagyrite;
+and was so steeped in the lessons of his philosophic master as to be
+dubbed by some 'the ape of Aristotle.' Aquinas, who was a pupil of
+Albertus, also studied and commented on Aristotle, whose aid he was
+always ready to invoke in the solution of all his difficulties. With
+the single and strange exception of Vincent de Beauvais, Aristotle's
+teaching on money was accepted by all the writers of the thirteenth
+century, and was followed by later generations.[2] The influence
+of Aristotle is apparent in every article of the _Summa_, which was
+itself the starting point from which all discussion sprang for the
+following two centuries; and it is not too much to say that the
+Stagyrite had a decisive influence on the introduction of economic
+notions into the controversies of the Schools. 'We find in the
+writings of St. Thomas Aquinas,' says Ingram, 'the economic doctrines
+of Aristotle reproduced with a partial infusion of Christian
+elements.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Jourdain, _op. cit._, p. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Op. cit._, p. 27. Espinas thinks that the influence
+of Aristotle in this respect has been exaggerated. (_Histoire des
+Doctrines Économiques_, p. 80.)]
+
+In support of the account we have given of the development of economic
+thought in the thirteenth century, we may quote Cossa: 'The revival
+of economic studies in the Middle Ages only dates from the thirteenth
+century. It was due in a great measure to a study of the _Ethics_ and
+_Politics_ of Aristotle, whose theories on wealth were paraphrased by
+a considerable number of commentators. Before that period we can only
+find moral and religious dissertations on such topics as the proper
+use of material goods, the dangers of luxury, and undue desire for
+wealth. This is easily explained when we take into consideration (1)
+the prevalent influence of religious ideas at the time, (2) the
+strong reaction against the materialism of pagan antiquity, (3)
+the predominance of natural economy, (4) the small importance of
+international trade, and (5) the decay of the profane sciences, and
+the metaphysical tendencies of the more solid thinkers of the Middle
+Ages.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 14; Espinas, _op. cit._, p. 80.]
+
+The teaching of Aquinas upon economic affairs remained the groundwork
+of all the later writers until the end of the fifteenth century.
+His opinions on various points were amplified and explained by
+later authors in more detail than he himself employed; monographs of
+considerable length were devoted to the treatment of questions which
+he dismissed in a single article; but the development which took
+place was essentially one of amplification rather than opposition. The
+monographists of the later fifteenth century treat usury and sale in
+considerable detail; many refinements are indicated which are not
+to be found in the _Summa_; but it is quite safe to say that none
+of these later writers ever pretended to supersede the teaching of
+Aquinas, who was always admitted to be the ultimate authority. 'During
+the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the general political doctrine
+of Aquinas was maintained with merely subordinate modifications.'[1]
+'The canonist doctrine of the fifteenth century,' according to Sir
+William Ashley, 'was but a development of the principles to which the
+Church had already given its sanction in earlier centuries. It was the
+outcome of these same principles working in a modified environment.
+But it may more fairly be said to present a _system_ of economic
+thought, because it was no longer a collection of unrelated opinions,
+but a connected whole. The tendency towards a separate department of
+study is shown by the ever-increasing space devoted to the discussion
+of general economic topics in general theological treatises, and
+more notably still in the manuals of casuistry for the use of the
+confessional, and handbooks of canon law for the use of ecclesiastical
+lawyers. It was shown even more distinctly by the appearance of a
+shoal of special treatises on such subjects as contracts, exchange,
+and money, not to mention those on usury.'[2] In all this development,
+however, the principles enunciated by Aquinas, and through him, by
+Aristotle, though they may have been illustrated and applied to new
+instances, were never rejected. The study of the writers of this
+period is therefore the study of an organic whole, the germ of which
+is to be found in the writings of Aquinas.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ingram, _op. cit._, p. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 382.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The volume of literature which bears more or less on
+economic matters dating from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is
+colossal. By far the best account of it is to be found in Endemann's
+_Studien in der Romanisch-canonistischen Wirthschafts- und
+Rechtslehre_, vol. i. pp. 25 _et seq_. Many of the more important
+works written during the period are reprinted in the _Tractatus
+Universi Juris_, vols. vi. and vii. The appendix to the first chapter
+of Reseller's _Geschichte_ also contains a valuable account of certain
+typical writers, especially of Langenstein and Henricus de Hoyta.
+Brants gives a useful bibliographical list of both mediæval and modern
+authorities in the second chapter of his _Théories économiques aux
+xiii^{e} et xiv^{e} siècles_. Those who desire further information
+about any particular writer of the period will find it in Stintzing,
+_Literaturgeschichte des röm. Rechts_, or in Chevallier's _Répertoire
+historique des Sources du moyen âge; Bio-bibliographie_. The
+authorship of the treatise _De Regimine Principum_, from which we
+shall frequently quote, often attributed to Aquinas, is very doubtful.
+The most probable opinion is that the first book and the first three
+chapters of the second are by Aquinas, and the remainder by another
+writer. (See Franck, _Réformateurs et Publicistes_, vol. i. p. 83.)]
+
+
+§ 3. _Teaching_.
+
+We shall confine our attention in this essay to the economic teaching
+of the Middle Ages, and shall not deal with the actual practice of the
+period. It may be objected that a study of the former without a study
+of the latter is futile and useless; that the economic teaching of a
+period can only be satisfactorily learnt from a study of its actual
+economic institutions and customs; and that the scholastic teaching
+was nothing but a casuistical attempt to reconcile the early Christian
+dogmas with the ever-widening exigencies of real life. Endemann, for
+instance, devotes a great part of his invaluable books on the subject
+to demonstrating how impracticable the canonist teaching was when it
+was applied to real life, and recounting the casuistical devices that
+were resorted to in order to reconcile the teaching of the Church with
+the accepted mercantile customs of the time. Endemann, however,
+in spite of his colossal research and unrivalled acquaintance with
+original authorities, was essentially hostile to the system which he
+undertook to explain, and thus lacked the most essential quality of a
+satisfactory expositor, namely, sympathy with his subject. He does
+not appear to have realised that development and adaptability to new
+situations, far from being marks of impracticability, are rather the
+signs of vitality and of elasticity. This is not the place to discuss
+how far the doctrine of the late fifteenth differed from that of the
+early thirteenth century; that is a matter which will appear below
+when each of the leading principles of scholastic economic teaching
+is separately considered; it is sufficient to say here that we agree
+entirely with Brants, in opposition to Endemann, that the change
+which took place in the interval was one of development, and not of
+opposition. 'The law,' says Brants, 'remained identical and unchanged;
+justice and charity--nobody can justly enrich himself at the expense
+of his neighbour or of the State, but the reasons justifying gain
+are multiplied according as riches are developed.'[1] 'The canonist
+doctrine of the fifteenth century was but a development of the
+principles to which the Church had already given its sanction in
+earlier centuries. It was the outcome of these same principles working
+in a modified environment.'[2] With these conclusions of Brants and
+Ashley we are in entire agreement.
+
+[Footnote 1: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, p. 381.]
+
+Let us say in passing that the assumption that the mediæval teaching
+grew out of contemporary practice, rather than that the latter grew
+out of the former, is one which does not find acceptance among the
+majority of the students of the subject. The problem whether a correct
+understanding of mediæval economic life can be best attained by first
+studying the teaching or the practice is possibly no more soluble than
+the old riddle of the hen and the egg; but it may at least be argued
+that there is a good deal to be said on both sides. The supporters of
+the view that practice moulded theory are by no means unopposed.
+There is no doubt that in many respects the exigencies of everyday
+commercial concerns came into conflict with the tenets of canon law
+and scholastic opinion; but the admission of this fact does not at
+all prove that the former was the element which modified the latter,
+rather than the latter the former. In so far as the expansion of
+commerce and the increasing complexity of intercourse raised questions
+which seemed to indicate that mercantile convenience conflicted with
+received teaching, it is probable that the difficulty was not so much
+caused by a contradiction between the former and the latter, as by the
+fact that an interpretation of the doctrine as applied to the facts
+of the new situation was not available before the new situation had
+actually arisen. This is a phenomenon frequently met with at the
+present day in legal practice; but no lawyer would dream of asserting
+that, because there had arisen an unprecedented state of facts, to
+which the application of the law was a matter of doubt or difficulty,
+therefore the law itself was obsolete or incomplete. Examples of such
+a conflict are familiar to any one who has ever studied the case law
+on any particular subject, either in a country such as England, where
+the law is unwritten, or in continental countries, where the most
+exhaustive and complete codes have been framed. Nevertheless, in spite
+of the occurrence of such difficulties, it would be foolish to contend
+that the laws in force for the time being have not a greater influence
+on the practice of mercantile transactions than the convenience of
+merchants has upon the law. How much more potent must this influence
+have been when the law did not apply simply to outward observances,
+but to the inmost recesses of the consciences of believing Christians!
+
+The opinion that mediæval teaching exercised a profound effect on
+mediæval practice is supported by authorities of the weight of Ashley,
+Ingram, and Cunningham,[1] the last of whom was in some respects
+unsympathetic to the teaching the influence of which he rates so
+highly. 'It has indeed,' writes Sir William Ashley, 'not infrequently
+been hinted that all the elaborate argumentation of canonists and
+theologians was "a cobweb of the brain," with no vital relation to
+real life. Certain German writers have, for instance, maintained that,
+alongside of the canonist doctrine with regard to trade, there existed
+in mediæval Europe a commercial law, recognised in the secular courts,
+and altogether opposed to the peculiar doctrines of the canonists.
+It is true that parts of mercantile jurisprudence, such as the law of
+partnership, had to a large extent originated in the social conditions
+of the time, and would have probably made their appearance even
+if there had been no canon law or theology. But though there were
+branches of commercial law which were, in the main, independent of
+the canonist doctrine, there were none that were opposed to it. On
+the fundamental points of usury and just price, commercial law in the
+later Middle Ages adopted completely the principles of the canonists.
+How entirely these principles were recognised in the practice of the
+courts which had most to do with commercial suits, viz. those of the
+towns, is sufficiently shown by the frequent enactments as to usury
+and as to reasonable price which are found in the town ordinances
+of the Middle Ages; in England as well as in the rest of Western
+Europe.... Whatever may have been the effect, direct or indirect, of
+the canonist doctrine on legislation, it is certain that on its other
+side, as entering into the moral teaching of the Church through the
+pulpit and the confessional, its influence was general and persistent,
+even if it were not always completely successful.'[2] 'Every great
+change of opinion on the destinies of man,' says Ingram, 'and the
+guiding principles of conduct must react in the sphere of material
+interests; and the Catholic religion had a profound influence on the
+economic life of the Middle Ages.... The constant presentations to the
+general mind and conscience of Christian ideas, the dogmatic bases
+of which were as yet scarcely assailed by scepticism, must have had a
+powerful effect in moralising life.'[3] According to Dr. Cunningham:
+'The mediæval doctrine of price was not a theory intended to explain
+the phenomena of society, but it was laid down as the basis of rules
+which should control the conduct of society and of individuals. At
+the same time current opinion seems to have been so fully formed in
+accordance with it that a brief enumeration of the doctrine of a just
+price will serve to set the practice of the day in clearer light. In
+regard to other matters, it is difficult to determine how far public
+opinion was swayed by practical experience, and how far it was really
+moulded by Christian teaching--this is the case in regard to usury.
+But there can be little doubt about the doctrine of price--which
+really underlies a great deal of commercial and gild regulations,
+and is constantly implied in the early legislation on mercantile
+affairs.'[4] The same author expresses the same opinion in another
+work: 'The Christian doctrine of price, and Christian condemnation
+of gain at the expense of another man, affected all the mediæval
+organisation of municipal life and regulation of inter-municipal
+commerce, and introduced marked contrasts to the conditions of
+business in ancient cities. The Christian appreciation of the duty of
+work rendered the lot of the mediæval villain a very different thing
+from that of the slave of the ancient empire. The responsibility of
+proprietors, like the responsibility of prices, was so far insisted
+on as to place substantial checks on tyranny of every kind. For these
+principles were not mere pious opinions, but effective maxims in
+practical life. Owing to the circumstances in which the vestiges of
+Roman civilisation were locally maintained, and the foundations of
+the new society were laid, there was ample opportunity for
+Christian teaching and example to have a marked influence on its
+development.'[5] In Dr. Cunningham's book entitled _Politics and
+Economics_ the same opinion is expressed:[6] 'Religious and industrial
+life were closely interconnected, and there were countless points at
+which the principles of divine law must have been brought to bear
+on the transaction of business, altogether apart from any formal
+tribunal. Nor must we forget the opportunities which directors had for
+influencing the conduct of penitents.... Partly through the operation
+of the royal power, partly through the decisions of ecclesiastical
+authorities, but more generally through the influence of a Christian
+public opinion which had been gradually created, the whole industrial
+organism took its shape, and the acknowledged economic principles were
+framed.' We have quoted these passages from Dr. Cunningham's works at
+length because they are of great value in helping us to estimate
+the rival parts played by theory and practice in mediæval economic
+teaching; in the first place, because the author was by no means
+prepossessed in favour of the teaching of the canonists, but rather
+unsympathetic to it; in the second place, because, although his work
+was concerned primarily with practice, he found himself obliged
+to make a study of theory before he could properly understand the
+practice; and lastly, because they point particularly to the effect of
+the teaching on just price. When we come to speak of this part of the
+subject we shall find that Dr. Cunningham failed to appreciate the
+true significance of the canonist doctrine. If an eminent author, who
+does not quite appreciate the full import of this doctrine, and who
+is to some extent contemptuous of its practical value, nevertheless
+asserts that it exercised an all-powerful influence on the practice of
+the age in which it was preached, we are surely justified in
+asserting that the study of theory may be profitably pursued without a
+preliminary history of the contemporary practice.
+
+[Footnote 1: Even Endemann warns his readers against assuming that the
+canonist teaching had no influence on everyday life. (_Studien_, vol.
+ii. p. 404.)]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. pp. 383-85. Again:
+'The later canonist dialectic was the midwife of modern economics'
+(_ibid._, p. 397).]
+
+[Footnote 3: _History of Political Economy_, p. 26.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_,
+vol. i. p. 252.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Cunningham, _Western Civilisation_, vol. ii. pp. 9-10.]
+
+[Footnote 6: P. 25.]
+
+But we must not be taken to suggest that there were no conflicts
+between the teaching and the practice of the Middle Ages. As we have
+seen, the economic teaching of that period was ethical, and it would
+be absurd to assert that every man who lived in the Middle Ages lived
+up to the high standard of ethical conduct which was proposed by the
+Church.[1] One might as well say that stealing was an unknown crime
+in England since the passing of the Larceny Act. All we do suggest is
+that the theory had such an important and incalculable influence
+upon practice that the study of it is not rendered futile or useless
+because of occasional or even frequent departures from it in real
+life. Even Endemann says: 'The teaching of the canon law presents a
+noble edifice not less splendid in its methods than in its results.
+It embraces the whole material and spiritual natures of human society
+with such power and completeness that verily no room is left for
+any other life than that decreed by its dogmas.'[2] 'The aim of the
+Church,' says Janssen, 'in view of the tremendous agencies through
+which it worked, in view of the dominion which it really exercised,
+cannot have the impression of its greatness effaced by the unfortunate
+fact that all was not accomplished that had been planned.'[3] The fact
+that tyranny may have been exercised by some provincial governor in
+an outlying island of the Roman Empire cannot close our eyes to the
+benefits to be derived from a study of the code of Justinian; nor can
+a remembrance of the manner in which English law is administered in
+Ireland in times of excitement, blind us to the political lessons to
+be learned from an examination of the British constitution.
+
+[Footnote 1: The many devices which were resorted to in order to evade
+the prohibition of usury are explained in Dr. Cunningham's _Growth
+of English Industry and Commerce_, vol. i. p. 255. See also Delisle,
+_L'Administration financière des Templiers_, Académie des Inscriptions
+et Belles-Lettres, 1889, vol. xxxiii. pt. ii., and Ashley, _Economic
+History_, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 426. The _Summa Pastoralis_ of Raymond de
+Pennafort analyses and demolishes many of the commoner devices which
+were employed to evade the usury laws. On the part played by the Jews,
+see Brants, _op. cit._, Appendix I.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Die Nationalökonomischen Grundsätze der canonistischen
+Lehre_, p. 192.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _History of the German People_ (Eng. trans.), vol. ii. p.
+99.]
+
+
+
+SECTION 3.--VALUE OF THE STUDY OF THE SUBJECT
+
+
+The question may be asked whether the study of a system of economic
+teaching, which, even if it ever did receive anything approaching
+universal assent, has long since ceased to do so, is not a waste of
+labour. We can answer that question in the negative, for two reasons.
+In the first place, as we said above, a proper understanding of
+the earlier periods of the development of a body of knowledge is
+indispensable for a full appreciation of the later. Even if the
+canonist system were not worth studying for its own sake, it would
+be deserving of attention on account of the light it throws on the
+development of later economic doctrine. 'However the canonist theory
+may contrast with or resemble modern economics, it is too important
+a part of the history of human thought to be disregarded,' says Sir
+William Ashley. 'As we cannot fully understand the work of Adam Smith
+without giving some attention to the physiocrats, nor the physiocrats
+without looking at the mercantilists: so the beginnings of mercantile
+theory are hardly intelligible without a knowledge of the canonist
+doctrine towards which that theory stands in the relation partly of a
+continuation, partly of a protest.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 381.]
+
+But we venture to assert that the study of canonist economics, far
+from being useful simply as an introduction to later theories, is of
+great value in furnishing us with assistance in the solution of the
+economic and social problems of the present day. The last fifty years
+have witnessed a reaction against the scientific abstractions of the
+classical economists, and modern thinkers are growing more and more
+dissatisfied with an economic science which leaves ethics out of
+account.[1] Professor Sidgwick, in his _Principles_ _of Political
+Economy_, published in 1883, devotes a separate section to 'The Art
+of Political Economy,' in which he remarks that 'The principles of
+Political Economy are still most commonly understood even in England,
+and in spite of many protests to the contrary, to be practical
+principles--rules of conduct, public or private.'[2] The many
+indications in recent literature and practice that the regulation of
+prices should be controlled by principles of 'fairness' would take too
+long to recite. It is sufficient to refer to the conclusion of Devas
+on this point: 'The notion of just price, worked out in detail by the
+theologians, and in later days rejected as absurd by the classical
+economists, has been rightly revived by modern economists.'[3] Not
+alone in the sphere of price, but in that of every other department
+of economics, the impossibility of treating the subject as an abstract
+science without regard to ethics is being rapidly abandoned. 'The best
+usage of the present time,' according to the _Catholic Encyclopædia_,
+'is to make political economy an ethical science--that is, to make it
+include a discussion of what ought to be in the economic world as well
+as what is.'[4] We read in the 1917 edition of Palgrave's _Dictionary
+of Political Economy_, that 'The growing importance of distribution as
+a practical problem has led to an increasing mutual interpenetration
+of economic and ethical ideas, which in the development of economic
+doctrine during the last century and a half has taken various forms.'
+[5] The need for some principle by which just distribution can be
+attained has been rendered pressing by the terrible effects of a
+period of unrestricted competition. 'It has been widely maintained
+that a strictly competitive exchange does not tend to be really
+fair--some say cannot be really fair--when one of the parties is
+under pressure of urgent need; and further, that the inequality of
+opportunity which private property involves cannot be fully justified
+on the principle of maintaining equal freedom, and leads, in fact, to
+grave social injustice.'[5] In other words, the present condition of
+affairs is admitted to be intolerable, and the task before the
+world is to discover some alternative. The day when economics can be
+divorced from ethics has passed away; there is a world-wide endeavour
+to establish in the place of the old, a new society founded on an
+ethical basis.[7] There are two, and only two, possible ways to
+the attainment of this ideal--the way of socialism and the way of
+Christianity. There can be no doubt the socialist movement derives a
+great part of its popularity from its promise of a new order, based,
+not on the unregulated pursuit of selfish desires, but on justice. 'To
+this view of justice or equity,' writes Dr. Sidgwick, 'the socialistic
+contention that labour can only receive its due reward if land and
+other instruments of production are taken into public ownership,
+and education of all kinds gratuitously provided by Government--has
+powerfully appealed; and many who are not socialists, nor ignorant of
+economic science, have been led by it to give welcome to the notion
+that the ideally "fair" price of a productive service is a price at
+least rendering possible the maintenance of the producers and their
+families in a condition of health and industrial efficiency.' This
+is not the place to enter into a discussion as to the merits
+or practicability of any of the numerous schemes put forward by
+socialists; it is sufficient to say that socialism is essentially
+unhistorical, and that in our opinion any practical benefits which
+it might bestow on society would be more than counterbalanced by the
+innumerable evils which would be certain to emerge in a system based
+on unsatisfactory foundations.
+
+[Footnote 1: We must guard against the error, which is frequently
+made, that, because the classical economists assumed self-interest
+as the sole motive of economic action, they therefore approved of and
+inculcated it.]
+
+[Footnote 2: P. 401, and see Marshall's Preface to Price's _Industrial
+Peace_, and Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. i. p. 137.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Political Economy_, p. 268.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Tit., 'Political Economy.']
+
+[Footnote 5: Vol. iii. p. 138.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Ibid._]
+
+[Footnote 7: See Laveleye, _Elements of Political Economy_ (Eng.
+trans.), pp. 7-8. On the general conflict between the ethical and the
+non-ethical schools of economists see Keynes, _Scope and Method_, pp.
+20 _et seq_.]
+
+The other road to the establishment of a society based on justice
+is the way of Christianity, and, if we wish to attempt this path, it
+becomes vitally important to understand what was the economic teaching
+of the Church in the period when the Christian ethic was universally
+recognised. During the whole Middle Ages, as we have said above, the
+Canon Law was the test of right and wrong in the domain of economic
+activity; production, consumption, distribution, and exchange were all
+regulated by the universal system of law; once before economic life
+was considered within the scope of moral regulation. It cannot be
+denied that a study of the principles which were accepted during that
+period may be of great value to a generation which is striving to
+place its economic life once more upon an ethical foundation.
+
+One error in particular we must be on our guard to avoid. We said
+above that both the socialists and the Christian economists are agreed
+in their desire to reintroduce justice into economic life. We must not
+conclude, however, that the aims of these two schools are identical.
+One very frequently meets with the statement that the teachings of
+socialism are nothing more or less than the teachings of Christianity.
+This contention is discussed in the following pages, where the
+conclusion will be reached that, far from being in agreement,
+socialism and Christian economics contradict each other on many
+fundamental points. It is, however, not the aim of the discussion to
+appraise the relative merits of either system, or to applaud one and
+disparage the other. All that it is sought to do is to distinguish
+between them; and to demonstrate that, whatever be the merits or
+demerits of the two philosophies, they are two, and not one.
+
+
+
+SECTION 4.--DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT
+
+
+The opinion is general that the distinctive doctrine of the mediæval
+Church which permeated the whole of its economic thought was the
+doctrine of usury. The holders of this view may lay claim to very
+influential supporters among the students of the subject. Ashley says
+that 'the prohibition of usury was clearly the centre of the canonist
+doctrine.'[1] Roscher expresses the same opinion in practically the
+same words;[2] and Endemann sees the whole economic development of the
+Middle Ages and the Renaissance as the victorious destruction of the
+usury law by the exigencies of real life.[3] However impressed we
+may be by the opinions of such eminent authorities, we, nevertheless,
+cannot help feeling that on this point they are under a misconception.
+There is no doubt that the doctrine of the canonists which impresses
+the modern mind most deeply is the usury prohibition, partly because
+it is not generally realised that the usury doctrine would not have
+forbidden the receipt of any of the commonest kinds of unearned
+revenue of the present day, and partly because the discussion of usury
+occupies such a very large part of the writings of the canonists. It
+may be quite true to say that the doctrine of usury was that which
+gave the greatest trouble to the mediæval writers, on account of the
+nicety of the distinctions with which it abounded, and on account of
+the ingenuity of avaricious merchants, who continually sought to
+evade the usury laws by disguising illegal under the guise of
+legal transactions. In practice, therefore, the usury doctrine was
+undoubtedly the most prominent part of the canonist teaching, because
+it was the part which most tempted evasion; but to admit that is not
+to agree with the proposition that it was the centre of the canonist
+doctrine.
+
+[Footnote: 1 _Op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 399.]
+
+[Footnote: 2 'Bekanntlich war das Wucherverbot der praktische
+Mittelpunkt der ganzen kanonischen Wirthschaftspolitik,' _Op. cit._,
+p. 8.]
+
+[Footnote: 3 _Studien_, vol. i. p. 2 and _passim_. At vol. ii. p. 31
+it is stated that the teaching on just price is a corollary of the
+usury teaching. But Aquinas treats of usury in the article _following_
+his treatment of just price.]
+
+Our view is that the teaching on usury was simply one of the
+applications of the doctrine that all voluntary exchanges of property
+must be regulated by the precepts of commutative justice. In one sense
+it might be said to be a corollary of the doctrine of just price. This
+is apparently the suggestion of Dr. Cleary in his excellent book on
+usury: 'It seems to me that the so-called loan of money is really
+a sale, and that a loan of meal, wine, oil, gunpowder, and similar
+commodities--that is to say, commodities which are consumed in use--is
+also a sale. If this is so, as I believe it is, then loans of all
+these consumptible goods should be regulated by the principles which
+regulate sale contracts. A just price only may be taken, and the
+return must be truly equivalent.'[1] This statement of Dr. Cleary's
+seems well warranted, and finds support in the analogy which was drawn
+between the legitimacy of interest--in the technical sense--and the
+legitimacy of a vendor's increasing the price of an article by reason
+of some special inconvenience which he would suffer by parting with
+it. Both these titles were justified on the same ground, namely, that
+they were in the nature of compensations, and arose independently of
+the main contract of loan or sale as the case might be. 'Le vendeur
+est en présence de l'acheteur. L'objet a pour lui une valeur
+particulière: c'est un souvenir, par exemple. A-t-il le droit de
+majorer le prix de vente? de dépasser le juste prix convenu? ... Avec
+l'unanimité des docteurs on peut trouver légitime la majoration du
+prix. L'évaluation commune distingue un double élément dans l'objet:
+sa valeur ordinaire à laquelle répond le juste prix, et cette valeur
+extraordinaire qui appartient au vendeur, dont il se prive et qui
+mérite une compensation: il le fait pour ainsi dire l'objet d'un
+second contrat qui se superpose au premier. Cela est si vrai que le
+supplément de prix n'est pas dû au même titre que le juste prix.'[2]
+The importance of this analogy will appear when we come to treat just
+price and usury in detail; it is simply referred to here in support of
+the proposition that, far from being a special doctrine _sui generis_,
+the usury doctrine of the Church was simply an application to the sale
+of consumptible things of the universal rules which applied to all
+sales. In other words, the doctrines of the just price and of usury
+were founded on the same fundamental precept of justice in exchange.
+If we indicate what this precept was, we can claim to have indicated
+what was the true centre of the canonist doctrine.
+
+[Footnote 1: _The Church and Usury_, p. 186.]
+
+[Footnote 1: Desbuquois, 'La Justice dans l'Echange,' _Semaine Sociale
+de France_, 1911, p. 174.]
+
+The scholastic teaching on the subject of the rules of justice in
+exchange was founded on the famous fifth book of Aristotle's _Ethics_,
+and is very clearly set forth by Aquinas. In the article of the
+_Summa_, where the question is discussed, 'Whether the mean is to be
+observed in the same way in distributive as in commutative justice?'
+we find a clear exposition: 'In commutations something is delivered to
+an individual on account of something of his that has been received,
+as may be seen chiefly in selling and buying, where the notion of
+commutation is found primarily. Hence it is necessary to equalise
+thing with thing, so that the one person should pay back to the other
+just so much as he has become richer out of that which belonged to
+the other. The result of this will be equality according to the
+_arithmetical_ mean, which is gauged according to equal excess in
+quantity. Thus 5 is the mean between 6 and 4, since it exceeds the
+latter, and is exceeded by the former by 1. Accordingly, if at the
+start both persons have 5, and one of them receives 1 out of the
+other's belongings, the one that is the receiver will have 6, and the
+other will be left with 4: and so there will be justice if both are
+brought back to the mean, I being taken from him that has 6 and given
+to him that has 4, for then both will have 5, which is the mean.'[1]
+In the following article the matter of each kind of justice is
+discussed. We are told that: 'Justice is about certain external
+operations, namely, distribution and commutation. These consist in the
+use of certain externals, whether things, persons, or even works: of
+things as when one man takes from or restores to another that which
+is his: of persons as when a man does an injury to the very person of
+another...: and of works as when a man justly enacts a work of another
+or does a work for him.... Commutative justice directs commutations
+that can take place between two persons. Of these some are
+involuntary, some voluntary.... Voluntary commutations are when a
+man voluntarily transfers his chattel to another person. And if he
+transfer it simply so that the recipient incurs no debt, as in the
+case of gifts, it is an act not of justice, but of liberality. A
+voluntary transfer belongs to justice in so far as it includes the
+notion of debt.' Aquinas then goes on to distinguish between the
+different kinds of contract, sale, usufruct, loan, letting and hiring,
+and deposit, and concludes, 'In all these actions the mean is taken in
+the same way according to the equality of repayment. Hence all these
+actions belong to the one species of justice, namely, commutative
+justice.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: ii. ii. 61, 2.]
+
+[Footnote 2: ii. ii. 61, 3. The reasoning of Aristotle is
+characteristically reinforced by the quotation of Matt. vii. 12; ii.
+ii. 77,1.]
+
+This is not the place to discuss the precise meaning of the equality
+upon which Aquinas insists, which will be more properly considered
+when we come to deal with the just price. What is to be noticed at
+present is that all the transactions which are properly comprised in
+a discussion of economic theory--sales, loans, etc.--are grouped
+together as being subject to the same regulative principle. It
+therefore appears more correct to approach the subject which we are
+attempting to treat by following that principle into its various
+applications, than by making one particular application of the
+principle the starting-point of the discussion.
+
+It will be noticed, however, that the principles of commutative
+justice all treat of the commutations of external goods--in other
+words, they assume the existence of property of external goods in
+individuals. Commutations are but a result of private property; in a
+state of communism there could be no commutation. This is well pointed
+out by Gerson[1] and by Nider.[2] It consequently is important,
+before discussing exchange of ownership, to discuss the principle of
+ownership itself; or, in other words, to study the static before the
+dynamic state.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _De Contractibus_, i. 4 'Inventa est autem commutatio
+civilis post peccatum quoniam status innocentias habuit omnia
+communia.']
+
+[Footnote 2: _De Contractibus_, v. 1: 'Nunc videndum est breviter unde
+originaliter proveniat quod rerum dominia sunt distincta, sic quod
+hoc dicatur meum et illud tuum; quia illud est fundamentum omnis
+injustitiae in contractando rem alienam, et post omnis injustitia
+reddendo eam.']
+
+[Footnote 3: See l'Abbé Desbuquois, _op. cit._, p. 168.]
+
+We shall therefore deal in the first place with the right of private
+property, which we shall show to have been fully recognised by the
+mediæval writers. We shall then point out the duties which this
+right entailed, and shall establish the position that the scholastic
+teaching was directed equally against modern socialistic principles
+and modern unregulated individualism. The next point with which we
+shall deal is the exchange of property between individuals, which is a
+necessary corollary of the right of property. We shall show that such
+exchanges were regulated by well-defined principles of commutative
+justice, which applied equally in the case of the sale of goods and in
+the case of the sale of the use of money. The last matter with which
+we shall deal is the machinery by which exchanges are conducted,
+namely, money. Many other subjects, such as slavery and the legitimacy
+of commerce, will be treated as they arise in the course of our
+treatment of these principal divisions.
+
+In its ultimate analysis, the whole subject may be reduced to a
+classification of the various duties which attached to the right of
+private property. The owner of property, as we shall see, was bound
+to observe certain duties in respect of its acquisition and its
+consumption, and certain other duties in respect of its exchange,
+whether it consisted of goods or of money. The whole fabric of
+mediæval economics was based on the foundation of private property;
+and the elaborate and logical system of regulations to ensure justice
+in economic life would have had no purpose or no use if the subject
+matter of that justice were abolished.
+
+It must not be understood that the mediæval writers treated economic
+subjects in this order, or in any order at all. As we have already
+said, economic matters are simply referred to in connection with
+ethics, and were not detached and treated as making up a distinct
+body of teaching. Ashley says: 'The reader will guard himself against
+supposing that any mediæval writer ever detached these ideas from
+the body of his teaching, and put them together as a modern text-book
+writer might do; or that they were ever presented in this particular
+order, and with the connecting argument definitely stated.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 387.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+PROPERTY
+
+
+
+SECTION 1.--THE RIGHT TO PROCURE AND DISPENSE PROPERTY
+
+
+The teaching of the mediæval Church on the subject of property was
+perfectly simple and clear. Aquinas devoted a section of the _Summa_
+to it, and his opinion was accepted as final by all the later writers
+of the period, who usually repeat his very words. However, before
+coming to quote and explain Aquinas, it is necessary to deal with
+a difficulty that has occurred to several students of Christian
+economics, namely, that the teaching of the scholastics on the subject
+of property was in some way opposed to the teaching of the early
+Church and of Christ Himself. Thus Haney says: 'It is necessary to
+keep the ideas of Christianity and the Church separate, for few
+will deny that Christianity as a religion is quite distinct from the
+various institutions or Churches which profess it....' And he goes
+on to point out that, whereas Christianity recommended community of
+property, the Church permitted private property and inequality.[1]
+Strictly speaking, the reconciliation of the mediæval teaching with
+that of the primitive Church might be said to be outside the scope of
+the present essay. In our opinion, however, it is important to insist
+upon the fundamental harmony of the teaching of the Church in the two
+periods, in the first place, because it is impossible to understand
+the later without an understanding of the earlier doctrine from which
+it developed, and secondly, because of the widespread prevalence, even
+among Catholics, of the erroneous idea that the scholastic teaching
+was opposed to the ethical principle laid down by the Founder of
+Christianity.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 73.]
+
+Amongst the arguments which are advanced by socialists none is more
+often met than the alleged socialist teaching and practice of the
+early Christians. For instance, Cabet's _Voyage en Icarie_ contains
+the following passage: 'Mais quand on s'enfonce sérieusement et
+ardemment dans la question de savoir comment la société pourrait être
+organisée en Démocratie, c'est-à-dire sur les bases de l'Égalité et de
+la Fraternité, on arrive à reconnaître que cette organisation exige
+et entraîne nécessairement la communauté de biens. Et nous hâtons
+d'ajouter que cette communauté était également proclamée par
+Jésus-Christ, par tous ses apôtres et ses disciples, par tous les
+pères de l'Église et tous les Chrétiens des premiers siècles.' The
+fact that St. Thomas Aquinas, the great exponent of Catholic teaching
+in the Middle Ages, defends in unambiguous language the institution of
+private property offers no difficulties to the socialist historian of
+Christianity. He replies simply that St. Thomas wrote in an age when
+the Church was the Church of the rich as well as of the poor; that
+it had to modify its doctrines to ease the consciences of its rich
+members; and that, ever since the conversion of Constantine, the
+primitive Christian teaching on property had been progressively
+corrupted by motives of expediency, until the time of the _Summa_,
+when it had ceased to resemble in any way the teaching of the
+Apostles.[1] We must therefore first of all demonstrate that there is
+no such contradiction between the teaching of the Apostles and that of
+the mediæval Church on the subject of private property, but that,
+on the contrary, the necessity of private property was at all times
+recognised and insisted on by the Catholic Church. As it is put in an
+anonymous article in the _Dublin Review_: 'Among Christian nations we
+discover at a very early period a strong tendency towards a general
+and equitable distribution of wealth and property among the whole body
+politic. Grounded on an ever-increasing historical evidence, we might
+possibly affirm that the mediæval Church brought her whole weight to
+bear incessantly upon this one singular and single point.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: See, _e.g._, Nitti, _Catholic Socialism_, p. 71. 'Thus,
+then, according to Nitti, the Christian Church has been guilty of the
+meanest, most selfish, and most corrupt utilitarianism in her attitude
+towards the question of wealth and property. She was communistic when
+she had nothing. She blessed poverty in order to fill her own coffers.
+And when the coffers were full she took rank among the owners of
+land and houses, she became zealous in the interests of property, and
+proclaimed that its origin was divine' ('The Fathers of the Church and
+Socialism,' by Dr. Hogan, _Irish Ecclesiastical Record_, vol. xxv. p.
+226).]
+
+[Footnote 2: 'Christian Political Economy,' _Dublin Review_, N.S.,
+vol. vi. p. 356]
+
+The alleged communism of the first Christians is based on a few verses
+of the Acts of the Apostles describing the condition of the Church of
+Jerusalem. 'And they that believed were together and had all things
+common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to
+all men, as every man had need.'[1] 'And the multitude of them that
+believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them
+that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had
+all things common. Neither was there any amongst them that lacked: for
+as many as were possessors of land or houses sold them, and brought
+the price of the things that were sold, And laid them down at the
+apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as
+he had need.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: ii. 44-45.]
+
+[Footnote 2: iv. 32, 34, 35.]
+
+It is by no means clear whether the state of things here depicted
+really amounted to communism in the strict sense. Several of the most
+enlightened students of the Bible have come to the conclusion that the
+verses quoted simply express in a striking way the great liberality
+and benevolence which prevailed among the Christian fraternity at
+Jerusalem. This view was strongly asserted by Mosheim,[1] and is held
+by Dr. Carlyle. 'A more careful examination of the passages in the
+Acts,' says the latter,[2] 'show clearly enough that this was no
+systematic division of property, but that the charitable instinct
+of the infant Church was so great that those who were in want were
+completely supported by those who were more prosperous.... Still there
+was no systematic communism, no theory of the necessity of it.' Colour
+is lent to this interpretation by the fact that similar words
+and phrases were used to emphasise the prevalence of charity and
+benevolence in later communities of Christians, amongst whom, as
+we know from other sources, the right of private property was fully
+admitted. Thus Tertullian wrote:[3] 'One in mind and soul, we do not
+hesitate to share our earthly goods with one another. All things are
+common among us but our wives.' This passage, if it were taken alone,
+would be quite as strong and unambiguous as those from the Acts; but
+fortunately, a few lines higher up, Tertullian had described how the
+Church was supported, wherein he showed most clearly that private
+property was still recognised and practised: 'Though we have our
+treasure-chest, it is not made up of purchase-money, as of a religion
+that has its price. On the monthly collection day, if he likes, each
+puts in a small donation; but only if he has pleasure, and only if
+he be able; all is voluntary.' This point is well put by Bergier:[4]
+'Towards the end of the first century St. Barnabas; in the second,
+St. Justin and St. Lucian; in the third, St. Clement of Alexandria,
+Tertullian, Origen, St. Cyprian; in the fourth, Arnobius and
+Lactantius, say that among the Christians all goods are common; there
+was then certainly no question of a communism of goods taken in the
+strict sense.'
+
+[Footnote 1: _Dissert. ad Hist. Eccles._, vol. ii. p. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 'The Political Theory of the Ante-Nicene Fathers,'
+_Economic Review_, vol. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Apol._ 39.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Dictionnaire de Théologie_, Paris, 1829, tit.
+'Communauté.']
+
+It is therefore doubtful if the Church at Jerusalem, as described in
+the Acts, practised communism at all, as apart from great liberality
+and benevolence. Assuming, however, that the Acts should be
+interpreted in their strict literal sense, let us see to what the
+so-called communism amounted.
+
+In the first place, it is plain from Acts iv. 32 that the communism
+was one of use, not of ownership. It was not until the individual
+owner had sold his goods and placed the proceeds in the common fund
+that any question of communism arose. 'Whiles it remained was it not
+thine own,' said St. Peter, rebuking Ananias, 'and after it was sold
+was it not in thine own power?'[1] This distinction is particularly
+important in view of the fact that it is precisely that insisted on by
+St. Thomas Aquinas. There is no reason to suppose that the community
+of use practised at Jerusalem was in any way different from that
+advocated by Aquinas--namely, 'the possession by a man of external
+things, not as his own, but in common, so that, to wit, he is ready to
+communicate them to others in their need.'
+
+[Footnote 1: Roscher, _Political Economy_ (Eng. trans.), vol. i. p.
+246; _Catholic Encyclopædia_, tit. 'Communism.']
+
+In the next place, we must observe that the communism described in the
+Acts was purely voluntary. This is quite obvious from the relation in
+the fifth chapter of the incident of Ananias and Sapphira. There is
+no indication that the abandonment of one's possessory rights was
+preached by the Apostles. Indeed, it would be difficult to understand
+why they should have done so, when Christ Himself had remained
+silent on the subject. Far from advocating communism, the Founder
+of Christianity had urged the practice of many virtues for which
+the possession of private property was essential. 'What Christ
+recommended,' says Sudre,[1] 'was voluntary abnegation or almsgiving.
+But the giving of goods without any hope of compensation, the
+spontaneous deprivation of oneself, could not exist except under a
+system of private property ... they were one of the ways of exercising
+such rights.' Moreover, as the same author points out, private
+property was fully recognised under the Jewish dispensation, and
+Christ would therefore have made use of explicit language if he had
+intended to alter the old law in this fundamental respect. 'Think not
+that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come
+to destroy, but to fulfil.'[2] At the time of Christ's preaching, a
+Jewish sect, the Essenes, were endeavouring to put into practice the
+ideals of communism, but there is not a word in the Gospels to suggest
+that He ever held them up as an example to His followers. 'Communism
+was never preached by Christ, although it was practised under His
+very eyes by the Essenes. This absolute silence is equivalent to an
+implicit condemnation.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Histoire du Communisme_, p. 39.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. v. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Sudre, _op. cit._, p. 44. On the Essenes see 'Historic
+Phases of Socialism,' by Dr. Hogan, _Irish Ecclesiastical Record_,
+vol. xxv. p. 334. Even Huet discounts the importance of this instance
+of communism, _Le Règne social du Christianisme_, p. 38.]
+
+Nor was communism preached as part of Christ's doctrine as taught
+by the Apostles. In Paul's epistles there is no direction to the
+congregations addressed that they should abandon their private
+property; on the contrary, the continued existence of such rights is
+expressly recognised and approved in his appeals for funds for the
+Church at Jerusalem.[1] Can it be that, as Roscher says,[2] the
+experiment in communism had produced a chronic state of poverty in the
+Church at Jerusalem? Certain it is the experiment was never repeated
+in any of the other apostolic congregations. The communism at
+Jerusalem, if it ever existed at all, not only failed to spread to
+other Churches, but failed to continue at Jerusalem itself. It is
+universally admitted by competent students of the question that the
+phenomenon was but temporary and transitory.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _e.g._ Rom. xv. 26, 1 Cor. xvi. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Political Economy_, vol. i. p. 246.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Sudre, _op. cit._; Salvador, _Jésus-Christ et sa
+Doctrine_, vol. ii. p. 221. See More's _Utopia_.]
+
+The utterances of the Fathers of the Church on property are scattered
+and disconnected. Nevertheless, there is sufficient cohesion in them
+to enable us to form an opinion of their teaching on the subject. It
+has, as we have said, frequently been asserted that they favoured
+a system of communism, and disapproved of private ownership. The
+supporters of this view base their arguments on a number of isolated
+texts, taken out of their context, and not interpreted with any regard
+to the circumstances in which they were written. 'The mistake,' as
+Devas says,[1] 'of representing the early Christian Fathers of the
+Church as rank socialists is frequently made by those who are friendly
+to modern socialism; the reason for it is that either they have taken
+passages of orthodox writers apart from their context, and without
+due regard to the circumstances in which they were written, and the
+meaning they would have conveyed to their hearers; or else, by a
+grosser blunder, the perversions of heretics are set forth as the
+doctrine of the Church, and a sad case arises of mistaken identity.' A
+careful study of the patristic texts bearing on the subject leads one
+to the conclusion that Mr. Devas's view is without doubt the correct
+one.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Dublin Review_, Jan. 1898.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Dr. Hogan, in an article entitled 'The Fathers of the
+Church and Socialism,' in the _Irish Ecclesiastical Record_, vol.
+xxv. p. 226, has examined all the texts relative to property in the
+writings of Tertullian, St. Justin Martyn, St. Clement of Rome, St.
+Clement of Alexandria, St. Basil, St. Ambrose, St. John Chrysostom,
+St. Augustine, and St. Gregory the Great; and the utterances of St.
+Basil, St. Ambrose, and St. Jerome are similarly examined in 'The
+Alleged Socialism of the Church Fathers,' by Dr. John A. Ryan.
+The patristic texts are also fully examined by Abbé Calippe in 'Le
+Caractère sociale de la Propriété' in _La Semaine Sociale de France_,
+1909, p. 111. The conclusion come to after thorough examinations such
+as these is always the same. For a good analysis of the patristic
+texts from the communistic standpoint, see Conrad Noel, _Socialism in
+Church History_.]
+
+The passages from the writings of the Fathers which are cited by
+socialists who are anxious to support the proposition that socialism
+formed part of the early Christian teaching may be roughly divided
+into four groups: first, passages where the abandonment of earthly
+possessions is held up as a work of more than ordinary devotion--in
+other words, a counsel of perfection; second, those where the practice
+of almsgiving is recommended in the rhetorical and persuasive language
+of the missioner--where the faithful are exhorted to exercise their
+charity to such a degree that it may be said that the rich and the
+poor have all things in common; third, passages directed against
+avarice and the wrongful acquisition or abuse of riches; and fourth,
+passages where the distinction between the natural and positive law on
+the matter is explained.
+
+The following passage from Cyprian is a good example of an utterance
+which was clearly meant as a counsel of perfection. Isolated sentences
+from this passage have frequently been quoted to prove that Cyprian
+was an advocate of communism; but there can be no doubt from the
+passage as a whole, that all that he was aiming at was to cultivate in
+his followers a high detachment from earthly wealth, and that, in so
+far as complete abandonment of one's property is recommended, it is
+simply indicated as a work of quite unusual devotion. It is noteworthy
+that this passage occurs in a treatise on almsgiving, a practice which
+presupposes a system of individual ownership:[1] 'Let us consider what
+the congregation of believers did in the time of the Apostles, when
+at the first beginnings the mind flourished with greater virtues, when
+the faith of believers burned with a warmth of faith yet new. Thus
+they sold houses and farms, and gladly and liberally presented to
+the Apostles the proceeds to be dispersed to the poor; selling and
+alienating their earthly estate, they transferred their lands thither
+where they might receive the fruits of an eternal possession, and
+there prepared houses where they might begin an eternal habitation.
+Such, then, was the abundance in labours as was the agreement in love,
+as we read in the Acts--"Neither said any of them that aught of
+the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things
+common." This is truly to become son of God by spiritual birth; this
+is to imitate by the heavenly law the equity of God the Father. For
+whatever is of God is common in our use; nor is any one excluded from
+His benefits and His gifts so as to prevent the whole human race from
+enjoying equally the divine goodness and liberality. Thus the day
+equally enlightens, the sun gives radiance, the rain moistens, the
+wind blows, and the sleep is one to those who sleep, and the splendour
+of Stars and of the Moon is common. In which examples of equality he
+who as a possessor in the earth shares his returns and his fruits
+with the fraternity, while he is common and just in his gratuitous
+bounties, is an imitator of God the Father.'
+
+[Footnote 1: _De Opere et Eleemosynis_, 25.]
+
+There is a much-quoted passage of St. John Chrysostom which is
+capable of the same interpretation. In his commentary on the
+alleged communistic existence of the Apostles at Jerusalem the Saint
+emphasises the fact that their communism was voluntary: 'That this was
+in consequence not merely of the miraculous signs, but of their
+own purpose, is manifest from the case of Ananias and Sapphira.' He
+further insists on the fact that the members of this community were
+animated by unusual fervour: 'From the exceeding ardour of the
+givers none was in want.' Further down, in the same homily, St. John
+Chrysostom urges the adoption of a communistic system of housekeeping,
+but purely on the grounds of domestic economy and saving of labour.
+There is not a word to suggest that a communistic system was morally
+preferable to a proprietary one.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Hom, on Acts xi_. That voluntary poverty was regarded
+as a counsel of perfection by Aquinas is abundantly clear from many
+passages in his works, _e.g. Summa_, I. ii. 108, 4; II. ii. 185, 6;
+II. ii. 186, 3; _Summa cont. Gent_., iii. 133. On this, as on every
+other point, the teaching of Aquinas is in line with that of the
+Fathers.]
+
+The second class of patristic texts which are relied on by socialists
+are, as we have said, those 'where the practice of almsgiving
+is recommended in the rhetorical and persuasive language of the
+missioner--where the faithful are exhorted to exercise their charity
+to such a degree that it may be said that the rich and poor have all
+things in common.' Such passages are very frequent throughout the
+writings of the Fathers, but we may give as examples two, which are
+most frequently relied on by socialists. One of these is from St.
+Ambrose:[1] 'Mercy is a part of justice; and if you wish to give to
+the poor, this mercy is justice. "He hath dispersed, he hath given
+to the poor; his righteousness endureth for ever."[2] It is therefore
+unjust that one should not be helped by his neighbour; when God hath
+wished the possession of the earth to be common to all men, and its
+fruits to minister to all; but avarice established possessory rights.
+It is therefore just that if you lay claim to anything as your private
+property, which is really conferred in common to the whole human race,
+that you should dispense something to the poor, so that you may not
+deny nourishment to those who have the right to share with you.' The
+following passage from Gregory the Great[3] is another example of
+this kind of passage: 'Those who rather desire what is another's, nor
+bestow that is their own, are to be admonished to consider carefully
+that the earth out of which they are taken is common to all men, and
+therefore brings forth nourishment for all in common. Vainly, then,
+do they suppose themselves innocent who claim to their own private
+use the common gift of God; those who in not imparting what they have
+received walk in the midst of the slaughter of their neighbours; since
+they almost daily slay so many persons as there are dying poor whose
+subsidies they keep close in their own possession.'
+
+[Footnote 1: _Comm. on Ps. cxviii._, viii. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ps. cxii. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Lib. Reg. Past._, iii. 21.]
+
+The third class of passages to which reference must be made is
+composed of the numerous attacks which the Fathers levelled against
+the abuse or wrongful acquisition of riches. These passages do not
+indicate that the Fathers favoured a system of communism, but point
+in precisely the contrary direction. If property were an evil thing
+in itself, they would not have wasted so much time in emphasising the
+evil uses to which it was sometimes put. The insistence on the abuses
+of an institution is an implicit admission that it has its uses.
+Thus Clement of Alexandria devotes a whole treatise to answering the
+question 'Who is the rich man who can be saved?' in which it appears
+quite plainly that it is the possible abuse of wealth, and the
+possible too great attachment to worldly goods, that are the principal
+dangers in the way of a rich man's salvation. The suggestion that
+in order to be saved a man must abandon all his property is strongly
+controverted. The following passage from St. Gregory Nazianzen[1]
+breathes the same spirit: 'One of us has oppressed the poor, and
+wrested from him his portion of land, and wrongly encroached upon his
+landmarks by fraud or violence, and joined house to house, and field
+to field, to rob his neighbour of something, and has been eager to
+have no neighbour, so as to dwell alone on the earth. Another has
+defiled the land with usury and interest, both gathering where he has
+not sowed and reaping where he has not strewn, farming not the land
+but the necessity of the needy.... Another has had no pity on the
+widow and orphans, and not imparted his bread and meagre nourishment
+to the needy; ... a man perhaps of much property unexpectedly gained,
+for this is the most unjust of all, who finds his very barns too
+narrow for him, fining some and emptying others to build greater ones
+for future crops.' Similarly Clement of Rome advocates _frugality_
+in the enjoyment of wealth;[2] and Salvian has a long passage on the
+dangers of the abuse of riches.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Orat_., xvi. 18.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _The Instructor_, iii. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Ad Eccles._, i. 7.]
+
+The fourth group of passages is that in which the distinction between
+the natural and positive law on the matter is explained. It is here
+that the greatest confusion has been created by socialist writers, who
+conclude, because they read in the works of some of the Fathers that
+private property did not exist by natural law, that it was therefore
+condemned by them as an illegitimate institution. Nothing could be
+more erroneous. All that the Fathers meant in these passages was that
+in the state of nature--the idealised Golden Age of the pagans, or the
+Garden of Eden of the Christians--there was no individual ownership of
+goods. The very moment, however, that man fell from that ideal state,
+communism became impossible, simply on account of the change that had
+taken place in man's own nature. To this extent it is true to say
+that the Fathers regarded property with disapproval; it was one of the
+institutions rendered necessary by the fall of man. Of course it would
+have been preferable that man should not have fallen from his natural
+innocence, in which case he could have lived a life of communism;
+but, as he had fallen, and communism had from that moment become
+impossible, property must be respected as the one institution which
+could put a curb on his avarice, and preserve a society of fallen men
+from chaos and general rapine.
+
+That this is the correct interpretation of the patristic utterances
+regarding property and natural law appears from the following
+passage of _The Divine Institution_ of Lactantius--'the most explicit
+statement bearing on the Christian idea of property in the first four
+centuries':[1] '"They preferred to live content with a simple mode
+of life," as Cicero relates in his poems; and this is peculiar to our
+religion. "It was not even allowed to mark out or to divide the plain
+with a boundary: men sought all things in common,"[2] since God had
+given the earth in common to all, that they might pass their life in
+common, not that mad and raging avarice might claim all things for
+itself, and that riches produced for all might not be wanting to any.
+And this saying of the poet ought so to be taken, not as suggesting
+the idea that individuals at that time had no private property, but it
+must be regarded as a poetical figure, that we may understand that
+men were so liberal, that they did not shut up the fruits of the earth
+produced for them, nor did they in solitude brood over the things
+stored up, but admitted the poor to share the fruits of their labour:
+
+  "Now streams of milk, now streams of nectar flowed."[3]
+
+And no wonder, since the storehouses of the good literally lay open
+to all. Nor did avarice intercept the divine bounty, and thus cause
+hunger and thirst in common; but all alike had abundance, since they
+who had possessions gave liberally and bountifully to those who had
+not. But after Saturnus had been banished from heaven, and had arrived
+in Latium ... not only did the people who had a superfluity fail
+to bestow a share upon others, but they even seized the property of
+others, drawing everything to their private gain; and the things which
+formerly even individuals laboured to obtain for the common use of all
+were now conveyed to the powers of a few. For that they might subdue
+others by slavery, they began to withdraw and collect together the
+necessaries of life, and to keep them firmly shut up, that they might
+make the bounties of heaven their own; not on account of kindness
+(_humanitas_), a feeling which had no existence for them, but that
+they might sweep together all the instruments of lust and avarice.'[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'The Biblical and Early Christian Idea of Property,' by
+Dr. V. Bartlett, in _Property, its Duties and Rights_ (London, 1913).]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Georg._, i. 126.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Ovid, _Met._, I. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Lactantius, _Div. Inst._, v. 5-6.]
+
+It appears from the above passage that Lactantius regarded the era in
+which a system of communism existed as long since vanished, if indeed
+it ever had existed. The same idea emerges from the writings of St.
+Augustine, who drew a distinction between divine and human right. 'By
+what right does every man possess what he possesses?' he asks.[1] 'Is
+it not by human right? For by divine right "the earth is the Lord's,
+and the fullness thereof." The poor and the rich God made of one clay;
+the same earth supports alike the poor and the rich. By human right,
+however, one says, This estate is mine, this servant is mine, this
+house is mine. By human right, therefore, is by right of the Emperor.
+Why so? Because God has distributed to mankind these very human rights
+through the emperors and kings of the world.'
+
+[Footnote 1: _Tract in Joh. Ev._, vi. 25.]
+
+The socialist commentators of St. Augustine have strained this, and
+similar passages, to mean that because property rests on human, and
+not on divine, right, therefore it should not exist at all. It is, of
+course true that what human right has created human right can repeal;
+and it is therefore quite fair to argue that all the citizens of a
+community might agree to live a life of communism. That is simply an
+argument to prove that there is nothing immoral in communism, and does
+not prove in the very slightest degree that there is anything immoral
+in property. On the contrary, so long as 'the emperors and kings of
+the world' ordain that private property shall continue, it would be,
+according to St. Augustine, immoral for any individual to maintain
+that such ordinances were wrongful.
+
+The correct meaning of the patristic distinction between natural and
+positive law with regard to property is excellently summarised in Dr.
+Carlyle's essay on _Property in Mediæval Theology_:[1] 'What do the
+expressions of the Fathers mean? At first sight they might seem to be
+an assertion of communism, or denunciation of private property as a
+thing which is sinful or unlawful. But this is not what the Fathers
+mean. There can be little doubt that we find the sources of these
+words in such a phrase as that of Cicero--"Sunt autem privata nulla
+natura"[2]--and in the Stoic tradition which is represented in one of
+Seneca's letters, when he describes the primitive life in which men
+lived together in peace and happiness, when there was no system of
+coercive government and no private property, and says that man passed
+out of this primitive condition as their first innocence disappeared,
+as they became avaricious and dissatisfied with the common enjoyment
+of the good things of the world, and desired to hold them as their
+private possession.[3] Here we have the quasi-philosophical theory,
+from which the patristic conception is derived. When men were
+innocent there was no need for private property, or the other great
+conventional institutions of society, but as this innocence passed
+away, they found themselves compelled to organise society and to
+devise institutions which should regulate the ownership and use of
+the good things which men had once held in common. The institution of
+property thus represents the fall of man from his primitive innocence,
+through greed and avarice, which refused to recognise the common
+ownership of things, and also the method by which the blind greed of
+human nature might be controlled and regulated. It is this ambiguous
+origin of the institution which explains how the Fathers could hold
+that private property was not natural, that it grew out of men's
+vicious and sinful desires, and at the same time that it was a
+legitimate institution.'
+
+Janet takes the same view of the patristic utterances on this
+subject:[4] 'What do the Fathers say? It is that in Jesus Christ there
+is no mine and thine. Nothing is more true, without doubt; in the
+divine order, in the order of absolute charity, where men are
+wholly wrapt up in God, distinction and inequality of goods would be
+impossible. But the Fathers saw clearly that such a state of things
+was not realisable here below. What did they do? They established
+property on human law, positive law, imperial law. Communism is
+either a Utopia or a barbarism; a Utopia if one imagine it founded on
+universal devotion; a barbarism if one imposes it by force.'[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Property, Its Duties and Rights_ (London, 1913).]
+
+[Footnote 2: _De Off._, i. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Seneca, _Ep._, xiv. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Histoire de la Science politique_, vol. i. p. 330.]
+
+[Footnote 5: See also Jarrett, _Mediæval Socialism_.]
+
+It must not be concluded that the evidence of the approbation by the
+Fathers of private property is purely negative or solely derived from
+the interpretation of possibly ambiguous texts. On the contrary,
+the lawfulness of property is emphatically asserted on more than one
+occasion. 'To possess riches,' says Hilary of Poictiers,[1] 'is not
+wrongful, but rather the manner in which possession is used.... It
+is a crime to possess wrongfully rather than simply to possess.' 'Who
+does not understand,' asks St. Augustine,[2] 'that it is not sinful to
+possess riches, but to love and place hope in them, and to prefer them
+to truth or justice?' Again, 'Why do you reproach us by saying that
+men renewed in baptism ought no longer to beget children or to
+possess fields and houses and money? Paul allows it.'[3] According to
+Ambrose,[4] 'Riches themselves are not wrongful. Indeed, "redemptio
+animae* viri divitiae* ejus," because he who gives to the poor saves
+his soul. There is therefore a place for goodness in these material
+riches. You are as steersmen in a great sea. He who steers his ship
+well, quickly crosses the waves, and comes to port; but he who does
+not know how to control his ship is sunk by his own weight. Wherefore
+it is written, "Possessio divitum civitas firmissima."' A Council in
+A.D. 415 condemned the proposition held by Pelagius that 'the rich
+cannot be saved unless they renounced their goods.'[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Comm. on Matt. xix._ 9.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Contra Ad._, xx. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Mor. Eccl. Cath._, i. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Epist._, lxiii. 92.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Revue Archéologique_, 1880, p. 321.]
+
+The more one studies the Fathers the more one becomes convinced that
+property was regarded by them as one of the normal and legitimate
+institutions of human society. Benigni's conclusion, as the result of
+his exceptionally thorough researches, is that according to the early
+Fathers, 'property is lawful and ought scrupulously to be respected.
+But property is subject to the high duties of human fellowship which
+sprang from the equality and brotherhood of man. Collectivism is
+absurd and immoral.'[1] Janet arrived at the same conclusion: 'In
+spite of the words of the Fathers, in spite of the advice given by
+Christ to the rich man to sell all his goods and give to the poor, in
+spite of the communism of the Apostles, can one say that Christianity
+condemned property? Certainly not. Christianity considered it a
+counsel of perfection for a man to deprive himself of his goods; it
+did not abrogate the right of anybody.'[2] The same conclusion is
+reached by the Abbé Calippe in an excellent article published in _La
+Semaine Sociale de France_, 1909. 'The right of property and of the
+property owner are assumed.'[3] 'It is only prejudiced or superficial
+minds which could make the writers of the fourth century the
+precursors of modern communists or collectivists.'[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: _L'Economia Sociale Christiana avanti Costantino_ (Genoa,
+1897).]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Histoire de la Science politique_, vol. i. p. 319.]
+
+[Footnote 3: P. 114.]
+
+[Footnote 4: P. 121.]
+
+When we turn to St. Thomas Aquinas, we find that his teaching on the
+subject of property is not at all out of harmony with that of the
+earlier Fathers of the Church, but, on the contrary, summarises and
+consolidates it. 'It remained to elaborate, to constitute a definite
+theory of the right of property. It sufficed to harmonise, to
+collaborate, and to relate one to the other these elements furnished
+by the Christian doctors of the first four or five centuries; and this
+was precisely the work of the great theologians of the Middle Ages,
+especially of St. Thomas Aquinas.... In establishing his thesis St.
+Thomas did not borrow from the Roman jurisconsults through the medium
+of St. Isidore more than their vocabulary, their formulas, their
+juridical distinctions; he also borrowed from Aristotle the arguments
+upon which the philosopher based his right of property. But the ground
+of his doctrine is undoubtedly of Christian origin. There is, between
+the Fathers and him, a perfect continuity.'[1] 'Community of goods,'
+he writes, 'is ascribed to the natural law, not that the natural
+law dictates that all things should be possessed in common, and that
+nothing should be possessed as one's own; but because the division of
+possession is not according to the natural law, but rather arose from
+human agreement, which belongs to positive law. Hence the ownership
+of possessions is not contrary to the natural law, but an addition
+thereto devised by human reason.' This is simply another way of
+stating St. Augustine's distinction between natural and positive law.
+If it speaks with more respect of positive law than St. Augustine
+had done, it is because Aquinas was influenced by the Aristotelian
+conception of the State being itself a natural institution, owing to
+man being a social animal.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Abbé Calippe, _op. cit._, 1909, p. 124.]
+
+[Footnote 2: See Carlyle, _Property in Mediæval Theology_. Community
+of goods is said to be according to natural law in the canon law,
+but certain titles of acquiring private property are also said to be
+natural, so that the passage does not help the discussion very much
+(_Corp, Jur. Can._, Dec. 1. Dist. i. c. 7.)]
+
+The explanation which St. Thomas gives of the necessity for property
+also shows how clearly he agreed with the Fathers' teaching on natural
+communism: 'Two things are competent to man in respect of external
+things. One is the power to procure and dispense them, and in this
+regard it is lawful for a man to possess property. Moreover, this is
+necessary to human life for three reasons. First, because every man is
+more careful to procure what is for himself alone than that which is
+common to many or to all: since each one would shirk the labour, and
+would leave to another that which concerns the community, as happens
+when there is a great number of servants. Secondly, because human
+affairs are conducted in more orderly fashion if each man is charged
+with taking care of some particular thing himself, whereas there
+would be confusion if everybody had to look after any one thing
+indeterminately. Thirdly, because a more peaceful state is ensured to
+man if each one is contented with his own. Hence it is to be observed
+that quarrels more frequently occur when there is no division of the
+things possessed.[1] It is quite clear from this passage that Aquinas
+regarded property as something essential to the existence of society
+in the natural condition of human nature--that is to say, the
+condition that it had acquired at the fall. It is precisely the greed
+and avarice of fallen man that renders property an indispensable
+institution.
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 66, 2.]
+
+There was another sense in which property was said to be according
+to human law, in distinction to the natural law, namely, in the sense
+that, whereas the general principle that men should own things might
+be said to be natural, the particular proprietary rights of each
+individual were determined by positive law. In other words, the
+_fundamentum_ of property rights was natural, whereas the _titulus_
+of particular property rights was according to positive law. This
+distinction is stated clearly by Aquinas:[1] 'The natural right or
+just is that which by its very nature is adjusted to or commensurate
+with another person. Now this may happen in two ways; first, according
+as it is considered absolutely; thus the male by its very nature is
+commensurate with the female to beget offspring by her, and a parent
+is commensurate with the offspring to nourish it. Secondly, a thing
+is naturally commensurate with another person, not according as it
+is considered absolutely, but according to something resultant from
+it--for instance, the possession of property. For if a particular
+piece of land be considered absolutely, it contains no reason why it
+should belong to one man more than to another, but if it be considered
+in respect of its adaptability to cultivation, and the unmolested use
+of the land, it has a certain commensuration to be the property of
+one and not of another man, as the Philosopher shows.' Cajetan's
+commentary on this article clearly emphasises the distinction between
+_fundamentum_ and _titulus_: 'In the ownership of goods two things are
+to be discussed. The first is why one thing should belong to one man
+and another thing to another. The second is why this particular field
+should belong to this man, that field to that man. With regard to
+the former inquiry, it may be said that the ownership of things is
+according to the law of nations, but with regard to the second, it may
+be said to result from the positive law, because in former times one
+thing was appropriated by one man and another thing by another.' It
+must not be supposed, however, from what we have just said, that there
+are no natural titles to property. Labour, for instance, is a title
+flowing from the natural law, as also is occupancy, and in certain
+circumstances, prescription. All that is meant by the distinction
+between _fundamentum_ and _titulus_ is that, whereas it can be clearly
+demonstrated by natural law that the goods of the earth, which are
+given by God for the benefit of the whole of mankind, cannot be made
+use of to their full advantage unless they are made the subject of
+private ownership, particular goods cannot be demonstrated to be
+the lawful property of this or that person unless some human act
+has intervened. This human act need not necessarily be an act of
+agreement; it may equally be an act of some other kind--for instance,
+a decree of the law-giver, or the exercise of labour upon one's own
+goods. In the latter case, the additional value of the goods becomes
+the lawful property of the person who has exerted the labour. Aquinas
+therefore pronounced unmistakably in favour of the legitimacy of
+private property, and in doing so was in full agreement with the
+Fathers of the Church. He was followed without hesitation by all the
+later theologians, and it is abundantly evident from their writings
+that the right of private property was the keystone of their whole
+economic system.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 57, 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: A community of goods, more or less complete, and a denial
+of the rights of private property was part of the teaching of many
+sects which were condemned as heretical--for instance, the Albigenses,
+the Vaudois, the Bégards, the Apostoli, and the Fratricelli. (See
+Brants, _Op. cit._, Appendix II.)]
+
+Communism therefore was no part of the scholastic teaching, but it
+must not be concluded from this that the mediævals approved of the
+unregulated individualism which modern opinion allows to the owners of
+property. The very strength of the right to own property entailed as a
+consequence the duty of making good use of it; and a clear distinction
+was drawn between the power 'of procuring and dispensing' property
+and the power of using it. We have dealt with the former power in the
+present section, and we shall pass to the consideration of the latter
+in the next. In a later chapter we shall proceed to discuss the duties
+which attached to the owners of property in regard to its exchange.
+
+
+
+SECTION 2.--DUTIES REGARDING THE ACQUISITION AND USE OF PROPERTY
+
+
+We referred at the end of the last section to the very important
+distinction which Aquinas draws between the power of procuring and
+dispensing[1] exterior things and the power of using them. 'The second
+thing that is competent to man with regard to external things is their
+use. In this respect man ought to possess external things, not as his
+own, but as common, so that, to wit, he is ready to communicate them
+to others in their need.'[2] These words wherein St. Thomas lays
+down the doctrine of community of user of property were considered
+as authoritative by all later writers on the subject, and were
+universally quoted with approval by them,[3] and may therefore be
+taken as expressing the generally held view of the Middle Ages. They
+require careful explanation in order that their meaning be accurately
+understood.[4] Cajetan's gloss on this section of the _Summa_ enables
+us to understand its significance in a broad sense, but fuller
+information must be derived from a study of other parts of the _Summa_
+itself. 'Note,' says Cajetan, 'that the words that community of goods
+in respect of use arises from the law of nature may be understood
+in two ways, one positively, the other negatively. And if they are
+understood in their positive sense they mean that the law of nature
+dictates that all things are common to all men; if in their negative
+sense, that the law of nature did not establish private ownership of
+possessions. And in either sense the proposition is true if correctly
+understood. In the first place, if they are taken in their positive
+sense, a man who is in a position of extreme necessity may take
+whatever he can find to succour himself or another in the same
+condition, nor is he bound in such a case to restitution, because by
+natural law he has but made use of his own. And in the negative sense
+they are equally true, because the law of nature did not institute
+one thing the property of one person, and another thing of another
+person.' The principle of community of user flows logically from the
+very nature of property itself as defined by Aquinas, who taught that
+the supreme justification of private property was that it was the
+most advantageous method of securing for the community the benefits of
+material riches. While the owner of property has therefore an absolute
+right to the goods he possesses, he must at the same time remember
+that this right is established primarily on his power to benefit
+his neighbour by his proper use of it. The best evidence of the
+correctness of this statement is the fact that the scholastics
+admitted that, if the owner of property was withholding it from the
+community, or from any member of the community who had a real need of
+it, he could be forced to apply it to its proper end. If the community
+could pay for it, it was bound to do so; but if the necessitous person
+could not pay for it, he was none the less entitled to take it.
+The former of these cases was illustrated by the principle of the
+_dominium eminens_ of the State; and the latter by the principle that
+the giving of alms to a person in real need was a duty not of charity,
+but of justice.[5] We shall see in a moment that the most usual
+application of the principle enunciated by Aquinas was in the case
+of one person's extreme necessity which required almsgiving from
+another's superfluity, but, even short of such cases, there were rules
+of conduct in respect of the user of property on all occasions which
+were of extreme importance in the economic life of the time.
+
+[Footnote 1: Goyau insists on the importance of the words 'procure'
+and 'dispense.' 'Dont le premier éveille l'idée d'une constante
+sollicitude, et dont le second évoque l'image d'une générosité
+sympathetique' (_Autaur du Catholicisme Sociale_, vol. ii. p. 93).]
+
+[Footnote 2: II. ii. 66, 2. In another part of the _Summa_ the same
+distinction is clearly laid down. 'Bona temporalia quae* homini
+divinitus conferuntur, ejus quidem sunt quantum ad proprietatem; sed
+quantum ad usum non solum desent esse ejus, sed aliorum qui en eis
+sustentari possunt en eo quod ei superfluit,' II. ii. 32, 6, ad 2.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Janssen, _op. cit._, vol. ii. p. 91.]
+
+[Footnote 4: The Abbé Calippe summarises St. Thomas's doctrine as
+follows: 'Le droit de propriété est un droit réel; mais ce n'est pas
+un droit illimité, les propriétaires ont des devoirs; ils ont des
+devoirs parce que Dieu qui a créé la terre ne l'a pas créée pour eux
+seuls, mais pour tous' (_Semaine Sociale de France_, 1909, p. 123).
+According to Antoninus of Florence, goods could be evilly acquired,
+evilly distributed, or evilly consumed (_Irish Theological Quarterly_,
+vol. vii. p. 146).]
+
+[Footnote 5: On the application of this principle by the popes in the
+thirteenth and fifteenth centuries in the case of their own estates,
+see Ardant, _Papes et Paysans_, a work which must be read with a
+certain degree of caution (Nitti, _Catholic Socialism_, p. 290).]
+
+These principles for the guidance of the owner of property are
+not collected under any single heading in the _Summa_, but must be
+gathered from the various sections dealing with man's duty to his
+fellow-men and to himself. One leading virtue which was inculcated
+with great emphasis by Aquinas was that of temperance. 'All
+pleasurable things which come within the use of man,' we read in the
+section dealing with this subject, 'are ordered to some necessity of
+this life as an end. And therefore temperance accepts the necessity
+of this life as a rule or measure of the things one uses, so that,
+to wit, they should be used according as the necessity of this life
+requires.'[1] St. Thomas explains, moreover, that 'necessary' must be
+taken in the broad sense of suitable to one's condition of life,
+and not merely necessary to maintain existence.[2] The principles of
+temperance did not apply in any special way to the user of property
+more than to the enjoyment of any other good;[3] but they are relevant
+as laying down the broad test of right and wrong in the user of one's
+goods.
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 141, 5.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 2. As Buridan puts it (_Eth._, iv. 4), 'If
+any man has more than is necessary for his own requirements, and
+does not give away anything to the poor, and to his relations and
+neighbours, he is acting against right reason.']
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Rationalis creaturae* vera perfectio est unamquamque
+rem tanti habere quanti habenda est, sicut pluris est anima quam esca;
+fides et aequitas* quam pecunia' (Gerson, _De. Cont._).]
+
+More particularly relevant to the subject before us is the teaching of
+Aquinas on liberality, which is a virtue directly connected with the
+user of property. Aquinas defines liberality as 'a virtue by which
+men use well all those exterior things which are given to us for
+sustenance.'[1] The limitations within which liberality should be
+practised are stated in the same article: 'As St. Basil and St.
+Ambrose say, God has given to many a superabundance of riches, in
+order that they might gain merit by their dispensing them well. Few
+things, however, suffice for one man; and therefore the liberal man
+will advantageously expend more on others than on himself. In the
+spiritual sphere a man must always care for himself before his
+neighbours; and also in temporal things liberality does not demand
+that a man should think of others to the exclusion of himself and
+those dependent on him.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 117, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 1.]
+
+'It is not necessary for liberality that one should give away so much
+of one's riches that not enough remains to sustain himself and to
+enable him to perform works of virtue. This complete giving away
+without reserve belongs to the state of the perfection of spiritual
+life, of which we shall treat lower down; but it must be known that to
+give one's goods liberally is an act of virtue which itself produces
+happiness.'[1] The author proceeds to discuss whether making use of
+money might be an act of liberality, and replies that 'as money is by
+its very nature to be classed among useful goods, because all exterior
+things are destined for the use of man, therefore the proper act of
+liberality is the good use of money and other riches.'[2] Moreover,
+'it belongs to a virtuous man not simply to use well the goods which
+form the matter of his actions, but also to prepare the means and the
+occasions to use them well; thus the brave soldier sharpens his blade
+and keeps it in the scabbard, as well as exercising it on the enemy;
+in like manner, the liberal man should prepare and reserve his riches
+for a suitable use.'[3] It appears from this that to save part of
+one's annual income to provide against emergencies in the future,
+either by means of insurance or by investing in productive
+enterprises, is an act of liberality.
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 117, ad. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, ad. 2. 'Potest concludi quod accipere et
+custodire modificata sunt acta liberalitatis.... Major per hoc
+probatur quod dantem multotiens et consumentem, nihil autem
+accipientem et custodientem cito derelinqueret substantia temporalis;
+et ita perirent omnis ejus actus quia non habent amplius quid dare
+et consumere.... Hic autem acceptio et custodia sic modificari debet.
+Primo quidem oportet ut non sit injusta; secundo quod non sit de
+cupiditate vel avaritia suspecta propter excessum; tertio quod non
+permittat labi substantiam propter defectum ... Dare quando oportet et
+custodire quando oportet dare contrariantur; sed dare quando oportet
+et custodire quando oportet non contrariantur' (Buridan, _Eth._, iv.
+2).]
+
+The question is then discussed whether liberality is a part of
+justice. Aquinas concludes 'that liberality is not a species
+of justice, because justice renders to another what is his, but
+liberality gives him what is the giver's own. Still, it has a certain
+agreement with justice in two points; first that it is to another,
+as justice also is; secondly, that it is about exterior things like
+justice, though in another way. And therefore liberality is laid down
+by some to be a part of justice as a virtue annexed to justice as an
+accessory to a principal.'[1] Again, 'although liberality supposes not
+any legal debt as justice does, still it supposes a certain moral debt
+considering what is becoming in the person himself who practises the
+virtue, not as though he had any obligation to the other party;
+and therefore there is about it very little of the character of a
+debt.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 117, art. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 1.]
+
+It is important to draw attention to the fact that _liberalitas_
+consists in making a good use of property, and not merely in
+distributing it to others, as a confusion with the English word
+'liberality' might lead us to believe. It is, as we said above,
+therefore certain that a wise and prudent saving of money for
+investment would be considered a course of conduct within the meaning
+of the word _liberalitas_, especially if the enterprise in which the
+money were invested were one which would benefit the community as
+a whole. 'Modern industrial conditions demand that a man of wealth
+should distribute a part of his goods indirectly--that is, by
+investing them in productive and labour-employing enterprises.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ryan, _The Alleged Socialism of the Church Fathers_, p.
+20, and see Goyau, _Le Pape et la Question Sociale_, p. 79.]
+
+The nature of the virtue of _liberalitas_ may be more clearly
+understood by an explanation of the vices which stand opposed to it.
+The first of these treated by Aquinas is avarice, which he defines as
+'superfluus amor habendi divitias.' Avarice might be committed in
+two ways--by harbouring an undue desire of acquiring wealth, or by
+an undue reluctance to part with it--'primo autem superabundant
+in retinendo ... secundo ad avaritiam pertinet superabundare in
+accipiendo.'[1] These definitions are amplified in another part of the
+same section. 'For in every action that is directed to the attainment
+of some end goodness consists in the observance of a certain measure.
+The means to the end must be commensurate with the end, as medicine
+with health. But exterior goods have the character of things needful
+to an end. Hence human goodness in the matter of these goods must
+consist in the observance of a certain measure, as is done by a man
+seeking to have exterior riches in so far as they are necessary to his
+life according to his rank and condition. And therefore sin consists
+in exceeding this measure and trying to acquire or retain riches
+beyond the due limit; and this is the proper nature of avarice,
+which is defined to be an immoderate love of having.'[2] 'Avarice may
+involve immoderation regarding exterior things in two ways; in one way
+immediately as to the receiving or keeping of them when one acquires
+or keeps beyond the due amount; and in this respect it is directly a
+sin against one's neighbour, because in exterior things one man cannot
+have superabundance without another being in want, since temporal
+goods cannot be simultaneously possessed by many. The other way in
+which avarice may involve immoderation is in interior affection....'
+These words must not be taken to condemn the acquisition of large
+fortunes by capitalists, which is very often necessary in order that
+the natural resources of a country may be properly exploited. One
+man's possession of great wealth is at the present day frequently the
+means of opening up new sources of wealth and revenue to the entire
+community. In other words, superabundance is a relative term. This,
+like many other passages of St. Thomas, must be given a _contemporanea
+expositio_. 'There were no capitalists in the thirteenth century, but
+only hoarders.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 118, 4.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Rickaby, _Aquinas Ethicus_, vol. ii. p. 234.]
+
+It must also be remembered that what would be considered avarice in
+a man in one station of life would not be considered such in a man in
+another. So long as one did not attempt to acquire an amount of wealth
+disproportionate to the needs of one's station of life, one could not
+be considered avaricious. Thus a common soldier would be avaricious if
+he strove to obtain a uniform of the quality worn by an officer, and
+a simple cleric if he attempted to clothe himself in a style only
+befitting a bishop.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Aquinas, _In Orat. Dom. Expos_., iv. Ashley gives many
+quotations from early English literature to show how fully the idea of
+_status_ was accepted (_Economic History_, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 389).
+On the warfare waged by the Church on luxury in the Middle Ages, see
+Baudrillard, _Histoire du Luxe privé et publique_, vol. iii. pp. 630
+_et seq._]
+
+The avaricious man offended against liberality by caring too much
+about riches; the prodigal, on the other hand, cared too little about
+them, and did not attach to them their proper value. 'In affection
+while the prodigal falls short, not taking due care of them, in
+exterior behaviour it belongs to the prodigal to exceed in giving, but
+to fail in keeping or acquiring, while it belongs to the miser to
+come short in giving, but to superabound in getting and in
+keeping. Therefore it is clear that prodigality is the opposite of
+covetousness.'[1] A man, however, might commit both sins at the same
+time, by being unduly anxious to acquire wealth which he distributed
+prodigally.[2] Prodigality could always be distinguished from extreme
+liberality by a consideration of the circumstances of the particular
+case; a truly liberal man might give away more than a prodigal in
+case of necessity.[3] Prodigality, though a sin, was a sin of a less
+grievous kind than avarice.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 119, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, ad. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, art. 3. 'Per prodigalitatem intelligimus habitum
+quo quis præter vel contra dictamen rectae rationis circa
+pecunias excedit in datione vel consumptione vel custodia; et per
+illiberalitatem intelligimus habitum quo quis contra dietamen rectae
+rationis deficit circa pecunias in datione vel consumptione, vel
+superabundat in acceptione vel custodia ipsarum' (Buridan, _Eth._, iv.
+3).]
+
+In addition to the duties which were imposed on the owners of property
+in all circumstances there was a further duty which only arose on
+special occasions, namely, _magnificentia_, or munificence. This
+virtue is discussed by Aquinas[1], but we shall quote the passages of
+Buridan which explain it, not because they depart in any way from the
+teaching of Aquinas, but because they are clearer and more scientific.
+'By munificence, we understand a habit inclining one to the
+performance of great works, or to the incurring of great expenses,
+when, where, and in the manner in which they are called for (_fuerit
+opportunum_), for example, building a church, assembling great
+armies for a threatened war, and giving splendid marriage feasts.' He
+explains that 'munificence stands in the same relation to liberality
+as bravery acquired by its exercise in danger of death in battle does
+to bravery simply and commonly understood.' Two vices stand opposed
+to munificentia: (1) _parvificentia_, 'a habit inclining one not
+to undertake great works, when circumstances call for them, or to
+undertaking less, or at less expense, than the needs of the situation
+demand,' and (2) (_[Greek: banousia]_,) 'a habit inclining one to
+undertaking great works, which are not called for by circumstances,
+or undertaking them on a greater scale or at a greater expense than is
+necessary[2].'
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 134.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Eth._, iv. 7.]
+
+Both in the case of avarice and prodigality the offending state
+of mind consisted in attaching a wrong value to wealth, and the
+inculcation of the virtue of liberality must have been attended
+with good results not alone to the souls of individuals, but to the
+economic condition of the community. The avaricious man not only
+imperilled his own soul by attaching too much importance to temporal
+gain, but he also injured the community by monopolising too large a
+share of its wealth; the prodigal man, in addition to incurring
+the occasion of various sins of intemperance, also impoverished the
+community by wasting in reckless consumption wealth which might have
+been devoted to productive or charitable purposes. He who neglected
+the duty of munificence, either by refusing to make a great
+expenditure when it was called for (_parvificentia_) or by making one
+when it was unnecessary (_[Greek: banousia]_) was also deemed to have
+done wrong, because in the one case he valued his money too highly,
+and in the other not highly enough. In other words, he attached a
+wrong value to wealth. Nothing could be further from the truth than
+the suggestion that the schoolmen despised or belittled temporal
+riches. Quite on the contrary, they esteemed it a sin to conduct
+oneself in a manner which showed a defective appreciation of their
+value[1]. Riches may have been the occasion of sin; but so was
+poverty. 'The occasions of sin are to be avoided,' says Aquinas, 'but
+poverty is an occasion of evil, because theft, perjury, and flattery
+are frequently brought about by it.
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Non videtur secundum humanam rationem esse boni et
+perfecti divitias abjicere totaliter, sed eis uti bene et reficiendo
+superfluas pauperibus subvenire et amicis' (Buridan, _Eth._, iv. 3).]
+
+Therefore poverty should not be voluntarily undertaken, but rather
+avoided.'[1] Buridan says: 'There is no doubt that it is much more
+difficult to be virtuous in a state of poverty than in one of moderate
+affluence;'[2] and Antoninus of Florence expresses the opinion that
+poverty is in itself an evil thing, although out of it good may
+come.[3] Even the ambition to rise in the world was laudable, because
+every one may rightfully desire to place himself and his dependants in
+a participation of the fullest human felicity of which man is capable,
+and to rid himself of the necessity of corporal labour.[4] Avarice and
+prodigality alike offended against liberality, because they tended to
+deprive the community of the maximum benefit which it should derive
+from the wealth with which it was endowed. Dr. Cunningham may be
+quoted in support of this view. 'One of the gravest defects of the
+Roman Empire lay in the fact that its system left little scope for
+individual aims, and tended to check the energy of capitalists and
+labourers alike. But Christian teaching opened up an unending prospect
+before the individual personally, and encouraged him to activity and
+diligence by an eternal hope. Nor did such concentration of thought
+on a life beyond the grave necessarily divert attention from secular
+duties; Christianity did not disparage them, but set them in a new
+light, and brought out new motives for taking them seriously....
+The acceptance of this higher view of the dignity of human life
+as immortal was followed by a fuller recognition of personal
+responsibility. Ancient philosophy had seen that man is the master of
+material things; but Christianity introduced a new sense of duty in
+regard to the manner of using them.... Christian teachers were forced
+to protest against any employment of wealth that disregarded the glory
+of God and the good of man.'[5] It was the opinion of Knies that
+the peculiarly Christian virtues were of profound economic value.
+'Temperance, thrift, and industry--that is to say, the sun and rain of
+economic activity---were recommended by the Church and inculcated as
+Christian virtues; idleness as the mother of theft, gambling as the
+occasion of fraud, were forbidden; and gain for its own sake was
+classed as a kind of robbery[6].'
+
+[Footnote 1: _Summa cont. Gent._, iii. 131.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Eth._, iv. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Summa_, iv. 12, 3.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Cajetan, _Comm._ on II. ii. 118, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Western Civilisation_, vol. ii. pp. 8-9.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Politische Oekonomie vom Standpuncte der geschichtlichen
+Methode_, p. 116, and see Rambaud, _Histoire_, p. 759; Champagny, _La
+Bible et l'Economie politique_; Thomas Aquinas, _Summa_, II. ii.
+50, 3; Sertillanges, _Socialisme et Christianisme_, p. 53. It was
+nevertheless recognised and insisted on that wealth was not an end in
+itself, but merely a means to an end (Aquinas, _Summa_, I. ii. 2, 1).]
+
+The great rule, then, with regard to the user of property was
+liberality. Closely allied with the duty of liberality was the duty
+of almsgiving--'an act of charity through the medium of money.'[1]
+Almsgiving is not itself a part of liberality except in so far as
+liberality removes an obstacle to such acts, which may arise from
+excessive love of riches, the result of which is that one clings
+to them more than one ought[2]. Aquinas divides alms-deeds into two
+kinds, spiritual and corporal, the latter alone of which concern us
+here. 'Corporal need arises either during this life or afterwards. If
+it occurs during this life, it is either a common need in respect
+of things needed by all, or is a special need occurring through some
+accident supervening. In the first case the need is either internal
+or external. Internal need is twofold: one which is relieved by solid
+food, viz. hunger, in respect of which we have to _feed the hungry_;
+while the other is relieved by liquid food, viz. thirst, in respect
+of which we have to _give drink to the thirsty_. The common need with
+regard to external help is twofold: one in respect of clothing, and as
+to this we have to _clothe the naked_; while the other is in
+respect of a dwelling-place, and as to this we have to _harbour the
+harbourless_. Again, if the need be special, it is either the result
+of an internal cause like sickness, and then we have to _visit the
+sick_, or it results from an external cause, and then we have to
+_ransom the captive_. After this life we _give burial to the dead_.[3]
+Aquinas then proceeds to explain in what circumstances the duty of
+almsgiving arises. 'Almsgiving is a matter of precept. Since, however,
+precepts are about acts of virtue, it follows that all almsgiving must
+be a matter of precept in so far as it is necessary to virtue, namely,
+in so far as it is demanded by right reason. Now right reason demands
+that we should take into consideration something on the part of the
+giver, and something on the part of the recipient. On the part of the
+giver it must be noted that he must give of his surplus according to
+Luke xi. 4, "That which remaineth give alms." This surplus is to be
+taken in reference not only to the giver, but also in reference to
+those of whom he has charge (in which case we have the expression
+_necessary to the person_, taking the word _person_ as expressive
+of dignity).... On the part of the recipient it is necessary that he
+should be in need, else there would be no reason for giving him alms;
+yet since it is not possible for one individual to relieve the needs
+of all, we are not bound to relieve all who are in need, but only
+those who could not be succoured if we did not succour them. For in
+such cases the words of Ambrose apply, "Feed him that is dying of
+hunger; if thou hast not fed him thou hast slain him." Accordingly
+we are bound to give alms of our surplus, as also to give alms to one
+whose need is extreme; otherwise almsgiving, like any other greater
+good, is a matter of counsel.'[4] In replying to the objection that it
+is lawful for every one to keep what is his own, St. Thomas restates
+with emphasis the principle of community of user: 'The temporal goods
+which are given us by God are ours as to the ownership, but as to the
+use of them they belong not to us alone, but also to such others as we
+are able to succour out of what we have over and above our needs.'[5]
+Albertus Magnus states this in very strong words: 'For a man to give
+out of his superfluities is a mere act of justice, because he is
+rather then steward of them for the poor than the owner;'[6] and at an
+earlier date St. Peter Damian had affirmed that 'he who gives to the
+poor returns what he does not himself own, and does not dispose of his
+own goods.' He insists in the same passage that almsgiving is not
+an act of mercy, but of strict justice.[7] In the reply to another
+objection the duty of almsgiving is stated by Aquinas with additional
+vigour. 'There is a time when we sin mortally if we omit to give
+alms--on the part of the recipient when we see that his need is
+evident and urgent, and that he is not likely to be succoured
+otherwise--on the part of the giver when he has superfluous goods,
+which he does not need for the time being, so far as he can judge with
+probability.'[8]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 32, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 3: II. ii. 32, art. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: II. ii. 32, art. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Ibid._, ad. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Jarrett, _Mediæval Socialism_, p. 87.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _De Eleemosynis_, cap. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 8: II. ii. 32, 5, ad. 3.]
+
+The next question which St. Thomas discusses is whether one ought to
+give alms out of what one needs. He distinguishes between two kinds
+of 'necessaries.' The first is that without which existence is
+impossible, out of which kind of necessary things one is not bound to
+give alms save in exceptional cases, when, by doing so, one would be
+helping a great personage or supporting the Church or the State, since
+'the common good is to be preferred to one's own.' The second kind
+of necessaries are those things without which a man cannot live in
+keeping with his social station. St. Thomas recommends the giving of
+alms out of this part of one's estate, but points out that it is only
+a matter of counsel, and not of precept, and one must not give alms
+to such an extent as to impoverish oneself permanently. To this last
+provision, however, there are three exceptions: one, when a man is
+entering religion and giving away all his goods; two, when he can
+easily replace what he gives away; and, three, when he is in presence
+of great indigence on the part of an individual, or great need on the
+part of the common weal. In these three cases it is praiseworthy for
+a man to forgo the requisites of his station in order to provide for a
+greater need.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 32, 6.]
+
+The mediæval teaching on almsgiving is very well summarised by Fr.
+Jarrett,[1] as follows: '(1) A man is obliged to help another in his
+extreme need even at the risk of grave inconvenience to himself; (2) a
+man is obliged to help another who, though not in extreme need, is yet
+in considerable distress, but not at the risk of grave inconvenience
+to himself; (3) a man is not obliged to help another when necessity is
+slight, even though the risk to himself should be quite trifling.'
+
+[Footnote 1: _Mediæval Socialism_, p. 90.]
+
+The importance of the duty of almsgiving further appears from the
+section where Aquinas lays down that the person to whom alms should
+have been given may, if the owner of the goods neglects his duty,
+repair the omission himself. 'All things are common property in a
+case of extreme necessity. Hence one who is in dire straits may take
+another's goods in order to succour himself if he can find no one who
+is willing to give him something.'[1] The duty of using one's goods
+for the benefit of one's neighbours was a fit matter for enforcement
+by the State, provided that the burdens imposed by legislation were
+equitable. 'Laws are said to be just, both from the end, when, to wit,
+they are ordained to the common good--and from their author, that is
+to say, when the law that is made does not exceed the power of the
+law-giver--and from their form, when, to wit, burdens are laid on the
+subjects according to an equality of proportion and with a view to the
+common good. For, since every man is part of the community, each man
+in all that he is and has belongs to the community: just as a part in
+all that it is belongs to the whole; wherefore nature inflicts a loss
+on the part in order to save the whole; so that on this account such
+laws, which impose proportionate burdens, are just and binding in
+conscience.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Ibid._, art. 7 ad. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: I. ii. 96,4.]
+
+There can be no doubt that the practice of the scholastic teaching of
+community of user, in its proper sense, made for social stability. The
+following passage from Trithemius, written at the end of the fifteenth
+century, is interesting as showing how consistently the doctrine of
+St. Thomas was adhered to two hundred years after his death, and
+also that the failure of the rich to put into practice the moderate
+communism of St. Thomas was the cause of the rise of the heretical
+communists, who attacked the very foundations of property itself: 'Let
+the rich remember that their possessions have not been entrusted to
+them in order that they may have the sole enjoyment of them, but
+that they may use and manage them as property belonging to mankind at
+large. Let them remember that when they give to the needy they
+only give them what belongs to them. If the duty of right use and
+management of property, whether worldly or spiritual, is neglected, if
+the rich think that they are the sole lords and masters of that which
+they possess, and do not treat the needy as their brethren, there
+must of necessity arise an inner shattering of the commonwealth. False
+teachers and deceivers of the people will then gain influence, as has
+happened in Bohemia, by preaching to the people that earthly property
+should be equally distributed among all, and that the rich must
+be forcibly condemned to the division of their wealth. Then follow
+lamentable conditions and civil wars; no property is spared; no right
+of ownership is any longer recognised; and the wealthy may then
+with justice complain of the loss of possessions which have been
+unrighteously taken from them; but they should also seriously ask
+themselves the question whether in the days of peace and order they
+recognised in the administration of these goods the right of their
+superior lord and owner, namely, the God of all the earth.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Quoted in Janssen, _op. cit._, vol. ii. p. 91.]
+
+It must not, however, be imagined for a moment that the community
+of user advocated by the scholastics had anything in common with the
+communism recommended by modern Socialists. As we have seen above,
+the scholastic communism did not at all apply to the procuring and
+dispensing of material things, but only to the mode of using them.
+It is not even correct to say that the property of an individual was
+_limited_ by the duty of using it for the common good. As Rambaud
+puts it: 'Les devoirs de charité, d'équité naturelle, et de simple
+convenance sociale peuvent affecter, ou mieux encore, commander un
+certain usage de la richesse; mais ce n'est pas le même chose que
+limiter la propriété.'[1] The community of user of the scholastics was
+distinguished from that of modern Socialists not less strongly by the
+motives which inspired it than by the effect it produced. The former
+was dictated by high spiritual aims, and the contempt of material
+goods; the latter is the fruit of over-attachment to material goods,
+and the envy of their possessors.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 43. The same writer shows that there is no
+authority in Christian teaching for the proposition, advanced by many
+Christian Socialists, that property is a 'social function' (_ibid._,
+p. 774). The right of property even carried with it the _jus
+abutendi_, which, however, did not mean the right to _abuse_, but
+the right to destroy by consumption (see Antoine, _Cours d'Economie
+sociale_, p. 526).]
+
+[Footnote 2: Roscher, _op. cit._, p. 5: 'Vom neuern Socialismus
+freilich unterscheidet sich diese Auffassung nicht blosz durch ihre
+religiöse Grundlage, sondern auch durch ihre, jedem Mammonsdienst
+entgegengesetze, Verachtung der materiellen Güter.']
+
+The large estates which the Church itself owned have frequently been
+pointed to as evidence of hypocrisy in its attitude towards the common
+user of property. This is not the place to inquire into the condition
+of ecclesiastical estates in the Middle Ages, but it is sufficient
+to say that they were usually the centres of charity, and that in the
+opinion of so impartial a writer as Roscher, they rather tended to
+make the rules of using goods for the common use practicable than the
+contrary.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Roscher, _op. cit._, p. 6.]
+
+
+
+SECTION 3.--PROPERTY IN HUMAN BEINGS
+
+
+Before we pass from the subject of property, we must deal with a
+particular kind of property right, namely, that of one human being
+over another. At the present day the idea of one man being owned
+by another is repugnant to all enlightened public opinion, but this
+general repugnance is of very recent growth, and did not exist in
+mediæval Europe. In dealing with the scholastic attitude towards
+slavery, we shall indicate, as we did with regard to its attitude
+towards property in general, the fundamental harmony between the
+teaching of the primitive and the mediæval Church on the subject. No
+apology is needed for this apparent digression, as a comparison of the
+teaching of the Church at the two periods of its development helps us
+to understand precisely what the later doctrine was; and, moreover,
+the close analogy which, as we shall see, existed between the Church's
+view of property and slavery, throws much light on the true nature of
+both institutions.
+
+Although in practice Christianity had done a very great deal to
+mitigate the hardships of the slavery of ancient times, and had in
+a large degree abolished slavery by its encouragement of
+emancipation,[1] it did not, in theory, object to the institution
+itself. There is no necessity to labour a point so universally
+admitted by all students of the Gospels as that Christ and His
+Apostles did not set out to abolish the slavery which they found
+everywhere around them, but rather aimed, by preaching charity to
+the master and patience to the slave, at the same time to lighten the
+burden of servitude, and to render its acceptance a merit rather
+than a disgrace. 'What, in fact,' says Janet, 'is the teaching of
+St. Peter, St. Paul, and the Apostles in general? It is, in the first
+place, that in Christ there are no slaves, and that all men are free
+and equal; and, in the second place, that the slave must obey his
+master, and the master must be gentle to his slave.[2] Thus, although
+there are no slaves in Christ, St. Paul and the Apostles do not deny
+that there may be on earth. I am far from reproaching the Apostles for
+not having proclaimed the immediate necessity of the emancipation of
+slaves. But I say that the question was discussed in precisely the
+same terms by the ancient philosophers of the same period. Seneca, it
+is true, proclaimed not the civil, but the moral equality of men;
+but St. Paul does not speak of anything more than their equality in
+Christ. Seneca instructs the master to treat the slave as he would
+like to be treated himself.[3] Is not this what St. Peter and St.
+Paul say when they recommended the master to be gentle and good? The
+superiority of Christianity over Stoicism in this question arises
+altogether from the very superiority of the Christian spirit....'[4]
+The article on 'Slavery' in the _Catholic Encyclopædia_ expresses the
+same opinion: 'Christian teachers, following the example of St. Paul,
+implicitly accept slavery as not in itself incompatible with the
+Christian law. The Apostle counsels slaves to obey their masters,
+and to bear with their condition patiently. This estimate of slavery
+continued to prevail until it became fixed in the systematised ethical
+teaching of the schools; and so it remained without any conspicuous
+modification until the end of the eighteenth century.' The same
+interpretation of early Christian teaching is accepted by the
+Protestant scholar, Dr. Bartlett: 'The practical attitude of Seneca
+and the early Christians to slavery was much the same. They bade the
+individual rise to a sense of spiritual freedom in spite of outward
+bondage, rather than denounce the institution as an altogether
+illegitimate form of property.'[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Roscher, _Political Economy_, s. 73.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Eph._, vi. 5, 6, 9.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Ep. ad Luc._, 73.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Janet, _op. cit._, p. 317.]
+
+[Footnote 5: 'Biblical and Early Christian Idea of Property,'
+_Property, Its Duties and Rights_ (London, 1915), p. 110; Franck,
+_Réformateurs et Publicistes de l'Europe: Moyen âge_--Renaissance, p.
+87. On the whole question by far the best authority is volume iii. of
+Wallon's _Histoire de l'Esclavage dans l'Antiquité_.]
+
+Several texts might be collected from the writings of the Fathers
+which would seem to show that according to patristic teaching the
+institution of slavery was unjustifiable. We do not propose to cite
+or to explain these texts one by one, in view of the quite clear and
+unambiguous exposition of the subject given by St. Thomas Aquinas,
+whose teaching is the more immediate subject of this essay; we shall
+content ourselves by reminding the reader of the precisely similar
+texts relating to the institution of property which we have examined
+above, and by stating that the corresponding texts on the subject
+of slavery are capable of an exactly similar interpretation. 'The
+teaching of the Apostle,' says Janet, 'and of the Fathers on slavery
+is the same as their teaching on property.'[1] The author from whom we
+are quoting, and on whose judgment too much reliance cannot be placed,
+then proceeds to cite many of the patristic texts on property, which
+we quoted in the section dealing with that subject, and asks: 'What
+conclusion should one draw from these different passages? It is that
+in Christ there are no rich and no poor, no mine and no thine; that
+in Christian perfection all things are common to all men, but that
+nevertheless property is legitimate and derived from human law. Is it
+not in the same sense that the Fathers condemned slavery as contrary
+to divine law, while respecting it as comformable to human law? The
+Fathers abound in texts contrary to slavery, but have we not seen a
+great number of texts contrary to property?'[2] The closeness of the
+analogy between the patristic treatment of slavery and of property
+appears forcibly in the following passage of Lactantius: 'God who
+created man willed that all should be equal. He has imposed on all
+the same condition of living; He has produced all in wisdom; He has
+promised immortality to all; no one is cut off from His heavenly
+benefits. In His sight no one is a slave, no one a master; for if we
+have all the same Father, by an equal right we are all His children;
+no one is poor in the sight of God but he who is without justice, no
+one rich but he who is full of virtue.... Some one will say, Are there
+not among you some poor and others rich; some servants and others
+masters? Is there not some difference between individuals? There is
+none, nor is there any other cause why we mutually bestow on each
+other the name of brethren except that we believe ourselves to be
+equal. For since we measure all human things not by the body but by
+the spirit, although the condition of bodies is different, yet we have
+no servants, but we both regard them, and speak of them as brothers in
+spirit, in religion as fellow-servants.'[3] Slavery was declared to
+be a blessing, because, like poverty, it afforded the opportunity of
+practising the virtues of humility and patience.[4] The treatment
+of the institution of slavery underwent a striking and important
+development in the hands of St. Augustine, who justified it as one of
+the penalties incurred by man as a result of the sin of Adam and Eve.
+'The first holy men,' writes the Saint, 'were rather shepherds than
+kings, God showing herein what both the order of the creation desired,
+and what the deserts of sin exacted. For justly was the burden of
+servitude laid upon the back of transgression. And therefore in all
+the Scriptures we never read the word _servus_ until Noah laid it as
+a curse upon his offending son. So that it was guilt, and not nature,
+that gave origin to that name.... Sin is the mother of servitude and
+the first cause of man's subjection to man.'[5] St. Augustine also
+justifies the enslavement of those conquered in war--'It is God's
+decree to humble the conquered, either reforming their sins herein or
+punishing them.'[6]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 318.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 321.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Div. Inst_., v. 15-16.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Chryst., _Genes._, serm. v. i.; _Ep. ad Cor._, hom. xix.
+4.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _De Civ. Dei_, xix. 14-15.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Ibid._]
+
+Janet ably analyses and expounds the advance which St. Augustine
+made in the treatment of slavery: 'In this theory we must note the
+following points: (1) Slavery is unjust according to the law of
+nature. This is what is contrary to the teaching of Aristotle,
+but conformable to that of the Stoics. (2) Slavery is just as
+a consequence of sin. This is the new principle peculiar to St.
+Augustine. He has found a principle of slavery, which is neither
+natural inequality, nor war, nor agreement, but sin. Slavery is no
+more a transitory fact which we accept provisionally, so as not to
+precipitate a social revolution: it is an institution which has become
+natural as a result of the corruption of our nature. (3) It must not
+be said that slavery, resulting from sin, is destroyed by Christ who
+destroyed sin.... Slavery, according to St. Augustine, must last as
+long as society.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Janet, _op. cit._, p. 302.]
+
+Nowhere does St. Thomas Aquinas appear as clearly as the medium of
+contact and reconciliation between the Fathers of the Church and the
+ancient philosophers as in his treatment of the question of slavery.
+His utterances upon this subject are scattered through many portions
+of his work, but, taken together, they show that he was quite prepared
+to admit the legitimacy of the institution, not alone on the grounds
+put forward by St. Augustine, but also on those suggested by Aristotle
+and the Roman jurists.
+
+He fully adopts the Augustinian argument in the _Summa_, where, in
+answer to the query, whether in the state of innocence all men were
+equal, he states that even in that state there would still have been
+inequalities of sex, knowledge, justice, etc. The only inequalities
+which would not have been present were those arising from sin; but
+the only inequality arising from sin was slavery.[1] 'By the words
+"So long as we are without sin we are equal," Gregory means to exclude
+such inequality as exists between virtue and vice; the result of which
+is that some are placed in subjection to others as a penalty.'[2] In
+the following article St. Thomas distinguishes between political and
+despotic subordination, and shows that the former might have existed
+in a state of innocence. 'Mastership has a twofold meaning; first as
+opposed to servitude, in which case a master means one to whom
+another is subject as a slave. In another sense mastership is commonly
+referred to any kind of subject; and in that sense even he who has the
+office of governing and directing free men can be called a master. In
+the first meaning of mastership man would not have been ruled by man
+in the state of innocence; but in the latter sense man would be ruled
+over by man in that state.'[3] In _De Regimine Principum_ Aquinas also
+accepts what we may call the Augustinian view of slavery. 'But whether
+the dominion of man over man is according to the law of nature, or is
+permitted or provided by God may be certainly resolved. If we speak of
+dominion by means of servile subjection, this was introduced because
+of sin. But if we speak of dominion in so far as it relates to the
+function of advising and directing, it may in this sense be said to be
+natural.'[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: i. 96, 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: i. 96, 4.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _De Reg. Prin._, iii. 9. This is one of the chapters the
+authorship of which is disputed.]
+
+St. Thomas was therefore willing to endorse the argument of St.
+Augustine that slavery was a result of sin; but he also admits the
+justice of Aristotle's reasoning on the subject. In the section of the
+_Summa_ where the question is discussed, whether the law of nations is
+the same as the natural law, one of the objections to be met is that
+'Slavery among men is natural, for some are naturally slaves according
+to the philosopher. Now "slavery belongs to the law of nations," as
+Isidore states. Therefore the right of nations is a natural right.'[1]
+In answer to this objection St. Thomas draws the distinction between
+what is natural absolutely, and what is natural _secundum quid_, the
+passage which we have quoted in treating of property rights.[2]
+He then goes on to apply this distinction to the case of slavery.
+'Considered absolutely, the fact that this particular man should be a
+slave rather than another man, is based, not on natural reason, but on
+some resultant utility, in that it is useful to this man to be ruled
+by a wise man, and to the latter to be helped by the former, as the
+philosopher states. Wherefore slavery which belongs to the law of
+nations is natural in the second way, but not in the first.'[3] It
+will be noted from this passage that St. Thomas partly admits, though
+not entirely, the opinion of Aristotle. In the _De Regimine
+Principum_ he goes much further in the direction of adopting the full
+Aristotelian theory: 'Nature decrees that there should be grades in
+men as in other things. We see this in the elements, a superior and
+an inferior; we see in every mixture that some one element
+predominates.... For we see this also in the relation of the body and
+the mind, and in the powers of the mind compared with one another;
+because some are ordained towards ordering and moving, such as the
+understanding and the will; others to serving. So should it be among
+men; and thus it is proved that some are slaves according to nature.
+Some lack reason through some defect of nature; and such ought to be
+subjected to servile works because they cannot use their reason, and
+this is called the natural law.'[4] In the same chapter the right of
+conquerors to enslave their conquered is referred to without comment,
+and therefore implicitly approved by the author.
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 57, 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Supra_, p. 64.]
+
+[Footnote 3: II. ii 57, ad. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _De Reg. Prin._, ii. 10.]
+
+'Thus,' according to Janet, 'St. Thomas admits slavery as far as one
+can admit it, and for all the reasons for which one can admit it.
+He admits with Aristotle that there is a natural slavery; with St.
+Augustine that slavery is the result of sin; with the jurisconsult
+that slavery is the result of war and convention.'[1] 'The author
+justifies slavery,' says Franck, 'in the name of St. Augustine, and in
+that of Aristotle; in the name of the latter by showing that there are
+two races of men, one born to command, and the other to obey; in
+the name of the former in affirming that slavery had its origin in
+original sin; that by sin man has forfeited his right to liberty.
+Further, we must admit slavery as an institution not only of nature
+and one of the consequences of the fall, we must admit a third
+principle of slavery which appears to St. Thomas as legitimate as the
+other two. War is necessary; therefore it is just; and if it is just
+we must accept its consequences. One of these consequences is the
+absolute right of the conqueror over the life, person, and goods of
+the conquered.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, vol. i. p. 431.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Franck, _op cit_., p. 69.]
+
+Aquinas returns to the question of slavery in another passage, which
+is interesting as showing that he continued to make use of the analogy
+between slavery and property which we have seen in the Fathers. 'A
+thing is said to belong to the natural law in two ways. First,
+because nature inclines thereto, _e.g._ that one should not do harm to
+another. Secondly, because nature did not bring in the contrary; thus
+we might say that for man to be naked is of the natural law because
+nature did not give him clothes, but art invented them. In this sense
+the possession of all things in common and universal freedom is
+said to be of the natural law, because, to wit, the distinction of
+possession and slavery were not brought in by nature, but devised by
+human reason for the benefit of human life. Accordingly, the law of
+nature was not changed in this respect, but by addition.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: I. ii. 94, 5, ad. 3.]
+
+Ægidius Romanus closely follows the teaching of his master on the
+subject of slavery. 'What does Ægidius do? He unites Aristotle and St.
+Augustine against human liberty. He declares with the latter that man
+has lost the right of belonging to himself, since he has fallen from
+the primitive order established by God Himself in nature. He admits
+with Aristotle the existence of two races of men, the one designed
+for liberty, the other for servitude.... This is not all--to this
+servitude which he calls natural, the author joins another, purely
+legal, but which does not seem to him less just, namely, that which is
+founded on the right of war, and which obliges the conquered to become
+the slaves of the conquerors--to give up their liberty in exchange for
+their lives. Our author admits it is just in itself, because in his
+opinion it is useful to the defence of one's country; it excites
+warriors to courage by placing before their eyes the terrible
+consequences of cowardice.'[1] The teachings of St. Thomas and Ægidius
+were accepted by all the later scholastics.[2] Biel, whose opinion is
+always very valuable as being that of the last of a long line, says
+that there are three kinds of slaves--slaves of God, of sin, and of
+man. The first kind of slavery is wholly good, the second wholly bad,
+while the third, though not instituted by, is approved by the _jus
+gentium_. He proceeds to state the four ways in which a man may
+become enslaved: namely, _ex necessitate_, or by being born of a slave
+mother; _ex bello_, by being captured in war; _ex delicto_, or
+by sentence of the law in the case of certain crimes committed by
+freedmen; and _ex propria voluntate_, or by the sale of a man of
+himself into slavery.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Franck, _op. cit._, p. 90.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Franck, _op. cit._, p. 91.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Biel, _Inventarium seu Repertorium generale super qualuor
+libros Sententiarum_, iv. xv. I; and see Carletus, _Summa Angelica_,
+q. ccxii.]
+
+It must not be forgotten that we are dealing purely with theory.
+In fact the Church did an inestimable amount of good to the servile
+classes, and, at the time that Aquinas wrote, thanks to the operation
+of Christianity in this respect, the old Roman slavery had completely
+disappeared. The nearest approach to ancient slavery in the Middle
+Ages was serfdom, which was simply a step in the transition from
+slavery to free labour.[1] Moreover, the rights of the master over
+the slave were strictly confined to the disposal of his services; the
+ancient absolute right over his body had completely disappeared. 'In
+those things,' says St. Thomas, 'which appertain to the disposition
+of human acts and things, the subject is bound to obey his superior
+according to the reason of the superiority; thus a soldier must obey
+his officer in those things which appertain to war; a slave his master
+in those things which appertain to the carrying out of his servile
+works.'[2] 'Slavery does not abolish the natural equality of man,'
+says a writer who is quoted by the _Catholic Encyclopædia_ as
+correctly stating the Catholic doctrine on the subject prior to the
+eighteenth century, 'hence by slavery one man is understood to become
+subject to the dominion of another to the extent that the master has
+a perfect right to the services which one man may justly perform
+for another.'[3] Biel, who lays down the justice of slavery so
+unambiguously, is no less clear in his statement of the limitations
+of the right. 'The body of the slave is not simply in the power of the
+master as the body of an ox is; nor can the master kill or mutilate
+the slave, nor abuse him contrary to the law of God. The temporal
+gains derived from the labour of the slave belong to the master;
+but the master is bound to provide the slave with the necessaries of
+life.'[4] Rambaud very properly points out that the reason that the
+scholastic writers did not fulminate in as strong and as frequent
+language against the tyranny of masters, was not that they felt less
+strongly on the subject, but that the abuses of the ancient slave
+system had almost entirely disappeared under the influence of
+Christian teaching.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Wallon, _op. cit._, vol. iii. p. 93; Brants, _op. cit._,
+p. 87.]
+
+[Footnote 2: II. ii. 104, 5.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Gerdil., _Comp. Inst. Civ. I._, vii.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Biel, _op. cit._, iv. xv. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Op. cit._, p. 83.]
+
+On the other hand, it must not be imagined, as has sometimes been
+suggested, that the slavery defended by Aquinas was not real slavery,
+but rather the ordinary modern relation between employer and employed.
+Such an interpretation is definitely disproved by a passage of the
+article on justice where Aquinas says that 'inducing a slave to leave
+his master is properly an injury against the person ... and, since the
+slave is his master's chattel, it is referred to theft.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 61,3. Brants, _op. cit._, pp. 87 _et seq_., is
+inclined to take a more liberal view of the scholastic doctrine on
+slavery, but we cannot agree with him in view of the contemporary
+texts.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+DUTIES REGARDING THE EXCHANGE OF PROPERTY
+
+
+
+SECTION 1.--THE SALE OF GOODS
+
+
+§ 1. _The Just Price_.
+
+We dealt in the last chapter with the duties which attached to
+property in respect of its acquisition and use, and we now pass to
+the duties which attached to it in respect of its exchange. As we
+indicated above, the right to exchange one's goods for the goods or
+the money of another person was, according to the scholastics, one of
+the necessary corollaries of the right of private property. In order
+that such exchange might be justifiable, it must be conducted on a.
+basis of commutative justice, which, as we have seen, consisted in the
+observance of equality according to the arithmetical mean. We further
+drew attention to the fact that exchanges might be divided into
+sales of goods and sales of the use of money. In the former case the
+regulating principle of the equality of justice was given effect to
+by the observance of the _just price_; in the latter by that of the
+_prohibition of usury_. We shall deal with the former in the present
+and with the latter in the following section.
+
+The mediæval teaching on the just price, about which there has been so
+much discussion and disagreement among modern writers, was simply the
+application to the particular contract of sale of the principles which
+regulated contracts in general. Exchange originally took the form
+of barter; but, as it was found impossible accurately to measure
+the values of the objects exchanged without the intervention of
+some common measure of value, money was invented to serve as such a
+measure. We need not further refer to barter in this section, as the
+principles which applied to it were those that applied to sale. Indeed
+all sales when analysed are really barter through the medium of
+money. That Aquinas simply regarded his article on just price[1] as an
+explanation of the application of his general teaching on justice to
+the particular case of the contract of sale is quite clear from the
+article itself. 'Apart from fraud, we may speak of buying and selling
+in two ways. First, as considered in themselves; and from this point
+of view buying and selling seem to be established for the common
+advantage of both parties, one of whom requires that which belongs
+to the other, and _vice versa_. Now whatever is established for the
+common advantage should not be more of a burden to one part than to
+the other, and consequently all contracts between them should observe
+equality of thing and thing. Again, the quality of a thing that
+comes into human use is measured by the price given for it, for which
+purpose money was invented. Therefore, if either the price exceed the
+quantity of the thing's worth, or conversely the worth of the thing
+exceed the price, there is no longer the equality of justice; and
+consequently to sell a thing for more than its worth, or to buy it for
+less than its worth, is in itself unjust and unlawful.'[2] When two
+contracting parties make an exchange through the medium of money,
+the price is the expression of the exchange value in money. 'The
+just price expresses the equivalence, which is the foundation of
+contractual justice.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 77, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: This opinion was accepted by all the later writers,
+_e.g._ Gerson, _De Cont._, ii. 5; Biel, _op. cit._, IV. xv. 10: 'Si
+pretium excedit quantitatem valoris rei, vel e converso tolleretur
+equalitas, erit contractus iniquus.']
+
+[Footnote 3: Desbuquois, 'La Justice dans l'Echange,' _Semaine
+Sociale de France_, 1911, p. 167. Gerson says: 'Contractus species est
+justitiae commutativae quae respicit aequalitatem rei quae venditur
+ad rem quae emitur, ut servetur aequalitas justi pretii; propter quam
+aequalitatem facilius observandum inventa est moneta, vel numisma, vel
+pecunia,' _De Cont._, ii. 5.]
+
+The conception of the just price, though based on Aristotelian
+conceptions of justice, is essentially Christian. The Roman law had
+allowed the utmost freedom of contract in sales; apart from fraud,
+the two contracting parties were at complete liberty to fix a price
+at their own risk; and selfishness was assumed and allowed to be the
+animating motive of every contracting party. The one limitation to
+this sweeping rule was in favour of the seller. By a rescript of
+Diocletian and Maximian it was enacted that, if a thing were sold
+for less than half its value, the seller could recover the property,
+unless the buyer chose to make up the price to the full amount.
+Although this rescript was perfectly general in its terms, some
+authors contended that it applied only to sales of land, because the
+example given was the sale of a farm.[1] However, the rescript was
+quoted by the Fathers as showing that even the Roman law considered
+that contracts might be questioned on equitable grounds in certain
+cases.[2] The distinctively Christian notion of just price seems to
+have its origin in a passage of St. Augustine;[3] but the notion was
+not placed on a philosophical foundation until the thirteenth century.
+Even Aquinas, however, although he treats of the just price at some
+length, and expresses clear and categorical opinions upon many points
+connected with it, does not state the principles on which the just
+price itself should be arrived at. This omission is due, not to the
+fact that Aquinas was unfamiliar with these principles, but to the
+fact that he took them for granted as they were not disputed or
+doubted.[4] We have consequently to look for enlightenment upon this
+point in writings other than those of Aquinas. The subject can be most
+satisfactorily understood if we divide its treatment into two parts:
+first, a consideration of what constituted the just price in the sale
+of an article, the price of which was fixed by law; and second, a
+consideration of what constituted the just price of an article, the
+price of which was not so fixed.
+
+[Footnote 1: Hunter, _Roman Law_, p. 492.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, p. 133.]
+
+[Footnote 3: 'Scio ipse hominem quum venalis codex ei fuisset oblatus,
+pretiique ejus ignarum ideo quiddam exiguum poscentem cerneret
+venditorem, justum pretium, quod multo amplius erat nec opinanti
+dedisse' (_De Trin._, xiii. 3).]
+
+[Footnote 4: Palgrave, _Dictionary of Political Economy_, tit. 'Justum
+Pretium.']
+
+
+§ 2. _The Just Price when Price fixed by Law_.
+
+Regarding the power of the State to fix prices, the theologians and
+jurists were in complete agreement. According to Gerson: 'The law
+may justly fix the price of things which are sold, both movable and
+immovable, in the nature of rents and not in the nature of rents, and
+feudal and non-feudal, below which price the seller must not give, or
+above which the buyer must not demand, however they may desire to do
+so. As therefore the price is a kind of measure of the equality to be
+observed in contracts, and as it is sometimes difficult to find that
+measure with exactitude, on account of the varied and corrupt desires
+of man, it becomes expedient that the medium should be fixed according
+to the judgment of some wise man.... In the civil state, however,
+nobody is to be decreed wiser than the lawgiving authority. Therefore
+it behoves the latter, whenever it is possible to do so, to fix the
+just price, which may not be exceeded by private consent, and which
+must be enforced.'...[1] Biel practically paraphrases this passage of
+Gerson, and contends that it is the duty of the prince to fix prices,
+mainly on account of the difficulty which private contractors find in
+doing so.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _De Cont._, i. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, IV. xv. 11.]
+
+The rules which we find laid down for the guidance of the prince in
+fixing prices are very interesting, as they show that the mediæval
+writers had a clear idea of the constituent elements of value.
+Langenstein, whose famous work on contracts was considered of high
+authority by later writers, says that the prince should take account
+of the condition of the place for which the price was to be fixed, the
+circumstances of the time, the condition of the mass of the people.
+The different kinds of need which may be felt for goods must also
+be considered, _indigentice naturæ_, _status_, _voluptatis_, and
+_cupiditatis_; and a distinction drawn between extensive and intensive
+need--the former is greater 'quanto plures re aliqua indigent,' the
+latter 'quanto minus de illa re habetur.' The general rule is that the
+prince must seek to find a medium between a price so low as to render
+labourers, artisans, and merchants unable to maintain themselves
+suitably, and one so high as to disable the poor from obtaining the
+necessaries of life. When in doubt, Langenstein concludes, the price
+should err on the low rather than the high side.[1] Biel gives similar
+rules: The legislator must regard the needs of man, the abundance or
+scarcity of things, the difficulty, labour, and risks of production.
+When all these things are carefully considered the legislator is in a
+position to fix a just price.[2] According to Endemann, the labour of
+production, the cost and risk of transport, and the condition of
+the markets had all to be kept in mind when a fair price was being
+fixed.[3] We may mention in passing that the power of fixing the just
+price might be delegated; prices were frequently fixed by the town
+authorities, the guilds, and the Church.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Roscher, _Geschichte_, p. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, IV. xv. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 43.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. i. p. 40; Roscher, _Political
+Economy_, s. 114.]
+
+The passage from Gerson which we quoted above shows that, when a just
+price had been fixed by the competent authority, the parties to
+a contract were bound to keep to it. In other words, the _pretium
+legitimum_ was _ipso facto_ the _justum pretium_. On this point there
+is complete agreement among the writers of the period. Caepolla says,
+'When the price is fixed by law or statute, that is the just price,
+and nobody can receive anything, however small, in excess of it,
+because the law must be observed';[1] and Biel, 'When a price has been
+fixed, the contracting parties have sufficient certainty about the
+equality of value and the justice of the price.'[2] Cossa draws
+attention to the necessity of the fixed price corresponding with
+the real price in order that it should maintain its validity. 'The
+schoolmen talk of the legitimate and irreducible price of a thing
+which was fixed by authority, and was for obvious reasons of special
+importance in the case of the necessaries of life.... The legitimate
+price of a thing as fixed by authority had to be based upon the
+natural price, and therefore lost its validity and became a dead
+letter the moment any change of circumstances made it unfair.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _De Contractibus Simulatis_, 69.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, IV. xv. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Op. cit._, p. 143.]
+
+
+
+§ 3. _The Just Price when Price not fixed by Law_.
+
+When the just price was not fixed by any outside authority, the buyer
+and seller had to arrive at it themselves. The problem before them was
+to equalise their respective burdens, so that there would be equality
+of burden between them, or, in other words, to reduce the value of the
+article sold to terms of money. In order that we may understand how
+this equality was arrived at, it is important to know the factors
+which were held to enter into the determination of value.
+
+The first thing upon which the mediæval teachers insist is that value
+is not determined by the intrinsic excellence of the thing itself,
+because, if it were, a fly would be more valuable than a pearl, as
+being intrinsically more excellent.[1] Nor is the value to be measured
+by the mere utility of the object for satisfying the material needs
+of man, for in that case, corn should be worth more than precious
+stones.[2] The value of an object is to be measured by its capacity
+for satisfying men's wants. 'Valor rerum aestimatur secundum humanam
+indigentiam.... Dicendum est quod indigentia humana est mensura
+naturalis commutabilium; quod probatur sic: bonitas sive valor rei
+attenditur ex fine propter quem exhibetur: unde commentator secundo
+Metaphysicae _nihil est bonum nisi propter causas finales_; sed finis
+naturalis ad quem justitia commutativa ordinet exteriora commutabilia
+est supplementum indigentiae humanae...; igitur supplementum
+indigentiae humanae est vera mensura commutabilium. Sed supplementum
+videtur mensurari per indigentiam; majoris enim valoris est
+supplementum quod majorem supplet indigentiam.... Item hoc probatur
+signo, quia videmus quod illo tempore quo vina deficiunt quia magis
+indigeremus eis ipsa fiunt cariora....[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'In justitia commutativa non estimatur pretium
+commutabilium secundum naturalem valorem ipsorum, sic enim musca plus
+valeret quam totus aurum mundi' (Buridan, _op. cit._, v. 14).]
+
+[Footnote 2: Slater, 'Value in Theology and Political Economy,' _Irish
+Ecclesiastical Record_, Sept. 1901.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Buridan, _op. cit._, v. 14 and 16. Antoninus of Florence
+says that value is determined by three factors, _virtuositas_,
+_raritas_, and _placibilitas_ (_Summa_, ii. 1, 16.)]
+
+The capacity of an object for satisfying man's needs could not be
+measured by its capacity for satisfying the needs of this or that
+individual, but by its capacity for satisfying the needs of the
+average member of the community.[1] The Abbé Desbuquois, in the
+article from which we have already quoted, finds in this elevation of
+the common estimation an illustration of the general principle of the
+mediævals, which we have seen at work in their teaching on the use of
+property, that the individual benefit must always be subordinated to
+the general welfare. According to him, it is but one application of
+the duty of using one's goods for the common good. 'In the same way,
+in allowing the right of exchange--a right, let us remark in passing,
+which is but an application of the right of property--and in allowing
+it as a means of life necessary to everybody, nature does not lose
+sight of the universal destination of economic goods. One conceives
+then that the variations of exchange are not permitted to be left
+to the arbitrary judgment of a single man, nor to be affected by the
+whims and abuses of individuals; that value is defined in view of the
+general good. The exchange value, as it is in the general or social
+order, proceeds from the judgment of the social environment (_milieu
+social_).'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Indigentia istius hominis vel illius non mensurat
+valorem commutabilium; sed indigentia communis eorum qui inter se
+commutare possunt,' Buridan, _op. cit._, v. 16. 'Prout communiter
+venditur in foro,' Henri de Gand, _Quod Lib._, xiv. 14; Nider, _De
+Cont. Merc._, ii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 'La Justice dans l'Echange,' _Semaine Sociale de France_,
+1911, p. 168.]
+
+The writers of the Middle Ages show a very keen perception of the
+elements which invest an object with the value which is accorded to
+it by the general estimation. In Aquinas we find certain elements
+recognised--'diversitas loci vel temporis, labor, raritas'--but it is
+not until the authors of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that
+we find a systematic treatment of value.[1] First and foremost there
+is the cost of production of the article, especially the wages of all
+those who helped to produce it. Langenstein lays down that every one
+can determine for himself the just price of the wares he has to sell
+by reckoning what he needs to support himself in the status which he
+occupies.[2] According to the _Catholic Encyclopædia_,[3] the
+just price of an article included enough to pay fair wages to the
+worker--that is, enough to enable him to maintain the standard of
+living of his class. This, though not stated in so many words
+by Aquinas, was probably assumed by him as too obvious to need
+repetition.[4] 'The cost of production of manufactured products,' says
+Brants, 'is a legitimate constituent element of value; it is according
+to the cost that the producer can properly fix the value of his
+product and of his work.'[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 69.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _De Cont._, quoted by Roscher, _Geschichte_, p. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Tit. 'Political Economy.']
+
+[Footnote 4: Palgrave, _Dictionary_, tit. 'Justum Pretium.']
+
+[Footnote 5: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 202.]
+
+The cost of the labour of production was, however, by no means the
+only factor which was admitted to enter into the determination of
+value. The passage from Gerson dealing with the circumstances to which
+the prince must have regard in fixing a price, which we quoted above,
+shows quite clearly that many other factors were recognised as no
+less important. This appears with special clearness in the treatise
+of Langenstein, whose authority on this subject was always ranked very
+high. Bernardine of Siena is careful to point out that the expense of
+production is only one of the factors which influence the value of an
+object.[1] Biel explains that, when no price has been fixed by law,
+the just price may be arrived at by a reference to the cost of the
+labour of production, and to the state of the market, and the other
+circumstances which we have seen above the prince was bound to have
+regard to in fixing a price. He also allows the price to be raised on
+account of any anxiety which the production of the goods occasioned
+him, or any danger he incurred.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Res potest plus vel minus valere tribus modis; primo
+secundum suam virtutem; secondo modo secundum suam caritatem; tertio
+modo secundum suam placibilitatem et affectionem.... Primo observat
+quemdam naturalem ordinem utilium rerum, secundo observat quemdam
+communem cursum copiae et inopiae, tertio observat periculum et
+industriam rerum seu obsequiorum' (Funk, _Zins und Wucher_, p. 153).]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Sollicitudo et periculum,' _Op. cit._, IV. xv. 10.]
+
+It will be apparent from the whole trend of the above that, whereas
+the remuneration of the labour of all those who were engaged in the
+production of an article, was one of the elements to be taken into
+account in reckoning its value, and consequently its just price,
+it was by no means the only element. Certain so-called Christian
+socialists have endeavoured to find in the writings of the scholastics
+support for the Marxian position that all value arises from labour.[1]
+This endeavour is, however, destined to failure; we shall see in a
+later chapter that many forms of unearned income were tolerated and
+approved by the scholastics; but all that is necessary here is to draw
+the attention of the reader to the passages on value to which we have
+referred. One of the most prominent exponents of the untenable view
+that the mediævals traced all value to labour is the Abbé Hohoff,
+whose argument that there was a divorce between value and just price
+in the scholastic writings, is ably controverted by Rambaud, who
+remarks that nobody would have been more surprised than Aquinas
+himself at the suggestion that he was the forerunner of Karl Marx.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Even Ashley states that 'the doctrine had thus a close
+resemblance to that of modern Socialists; labour it regarded both as
+the sole (human) cause of wealth, and also as the only just claim to
+the possession of wealth' (_Op. cit._, vol. i. part ii. p. 393).]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, p. 50.]
+
+The idea that the scholastics traced all value to the labour expended
+on production is rejected by many of the most prominent writers on
+mediæval economic theory. Roscher draws particular attention to the
+fact that the canonist teaching assigned the correct proportions in
+production to land, capital, and labour, in contrast to all the later
+schools of economists, who have exaggerated the importance of one or
+the other of these factors.[1] Even Knies, who was the first modern
+writer to insist on the importance of the cost of production as an
+element of value, states that the Church sought to fix the price of
+goods in accordance with the cost of production (_Herstellungskosten_)
+_and_ the consumption value (_Gebrauchswerte_).[2] Brants takes the
+same view. 'The expenses of production are in practice the norm of the
+fixing of the sale price in the great majority of cases, above all
+in a very narrow market, where competition is limited; moreover, they
+can, for reasons of public order, form the basis of a fixing that
+will protect the producer and the consumer against the disastrous
+consequences of constant oscillations. The vendor can in principle
+be remunerated for his trouble. It is well that he should be so
+remunerated; it is socially useful, and is used as a basis for fixing
+price; but it cannot in any way be said that this forms the _objective
+measure of value_, but that the work and expense are a sufficient
+title of remuneration for the fixing of the just price of the sale
+of a thing. Some writers have tried to conclude from this that the
+authors of the Middle Ages saw in labour the measure of value. This
+conclusion is exaggerated. We may fully admit that this element
+enters into the sale price; but it is in no way the general measure
+of value.... The expenses of production constitute, then, _one_ of
+the legitimate elements of just price; they are not the _measure_ of
+value, but a factor often influencing its determination.'[3] 'Labour,'
+according to Dr. Cronin, 'is one of the most important of all the
+determinants of value, for labour is the chief element in cost of
+production, and cost of production is one of the chief elements in
+determining the level at which it is useful to buy or sell. But labour
+is not the only determinant of value; there is, _e.g._, the price of
+the raw materials, a price that is not wholly determined by the labour
+of producing those materials.'[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Political Economy_, s. 48.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Politische Oekonomie vom Standpuncte der geschichtlichen
+Methode_, p. 116.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Op. cit._, p. 112.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ethics_, vol. ii. p. 181.]
+
+The just price, then, in the absence of a legal fixing, was held to
+be the price that was in accordance with the _communis estimatio_.
+Of course, this did not mean that a plebiscite had to be taken before
+every sale, but that any price that was in accordance with the general
+course of dealing at the time and place of the sale was considered
+substantially fair. 'A thing is worth what it can generally be sold
+for--at the time of the contract; this means what it can be sold for
+generally either on that day or the preceding or following day. One
+must look to the price at which similar things are generally sold
+in the open market.'[1] 'We must state precisely,' says the Abbé
+Desbuquois, 'the character of this common estimation; it did not mean
+the universal suffrage; although it expresses the universal interest,
+it proceeds in practice from the evaluation of competent men, taken
+in the social environment where the exchange value operates. If one
+supposes a sovereign tribunal of arbitration where all the rights
+of all the weak and all the strong economic factors are taken into
+account, the just price appears as the sentence or decision of this
+court.'[2] 'For the scholastics, the common estimation meant an
+ethical judgment of at least the most influential members of
+the community, anticipating the markets and fixing the rate of
+exchange.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Caepolla, _De Cont. Sim._, 72.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, pp. 169-70.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Fr. Kelleher in the _Irish Theological Quarterly_, vol.
+xi. p. 133.]
+
+It is quite incorrect to say, as has been sometimes said, that the
+mediæval just price was in no way different from the competition
+price of to-day which is arrived at by the higgling of the market.
+Dr. Cunningham is very explicit and clear on this point. 'Common
+estimation is thus the exponent of the natural or normal or just price
+according to either the mediæval or modern view; but, whereas we rely
+on the higgling of the market as the means of bringing out what is the
+common estimate of any object, mediæval economists believed that it
+was possible to bring common estimation into operation beforehand,
+and by the consultation of experts to calculate out what was the just
+price. If common estimation was thus organised, either by the town
+authorities or guilds or parliament, it was possible to determine
+beforehand what the price should be and to lay down a rule to this
+effect; in modern times we can only look back on the competition
+prices and say by reflection what the common estimation has been.'[1]
+'The common estimation of which the Canonists spoke,' says Dr. Ryan,
+'was conscious social judgment that fixed price beforehand, and was
+expressed chiefly in custom, while the social estimate of to-day is
+in reality an unconscious resultant of the higgling of the market, and
+finds its expression only in market price.'[2] The phrase 'res tanti
+valet quanti vendi potest,' which is so often used to prove that
+the mediæval doctors permitted full competitive prices in the modern
+sense, must be understood to mean that a thing could be sold at any
+figure which was within the limits of the minimum and maximum just
+price.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, vol. i. p.
+353.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Living Wage_, p. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Lessius, _De Justitia et Jure_, xxi. 19.]
+
+The last sentence suggests that the just price was not a fixed and
+unalterable standard, but was somewhat wide and elastic. On this all
+writers are agreed. 'The just price of things,' says Aquinas, 'is not
+fixed with mathematical precision, but depends on a kind of estimate,
+so that a slight addition or subtraction would not seem to destroy
+the equality of justice,'[1] Caepolla repeats this dictum, with the
+reservation that, when the just price is fixed by law, it must be
+rigorously observed.[2] 'Note,' says Gerson, 'that the equality of
+commutative justice is not exact or unchangeable, but has a good deal
+of latitude, within the bounds of which a greater or less price may
+be given without justice being infringed;'[3] and Biel insists on the
+same latitude, from which he draws the conclusion that the just price
+is constantly varying from day to day and from place to place.[4]
+Generally it was said that there was a maximum, medium, and minimum
+just price; and that any price between the maximum and minimum was
+valid, although the medium was to be aimed at as far as possible.
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 77, 1, ad. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _De Cont. Sim._, 58.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Cont._, ii. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Op. cit._, IV. xv. 10.]
+
+The price fixed by common estimation was therefore the one to be
+observed in most cases, and it was at all times a safe guide to
+follow. If, however, the parties either knew or had good reason to
+believe that the common estimation had fixed the price wrongly,
+they were not bound to follow it, but should arrive at a just
+price themselves, having regard to the various considerations given
+above.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Nider, _De Cont. Merc._ ii.: 'Si vero scit vel credit
+communitatem errare in estimatione pretii rei; tunc nullo modo debet
+eam sequi; quia etiam si reciperet verum et justum pretium, tamen
+faceret contra conscientiam.']
+
+It did not make any difference whether the price was paid immediately
+or at some future date. To increase the price in return for the giving
+of credit was not allowed, as it was deemed usurious--as indeed it
+was. It was held that the seller, in not taking his money immediately,
+was simply making a loan of that amount to the buyer, and that to
+receive anything more than the sum lent would be usury. Aquinas is
+quite clear on this point. 'If a man wish to sell his goods at a
+higher price than that which is just, so that he may wait for the
+buyer to pay, it is manifestly a case of usury; because this waiting
+for the payment of the price has the character of a loan, so that
+whatever he demands beyond the just price in consideration of this
+delay, is like a price for a loan, which pertains to usury. In like
+manner, if a buyer wishes to buy goods at a lower price than what is
+just, for the reason that he pays for the goods before they can
+be delivered, it is likewise a sin of usury; because again this
+anticipated payment of money has the character of a loan, the price of
+which is the rebate on the just price of the goods sold. On the other
+hand, if a man wishes to allow a rebate on the just price in order
+that he may have his money sooner, he is not guilty of the sin of
+usury.'[1] If, however, the seller, by giving credit, suffered any
+damage, he was entitled to be recompensed; this, as we shall see, was
+an ordinary feature of usury law. It could not be said that the price
+was raised. The price remained the same; but the seller was entitled
+to something further than the price by way of damages.[2] It was
+by the application of this principle that a seller was justified in
+demanding more than the current price for an article which possessed
+some individual or sentimental value for him. 'In such a case the just
+price will depend not only on the thing sold, but on the loss which
+the sale brings on the seller.... No man should sell what is not his,
+though he may charge for the loss he suffers.'[3] On the other
+hand, it was strictly forbidden to raise the price on account of the
+individual need of the buyer.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 78, 2, ad. 7. See _Decret. Greg._, v. 19, _de
+usuris_, cc. 6 and 10.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. ii. pp. 49; Desbuquois, _op.
+cit._, p. 174.]
+
+[Footnote 3: II. ii. 77, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ibid._]
+
+
+
+§ 4. _The Just Price of Labour_.
+
+Particular rules were laid down for determining the just price of
+certain classes of goods. These need not be treated in detail, as they
+were merely applications of the general principle to particular cases,
+and whatever interest they possess is in the domain of practice rather
+than of theory. In the sale of immovable property the rule was that
+the value should be arrived at by a consideration of the annual fruits
+of the property.[1] The only one of the particular contracts which
+need detain us here is that of a contract of service for wages
+(_locatio operarum_). Wages were considered as ruled by the laws
+relating to just price. 'That is called a wage (_merces_) which is
+paid to any one as a recompense for his work and labour. Therefore,
+as it is an act of justice to give a just price for a thing taken from
+another person, so also to pay the wages of work and labour is an act
+of justice.'[2] Again, 'Remuneration of service or work ... can be
+priced at a money value, as may be seen in the case of those who offer
+for hire the labour which they exercise by work or by tongue.'[3] Biel
+insists that the value of labour is subject to the same influences as
+the value of any other commodity which is offered for sale, and that
+therefore a just price must be observed in buying it.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Caepolla, _de Cont. Sim._, 78; Carletus, _Summa
+Angelica_, lxv.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Aquinas, _Summa_, II. ii. 114, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: II. ii. 78, 2, ad. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Op. cit._, IV. xv. 10. Modern Socialists caricature the
+correct principle 'that labour is a commodity' into 'the labourer is
+a commodity'--a great difference, which is not sufficiently understood
+by many present-day writers. (See Roscher, _Political Economy_, s.
+160.)]
+
+This, according to Brants,[1] is essentially a matter upon which more
+enlightenment will be found in histories of the working classes[2]
+than in books dealing with the enunciation of abstract theories;
+nevertheless, it is possible to state generally that it was regarded
+as the duty of employers to give such a wage as would support the
+worker in accordance with the requirements of his class. In the
+great majority of cases the rate of wages was fixed by some
+public--municipal or corporative--authority, but Langenstein
+enunciates a rule which seems to approach the statement of a general
+theory. According to him, when a man has something to sell, and has
+no indication of the just price from its being fixed by any outside
+authority, he must endeavour to get such a price as will _reasonably_
+recompense him for any outlay he may have incurred, and will enable
+him to provide for his needs, spiritual and temporal.[3] It was not
+until the sixteenth century that the fixing of the just price of
+wages was submitted to scientific discussion;[4] in the fourteenth
+and fifteenth centuries there is little to be found bearing on this
+subject except the passage of Langenstein which we have quoted, and
+some strong exhortations by Antoninus of Florence to masters to pay
+good wages.[5] The reason for this paucity of authority upon a subject
+of so much importance is that in practice the machinery provided
+by the guilds had the effect of preserving a substantially just
+remuneration to the artisan. When a man is in perfect health he
+does not bother to read medical books. In the same way, the proper
+remuneration of labour was so universally recognised as a duty, and so
+satisfactorily enforced, that it seems to have been taken for granted,
+and therefore passed over, by the writers of the period. One may agree
+with Brants in concluding that, 'the principle of just price in sales
+was applied to wages; fluctuations in wages were not allowed; the just
+price, as in sales, rested on the approximate equality of the services
+rendered; and that this equality was estimated by common opinion.'[6]
+Of course, in the case of slave labour it could not be said that any
+wage was paid. The master was entitled to the services of the slave,
+and in return was bound to furnish him with the necessaries of
+life.[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 103.]
+
+[Footnote 2: An excellent bibliography of books dealing with the
+history of the working classes in the Middle Ages is to be found in
+Brants, _op. cit._, p. 105. The need for examining concrete economic
+phenomena is insisted on in Ryan's _Living Wage_, p. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Cont._ We have here a recognition of the principle
+that the value of labour is not to be measured by anything extrinsic
+to itself, _e.g._ by the value of the product, but by its own natural
+function and end, and this function and end is the supplying of the
+requirements of human life. The wage must, therefore, be capable of
+supplying the same needs that the expenditure of a labourer's energy
+is meant to supply. (See Cronin, _Ethics_, vol. ii. p. 390.)]
+
+[Footnote 4: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 118.]
+
+[Footnote 5: The passages from the _Summa_ of Antoninus bearing on the
+subject are reprinted in Brants, _op. cit._, p. 120.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Op. cit._, p. 125.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 116, quoting _Le Lime du Trésor_
+of Brunetto Latini.]
+
+
+§ 5. _Value of the Conception of the Just Price_.
+
+It is probably correct to say that the canonical teaching on just
+price was negative rather than positive; in other words, that it did
+not so much aim at positively fixing the price at which goods should
+be sold, as negatively at indicating the practices in buying and
+selling which were unjust. 'The doctrine of just price,' according to
+Dr. Ryan, 'may sometimes have been associated with incorrect views
+of industrial life, but all competent authorities agree that it was a
+fairly sound attempt to define the equities of mediæval exchanges,
+and that it was tolerably successful in practice.'[1] The condition
+of mediæval markets was frequently such that the competition was not
+really fair competition, and consequently the price arrived at
+by competition would be unfair either to buyer or seller. 'This,'
+according to Dr. Cunningham, 'was the very thing which mediæval
+regulation had been intended to prevent, as any attempt to make gain
+out of the necessities of others, or to reap profit from unlooked-for
+occurrences would have been condemned as extortion. It is by taking
+advantage of such fluctuations that money is most frequently made in
+modern times; but the whole scheme of commercial life in the
+Middle Ages was supposed to allow of a regular profit on each
+transaction.'[2] There might be some doubt as to the positive justice
+of this or that price; but there could be no doubt as to the injustice
+of a price which was enhanced by the necessities of the poor, or the
+engrossing of a vital commodity.[3] Merely to buy up the whole supply
+of a certain commodity, even if it were bought up by a 'ring' of
+merchants, provided that the commodity was resold within the limits
+of the just price, was not a sin against justice, though it might be
+a sin against charity.[4] If the authorities granted a monopoly, they
+must at the same time fix a just price.[5] A monopoly which was not
+privileged by the State, and which had for its aim the raising of
+the price of goods above the just price was regarded with universal
+reprobation.[6] 'Whoever buys up corn, meat, and wine,' says
+Trithemius, 'in order to drive up their price and to amass money at
+the cost of others is, according to the laws of the Church, no better
+than a common criminal. In a well-governed community all arbitrary
+raising of prices in the case of articles of food and clothing is
+peremptorily stopped; in times of scarcity merchants who have supplies
+of such commodities can be compelled to sell them at fair prices; for
+in every community care should be taken that all the members should be
+provided for, and not only a small number be allowed to grow rich,
+and revel in luxury to the hurt and prejudice of the many.[7] Thus the
+doctrine of the just price was a deadly weapon with which to fight the
+'profiteer.' The engrosser was looked upon as the natural enemy of the
+poor; and the power of the trading class was justly reckoned so great,
+that in cases of doubt prices were always fixed low rather than high.
+In other words, the buyer--that is to say, the community--was the
+subject of protection rather than the seller.[8]
+
+[Footnote 1: _The Living Wage_, p. 27.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, vol. i. p.
+460.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 60.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Lessius, _De Justitia et Jure_, II. xx. 1, 21.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Ibid._]
+
+[Footnote 6: Langenstein, _De Cont._; Biel, _op. cit._, iv. xv. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Quoted in Janssen, _op. cit._, vol. ii. p. 102.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Roscher, _Geschichte_, p. 12.]
+
+It must at the same time be clearly kept in mind that the seller
+was also protected. All the authorities are unanimous that it was as
+sinful for the buyer to give too little as for the seller to demand
+too much, and it is this aspect of the just price which appears most
+favourable in comparison with the theory of price of the classical
+economists. In the former case prices were fixed having regard to
+the wages necessary for the producer; in the latter the wages of the
+producer are determined by the price at which he can sell his
+goods, exposed to the competition of machinery or foreign--possibly
+slave--labour.[1] According to the _Catholic Encyclopædia_: 'To the
+mediæval theologian the just price of an article included enough
+to pay fair wages to the worker--that is, enough to enable him to
+maintain the standard of living of his class.'[2] 'The difference,'
+says Dr. Cunningham, 'which emerges according as we start from one
+principle or the other comes out most distinctly with reference to
+wages. In the Middle Ages wages were taken as a first charge; in
+modern times the reward of the labourer cannot but fluctuate in
+connection with fluctuations in the utility and market price of the
+things. There must always be a connection between wages and prices,
+but in the olden times wages were the first charge, and prices on the
+whole depended on them, while in modern times wages are, on the other
+hand, directly affected by prices.'[3] Dr. Cunningham draws attention
+to the fact that the labouring classes rejected the idea of the fixing
+of a just price for their services when, from a variety of causes,
+a situation arose when they were able to earn by open competition a
+reward higher than what was necessary to support them according
+to their state in life.[4] Nowadays the reverse has taken place;
+unrestricted competition has in many cases resulted in the reduction
+of wages to a level below the margin of subsistence; and the general
+cry of the working classes is for the compulsory fixing of minimum
+rates of wages which will ensure that their subsistence will not be
+liable to be impaired by the fluctuations of the markets. What
+the workers of the present day look to as a desirable, but almost
+unattainable, ideal, was the universal practice in the ages when
+economic relations were controlled by Christian principles.
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. i. p. 129.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Art. 'Political Economy.']
+
+[Footnote 3: _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, vol. i. p.
+461.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Christianity and Economic Science_, p. 29.]
+
+
+§ 6. _Was the Just Price Subjective or Objective_?
+
+The question whether the just price was essentially subjective or
+objective has recently formed the subject matter of an interesting
+and ably conducted discussion, provoked by certain remarks in Dr.
+Cunningham's _Western Civilisation_.[1] Dr. Cunningham, although
+admiring the ethical spirit which animated the conception of the just
+price, thought at the same time that the economic ideas underlying the
+conception were so undeveloped and unsound that the theory could not
+be applied in practice at the present day. 'Their economic analysis
+was very defective, and the theory of price which they put forward was
+untenable; but the ethical standpoint which they took is well worth
+examination, and the practical measures which they recommended appear
+to have been highly beneficial in the circumstances in which they had
+to deal. Their actions were not unwise; their common-sense morality
+was sound; but the economic theories by which they tried to give an
+intellectual justification for their rules and their practice were
+quite erroneous.... The attempt to determine an ideal price implies
+that there can and ought to be stability in relative values and
+stability in the measure of values--which is absurd. The mediæval
+doctrine and its application rested upon another assumption which we
+have outlived. Value is not a quality which inheres in an object so
+that it can have the same worth for everybody; it arises from the
+personal preference and needs of different people, some of whom desire
+a thing more and some less, some of whom want to use it in one way and
+some in another. Value is not objective--intrinsic in the object--but
+subjective, varying with the desire and intentions of the possessors
+or would-be possessors; and, because it is thus subjective, there
+cannot be a definite ideal value which every article ought to possess,
+and still more a just price as the measure of that ideal value.' In
+these and similar observations to be found in the _Growth of English
+History and Commerce_, Dr. Cunningham showed that he profoundly
+misunderstood the doctrine of the just price; the objectivity which
+he attributed to it was not the objectivity ascribed to it by the
+scholastics. It was to correct this misunderstanding that Father
+Slater contributed an article to the _Irish Theological Quarterly_[2]
+pointing out that the just price was subjective rather than objective.
+This article, which was afterwards reprinted in _Some Aspects of Moral
+Theology_, and the conclusions of which were embodied in the same
+writer's work on Moral Theology, was controverted in a series of
+articles by Father Kelleher in the _Irish Theological Quarterly_.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Pp. 77-9.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Vol. iv. p. 146.]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Market Prices,' vol. ix. p. 398 and vol. x. p. 163; and
+'Father Slater on Just Price and Value,' vol. xi. p. 159.]
+
+Father Slater draws attention to the fact that Dr. Cunningham
+overlooked to some extent the importance of common estimation in
+arriving at the just price. He points out that, far from objects being
+invested with some immutable objective value, their value was in fact
+determined by the price which the community as a whole was willing to
+pay for them: 'As the value in exchange will be determined by what the
+members of the community at the time are prepared to give, ... it will
+be determined by the social estimation of its utility for the support
+of life and its scarcity. It will depend upon its capacity to satisfy
+the wants and desires of the people with whom commercial transactions
+are possible and practicable. Father Slater then goes on categorically
+to refute Dr. Cunningham's presentation of the objectivity of price:
+'All that that doctrine asserts is that there should be, and that
+there is, an equivalent in social value between the commodity and
+its price at a certain time and in a certain place; it says nothing
+whatever about the stability or permanence of prices at different
+times and at different places. By maintaining that the just price did
+not depend upon the valuation of the individual buyer or seller the
+mediæval doctors did not dream of making it intrinsic to the object.'
+In the work on Moral Theology, to which we have referred, expressions
+occur which lead one to believe that Father Slater did not see any
+great difference between the mediæval just price arrived at by common
+estimation and the modern normal or market price arrived at by
+open competition. Thus, in endeavouring to correct Dr. Cunningham's
+misunderstanding, Father Slater seems to have gone too far in the
+other direction, and his position has been ably and, in our judgment,
+successfully, controverted by Father Kelleher.
+
+The point at issue between the upholders of the two opposing views
+on just price is well stated by Father Kelleher in the first of his
+articles on the subject: 'We must try to find out whether the just
+and fair price determined the rate of exchange, or whether the rate
+of exchange, being determined without an objective standard and merely
+according to the play of human motives, determines what we call the
+just and fair price.'[1] We have already demonstrated that the common
+estimation referred to by the mediæval doctors was something quite
+apart from the modern higgling in the market; and that, far from
+being merely the result of unbridled competition on both sides, it
+was rather the considered judgment of the best-informed members of the
+community. As we have seen, even Dr. Cunningham admits that there
+was a fundamental difference between the common estimation of
+the scholastics and the modern competitive price. This is clearly
+demonstrated by Father Kelleher, who further establishes the
+proposition that the modern price is purely subjective, and that no
+subjective price can rest on an ethical basis. The question at issue
+therefore between what we may call the subjective and objective
+schools is not whether the sale price was determined by competition
+in the modern sense, but whether the common estimation of those best
+qualified to form an opinion on the subject in itself determined the
+just price, or whether it was merely the most reliable evidence of
+what the just price in fact was at a particular moment.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Irish Theological Quarterly_, vol. ix. p. 41.]
+
+Father Kelleher draws attention to the fact that Aquinas in his
+article on price did not specifically affirm that the just price
+was objective, but he explains this omission by saying that the
+objectivity of the price was so well and universally understood that
+it was unnecessary expressly to restate it. Indeed, as we saw above,
+the teaching of Aquinas on price left a great deal to be supplied by
+later writers, not because he was in any doubt about the subject, but
+because the theory was so well understood. 'Not even in St. Thomas can
+we find a formal discussion of the moral obligation of observing an
+objective equivalence in contracts of buying and selling. He simply
+took it for granted, as, indeed, was inevitable, seeing that, up to
+his time and for long after, all Catholic thought and legislation
+proceeded on that hypothesis. But that he actually did take it for
+granted, he has given many clear indications in his article on Justice
+which leave us no room for reasonable doubt.'[1] As Father Kelleher
+very cogently points out, the discussion in Aquinas's article on
+commerce, whether it was lawful to buy cheap and sell dear, very
+clearly indicates that the author maintained the objective theory,
+because if the just price were simply determined by what people were
+willing to give, this question could not have arisen.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Irish Theological Quarterly_, vol. x. p. 165.]
+
+Nor is the fact that the just price admitted of a certain elasticity
+an argument in favour of its being subjective. Father Kelleher fully
+admits that the common estimation was the general criterion of just
+price, and, of course, the common estimation could not, of its very
+nature, be rigid and immutable. Commodities should, indeed, exchange
+according to their objective value, but, even so, commodities could
+not carry their value stamped on their faces. Even if we assume that
+the standard of exchange was the cost of production, there would still
+remain room for a certain amount of difference of opinion as to what
+exactly their value would be in particular instances. Suppose that the
+commodity offered for sale was a suit of clothes, in estimating its
+value on the basis of the cost of production, opinions might differ
+as to the precise amount of time required for making it, or as to the
+cost of the cloth out of which it was made. Unless recourse was to be
+had to an almost interminable process of calculations, nobody could
+say authoritatively what precisely the value was, and in practice the
+determination of value had perforce to be left to the ordinary human
+estimate of what it was, which of its very nature was bound to admit a
+certain margin of fluctuation. Thus we can easily understand how, even
+with an objective standard of value, the just price might be admitted
+to vary within the limits of the maximum as it might be expected to
+be estimated by sellers and the minimum as it would appear just to
+buyers. The sort of estimation of which St. Thomas speaks is therefore
+nothing else than a judgment, which, being human, is liable to be
+slightly in excess or defect of the objective value about which it is
+formed.'[1] As Father Kelleher puts it on a later page, 'There is a
+sense certainly in which, with a solitary exception in the case of
+wages, it may be said with perfect truth that the common estimation
+determines the just price. That is, the common estimation is the
+proximate practical criterion.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Irish Theological Quarterly_, vol. x. p. 166.]
+
+[Footnote 2: P. 173.]
+
+Father Kelleher uses in support of his contention a very ingenious
+argument drawn from the doctrine of usury. As we said in the first
+chapter, and as we shall prove in detail in the next section, the
+prohibition of usury was simply one of the applications of the theory
+of equivalence in contracts--in other words, it was the determination
+of the just price to be paid in an exchange of money for money. If,
+asks Father Kelleher, the common estimation was the final test of just
+price, why was not moderate usury allowed? That the general opinion of
+the community in the Middle Ages was undoubtedly in favour of allowing
+a reasonable percentage on loans is shown by the constant striving of
+the Church to prevent such a practice. Nevertheless the Church did
+not for a moment relax its teaching on usury in spite of the almost
+universal judgment of the people. Here, therefore, is a clear example
+of one contract in which the standard of value is clearly objective,
+and it is only reasonable to draw the conclusion that the same
+standard which applied in contracts of the exchange of money should
+apply in contracts of the sale of other articles.
+
+Father Kelleher's contention seems to be completely supported by the
+passage from Nider which we have cited above, to the effect that the
+common estimation ceases to be the final test of the just price when
+the contracting parties know or believe that the common estimation has
+erred.[1] This seems to us clearly to show that the common estimation
+was but the most generally received test of what the just price
+in fact was, but that it was in no sense a final or irrefutable
+criterion.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _De Cont. Merc._, ii. xv. Nider was regarded as a very
+weighty authority on the subject of contracts (Endemann, _Studien_,
+vol. ii. p. 8).]
+
+[Footnote 2: The argument in favour of what we have called the
+'objective' theory of the just price is strengthened by the
+consideration that goods do not satisfy mere subjective whims, but
+supply real wants. For example, food supplies a real need of the human
+being, as also does clothing; in the one case hunger is appeased,
+and in the other cold is warded off, just as drugs used in medical
+practice produce real objective effects on the person taking them.]
+
+The theory that the just price was objective seems to be accepted by
+the majority of the best modern students of the subject. Sir William
+Ashley says: 'The fundamental difference between the mediæval and
+modern point of view is... that with us value is something entirely
+subjective; it is what each individual cares to give for a thing. With
+Aquinas it was entirely objective; something outside the will of
+the individual purchaser or seller; something attached to the thing
+itself, existing whether he liked it or not, and that he ought to
+recognise.'[1] Palgrave's _Dictionary of Political Economy_, following
+the authority of Knies, expresses the same opinion: 'Perhaps the
+contrast between mediæval and modern ideas of value is best expressed
+by saying that with us value is usually something subjective,
+consisting of the mental determination of buyer and seller, while to
+the schoolmen it was in a sense objective, something intrinsically
+bound up with the commodity itself.'[2] Dr. Ryan agrees with this
+view: 'The theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
+assumed that the objective price would be fair, since it was
+determined by the social estimate. In their opinion the social
+estimate would embody the requirements of objective justice as fully
+as any device or institution that was practically available. For the
+condition of the Middle Ages and the centuries immediately following,
+this reasoning was undoubtedly correct. The agencies which created
+the social estimate and determined prices--namely the civil law, the
+guilds, and custom--succeeded fairly in establishing a price that was
+equitable to all concerned.'[3] Dr. Cleary says: 'True, the _pretium
+legale_ is regarded as being a just price, but in order that it may
+be just, it supposes some objective basis--in other words, it rather
+declares than constitutes the just price.'[4] Haney is also strongly
+of opinion that the just price was objective. 'Briefly stated, the
+doctrine was that every commodity had some one true value which was
+objective and absolute.'[5] The greater number of modern students
+therefore who have given most care and attention to the question are
+inclined to the opinion that the just price was not subjective, but
+objective, and we see no valid reason for disagreeing with this view,
+which seems to be fully warranted by the original authorities.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, vol. i. pt. i. p. 140.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Art. 'Justum Pretium.']
+
+[Footnote 3: 'The Moral Aspect of Monopoly,' by J.A. Ryan, D.D.,
+_Irish Theological Quarterly_, in. p. 275; and see _Distributive
+Justice_, pp. 332-4.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Op. cit._, p. 193.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _History of Economic Thought_, p. 75.]
+
+
+§7. _The Mediæval Attitude towards Commerce_.
+
+Before passing from the question of price, we must discuss the
+legitimacy of the various occupations which were concerned with buying
+and selling. The principal matter which arises for consideration
+in this regard is the attitude of the mediæval theologians towards
+commerce. Aquinas discusses the legitimacy of commerce in the same
+question in which he discusses just price, and indeed the two subjects
+are closely allied, because the importance of the observance of
+justice in buying and selling grew urgent as commerce extended and
+advanced.
+
+In order to understand the disapprobation with which commerce was on
+the whole regarded in the Middle Ages, it is necessary to appreciate
+the importance of the Christian teaching on the dignity of labour. The
+principle that, far from being a degrading or humiliating occupation,
+as it had been regarded in Greece and Rome, manual labour was, on
+the contrary, one of the most noble ways of serving God, effected
+a revolution in the economic sphere analogous to that which the
+Christian sanctification of marriage effected in the domestic sphere.
+The Christian teaching on labour was grounded on the Divine precepts
+contained in both the Old and New Testaments,[1] and upon the example
+of Christ, who was Himself a working man. The Gospel was preached
+amongst the poor, and St. Paul continued his humble labours during
+his apostolate.[2] A life of idleness was considered something to be
+avoided, instead of something to be desired, as it had been in the
+ancient civilisations. Gerson says it is against the nature of man to
+wish to live without labour as usurers do,[3] and Langenstein
+inveighs against usurers and all who live without work.[4] 'We read
+in Sebastian Brant that the idlers are the most foolish amongst fools,
+they are to every people like smoke to the eyes or vinegar to
+the teeth. Only by labour is God truly praised and honoured; and
+Trithemius says "Man is born to labour as the bird to fly, and hence
+it is contrary to the nature of man when he thinks to live without
+work."'[5] The example of the monasteries, where the performance
+of all sorts of manual labour was not thought inconsistent with the
+administration of the sacred offices and the pursuit of the highest
+intellectual exercises, acted as a powerful assertion to the laity
+of the dignity of labour in the scheme of things.[6] The value of the
+monastic example in this respect cannot be too highly estimated. 'When
+we consider the results of the founding of monasteries,' says Dr.
+Cunningham, 'we find influences at work that were plainly economic.
+These communities can be best understood when we think of them as
+Christian industrial colonies, and remember that they moulded society
+rather by example than by precept. We are so familiar with the attacks
+and satires on monastic life that were current at the Reformation
+period, that it may seem almost a paradox to say that the chief
+claim of the monks to our gratitude lies in this, that they helped to
+diffuse a better appreciation of the duty and dignity of labour.'[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: Gen. iii. 19; Ps. cxxvii. 2; 2 Thess. iii. 10. The
+last-mentioned text is explained, in opposition to certain Socialist
+interpretations which have been put on it, by Dr. Hogan in the _Irish
+Ecclesiastical Record_, vol. xxv. p. 45.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Wallon, _op. cit._, vol. iii. p. 401.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Cont._, i. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _De Cont._]
+
+[Footnote 5: Janssen, _op. cit._, vol. ii. pp. 93-4.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Levasseur, _Histoire des Classes ouvrières en France_,
+vol. i. pp. 182 _et seq_.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _Western Civilisation_, vol. ii. p. 35.]
+
+The result of this teaching and example was that, in the Middle Ages,
+labour had been raised to a position of unquestioned dignity. The
+economic benefit of this attitude towards labour must be obvious. It
+made the working classes take a direct pride and interest in their
+work, which was represented to be a means of sanctification. 'Labour,'
+according to Dr. Cunningham, 'was said to be pregnant with a double
+advantage--the privilege of sharing with God in His work of carrying
+out His purpose, and the opportunity of self-discipline and the
+helping of one's fellow-men.'[1] 'Industrial work,' says Levasseur,
+'in the times of antiquity had always had, in spite of the
+institutions of certain Emperors, a degrading character, because it
+had its roots in slavery; after the invasion, the grossness of the
+barbarians and the levelling of towns did not help to rehabilitate it.
+It was the Church which, in proclaiming that Christ was the son of
+a carpenter, and the Apostles were simple workmen, made known to the
+world that work is honourable as well as necessary. The monks proved
+this by their example, and thus helped to give to the working classes
+a certain consideration which ancient society had denied them. Manual
+labour became a source of sanctification.'[2] The high esteem in which
+labour was held appears from the whole artistic output of the Middle
+Ages. 'Many of the simple artists of the time represented the saints
+holding some instrument of work or engaged in some industrial pursuit;
+as, for instance, the Blessed Virgin spinning as she sat by the cradle
+of the divine Infant, and St. Joseph using a saw or carpenter's tools.
+"Since the Saints," says the _Christian Monitor_, "have laboured, so
+shall the Christian learn that by honourable labour he can glorify
+God, do good, and save his own soul."'[3] Work was, alongside of
+prayer and inseparable from it, the perfection of Christian life.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Christianity and Economic Science_, pp. 26-7.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, vol. i. p. 187.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Janssen, _op. cit._, vol. ii. p. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Wallon, _op. cit._, vol. i. p. 410.]
+
+It must not be supposed, however, that manual labour alone was thought
+worthy of praise. On the contrary, the necessity for mental and
+spiritual workers was fully appreciated, and all kinds of labour
+were thought equally worthy of honour. 'Heavy labourer's work is the
+inevitable yoke of punishment, which, according to God's righteous
+verdict, has been laid upon all the sons of Adam. But many of Adam's
+descendants seek in all sorts of cunning ways to escape from the yoke
+and to live in idleness without labour, and at the same time to have
+a superfluity of useful and necessary things; some by robbery and
+plunder, some by usurious dealings, others by lying, deceit, and all
+the countless, forms of dishonest and fraudulent gain, by which men
+are for ever seeking to get riches and abundance without toil. But
+while such men are striving to throw off the yoke righteously imposed
+on them by God, they are heaping on their shoulders a heavy burden
+of sin. Not so, however, do the reasonable sons of Adam proceed; but,
+recognising in sorrow that for the sins of their first father God has
+righteously ordained that only through the toil of labour shall they
+obtain what is necessary to life, they take the yoke patiently on
+them.... Some of them, like the peasants, the handicraftsmen, and the
+tradespeople, procure for themselves and others, in the sweat of their
+brows and by physical work, the necessary sustenance of life. Others,
+who labour in more honourable ways, earn the right to be maintained by
+the sweat of others' brows--for instance, those who stand at the head
+of the commonwealth; for by their laborious exertion the former are
+enabled to enjoy the peace, the security, without which they could not
+exist. The same holds good of those who have the charge of spiritual
+matters....'[1] 'Because,' says Aquinas, 'many things are necessary to
+human life, with which one man cannot provide himself, it is necessary
+that different things should be done by different people; therefore
+some are tillers of the soil, some are raisers of cattle, some are
+builders, and so on; and, because human life does not simply mean
+corporal things, but still more spiritual things, therefore it
+is necessary that some people should be released from the care of
+attending to temporal matters. This distribution of different offices
+amongst different people is in accordance with Divine providence.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Langenstein, quoted in Janssen, _op. cit._, p. 95.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Summa Cont. Gent_., iii. 134.]
+
+All forms of labour being therefore admitted to be honourable and
+necessary, there was no difficulty felt about justifying their reward.
+It was always common ground that services of all kinds were entitled
+to be properly remunerated, and questions of difficulty only arose
+when a claim was made for payment in a transaction where the element
+of service was not apparent.[1] The different occupations in which men
+were engaged were therefore ranked in a well-recognised hierarchy
+of dignity according to the estimate to which they were held to
+be entitled. The Aristotelean division of industry into _artes
+possessivae_ and _artes pecuniativae_ was generally followed, the
+former being ranked higher than the latter. 'The industries called
+_possessivae_, which are immediately useful to the individual, to the
+family, and to society, producing natural wealth, are also the most
+natural as well as the most estimable. But all the others should not
+be despised. The natural arts are the true economic arts, but the arts
+which produce artificial riches are also estimable in so far as they
+serve the true national economy; the commutation of the exchanges and
+the _cambium_ being necessary to the general good, are good in so far
+as they are subordinate to the end of true economy. One may say the
+same thing about commerce. In order, then, to estimate the value of an
+industrial art, one must examine its relation to the general good.'[2]
+Even the _artes possessivae_ were not all considered equally worthy of
+praise, but were ranked in a curious order of professional hierarchy.
+Agriculture was considered the highest, next manufacture, and lastly
+commerce. Roscher says that, whereas all the scholastics were agreed
+on the excellence of agriculture as an occupation, the best they could
+say of manufacture was _Deo non displicet_, whereas of commerce they
+said _Deo placere non potest_; and draws attention to the interesting
+consequence of this, namely, that the various classes of goods that
+took part in the different occupations were also ranked in a certain
+order of sacredness. Immovables were thought more worthy of protection
+against execution and distress than movables, and movables than
+money.[3] Aquinas advises the rulers of States to encourage the _artes
+possessivae_, especially agriculture.[4] The fullest analysis of the
+order in which the different _artes possessivae_ should be ranked is
+to be found in Buridan's _Commentaries on Aristotle's Politics_. He
+places first agriculture, which comprises cattle-breeding, tillage,
+and hunting; secondly, manufacture, which helps to supply man's
+corporal needs, such as building and architecture; thirdly,
+administrative occupations; and lastly, commerce. The Christian
+Exhortation, quoted by Janssen,[5] says, 'The farmer must in all
+things be protected and encouraged, for all depend on his labour,
+from the monarch to the humblest of mankind, and his handiwork is in
+particular honourable and well pleasing to God.'
+
+[Footnote 1: Aquinas, _Summa_, II. ii. 77, 4; Nider, _op. cit._, II.
+x.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 82.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Geschichte_, p. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _De Regimine Principum_, vol. ii. chaps, v. and vi.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Op. cit._, vol. i. p. 297.]
+
+The division of occupations according to their dignity adopted by
+Nicholas Oresme is somewhat unusual. He divides professions into (1)
+honourable, or those which increase the actual quantity of goods in
+the community or help its development, such as ecclesiastical offices,
+the law, the soldiery, the peasantry, artisans, and merchants, and
+(2) degrading--such as _campsores, mercatores monetae sen
+billonatores.'_[1]
+
+No occupation, therefore, which involved labour, whether manual
+or mental, gave any ground for difficulty with regard to its
+remuneration. The business of the trader or merchant, on the other
+hand, was one which called for some explanation. It is important
+to understand what commerce was taken to mean. The definition which
+Aquinas gives was accepted by all later writers: 'A tradesman is one
+whose business consists in the exchange of things. According to the
+philosopher, exchange of things is twofold; one natural, as it were,
+and necessary, whereby one commodity is exchanged for another, or
+money taken in exchange for a commodity in order to satisfy the needs
+of life. Such trading, properly speaking, does not belong to traders,
+but rather to housekeepers or civil servants, who have to provide the
+household or the State with the necessaries of life. The other kind
+of exchange is either that of money for money, or of any commodity for
+money, not on account of the necessities of life, but for profit; and
+this kind of trade, properly speaking, regards traders.' It is to
+be remarked in this definition, that it is essential, to constitute
+trade, that the exchange or sale should be for the sake of profit,
+and this point is further emphasised in a later passage of the same
+article: 'Not every one that sells at a higher price than he bought
+is a trader, but only he who buys that he may sell at a profit. If,
+on the contrary, he buys, not for sale, but for possession, and
+afterwards for some reason wishes to sell, it is not a trade
+transaction, even if he sell at a profit. For he may lawfully do this,
+either because he has bettered the thing, or because the value of the
+thing has changed with the change of place or time, or on account
+of the danger he incurs in transferring the thing from one place to
+another, or again in having it carried by hand. In this sense neither
+buying nor selling is unjust.'[2] The importance of this definition
+is that it rules out of the discussion all cases where the goods have
+been in any way improved or rendered more valuable by the services
+of the seller. Such improvement was always reckoned as the result of
+labour of one kind or another, and therefore entitled to remuneration.
+The essence of trade in the scholastic sense was selling the thing
+unchanged at a higher price than that at which it had been bought, for
+the sake of gain.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Tractatus de Origine, etc., Monetarum_.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Tractatus de Origine, etc., Monetarum_, ad. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 3: 'Fit autem mercatio cum non ut emptor ea utatur sed ut
+earn carius vendat etiam non mutatam suo artificio; illa mercatio
+dicitur proprie negotiatio' (Biel, _op. cit._, IV. xv. 10.)]
+
+The legitimacy of trade in this sense was only gradually admitted. The
+Fathers of the Church had with one voice condemned trade as being an
+occupation fraught with danger to the soul. Tertullian argued that
+there would be no need of trade if there were no desire for gain, and
+that there would be no desire for gain if man were not avaricious.
+Therefore avarice was the necessary basis of all trade.[1] St. Jerome
+thought that one man's gain in trading must always be another's loss;
+and that, in any event, trade was a dangerous occupation since it
+offered so many temptations to fraud to the merchant.[2] St. Augustine
+proclaimed all trade evil because it turns men's minds away from
+seeking true rest, which is only to be found in God, and this opinion
+was embodied in the _Corpus Juris Canonici_.[3] This early view that
+all trade was to be indiscriminately condemned could not in the nature
+of things survive experience, and a great step forward was taken
+when Leo the Great pronounced that trade was neither good nor bad in
+itself, but was rendered good or bad according as it was honestly or
+dishonestly carried on.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: _De Idol_., xi.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. i. p. 129.]
+
+[Footnote 3: See _Corpus Juris Canonici_, Deer. I.D. 88 c. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Epist. ad Rusticum_, c. ix.]
+
+The scholastics, in addition to condemning commerce on the authority
+of the patristic texts, condemned it also on the Aristotelean ground
+that it was a chrematistic art, and this consideration, as we have
+seen above, enters into Aquinas's article on the subject.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Rambaud, _op. cit._, p. 52.]
+
+The extension of commercial life which took place about the beginning
+of the thirteenth century, raised acute controversies about the
+legitimacy of commerce. Probably nothing did more to broaden the
+teaching on this subject than the necessity of justifying trade which
+became more and more insistent after the Crusades.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: On the economic influence of the Crusades the following
+works may be consulted: Blanqui, _Histoire de l'Economie politique_;
+Heeren, _Essai sur l'Influence politique et sociale des Croisades_;
+Scherer, _Histoire du Commerce_; Prutz, _Culturgeschichte der
+Kreuzzüge_; Pigonneau, _Histoire du Commerce de la France_; List, _Die
+Lehren der Handelspolitischen Geschichte_.]
+
+By the time of Aquinas the necessity of commerce had come to be fully
+realised, as appears from the passage in the _De Regimine Principum_:
+'There are two ways in which it is possible to increase the affluence
+of any State. One, which is the more worthy way, is on account of the
+fertility of the country producing an abundance of all things which
+are necessary for human life, the other is through the employment
+of commerce, through which the necessaries of life are brought from
+different places. The former method can be clearly shown to be the
+more desirable.... It is more admirable that a State should possess an
+abundance of riches from its own soil than through commerce. For the
+State which needs a number of merchants to maintain its subsistence
+is liable to be injured in war through a shortage of food if
+communications are in any way impeded. Moreover, the influx of
+strangers corrupts the morals of many of the citizens... whereas,
+if the citizens themselves devote themselves to commerce, a door is
+opened to many vices. For when the desire of merchants is inclined
+greatly to gain, cupidity is aroused in the hearts of many
+citizens.... For the pursuit of a merchant is as contrary as possible
+to military exertion. For merchants abstain from labours, and while
+they enjoy the good things of life, they become soft in mind and their
+bodies are rendered weak and unsuitable for military exercises....
+It therefore behoves the perfect State to make a moderate use of
+commerce.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: ii. 3.]
+
+Aquinas, who, as we have seen, recognised the necessity of commerce,
+did not condemn all trade indiscriminately, as the Fathers had done,
+but made the motive with which commerce was carried on the test of its
+legitimacy: 'Trade is justly deserving of blame, because, considered
+in itself, it satisfies the greed for gain, which knows no limit, and
+tends to infinity. Hence trading, considered in itself, has a certain
+debasement attaching thereto, in so far as, by its very nature, it
+does not imply a virtuous or necessary end. Nevertheless gain, which
+is the end of trading, though not implying, by its nature, anything
+virtuous or necessary, does not, in itself, connote anything sinful
+or contrary to virtue; wherefore nothing prevents gain from being
+directed to some necessary or even virtuous end, and thus trading
+becomes lawful. Thus, for instance, a man may intend the moderate gain
+which he seeks to acquire by trading for the upkeep of his household,
+or for the assistance of the needy; or again, a man may take to trade
+for some public advantage--for instance, lest his country lack the
+necessaries of life--and seek gain, not as an end, but as payment for
+his labour.'[1] This is important in connection with what we have said
+above as to property, as it shows that the trader was quite justified
+in seeking to obtain more profits, provided that they accrued for the
+benefit of the community. This justification of trade according to the
+end for which it was carried on, was not laid down for the first time
+by Aquinas, but may be found stated in an English treatise of the
+tenth century entitled _The Colloquy of Archbishop Alfric_, where,
+when a doctor asks a merchant if he wishes to sell his goods for the
+same price for which he has bought them, the merchant replies: 'I do
+not wish to do so, because if I do so, how would I be recompensed for
+my trouble? but I wish to sell them for more than I paid for them so
+that I might secure some gain wherewith to support myself, my wife,
+and family.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 77, 4.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Loria, _Analysi de la proprietà, capitalista_, ii. 168.]
+
+In spite of the fact that the earlier theory that no commercial gain
+which did not represent payment for labour could be justified
+was still maintained by some writers--for instance, Raymond de
+Pennafort[1]--the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas was generally
+accepted throughout the later Middle Ages. Canonists and theologians
+accepted without hesitation the justification of trade formulated by
+Aquinas.[2] Henri de Gand,[3] Duns Scotus,[4] and François de Mayronis
+[5] unhesitatingly accepted the view of Aquinas, and incorporated it
+in their works.[6] 'An honourable merchant,' says Trithemius, 'who
+does not only think of large profits, and who is guided in all his
+dealings by the laws of God and man, and who gladly gives to the needy
+of his wealth and earnings, deserves the same esteem as any other
+worker. But it is no easy matter to be always honourable in all
+mercantile dealings and not to become usurious. Without commerce
+no community can of course exist, but immoderate commerce is rather
+hurtful than beneficial, because it fosters greed of gain and gold,
+and enervates and emasculates the nation through love of pleasure
+and luxury.'[7] Nider says that to buy not for use but for sale at a
+higher price is called trade. Two special rules apply to this: first,
+that it should be useful to the State, and second, that the price
+should correspond to the diligence, prudence, and risk undertaken in
+the transaction.[8]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Summa Theologica_, II. vii. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, p. 55.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Quodlib_., i. 40.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Lib. Quat. Sent._, xv. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 5: iv. 16, 4.]
+
+[Footnote 6: See Jourdain, _op. cit._, p. 20 _et seq_.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Quoted in Janssen, _op. cit._, vol. ii. p. 97.]
+
+[Footnote 8: _Op. cit._, iv. 10.]
+
+The later writers hi the fifteenth century seem to have regarded trade
+more liberally even than Aquinas, although they quote his dictum on
+the subject as the basis of their teaching. Instead of condemning all
+commerce as wrong unless it was justified by good motives, they were
+rather inclined to treat commerce as being in itself colourless, but
+capable of becoming evil by bad motives. Carletus says: 'Commerce in
+itself is neither bad nor illegal, but it may become bad on account
+of the circumstances and the motive with which it is undertaken, the
+persons who undertake it, or the manner in which it is conducted. For
+instance, commerce undertaken through avarice or a desire for sloth is
+bad; so also is commerce which is injurious to the republic, such as
+engrossing.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Summa Angelica_, 169: 'Mercatio non est mala ex genere,
+sed bona, humano convictui necessaria dum fuerit justa. Mercatio
+simpliciter non est peccatum sed ejus abusus.' Biel, _op. cit._, iv.
+xv. 10.]
+
+Endemann, having thoroughly studied all the fifteenth-century writers
+on the subject, says that commerce might be rendered unjustifiable
+either by subjective or objective reasons. Subjective illegality would
+arise from the person trading--for instance, the clergy--or the motive
+with which trade was undertaken; objective illegality on account of
+the object traded in, such as weapons in war-time, or the bodies
+of free men.[1] Speculative trading, and what we to-day call
+profiteering, were forbidden in all circumstances.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 18.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _The Ayenbite of Inwit_, a thirteenth-century confessor's
+manual, lays it down that speculation is a kind of usury. (Rambaud,
+_Histoire_, p. 56.)]
+
+We need not dwell upon the prohibition of trading by the clergy,
+because it was simply a rule of discipline which has not any bearing
+upon general economic teaching, except in so far as it shows that
+commerce was considered an occupation dangerous to virtue. Aquinas
+puts it as follows: 'Clerics should abstain not only from things that
+are evil in themselves, but even from those that have an appearance of
+evil. This happens in trading, both because it is directed to worldly
+gain, which clerics should despise, and because trading is open to so
+many vices, since "a merchant is hardly free from sins of the lips."
+[1] There is also another reason, because trading engages the mind too
+much with worldly cares, and consequently withdraws it from spiritual
+cares; wherefore the Apostle says:[2] "No man being a soldier to God
+entangleth himself with secular business." Nevertheless it is lawful
+for clerics to engage in the first-mentioned kind of exchange, which
+is directed to supply the necessaries of life, either by buying or by
+selling.'[3] The rule of St. Benedict contains a strong admonition to
+those who may be entrusted with the sale of any of the products of the
+monastery, to avoid all fraud and avarice.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Eccles. xxvi. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 2 Tim. ii. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Summa_, II. ii. 77, 4, ad. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Beg. St. Ben._, 57.]
+
+On the whole, the attitude towards commerce seems to have grown more
+liberal in the course of the Middle Ages. At first all commerce was
+condemned as sinful; at a later period it was said to be justifiable
+provided it was influenced by good motives; while at a still later
+date the method of treatment was rather to regard it as a colourless
+act in itself which might be rendered harmful by the presence of bad
+motives. This gradual broadening of the justification of commerce is
+probably a reflection of the necessities of the age, which witnessed a
+very great expansion of commerce, especially of foreign trade. In the
+earlier centuries remuneration for undertaking risk was prohibited on
+the authority of a passage in the Gregorian Decretals, but the later
+writers refused to disallow it.[1] The following passage from Dr.
+Cunningham's _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_ correctly
+represents the attitude of the Church towards commerce at the end
+of the Middle Ages: 'The ecclesiastic who regarded the merchant as
+exposed to temptations in all his dealings would not condemn him as
+sinful unless it were clear that a transaction were entered on
+solely for greed, and hence it was the tendency for moralists to draw
+additional distinctions, and refuse to pronounce against business
+practices where common sense did not give the benefit of the
+doubt.'[2] We have seen that one motive which would justify the
+carrying on of trade was the desire to support one's self and one's
+family. Of course this motive was capable of bearing a very extended
+and elastic interpretation, and would justify increased commercial
+profits according as the standard of life improved. The other motive
+given by the theologians, namely, the benefit of the State, was also
+one which was capable of a very wide construction. One must remember
+that even the manual labourer was bound not to labour solely for
+avaricious gain, but also for the benefit of his fellow-men. 'It is
+not only to chastise our bodies,' says Basil, 'it is also by the love
+of our neighbour that the labourer's life is useful so that God may
+furnish through us our weaker brethren';[3] and a fifteenth-century
+book on morality says: 'Man should labour for the honour of God.
+He should labour in order to gain for himself and his family the
+necessaries of life and what will contribute to Christian joy, and
+moreover to assist the poor and the sick by his labours. He who acting
+otherwise seeks only the pecuniary recompense of his work does ill,
+and his labours are but usury. In the words of St. Augustine, "thou
+shalt not commit usury with the work of thy hands, for thus wilt thou
+lose thy soul,"'[4] The necessity for altruism and regard for the
+needs of one's neighbour as well as of one's self were therefore
+motives necessary to justify labour as well as commerce; and it would
+be wrong to conclude that the teaching of the scholastics on the
+necessity for a good motive to justify trade operated to damp
+individual enterprise, or to discourage those who were inclined to
+launch commercial undertakings, any more than the insistence on the
+need for a similar motive in labourers was productive of idleness.
+What the mediæval teaching on commerce really amounted to was that,
+while commerce was as legitimate as any other occupation, owing to the
+numerous temptations to avarice and dishonesty which it involved, it
+must be carefully scrutinised and kept within due bounds. It was more
+difficult to insure the observance of the just price in the case of
+a sale by a merchant than in one by an artificer; and the power which
+the merchant possessed of raising the price of the necessaries of life
+on the poor by engrossing and speculation rendered him a person whose
+operations should be carefully controlled.
+
+[Footnote 1: Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_,
+vol. i. p. 255.]
+
+[Footnote 2: P. 255.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Reg. Fus. Tract._, XXXVII. i.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Quoted in Janssen, _op. cit._, vol. ii. p. 9.]
+
+Finally, it must be clearly understood that the attempt of some modern
+writers to base the mediæval justification of commerce on an analysis
+of all commercial gains as the payment for labour rests on a profound
+misunderstanding. As we have already pointed out, Aquinas distinctly
+rules out of consideration in his treatment of commerce the case
+where the goods have been improved in value by the exertions of the
+merchant. When the element of labour entered into the transaction the
+matter was clearly beyond doubt, and the lengthy discussion devoted
+to the question of commerce by Aquinas and his followers shows that in
+justifying commercial gains they were justifying a gain resting not on
+the remuneration for the labour, but on an independent title.
+
+
+§ 8. _Cambium_.
+
+There was one department of commerce, namely, _cambium_, or
+money-changing, which, while it did not give any difficulty in theory,
+involved certain difficulties in practice, owing to the fact that
+it was liable to be used to disguise usurious transactions. Although
+_cambium_ was, strictly speaking, a special branch of commerce, it was
+nevertheless usually treated in the works on usury, the reason being
+that many apparent contracts of _cambium_ were in fact veiled loans,
+and that it was therefore a matter of importance in discussing usury
+to explain the tests by which genuine and usurious exchanges could be
+distinguished. Endemann treats this subject very fully and ably;[1]
+but for the purpose of the present essay it is not necessary to do
+more than to state the main conclusions at which he arrives.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Studien_, vol. i. p. 75.]
+
+Although the practice of exchange grew up slowly and gradually during
+the later Middle Ages, and, consequently, the amount of space devoted
+to the discussion of the theory of exchange became larger as time went
+on, nevertheless there is no serious difference of opinion between
+the writers of the thirteenth century, who treat the subject in
+a fragmentary way, and those of the fifteenth, who deal with it
+exhaustively and systematically. Aquinas does not mention _cambium_
+in the _Summa_, but he recognises the necessity for some system of
+exchange in the _De Eegimine Principum_.[1] All the later writers who
+mention _cambium_ are agreed in regarding it as a species of commerce
+to which the ordinary rules regulating all commerce apply. Francis
+de Mayronis says that the art of _cambium_ is as natural as any
+other kind of commerce, because of the diversity of the currencies
+in different kingdoms, and approves of the campsor receiving some
+remuneration for his labour and trouble.[2] Nicholas de Ausmo, in
+his commentary on the _Summa Pisana_, written in the beginning of the
+fifteenth century, says that the campsor may receive a gain from
+his transactions, provided that they are not conducted with the sole
+object of making a profit, and that the gain he may receive must
+be limited by the common estimation of the place and time. This is
+practically saying that _cambium_ may be carried on under the same
+conditions as any other species of commerce. Biel says that _cambium_
+is only legitimate if the campsor has the motive of keeping up a
+family or benefiting the State, and that the contract may become
+usurious if the gain is not fair and moderate.[3] The right of the
+campsor to some remuneration for risk was only gradually admitted,
+and forms the subject of much discussion amongst the jurists.[4]
+This hesitation in allowing remuneration for risk was not peculiar
+to _cambium_, but, as we have seen above, was common to all commerce.
+Endemann points out how the theologians and jurists unanimously
+insisted that _cambium_ could not be justified except when the just
+price was observed, and that, when the doctrine attained its full
+development, the element of labour was but one of the constituents in
+the estimation of that price.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Cum enim extraneae monetae communicantur in
+permutationibus oportet recurrere ad artem campsoriam, cum talia
+numismata non tantum valeant in regionibus extraneis quantum in
+propriis (_De Reg. Prin._, ii. 13).]
+
+[Footnote 2: In _Quot. Lib. Sent._, iv. 16, 4.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Op. oil_., IV. xv. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. i. pp. 123-36.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Ibid._, p. 213.]
+
+All the writers who treated of exchange divided it into three kinds;
+ordinary exchange of the moneys of different currencies (_cambium
+minutum_), exchange of moneys of different currencies between
+different places, the justification for which rested on remuneration
+for an imaginary transport (_cambium per litteras_), and usurious
+exchange of moneys of the same currency (_cambium siccum_). The
+former two species of cambium were justifiable, whereas the last was
+condemned.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Laurentius de Rodulfis, _De Usuris_, pt. iii. Nos. 1 to
+5.]
+
+The most complete treatise on the subject of money exchange is that
+of Thomas da Vio, written in 1499. The author of this treatise divides
+money-changing into three kinds, just, unjust, and doubtful. There
+were three kinds of just change; _cambium minutum_, in which the
+campsor was entitled to a reasonable remuneration for his labour;
+_cambium per litteras_, in which the campsor was held entitled to a
+wage (_merces_) for an imaginary transportation; and thirdly, when
+the campsor carried money from one place to another, where it was of
+higher value. The unjust change was when the contract was a usurious
+transaction veiled in the guise of a genuine exchange. Under the
+doubtful changes, the author discusses various special points which
+need not detain us here.
+
+Thomas da Vio then goes on to discuss whether the justifiable exchange
+can be said to be a species of loan, and concludes that it can not,
+because all that the campsor receives is an indemnity against loss
+and a remuneration for his labour, trouble, outlay, and risk, which
+is always justifiable. He then goes on to state the very important
+principle, that in _cambium_ money is not to be considered a measure
+of value, but a vendible commodity,[1] a distinction which Endemann
+thinks was productive of very important results in the later teaching
+on the subject.[2] The last question treated in the treatise is the
+measure of the campsor's profit, and here the contract of exchange
+is shown to be on all fours with every other contract, because the
+essential principle laid down for determining its justice is the
+observance of the equivalence between both parties.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Numisma quamvis sit mensura et instrumentum in
+permutationibus; tamen per se aliquid esse potest.' It is this
+principle that justifies the treatment of _cambium_ in this section
+rather than the next.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 212.]
+
+
+
+SECTION 2.--THE SALE OF THE USE OF MONEY
+
+
+§ 1. _Usury in Greece and Rome_.
+
+The prohibition of usury has always occupied such a large place in
+histories of the Middle Ages, and particularly in discussions relating
+to the attitude of the Church towards economic questions, that it is
+important that its precise foundation and extent should be carefully
+studied. The usury prohibition has been the centre of so many bitter
+controversies, that it has almost become part of the stock-in-trade of
+the theological mob orators. The attitude of the Church towards usury
+only takes a slightly less prominent place than its attitude towards
+Galileo in the utterances of those who are anxious to convict it of
+error. We have referred to this current controversy, not in order that
+we might take a part in it, but that, on the contrary, we might avoid
+it. It is no part of our purpose in our treatment of this subject to
+discuss whether the usury prohibition was or was not suitable to
+the conditions of the Middle Ages; whether it did or did not impede
+industrial enterprise and commercial expansion; or whether it was or
+was not universally disregarded and evaded in real life. These are
+inquiries which, though full of interest, would not be in place in
+a discussion of theory. All we are concerned to do in the following
+pages is to indicate the grounds on which the prohibition of usury
+rested, the precise extent of its application, and the conceptions of
+economic theory which it indicated and involved.
+
+[Footnote 1: Brants has a very luminous and interesting section on
+_Cambium, Op. cit._, p. 214 _et seq_.]
+
+We must remark in the first place that the prohibition of usury was in
+no sense peculiar to the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, but,
+on the contrary, was to be found in many other religious and legal
+systems--for instance, in the writings of the Greek and Roman
+philosophers, amongst the Jews, and the followers of Mohammed. We
+shall give a very brief account of the other prohibitions of usury
+before coming to deal with the scholastic teaching on the subject.
+
+We can find no trace of any legal prohibition of usury in ancient
+Greece. Although Solon's laws contained many provisions for the relief
+of poor debtors, they did not forbid the taking of interest, nor did
+they limit the rate of interest that might be taken.[1] In Rome the
+Twelve Tables fixed a maximum rate of interest, which was probably
+ten or twelve per cent, per annum, but which cannot be determined
+with certainty owing to the doubtful signification of the expression
+'_unciarum foenus_.' The legal rate of interest was gradually reduced
+until the year 347 B.C., when five per cent, was fixed as a maximum.
+In 342 B.C. interest was forbidden altogether by the Genucian Law;
+but this law, though never repealed, was in practice quite inoperative
+owing to the facility with which it could be evaded; and consequently
+the oppression of borrowers was prevented by the enactment, or perhaps
+it would be more correct to say the general recognition, of a maximum
+rate of interest of twelve per cent. per annum. This maximum rate--the
+_Centesima_--remained in operation until the time of Justinian.[2]
+Justinian, who was under the influence of Christian teaching, and who
+might therefore be expected to have regarded usury with unfavourable
+eyes, fixed the following maximum rates of interest--maritime loans
+twelve per cent.; loans to ordinary persons, not in business, six per
+cent.; loans to high personages (_illustres_) and agriculturists, four
+per cent.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cleary, _The Church and Usury_, p. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Hunter, _Roman Law_, pp. 652-53; Cleary, _op. cit._, pp.
+22-6; Roscher, _Political Economy_, s. 90.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Code_ 4, 32, 26, 1.]
+
+While the taking of interest was thus approved or tolerated by Greek
+and Roman law, it was at the same time reprobated by the philosophers
+of both countries. Plato objects to usury because it tends to set one
+class, the poor or the borrowers, against another, the rich or the
+lenders; and goes so far as to make it wrong for the borrower to repay
+either the principal or interest of his debt. He further considers
+that the profession of the usurer is to be despised, as it is an
+illiberal and debasing way of making money.[1] While Plato therefore
+disapproves in no ambiguous words of usury, he does not develop the
+philosophical bases of his objection, but is content to condemn it
+rather for its probable ill effects than on account of its inherent
+injustice.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Laws_, v. ch. 11-13.]
+
+Aristotle condemns usury because it is the most extreme and dangerous
+form of chrematistic acquisition, or the art of making money for
+its own sake. As we have seen above, in discussing the legitimacy of
+commerce, buying cheap and selling dear was one form of chrematistic
+acquisition, which could only be justified by the presence of certain
+motives; and usury, according to the philosopher, was a still more
+striking example of the same kind of acquisition, because it consisted
+in making money from money, which was thus employed for a function
+different from that for which it had been originally invented. 'Usury
+is most reasonably detested, as the increase of our fortune arises
+from the money itself, and not by employing it for the purpose for
+which it was intended. For it was devised for the sake of exchange,
+but usury multiplies it. And hence usury has received the name of
+[Greek: tokos], or produce; for whatever is produced is itself like
+its parents; and usury is merely money born of money; so that of all
+means of money-making it is the most contrary to nature.'[1] We need
+not pause here to discuss the precise significance of Aristotle's
+conceptions on this subject, as they are to us not so much of
+importance in themselves, as because they suggested a basis for the
+treatment of usury to Aquinas and his followers.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Aristotle, _Politics_, i. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 29.]
+
+In Rome, as in Greece, the philosophers and moralists were unanimous
+in their condemnation of the practice of usury. Cicero condemns usury
+as being hateful to mankind, and makes Cato say that it is on the
+same level of moral obliquity as murder; and Seneca makes a point that
+became of some importance in the Middle Ages, namely, that usury is
+wrongful because it involves the selling of time.[1] Plutarch develops
+the argument that money is sterile, and condemns the practices
+of contemporary money-lenders as unjust.[2] The teaching of the
+philosophers as to the unlawfulness of usury was reflected in the
+popular feeling of the time.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 29.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _De Vitando Aere Alieno_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Espinas, _op. cit._, pp. 81-2; Roscher, _Political
+Economy_, s. 90.]
+
+
+
+
+§ 2. _Usury in the Old Testament_.
+
+
+The question of usury therefore attracted considerable attention in
+the teaching and practice of pagan antiquity. It occupied an equally
+important place in the Old Testament. In Exodus we find the first
+prohibition of usury: 'If thou lend money to any of my people being
+poor, thou shalt not be to him as a creditor, neither shall ye lay
+upon him usury.'[1] In Leviticus we read: 'And if thy brother be waxen
+poor, and his hand fail with thee; then, thou must uphold him; as a
+stranger and a sojourner shall he live with thee. Take thou no money
+of him or increase, but fear thy God that thy brother may live with
+thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor give him
+victuals for increase.'[2] Deuteronomy lays down a wider prohibition:
+'Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money,
+usury of victuals, usury of anything that is lent upon usury; unto
+a foreigner thou mayest lend upon usury, but unto thy brother thou
+mayest not lend upon usury.'[3] It will be noticed that the first and
+second of these texts do not forbid usury except in the case of loans
+to the poor, and, if we had them alone to consider, we could conclude
+that loans to the rich or to business men were allowed. The last text,
+however, extends the prohibition to all loans to one's brother--an
+expression which was of importance in Christian times, as Christian
+writers maintained the universal brotherhood of man.
+
+[Footnote 1: Exod. xxii. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Lev. xxv. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Deut. xxiii. 19.]
+
+It is unnecessary for us to discuss the underlying considerations
+which prompted these ordinances. Dr. Cleary, who has studied the
+matter with great care, concludes that: 'The legislator was urged
+mostly by economic considerations.... The permission to extract usury
+from strangers--a permission which later writers, such as Maimonides,
+regarded as a command--clearly favours the view that the legislator
+was guided by economic principles. It is more difficult to say whether
+he based his legislation on the principle that usury is intrinsically
+unjust--that is to say, unjust even when taken in moderation. There
+is really nothing in the texts quoted to enable us to decide. The
+universality of the prohibition when there is question solely of Jews
+goes to show that usury as such was regarded as unjust; whilst its
+permission as between Jew and Gentile favours the contradictory
+hypothesis.'[1] Modern Jewish thought is inclined to hold the view
+that these prohibitions were based upon the assumption that usury was
+intrinsically unjust, but that the taking of usury from the Gentiles
+was justified on the principle of compensation; in other words, that
+Jews might exact usury from those who might exact it from them.[2] It
+is at least certain that usury was regarded by the writers of the Old
+Testament as amongst the most terrible of sins.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, pp. 5-6.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Jewish Encyclopaedia_, art. 'Usury.']
+
+[Footnote 3: Ezek. xviii. 13; Jer. xv. 10; Ps. xiv. 5, cix. 11, cxii.
+5; Prov. xxviii. 8; Hes. xviii. 8; 2 Esd. v. I _et seq._]
+
+The general attitude of the Jews towards usury cannot be better
+explained than by quoting Dr. Cleary's final conclusion on the
+subject: 'It appears therefore that in the Old Testament usury was
+universally prohibited between Israelite and Israelite, whilst it
+was permitted between Israelite and Gentile. Furthermore, it
+seems impossible to decide what was the nature of the obligations
+imposed--whether the prohibition supposed and ratified an already
+existing universal obligation, in charity or justice, or merely
+imposed a new obligation in obedience, binding the consciences of men
+for economic or political reasons. So, too, it seems impossible to
+decide absolutely whether the decrees were intended to possess eternal
+validity; the probabilities, however, seem to favour very strongly the
+view that they were intended as mere economic regulations suited to
+the circumstances of the time. This does not, of course, decide the
+other question, whether, apart from such positive regulations, there
+already existed an obligation arising from the natural law; nor would
+the passing of the positive law into desuetude affect the existence of
+the other obligation.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, pp. 17-18.]
+
+Before we pass from the consideration of the Old Testament to that of
+the New, we may mention that the taking of interest by Mohammedans is
+forbidden in the Koran.[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: ii. 30. This prohibition is universally evaded. (Roscher,
+_Political Economy_, s. 90.)]
+
+
+
+
+§ 3. _Usury in the First Twelve Centuries of Christianity_.
+
+The only passage in the Gospels which bears directly on the question
+of usury is a verse of St. Luke, the correct reading of which is a
+matter of considerable difference of opinion.[1] The Revised Version
+reads: 'But love your enemies, and do them good, and lend, never
+despairing (_nihil desperantes_); and your reward shall be great.' If
+this be the true reading of the verse, it does not touch the question
+of usury at all, as it is simply an exhortation to lend without
+worrying whether the debtor fail or not.[2] The more generally
+received reading of this verse, however, is that adopted by the
+Vulgate, 'mutuum date, nihil inde sperantes'--'lend hoping for
+nothing thereby.' If this be the correct reading, the verse raises
+considerable difficulties of interpretation. It may simply mean, as
+Mastrofini interprets it, that all human actions should be performed,
+not in the hope of obtaining any material reward, but for the love of
+God and our neighbour; or it may contain an actual precept or counsel
+relating to the particular subject of loans. If the latter be the
+correct interpretation, the further question arises whether the
+recommendation is to renounce merely the interest of a loan or the
+principal as well. We need not here engage on the details of the
+controversy thus aroused; it is sufficient to say that it is the
+almost unanimous opinion of modern authorities that the verse
+recommends the renunciation of the principal as well as the interest;
+and that, if this interpretation is correct, the recommendation is
+not a precept, but a counsel.[3] Aquinas thought that the verse was a
+counsel as to the repayment of the principal, but a precept as to the
+payment of interest, and this opinion is probably correct.[4] With the
+exception of this verse, there is not a single passage in the Gospels
+which prohibits the taking of usury.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke vi. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 33, following Knabenbaur.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 34.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, p. 35.]
+
+We must now give some account of the teaching on usury which was laid
+down by the Fathers and early councils of the Church; but at the same
+time we shall not attempt to treat this in an exhaustive way, because,
+although the early Christian teaching is of interest in itself,
+it exercised little or no influence upon the great philosophical
+treatment of the same subject by Aquinas and his followers, which is
+the principal subject to be discussed in these pages. The first thing
+we must remark is that the prohibition of usury was not included by
+the Council of Jerusalem amongst the 'necessary things' imposed upon
+converts from the Gentiles.[1] This would seem to show that the taking
+of usury was not regarded as unlawful by the Apostles, who were at
+pains expressly to forbid the commission of offences, the evil of
+which must have appeared plainly from the natural law--for instance,
+fornication. The _Didache_, which was used as a book of catechetical
+instruction for catechumens, does not specifically mention usury; the
+forcing of the repayment of loans from the poor who are unable to pay
+is strongly reprobated; but this is not so in the case of the rich.[2]
+Clement of Alexandria expressly limits his disapprobation of usury to
+the case of loans between brothers, whom he defines as 'participators
+in the same word,' _i.e._ fellow-Christians; and in any event it
+is clear that he regards it as sin against charity, but not against
+justice.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Acts xv. 29.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Didache_, ch. i.; Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 39.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Stromata_, ii. 18.]
+
+Tertullian is one of the first of the Fathers to lay down positively
+that the taking of usury is sinful. He regards it as obviously wrong
+for Christians to exact usury on their loans, and interprets the
+passage of St. Luke, to which we have referred, as a precept against
+looking for even the repayment of the principal.[1] On the other hand,
+Cyprian, writing in the same century, although he declaims eloquently
+and vigorously against the usurious practices of the clergy, does not
+specifically express the opinion that the taking of usury is wrong in
+itself.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Ad Marcion_, iv. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Le Lapsis_, ch. 5-6; Cleary, _op. cit._, pp. 42-3.]
+
+Thus, during the first three centuries of Christianity, there does not
+seem to have been, as far as we can now ascertain, any definite and
+general doctrine laid down on the subject of usury. In the year 305
+or 306 a very important step forward was taken, when the Council of
+Elvira passed a decree against usury. This decree, as given by Ivo
+and Gratian, seems only to have applied to usury on the part of the
+clergy, but as given by Mansi it affected the clergy and laity alike.
+'Should any cleric be found to have taken usury,' the latter version
+runs, 'let him be degraded and excommunicated. Moreover, if any layman
+shall be proved a usurer, and shall have promised, when corrected, to
+abstain from the practice, let him be pardoned. If, on the contrary,
+he perseveres in his evil-doing, he is to be excommunicated.'[1]
+Although the Council of Elvira was but a provincial Council, its
+decrees are important, as they provided a model for later legislation.
+Dr. Cleary thinks that Mansi's version of this decree is probably
+incorrect, and that, therefore, the Council only forbade usury on the
+part of the clergy. In any event, with this one possible and extremely
+doubtful exception, there was no conciliar legislation affecting the
+practice of usury on the part of the laity until the eighth century.
+Certain individual popes censured the taking of usury by laymen, and
+the Council of Nice expressed the opinion that such a practice was
+contrary to Christ's teaching, but there is nowhere to be found an
+imperative and definite prohibition of the taking of usury except by
+the clergy.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 43.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Cleary, _op. cit._, pp. 44-8.]
+
+The inconclusive result of the Christian teaching up to the middle of
+the fourth century is well summarised by Dr. Cleary: 'Hitherto we have
+encountered mere prohibitions of usury with little or no attempt to
+assign a reason for them other than that of positive legislation.
+Most of the statements of these early patristic writers, as well
+as possibly all of the early Christian legislative enactments, deal
+solely with the practice of usury by the clergy; still, there is
+sufficient evidence to show that in those days it was reprobated even
+for the Christian laity, for the _Didache_ and Tertullian clearly
+teach or presuppose its prohibition, while the oecumenical Council
+of Nice certainly presupposed its illegality for the laity, though
+it failed to sustain its doctrinal presuppositions with corresponding
+ecclesiastical penalties. With the exception of some very vague
+statements by Cyprian and Clement of Alexandria, we find no attempt to
+state the nature of the resulting obligation--that is to say, we are
+not told whether there is an obligation of obedience, of justice, or
+of charity. The prohibition indeed seems to be regarded as universal;
+and it may very well be contended that for the cases the Fathers
+consider it was in fact universal--for the loans with which they are
+concerned, being necessitous, should be, in accordance with Christian
+charity, gratuitous--even if speculatively usurious loans in general
+were not unjust.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, pp. 48-9.]
+
+The middle of the fourth century marked the opening of a new
+period--'a period when oratorical denunciations are profuse, and when
+consequently philosophical speculation, though fairly active, is
+of too imaginative a character to be sufficiently definite.'[1]
+St. Basil's _Homilies on the Fourteenth Psalm_ contain a violent
+denunciation of usury, the reasoning of which was repeated by St.
+Gregory of Nyssa[2] and St. Ambrose.[3] These three Fathers draw a
+terrible picture of the state of the poor debtor, who, harassed by
+his creditors, falls deeper and deeper into despair, until he finally
+commits suicide, or has to sell his children into slavery. Usury was
+therefore condemned by these Fathers as a sin against charity; the
+passage from St. Luke was looked on merely as a counsel in so far as
+it related to the repayment of the principal, but as a precept so
+far as it related to usury; but the notion that usury was in its very
+essence a sin against justice does not appear to have arisen. The
+natural sterility of money is referred to, but not developed; and it
+is suggested, though not categorically stated, that usury may be taken
+from wealthy debtors.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 49.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Contra Usurarios_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Tobia_.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 52.]
+
+The other Fathers of the later period do not throw very much light
+on the question of how usury was regarded by the early Church. St.
+Hilary[1] and Jerome[2] still base their objection on the ground of
+its being an offence against charity; and St. Augustine, though he
+would like to make restitution of usury a duty, treats the matter from
+the same point of view.[3] On the other hand, there are to be found
+patristic utterances in favour of the legality of usury, and episcopal
+approbations of civil codes which permitted it.[4] The civil law
+did not attempt to suppress usury, but simply to keep it within due
+bounds.[5] The result of the patristic teaching therefore was on the
+whole unsatisfactory and inconclusive. 'Whilst patristic opinion,'
+says Dr. Cleary, 'is very pronounced in condemning usury, the
+condemnation is launched against it more because of its oppressiveness
+than for its intrinsic injustice. As Dr. Funk has pointed out, one can
+scarcely cite a single patristic opinion which can be said clearly to
+hold that usury is against justice, whilst there are, on the contrary,
+certain undercurrents of thought in many writers, and certain explicit
+statements in others, which tend to show that the Fathers would not
+have been prepared to deal so harshly with usurers, did usurers not
+treat their debtors so cruelly.... Of keen philosophical analysis
+there is none.... On the whole, we find the teachings of the Fathers
+crude and undeveloped.'[6]
+
+[Footnote 1: In Ps. xiv.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ad Ezech._]
+
+[Footnote 3: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 56.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ibid._ pp. 56-7.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Justinian Code_, iv. 32.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Op. cit._, pp. 57-9. On the patristic teaching on usury,
+see Espinas, _Op. cit._, pp. 82-4; Roscher, _Political Economy_, s.
+90; Antoine, _Cours d'Economie sociale_, pp. 588 _et seq_.]
+
+The practical teaching with regard to the taking of usury made an
+important advance in the eighth and ninth centuries, although the
+philosophical analysis of the subject did not develop any more
+fully. A capitulary canon made in 789 decreed 'that each and all are
+forbidden to give anything on usury'; and a capitulary of 813 states
+that 'not only should the Christian clergy not demand usury, laymen
+should not.' In 825 it was decreed that the counts were to assist the
+bishops in their suppression of usury; and in 850 the Synod of Ticinum
+bound usurers to restitution.[1] The underlying principles of these
+enactments is as obscure as their meaning is plain and definite. There
+is not a single trace of the keen analysis with which Aquinas was
+later to illuminate and adorn the subject.
+
+[Footnote 1: These are but a few of the enactments of the period
+directed against usury (Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 61; Favre, _Le prêt à
+intérêt dans l'ancienne France_).]
+
+
+§ 4. _The Mediæval Prohibition of Usury_.
+
+The tenth and eleventh centuries saw no advance in the teaching on
+usury. The twelfth century, however, ushered in a new era. 'Before
+that century controversy had been mostly confined to theologians, and
+treated theologically, with reference to God and the Bible, and only
+rarely with regard to economic considerations. After the twelfth
+century the discussion was conducted on a gradually broadening
+economic basis--appeals to the Fathers, canonists, philosophers, the
+_jus divinum_, the _jus naturale_, the _jus humanum_, became the order
+of the day.'[1] Before we proceed to discuss the new philosophical or
+scholastic treatment of usury which was inaugurated for all practical
+purposes by Aquinas, we must briefly refer to the ecclesiastical
+legislation on the subject.
+
+[Footnote 1: Böhm-Bawerk, _Capital and Interest_, p. 19.]
+
+In 1139 the second Lateran Council issued a very strong declaration
+against usurers. 'We condemn that disgraceful and detestable rapacity,
+condemned alike by human and divine law, by the Old and the New
+Testaments, that insatiable rapacity of usurers, whom we hereby
+cut off from all ecclesiastical consolation; and we order that no
+archbishop, bishop, abbot, or cleric shall receive back usurers except
+with the very greatest caution, but that, on the contrary, usurers
+are to be regarded as infamous, and shall, if they do not repent, be
+deprived of Christian burial.'[1] It might be argued that this decree
+was aimed against immoderate or habitual usury, and not against usury
+in general, but all doubt as regards the attitude of the Church was
+set at rest by a decree of the Lateran Council of 1179. This decree
+runs: 'Since almost in every place the crime of usury has become
+so prevalent that many people give up all other business and become
+usurers, as if it were lawful, regarding not its prohibition in both
+Testaments, we ordain that manifest usurers shall not be admitted to
+communion, nor, if they die in their sins, be admitted to Christian
+burial, and that no priest shall accept their alms.'[2] Meanwhile,
+Alexander III., having given much attention to the subject of usury,
+had come to the conclusion that it was a sin against justice. This
+recognition of the essential injustice of usury marked a turning-point
+in the history of the treatment of the subject; and Alexander III.
+seems entitled to be designated the 'pioneer of its scientific
+study.'[3] Innocent III. followed Alexander in the opinion that usury
+was unjust in itself, and from his time forward there was but little
+further disagreement upon the matter amongst the theologians.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 64.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._]
+
+[Footnote 3: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 65.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, p. 68.]
+
+In 1274 Gregory X., in the Council of Lyons, ordained that no
+community, corporation, or individual should permit foreign usurers to
+hire houses, but that they should expel them from their territory;
+and the disobedient, if prelates, were to have their lands put under
+interdict, and, if laymen, to be visited by their ordinary with
+ecclesiastical censures.[1] By a further canon he ordained that the
+wills of usurers who did not make restitution should be invalid.[2]
+This brought usury definitely within the jurisdiction of the
+ecclesiastical courts.[3] In 1311 the Council of Vienne declared all
+secular legislation in favour of usury null and void, and branded as
+heresy the belief that usury was not sinful.[4] The precise extent and
+interpretation of this decree have given rise to a considerable amount
+of discussion,[5] which need not detain us here, because by that time
+the whole question of usury had come under the treatment of the great
+scholastic writers, whose teaching is more particularly the subject
+matter of the present essay.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Liber Sextus_, v. 5, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, c. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. i. p. 150.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Clementinarum_, v. 5, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Cleary, _op. cit._, pp. 74-8.]
+
+Even as late as the first half of the thirteenth century there was
+no serious discussion of usury by the theologians. William of Paris,
+Alexander of Hales, and Albertus Magnus simply pronounced it sinful
+on account of the texts in the Old and New Testaments, which we have
+quoted above.[1] It was Aquinas who really put the teaching on usury
+upon the new foundation, which was destined to support it for so
+many hundred years, and which even at the present day appeals to many
+sympathetic and impartial inquirers. Mr. Lecky apologises for the
+obscurity of his account of the argument of Aquinas, but adds that the
+confusion is chiefly the fault of the latter;[2] but the fact that Mr.
+Lecky failed to grasp the meaning of the argument should not lead one
+to conclude that the argument itself was either confused or illogical.
+The fact that it for centuries remained the basis of the Catholic
+teaching on the subject is a sufficient proof that its inherent
+absurdity did not appear apparent to many students at least as gifted
+as Mr. Lecky. We shall quote the article of Aquinas at some length,
+because it was universally accepted by all the theologians of the
+fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with whose opinions we are
+concerned in this essay. To quote later writings is simply to repeat
+in different words the conclusions at which Aquinas arrived.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Jourdain, _op. cit._, p. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Rise and Influence, of Rationalism in Europe_, vol. ii.
+p. 261.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. i. p. 17.]
+
+In answer to the question 'whether it is a sin to take usury for money
+lent,' Aquinas replies: 'To take usury for money lent is unjust
+in itself, because this is to sell what does not exist, and this
+evidently leads to inequality, which is contrary to justice.
+
+'In order to make this evident, we must observe that there are certain
+things the use of which consists in their consumption; thus we consume
+wine when we use it for drink, and we consume wheat when we use it for
+food. Wherefore in such-like things the use of the thing must not be
+reckoned apart from the thing itself, and whoever is granted the use
+of the thing is granted the thing itself; and for this reason to lend
+things of this kind is to transfer the ownership. Accordingly, if a
+man wanted to sell wine separately from the use of the wine, he would
+be selling the same thing twice, or he would be selling what does not
+exist, wherefore he would evidently commit a sin of injustice. In like
+manner he commits an injustice who lends wine or wheat, and asks for
+double payment, viz. one, the return of the thing in equal measure,
+the other, the price of the use, which is called usury.
+
+'On the other hand, there are other things the use of which does not
+consist in their consumption; thus to use a house is to dwell in it,
+not to destroy it. Wherefore in such things both may be granted; for
+instance, one man may hand over to another the ownership of his house,
+while reserving to himself the use of it for a time, or, _vice versa_,
+he may grant the use of a house while retaining the ownership. For
+this reason a man may lawfully make a charge for the use of his house,
+and, besides this, revendicate the house from the person to whom he
+has granted its use, as happens in renting and letting a house.
+
+'But money, according to the philosopher,[1] was invented chiefly for
+the purpose of exchange; and consequently the proper and principal
+use of money is its consumption or alienation, whereby it is sunk in
+exchange. Hence it is by its very nature unlawful to take payment for
+the use of money lent, which payment is known as usury; and, just as
+a man is bound to restore other ill-gotten goods, so he is bound to
+restore the money which he has taken in usury.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Eth._ v. _Pol_. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: II. ii. 78, 1.]
+
+The essential thing to notice in this explanation is that the contract
+of _mutuum_ is shown to be a sale. The distinction between things
+which are consumed in use (_res fungibiles_), and which are not
+consumed in use (_res non fungibiles_) was familiar to the civil
+lawyers; but what they had never perceived was precisely what Aquinas
+perceived, namely, that the loan of a fungible thing was in fact not
+a loan at all, but a sale, for the simple reason that the ownership
+in the thing passed. Once the transaction had been shown to be a sale,
+the principle of justice to be applied to it became obvious. As we
+have seen above, in treating of sales, the essential basis of justice
+in exchange was the observance of _aequalitas_ between buyer and
+seller--in other words, the fixing of a just price. The contract of
+_mutuum_, however, was nothing else than a sale of fungibles,
+and therefore the just price in such a contract was the return of
+fungibles of the same value as those lent. If the particular fungible
+sold happened to be money, the estimation of the just price was a
+simple matter--it was the return of an amount of money of equal value.
+As money happened to be the universal measure of value, this simply
+meant the return of the same amount of money. Those who maintained
+that something additional might be claimed for the use of the money
+lost sight of the fact that the money was incapable of being used
+apart from its being consumed.[1] To ask for payment for the sale of
+a thing which not only did not exist, but which was quite incapable
+of existence, was clearly to ask for something for nothing--which
+obviously offended against the first principles of commutative
+justice. 'He that is not bound to lend,' says Aquinas in another part
+of the same article, 'may accept repayment for what he has done, but
+he must not exact more. Now he is repaid according to equality of
+justice if he is repaid as much as he lent, wherefore, if he exacts
+more for the usufruct of a thing which has no other use but the
+consumption of its substance, he exacts a price of something
+non-existent, and so his exaction is unjust.'[2] And in the next
+article the principle that _mutuum_ is a sale appears equally clearly:
+'Money cannot be sold for a greater sum than the amount lent, which
+has to be paid back.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Aquinas did not lose sight of the fact that money might,
+in certain cases, be used apart from being consumed--for instance,
+when it was not used as a means of exchange, but as an ornament.
+He gives the example of money being sewn up and sealed in a bag to
+prevent its being spent, and in this condition lent for any purpose.
+In this case, of course, the transaction would not be a _mutuum_, but
+a _locatio et conductio_, and therefore a price could be charged for
+the use of the money (_Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo_, Q. xiii. art.
+iv. ad. 15, quoted in Cronin's _Ethics_, vol. ii. p. 332).]
+
+[Footnote 2: II. ii. 78, 1, ad. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 3: II. ii. 78, 2, ad. 4. Biel distinguishes three kinds of
+exchange: of goods for goods, or barter; of goods for money, or sale;
+and of money for money; and adds, 'In his contractibus ... generaliter
+justitia in hoc consistit quod fiant sine fraude, et servetur
+aequalitas substantiae, qualitatis, quantitatis in commutatis (_Op.
+cit._, IV. xv. 1). Buridan says that usury is contrary to natural law
+'ex conditione justitiae quae in aequalitate damni et lucri consistit;
+quoniam injustum est pro re semel commutata pluries pretium recipere'
+(In _Lib. Pol._, iv. 6).]
+
+The difficulty which moderns find in understanding this teaching,
+is that it is said to be based on the sterility of money. A moment's
+thought, however, will convince us that money is in fact sterile until
+labour has been applied to it. In this sense money differs in its
+essence from a cow or a tree. A cow will produce calves, or a tree
+will produce fruit without the application of any exertion by its
+owner; but, whatever profit is derived from money, is derived from the
+use to which it is put by the person who owns it. This is all that
+the scholastics meant by the sterility of money. They never thought
+of denying that money, when properly used, was capable of bringing its
+employer a profit; but they emphatically asserted that the profit was
+due to the labour, and not to the money.
+
+Antoninus of Florence clearly realised this: 'Money is not profitable
+of itself alone, nor can it multiply itself, but it may become
+profitable through its employment by merchants';[1] and Bernardine of
+Sienna says: 'Money has not simply the character of money, but it
+has beyond this a productive character, which we commonly call
+capital.'[2] 'What is money,' says Brants, 'if it is not a means of
+exchange, of which the employment and preservation will give a profit,
+if he who possesses it is prudent, active, and intelligent? If this
+money is well employed, it will become a capital, and one may derive
+a profit from it; but this profit arises from the activity of him who
+uses it, and consequently this profit belongs to him--it is the fruit,
+the remuneration of his labour.... Did they (the scholastics) say
+that it was impossible to draw a profit from a sum of money? No; they
+admitted fully that one might _de pecunia lucrari_; but this _lucrum_
+does not come from the _pecunia_, but from the application of labour
+to the sum.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Quoted in Brants, _op. cit._, p. 134.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._]
+
+[Footnote 3: Brants, _op. cit._, pp. 133-5; Nider, _De Cont. Merc._
+iii. 15.]
+
+Therefore, if the borrower did not derive any profit from the loan,
+the sum lent had in fact been sterile, and obviously the just price of
+the loan was the return of the amount lent; if, on the contrary, the
+borrower had made a profit from it, it was the reward of his labour,
+and not the fruit of the loan itself. To repay more than the sum lent
+would therefore be to make a payment to one person for the labour of
+another.[1] The exaction of usury was therefore the exploitation of
+another man's exertion.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Gerson, _De Cont._, iv. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Neumann, when he says that 'it was sinful to recompense
+the use of capital belonging to another' (_Geschichte des Wuchers in
+Deutschland_, p. 25), seems to miss the whole point of the discussion.
+The teaching of the canonists on rents and partnership shows clearly
+that the owner of capital might draw a profit from another's labour,
+and the central point of the usury teaching was that money which has
+been lent, and employed so as to produce a profit by the borrower,
+belongs not 'to another,' but to the very man who employed it, namely,
+the borrower.]
+
+It is interesting to notice how closely the rules applying in the case
+of sales were applied to usury. The raising of the price of a loan
+on account of some special benefit derived from it by the borrower is
+precisely analogous to raising the sale price of an object because it
+is of some special individual utility to the buyer. On the other
+hand, as we shall see further down, any special damage suffered by the
+lender was a sufficient reason for exacting something over and above
+the amount lent; this was precisely the rule that applied in the case
+of sales, when the seller suffered any special damage from parting
+with the object sold. Thus the analogy between sales and loans was
+complete at every point. In both, equality of sacrifice was the test
+of justice.
+
+Nor could it be suggested that the delay in the repayment of the loan
+was a reason for increasing the amount to be repaid, because this
+really amounted to a sale of time, which, of its nature, could not be
+owned.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Rambaud, _op. cit._, p. 63; Aquinas(?), _De Usuris_, i.
+4.]
+
+The scholastic teaching, then, on the subject was quite plain and
+unambiguous. Usury, or the payment of a price for the use of a sum
+lent in addition to the repayment of the sum itself, was in all
+cases prohibited. The fact that the payment demanded was moderate was
+irrelevant; there could be no question of the reasonableness of the
+amount of an essentially unjust payment.[1] Nor was the payment of
+usury rendered just because the loan was for a productive purpose--in
+other words, a commercial loan. Certain writers have maintained that
+in this case usury was tolerated;[2] but they can easily be refuted.
+As we have seen above, _mutuum_ was essentially a sale, and,
+therefore, no additional price could be charged because of some
+special individual advantage enjoyed by the buyer (or borrower).
+It was quite impossible to distinguish, according to the scholastic
+teaching, between taking an additional payment because the lender made
+a profit by using the loan wisely, and taking it because the borrower
+was in great distress, and therefore derived a greater advantage from
+the loan than a person in easier circumstances. The erroneous notion
+that loans for productive purposes were entitled to any special
+treatment was finally dispelled in 1745 by an encyclical of Benedict
+XIV.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Jourdain, _op. cit._, p. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _E.g._ Périn, _Premiers Principes d'Économie politique_,
+p. 305; Claudio Jannet, _Capital Spéculation et Finance_, p. 83; De
+Metz-Noblat, _Lois économiques_, p. 293.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Rambaud, _op. cit._, p. 69.]
+
+
+§ 5. _Extrinsic Titles_.
+
+Usury, therefore, was prohibited in all cases. Many people at the
+present day think that the prohibition of usury was the same thing
+as the prohibition of interest. There could not be a greater mistake.
+While usury was in all circumstances condemned, interest was in every
+case allowed. The justification of interest rested on precisely the
+same ground as the prohibition of usury, namely, the observance of the
+equality of commutative justice. It was unjust that a greater price
+should be paid for the loan of a sum of money than the amount lent;
+but it was no less unjust that the lender should find himself in a
+worse position because of his having made the loan. In other words,
+the consideration for the loan could not be increased because of any
+special benefit which it conferred on the borrower, but it could
+be increased on account of any special damage suffered by the
+lender--precisely the same rule as we have seen applied in the case
+of sales. The borrower must, in addition to the repayment of the loan,
+indemnify the lender for any damage he had suffered. The measure of
+the damage was the difference between the lender's condition before
+the loan was made and after it had been repaid--in other words, he
+was entitled to compensation for the difference in his condition
+occasioned by the transaction--_id quod interest_.
+
+Before we discuss interest properly so called, we must say a word
+about another analogous but not identical title of compensation,
+namely, the _poena conventionalis_. It was a very general practice,
+about the legitimacy of which the scholastics do not seem to have had
+any doubt, to attach to the original contract of loan an agreement
+that a penalty should be paid in case of default in the repayment
+of the loan at the stipulated time.[1] The justice of the _poena
+conventionalis_ was recognised by Alexander of Hales,[2] and by Duns
+Scotus, who gives a typical form of the stipulation as follows: 'I
+have need of my money for commerce, but shall lend it to you till a
+certain day on the condition that, if you do not repay it on that day,
+you shall pay me afterwards a certain sum in addition, since I shall
+suffer much injury through your delay.'[3] The _poena conventionalis_
+must not be confused with either of the titles _damnum emergens_ or
+_lucrum cessans_, which we are about to discuss; it was distinguished
+from the former by being based upon a presumed injury, whereas the
+injury in _damnum emergens_ must be proved; and for the latter because
+the damage must be presumed to have occurred after the expiration of
+the loan period, whereas in _lucrum cessans_ the damage was presumed
+to have occurred during the currency of the loan period. The important
+thing to remember is that these titles were really distinct.[4] The
+essentials of a _poena conventionalis_ were, stipulation from the
+first day of the loan, presumption of damage, and attachment to a
+loan which was itself gratuitous.[5] The _Summa Astesana_ clearly
+maintained the distinction between the two titles of compensation,[6]
+as also did the _Summa Angelica_.[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. i. p. 399.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Biel, _op. cit._, iv. 15, 11.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 93.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, p. 95.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 94.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. i. p. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 7: ccxl.]
+
+The first thing to be noted on passing from the _poena conventionalis_
+to interest proper is that the latter ground of compensation was
+generally divided into two kinds, _damnum emergens_ and _lucrum
+cessans_. The former included all cases where the lender had incurred
+an actual loss by reason of his having made the loan; whereas the
+latter included all cases where the lender, by parting with his money,
+had lost the opportunity of making a profit. This distinction was made
+at least as early as the middle of the thirteenth century, and was
+always adopted by later writers.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 399.]
+
+The title _damnum emergens_ never presented any serious difficulty.
+It was recognised by Albertus Magnus,[1] and laid down so clearly by
+Aquinas that it was not afterwards questioned: 'A lender may without
+sin enter an agreement with the borrower for compensation for the loss
+he incurs of something he ought to have, for this is not to sell
+the use of money, but to avoid a loss. It may also happen that the
+borrower avoids a greater loss than the lender incurs, wherefore the
+borrower may repay the lender with what he has gained.'[2] The usual
+example given to illustrate how _damnum emergens_ might arise, was
+the case of the lender being obliged, on account of the failure of the
+borrower, to borrow money himself at usury.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Roscher, _Geschichte_, p. 27.]
+
+[Footnote 2: II. ii. 78, 2, ad. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. i. p. 400.]
+
+Closely allied to the title of _damnum emergens_ was that of _lucrum
+cessans_. According to some writers, the latter was the only true
+interest. Dr. Cleary quotes some thirteenth-century documents in which
+a clear distinction is made between _damnum_ and _interesse_;[1] and
+it seems to have been the common custom in Germany at a later date
+to distinguish between _interesse_ and _schaden_.[2] Although the
+division between these two titles was very indefinite, they did not
+meet recognition with equal readiness; the title _damnum emergens_
+was universally admitted by all authorities; while that of _lucrum
+cessans_ was but gradually admitted, and hedged round with many
+limitations.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 95.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 401.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 98; Endemann, _Studien_, vol. ii.
+p. 279; Bartolus and Baldus said that _damnum emergens_ and _lucrum
+cessans_ were divided by a very narrow line, and that it was often
+difficult to distinguish between them. They suggested that the
+terms _interesse proximum_ and _interesse remotum_ would be more
+satisfactory, but they were not followed by other writers (Endemann,
+_Studien_, vol. ii, pp. 269-70).]
+
+The first clear recognition of the title _lucrum cessans_ occurs in
+a letter from Alexander III., written in 1176, and addressed to the
+Archbishop of Genoa: 'You tell us that it often happens in your city
+that people buy pepper and cinnamon and other wares, at the time worth
+not more than five pounds, promising those from whom they received
+them six pounds at an appointed time. Though contracts of this
+kind and under such a form cannot strictly be called usurious, yet,
+nevertheless, the vendors incur guilt, unless they are really doubtful
+whether the wares might be worth more or less at the time of payment.
+Your citizens will do well for their own salvation to cease from such
+contracts.'[1] As Dr. Cleary points out, the trader is held by this
+decision to be entitled to a recompense on account of a probable loss
+of profit, and the decision consequently amounts to a recognition of
+the title _lucrum cessans_.[2] The title is also recognised by Scotus
+and Hostiensis.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Decr. Greg._ v. 5, 6.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, p. 67.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, p. 99.]
+
+The attitude of Aquinas to the admission of _lucrum cessans_ is
+obscure. In the article on usury he expressly states that 'the lender
+cannot enter an agreement for compensation through the fact that he
+makes no profit out of his money, because he must not sell that which
+he has not yet, and may be prevented in many ways from having.'[1] Two
+comments must be made on this passage; first, that it only refers to
+making a stipulation in advance for compensation for profit lost, and
+does not condemn the actual payment of compensation;[2] second, that
+the point is made that the probability of gaining a profit on money is
+so problematical as to make it unsaleable. As Ashley points out, the
+latter consideration was peculiarly important at the time when the
+_Summa_ was composed; and, when in the course of the following
+two centuries the opportunities for reasonably safe and profitable
+business investments increased, the great theologians conceived that
+they were following the real thought of Aquinas by giving to this
+explanation a pure _contemporanea expositio_. The argument in favour
+of this construction is strengthened by a reference to the article of
+the _Summa_ dealing with restitution,[3] where it is pointed out that
+a man may suffer in two ways--first, by being deprived of what he
+actually has, and, second, by being prevented from obtaining what he
+was on his way to obtain. In the former case an equivalent must always
+be restored, but in the latter it is not necessary to make good an
+equivalent, 'because to have a thing virtually is less than to have it
+actually, and to be on the way to obtain a thing is to have it
+merely virtually or potentially, and so, were he to be indemnified by
+receiving the thing actually, he would be paid, not the exact value
+taken from him, but more, and this is not necessary for salvation.
+However, he is bound to make some compensation according to the
+condition of persons and things.' Later in the same article we are
+told that 'he that has money has the profit not actually, but only
+virtually; and it may be hindered in many ways.'[4] It seems
+quite clear from these passages that Aquinas admitted the right to
+compensation for a profit which the lender was hindered from making on
+account of the loan; but that, in the circumstances of the time, the
+probability of making such a profit was so remote that it could not
+be made the basis of pecuniary compensation. The probability of there
+being a _lucrum cessans_ was thought small, but the justice of its
+reward, if it did in fact exist, was admitted.
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 78, 2, ad. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Rambaud, _op. cit._, p. 67.]
+
+[Footnote 3: II. ii. 62, 4.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, ad. 1 and 2.]
+
+This interpretation steadily gained ground amongst succeeding writers;
+so that, in spite of some lingering opposition, the justice of the
+title _lucrum cessans_ was practically universally admitted by the
+theologians of the fifteenth century.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, p. 99. _Lucrum cessans_ was defined
+by Navarrus as 'amissio facta a creditore per pecuniam sibi non
+redditam' (Endemann, _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 279).]
+
+Of course the burden of proving that an opportunity for profitable
+investment had been really lost was on the lender, but this onus
+was sufficiently discharged if the probability of such a loss were
+established. In the fifteenth century, with the expansion of commerce,
+it came to be generally recognised that such a probability could be
+presumed in the case of the merchant or trader.[1] The final condition
+of this development of the teaching on _lucrum cessans_ is thus stated
+by Ashley:[2] 'Any merchant, or indeed any person in a trading
+centre where there were opportunities of business investment (outside
+money-lending itself) could, with a perfectly clear conscience,
+and without any fear of molestation, contract to receive periodical
+interest from the person to whom he lent money; _provided only_ that
+he first lent it to him gratuitously, for a period that might be made
+very short, so that technically the payment would not be reward for
+the use, but compensation for the non-return of the money.' At a later
+period than that of which we are treating in the present essay the
+short gratuitous period could be dispensed with, but until the end of
+the fifteenth century it seems to have been considered essential.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 402.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._]
+
+[Footnote 3: Ashley, _op. cit._ vol. i. pt. ii. p. 402; Endemann,
+_Studien_, vol. ii. pp. 253-4; Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 100.]
+
+Of course the amount paid in respect of _lucrum cessans_ must be
+reasonable in regard to the loss of opportunity actually experienced;
+'Lenders,' says Buridan, 'must not take by way of _lucrum
+cessans_ more than they would have actually made by commerce or in
+exchange';[1] and Ambrosius de Vignate explains that compensation
+must only be made for 'the time and just _interesse_ of the lost gain,
+which must be certain and proximate.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Eth._, iv. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _De Usuris_, c. 10.]
+
+There was another title on account of which more than the amount of
+the loan could be recovered, namely, _periculum sortis_. In one sense
+it was a contradiction in terms to speak of the element of risk in
+connection with usury, because from its very definition usury was gain
+without risk as opposed to profit from a trading partnership, which,
+as we shall see presently, consisted of gain coupled with the risk of
+loss. It could not be lost sight of, however, that in fact there might
+be a risk of the loan not being repaid through the insolvency of the
+borrower, or some other cause, and the question arose whether the
+lender could justly claim any compensation for the undertaking of this
+risk. 'Regarded as an extrinsic title, risk of losing the principal
+is connected with the contract of _mutuum_, and entitles the lender to
+some compensation for running the risk of losing his capital in order
+to oblige a possibly insolvent debtor. The greater the danger of
+insolvency, the greater naturally would be the charge. The contract
+was indifferent to the object of the loan; it mattered not whether it
+was intended for commerce or consumption; it was no less indifferent
+to profit on the part of the borrower; it took account simply of the
+latter's ability to pay, and made its charge accordingly. It resembled
+consequently the contracts made by insurance companies, wherein there
+is a readiness to risk the capital sum for a certain rate of payment;
+the only difference was that the probabilities charged for were not
+so much the likelihood of having to pay, as the likelihood of not
+receiving back.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 115.]
+
+We have referred above, when dealing with the legitimacy of commercial
+profits, to the difficulty which was felt in admitting the justice
+of compensation for risk, on account of the Gregorian Decretal on
+the subject. The same decree gave rise to the same difficulty in
+connection with the justification of a recompense for _periculum
+sortis_. There was a serious dispute about the actual wording of the
+decree, and even those who agreed as to its wording differed as to its
+interpretation.[1] The justice of the title was, however, admitted by
+Scotus, who said that it was lawful to stipulate for recompense when
+both the principal and surplus were in danger of being lost[2]; by
+Carletus;[3] and by Nider.[4] The question, however, was still hotly
+disputed at the end of the fifteenth century, and was finally settled
+in favour of the admission of the title as late as 1645.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Ibid._]
+
+[Footnote 2: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 117.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Summa Angelica Usura_, i. 38.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _De Cont. Merc._, iii. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 117.]
+
+
+§ 6. _Other Cases in which more than the Loan could be repaid_.
+
+We have now discussed the extrinsic titles--_poena conventionalis,
+damnum emergens, lucrum cessans_, and _periculum sortis_. There were
+other grounds also, which cannot be reduced to the classification of
+extrinsic titles, on which more than the amount of the loan might be
+justly returned to the lender. In the first place, the lender might
+justly receive anything that the borrower chose to pay over and above
+the loan, voluntarily as a token of gratitude. 'Repayment for a favour
+may be done in two ways,' says Aquinas. 'In one way, as a debt of
+justice; and to such a debt a man may be bound by a fixed contract;
+and its amount is measured according to the favour received. Wherefore
+the borrower of money, or any such thing the use of which is its
+consumption, is not bound to repay more than he received in loan; and
+consequently it is against justice if he is obliged to pay back more.
+In another way a man's obligation to repayment for favour received
+is based on a debt of friendship, and the nature of this debt depends
+more on the feeling with which the favour was conferred than on the
+question of the favour itself. This debt does not carry with it a
+civil obligation, involving a kind of necessity that would exclude the
+spontaneous nature of such a repayment.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 78, 2, ad. 2.]
+
+It was also clearly understood that it was not wrongful to borrow at
+usury under certain conditions. In such cases the lender might commit
+usury in receiving, but the borrower would not commit usury in paying
+an amount greater than the sum lent. It was necessary, however, in
+order that borrowing at usury might be justified, that the borrower
+should be animated by some good motive, such as the relief of his own
+or another's need. The whole question was settled once and for all by
+Aquinas: 'It is by no means lawful to induce a man to sin, yet it is
+lawful to make use of another's sin for a good end, since even God
+uses all sin for some good, since He draws some good from every
+evil.... Accordingly it is by no means lawful to induce a man to lend
+under a condition of usury; yet it is lawful to borrow for usury from
+a man who is ready to do so, and is a usurer by profession, provided
+that the borrower have a good end in view, such as the relief of his
+own or another's need.... He who borrows for usury does not consent
+to the usurer's sin, but makes use of it. Nor is it the usurer's
+acceptance of usury that pleases him, but his lending, which is
+good.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 78, 4.]
+
+We should mention here the _montes pietatis_, which occupied a
+prominent place among the credit-giving agencies of the later Middle
+Ages, although it is difficult to say whether their methods were
+examples of or exceptions to the doctrines forbidding usury. These
+institutions were formed on the model of the _montes profani_, the
+system of public debt resorted to by many Italian States. Starting in
+the middle of the twelfth century,[1] the Italian States had
+recourse to forced loans in order to raise reserves for extraordinary
+necessities, and, in order to prevent the growth of disaffection among
+the citizens, an annual percentage on such loans was paid. A fund
+raised by such means was generally called a _mons_ or heap. The
+propriety of the payment of this percentage was warmly contested
+during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries--the Dominicans and
+Franciscans defending it, and the Augustinians attacking it. But its
+justification was not difficult. In the first place, the loans were
+generally, if not universally, forced, and therefore the payment of
+interest on them was purely voluntary. As we have seen, Aquinas was
+quite clear as to the lawfulness of such a voluntary payment. In
+the second place, the lenders were almost invariably members of
+the trading community, who were the very people in whose favour a
+recompense for _lucrum cessans_ would be allowed.[2] Laurentius de
+Rodulphis argued in favour of the justice of these State loans, and
+contended that the bondholders were entitled to sell their rights, but
+advised good Christians to abstain from the practice of a right about
+the justice of which theologians were in such disagreement[3]; and
+Antoninus of Florence, who was in general so strict on the subject of
+usury, took the same view.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. i. p. 433.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. i. p. 448.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Usuris_.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Ashley, _op. cit._, p. 449.]
+
+It was probably the example of these State loans, or _montes profani_,
+that suggested to the Franciscans the possibility of creating an
+organisation to provide credit facilities for poor borrowers, which
+was in many ways analogous to the modern co-operative credit banks.
+Prior to the middle of the fifteenth century, when this experiment
+was initiated, there had been various attempts by the State to provide
+credit facilities for the poor, but these need not detain us here, as
+they did not come to anything.[1] The first of the _montes pietatis_
+was founded at Orvieto by the Franciscans in 1462, and after that
+year they spread rapidly.[2] The _montes_, although their aim was
+exclusively philanthropic, found themselves obliged to make a small
+charge to defray their working expenses, and, although one would think
+that this could be amply justified by the title of _damnum emergens_,
+it provoked a violent attack by the Dominicans. The principal
+antagonist of the _montes pietatis_ was Thomas da Vio, who wrote a
+special treatise on the subject, in which he made the point that the
+_montes_ charged interest from the very beginning of the loan, which
+was a contradiction of all the previous teaching on interest.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 108; Brants, _op. cit._, p. 159.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Perugia, 1467; Viterbo, 1472; Sevona, 1472; Assisi,
+1485; Mantua, 1486; Cesana and Parma, 1488; Interamna and Lucca,
+1489; Verona, 1490; Padua, 1491, etc. (Endemann, _Studien_, vol. i. p.
+463).]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Monte Pietatis_.]
+
+The general feeling of the Church, however, was in favour of the
+_montes_. It was felt that, if the poor must borrow, it was better
+that they should borrow at a low rate of interest from philanthropic
+institutions than at an extortionate rate from usurers; several
+_montes_ were established under the direct protection of the Popes;[1]
+and finally, in 1515, the Lateran Council gave an authoritative
+judgment in favour of the _montes_. This decree contains an excellent
+definition of usury as it had come to be accepted at that date: 'Usury
+is when gain is sought to be acquired from the use of a thing, not
+fruitful in itself, without labour, expense, or risk on the part of
+the lender.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 111.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 451.]
+
+It was generally admitted by the theologians that the taking of usury
+might be permitted by the civil authorities, although it was insisted
+that acting in accordance with this permission did not absolve the
+conscience of the usurer. Albertus Magnus conceded that 'although
+usury is contrary to the perfection of Christian laws, it is at least
+not contrary to civil interests';[1] and Aquinas also justified the
+toleration of usury by the State: 'Human laws leave certain things
+unpunished, on account of the condition of those who are imperfect,
+and who would be deprived of many advantages if all sins were strictly
+forbidden and punishments appointed for them. Wherefore human law
+has permitted usury, not that it looks upon usury as harmonising
+with justice, but lest the advantage of many should be hindered.'[2]
+Although this opinion was controverted by Ægidius Romanus,[3] it was
+generally accepted by later writers. Thus Gerson says that 'the civil
+law, when it tolerates usury in some cases, must not be said to be
+always contrary to the law of God or the Church. The civil legislator,
+acting in the manner of a wise doctor, tolerates lesser evils that
+greater ones may be avoided. It is obviously less of an evil that
+slight usury should be permitted for the relief of want, than that men
+should be driven by their want to rob or steal, or to sell their goods
+at an unfairly low price.'[4] Buridan explains that the attitude of
+the State towards usury must never be more than one of toleration;
+it must not actively approve of usury, but it may tacitly refuse to
+punish it.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Rambaud, _op. cit._, p. 65; Espinas, _op. cit._, p. 103.]
+
+[Footnote 2: II. ii. 78, 1, ad. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Reg. Prin._, ii. 3, 11.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _De Cont._, ii. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Quaest. super. Lib. Eth._, iv. 6.]
+
+
+§ 7. _The Justice of Unearned Income_.
+
+Many modern socialists--'Christian' and otherwise--have asserted that
+the teaching of the Church on usury was a pronouncement in favour of
+the unproductivity of capital.[1] Thus Rudolf Meyer, one of the
+most distinguished of 'Christian socialists,' has argued that if one
+recognises the productivity of land or stock, one must also recognise
+the productivity of money, and that therefore the Church, in denying
+the productivity of the latter, would be logically driven to deny
+the productivity of the former.[2] Anton Menger expresses the same
+opinion: 'There is not the least reason for attacking from the moral
+and religious standpoints loans at interest and usury more than any
+other form of unearned income. If one questions the legitimacy of
+loans at interest, one must equally condemn as inadmissible the other
+forms of profit from capital and lands, and particularly the feudal
+institutions of the Middle Ages.... It would have been but a logical
+consequence for the Church to have condemned all forms of unearned
+revenue.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 427.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Der Kapitalismus fin de siècle_, p. 29.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Das Recht auf den Arbeiterstrag_. See the Abbé Hohoff in
+_Démocratie Chrétienne_, Sept. 1898, p. 284.]
+
+No such conclusion, however, can be properly drawn from the mediæval
+teaching. The whole discussion on usury turned on the distinction
+which was drawn between things of which the use could be transferred
+without the ownership, and things of which the use could not be so
+transferred. In the former category were placed all things which
+could be used, either by way of enjoyment or employment for productive
+purposes, without being destroyed in the process; and in the latter
+all things of which the use or employment involved the destruction.
+
+With regard to income derived from the former, no difficulty was ever
+felt; a farm or a house might be let at a rent without any question,
+the return received being universally regarded as one of the
+legitimate fruits of the ownership of the thing. With regard to the
+latter, however, a difficulty did arise, because it was felt that a
+so-called loan of such goods was, when analysed, in reality a sale,
+and that therefore any increase which the goods produced was in
+reality the property, not of the lender, but of the borrower. That
+money was in all cases sterile was never suggested; on the contrary,
+it was admitted that it might produce a profit if wisely and prudently
+employed in industry or commerce; but it was felt that such an
+increase, when it took place, was the rightful property of the owner
+of the money. But when money was lent, the owner of this money was
+the borrower, and therefore, when money which was lent was employed
+in such a way as to produce a profit, that profit belonged to the
+borrower, not the lender. In this way the schoolmen were strictly
+logical; they fully admitted that wealth could produce wealth; but
+they insisted that that additional wealth should accrue to the owner
+of the wealth that produced it.
+
+The fact is, as Böhm-Bawerk has pointed out, that the question of the
+productivity of capital was never discussed by the mediæval schoolmen,
+for the simple reason that it was so obvious. The justice of receiving
+an income from an infungible thing which was temporarily lent by its
+owner, was discussed and supported; but the justice of the owner of
+such a thing receiving an income from the thing so long as it remained
+in his own possession was never discussed, because it was universally
+admitted.[1] It is perfectly correct to say that the problems which
+have perplexed modern writers as to the justice of receiving an
+unearned income from one's property never occurred to the scholastics;
+such problems can only arise when the institution of private property
+comes to be questioned; and private property was the keystone of the
+whole scholastic economic conception. In other words, the justice of a
+reward for capital was admitted because it was unquestioned.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Capital and Interest_, p. 39.]
+
+The question that caused difficulty was whether money could
+be considered a form of capital. At the present day, when the
+opportunities of industrial investment are wider than they ever were
+before, the principal use to which money is put is the financing of
+industrial enterprises; but in the Middle Ages this was not the case,
+precisely because the opportunities of profitable investment were
+so few. This is the reason why the mediæval writers did not find it
+necessary to discuss in detail the rights of the owner of money who
+used it for productive purposes. But of the justice of a profit being
+reaped when money was actually so employed there was no doubt at all.
+As we have seen, the borrower of a sum of money might reap a profit
+from its wise employment; there was no question about the justice of
+taking such a profit; and the only matter in dispute was whether that
+profit should belong to the borrower or the lender of the money. This
+dispute was decided in favour of the borrower on the ground that,
+according to the true nature of the contract of _mutuum_, the money
+was his property. It was, therefore, never doubted that even money
+might produce a profit for its owner. The only difference between
+infungible goods and money was that, in the case of the former, the
+use might be transferred apart from the property, whereas, in the case
+of the latter, it could not be so transferred.
+
+The recognition of the title _lucrum cessans_ as a ground for
+remuneration clearly implies the recognition of the legitimacy of the
+owner of money deriving a profit from its use; and the slowness of the
+scholastics to admit this title was precisely because of the rarity of
+opportunities for so employing money in the earlier Middle Ages. The
+nature of capital was clearly understood; but the possibility of money
+constituting capital arose only with the extension of commerce and
+the growth of profitable investments. Those scholastics who strove to
+abolish or to limit the recognition of _lucrum cessans_ as a ground
+for remuneration did not deny the productivity of capital, but simply
+thought the money had not at that time acquired the characteristics of
+capital.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. pp. 434-9.]
+
+If there were any doubt about the fact that the scholastics recognised
+the legitimacy of unearned income, it would be dispelled by an
+understanding of their teaching on rents and partnership, in the
+former of which they distinctly acknowledged the right to draw an
+unearned income from one's land, and in the latter of which they
+acknowledged the same right in regard to one's money.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: On this discussion see Ashley, _Economic History_, vol.
+i. pt. ii. pp. 427 _et seq._; Rambaud, _Histoire_, pp. 57 _et seq._;
+Funk, _Zins und Wucher_; Arnold, _Zur Geschichte des Eigenthums_, pp.
+92 _et seq._; Böhm-Bawerk, _Capital and Interest_ (Eng. trans.), pp.
+1-39.]
+
+
+§ 8. _Rent Charges_.
+
+There was never any difficulty about admitting the justice of
+receiving a rent from a tenant in occupation of one's lands, because
+land was understood to be essentially a thing of which the use could
+be sold apart from the ownership; and it was also recognised that the
+recipient of such a rent might sell his right to a third party, who
+could then demand the rent from the tenant. When this was admitted it
+was but a small step to admit the right of the owner of land to create
+a rent in favour of another person in consideration for some
+payment. The distinctions between a _census reservativus_, or a rent
+established when the possession of land was actually transferred to a
+tenant, and a _census constitutivus_, or a rent created upon property
+remaining in the possession of the payer, did not become the subject
+of discussion or difficulty until the sixteenth century.[1] The
+legitimacy of rent charges does not seem to have been questioned
+by the theologians; the best proof of this being the absence of
+controversy about them in a period when they were undoubtedly very
+common, especially in Germany.[2] Langenstein, whose opinion on
+the subject was followed by many later writers,[3] thought that the
+receipt of income from rent charges was perfectly justifiable, when
+the object was to secure a provision for old age, or to provide an
+income for persons engaged in the services of Church or State, but
+that it was unjustifiable if it was intended to enable nobles to
+live in luxurious idleness, or plebeians to desert honest toil. It is
+obvious that Langenstein did not regard rent charges as wrongful in
+themselves, but simply as being the possible occasions of wrong.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 409.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 104.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 109.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Roscher, _Geschichte_, p. 20.]
+
+In the fifteenth century definite pronouncements on rent charges
+were made by the Popes. A large part of the revenue of ecclesiastical
+bodies consisted of rent charges, and in 1425 several persons in the
+diocese of Breslau refused to pay the rents they owed to their clergy
+on the ground that they were usurious. The question was referred to
+Pope Martin V., whose bull deciding the matter was generally followed
+by all subsequent authorities. The bull decides in favour of the
+lawfulness of rent charges, provided certain conditions were observed.
+They must be charged on fixed property ('super bonis suis, dominiis,
+oppidis, terris, agris, praediis, domibus et hereditatibus') and
+determined beforehand; they must be moderate, not exceeding seven or
+ten per cent.; and they must be capable of being repurchased at any
+moment in whole or in part, by the repayment of the same sum for which
+they were originally created. On the other hand, the payer of the rent
+must never be forced to repay the purchase money, even if the goods on
+which the rent was charged had perished--in other words, the contract
+creating the rent charge was one of sale, and not of loan. The bull
+recites that such conditions had been observed in contracts of this
+nature from time immemorial.[1] A precisely similar decree was issued
+by Calixtus III. in 1455.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Extrav. Commun._, iii. 5, i.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, c. 2.]
+
+These decisions were universally followed in the fifteenth century.[1]
+It was always insisted that a rent could only be charged upon
+something of which the use could be separated from the ownership,
+as otherwise it would savour of usury.[2] In the sixteenth century
+interesting discussions arose about the possibility of creating a
+personal rent charge, not secured on any specific property, but such
+discussions did not trouble the writers of the period which we are
+treating. The only instance of such a contract being considered is
+found in a bull of Nicholas V. in 1452, permitting such personal rent
+charges in the kingdoms of Aragon and Sicily, but this permission was
+purely local, and, as the bull itself shows, was designed to meet the
+exigencies of a special situation.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 410.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Biel, _op. cit._, Sent. IV. xv. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 124.]
+
+
+
+§ 9. _Partnership_.
+
+The teaching on partnership contains such a complete disproof of
+the contention that the mediæval teaching on usury was based on the
+unproductivity of capital, that certain writers have endeavoured
+to prove that the permission of partnership was but a subterfuge,
+consciously designed to justify evasions of the usury law. Further
+historical knowledge, however, has dispelled this misconception;
+and it is now certain that the contract of partnership was widely
+practised and tolerated long before the Church attempted to insist
+on the observance of its usury laws in everyday commercial life.[1]
+However interesting an investigation into the commercial and
+industrial partnerships of the Middle Ages might be, we must not
+attempt to pursue it here, as we have rigidly limited ourselves to a
+consideration of teaching. We must refer, however, to the _commenda_,
+which was the contract from which the later mediæval partnership
+(_societas_) is generally admitted to have developed, because the
+_commenda_ was extensively practised as early as the tenth century,
+and, as far as we know, never provoked any expression of disapproval
+from the Church. This silence amounts to a justification; and we may
+therefore say that, even before Aquinas devoted his attention to the
+subject, the Church fully approved of an institution which provided
+the owner of money with the means of procuring an unearned income.
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 411; Weber,
+_Handelsgesellschaften_, pp. 111-14.]
+
+The _commenda_ was originally a contract by which merchants who wished
+to engage in foreign trade, but who did not wish to travel themselves,
+entrusted their wares to agents or representatives. The merchant was
+known as the _commendator_ or _socius stans_, and the agent as the
+_commendatarius_ or _tractator_. The most usual arrangement for the
+division of the profits of the adventure was that the _commendatarius_
+should receive one-fourth and the _commendator_ three-fourths. At
+a slightly later date contracts came to be common in which the
+_commendatarius_ contributed a share of capital, in which case he
+would receive one-fourth of the whole profit as _commendatarius_, and
+a proportionate share of the remainder as capitalist. This contract
+came to be generally known as _collegantia_ or _societas_. Contracts
+of this kind, though originally chiefly employed in overseas
+enterprise, afterwards came to be utilised in internal trade and
+manufacturing industry.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. pp. 412-14.]
+
+The legitimacy of the profits of the _commendator_ never seems to have
+caused the slightest difficulty to the canonists. In 1206 Innocent
+III. advised the Archbishop of Genoa that a widow's dowry should be
+entrusted to some merchant so that an income might be obtained by
+means of honest gain.[1] Aquinas expressly distinguishes between
+profit made from entrusting one's money to a merchant to be employed
+by him in trade, and profit arising from a loan, on the ground that
+in the former case the ownership of the money does not pass, and that
+therefore the person who derives the profit also risks the loan. 'He
+who lends money transfers the ownership of the money to the borrower.
+Hence the borrower holds the money at his own risk, and is bound to
+pay it all back: wherefore the lender must not exact more. On the
+other hand, he that entrusts his money to a merchant or craftsman so
+as to form a kind of society does not transfer the ownership of the
+money to them, for it remains his, so that at his risk the merchant
+speculates with it, or the craftsman uses it for his craft, and
+consequently he may lawfully demand, as something belonging to him,
+part of the profits derived from his money.'[2] This dictum of Aquinas
+was the foundation of all the later teaching on partnership, and the
+importance of the element of risk was insisted on in strong terms by
+the later writers. According to Baldus, 'when there is no sharing
+of risk there is no partnership';[3] and Paul de Castro says, 'A
+partnership when the gain is shared, but not the loss, is not to be
+permitted.'[4] 'The legitimacy,' says Brants, 'of the contract of
+_commenda_ always rested upon the same principle; capital could not be
+productive except for him who worked it himself, or who caused it
+to be worked on his own responsibility. This latter condition was
+realised in _commenda_.'[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Greg. Decr._, iv. 19, 7.]
+
+[Footnote 2: II. ii. 78, 2, ad. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 167.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Consilia_, ii. 55; also Ambrosius de Vignate, _De
+Usuris_, i. 62; Biel, _Op. cit._, IV. xv. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Op. cit._, p. 172.]
+
+Although the contract of partnership was fully recognised by the
+scholastics, it was not very scientifically treated, nor were the
+different species of the contract systematically classified. The only
+classification adopted was to divide contracts of partnership into
+two kinds--those where both parties contributed labour to a joint
+enterprise, and those where one party contributed labour and the other
+party money. The former gave no difficulty, because the justice of the
+remuneration of labour was admitted; but, while the latter was no
+less fully recognised, cases of it were subjected to careful scrutiny,
+because it was feared that usurious contracts might be concealed under
+the appearance of a partnership.[1] The question which occupied the
+greatest space in the treatises on the subject was the share in which
+the profits should be divided between the parties. The only rule which
+could be laid down, in the absence of an express contract, was that
+the parties should be remunerated in proportion to the services which
+they contributed--a rule the application of which must have been
+attended with enormous difficulties. Laurentius de Rodulphis insists
+that equality must be observed;[2] and Angelus de Periglis de Perusio,
+the first monographist on the subject, does not throw much more light
+on the question. The rule as stated by this last writer is that in the
+first place the person contributing money must be repaid a sum equal
+to what he put in, and the person contributing labour must be paid
+a sum equal to the value of his labour, and that whatever surplus
+remains must be divided between the two parties equally.[3] The
+question of the shares in which the profits should be distributed was
+not one, however, that frequently arose in practice, because it was
+the almost universal custom for the partners to make this a term of
+their original contract. Within fairly wide limits it was possible
+to arrange for the division of the profits in unequal shares--say
+two-thirds and one-third. The shares of gain and loss must, however,
+be the same; one party could not reap two-thirds of the profit and
+bear only one-third of the loss; but it might be contracted that, when
+the loss was deducted from the gain, one party might have two-thirds
+of the balance, and the other one-third.[4] In no case, of course,
+could the party contributing the money stipulate that his principal
+should in all cases be returned, because that was a _mutuum_. The
+party contributing the labour might validly contract that he should
+be paid for his labour in any case, but, if this was so, the contract
+ceased to be a _societas_ and became a _locatio operarum_, or ordinary
+contract of work for wages. In all cases, common participation in the
+gains and losses of the enterprise was an essential feature of the
+contract of partnership.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Summa Astesana_, iii. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _De Usuris_, i. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Societatibus_, i. 130.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _De Societatibus_, i. 130.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Ibid._]
+
+Before concluding the subject of partnership, we must make reference
+to the _trinus contractus_, which caused much discussion and great
+difficulty. As we have seen, a contract of partnership was good so
+long as the person contributing money did not contract that he should
+receive his original money back in all circumstances. A contract of
+insurance was equally justifiable. There was no doubt that A might
+enter into partnership with B; he could further insure himself with C
+against the loss of his capital, and with D against damage caused
+by fluctuations in the rate of profits. Why, then, should he not
+simultaneously enter into all three contracts with B? If he did so, he
+was still B's partner, but at the same time he was protected against
+the loss of his principal and a fair return upon it--in other words,
+he was a partner, protected against the risks of the enterprise. The
+legitimacy of such a contract--the _trinus contractus_, as it was
+called--was maintained by Carletus in the _Summa Angelica_, which was
+published about 1476, and by Biel.[1] Early in the sixteenth century
+Eck, a young professor at Ingolstadt, brought the question of the
+legitimacy of this contract before the University of Bologna, but no
+formal decision was pronounced, and, had it not been for the reaction
+following the Reformation, the _trinus contractus_ would probably have
+gained general acceptance. As it was, it was condemned by a provincial
+synod at Milan in 1565, and by Sixtus V. in 1585.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, IV. xv. 11. Lecky attributed the invention of
+the _trinus contractus_ to the Jesuits--who were only founded in 1534
+(_History of Rationalism_, vol. ii. p. 267).]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. pp. 439 _et seqq._;
+Cleary, _op. cit._, pp. 126 _et seqq._]
+
+We should also refer to the contract of bottomry, which consisted of a
+loan made to the owner--or in some cases the master--of a ship, on
+the security of the ship, to be repaid with interest upon the safe
+conclusion of a voyage. This contract could not be considered a
+partnership, inasmuch as the property in the money passed to the
+borrower; but it probably escaped condemnation as usurious on the
+ground that the lender shared in the risk of the enterprise. The
+payment of some additional sum over and above the money lent might
+thus be justified on the ground of _periculum sortis_. The contract,
+moreover, was really one of insurance for the shipowner, and contracts
+of insurance were clearly legitimate. In any event the legitimacy of
+loans on bottomry was not questioned before the sixteenth century.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. pp. 421-3; Palgrave,
+_Dictionary of Political Economy_, art. 'Bottomry'; Cunningham,
+_Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, vol i. p. 257.]
+
+
+§ 10. _Concluding Remarks on Usury_.
+
+It is to be hoped that the above exposition of the mediæval doctrine
+on usury will dispel the idea that the doctrine was founded upon the
+injustice of unearned income. Far from the receipt of an unearned
+income from money or other capital being in all cases condemned, it
+was unanimously recognised, provided that the income accrued to the
+owner of the capital, and not to somebody else, and that the rate
+of remuneration was just. The teaching on partnership rested on the
+fundamental assumption that a man might trade with his money, either
+by using it himself, or by allowing other people to use it on his
+behalf. In the latter case, the person making use of the money might
+be either assured of being paid a fixed remuneration for his services,
+in which case the contract was one of _locatio operarum_, or he might
+be willing to let his remuneration depend upon the result of the
+enterprise, in which case the contract was one of _societas_. In
+either case the right of the owner of the money to reap a profit from
+the operation was unquestioned, provided only that he was willing to
+share the risks of loss. But if, instead of making use of his money
+for trading either by his own exertions or by those of his partner
+or agent, he chose to sell his money, he was not permitted to receive
+more for it than its just price--which was, in fact, the repayment of
+the same amount. This was what happened in the case of a _mutuum_. In
+that case the ownership of the money was transferred to the borrower,
+who was perfectly at liberty to trade with it, if he so desired, and
+to reap whatever gain that trade produced. The prohibition of usury,
+far from being proof of the injustice of an income from capital, is
+proof of quite the contrary, because it was designed to insure that
+the income from capital should belong to the owner of that capital and
+to no other person.[1] Although, therefore, no price could be paid for
+a loan, the lender must be prevented from suffering any damage from
+making the loan, and he might make good his loss by virtue of the
+implied collateral contract of indemnity, which we discussed above
+when treating of extrinsic titles. If the lender, through making the
+loan, had been prevented from making a profit in trade, he might be
+indemnified for that loss. All through the discussions on usury we
+find express recognition of the justice of the owner of money deriving
+an income from its employment; all that the teaching of usury was at
+pains to define was who the person was to whom money, which was the
+subject matter of a _mutuum_, belonged. It is quite impossible to
+comprehend how modern writers can see in the usury teaching of the
+scholastics a fatal discouragement to the enterprise of traders and
+capitalists; and it is equally impossible to understand how
+socialists can find in that doctrine any suggestion of support for the
+proposition that all unearned income is immoral and unjust.
+
+[Footnote 1: See Rambaud, _op. cit._, p. 59.]
+
+
+
+SECTION 3.--THE MACHINERY OF EXCHANGE
+
+
+We have already drawn attention to the fact that there was no branch
+of economics about which such profound ignorance ruled in the earlier
+Middle Ages as that of money. As we stated above, even as late as
+the twelfth century, the theologians were quite content to quote the
+ill-founded and erroneous opinions of Isidore of Seville as final
+on the subject. It will be remembered that we also remarked that
+the question of money was the first economic question to receive
+systematic scientific treatment from the writers of the later Middle
+Ages. This remarkable development of opinion on this subject is
+practically the work of one man, Nicholas Oresme, Bishop of Lisieux,
+whose treatise, _De Origine, Natura, Jure et Mutationibus Monetarum_,
+is the earliest example of a pure economic monograph in the modern
+sense. 'The scholastics,' says Roscher, 'extended their inquiries from
+the economic point of view further than one is generally disposed to
+believe; although it is true that they often did so under a singular
+form.... We can, however, single out Oresme as the greatest scholastic
+economist for two reasons: on account of the exactitude and clarity
+of his ideas, and because he succeeded in freeing himself from the
+pseudo-theological systematisation of things in general, and from the
+pseudo-philosophical deduction in details.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Quoted in the Introduction to Wolowski's edition of
+Oresme's _Tractatus_ (Paris, 1864).]
+
+Even in the thirteenth century natural economy had not been
+replaced to any large extent by money economy. The great majority
+of transactions between man and man were carried on without the
+intervention of money payments; and the amount of coin in circulation
+was consequently small.[1] The question of currency was not therefore
+one to engage the serious attention of the writers of the time.
+Aquinas does not deal with money in the _Summa_, except
+incidentally, and his references to the subject in the _De Regimine
+Principum_--which occur in the chapters of that work of which
+the authorship is disputed--simply go to the length of approving
+Aristotle's opinions on money, and advising the prince to exercise
+moderation in the exercise of his power of coining _sive in mutando
+sive in diminuendo pondus_.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 179; Rambaud, _op. cit._, p. 73.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _De Reg. Prin._, ii. 13.]
+
+As is often the case, the discussion of the rights and duties of the
+sovereign in connection with the currency only arose when it became
+necessary for the public to protest against abuses. Philip the Fair of
+France made it part of his policy to increase the revenue by tampering
+with the coinage, a policy which was continued by his successors,
+until it became an intolerable grievance to his subjects. In vain did
+the Pope thunder against Philip;[1] in vain did the greatest poet of
+the age denounce
+
+                    'him that doth work
+  With his adulterate money on the Seine.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Le Blant, _Traité historique des Monnaies de France_, p.
+184.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Dante, _Paradiso_, xix.]
+
+Matters continued to grow steadily worse until the middle of the
+fourteenth century. During the year 1348 there were no less than
+eleven variations in the value of money in France; in 1349 there were
+nine, in 1351 eighteen, in 1353 thirteen, and in 1355 eighteen again.
+In the course of a single year the value of the silver mark sprang
+from four to seventeen livres, and fell back again to four.[1] The
+practice of fixing the price of many necessary commodities must have
+aggravated the natural evil consequences of such fluctuations.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Wolowski's Introduction to Oresme's _Tractatus_, p.
+xxvii.]
+
+[Footnote 2: See Endemann, _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 34.]
+
+This grievance had the good result of fixing the attention of scholars
+on the money question. 'Under the stress of facts and of necessity,'
+says Brants, 'thinkers applied their minds to the details of the
+theory of money, which was the department of economics which, thanks
+to events, received the earliest illumination. Lawyers, bankers,
+money-changers, doctors of theology, and publicists of every kind,
+attached a thoroughly justifiable importance to the question of money.
+We are no doubt far from knowing all the treatises which saw the light
+in the fourteenth century upon this weighty question; but we know
+enough to affirm that the monetary doctrine was very developed and
+very far-seeing.'[1] Buridan analysed the different functions and
+utilities of money, and explained the different ways in which its
+value might be changed.[2] He did not, however, proceed to discuss the
+much more important question as to when the sovereign was entitled
+to make these alterations. This was reserved for Nicholas Oresme, who
+published his famous treatise about the year 1373. The merits of this
+work have excited the unanimous admiration of all who have studied it.
+Roscher says that it contains 'a theory of money, elaborated in the
+fourteenth century, which remains perfectly correct to-day, under the
+test of the principles applied in the nineteenth century, and that
+with a brevity, a precision, a clarity, and a simplicity of language
+which is a striking proof of the superior genius of its author.'[3]
+According to Brants, 'the treatise of Oresme is one of the first to
+be devoted _ex professo_ to an economic subject, and it expresses many
+ideas which are very just, more just than those which held the field
+for a long period after him, under the name of mercantilism, and more
+just than those which allowed of the reduction of money as if it were
+nothing more than a counter of exchange.'[4] 'Oresme's treatise on
+money,' says Macleod, 'may be justly said to stand at the head of
+modern economic literature. This treatise laid the foundations of
+monetary science, which are now accepted by all sound economists.'[5]
+'Oresme's completely secular and naturalistic method of treating one
+of the most important problems of political economy,' says Espinas,
+'is a signal of the approaching end of the Middle Ages and the dawn of
+the Renaissance.'[6] Dr. Cunningham adds his tribute of praise: 'The
+conceptions of national wealth and national power were ruling ideas in
+economic matters for several centuries, and Oresme appears to be the
+earliest of the economic writers by whom they were explicitly adopted
+as the very basis of his argument.... A large number of points
+of economic doctrine in regard to coinage are discussed with much
+judgment and clearness.'[7] Endemann alone is[8] inclined to quarrel
+with the pre-eminence of Oresme; but on this question, he is in a
+minority of one.[9]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 186.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Quaest. super Lib. Eth._, v. 17; _Quaest. super Lib.
+Pol._, i. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Quoted in Wolowski, _op. cit._, and see Roscher,
+_Geschichte_, p. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Op. cit._, p. 190.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _History of Economics_, p. 37.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Op. cit._, p. 110.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, vol. i. p.
+359.]
+
+[Footnote 8: _Grundsätze_, p. 75.]
+
+[Footnote 9: See an interesting note in Brants, _op. cit._, p. 187.]
+
+The principal question which Oresme sets out to answer, according to
+the first chapter of this treatise, is whether the sovereign has the
+right to alter the value of the money in circulation at his pleasure,
+and for his own benefit. He begins the discussion by going over the
+same ground as Aristotle in demonstrating the origin and utility of
+money, and then proceeds to discuss the most suitable materials
+which can be made to serve as money. He decides in favour of gold and
+silver, and shows himself an unquestioning bimetallist. He further
+admits the necessity of some token money of small denominations, to be
+composed of the baser metals. Having drawn attention to the transition
+from the circulation of money, the value of which is recognised
+solely by weight, to the circulation of that which is accepted for its
+imprint or superscription, the author insists that the production of
+such an imprinted coinage is essentially a matter for the sovereign
+authority in the State. Oresme now comes to the central point of his
+thesis. Although, he says, the prince has undoubtedly the power to
+manufacture and control the coinage, he is by no means the owner of it
+after it has passed into circulation, because money is a thing which
+in its essence was invented and introduced in the interests of society
+as a whole.
+
+Oresme then proceeds to apply this central principle to the solution
+of the question which he sets himself to answer, and concludes that,
+as money is essentially a thing which exists for the public benefit,
+it must not be tampered with, nor varied in value, except in cases of
+absolute necessity, and in the presence of an uncontroverted general
+utility. He bases his opposition to unnecessary monetary variation on
+the perfectly sound ground that such variation is productive of loss
+either to those who are bound to make or bound to receive fixed sums
+in payment of obligations. The author then goes on to analyse the
+various kinds of variation, which he says are five--_figurae_,
+_proportionis_, _appellationis_, _ponderis_, and _materiae_. Changes
+of form (_figurae_) are only justified when it is found that the
+existing form is liable to increase the damage which the coins suffer
+from the wear and tear of usage, or when the existing currency has
+been degraded by widespread illegal coining; changes _proportionis_
+are only allowable when the relative value of the different metals
+constituting the coinage have themselves changed; simple changes of
+name (_appellationis_), such as calling a mark a pound, are never
+allowed. Changes of the weight of the coins (_ponderis_) are
+pronounced by Oresme to be just as gross a fraud as the arbitrary
+alteration of the weights or measures by which corn or wine are sold;
+and changes of matter (_materiae_) are only to be tolerated when the
+supply of the old metal has become insufficient. The debasement of the
+coinage by the introduction of a cheaper alloy is condemned.
+
+In conclusion, Oresme insists that no alteration of any of the above
+kinds can be justified at the mere injunction of the prince; it must
+be accomplished _per ipsam communitatem_. The prince exercises
+the functions of the community in the matter of coinage not as
+_principalis actor_, but as _ordinationis publicae executor_. It is
+pointed out that arbitrary changes in the value of money are really
+equivalent to a particularly noxious form of taxation; that they
+seriously disorganise commerce and impoverish many merchants; and
+that the bad coinage drives the good out of circulation. This last
+observation is of special interest in a fourteenth-century writer,
+as it shows that Gresham's Law, which is usually credited to a
+sixteenth-century English economist, was perfectly well understood in
+the Middle Ages.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The best edition of Oresme's _Tractatus_ is that by
+Wolowski, published at Paris in 1864, which includes both the Latin
+and French texts.]
+
+This brief account of the ground which Oresme covered, and the
+conclusions at which he arrived, will enable us to appreciate his
+importance. Although his clear elucidation of the principles which
+govern the questions of money was not powerful enough to check the
+financial abuses of the sovereigns of the later Middle Ages, they
+exercised a profound influence on the thought of the period, and were
+accepted by all the theologians of the fifteenth century.[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: Biel, _op. cit._, IV. xv. 11; _De Monetarum Potestate et
+Utilitate_, referred to in Jourdain, _op. cit._, p. 34.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+We have now passed in review the principal economic doctrines of the
+mediæval schoolmen. We do not propose to attempt here any detailed
+criticism of the merits or demerits of the system which we have but
+briefly sketched. All that we have attempted to do is to present the
+doctrines in such a way that the reader may be in a position to pass
+judgment on them. There is one aspect of the subject, however, to
+which we may be allowed to direct attention before concluding this
+essay. It is the fashion of many modern writers, especially those
+hostile to the Catholic Church, to represent the Middle Ages as a
+period when all scientific advance and economic progress were impeded,
+if not entirely prevented, by the action of the Church. It would be
+out of place to inquire into the advances which civilisation achieved
+in the Middle Ages, as this would lead us into an examination of the
+whole history of the period; but we think it well to inquire briefly
+how far the teaching of the Church on economic matters was calculated
+to interfere with material progress. This is the lowest standard
+by which we can judge the mediæval economic teaching, which was
+essentially aimed at the moral and spiritual elevation of mankind; but
+it is a standard which it is worth while to apply, as it is that
+by which the doctrines of the scholastics have been most generally
+condemned by modern critics. To test the mediæval economic doctrine
+by this, the lowest standard, it may be said that it made for the
+establishment and development of a rich and prosperous community. We
+may summarise the aim of the mediæval teaching by saying that, in the
+material sphere, it aimed at extended production, wise consumption,
+and just distribution, which are the chief ends of all economic
+activity.
+
+It aimed at extended production through its insistence on the
+importance and dignity of manual labour.[1] As we showed above, one of
+the principal achievements of Christianity in the social sphere was
+to elevate labour from a degrading to an honourable occupation. The
+example of Christ Himself and the Apostles must have made a deep
+impression on the early Christians; but no less important was the
+living example to be seen in the monasteries. The part played by the
+great religious orders in the propagation of this dignified conception
+cannot be exaggerated. St. Anthony had advised his imitators to busy
+themselves with meditation, prayer, and the labour of their hands, and
+had promised that the fear of God would reside in those who laboured
+at corporal works; and similar exhortations were to be found in the
+rules of Saints Macarius, Pachomius, and Basil.[2] St. Augustine and
+St. Jerome recommended that all religious should work for some
+hours each day with their hands, and a regulation to this effect was
+embodied in the Rule of St. Benedict.[3] The example of educated
+and holy men voluntarily taking upon themselves the most menial and
+tedious employments must have acted as an inspiration to the laity.
+The mere economic value of the monastic institutions themselves must
+have been very great; agriculture was improved owing to the assiduity
+and experiments of the monks;[4] the monasteries were the nurseries
+of all industrial and artistic progress;[5] and the example of
+communities which consumed but a small proportion of what they
+produced was a striking example to the world of the wisdom and virtue
+of saving.[6] Not the least of the services which Christian teaching
+rendered in the domain of production was its insistence upon the
+dominical repose.[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Sabatier, _L'Eglise et le Travail manuel_, and
+Antoine, _Cours d'Economie sociale_, p. 159.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Levasseur, _Histoire des Classes ouvrières en France_,
+vol. i. pp. 182-3.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Reg. St. Ben._, c. 48.]
+
+[Footnote 4: List, _National System of Political Economy_, ch. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Janssen, _History of the German People_, vol. ii. p. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Dublin Review_, N.S., vol. vi. p. 365; see Goyau,
+_Autour du Catholicisme sociale_, vol. ii. pp. 79-118; Gasquet, _Henry
+VIII. and the English Monasteries_, vol. ii. p. 495.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _Dublin Review_, vol. xxxiii. p. 305. See Goyau, _Autour
+du Catholicisme sociale_, vol. ii. pp. 93 _et seq._]
+
+The importance which the scholastics attached to an extended and
+widespread production is evidenced by their attitude towards the
+growth of the population. The fear of over-population does not
+appear to have occurred to the writers of the Middle Ages;[1] on
+the contrary, a rapidly increasing population was considered a great
+blessing for a country.[2] This attitude towards the question of
+population did not arise merely from the fact that Europe was very
+sparsely populated in the Middle Ages, as modern research has proved
+that the density of population was much greater than is generally
+supposed.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 235, quoting Sinigaglia, _La
+Teoria Economica della Populazione in Italia_, Archivio Giuridico,
+Bologna, 1881.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Catholic Encyclopædia_, art. 'Population.' Brants draws
+attention to the interesting fact that a germ of Malthusianism is to
+be found in the much-discussed _Songe du Vergier_, book ii. chaps.
+297-98, and Franciscus Patricius de Senis, writing at the end of
+the fifteenth century, recommends emigration as the remedy against
+over-population (_De Institutione Reipublicae_, ix.).]
+
+[Footnote 3: Dureau de la Malle, 'Mémoire sur la Population de la
+France au xiv^e Siècle,' _Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions et
+Belles-Lettres_, vol. xiv. p. 36.]
+
+The mediæval attitude towards population was founded upon the sanctity
+of marriage and the respect for human life. The utterances of Aquinas
+on the subject of matrimony show his keen appreciation of the natural
+social utility of marriage from the point of view of increasing the
+population of the world, and of securing that the new generation
+shall be brought up as good and valuable citizens.[1] While voluntary
+virginity is recommended as a virtue, it is nevertheless distinctly
+recognised that the precept of virginity is one which by its very
+nature can be practised by only a small proportion of the human race,
+and that it should only be practised by those who seek by detachment
+from earthly pleasures to regard divine things.[2] Aquinas further
+says that large families help to increase the power of the State, and
+deserve well of the commonwealth,[3] and quotes with approbation the
+Biblical injunction to 'increase and multiply.'[4] Ægidius Romanus
+demonstrates at length the advantages of large families in the
+interests of the family and the future of the nation.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Summa Cont. Gent._, iii. 123, 136.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Summa_, II. ii. 151 and 152.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Reg. Prin._, iv. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Gen. i. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _De Reg. Prin._, ii. 1, 6.]
+
+The growth of a healthy population was made possible by the
+reformation of family life, which was one of the greatest achievements
+of Christianity in the social sphere. In the early days of the Church
+the institution of the family had been reconstituted by moderating the
+harshness of the Roman domestic rule (_patria potestas_), by raising
+the moral and social position of women, and by reforming the system of
+testamentary and intestate successions; and the great importance which
+the early Church attached to the family as the basic unit of social
+life remained unaltered throughout the Middle Ages.[5]
+
+[Footnote 5: Troplong, _De l'Influence du Christianisme sur le Droit
+civil des Romains_; Cossa, _Guide_, p. 99; Devas, _Political Economy_,
+p. 168; Périn, _La Richesse dans les Sociétés chrétiennes_, i. 541 _et
+seq._; Hettinger, _Apologie du Christianisme_, v. 230 _et seq._]
+
+The Middle Ages were therefore a period when the production of wealth
+was looked upon as a salutary and honourable vocation. The wonderful
+artistic monuments of that era, which have survived the intervening
+centuries of decay and vandalism, are a striking testimony to
+the perfection of production in a civilisation in which work was
+considered to be but a form of prayer, and the manufacturer was
+prompted to be, not a drudge, but an artist.
+
+In the Middle Ages, however, as we have said before, man did not exist
+for the sake of production, but production for the sake of man; and
+wise consumption was regarded as at least as important as extended
+production. The high estimation in which wealth was held resulted in
+the elaboration of a highly developed code of regulation as to the
+manner in which it should be enjoyed. We do not wish to weary
+the reader with a repetition of that which we have already fully
+discussed; it is enough to call attention to the fact that the golden
+mean of conduct was the observance of liberality, as distinguished,
+on the one hand, from avarice, or a too high estimation of material
+goods, and, on the other hand, from prodigality, or an undue disregard
+for their value. Social virtue consisted in attaching to wealth its
+proper value.
+
+Far more important than its teaching either on production or
+consumption was the teaching of the mediæval Church on distribution,
+which it insisted must be regulated on a basis of strict justice.
+It is in this department of economic study that the teaching of the
+mediævals appears in most marked contrast to the teaching of the
+present day, and it is therefore in this department that the study of
+its doctrines is most valuable. As we said above, the modern world has
+become convinced by bitter experience of the impracticability of mere
+selfishness as the governing factor in distribution; and the economic
+thought of the time is concentrated upon devising some new system
+of society which shall be ruled by justice. On the one hand, we see
+socialists of various schools attempting to construct a Utopia
+in which each man shall be rewarded, not in accordance with his
+opportunities of growing rich at the expense of his fellow-man, but
+according to the services he performs; while, on the other hand,
+we find the Christian economists striving to induce a harassed and
+bewildered world to revert to an older and nobler social ethic.
+
+It is no part of our present purpose to estimate the relative merits
+of these two solutions for our admittedly diseased society. Nor is it
+our purpose to attempt to demonstrate how far the system of economic
+teaching which we have sketched in the foregoing pages is applicable
+at the present day. We must, however, in this connection draw
+attention to one important consideration, namely, that the mediæval
+economic teaching was expressly designed to influence the only
+constant element in human society at every stage of economic
+development. Methods of production may improve, hand may give place to
+machine industry, and mechanical inventions may revolutionise all our
+conceptions of transport and communication; but there is one element
+in economic activity that remains a fixed and immutable factor
+throughout the ages, and that element is man. The desires and the
+conscience of man remain the same, whatever the mechanical environment
+with which he is encompassed. One reason which suggests the view that
+the mediæval teaching is still perfectly applicable to economic life
+is that it was designed to operate upon the only factor of economic
+activity that has not changed since the Middle Ages--namely, the
+desires and conscience of man.
+
+It is important also to draw attention to the fact that the acceptance
+of the economic teaching of the mediæval theologians does not
+necessarily imply acceptance of their teaching on other matters. There
+is at the present day a growing body of thinking men in every country
+who are full of admiration for the ethical teaching of Christianity,
+but are unable or unwilling to believe in the Christian religion. The
+fact of such unbelief or doubt is no reason for refusing to adopt the
+Christian code of social justice, which is founded upon reason rather
+than upon revelation, and which has its roots in Greek philosophy and
+Roman law rather than in the Bible and the writings of the Fathers.
+It has been said that Christianity is the only religion which combines
+religion and ethics in one system of teaching; but although Christian
+religious and ethical teaching are combined in the teaching of the
+Catholic Church, they are not inseparable. Those who are willing to
+discuss the adoption of the Socialist ethic, which is not combined
+with any spiritual dogmas, should not refuse to consider the Christian
+ethic, which might equally be adopted without subscribing to the
+Christian dogma.
+
+As we said above, it is no part of our intention to estimate the
+relative merits of the solutions of our social evils proposed by
+socialists and by Catholic economists. One thing, however, we feel
+bound to emphasise, and that is that these two solutions are not
+identical. It is a favourite device of socialists, especially in
+Catholic countries, to contend that their programme is nothing more
+than a restatement of the economic ideals of the Catholic Church as
+exhibited in the writings of the mediæval scholastics. We hope that
+the foregoing pages are sufficient to demonstrate the incorrectness of
+this assertion. Three main principles appear more or less clearly in
+all modern socialistic thought: first, that private ownership of the
+means of production is unjustifiable; second, that all value comes
+from labour; and, third, that all unearned income is unjust. These
+three great principles may or may not be sound; but it is quite
+certain that not one of them was held by the mediæval theologians.
+In the section on property we have shown that Aquinas, following the
+Fathers and the tradition of the early Church, was an uncompromising
+advocate of private property, and that he drew no distinction between
+the means of production and any other kind of wealth; in the section
+on just price we have shown that labour was regarded by the
+mediævals as but a single one of the elements which entered into the
+determination of value; and in the section on usury we have shown that
+many forms of unearned income were not only tolerated, but approved by
+the scholastics.
+
+We do not lose sight of the fact that socialism is not a mere economic
+system, but a philosophy, and that it is founded on a philosophical
+basis which conflicts with the very foundations of Christianity.
+We are only concerned with it here in its character of an economic
+system, and all we have attempted to show is that, as an economic
+system, it finds no support in the teaching of the scholastic writers.
+We do not pretend to suggest which of these two systems is more likely
+to bring salvation to the modern world; we simply wish to emphasise
+that they are two systems, and not one. One's inability to distinguish
+between Christ and Barabbas should not lead one to conclude that they
+are really the same person.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+  Abelard, 14.
+  _Acts of the Apostles_, 168.
+      communism in, 44, 46.
+  Adam, 140.
+    and Eve, slavery the result of their sin, 92.
+  Administrative occupations, position in _artes possessivae_, 143.
+  Ægidius Romanus, 98, 197, 225.
+  Agriculture, position in _artes possessivae_, 142, 143.
+    its encouragement recommended, 143.
+  Albertus Magnus, 16, 82, 176, 186, 197.
+  Albigenses, the, belief in communism, 66.
+  Alcuin, 14.
+  Alexander of Hales, 176, 185.
+  Alexander III., Pope, 187.
+    attitude to usury, 174.
+  Alfric, see _Colloquy of Archbishop, The_.
+  Almsgiving, as justice, not charity, 69.
+    duty of, 80.
+    enforcement by the State, 85.
+    summary of mediæval teaching on, 84.
+    the early Church on, 52.
+  Ambition, a virtue, 79.
+  Ambrosius de Vignate, 191, 208.
+  Ananias, 46, 52.
+  Ancients, loss of economic teaching of, 15.
+  Angelus de Periglis de Perusio, 209, 210.
+  Antoine, 87, 172, 223.
+  Antoninus of Florence, 9, 68, 79, 110, 122, 181, 196.
+  Ape of Aristotle, the, _see_ Albertus Magnus.
+  Apostles, the, attitude to manual labour, 223.
+    attitude to private property and communism, 48.
+    attitude to usury, 168.
+  Apostles, the, fornication expressly forbidden by, 168.
+    teaching regarding slavery, 89.
+  Apostoli, the, belief in communism, 66.
+  Aquinas, _see_ Thomas Aquinas.
+  Aragon, personal rent charges permitted in, 205.
+  Architecture, _see_ Manufacture.
+  Archivio Giuridico, 225.
+  Ardant, 69.
+  Aristotle, 14, 16, 36, 97, 98, 142, 146, 169, 215, 219.
+    as source for Thomas Aquinas, 62.
+    attitude of Thomas Aquinas to his opinion, 94 _et seq._
+    Cossa on his influence, 17.
+    his principles maintained through Thomas Aquinas, 19.
+    his theory of slavery opposed to that of St. Augustine, 93.
+    influence on controversies of the schools, 17.
+    influence on mediæval thought, 16.
+    renewed study of, 16.
+  Arnold, 203.
+  _Artes pecuniativae_, 142.
+  _Artes possessivae_, 142.
+      encouragement recommended by Aquinas, 143.
+  Arnobius, 45.
+  Ashley, Sir W.H., 3, 6, 7, 18, 21, 23, 27, 29, 30, 33, 40, 76,
+          105, 113, 126, 134, 146, 149, 175, 185, 186, 187, 188,
+          190, 191, 195, 196, 197, 198, 202, 203, 205, 206, 207,
+          211, 212.
+  Augustinians, the, 195.
+  Ausmo, Nicholas de, 156.
+  Avarice, an offence against liberality, 79.
+    a sin towards the individual himself and the community, 78.
+    relativity of, 75.
+  Avarice, the necessary basis of trade, 145.
+  _Ayenbite of Inwit, The_, 151.
+
+  Baldus, 187, 208.
+  [Greek: banousia], a sin, 77, 78.
+  Barabbas, 231.
+  Bartlett, Dr. V., 56, 90.
+  Bartolus, 187.
+  Baudrillard, 76.
+  Beauvais, Vincent de, 7, 16.
+  Bégards, the, belief in communism, 66.
+  Benedict XIV., Pope, an encyclical of, 183.
+  Benigni, 61.
+  Bergier, 45.
+  Bernardine of Siena, 112, 181.
+  Biel, 99, 100, 104, 106, 107, 108, 112, 118, 121, 124, 145, 150,
+       156, 180, 185, 205, 208, 211, 221.
+  Bimetallism, Oresme's support of, 219.
+  Blanqui, 146.
+  Bohemia, communistic teaching in, 86.
+  Böhm-Bawerk, 174, 200, 203, 211.
+  Bottomry, contract of, 211.
+  Brant, Sebastian, 137.
+  Brants, V.L.J.L., 9, 10, 13, 19, 21, 66, 101, 111, 112, 114, 121,
+             122, 123, 142, 159, 181, 208, 215, 216, 217, 218, 225.
+  Breslau, refusal to pay rent in, 204.
+  Brunetto Latini, 123.
+  Building, _see_ Manufacture.
+  Buridan, 70, 72, 76, 77, 78, 109, 110, 143, 180, 191, 198, 217.
+
+  Cabet, 42.
+  Caepolla, 108, 118, 120.
+  Cajetan, 65, 79.
+    on the _Summa_, 68.
+  Calippe, Abbé, 49, 62.
+    on Thomas Aquinas, 68.
+  Calixtus III., Pope, decree regarding rent, 205.
+  _Cambium_, 155.
+    conditions justifying, 157.
+    dealt with by Brants, 159.
+    _minutum_, 157, 158.
+    motives justifying, 157.
+    _per litteras_, 157, 158.
+    _siccum_, 157.
+    the three kinds of, 157, 158.
+    when justifiable, not a loan, 158.
+  Campsor, the, his remuneration approved, 156.
+  Canon law the source of knowledge of Christian economic teaching, 13.
+  Canonist doctrine, dealt with by Sir W. Ashley, 2.
+      Dr. Cunningham's estimate of its importance, 27.
+      its impracticability demonstrated by Endemann, 20.
+      value of the study of, 29.
+  Canonists, the, 117.
+  Capital, question of the productivity of, 198 _et seq._
+  Carletus, 120, 150, 193, 211.
+  Carlyle, Dr., 44, 58, 63.
+  Castro, Paul, 208.
+  _Catholic Encyclopaedia, The_, definition of 'Middle Ages,' 3.
+      on Communism, 46.
+      on Just Price, 112, 126.
+      on Political Economy, 30.
+      on Population, 225.
+      on Slavery, 90, 100.
+  Cato, 162.
+  Cattle-breeding, _see_ Agriculture.
+  _Census constitutivus_, 203.
+      _reservativus_, 203.
+  _Centesima_, the maximum rate of interest in Borne, 161.
+  Cesana, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  Champagny, 80.
+  Change, see _Cambium_.
+  Chevallier, 20.
+  Christ, 42, 231.
+    a working man, 137.
+    attitude to manual labour, 223.
+    attitude to private property and communism, 47.
+    teaching regarding slavery, 89.
+  Christendom, economic unity of, 11.
+  Christian economic teaching, 13.
+    economists, their attempts to reinstitute mediæval economics, 228.
+  _Christian Monitor, The_, 139.
+  Christian Exhortation, The, on the protection of the farmer, 143.
+  Christianity, as providing an ethical basis of society, 31.
+    attitude to manual labour, 137, 223.
+    attitude to slavery, 88.
+    foundations and origin of its code of social justice, 229.
+  Christianity, influence in abolition of Roman slavery, 99 _et seq._
+    possibility of adopting ethics without dogmas of, 229.
+    reformation of family life by, 226.
+    relation of economic teaching of, to socialism, 33.
+    social theory of, 12.
+  Church, economic teaching of the mediæval, 12.
+    the, attitude to commerce at end of the Middle Ages, 152.
+    the, attitude to _monies pietatis_, 197.
+    the, effect of economic teaching of, on material progress, 223.
+    the, necessity for understanding economic teaching of, 32.
+    the, principles followed by, in fixing price, 114.
+    the, prohibition of usury not peculiar to, 160.
+    the, socialist view of its teaching on usury, 198.
+    the early, 230.
+      the early teaching on usury, 167 _et seq._
+  Cicero, 56, 58, 162.
+  Civil Law, Commentaries on, a source of knowledge of Christian
+economic teaching, 13.
+  Civilisation, result of its advance in the thirteenth century, 15.
+  Classical economists, recent reaction against, 29.
+  Cleary, Dr., 35, 135, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168,
+169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 185, 186, 187, 188, 191, 192, 193,
+196, 197, 205.
+  Clement of Alexandria, _see_ St. Clement.
+    of Rome, _see_ St. Clement.
+  Clergy, the, and usury, 169.
+    the, prohibition of trading by, 151.
+  Coinage, _see_ Money.
+  _Collegantia_, 207.
+  _Colloquy of Archbishop Alfric, The_, 149.
+  _Commenda_, the, 206.
+  _Commendatarius_, the, 207.
+  _Commendator_, the, 207.
+  Common estimation, of just price not the final criterion, 134.
+  Commerce, attitude of later fifteenth century to, 150.
+    attitude of mediæval theologians to, 136.
+    attitude of the Church at end of Middle Ages, 152.
+    condemnation of, by early Christians, 145.
+    condemnation of, by scholastics, 146.
+    dangerous to virtue, 145, 151.
+    definition of, 144.
+    extension of, in thirteenth century, 15.
+    factors making for its illegality, 151.
+    gradual change of mediæval attitude to, 152.
+    justification of, not based on payment for labour, 154.
+    legitimacy dependent on methods, 146.
+    legitimacy dependent on motives, 148.
+    motives regarded as justifying, 153.
+    necessity for, realised, 147.
+    necessity of controlling its operations, 154.
+    not dealt with by early writers, 13.
+    position in the _artes possessivae_, 143.
+    prohibition of speculative, 151.
+    rules applying to, defined by Nider, 150.
+  Communism, alleged, of early Christians, 43.
+    not part of scholastic teaching, 66.
+  Community of user, doctrine of, 85.
+      no relation to modern socialistic communism, 86.
+  Commutations, _see_ Exchange.
+  Compensation, for failure to repay loans by date stipulated, 185.
+    for profit hindered, 189.
+  Competition, effect of unrestricted, 31.
+  Comte, his definition of 'Middle Ages' followed by Dr. Ingram, 3.
+  Conquerors, their right to enslavement of the conquered adopted
+by Aquinas, 96.
+  Constantine, 43.
+  Constantinople, fall of, regarded as end of the Middle Ages, 4.
+  Consumption, regulation of, 32.
+    wise, importance of, 227.
+    wise, the aim of mediæval teaching, 223.
+  Contract, Thomas Aquinas on, 38.
+  _Corinthians, Epistle to the_, 48.
+  Corpus Juris Canonici, 13, 146.
+  Cossa, L.,5, 6, 17, 108, 220.
+  Credit, 119.
+  Crusades, the, influence of, 15.
+    the, influence on trade, 146.
+  Cunningham, Dr. W., 2, 9, 10, 11, 13, 23, 24, 26, 27, 79, 116,
+122, 124, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 138, 139, 152, 212, 218.
+  Currency, _see_ Money.
+  Cyprian, 168, 170.
+    attitude to property, 50.
+
+  Damnum emergens, 185, 196.
+      nature of, 186.
+      universal admission of, 187.
+  Dante, 216.
+  _De Regimine Principum_, doubtful authorship of, 20.
+  Delisle, 27.
+  _Démocratie Chrétienne_, 199.
+  Deposit, Thomas Aquinas on, 38.
+  Desbuquois, Abbé, 36, 39, 104, 110, 116, 120.
+  _Deuteronomy_, 163.
+  Devas, 30, 49, 226.
+  _Dictionary of Political Economy_, 30, 105, 112, 135, 212.
+  _Dictionnaire de Théologie_, 45.
+  _Didache_, the, attitude to usury, 168, 170.
+  Diocletian rescript, regarding sales, 104.
+  Distribution, just, the aim of mediæval teaching, 223.
+    need for just, 31, 227.
+    regulation of, 32.
+  Dominicans, the, 195, 196.
+  _Dominium eminens_ of the State, 69.
+  Donatus, 14.
+  _Dublin Review, The_, 43.
+  Duns Scotus, 149, 185, 188, 192.
+  Dureau de la Malle, 225.
+
+  _Ecclesiastes_, 151.
+  Eck, 211.
+  'Economic,' interpretation of, 3, 6 _et seq._
+  'Economic Man,' imaginary figure conceived by classical economists, 8.
+  _Economic Review, The_, 44.
+  Economics, causes of lack of interest in, 14.
+  Elvira, the Council of, decree against usury, 169.
+  Emperor, the, temporal vicar of God, 11.
+  _Encyclopaedia Britannica, The_, definition of 'Middle Ages,' 4.
+  Endemann, 19, 20, 23, 27, 34, 108, 120, 124, 134, 151, 155, 157, 158,
+177, 186, 187, 190, 191, 195, 196, 203, 204, 216, 218.
+  _Ephesians, Epistle to the_, 89.
+  Equality, of men, 94.
+  _Esdras_, 165.
+  Espinas, A., 8, 17, 163, 197, 218.
+  Essenes, the, and communism, 47.
+  Ethics, error of disregarding in economics, 29.
+  Eve, _see_ Adam and.
+  Exchange, regulation of, 32.
+    justice in, 36 _et seq._
+    theory of, see _Cambium_.
+  _Exodus_, 163.
+  _Ezekiel_, 165.
+
+  Fathers, the, _see_ Church, the early.
+  Favre, 173.
+  Feudalism, increased organisation of, in thirteenth century, 15.
+  Fornication, expressly forbidden by the Apostles, 168.
+  Franciscans, the, 195, 196.
+  Franciscus Patricius de Senlis, 225.
+  Franck, A., 20, 90, 97.
+  Fratricelli, the, belief in communism, 66.
+  _Fundamentum_, distinction from _titulus_, 64 _et seq._
+  Funk, Dr., 113, 172, 203.
+
+  Galileo, 159.
+  Gand, Henri de, 110, 149.
+  Garden of Eden, private property in, 55.
+  Gasquet, 224.
+  _Genesis_, 137, 226.
+  Genoa, the Archbishop of, 207.
+      letter from Alexander III. to, 187.
+  Gentile, prohibition of usury between Jew and, 164.
+  Gentiles, prohibition of usury not imposed on converts from, 168.
+    taking of usury from, justified, 165.
+  Genucian Law, the, interest prohibited by, 160.
+  Gerbert, 14.
+  Gerdilius, 100.
+  Gerson, 39, 71, 104, 106, 108, 112, 118, 137, 182, 197.
+  Gide and Rist, 9.
+  Golden Age, the, private property in, 55.
+  Gospel, the, preached to the poor, 137.
+  Gospels, the, on usury, 166.
+  Goyau, G., 67, 224.
+
+  Haney, L.H., 2, 5, 41, 136.
+  Heeren, A.H.L., 146.
+  Hettinger, 226.
+  Hilary of Poictiers, 60.
+  Hincmar, 14.
+  Hiring, Thomas Aquinas on, 38.
+  Hogan, Dr., 43, 47, 49, 137.
+  Hohoff, Abbé, 114, 199.
+  Hostiensis, 188.
+  Hoyta, Henricus de, 19.
+  Huet, 47.
+  Hunter, W.A., 105, 161.
+  Hunting, _see_ Agriculture.
+
+  Idleness, contrasted attitudes of ancient and Christian civilisations
+to, 137.
+  Income, unearned, approved by scholastics, 113.
+      justice of, 198 _et seq._
+      socialist theory of its injustice not supported by scholastics, 214.
+      recognition of, 212.
+  Individualism, of Christianity, 12.
+  Industry, development of, in thirteenth century, 15.
+  Ingolstadt, 211.
+  Ingram, Dr. J.K., 2, 3, 4, 12, 17, 18, 23, 24.
+  Innocent III., Pope, attitude to usury, 175.
+    in favour of unearned income, 207.
+  Insurance, a contract of, 210.
+  Interamna, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  _Interesse proximum_, suggested alternative term to _damnum emergens_,
+187.
+  _Interesse remotum_, suggested alternative term to _lucrum cessans_, 187.
+  Interest, justification of, 184.
+  Interest, laws regarding, in Rome, 160.
+    taking of, disapproved by Greek and Roman philosophers, 161.
+    _see_ also Usury.
+  _Irish Ecclesiastical Record, The_, 43, 47, 49, 109, 137.
+  _Irish Theological Quarterly, The_, 9, 68, 128, 129, 130, 132, 135.
+  Isidore, 95.
+  Isidore of Seville, 15.
+      his opinions on money regarded as final, 214.
+  Italian States, forced loans in the, 195.
+  Ivo, 169.
+
+  Janet, P.A.R., 59, 61, 89, 91, 93, 97.
+  Jannet, Claudio, 183.
+  Janssen, J., 28, 68, 86, 125, 138, 139, 141, 143, 150, 154, 224.
+  Jarrett, Fr., 83, 84.
+  _Jeremiah_, 165.
+  Jerusalem, the Church of, social system in, 44 _et seq._
+    St. Paul's appeal for funds, 48.
+    the Council of, prohibition of usury not imposed on converts by, 168.
+  Jesuits, the, invention of _trinus contractus_ attributed to, 211.
+  _Jewish Encyclopaedia, The_, on usury, 165.
+  Jews, attitude to usury, 160, 165.
+    prohibition of usury between, 164.
+  John of Salisbury, 14.
+  Jourdain, 5, 14, 16, 149, 176, 183, 221.
+  _Jus abutendi_, 87.
+    _divinum_, 173.
+    _humanum_, 174.
+    _naturale_, 173.
+  Just price, a Christian conception, 104.
+      authorities empowered to fix, 108.
+      comparison of mediæval theory with that of classical economists, 125.
+      difference from modern competition price, 116.
+      elasticity of, 117.
+      factors determining, 109 _et seq._
+  Just price, fixed by common estimation, 115 _et seq._
+      fixing of, by law, 106.
+      in money-lending, 179.
+      mediæval teaching on, 103.
+      necessity for adhering to, 108.
+      of wages, _see_ Wages.
+      rules for guidance in fixing by law, 107.
+      nature of, 127 _et seq._
+      value of canonical doctrine, 123.
+  Justinian, rates of interest fixed by, 161.
+  Justinian Code, 28, 172.
+
+  Kelleher, Father, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134.
+  Knabenbaur, 166.
+  Knies, 80, 114, 135.
+  Koran, the, the taking of interest forbidden in, 166.
+
+  Labour, as title to property, 65.
+    Christian teaching on its dignity, 137.
+    division into honourable and degrading, 141.
+    necessity and honourableness of all forms of, 140.
+    only one constituent in the estimation of just price, 157.
+    relative importance of, in determining value, 113.
+    the motives which should actuate, 153.
+  Lactantius, 45, 56 _et seq._, 91.
+  Langenstein, 19, 107, 111, 112, 121, 122, 124, 137, 141, 203.
+  Larceny Act, the, 27.
+  Lateran Council, the, judgment in favour of _montes pietatis_, 197.
+    Councils, the, of 1139 and 1179, declaration against usurers by, 174.
+  Laurentius de Rodulphis, 157, 195, 209.
+  Law, natural and positive, in relation to property, 64.
+  Le Blant, 216.
+  Lecky, 176, 211.
+  Leo the Great, 146.
+  Lessius, 117, 124.
+  Letting, Thomas Aquinas on, 38.
+  Levasseur, 138, 139, 224.
+  Leviticus, 163.
+  _Liberalitas_, its opposing vices, 74.
+    meaning of, 73.
+  Liberality, relation to justice, 73.
+  Lisieux, Bishop of, _see_ Oresme, Nicholas.
+  List, 146, 224.
+  Loan, Thomas Aquinas on, 38.
+  Loans, analogy between sales and, 182.
+    forced, in the Italian States, 195.
+    the real nature of, 178.
+  _Locatio operarum_, 210, 213.
+  Logic, mediæval study of, 14.
+  Loria, 149.
+  Lucca, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  _Lucrum cessans_, 185, 186, 195, 202.
+      recognition of, 187 _et seq._
+  Lyons, Council of, ordinances against usurers, 175.
+
+  Macleod, 218.
+  _Magnificentia_, duty of, 77.
+  Maimonides, 164.
+  Malthusianism, 225.
+  Mansi, 169.
+  Mantua, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  Manufacture, position in the _artes possessivae_, 142 _et seq._
+  Marcian Capella, 15.
+  Marriage, attitude of Thomas Aquinas towards, 225.
+  Marshall, 30.
+  Martin V., Pope, his bull on rent, 204.
+  Marx, Karl, theory of value not supported by scholastics, 113, 114.
+  Mastrofini, his interpretation of a verse of St. Luke, 166.
+  Maximian, rescript regarding sales, 105.
+  Mayronis, François de, 149, 156.
+  Mediæval, interpretation of, 3 _et seq._
+  Menger, Anton, 199.
+  Merchant, the, necessity for control of, _see_ Commerce.
+  Metz-Noblat, de, 183.
+  Meyer, Rudolph, 198.
+  Middle Ages, definition of the term by various authorities, 3 _et seq._
+      early writers of, no reference to economic questions, 13.
+  Milan, 211.
+  Mohammed, prohibition of usury by his followers, 160.
+  Mohammedans, taking of interest by, forbidden, 166.
+  Monasteries, the, their example in manual labour, 138, 223.
+  Money, as a form of capital, 201.
+    a vendible commodity, 158.
+    changing, see _Cambium_.
+    different kinds of variation of, 219 _et seq._
+    ignorance of early Middle Ages regarding, 214 _et seq._
+    invention of, 103.
+    most suitable metals for, 219.
+    not discussed by early mediæval writers, 14.
+    sterility of, 180.
+    the sovereign's power in relation to, 219.
+    treatment of, by Isidore of Seville, 15.
+    utility of, as treated by Aristotle, 16.
+    variations in value of, 216 _et seq._
+    value of, not to be changed unnecessarily, 219.
+  Monopolies, mediæval views on, 124.
+  _Montes pietatis_, 194.
+      attitude of the Church to, 197.
+      controversy over interest charged by, 196.
+  _Montes profani_, 195 _et seq._
+  Moral theology, 130.
+  Morality, economic, in the Middle Ages, 10.
+  More, Sir Thomas, 48.
+  Mosheim, 44.
+  Munificence, duty of, 77.
+  _Mutuum_, 202, 210, 213, 214.
+    nature of, 178, 183.
+    risk involved in, 192.
+
+  Natural rights, distinction between absolute and commensurate
+in slavery, 95.
+  Navarrus, 190.
+  Necessaries, two kinds distinguished by Thomas Aquinas, 83.
+  Neumann, 182.
+  New Testament, the, 176.
+      cited in support of prohibition of usury, 174.
+  Nice, Council of, on usury, 169, 170.
+  Nicholas v., Pope, bull on personal rent charges, 205.
+  Nider, 39, 110, 118, 134, 150, 181, 193.
+  Nitti, F.S., 43, 69.
+  Noel, Conrad, 49.
+  Numa, as origin of 'nummi,' 15.
+
+  Occupancy, as title to property, 65.
+  Old Testament, the, 176.
+      attitude to usury, 163, 165.
+      cited in support of prohibition of usury, 174.
+  Oresme, Nicholas, 143, 215, 216, 219.
+      his influence, 221.
+      his work on money, 214, 217 _et seq._
+  Origen, 45.
+  Orvieto, first _montes pietatis_ started at, 196.
+  Ownership, _see_ Property.
+
+  Padua, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  Palgrave, 30, 105, 112, 135, 212.
+  Parma, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  Partnership, division of remuneration, 209.
+    scholastic teaching on, 202, 205 _et seq._
+    the two kinds of, 209.
+  _Parvificentia_, a sin, 77, 78.
+  _Patria, potestas_, 226.
+  Pelagius, views condemned by Council, A.D. 415, 61.
+  Pennafort, Raymond de, 27, 149.
+  _Periculum sortis_, 191, 192, 212.
+  Périn, 183, 226.
+  Perugia, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  Philip the Fair, his method of increasing the revenue, 216.
+  Philosophers, the, their condemnation of usury, 161.
+  Pigonneau, 146.
+  Plato, his objection to usury, 161.
+  Plutarch, attitude to usury, 163.
+  _Poena conventionalis_, 185.
+      difference from interest, 186.
+  Political economy, errors of classical school, 8.
+      difference between mediæval and modern methods, 6.
+  Pope, the, his denunciation of Philip the Fair, 216.
+      the spiritual vicar of God, 10.
+  Popes, the, and almsgiving, 69.
+    pronouncements by, on rent, 204.
+    their protection of _montes pietatis_, 197.
+  Population, mediæval attitude to, 224.
+  Poverty, as the cause of sin, 78.
+  Prescription, as title to property, 65.
+  Price, just, _see_ Just price.
+  Priscian, 14.
+  Prodigality, an offence against liberality, 79.
+    a sin towards the individual and the community, 78.
+    distinction from liberality, 76.
+  Production, an honourable vocation, 226.
+    cost of, as a factor in determining value, 111 _et seq._
+    extended, the aim of mediæval teaching, 223.
+    regulation of, 32.
+  Professions, _see_ Labour.
+  Profit, of the campsor to be determined by just price, 158.
+  'Profiteer,' the, doctrine of just price a weapon against, 125.
+  Profiteering, prohibition of, 151.
+  Property, duties attaching to, 69.
+    duties in respect of exchange of, 102.
+    immovable, rule for determining value, 120.
+    in human beings, 88.
+    private, duties attaching to, 40.
+      right of, 39.
+      teaching of mediæval Church, 41 _et seq._
+      the foundation of mediæval economics, 40.
+      the keystone of economic system of later theologians, 66.
+  _Proverbs_, 165.
+  Prutz, 146.
+  _Psalms_, 137, 165, 171.
+
+  Rabanas Mauras, 14.
+  Rambaud, 7, 8, 13, 80, 87, 100, 114, 146, 151, 182, 183, 188, 197,
+203, 213, 215.
+  Reformation, the, 211.
+    attacks on monastic life during, 138.
+  Renaissance, the, 218.
+  Rent, pronouncements on, by the Popes, 204.
+    refusal to pay, in Breslau, 204.
+    scholastic teaching on, 202 _et seq._
+  _Revue Archéologique, La_, 61.
+  Riches, the early Church on their abuse, 53.
+  Rickaby, 75.
+  Risk, remuneration for, 152, 157, 191.
+  Rist, _see_ Gide.
+  Roman Empire, the, fall of, regarded as beginning of Middle Ages, 3.
+    jurists, their views on slavery accepted by Thomas Aquinas, 94.
+  _Romans, Epistle to the_, 48.
+  Rome, condemnation of usury by the philosophers of, 162.
+    laws regarding interest in, 160.
+    Numa, King of, 15.
+    policy of, enforced by clergy, 11.
+    the attitude to manual labour in, 137.
+  Roscher, W.G.F., 5, 13, 19, 34, 46, 48, 87, 88, 107, 108, 112, 114,
+121, 125, 142, 163, 166, 172, 186, 204, 215, 217.
+  Ryan, Dr. J.A., 49, 74, 117, 123, 135.
+
+  Sabatier, 223.
+  St. Ambrose, 49, 52, 60, 82, 171.
+    quoted by Aquinas, 71.
+  St. Anselm, 14.
+  St. Anthony, advice to his followers, 223.
+  St. Augustine, 49, 57, 60, 63, 92, 93, 97, 98, 105, 146, 154, 172, 224.
+    theory of slavery analysed by Janet, 93.
+    views on slavery accepted by Aquinas, 94 _et seq._
+  St. Barnabas, 45.
+  St. Basil, 49, 153, 171, 224.
+    quoted by Aquinas, 71.
+  St. Benedict, 152.
+    Rule of, 224.
+  St. Clement of Alexandria, 45, 49, 54, 168, 170.
+  St. Clement of Rome, 49, 54.
+  St. Cyprian, 45, 50, 168, 170.
+  St. Gregory Nazianzen, 54.
+  St. Gregory of Nyssa, 171.
+  St. Gregory the Great, 49.
+  St. Hilary, 171.
+  St. Isidore, 62.
+  St. Jerome, 49, 145, 171, 224.
+  St. John Chrysostom, 49, 51, 52.
+  St. Joseph, represented as a carpenter, 139.
+  St. Justin, 45.
+  St. Justin Martyn, 49.
+  St. Lucian, 45.
+  St. Luke, 82.
+  St. Luke, doubtful meaning of a verse in, 168.
+    interpretation of a doubtful verse in, 168, 171.
+  St. Macharius, 223.
+  St. Matthew, 38, 47.
+  St. Pachomius, 223.
+  St. Paul, 137.
+    attitude to private property and communism, 48.
+    on possession, cited by St. Augustine, 60.
+    teaching on slavery, 89.
+        followed by Christian teachers, 90.
+  St. Peter, 46.
+    teaching on slavery, 89.
+  St. Peter Damian, 83.
+  St. Thomas, _see_ Thomas Aquinas.
+  Sale, Roman law as applied to, 104.
+    Thomas Aquinas on, 38.
+    treatment by fifteenth-century writers, 18.
+  Sales, analogy between loans and, 182.
+  Salvador, 48.
+  Salvian, 55.
+  Sapphira, 46, 52.
+  Saturnus, result of banishment from heaven, 56.
+  Saving, an act of liberality, 72 _et seq._
+  Scherer, 146.
+  Scotus, Duns, _see_ Duns.
+  Scotus Erigenus, 14.
+  _Semaine Sociale de France, La_, 49, 62, 68, 104, 111.
+  Seneca, 59, 89, 90.
+    view of usury, 163.
+  Serfdom, 99.
+  Sertillanges, 80.
+  _Servus_, St. Augustine's theory of origin, 93.
+  Sevona, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  Sicily, personal rent charges permitted in, 205.
+  Sidgwick, Professor Henry, 29, 31.
+  Sinigaglia, 225.
+  Sixtus V., Pope, condemnation of _trinus contractus_, 211.
+  Slater, Father, 109, 128, 129, 130.
+  Slavery, analogy with property, 97.
+    attitude of Christianity to, 88.
+    limits of master's rights, 100.
+    three kinds of, 99.
+    views of Christian Church and philosophers reconciled by
+Aquinas, 93 _et seq._
+  Smith, Adam, 29.
+  _Societas_, 206, 207, 210, 213.
+  Socialism, as providing an ethical basis of society, 31.
+    danger of, 32.
+    relation of its economic teaching to Christianity, 33.
+  Socialists, claim to authority of the early Christians, 49 _et seq._
+    attempts to construct Utopia, 228.
+    their communism not the 'community of user' advocated by
+scholastics, 86.
+    their interpretations of St. Augustine, 58.
+    their main principles, 230.
+    their philosophy at variance with Christianity, 231.
+    their principles not derived from mediæval teaching, 230.
+    their view of the Church's teaching on usury, 198.
+  _Socius stans_, 207.
+  Solon, laws of, as affecting usury, 160.
+  _Songe du Vergier_, 225.
+  Stagyrite, the, _see_ Aristotle.
+  Stoic tradition, the, 58.
+  Stoicism, inferiority to Christian teaching on slavery, 89.
+  Stoics, the, 93.
+  Stintzing, 20.
+  Sudre, 47, 48.
+  _Summa Angelica_, 186.
+    _Astesana_, 186.
+    _Pisana_, 156.
+  Superabundance, relativity of, 75.
+
+  'Teaching,' interpretation of, 3, 19 _et seq._
+    mediæval, its relation to practice, 21.
+    ethical nature of, 27.
+  Temperance, in the use of goods, 70.
+  Tertullian, 45, 49, 145, 168, 170.
+  _Thessalonians, Epistle to the_, 137.
+  Thirteenth century, progress made in the, 15.
+  Thomas Aquinas, 7, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 36, 41, 42, 46, 52, 62
+_et seq._, 67, 69, 70, 71 _et seq._, 74 _et seq._, 77, 78, 80, 81,
+82, 83, 84, 85, 91, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 101, 105, 111, 112, 114,
+117, 119, 121, 131, 132, 133, 135, 136, 141, 143, 144, 146, 147,
+148, 149, 150, 151, 154, 156, 162, 167, 173, 174, 176, 182, 186,
+188, 189, 193, 194, 195, 197, 206, 207, 208, 215, 230.
+  Ticinum, Synod of, decree on usury, 173.
+  Tillage, _see_ Agriculture.
+  Time, the sale of, 182.
+  _Timothy_, 151.
+  _Titulus_, distinction from _fundamentum_, 64.
+  _Tractatus Universi Juris_, 19.
+  Tradesman, _see_ Commerce.
+  Trade, _see_ Commerce.
+  Troplong, 226.
+  _Trinus contractus_, 210, 211.
+  Trithemius, 85, 124, 137, 149.
+  Twelve Tables, the, maximum rate of interest fixed by, 160.
+
+  _Unciarum foenus_, doubtful meaning of, 160.
+  Usufruct, Aquinas on, 38.
+  Usurers, _see_ Usury.
+  Usury and the clergy, 169.
+    a sin against justice, 175.
+    attitude of the Apostles, 168.
+    attitude of various religious and legal systems, 160.
+    borrowing at, circumstances justifying, 194.
+    broader basis of discussion after twelfth century, 173.
+    dealt with by ecclesiastical courts, 175.
+    condemned by Councils, 13.
+      by philosophers, 161, 162.
+      as a sin against charity, 168, 171.
+    controversies over prohibition, 159.
+    definition of, by Lateran Council, 197.
+    doubt as to Gospel teaching on, 167.
+  Usury, ecclesiastical legislation on, 174.
+    inconclusive teaching of the early Church, 172.
+    increased payment for credit regarded as, 119.
+    injustice of, according to Aristotle, 16.
+    in the Old Testament, 163.
+    not suppressed by civil law, 172.
+    patristic and episcopal utterances in favour of, 172.
+    not permitted by civil authorities, 197 _et seq._
+    popular attitude to, 163.
+    prohibition of, 133, 173, 183, 184.
+      proof of justice of unearned income, 213.
+      position in canonist doctrine, 33.
+      not imposed on converts from Gentiles, 168.
+    secular legislation in favour of, declared void, 175.
+    teaching of the early Church, 167 _et seq._
+    treatment by fifteenth-century writers, 18.
+
+  Value, factors determining, 129.
+    not systematically treated till fourteenth and fifteenth
+centuries, 111.
+    _See_ also Price.
+  Vaudois, the, belief in communism, 66.
+  Verona, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  Vienne, Council of, 175.
+  Vio, Thomas da, 196.
+  Virgin, the Blessed, represented spinning, 139.
+  Virginity, recommended for the few, 225.
+  Viterbo, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+
+  Wages, rules determining, 120.
+    as factor in cost of production, 111.
+    attitude of mediæval and modern working classes towards
+fixing, 126 _et seq._
+    fixed by a public authority, 121.
+  Wages, paucity of authority on, before sixteenth century, 121.
+  Wallon, 90, 137, 140.
+  Wealth, theory of, according to Aristotle, 16.
+  Wealth, not an end in itself, 80.
+  Weber, 206.
+  William of Paris, 176.
+  Wolowski, 216, 217, 221.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13488 ***
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching, by
+George O'Brien
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching
+
+Author: George O'Brien
+
+Release Date: September 17, 2004  [eBook #13488]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ESSAY ON MEDIAEVAL ECONOMIC
+TEACHING***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Brendan Lane, S. R. Ellison, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+AN ESSAY ON MEDIÆVAL ECONOMIC TEACHING
+
+by
+
+GEORGE O'BRIEN, LITT.D., M.R.I.A.
+
+Author of 'The Economic History of Ireland in the Seventeenth Century,'
+and 'The Economic History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century'
+
+1920
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TO THE REV. MICHAEL CRONIN, M.A., D.D.
+UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S NOTE
+
+I wish to express my gratitude to the Rev. Dr. Cronin for his kindness
+in reading the manuscript, and for many valuable suggestions which he
+made; also to Father T.A. Finlay, S.J., and Mr. Arthur Cox for having
+given me much assistance in the reading and revision of the proofs.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER I
+  INTRODUCTORY
+    SECTION 1. AIM AND SCOPE OF THE ESSAY
+    SECTION 2. EXPLANATION OF THE TITLE
+      § 1. Mediæval
+      § 2. Economic
+      § 3. Teaching
+    SECTION 3. VALUE OF THE STUDY OF THE SUBJECT
+    SECTION 4. DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT
+
+
+  CHAPTER II
+  PROPERTY
+    SECTION 1. THE RIGHT TO PRODUCE AND DISPENSE PROPERTY
+    SECTION 2. DUTIES REGARDING THE ACQUISITION AND USE OF PROPERTY
+    SECTION 3. PROPERTY IN HUMAN BEINGS
+
+
+  CHAPTER III
+  DUTIES REGARDING THE EXCHANGE OF PROPERTY
+    SECTION 1. THE SALE OF GOODS
+      § 1. The Just Price
+      § 2. The Just Price when Price fixed by Law
+      § 3. The Just Price when Price not fixed by Law
+      § 4. The Just Price of Labour
+      § 5. Value of the Conception of the Just Price
+      § 6. Was the Just Price Subjective or Objective?
+      § 7. The Mediæval Attitude towards Commerce
+      § 8. _Cambium_
+    SECTION 2. THE SALE OF THE USE OF MONEY
+      § 1. Usury in Greece and Rome
+      § 2. Usury in the Old Testament
+      § 3. Usury in the First Twelve Centuries of Christianity
+      § 4. The Mediæval Prohibition of Usury
+      § 5. Extrinsic Titles
+      § 6. Other Cases in which more than the Loan could be repaid
+      § 7. The Justice of Unearned Income
+      § 8. Rent Charges
+      § 9. Partnership
+      § 10. Concluding Remarks on Usury
+    SECTION 3. THE MACHINERY OF EXCHANGE
+
+  CHAPTER IV
+  CONCLUSION
+
+  INDEX
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+
+
+SECTION 1.--AIM AND SCOPE OF THE ESSAY
+
+
+It is the aim of this essay to examine and present in as concise a
+form as possible the principles and rules which guided and regulated
+men in their economic and social relations during the period known as
+the Middle Ages. The failure of the teaching of the so-called orthodox
+or classical political economists to bring peace and security to
+society has caused those interested in social and economic problems to
+inquire with ever-increasing anxiety into the economic teaching which
+the orthodox economy replaced; and this inquiry has revealed that each
+system of economic thought that has from time to time been accepted
+can be properly understood only by a knowledge of the earlier system
+out of which it grew. A process of historical inquiry of this kind
+leads one ultimately to the Middle Ages, and it is certainly not too
+much to say that no study of modern European economic thought can be
+complete or satisfactory unless it is based upon a knowledge of the
+economic teaching which was accepted in mediæval Europe. Therefore,
+while many will deny that the economic teaching of that period is
+deserving of approval, or that it is capable of being applied to the
+conditions of the present day, none will deny that it is worthy of
+careful and impartial investigation.
+
+There is thus a demand for information upon the subject dealt with in
+this essay. On the other hand, the supply of such information in the
+English language is extremely limited. The books, such as Ingram's
+_History of Political Economy_ and Haney's _History of Economic
+Thought_, which deal with the whole of economic history, necessarily
+devote but a few pages to the Middle Ages. Ashley's _Economic History_
+contains two excellent chapters dealing with the Canonist teaching;
+but, while these chapters contain a mass of most valuable information
+on particular branches of the mediæval doctrines, they do not perhaps
+sufficiently indicate the relation between them, nor do they lay
+sufficient emphasis upon the fundamental philosophical principles out
+of which the whole system sprang. One cannot sufficiently acknowledge
+the debt which English students are under to Sir William Ashley for
+his examination of mediæval opinion on economic matters; his book
+is frequently and gratefully cited as an authority in the following
+pages; but it is undeniable that his treatment of the subject suffers
+somewhat on account of its being introduced but incidentally into a
+work dealing mainly with English economic practice. Dr. Cunningham
+has also made many valuable contributions to particular aspects of the
+subject; and there have also been published, principally in Catholic
+periodicals, many important monographs on special points; but so
+far there has not appeared in English any treatise, which is devoted
+exclusively to mediæval economic opinion and attempts to treat the
+whole subject completely. It is this want in our economic literature
+that has tempted the author to publish the present essay, although he
+is fully aware of its many defects.
+
+It is necessary, in the first place, to indicate precisely the extent
+of the subject with which we propose to deal; and with this end in
+view to give a definition of the three words, '_mediæval, economic,
+teaching_.'
+
+
+
+SECTION 2.--EXPLANATION OF THE TITLE
+
+
+§ 1. _Mediæval_.
+
+Ingram, in his well-known book on economic history, following the
+opinion of Comte, refuses to consider the fourteenth and fifteenth
+centuries as part of the Middle Ages.[1] We intend, however, to treat
+of economic teaching up to the end of the fifteenth century. The best
+modern judges are agreed that the term Middle Ages must not be given
+a hard-and-fast meaning, but that it is capable of bearing a very
+elastic interpretation. The definition given in the _Catholic
+Encyclopædia_ is: 'a term commonly used to designate that period of
+European history between the Fall of the Roman Empire and about the
+middle of the fifteenth century. The precise dates of the beginning,
+culmination, and end of the Middle Ages are more or less arbitrarily
+assumed according to the point of view adopted.' The eleventh edition
+of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ contains a similar opinion: 'This
+name is commonly given to that period of European history which lies
+between what are known as ancient and modern times, and which has
+generally been considered as extending from about the middle of the
+fifth to about the middle of the fifteenth centuries. The two dates
+adopted in old text-books were 476 and 1453, from the setting aside
+of the last emperor of the west until the fall of Constantinople. In
+reality it is impossible to fix any exact dates for the opening and
+close of such a period.'
+
+[Footnote 1: _History of Political Economy_, p. 35.]
+
+We are therefore justified in considering the fifteenth century as
+comprised hi the Middle Ages. This is especially so in the domain
+of economic theory. In actual practice the fourteenth and fifteenth
+centuries may have presented the appearance rather of the first stage
+of a new than of the last stage of an old era. This is Ingram's view.
+However true this may be of practice, it is not at all true of theory,
+which, as we shall see, continued to be entirely based on the
+writings of an author of the thirteenth century. Ingram admits this
+incidentally: 'During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the
+Catholic-feudal system was breaking down by the mutual conflicts of
+its own official members, while the constituent elements of a new
+order were rising beneath it. The movements of this phase can scarcely
+be said to find an echo in any contemporary economic literature.'[1]
+We need not therefore apologise further for including a consideration
+of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in our investigations as to
+the economic teaching of the Middle Ages. We are supported in doing
+so by such excellent authorities as Jourdain,[2] Roscher,[3] and
+Cossa.[4] Haney, in his _History of Economic Thought_,[5] says: 'It
+seems more nearly true to regard the years about 1500 as marking the
+end of mediæval times.... On large lines, and from the viewpoint of
+systems of thought rather than systems of industry, the Middle Ages
+may with profit be divided into two periods. From 400 down to 1200,
+or shortly thereafter, constitutes the first. During these years
+Christian theology opposed Roman institutions, and Germanic customs
+were superposed, until through action and reaction all were blended.
+This was the reconstruction; it was the "stormy struggle" to found a
+new ecclesiastical and civil system. From 1200 on to 1500 the world
+of thought settled to its level. Feudalism and scholasticism, the
+corner-stones of mediævalism, emerged and were dominant.'
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Mémoires sur les commencements de l'économie politique
+dans les écoles du moyen âge_, Académie des Inscriptions et
+Belles-Lettres, vol. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Geschichte zur National-Ökonomik in Deutschland_.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Introduction to the Study of Political Economy_.]
+
+[Footnote 5: P. 70.]
+
+We shall not continue the study further than the beginning of the
+sixteenth century. It is true that, if we were to refer to several
+sixteenth-century authors, we should be in possession of a very highly
+developed and detailed mass of teaching on many points which
+earlier authors left to some extent obscure. We deliberately
+refrain nevertheless from doing so, because the whole nature of the
+sixteenth-century literature was different from that of the fourteenth
+and fifteenth; the early years of the sixteenth century witnessed the
+abrogation of the central authority which was a basic condition of
+the success of the mediæval system; and the same period also witnessed
+'radical economic changes, reacting more and more on the scholastic
+doctrines, which found fewer and fewer defenders in their original
+form.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cossa, _op. cit._, p. 151. Ashley warns us that 'we must
+be careful not to interpret the writers of the fifteenth century by
+the writers of the seventeenth' (_Economic History_, vol. i. pt. ii.
+p. 387). These later writers sometimes contain historical accounts
+of controversies in previous centuries, and are relevant on this
+account.]
+
+
+§ 2. _Economic_.
+
+It must be clearly understood that the political economy of the
+mediævals was not a science, like modern political economy, but an
+art. 'It is a branch of the virtue of prudence; it is half-way between
+morality, which regulates the conduct of the individual, and politics,
+which regulates the conduct of the sovereign. It is the morality of
+the family or of the head of the family, from the point of view of the
+good administration of the patrimony, just as politics is the morality
+of the sovereign, from the point of view of the good government of the
+State. There is as yet no question of economic laws in the sense
+of historical and descriptive laws; and political economy, not yet
+existing in the form of a science, is not more than a branch of that
+great tree which is called ethics, or the art of living well.'[1] 'The
+doctrine of the canon law,' says Sir William Ashley, 'differed from
+modern economics in being an art rather than a science. It was a body
+of rules and prescriptions as to conduct, rather than of conclusions
+as to fact. All art indeed in this sense rests on science; but the
+science on which the canonist doctrine rested was theology. Theology,
+or rather that branch of it which we may call Christian ethics, laid
+down certain principles of right and wrong in the economic sphere;
+and it was the work of the canonists to apply them to specific
+transactions and to pronounce judgment as to their permissibility.'[2]
+The conception of economic laws, in the modern sense, was quite
+foreign to the mediæval treatment of the subject. It was only in
+the middle of the fourteenth century that anything approaching a
+scientific examination of the phenomena of economic life appeared,
+and that was only in relation to a particular subject, namely, the
+doctrine of money.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Rambaud, _Histoire des Doctrines Économiques_, p. 39. 'It
+is evident that a household is a mean between the individual and
+the city or Kingdom, since just as the individual is part of the
+household, so is the household part of the city or Kingdom, and
+therefore, just as prudence commonly so called which governs the
+individual is distinct from political prudence, so must domestic
+prudence (oeconomica) be distinct from both. Riches are related to
+domestic prudence, not as its last end, but as its instrument. On the
+other hand, the end of political prudence is a good life in general as
+regards the conduct of the household. In _Ethics_ i. the philosopher
+speaks of riches as the end of political prudence, by way of example,
+and in accordance with the opinion of many.' Aquinas, _Summa II_. ii.
+50. 3, and see _Sent. III_. xxxiii. 3 and 4. 'Practica quidem scientia
+est, quae recte vivendi modum ac disciplinae formam secundum virtutum
+institutionem disponit. Et haec dividitur in tres, scilicet: primo
+ethicam, id est moralem; et secundo oeconomicam, id est dispensativam;
+et tertio politicam, id est civilem' (Vincent de Beauvais, _Speculum_,
+VII. i. 2).]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, vol. i. part. ii. p. 379.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Rambaud, _op. cit._, p. 83; Ingram, _op. cit._, p. 36. So
+marked was the contrast between the mediæval and modern conceptions
+of economics that the appearance of this one treatise has been said
+by one high authority to have been the signal of the dawn of the
+Renaissance (Espinas, _Histoire des Doctrines Économiques_, p. 110).]
+
+To say that the mediæval method of approaching economic problems was
+fundamentally different from the modern, is not in any sense to be
+taken as indicating disapproval of the former. On the contrary, it is
+the general opinion to-day that the so-called classical treatment of
+economics has proved disastrous in its application to real life,
+and that future generations will witness a retreat to the earlier
+position. The classical economists committed the cardinal error of
+subordinating man to wealth, and consumption to production. In their
+attempt to preserve symmetry and order in their generalisations they
+constructed a weird creature, the economic man, who never existed, and
+never could exist. The mediævals made no such mistake. They insisted
+that all production and gain which did not lead to the good of man was
+not alone wasteful, but positively evil; and that man was infinitely
+more important than wealth. When he exclaims that 'Production is on
+account of man, not man of production,' Antoninus of Florence sums
+up in a few words the whole view-point of his age.[1] 'Consumption,'
+according to Dr. Cunningham, 'was the aspect of human nature which
+attracted most attention.... Regulating consumption wisely was the
+chief practical problem in mediæval economics.'[2] The great
+practical benefits of such a treatment of the problems relating to the
+acquisition and enjoyment of material wealth must be obvious to every
+one who is familiar with the condition of the world after a century of
+classical political economy. 'To subordinate the economic order to
+the social order, to submit the industrial activity of man to the
+consideration of the final and general end of his whole being, is
+a principle which must exert on every department of the science
+of wealth, an influence easy to understand. Economic laws are the
+codification of the material activity of a sort of _homo economicus_;
+of a being, who, having no end in view but wealth, produces all he
+can, distributes his produce in the way that suits him best,
+and consumes as much as he can. Self interest alone dictates his
+conduct.'[3] Economics, far from being a science whose highest aim
+was to evolve a series of abstractions, was a practical guide to the
+conduct of everyday affairs.[4] 'The pre-eminence of morality in
+the domain of economics constitutes at the same time the distinctive
+feature, the particular merit, and the great teaching of the economic
+lessons of this period.'[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Irish Theological Quarterly_, vol. vii. p. 151.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Christianity and Economic Science_, p. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Brants, _Les Théories économiques aux xiii^{e} et xii^{e}
+siècles, p_. 34.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Gide and Rist, _History of Economic Doctrines_, Eng.
+trans., p. 110.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 9.]
+
+Dr. Cunningham draws attention to the fact that the existence of such
+a universally received code of economic morality was largely due to
+the comparative simplicity of the mediæval social structure, where
+the _relations of persons_ were all important, in comparison with the
+modern order, where the _exchange of things_ is the dominant factor.
+He further draws attention to the changes which affected the whole
+constitution of society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
+and proceeds: 'These changes had a very important bearing on all
+questions of commercial morality; so long as economic dealings were
+based on a system of personal relationships they all bore an implied
+moral character. To supply a bad article was morally wrong, to demand
+excessive payment for goods or for labour was extortion, and the
+right or wrong of every transaction was easily understood.'[1] The
+application of ethics to economic transactions was rendered possible
+by the existence of one universally recognised code of morality,
+and the presence of one universally accepted moral teacher. 'In the
+thirteenth century, the ecclesiastical organisation gave a unity to
+the social structure throughout the whole of Western Europe; over the
+area in which the Pope was recognised as the spiritual and the Emperor
+as the temporal vicar of God, political and racial differences were
+relatively unimportant. For economic purposes it is scarcely necessary
+to distinguish different countries from one another in the thirteenth
+century, for there were fewer barriers to social intercourse
+within the limits of Christendom than there are to-day.... Similar
+ecclesiastical canons, and similar laws prevailed over large areas,
+where very different admixtures of civil and barbaric laws were in
+vogue. Christendom, though broken into so many fragments politically,
+was one organised society for all the purposes of economic life,
+because there was such free intercommunication between its parts.'[2]
+'There were three great threads,' we read later in the same book,
+'which ran through the whole social system of Christendom. First of
+all there was a common religious life, with the powerful weapons of
+spiritual censure and excommunication which it placed in the hands of
+the clergy, so that they were able to enforce the line of policy which
+Rome approved. Then there was the great judicial system of canon
+law, a common code with similar tribunals for the whole of Western
+Christendom, dealing not merely with strictly ecclesiastical affairs,
+but with many matters that we should regard as economic, such as
+questions of commercial morality, and also with social welfare as
+affected by the law of marriage and the disposition of property by
+will....'[3] 'To the influence of Christianity as a moral doctrine,'
+says Dr. Ingram, 'was added that of the Church as an organisation,
+charged with the application of the doctrine to men's daily
+transactions. Besides the teaching of the sacred books there was a
+mass of ecclesiastical legislation providing specific prescriptions
+for the conduct of the faithful. And this legislation dealt with the
+economic as well as with other provinces of social activity.'[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, vol. i. p.
+465.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Cunningham, _Western Civilisation_, vol. ii. pp. 2-3.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, p. 67.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Op. cit._, p. 27.]
+
+The teaching of the mediæval Church, therefore, on economic affairs
+was but the application to particular facts and cases of its general
+moral teaching. The suggestion, so often put forward by so-called
+Christian socialists, that Christianity was the exponent of a special
+social theory of its own, is unfounded. The direct opposite would be
+nearer the truth. Far from concerning itself with the outward forms
+of the political or economic structure, Christianity concentrated its
+attention on the conduct of the individual. If Christianity can be
+said to have possessed any distinctive social theory, it was intense
+individualism. 'Christianity brought, from the point of view of
+morals, an altogether new force by the distinctly individual and
+personal character of its precepts. Duty, vice or virtue, eternal
+punishment--all are marked with the most individualist imprint that
+can be imagined. No social or political theory appeared, because it
+was through the individual that society was to be regenerated....
+We can say with truth that there is not any Christian political
+economy--in the sense in which there is a Christian morality or
+a Christian dogma--any more than there is a Christian physic or a
+Christian medicine.'[1] In seeking to learn Christian teaching of
+the Middle Ages on economic matters, we must therefore not look
+for special economic treatises in the modern sense, but seek our
+principles in the works dealing with general morality, in the Canon
+Law, and in the commentaries on the Civil Law. 'We find the first
+worked out economic theory for the whole Catholic world in the _Corpus
+Juris Canonici_, that product of mediæval science in which for so
+many centuries theology, jurisprudence, philosophy, and politics were
+treated....'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Rambaud, _op. cit._, pp. 34-5; Cunningham, _Western
+Civilisation_, vol. ii. p. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Roscher, _op. cit._, p. 5. It must not be concluded
+that all the opinions expressed by the theologians and lawyers were
+necessarily the official teaching of the Church. Brants says: 'It is
+not our intention to attribute to the Church all the opinions of
+this period; certainly the spirit of the Church dominated the great
+majority of the writers, but one must not conclude from this that
+all their writings are entitled to rank as doctrinal teaching' (_Op.
+cit._, p. 6).]
+
+There is not to be found in the writers of the early Middle Ages, that
+is to say from the eighth to the thirteenth centuries, a trace of any
+attention given to what we at the present day would designate economic
+questions. Usury was condemned by the decrees of several councils, but
+the reasons of this prohibition were not given, nor was the question
+made the subject of any dialectical controversy; commerce was so
+undeveloped as to escape the attention of those who sought to
+guide the people in their daily life; and money was accepted as the
+inevitable instrument of exchange, without any discussion of its
+origin or the laws which regulated it.
+
+The writings of this period therefore betray no sign of any interest
+in economic affairs. Jourdain says that he carefully examined the
+works of Alcuin, Rabanas Mauras, Scotus Erigenus, Hincmar, Gerbert,
+St. Anselm, and Abelard--the greatest lights of theology and
+philosophy in the early Middle Ages--without finding a single passage
+to suggest that any of these authors suspected that the pursuit of
+riches, which they despised, occupied a sufficiently large place in
+national as well as in individual life, to offer to the philosopher a
+subject fruitful in reflections and results. The only work which might
+be adduced as a partial exception to this rule is the _Polycraticus_
+of John of Salisbury; but even this treatise contained only some
+scattered moral reflections on luxury and on zeal for the interest of
+the public treasury.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Jourdain, _op. cit._, p. 4.]
+
+Two causes contributed to produce this almost total lack of interest
+in economic subjects. One was the miserable condition of society,
+still only partially rescued from the ravages of the barbarians, and
+half organised, almost without industry and commerce; the other
+was the absence of all economic tradition. The existence of the
+_Categories_ and _Hermenia_ of Aristotle ensured that the chain
+of logical study was not broken; the works of Donatus and Priscian
+sustained some glimmer of interest in grammatical theory; certain rude
+notions of physics and astronomy were kept alive by the preservation
+of such ancient elementary treatises as those of Marcian Capella; but
+economics had no share in the heritage of the past. Not only had the
+writings of the ancients, who dealt to some extent with the theory of
+wealth, been destroyed, but the very traces of their teaching had been
+long forgotten. A good example of the state of thought in economic
+matters is furnished by the treatment which money receives in the
+_Etymologies_ of Isidore of Seville, which was regarded in the early
+Middle Ages as a reliable encyclopædia. 'Money,' according to Isidore,
+'is so called because it warns, _monet_, lest any fraud should enter
+into its composition or its weight. The piece of money is the coin of
+gold, silver, or bronze, which is called _nomisma_, because it bears
+the imprint of the name and likeness of the prince.... The pieces of
+money _nummi_ have been so called from the King of Rome, Numa, who was
+the first among the Latins to mark them with the imprint of his image
+and name.'[1] Is it any wonder that the early Middle Ages were barren
+of economic doctrines, when this was the best instruction to which
+they had access?
+
+[Footnote 1: _Etymol_. xvi. 17.]
+
+In the course of the thirteenth century a great change occurred. The
+advance of civilisation, the increased organisation of feudalism, the
+development of industry, and the extension of commerce, largely under
+the influence of the Crusades, all created a condition of affairs in
+which economic questions could no longer be overlooked or neglected.
+At the same time the renewed study of the writings of Aristotle served
+to throw a flood of new light on the nature of wealth.
+
+The _Ethics_ and _Politics_ of Aristotle, although they are not
+principally devoted to a treatment of the theory of wealth, do in
+fact deal with that subject incidentally. Two points in particular
+are touched on, the utility of money and the injustice of usury.
+The passages of the philosopher dealing with these subjects are of
+particular interest, as they may be said, with a good deal of truth,
+to be the true starting point of mediæval economics.[1] The writings
+of Aristotle arrested the attention, and aroused the admiration of
+the theologians of the thirteenth century; and it would be quite
+impossible to exaggerate the influence which they exercised on the
+later development of mediæval thought. Albertus Magnus digested,
+interpreted, and systematised the whole of the works of the Stagyrite;
+and was so steeped in the lessons of his philosophic master as to be
+dubbed by some 'the ape of Aristotle.' Aquinas, who was a pupil of
+Albertus, also studied and commented on Aristotle, whose aid he was
+always ready to invoke in the solution of all his difficulties. With
+the single and strange exception of Vincent de Beauvais, Aristotle's
+teaching on money was accepted by all the writers of the thirteenth
+century, and was followed by later generations.[2] The influence
+of Aristotle is apparent in every article of the _Summa_, which was
+itself the starting point from which all discussion sprang for the
+following two centuries; and it is not too much to say that the
+Stagyrite had a decisive influence on the introduction of economic
+notions into the controversies of the Schools. 'We find in the
+writings of St. Thomas Aquinas,' says Ingram, 'the economic doctrines
+of Aristotle reproduced with a partial infusion of Christian
+elements.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Jourdain, _op. cit._, p. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Op. cit._, p. 27. Espinas thinks that the influence
+of Aristotle in this respect has been exaggerated. (_Histoire des
+Doctrines Économiques_, p. 80.)]
+
+In support of the account we have given of the development of economic
+thought in the thirteenth century, we may quote Cossa: 'The revival
+of economic studies in the Middle Ages only dates from the thirteenth
+century. It was due in a great measure to a study of the _Ethics_ and
+_Politics_ of Aristotle, whose theories on wealth were paraphrased by
+a considerable number of commentators. Before that period we can only
+find moral and religious dissertations on such topics as the proper
+use of material goods, the dangers of luxury, and undue desire for
+wealth. This is easily explained when we take into consideration (1)
+the prevalent influence of religious ideas at the time, (2) the
+strong reaction against the materialism of pagan antiquity, (3)
+the predominance of natural economy, (4) the small importance of
+international trade, and (5) the decay of the profane sciences, and
+the metaphysical tendencies of the more solid thinkers of the Middle
+Ages.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 14; Espinas, _op. cit._, p. 80.]
+
+The teaching of Aquinas upon economic affairs remained the groundwork
+of all the later writers until the end of the fifteenth century.
+His opinions on various points were amplified and explained by
+later authors in more detail than he himself employed; monographs of
+considerable length were devoted to the treatment of questions which
+he dismissed in a single article; but the development which took
+place was essentially one of amplification rather than opposition. The
+monographists of the later fifteenth century treat usury and sale in
+considerable detail; many refinements are indicated which are not
+to be found in the _Summa_; but it is quite safe to say that none
+of these later writers ever pretended to supersede the teaching of
+Aquinas, who was always admitted to be the ultimate authority. 'During
+the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the general political doctrine
+of Aquinas was maintained with merely subordinate modifications.'[1]
+'The canonist doctrine of the fifteenth century,' according to Sir
+William Ashley, 'was but a development of the principles to which the
+Church had already given its sanction in earlier centuries. It was the
+outcome of these same principles working in a modified environment.
+But it may more fairly be said to present a _system_ of economic
+thought, because it was no longer a collection of unrelated opinions,
+but a connected whole. The tendency towards a separate department of
+study is shown by the ever-increasing space devoted to the discussion
+of general economic topics in general theological treatises, and
+more notably still in the manuals of casuistry for the use of the
+confessional, and handbooks of canon law for the use of ecclesiastical
+lawyers. It was shown even more distinctly by the appearance of a
+shoal of special treatises on such subjects as contracts, exchange,
+and money, not to mention those on usury.'[2] In all this development,
+however, the principles enunciated by Aquinas, and through him, by
+Aristotle, though they may have been illustrated and applied to new
+instances, were never rejected. The study of the writers of this
+period is therefore the study of an organic whole, the germ of which
+is to be found in the writings of Aquinas.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ingram, _op. cit._, p. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 382.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The volume of literature which bears more or less on
+economic matters dating from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is
+colossal. By far the best account of it is to be found in Endemann's
+_Studien in der Romanisch-canonistischen Wirthschafts- und
+Rechtslehre_, vol. i. pp. 25 _et seq_. Many of the more important
+works written during the period are reprinted in the _Tractatus
+Universi Juris_, vols. vi. and vii. The appendix to the first chapter
+of Reseller's _Geschichte_ also contains a valuable account of certain
+typical writers, especially of Langenstein and Henricus de Hoyta.
+Brants gives a useful bibliographical list of both mediæval and modern
+authorities in the second chapter of his _Théories économiques aux
+xiii^{e} et xiv^{e} siècles_. Those who desire further information
+about any particular writer of the period will find it in Stintzing,
+_Literaturgeschichte des röm. Rechts_, or in Chevallier's _Répertoire
+historique des Sources du moyen âge; Bio-bibliographie_. The
+authorship of the treatise _De Regimine Principum_, from which we
+shall frequently quote, often attributed to Aquinas, is very doubtful.
+The most probable opinion is that the first book and the first three
+chapters of the second are by Aquinas, and the remainder by another
+writer. (See Franck, _Réformateurs et Publicistes_, vol. i. p. 83.)]
+
+
+§ 3. _Teaching_.
+
+We shall confine our attention in this essay to the economic teaching
+of the Middle Ages, and shall not deal with the actual practice of the
+period. It may be objected that a study of the former without a study
+of the latter is futile and useless; that the economic teaching of a
+period can only be satisfactorily learnt from a study of its actual
+economic institutions and customs; and that the scholastic teaching
+was nothing but a casuistical attempt to reconcile the early Christian
+dogmas with the ever-widening exigencies of real life. Endemann, for
+instance, devotes a great part of his invaluable books on the subject
+to demonstrating how impracticable the canonist teaching was when it
+was applied to real life, and recounting the casuistical devices that
+were resorted to in order to reconcile the teaching of the Church with
+the accepted mercantile customs of the time. Endemann, however,
+in spite of his colossal research and unrivalled acquaintance with
+original authorities, was essentially hostile to the system which he
+undertook to explain, and thus lacked the most essential quality of a
+satisfactory expositor, namely, sympathy with his subject. He does
+not appear to have realised that development and adaptability to new
+situations, far from being marks of impracticability, are rather the
+signs of vitality and of elasticity. This is not the place to discuss
+how far the doctrine of the late fifteenth differed from that of the
+early thirteenth century; that is a matter which will appear below
+when each of the leading principles of scholastic economic teaching
+is separately considered; it is sufficient to say here that we agree
+entirely with Brants, in opposition to Endemann, that the change
+which took place in the interval was one of development, and not of
+opposition. 'The law,' says Brants, 'remained identical and unchanged;
+justice and charity--nobody can justly enrich himself at the expense
+of his neighbour or of the State, but the reasons justifying gain
+are multiplied according as riches are developed.'[1] 'The canonist
+doctrine of the fifteenth century was but a development of the
+principles to which the Church had already given its sanction in
+earlier centuries. It was the outcome of these same principles working
+in a modified environment.'[2] With these conclusions of Brants and
+Ashley we are in entire agreement.
+
+[Footnote 1: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, p. 381.]
+
+Let us say in passing that the assumption that the mediæval teaching
+grew out of contemporary practice, rather than that the latter grew
+out of the former, is one which does not find acceptance among the
+majority of the students of the subject. The problem whether a correct
+understanding of mediæval economic life can be best attained by first
+studying the teaching or the practice is possibly no more soluble than
+the old riddle of the hen and the egg; but it may at least be argued
+that there is a good deal to be said on both sides. The supporters of
+the view that practice moulded theory are by no means unopposed.
+There is no doubt that in many respects the exigencies of everyday
+commercial concerns came into conflict with the tenets of canon law
+and scholastic opinion; but the admission of this fact does not at
+all prove that the former was the element which modified the latter,
+rather than the latter the former. In so far as the expansion of
+commerce and the increasing complexity of intercourse raised questions
+which seemed to indicate that mercantile convenience conflicted with
+received teaching, it is probable that the difficulty was not so much
+caused by a contradiction between the former and the latter, as by the
+fact that an interpretation of the doctrine as applied to the facts
+of the new situation was not available before the new situation had
+actually arisen. This is a phenomenon frequently met with at the
+present day in legal practice; but no lawyer would dream of asserting
+that, because there had arisen an unprecedented state of facts, to
+which the application of the law was a matter of doubt or difficulty,
+therefore the law itself was obsolete or incomplete. Examples of such
+a conflict are familiar to any one who has ever studied the case law
+on any particular subject, either in a country such as England, where
+the law is unwritten, or in continental countries, where the most
+exhaustive and complete codes have been framed. Nevertheless, in spite
+of the occurrence of such difficulties, it would be foolish to contend
+that the laws in force for the time being have not a greater influence
+on the practice of mercantile transactions than the convenience of
+merchants has upon the law. How much more potent must this influence
+have been when the law did not apply simply to outward observances,
+but to the inmost recesses of the consciences of believing Christians!
+
+The opinion that mediæval teaching exercised a profound effect on
+mediæval practice is supported by authorities of the weight of Ashley,
+Ingram, and Cunningham,[1] the last of whom was in some respects
+unsympathetic to the teaching the influence of which he rates so
+highly. 'It has indeed,' writes Sir William Ashley, 'not infrequently
+been hinted that all the elaborate argumentation of canonists and
+theologians was "a cobweb of the brain," with no vital relation to
+real life. Certain German writers have, for instance, maintained that,
+alongside of the canonist doctrine with regard to trade, there existed
+in mediæval Europe a commercial law, recognised in the secular courts,
+and altogether opposed to the peculiar doctrines of the canonists.
+It is true that parts of mercantile jurisprudence, such as the law of
+partnership, had to a large extent originated in the social conditions
+of the time, and would have probably made their appearance even
+if there had been no canon law or theology. But though there were
+branches of commercial law which were, in the main, independent of
+the canonist doctrine, there were none that were opposed to it. On
+the fundamental points of usury and just price, commercial law in the
+later Middle Ages adopted completely the principles of the canonists.
+How entirely these principles were recognised in the practice of the
+courts which had most to do with commercial suits, viz. those of the
+towns, is sufficiently shown by the frequent enactments as to usury
+and as to reasonable price which are found in the town ordinances
+of the Middle Ages; in England as well as in the rest of Western
+Europe.... Whatever may have been the effect, direct or indirect, of
+the canonist doctrine on legislation, it is certain that on its other
+side, as entering into the moral teaching of the Church through the
+pulpit and the confessional, its influence was general and persistent,
+even if it were not always completely successful.'[2] 'Every great
+change of opinion on the destinies of man,' says Ingram, 'and the
+guiding principles of conduct must react in the sphere of material
+interests; and the Catholic religion had a profound influence on the
+economic life of the Middle Ages.... The constant presentations to the
+general mind and conscience of Christian ideas, the dogmatic bases
+of which were as yet scarcely assailed by scepticism, must have had a
+powerful effect in moralising life.'[3] According to Dr. Cunningham:
+'The mediæval doctrine of price was not a theory intended to explain
+the phenomena of society, but it was laid down as the basis of rules
+which should control the conduct of society and of individuals. At
+the same time current opinion seems to have been so fully formed in
+accordance with it that a brief enumeration of the doctrine of a just
+price will serve to set the practice of the day in clearer light. In
+regard to other matters, it is difficult to determine how far public
+opinion was swayed by practical experience, and how far it was really
+moulded by Christian teaching--this is the case in regard to usury.
+But there can be little doubt about the doctrine of price--which
+really underlies a great deal of commercial and gild regulations,
+and is constantly implied in the early legislation on mercantile
+affairs.'[4] The same author expresses the same opinion in another
+work: 'The Christian doctrine of price, and Christian condemnation
+of gain at the expense of another man, affected all the mediæval
+organisation of municipal life and regulation of inter-municipal
+commerce, and introduced marked contrasts to the conditions of
+business in ancient cities. The Christian appreciation of the duty of
+work rendered the lot of the mediæval villain a very different thing
+from that of the slave of the ancient empire. The responsibility of
+proprietors, like the responsibility of prices, was so far insisted
+on as to place substantial checks on tyranny of every kind. For these
+principles were not mere pious opinions, but effective maxims in
+practical life. Owing to the circumstances in which the vestiges of
+Roman civilisation were locally maintained, and the foundations of
+the new society were laid, there was ample opportunity for
+Christian teaching and example to have a marked influence on its
+development.'[5] In Dr. Cunningham's book entitled _Politics and
+Economics_ the same opinion is expressed:[6] 'Religious and industrial
+life were closely interconnected, and there were countless points at
+which the principles of divine law must have been brought to bear
+on the transaction of business, altogether apart from any formal
+tribunal. Nor must we forget the opportunities which directors had for
+influencing the conduct of penitents.... Partly through the operation
+of the royal power, partly through the decisions of ecclesiastical
+authorities, but more generally through the influence of a Christian
+public opinion which had been gradually created, the whole industrial
+organism took its shape, and the acknowledged economic principles were
+framed.' We have quoted these passages from Dr. Cunningham's works at
+length because they are of great value in helping us to estimate
+the rival parts played by theory and practice in mediæval economic
+teaching; in the first place, because the author was by no means
+prepossessed in favour of the teaching of the canonists, but rather
+unsympathetic to it; in the second place, because, although his work
+was concerned primarily with practice, he found himself obliged
+to make a study of theory before he could properly understand the
+practice; and lastly, because they point particularly to the effect of
+the teaching on just price. When we come to speak of this part of the
+subject we shall find that Dr. Cunningham failed to appreciate the
+true significance of the canonist doctrine. If an eminent author, who
+does not quite appreciate the full import of this doctrine, and who
+is to some extent contemptuous of its practical value, nevertheless
+asserts that it exercised an all-powerful influence on the practice of
+the age in which it was preached, we are surely justified in
+asserting that the study of theory may be profitably pursued without a
+preliminary history of the contemporary practice.
+
+[Footnote 1: Even Endemann warns his readers against assuming that the
+canonist teaching had no influence on everyday life. (_Studien_, vol.
+ii. p. 404.)]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. pp. 383-85. Again:
+'The later canonist dialectic was the midwife of modern economics'
+(_ibid._, p. 397).]
+
+[Footnote 3: _History of Political Economy_, p. 26.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_,
+vol. i. p. 252.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Cunningham, _Western Civilisation_, vol. ii. pp. 9-10.]
+
+[Footnote 6: P. 25.]
+
+But we must not be taken to suggest that there were no conflicts
+between the teaching and the practice of the Middle Ages. As we have
+seen, the economic teaching of that period was ethical, and it would
+be absurd to assert that every man who lived in the Middle Ages lived
+up to the high standard of ethical conduct which was proposed by the
+Church.[1] One might as well say that stealing was an unknown crime
+in England since the passing of the Larceny Act. All we do suggest is
+that the theory had such an important and incalculable influence
+upon practice that the study of it is not rendered futile or useless
+because of occasional or even frequent departures from it in real
+life. Even Endemann says: 'The teaching of the canon law presents a
+noble edifice not less splendid in its methods than in its results.
+It embraces the whole material and spiritual natures of human society
+with such power and completeness that verily no room is left for
+any other life than that decreed by its dogmas.'[2] 'The aim of the
+Church,' says Janssen, 'in view of the tremendous agencies through
+which it worked, in view of the dominion which it really exercised,
+cannot have the impression of its greatness effaced by the unfortunate
+fact that all was not accomplished that had been planned.'[3] The fact
+that tyranny may have been exercised by some provincial governor in
+an outlying island of the Roman Empire cannot close our eyes to the
+benefits to be derived from a study of the code of Justinian; nor can
+a remembrance of the manner in which English law is administered in
+Ireland in times of excitement, blind us to the political lessons to
+be learned from an examination of the British constitution.
+
+[Footnote 1: The many devices which were resorted to in order to evade
+the prohibition of usury are explained in Dr. Cunningham's _Growth
+of English Industry and Commerce_, vol. i. p. 255. See also Delisle,
+_L'Administration financière des Templiers_, Académie des Inscriptions
+et Belles-Lettres, 1889, vol. xxxiii. pt. ii., and Ashley, _Economic
+History_, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 426. The _Summa Pastoralis_ of Raymond de
+Pennafort analyses and demolishes many of the commoner devices which
+were employed to evade the usury laws. On the part played by the Jews,
+see Brants, _op. cit._, Appendix I.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Die Nationalökonomischen Grundsätze der canonistischen
+Lehre_, p. 192.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _History of the German People_ (Eng. trans.), vol. ii. p.
+99.]
+
+
+
+SECTION 3.--VALUE OF THE STUDY OF THE SUBJECT
+
+
+The question may be asked whether the study of a system of economic
+teaching, which, even if it ever did receive anything approaching
+universal assent, has long since ceased to do so, is not a waste of
+labour. We can answer that question in the negative, for two reasons.
+In the first place, as we said above, a proper understanding of
+the earlier periods of the development of a body of knowledge is
+indispensable for a full appreciation of the later. Even if the
+canonist system were not worth studying for its own sake, it would
+be deserving of attention on account of the light it throws on the
+development of later economic doctrine. 'However the canonist theory
+may contrast with or resemble modern economics, it is too important
+a part of the history of human thought to be disregarded,' says Sir
+William Ashley. 'As we cannot fully understand the work of Adam Smith
+without giving some attention to the physiocrats, nor the physiocrats
+without looking at the mercantilists: so the beginnings of mercantile
+theory are hardly intelligible without a knowledge of the canonist
+doctrine towards which that theory stands in the relation partly of a
+continuation, partly of a protest.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 381.]
+
+But we venture to assert that the study of canonist economics, far
+from being useful simply as an introduction to later theories, is of
+great value in furnishing us with assistance in the solution of the
+economic and social problems of the present day. The last fifty years
+have witnessed a reaction against the scientific abstractions of the
+classical economists, and modern thinkers are growing more and more
+dissatisfied with an economic science which leaves ethics out of
+account.[1] Professor Sidgwick, in his _Principles_ _of Political
+Economy_, published in 1883, devotes a separate section to 'The Art
+of Political Economy,' in which he remarks that 'The principles of
+Political Economy are still most commonly understood even in England,
+and in spite of many protests to the contrary, to be practical
+principles--rules of conduct, public or private.'[2] The many
+indications in recent literature and practice that the regulation of
+prices should be controlled by principles of 'fairness' would take too
+long to recite. It is sufficient to refer to the conclusion of Devas
+on this point: 'The notion of just price, worked out in detail by the
+theologians, and in later days rejected as absurd by the classical
+economists, has been rightly revived by modern economists.'[3] Not
+alone in the sphere of price, but in that of every other department
+of economics, the impossibility of treating the subject as an abstract
+science without regard to ethics is being rapidly abandoned. 'The best
+usage of the present time,' according to the _Catholic Encyclopædia_,
+'is to make political economy an ethical science--that is, to make it
+include a discussion of what ought to be in the economic world as well
+as what is.'[4] We read in the 1917 edition of Palgrave's _Dictionary
+of Political Economy_, that 'The growing importance of distribution as
+a practical problem has led to an increasing mutual interpenetration
+of economic and ethical ideas, which in the development of economic
+doctrine during the last century and a half has taken various forms.'
+[5] The need for some principle by which just distribution can be
+attained has been rendered pressing by the terrible effects of a
+period of unrestricted competition. 'It has been widely maintained
+that a strictly competitive exchange does not tend to be really
+fair--some say cannot be really fair--when one of the parties is
+under pressure of urgent need; and further, that the inequality of
+opportunity which private property involves cannot be fully justified
+on the principle of maintaining equal freedom, and leads, in fact, to
+grave social injustice.'[5] In other words, the present condition of
+affairs is admitted to be intolerable, and the task before the
+world is to discover some alternative. The day when economics can be
+divorced from ethics has passed away; there is a world-wide endeavour
+to establish in the place of the old, a new society founded on an
+ethical basis.[7] There are two, and only two, possible ways to
+the attainment of this ideal--the way of socialism and the way of
+Christianity. There can be no doubt the socialist movement derives a
+great part of its popularity from its promise of a new order, based,
+not on the unregulated pursuit of selfish desires, but on justice. 'To
+this view of justice or equity,' writes Dr. Sidgwick, 'the socialistic
+contention that labour can only receive its due reward if land and
+other instruments of production are taken into public ownership,
+and education of all kinds gratuitously provided by Government--has
+powerfully appealed; and many who are not socialists, nor ignorant of
+economic science, have been led by it to give welcome to the notion
+that the ideally "fair" price of a productive service is a price at
+least rendering possible the maintenance of the producers and their
+families in a condition of health and industrial efficiency.' This
+is not the place to enter into a discussion as to the merits
+or practicability of any of the numerous schemes put forward by
+socialists; it is sufficient to say that socialism is essentially
+unhistorical, and that in our opinion any practical benefits which
+it might bestow on society would be more than counterbalanced by the
+innumerable evils which would be certain to emerge in a system based
+on unsatisfactory foundations.
+
+[Footnote 1: We must guard against the error, which is frequently
+made, that, because the classical economists assumed self-interest
+as the sole motive of economic action, they therefore approved of and
+inculcated it.]
+
+[Footnote 2: P. 401, and see Marshall's Preface to Price's _Industrial
+Peace_, and Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. i. p. 137.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Political Economy_, p. 268.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Tit., 'Political Economy.']
+
+[Footnote 5: Vol. iii. p. 138.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Ibid._]
+
+[Footnote 7: See Laveleye, _Elements of Political Economy_ (Eng.
+trans.), pp. 7-8. On the general conflict between the ethical and the
+non-ethical schools of economists see Keynes, _Scope and Method_, pp.
+20 _et seq_.]
+
+The other road to the establishment of a society based on justice
+is the way of Christianity, and, if we wish to attempt this path, it
+becomes vitally important to understand what was the economic teaching
+of the Church in the period when the Christian ethic was universally
+recognised. During the whole Middle Ages, as we have said above, the
+Canon Law was the test of right and wrong in the domain of economic
+activity; production, consumption, distribution, and exchange were all
+regulated by the universal system of law; once before economic life
+was considered within the scope of moral regulation. It cannot be
+denied that a study of the principles which were accepted during that
+period may be of great value to a generation which is striving to
+place its economic life once more upon an ethical foundation.
+
+One error in particular we must be on our guard to avoid. We said
+above that both the socialists and the Christian economists are agreed
+in their desire to reintroduce justice into economic life. We must not
+conclude, however, that the aims of these two schools are identical.
+One very frequently meets with the statement that the teachings of
+socialism are nothing more or less than the teachings of Christianity.
+This contention is discussed in the following pages, where the
+conclusion will be reached that, far from being in agreement,
+socialism and Christian economics contradict each other on many
+fundamental points. It is, however, not the aim of the discussion to
+appraise the relative merits of either system, or to applaud one and
+disparage the other. All that it is sought to do is to distinguish
+between them; and to demonstrate that, whatever be the merits or
+demerits of the two philosophies, they are two, and not one.
+
+
+
+SECTION 4.--DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT
+
+
+The opinion is general that the distinctive doctrine of the mediæval
+Church which permeated the whole of its economic thought was the
+doctrine of usury. The holders of this view may lay claim to very
+influential supporters among the students of the subject. Ashley says
+that 'the prohibition of usury was clearly the centre of the canonist
+doctrine.'[1] Roscher expresses the same opinion in practically the
+same words;[2] and Endemann sees the whole economic development of the
+Middle Ages and the Renaissance as the victorious destruction of the
+usury law by the exigencies of real life.[3] However impressed we
+may be by the opinions of such eminent authorities, we, nevertheless,
+cannot help feeling that on this point they are under a misconception.
+There is no doubt that the doctrine of the canonists which impresses
+the modern mind most deeply is the usury prohibition, partly because
+it is not generally realised that the usury doctrine would not have
+forbidden the receipt of any of the commonest kinds of unearned
+revenue of the present day, and partly because the discussion of usury
+occupies such a very large part of the writings of the canonists. It
+may be quite true to say that the doctrine of usury was that which
+gave the greatest trouble to the mediæval writers, on account of the
+nicety of the distinctions with which it abounded, and on account of
+the ingenuity of avaricious merchants, who continually sought to
+evade the usury laws by disguising illegal under the guise of
+legal transactions. In practice, therefore, the usury doctrine was
+undoubtedly the most prominent part of the canonist teaching, because
+it was the part which most tempted evasion; but to admit that is not
+to agree with the proposition that it was the centre of the canonist
+doctrine.
+
+[Footnote: 1 _Op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 399.]
+
+[Footnote: 2 'Bekanntlich war das Wucherverbot der praktische
+Mittelpunkt der ganzen kanonischen Wirthschaftspolitik,' _Op. cit._,
+p. 8.]
+
+[Footnote: 3 _Studien_, vol. i. p. 2 and _passim_. At vol. ii. p. 31
+it is stated that the teaching on just price is a corollary of the
+usury teaching. But Aquinas treats of usury in the article _following_
+his treatment of just price.]
+
+Our view is that the teaching on usury was simply one of the
+applications of the doctrine that all voluntary exchanges of property
+must be regulated by the precepts of commutative justice. In one sense
+it might be said to be a corollary of the doctrine of just price. This
+is apparently the suggestion of Dr. Cleary in his excellent book on
+usury: 'It seems to me that the so-called loan of money is really
+a sale, and that a loan of meal, wine, oil, gunpowder, and similar
+commodities--that is to say, commodities which are consumed in use--is
+also a sale. If this is so, as I believe it is, then loans of all
+these consumptible goods should be regulated by the principles which
+regulate sale contracts. A just price only may be taken, and the
+return must be truly equivalent.'[1] This statement of Dr. Cleary's
+seems well warranted, and finds support in the analogy which was drawn
+between the legitimacy of interest--in the technical sense--and the
+legitimacy of a vendor's increasing the price of an article by reason
+of some special inconvenience which he would suffer by parting with
+it. Both these titles were justified on the same ground, namely, that
+they were in the nature of compensations, and arose independently of
+the main contract of loan or sale as the case might be. 'Le vendeur
+est en présence de l'acheteur. L'objet a pour lui une valeur
+particulière: c'est un souvenir, par exemple. A-t-il le droit de
+majorer le prix de vente? de dépasser le juste prix convenu? ... Avec
+l'unanimité des docteurs on peut trouver légitime la majoration du
+prix. L'évaluation commune distingue un double élément dans l'objet:
+sa valeur ordinaire à laquelle répond le juste prix, et cette valeur
+extraordinaire qui appartient au vendeur, dont il se prive et qui
+mérite une compensation: il le fait pour ainsi dire l'objet d'un
+second contrat qui se superpose au premier. Cela est si vrai que le
+supplément de prix n'est pas dû au même titre que le juste prix.'[2]
+The importance of this analogy will appear when we come to treat just
+price and usury in detail; it is simply referred to here in support of
+the proposition that, far from being a special doctrine _sui generis_,
+the usury doctrine of the Church was simply an application to the sale
+of consumptible things of the universal rules which applied to all
+sales. In other words, the doctrines of the just price and of usury
+were founded on the same fundamental precept of justice in exchange.
+If we indicate what this precept was, we can claim to have indicated
+what was the true centre of the canonist doctrine.
+
+[Footnote 1: _The Church and Usury_, p. 186.]
+
+[Footnote 1: Desbuquois, 'La Justice dans l'Echange,' _Semaine Sociale
+de France_, 1911, p. 174.]
+
+The scholastic teaching on the subject of the rules of justice in
+exchange was founded on the famous fifth book of Aristotle's _Ethics_,
+and is very clearly set forth by Aquinas. In the article of the
+_Summa_, where the question is discussed, 'Whether the mean is to be
+observed in the same way in distributive as in commutative justice?'
+we find a clear exposition: 'In commutations something is delivered to
+an individual on account of something of his that has been received,
+as may be seen chiefly in selling and buying, where the notion of
+commutation is found primarily. Hence it is necessary to equalise
+thing with thing, so that the one person should pay back to the other
+just so much as he has become richer out of that which belonged to
+the other. The result of this will be equality according to the
+_arithmetical_ mean, which is gauged according to equal excess in
+quantity. Thus 5 is the mean between 6 and 4, since it exceeds the
+latter, and is exceeded by the former by 1. Accordingly, if at the
+start both persons have 5, and one of them receives 1 out of the
+other's belongings, the one that is the receiver will have 6, and the
+other will be left with 4: and so there will be justice if both are
+brought back to the mean, I being taken from him that has 6 and given
+to him that has 4, for then both will have 5, which is the mean.'[1]
+In the following article the matter of each kind of justice is
+discussed. We are told that: 'Justice is about certain external
+operations, namely, distribution and commutation. These consist in the
+use of certain externals, whether things, persons, or even works: of
+things as when one man takes from or restores to another that which
+is his: of persons as when a man does an injury to the very person of
+another...: and of works as when a man justly enacts a work of another
+or does a work for him.... Commutative justice directs commutations
+that can take place between two persons. Of these some are
+involuntary, some voluntary.... Voluntary commutations are when a
+man voluntarily transfers his chattel to another person. And if he
+transfer it simply so that the recipient incurs no debt, as in the
+case of gifts, it is an act not of justice, but of liberality. A
+voluntary transfer belongs to justice in so far as it includes the
+notion of debt.' Aquinas then goes on to distinguish between the
+different kinds of contract, sale, usufruct, loan, letting and hiring,
+and deposit, and concludes, 'In all these actions the mean is taken in
+the same way according to the equality of repayment. Hence all these
+actions belong to the one species of justice, namely, commutative
+justice.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: ii. ii. 61, 2.]
+
+[Footnote 2: ii. ii. 61, 3. The reasoning of Aristotle is
+characteristically reinforced by the quotation of Matt. vii. 12; ii.
+ii. 77,1.]
+
+This is not the place to discuss the precise meaning of the equality
+upon which Aquinas insists, which will be more properly considered
+when we come to deal with the just price. What is to be noticed at
+present is that all the transactions which are properly comprised in
+a discussion of economic theory--sales, loans, etc.--are grouped
+together as being subject to the same regulative principle. It
+therefore appears more correct to approach the subject which we are
+attempting to treat by following that principle into its various
+applications, than by making one particular application of the
+principle the starting-point of the discussion.
+
+It will be noticed, however, that the principles of commutative
+justice all treat of the commutations of external goods--in other
+words, they assume the existence of property of external goods in
+individuals. Commutations are but a result of private property; in a
+state of communism there could be no commutation. This is well pointed
+out by Gerson[1] and by Nider.[2] It consequently is important,
+before discussing exchange of ownership, to discuss the principle of
+ownership itself; or, in other words, to study the static before the
+dynamic state.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _De Contractibus_, i. 4 'Inventa est autem commutatio
+civilis post peccatum quoniam status innocentias habuit omnia
+communia.']
+
+[Footnote 2: _De Contractibus_, v. 1: 'Nunc videndum est breviter unde
+originaliter proveniat quod rerum dominia sunt distincta, sic quod
+hoc dicatur meum et illud tuum; quia illud est fundamentum omnis
+injustitiae in contractando rem alienam, et post omnis injustitia
+reddendo eam.']
+
+[Footnote 3: See l'Abbé Desbuquois, _op. cit._, p. 168.]
+
+We shall therefore deal in the first place with the right of private
+property, which we shall show to have been fully recognised by the
+mediæval writers. We shall then point out the duties which this
+right entailed, and shall establish the position that the scholastic
+teaching was directed equally against modern socialistic principles
+and modern unregulated individualism. The next point with which we
+shall deal is the exchange of property between individuals, which is a
+necessary corollary of the right of property. We shall show that such
+exchanges were regulated by well-defined principles of commutative
+justice, which applied equally in the case of the sale of goods and in
+the case of the sale of the use of money. The last matter with which
+we shall deal is the machinery by which exchanges are conducted,
+namely, money. Many other subjects, such as slavery and the legitimacy
+of commerce, will be treated as they arise in the course of our
+treatment of these principal divisions.
+
+In its ultimate analysis, the whole subject may be reduced to a
+classification of the various duties which attached to the right of
+private property. The owner of property, as we shall see, was bound
+to observe certain duties in respect of its acquisition and its
+consumption, and certain other duties in respect of its exchange,
+whether it consisted of goods or of money. The whole fabric of
+mediæval economics was based on the foundation of private property;
+and the elaborate and logical system of regulations to ensure justice
+in economic life would have had no purpose or no use if the subject
+matter of that justice were abolished.
+
+It must not be understood that the mediæval writers treated economic
+subjects in this order, or in any order at all. As we have already
+said, economic matters are simply referred to in connection with
+ethics, and were not detached and treated as making up a distinct
+body of teaching. Ashley says: 'The reader will guard himself against
+supposing that any mediæval writer ever detached these ideas from
+the body of his teaching, and put them together as a modern text-book
+writer might do; or that they were ever presented in this particular
+order, and with the connecting argument definitely stated.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 387.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+PROPERTY
+
+
+
+SECTION 1.--THE RIGHT TO PROCURE AND DISPENSE PROPERTY
+
+
+The teaching of the mediæval Church on the subject of property was
+perfectly simple and clear. Aquinas devoted a section of the _Summa_
+to it, and his opinion was accepted as final by all the later writers
+of the period, who usually repeat his very words. However, before
+coming to quote and explain Aquinas, it is necessary to deal with
+a difficulty that has occurred to several students of Christian
+economics, namely, that the teaching of the scholastics on the subject
+of property was in some way opposed to the teaching of the early
+Church and of Christ Himself. Thus Haney says: 'It is necessary to
+keep the ideas of Christianity and the Church separate, for few
+will deny that Christianity as a religion is quite distinct from the
+various institutions or Churches which profess it....' And he goes
+on to point out that, whereas Christianity recommended community of
+property, the Church permitted private property and inequality.[1]
+Strictly speaking, the reconciliation of the mediæval teaching with
+that of the primitive Church might be said to be outside the scope of
+the present essay. In our opinion, however, it is important to insist
+upon the fundamental harmony of the teaching of the Church in the two
+periods, in the first place, because it is impossible to understand
+the later without an understanding of the earlier doctrine from which
+it developed, and secondly, because of the widespread prevalence, even
+among Catholics, of the erroneous idea that the scholastic teaching
+was opposed to the ethical principle laid down by the Founder of
+Christianity.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 73.]
+
+Amongst the arguments which are advanced by socialists none is more
+often met than the alleged socialist teaching and practice of the
+early Christians. For instance, Cabet's _Voyage en Icarie_ contains
+the following passage: 'Mais quand on s'enfonce sérieusement et
+ardemment dans la question de savoir comment la société pourrait être
+organisée en Démocratie, c'est-à-dire sur les bases de l'Égalité et de
+la Fraternité, on arrive à reconnaître que cette organisation exige
+et entraîne nécessairement la communauté de biens. Et nous hâtons
+d'ajouter que cette communauté était également proclamée par
+Jésus-Christ, par tous ses apôtres et ses disciples, par tous les
+pères de l'Église et tous les Chrétiens des premiers siècles.' The
+fact that St. Thomas Aquinas, the great exponent of Catholic teaching
+in the Middle Ages, defends in unambiguous language the institution of
+private property offers no difficulties to the socialist historian of
+Christianity. He replies simply that St. Thomas wrote in an age when
+the Church was the Church of the rich as well as of the poor; that
+it had to modify its doctrines to ease the consciences of its rich
+members; and that, ever since the conversion of Constantine, the
+primitive Christian teaching on property had been progressively
+corrupted by motives of expediency, until the time of the _Summa_,
+when it had ceased to resemble in any way the teaching of the
+Apostles.[1] We must therefore first of all demonstrate that there is
+no such contradiction between the teaching of the Apostles and that of
+the mediæval Church on the subject of private property, but that,
+on the contrary, the necessity of private property was at all times
+recognised and insisted on by the Catholic Church. As it is put in an
+anonymous article in the _Dublin Review_: 'Among Christian nations we
+discover at a very early period a strong tendency towards a general
+and equitable distribution of wealth and property among the whole body
+politic. Grounded on an ever-increasing historical evidence, we might
+possibly affirm that the mediæval Church brought her whole weight to
+bear incessantly upon this one singular and single point.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: See, _e.g._, Nitti, _Catholic Socialism_, p. 71. 'Thus,
+then, according to Nitti, the Christian Church has been guilty of the
+meanest, most selfish, and most corrupt utilitarianism in her attitude
+towards the question of wealth and property. She was communistic when
+she had nothing. She blessed poverty in order to fill her own coffers.
+And when the coffers were full she took rank among the owners of
+land and houses, she became zealous in the interests of property, and
+proclaimed that its origin was divine' ('The Fathers of the Church and
+Socialism,' by Dr. Hogan, _Irish Ecclesiastical Record_, vol. xxv. p.
+226).]
+
+[Footnote 2: 'Christian Political Economy,' _Dublin Review_, N.S.,
+vol. vi. p. 356]
+
+The alleged communism of the first Christians is based on a few verses
+of the Acts of the Apostles describing the condition of the Church of
+Jerusalem. 'And they that believed were together and had all things
+common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to
+all men, as every man had need.'[1] 'And the multitude of them that
+believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them
+that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had
+all things common. Neither was there any amongst them that lacked: for
+as many as were possessors of land or houses sold them, and brought
+the price of the things that were sold, And laid them down at the
+apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as
+he had need.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: ii. 44-45.]
+
+[Footnote 2: iv. 32, 34, 35.]
+
+It is by no means clear whether the state of things here depicted
+really amounted to communism in the strict sense. Several of the most
+enlightened students of the Bible have come to the conclusion that the
+verses quoted simply express in a striking way the great liberality
+and benevolence which prevailed among the Christian fraternity at
+Jerusalem. This view was strongly asserted by Mosheim,[1] and is held
+by Dr. Carlyle. 'A more careful examination of the passages in the
+Acts,' says the latter,[2] 'show clearly enough that this was no
+systematic division of property, but that the charitable instinct
+of the infant Church was so great that those who were in want were
+completely supported by those who were more prosperous.... Still there
+was no systematic communism, no theory of the necessity of it.' Colour
+is lent to this interpretation by the fact that similar words
+and phrases were used to emphasise the prevalence of charity and
+benevolence in later communities of Christians, amongst whom, as
+we know from other sources, the right of private property was fully
+admitted. Thus Tertullian wrote:[3] 'One in mind and soul, we do not
+hesitate to share our earthly goods with one another. All things are
+common among us but our wives.' This passage, if it were taken alone,
+would be quite as strong and unambiguous as those from the Acts; but
+fortunately, a few lines higher up, Tertullian had described how the
+Church was supported, wherein he showed most clearly that private
+property was still recognised and practised: 'Though we have our
+treasure-chest, it is not made up of purchase-money, as of a religion
+that has its price. On the monthly collection day, if he likes, each
+puts in a small donation; but only if he has pleasure, and only if
+he be able; all is voluntary.' This point is well put by Bergier:[4]
+'Towards the end of the first century St. Barnabas; in the second,
+St. Justin and St. Lucian; in the third, St. Clement of Alexandria,
+Tertullian, Origen, St. Cyprian; in the fourth, Arnobius and
+Lactantius, say that among the Christians all goods are common; there
+was then certainly no question of a communism of goods taken in the
+strict sense.'
+
+[Footnote 1: _Dissert. ad Hist. Eccles._, vol. ii. p. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 'The Political Theory of the Ante-Nicene Fathers,'
+_Economic Review_, vol. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Apol._ 39.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Dictionnaire de Théologie_, Paris, 1829, tit.
+'Communauté.']
+
+It is therefore doubtful if the Church at Jerusalem, as described in
+the Acts, practised communism at all, as apart from great liberality
+and benevolence. Assuming, however, that the Acts should be
+interpreted in their strict literal sense, let us see to what the
+so-called communism amounted.
+
+In the first place, it is plain from Acts iv. 32 that the communism
+was one of use, not of ownership. It was not until the individual
+owner had sold his goods and placed the proceeds in the common fund
+that any question of communism arose. 'Whiles it remained was it not
+thine own,' said St. Peter, rebuking Ananias, 'and after it was sold
+was it not in thine own power?'[1] This distinction is particularly
+important in view of the fact that it is precisely that insisted on by
+St. Thomas Aquinas. There is no reason to suppose that the community
+of use practised at Jerusalem was in any way different from that
+advocated by Aquinas--namely, 'the possession by a man of external
+things, not as his own, but in common, so that, to wit, he is ready to
+communicate them to others in their need.'
+
+[Footnote 1: Roscher, _Political Economy_ (Eng. trans.), vol. i. p.
+246; _Catholic Encyclopædia_, tit. 'Communism.']
+
+In the next place, we must observe that the communism described in the
+Acts was purely voluntary. This is quite obvious from the relation in
+the fifth chapter of the incident of Ananias and Sapphira. There is
+no indication that the abandonment of one's possessory rights was
+preached by the Apostles. Indeed, it would be difficult to understand
+why they should have done so, when Christ Himself had remained
+silent on the subject. Far from advocating communism, the Founder
+of Christianity had urged the practice of many virtues for which
+the possession of private property was essential. 'What Christ
+recommended,' says Sudre,[1] 'was voluntary abnegation or almsgiving.
+But the giving of goods without any hope of compensation, the
+spontaneous deprivation of oneself, could not exist except under a
+system of private property ... they were one of the ways of exercising
+such rights.' Moreover, as the same author points out, private
+property was fully recognised under the Jewish dispensation, and
+Christ would therefore have made use of explicit language if he had
+intended to alter the old law in this fundamental respect. 'Think not
+that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come
+to destroy, but to fulfil.'[2] At the time of Christ's preaching, a
+Jewish sect, the Essenes, were endeavouring to put into practice the
+ideals of communism, but there is not a word in the Gospels to suggest
+that He ever held them up as an example to His followers. 'Communism
+was never preached by Christ, although it was practised under His
+very eyes by the Essenes. This absolute silence is equivalent to an
+implicit condemnation.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Histoire du Communisme_, p. 39.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. v. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Sudre, _op. cit._, p. 44. On the Essenes see 'Historic
+Phases of Socialism,' by Dr. Hogan, _Irish Ecclesiastical Record_,
+vol. xxv. p. 334. Even Huet discounts the importance of this instance
+of communism, _Le Règne social du Christianisme_, p. 38.]
+
+Nor was communism preached as part of Christ's doctrine as taught
+by the Apostles. In Paul's epistles there is no direction to the
+congregations addressed that they should abandon their private
+property; on the contrary, the continued existence of such rights is
+expressly recognised and approved in his appeals for funds for the
+Church at Jerusalem.[1] Can it be that, as Roscher says,[2] the
+experiment in communism had produced a chronic state of poverty in the
+Church at Jerusalem? Certain it is the experiment was never repeated
+in any of the other apostolic congregations. The communism at
+Jerusalem, if it ever existed at all, not only failed to spread to
+other Churches, but failed to continue at Jerusalem itself. It is
+universally admitted by competent students of the question that the
+phenomenon was but temporary and transitory.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _e.g._ Rom. xv. 26, 1 Cor. xvi. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Political Economy_, vol. i. p. 246.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Sudre, _op. cit._; Salvador, _Jésus-Christ et sa
+Doctrine_, vol. ii. p. 221. See More's _Utopia_.]
+
+The utterances of the Fathers of the Church on property are scattered
+and disconnected. Nevertheless, there is sufficient cohesion in them
+to enable us to form an opinion of their teaching on the subject. It
+has, as we have said, frequently been asserted that they favoured
+a system of communism, and disapproved of private ownership. The
+supporters of this view base their arguments on a number of isolated
+texts, taken out of their context, and not interpreted with any regard
+to the circumstances in which they were written. 'The mistake,' as
+Devas says,[1] 'of representing the early Christian Fathers of the
+Church as rank socialists is frequently made by those who are friendly
+to modern socialism; the reason for it is that either they have taken
+passages of orthodox writers apart from their context, and without
+due regard to the circumstances in which they were written, and the
+meaning they would have conveyed to their hearers; or else, by a
+grosser blunder, the perversions of heretics are set forth as the
+doctrine of the Church, and a sad case arises of mistaken identity.' A
+careful study of the patristic texts bearing on the subject leads one
+to the conclusion that Mr. Devas's view is without doubt the correct
+one.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Dublin Review_, Jan. 1898.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Dr. Hogan, in an article entitled 'The Fathers of the
+Church and Socialism,' in the _Irish Ecclesiastical Record_, vol.
+xxv. p. 226, has examined all the texts relative to property in the
+writings of Tertullian, St. Justin Martyn, St. Clement of Rome, St.
+Clement of Alexandria, St. Basil, St. Ambrose, St. John Chrysostom,
+St. Augustine, and St. Gregory the Great; and the utterances of St.
+Basil, St. Ambrose, and St. Jerome are similarly examined in 'The
+Alleged Socialism of the Church Fathers,' by Dr. John A. Ryan.
+The patristic texts are also fully examined by Abbé Calippe in 'Le
+Caractère sociale de la Propriété' in _La Semaine Sociale de France_,
+1909, p. 111. The conclusion come to after thorough examinations such
+as these is always the same. For a good analysis of the patristic
+texts from the communistic standpoint, see Conrad Noel, _Socialism in
+Church History_.]
+
+The passages from the writings of the Fathers which are cited by
+socialists who are anxious to support the proposition that socialism
+formed part of the early Christian teaching may be roughly divided
+into four groups: first, passages where the abandonment of earthly
+possessions is held up as a work of more than ordinary devotion--in
+other words, a counsel of perfection; second, those where the practice
+of almsgiving is recommended in the rhetorical and persuasive language
+of the missioner--where the faithful are exhorted to exercise their
+charity to such a degree that it may be said that the rich and the
+poor have all things in common; third, passages directed against
+avarice and the wrongful acquisition or abuse of riches; and fourth,
+passages where the distinction between the natural and positive law on
+the matter is explained.
+
+The following passage from Cyprian is a good example of an utterance
+which was clearly meant as a counsel of perfection. Isolated sentences
+from this passage have frequently been quoted to prove that Cyprian
+was an advocate of communism; but there can be no doubt from the
+passage as a whole, that all that he was aiming at was to cultivate in
+his followers a high detachment from earthly wealth, and that, in so
+far as complete abandonment of one's property is recommended, it is
+simply indicated as a work of quite unusual devotion. It is noteworthy
+that this passage occurs in a treatise on almsgiving, a practice which
+presupposes a system of individual ownership:[1] 'Let us consider what
+the congregation of believers did in the time of the Apostles, when
+at the first beginnings the mind flourished with greater virtues, when
+the faith of believers burned with a warmth of faith yet new. Thus
+they sold houses and farms, and gladly and liberally presented to
+the Apostles the proceeds to be dispersed to the poor; selling and
+alienating their earthly estate, they transferred their lands thither
+where they might receive the fruits of an eternal possession, and
+there prepared houses where they might begin an eternal habitation.
+Such, then, was the abundance in labours as was the agreement in love,
+as we read in the Acts--"Neither said any of them that aught of
+the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things
+common." This is truly to become son of God by spiritual birth; this
+is to imitate by the heavenly law the equity of God the Father. For
+whatever is of God is common in our use; nor is any one excluded from
+His benefits and His gifts so as to prevent the whole human race from
+enjoying equally the divine goodness and liberality. Thus the day
+equally enlightens, the sun gives radiance, the rain moistens, the
+wind blows, and the sleep is one to those who sleep, and the splendour
+of Stars and of the Moon is common. In which examples of equality he
+who as a possessor in the earth shares his returns and his fruits
+with the fraternity, while he is common and just in his gratuitous
+bounties, is an imitator of God the Father.'
+
+[Footnote 1: _De Opere et Eleemosynis_, 25.]
+
+There is a much-quoted passage of St. John Chrysostom which is
+capable of the same interpretation. In his commentary on the
+alleged communistic existence of the Apostles at Jerusalem the Saint
+emphasises the fact that their communism was voluntary: 'That this was
+in consequence not merely of the miraculous signs, but of their
+own purpose, is manifest from the case of Ananias and Sapphira.' He
+further insists on the fact that the members of this community were
+animated by unusual fervour: 'From the exceeding ardour of the
+givers none was in want.' Further down, in the same homily, St. John
+Chrysostom urges the adoption of a communistic system of housekeeping,
+but purely on the grounds of domestic economy and saving of labour.
+There is not a word to suggest that a communistic system was morally
+preferable to a proprietary one.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Hom, on Acts xi_. That voluntary poverty was regarded
+as a counsel of perfection by Aquinas is abundantly clear from many
+passages in his works, _e.g. Summa_, I. ii. 108, 4; II. ii. 185, 6;
+II. ii. 186, 3; _Summa cont. Gent_., iii. 133. On this, as on every
+other point, the teaching of Aquinas is in line with that of the
+Fathers.]
+
+The second class of patristic texts which are relied on by socialists
+are, as we have said, those 'where the practice of almsgiving
+is recommended in the rhetorical and persuasive language of the
+missioner--where the faithful are exhorted to exercise their charity
+to such a degree that it may be said that the rich and poor have all
+things in common.' Such passages are very frequent throughout the
+writings of the Fathers, but we may give as examples two, which are
+most frequently relied on by socialists. One of these is from St.
+Ambrose:[1] 'Mercy is a part of justice; and if you wish to give to
+the poor, this mercy is justice. "He hath dispersed, he hath given
+to the poor; his righteousness endureth for ever."[2] It is therefore
+unjust that one should not be helped by his neighbour; when God hath
+wished the possession of the earth to be common to all men, and its
+fruits to minister to all; but avarice established possessory rights.
+It is therefore just that if you lay claim to anything as your private
+property, which is really conferred in common to the whole human race,
+that you should dispense something to the poor, so that you may not
+deny nourishment to those who have the right to share with you.' The
+following passage from Gregory the Great[3] is another example of
+this kind of passage: 'Those who rather desire what is another's, nor
+bestow that is their own, are to be admonished to consider carefully
+that the earth out of which they are taken is common to all men, and
+therefore brings forth nourishment for all in common. Vainly, then,
+do they suppose themselves innocent who claim to their own private
+use the common gift of God; those who in not imparting what they have
+received walk in the midst of the slaughter of their neighbours; since
+they almost daily slay so many persons as there are dying poor whose
+subsidies they keep close in their own possession.'
+
+[Footnote 1: _Comm. on Ps. cxviii._, viii. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ps. cxii. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Lib. Reg. Past._, iii. 21.]
+
+The third class of passages to which reference must be made is
+composed of the numerous attacks which the Fathers levelled against
+the abuse or wrongful acquisition of riches. These passages do not
+indicate that the Fathers favoured a system of communism, but point
+in precisely the contrary direction. If property were an evil thing
+in itself, they would not have wasted so much time in emphasising the
+evil uses to which it was sometimes put. The insistence on the abuses
+of an institution is an implicit admission that it has its uses.
+Thus Clement of Alexandria devotes a whole treatise to answering the
+question 'Who is the rich man who can be saved?' in which it appears
+quite plainly that it is the possible abuse of wealth, and the
+possible too great attachment to worldly goods, that are the principal
+dangers in the way of a rich man's salvation. The suggestion that
+in order to be saved a man must abandon all his property is strongly
+controverted. The following passage from St. Gregory Nazianzen[1]
+breathes the same spirit: 'One of us has oppressed the poor, and
+wrested from him his portion of land, and wrongly encroached upon his
+landmarks by fraud or violence, and joined house to house, and field
+to field, to rob his neighbour of something, and has been eager to
+have no neighbour, so as to dwell alone on the earth. Another has
+defiled the land with usury and interest, both gathering where he has
+not sowed and reaping where he has not strewn, farming not the land
+but the necessity of the needy.... Another has had no pity on the
+widow and orphans, and not imparted his bread and meagre nourishment
+to the needy; ... a man perhaps of much property unexpectedly gained,
+for this is the most unjust of all, who finds his very barns too
+narrow for him, fining some and emptying others to build greater ones
+for future crops.' Similarly Clement of Rome advocates _frugality_
+in the enjoyment of wealth;[2] and Salvian has a long passage on the
+dangers of the abuse of riches.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Orat_., xvi. 18.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _The Instructor_, iii. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Ad Eccles._, i. 7.]
+
+The fourth group of passages is that in which the distinction between
+the natural and positive law on the matter is explained. It is here
+that the greatest confusion has been created by socialist writers, who
+conclude, because they read in the works of some of the Fathers that
+private property did not exist by natural law, that it was therefore
+condemned by them as an illegitimate institution. Nothing could be
+more erroneous. All that the Fathers meant in these passages was that
+in the state of nature--the idealised Golden Age of the pagans, or the
+Garden of Eden of the Christians--there was no individual ownership of
+goods. The very moment, however, that man fell from that ideal state,
+communism became impossible, simply on account of the change that had
+taken place in man's own nature. To this extent it is true to say
+that the Fathers regarded property with disapproval; it was one of the
+institutions rendered necessary by the fall of man. Of course it would
+have been preferable that man should not have fallen from his natural
+innocence, in which case he could have lived a life of communism;
+but, as he had fallen, and communism had from that moment become
+impossible, property must be respected as the one institution which
+could put a curb on his avarice, and preserve a society of fallen men
+from chaos and general rapine.
+
+That this is the correct interpretation of the patristic utterances
+regarding property and natural law appears from the following
+passage of _The Divine Institution_ of Lactantius--'the most explicit
+statement bearing on the Christian idea of property in the first four
+centuries':[1] '"They preferred to live content with a simple mode
+of life," as Cicero relates in his poems; and this is peculiar to our
+religion. "It was not even allowed to mark out or to divide the plain
+with a boundary: men sought all things in common,"[2] since God had
+given the earth in common to all, that they might pass their life in
+common, not that mad and raging avarice might claim all things for
+itself, and that riches produced for all might not be wanting to any.
+And this saying of the poet ought so to be taken, not as suggesting
+the idea that individuals at that time had no private property, but it
+must be regarded as a poetical figure, that we may understand that
+men were so liberal, that they did not shut up the fruits of the earth
+produced for them, nor did they in solitude brood over the things
+stored up, but admitted the poor to share the fruits of their labour:
+
+  "Now streams of milk, now streams of nectar flowed."[3]
+
+And no wonder, since the storehouses of the good literally lay open
+to all. Nor did avarice intercept the divine bounty, and thus cause
+hunger and thirst in common; but all alike had abundance, since they
+who had possessions gave liberally and bountifully to those who had
+not. But after Saturnus had been banished from heaven, and had arrived
+in Latium ... not only did the people who had a superfluity fail
+to bestow a share upon others, but they even seized the property of
+others, drawing everything to their private gain; and the things which
+formerly even individuals laboured to obtain for the common use of all
+were now conveyed to the powers of a few. For that they might subdue
+others by slavery, they began to withdraw and collect together the
+necessaries of life, and to keep them firmly shut up, that they might
+make the bounties of heaven their own; not on account of kindness
+(_humanitas_), a feeling which had no existence for them, but that
+they might sweep together all the instruments of lust and avarice.'[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'The Biblical and Early Christian Idea of Property,' by
+Dr. V. Bartlett, in _Property, its Duties and Rights_ (London, 1913).]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Georg._, i. 126.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Ovid, _Met._, I. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Lactantius, _Div. Inst._, v. 5-6.]
+
+It appears from the above passage that Lactantius regarded the era in
+which a system of communism existed as long since vanished, if indeed
+it ever had existed. The same idea emerges from the writings of St.
+Augustine, who drew a distinction between divine and human right. 'By
+what right does every man possess what he possesses?' he asks.[1] 'Is
+it not by human right? For by divine right "the earth is the Lord's,
+and the fullness thereof." The poor and the rich God made of one clay;
+the same earth supports alike the poor and the rich. By human right,
+however, one says, This estate is mine, this servant is mine, this
+house is mine. By human right, therefore, is by right of the Emperor.
+Why so? Because God has distributed to mankind these very human rights
+through the emperors and kings of the world.'
+
+[Footnote 1: _Tract in Joh. Ev._, vi. 25.]
+
+The socialist commentators of St. Augustine have strained this, and
+similar passages, to mean that because property rests on human, and
+not on divine, right, therefore it should not exist at all. It is, of
+course true that what human right has created human right can repeal;
+and it is therefore quite fair to argue that all the citizens of a
+community might agree to live a life of communism. That is simply an
+argument to prove that there is nothing immoral in communism, and does
+not prove in the very slightest degree that there is anything immoral
+in property. On the contrary, so long as 'the emperors and kings of
+the world' ordain that private property shall continue, it would be,
+according to St. Augustine, immoral for any individual to maintain
+that such ordinances were wrongful.
+
+The correct meaning of the patristic distinction between natural and
+positive law with regard to property is excellently summarised in Dr.
+Carlyle's essay on _Property in Mediæval Theology_:[1] 'What do the
+expressions of the Fathers mean? At first sight they might seem to be
+an assertion of communism, or denunciation of private property as a
+thing which is sinful or unlawful. But this is not what the Fathers
+mean. There can be little doubt that we find the sources of these
+words in such a phrase as that of Cicero--"Sunt autem privata nulla
+natura"[2]--and in the Stoic tradition which is represented in one of
+Seneca's letters, when he describes the primitive life in which men
+lived together in peace and happiness, when there was no system of
+coercive government and no private property, and says that man passed
+out of this primitive condition as their first innocence disappeared,
+as they became avaricious and dissatisfied with the common enjoyment
+of the good things of the world, and desired to hold them as their
+private possession.[3] Here we have the quasi-philosophical theory,
+from which the patristic conception is derived. When men were
+innocent there was no need for private property, or the other great
+conventional institutions of society, but as this innocence passed
+away, they found themselves compelled to organise society and to
+devise institutions which should regulate the ownership and use of
+the good things which men had once held in common. The institution of
+property thus represents the fall of man from his primitive innocence,
+through greed and avarice, which refused to recognise the common
+ownership of things, and also the method by which the blind greed of
+human nature might be controlled and regulated. It is this ambiguous
+origin of the institution which explains how the Fathers could hold
+that private property was not natural, that it grew out of men's
+vicious and sinful desires, and at the same time that it was a
+legitimate institution.'
+
+Janet takes the same view of the patristic utterances on this
+subject:[4] 'What do the Fathers say? It is that in Jesus Christ there
+is no mine and thine. Nothing is more true, without doubt; in the
+divine order, in the order of absolute charity, where men are
+wholly wrapt up in God, distinction and inequality of goods would be
+impossible. But the Fathers saw clearly that such a state of things
+was not realisable here below. What did they do? They established
+property on human law, positive law, imperial law. Communism is
+either a Utopia or a barbarism; a Utopia if one imagine it founded on
+universal devotion; a barbarism if one imposes it by force.'[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Property, Its Duties and Rights_ (London, 1913).]
+
+[Footnote 2: _De Off._, i. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Seneca, _Ep._, xiv. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Histoire de la Science politique_, vol. i. p. 330.]
+
+[Footnote 5: See also Jarrett, _Mediæval Socialism_.]
+
+It must not be concluded that the evidence of the approbation by the
+Fathers of private property is purely negative or solely derived from
+the interpretation of possibly ambiguous texts. On the contrary,
+the lawfulness of property is emphatically asserted on more than one
+occasion. 'To possess riches,' says Hilary of Poictiers,[1] 'is not
+wrongful, but rather the manner in which possession is used.... It
+is a crime to possess wrongfully rather than simply to possess.' 'Who
+does not understand,' asks St. Augustine,[2] 'that it is not sinful to
+possess riches, but to love and place hope in them, and to prefer them
+to truth or justice?' Again, 'Why do you reproach us by saying that
+men renewed in baptism ought no longer to beget children or to
+possess fields and houses and money? Paul allows it.'[3] According to
+Ambrose,[4] 'Riches themselves are not wrongful. Indeed, "redemptio
+animae* viri divitiae* ejus," because he who gives to the poor saves
+his soul. There is therefore a place for goodness in these material
+riches. You are as steersmen in a great sea. He who steers his ship
+well, quickly crosses the waves, and comes to port; but he who does
+not know how to control his ship is sunk by his own weight. Wherefore
+it is written, "Possessio divitum civitas firmissima."' A Council in
+A.D. 415 condemned the proposition held by Pelagius that 'the rich
+cannot be saved unless they renounced their goods.'[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Comm. on Matt. xix._ 9.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Contra Ad._, xx. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Mor. Eccl. Cath._, i. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Epist._, lxiii. 92.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Revue Archéologique_, 1880, p. 321.]
+
+The more one studies the Fathers the more one becomes convinced that
+property was regarded by them as one of the normal and legitimate
+institutions of human society. Benigni's conclusion, as the result of
+his exceptionally thorough researches, is that according to the early
+Fathers, 'property is lawful and ought scrupulously to be respected.
+But property is subject to the high duties of human fellowship which
+sprang from the equality and brotherhood of man. Collectivism is
+absurd and immoral.'[1] Janet arrived at the same conclusion: 'In
+spite of the words of the Fathers, in spite of the advice given by
+Christ to the rich man to sell all his goods and give to the poor, in
+spite of the communism of the Apostles, can one say that Christianity
+condemned property? Certainly not. Christianity considered it a
+counsel of perfection for a man to deprive himself of his goods; it
+did not abrogate the right of anybody.'[2] The same conclusion is
+reached by the Abbé Calippe in an excellent article published in _La
+Semaine Sociale de France_, 1909. 'The right of property and of the
+property owner are assumed.'[3] 'It is only prejudiced or superficial
+minds which could make the writers of the fourth century the
+precursors of modern communists or collectivists.'[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: _L'Economia Sociale Christiana avanti Costantino_ (Genoa,
+1897).]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Histoire de la Science politique_, vol. i. p. 319.]
+
+[Footnote 3: P. 114.]
+
+[Footnote 4: P. 121.]
+
+When we turn to St. Thomas Aquinas, we find that his teaching on the
+subject of property is not at all out of harmony with that of the
+earlier Fathers of the Church, but, on the contrary, summarises and
+consolidates it. 'It remained to elaborate, to constitute a definite
+theory of the right of property. It sufficed to harmonise, to
+collaborate, and to relate one to the other these elements furnished
+by the Christian doctors of the first four or five centuries; and this
+was precisely the work of the great theologians of the Middle Ages,
+especially of St. Thomas Aquinas.... In establishing his thesis St.
+Thomas did not borrow from the Roman jurisconsults through the medium
+of St. Isidore more than their vocabulary, their formulas, their
+juridical distinctions; he also borrowed from Aristotle the arguments
+upon which the philosopher based his right of property. But the ground
+of his doctrine is undoubtedly of Christian origin. There is, between
+the Fathers and him, a perfect continuity.'[1] 'Community of goods,'
+he writes, 'is ascribed to the natural law, not that the natural
+law dictates that all things should be possessed in common, and that
+nothing should be possessed as one's own; but because the division of
+possession is not according to the natural law, but rather arose from
+human agreement, which belongs to positive law. Hence the ownership
+of possessions is not contrary to the natural law, but an addition
+thereto devised by human reason.' This is simply another way of
+stating St. Augustine's distinction between natural and positive law.
+If it speaks with more respect of positive law than St. Augustine
+had done, it is because Aquinas was influenced by the Aristotelian
+conception of the State being itself a natural institution, owing to
+man being a social animal.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Abbé Calippe, _op. cit._, 1909, p. 124.]
+
+[Footnote 2: See Carlyle, _Property in Mediæval Theology_. Community
+of goods is said to be according to natural law in the canon law,
+but certain titles of acquiring private property are also said to be
+natural, so that the passage does not help the discussion very much
+(_Corp, Jur. Can._, Dec. 1. Dist. i. c. 7.)]
+
+The explanation which St. Thomas gives of the necessity for property
+also shows how clearly he agreed with the Fathers' teaching on natural
+communism: 'Two things are competent to man in respect of external
+things. One is the power to procure and dispense them, and in this
+regard it is lawful for a man to possess property. Moreover, this is
+necessary to human life for three reasons. First, because every man is
+more careful to procure what is for himself alone than that which is
+common to many or to all: since each one would shirk the labour, and
+would leave to another that which concerns the community, as happens
+when there is a great number of servants. Secondly, because human
+affairs are conducted in more orderly fashion if each man is charged
+with taking care of some particular thing himself, whereas there
+would be confusion if everybody had to look after any one thing
+indeterminately. Thirdly, because a more peaceful state is ensured to
+man if each one is contented with his own. Hence it is to be observed
+that quarrels more frequently occur when there is no division of the
+things possessed.[1] It is quite clear from this passage that Aquinas
+regarded property as something essential to the existence of society
+in the natural condition of human nature--that is to say, the
+condition that it had acquired at the fall. It is precisely the greed
+and avarice of fallen man that renders property an indispensable
+institution.
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 66, 2.]
+
+There was another sense in which property was said to be according
+to human law, in distinction to the natural law, namely, in the sense
+that, whereas the general principle that men should own things might
+be said to be natural, the particular proprietary rights of each
+individual were determined by positive law. In other words, the
+_fundamentum_ of property rights was natural, whereas the _titulus_
+of particular property rights was according to positive law. This
+distinction is stated clearly by Aquinas:[1] 'The natural right or
+just is that which by its very nature is adjusted to or commensurate
+with another person. Now this may happen in two ways; first, according
+as it is considered absolutely; thus the male by its very nature is
+commensurate with the female to beget offspring by her, and a parent
+is commensurate with the offspring to nourish it. Secondly, a thing
+is naturally commensurate with another person, not according as it
+is considered absolutely, but according to something resultant from
+it--for instance, the possession of property. For if a particular
+piece of land be considered absolutely, it contains no reason why it
+should belong to one man more than to another, but if it be considered
+in respect of its adaptability to cultivation, and the unmolested use
+of the land, it has a certain commensuration to be the property of
+one and not of another man, as the Philosopher shows.' Cajetan's
+commentary on this article clearly emphasises the distinction between
+_fundamentum_ and _titulus_: 'In the ownership of goods two things are
+to be discussed. The first is why one thing should belong to one man
+and another thing to another. The second is why this particular field
+should belong to this man, that field to that man. With regard to
+the former inquiry, it may be said that the ownership of things is
+according to the law of nations, but with regard to the second, it may
+be said to result from the positive law, because in former times one
+thing was appropriated by one man and another thing by another.' It
+must not be supposed, however, from what we have just said, that there
+are no natural titles to property. Labour, for instance, is a title
+flowing from the natural law, as also is occupancy, and in certain
+circumstances, prescription. All that is meant by the distinction
+between _fundamentum_ and _titulus_ is that, whereas it can be clearly
+demonstrated by natural law that the goods of the earth, which are
+given by God for the benefit of the whole of mankind, cannot be made
+use of to their full advantage unless they are made the subject of
+private ownership, particular goods cannot be demonstrated to be
+the lawful property of this or that person unless some human act
+has intervened. This human act need not necessarily be an act of
+agreement; it may equally be an act of some other kind--for instance,
+a decree of the law-giver, or the exercise of labour upon one's own
+goods. In the latter case, the additional value of the goods becomes
+the lawful property of the person who has exerted the labour. Aquinas
+therefore pronounced unmistakably in favour of the legitimacy of
+private property, and in doing so was in full agreement with the
+Fathers of the Church. He was followed without hesitation by all the
+later theologians, and it is abundantly evident from their writings
+that the right of private property was the keystone of their whole
+economic system.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 57, 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: A community of goods, more or less complete, and a denial
+of the rights of private property was part of the teaching of many
+sects which were condemned as heretical--for instance, the Albigenses,
+the Vaudois, the Bégards, the Apostoli, and the Fratricelli. (See
+Brants, _Op. cit._, Appendix II.)]
+
+Communism therefore was no part of the scholastic teaching, but it
+must not be concluded from this that the mediævals approved of the
+unregulated individualism which modern opinion allows to the owners of
+property. The very strength of the right to own property entailed as a
+consequence the duty of making good use of it; and a clear distinction
+was drawn between the power 'of procuring and dispensing' property
+and the power of using it. We have dealt with the former power in the
+present section, and we shall pass to the consideration of the latter
+in the next. In a later chapter we shall proceed to discuss the duties
+which attached to the owners of property in regard to its exchange.
+
+
+
+SECTION 2.--DUTIES REGARDING THE ACQUISITION AND USE OF PROPERTY
+
+
+We referred at the end of the last section to the very important
+distinction which Aquinas draws between the power of procuring and
+dispensing[1] exterior things and the power of using them. 'The second
+thing that is competent to man with regard to external things is their
+use. In this respect man ought to possess external things, not as his
+own, but as common, so that, to wit, he is ready to communicate them
+to others in their need.'[2] These words wherein St. Thomas lays
+down the doctrine of community of user of property were considered
+as authoritative by all later writers on the subject, and were
+universally quoted with approval by them,[3] and may therefore be
+taken as expressing the generally held view of the Middle Ages. They
+require careful explanation in order that their meaning be accurately
+understood.[4] Cajetan's gloss on this section of the _Summa_ enables
+us to understand its significance in a broad sense, but fuller
+information must be derived from a study of other parts of the _Summa_
+itself. 'Note,' says Cajetan, 'that the words that community of goods
+in respect of use arises from the law of nature may be understood
+in two ways, one positively, the other negatively. And if they are
+understood in their positive sense they mean that the law of nature
+dictates that all things are common to all men; if in their negative
+sense, that the law of nature did not establish private ownership of
+possessions. And in either sense the proposition is true if correctly
+understood. In the first place, if they are taken in their positive
+sense, a man who is in a position of extreme necessity may take
+whatever he can find to succour himself or another in the same
+condition, nor is he bound in such a case to restitution, because by
+natural law he has but made use of his own. And in the negative sense
+they are equally true, because the law of nature did not institute
+one thing the property of one person, and another thing of another
+person.' The principle of community of user flows logically from the
+very nature of property itself as defined by Aquinas, who taught that
+the supreme justification of private property was that it was the
+most advantageous method of securing for the community the benefits of
+material riches. While the owner of property has therefore an absolute
+right to the goods he possesses, he must at the same time remember
+that this right is established primarily on his power to benefit
+his neighbour by his proper use of it. The best evidence of the
+correctness of this statement is the fact that the scholastics
+admitted that, if the owner of property was withholding it from the
+community, or from any member of the community who had a real need of
+it, he could be forced to apply it to its proper end. If the community
+could pay for it, it was bound to do so; but if the necessitous person
+could not pay for it, he was none the less entitled to take it.
+The former of these cases was illustrated by the principle of the
+_dominium eminens_ of the State; and the latter by the principle that
+the giving of alms to a person in real need was a duty not of charity,
+but of justice.[5] We shall see in a moment that the most usual
+application of the principle enunciated by Aquinas was in the case
+of one person's extreme necessity which required almsgiving from
+another's superfluity, but, even short of such cases, there were rules
+of conduct in respect of the user of property on all occasions which
+were of extreme importance in the economic life of the time.
+
+[Footnote 1: Goyau insists on the importance of the words 'procure'
+and 'dispense.' 'Dont le premier éveille l'idée d'une constante
+sollicitude, et dont le second évoque l'image d'une générosité
+sympathetique' (_Autaur du Catholicisme Sociale_, vol. ii. p. 93).]
+
+[Footnote 2: II. ii. 66, 2. In another part of the _Summa_ the same
+distinction is clearly laid down. 'Bona temporalia quae* homini
+divinitus conferuntur, ejus quidem sunt quantum ad proprietatem; sed
+quantum ad usum non solum desent esse ejus, sed aliorum qui en eis
+sustentari possunt en eo quod ei superfluit,' II. ii. 32, 6, ad 2.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Janssen, _op. cit._, vol. ii. p. 91.]
+
+[Footnote 4: The Abbé Calippe summarises St. Thomas's doctrine as
+follows: 'Le droit de propriété est un droit réel; mais ce n'est pas
+un droit illimité, les propriétaires ont des devoirs; ils ont des
+devoirs parce que Dieu qui a créé la terre ne l'a pas créée pour eux
+seuls, mais pour tous' (_Semaine Sociale de France_, 1909, p. 123).
+According to Antoninus of Florence, goods could be evilly acquired,
+evilly distributed, or evilly consumed (_Irish Theological Quarterly_,
+vol. vii. p. 146).]
+
+[Footnote 5: On the application of this principle by the popes in the
+thirteenth and fifteenth centuries in the case of their own estates,
+see Ardant, _Papes et Paysans_, a work which must be read with a
+certain degree of caution (Nitti, _Catholic Socialism_, p. 290).]
+
+These principles for the guidance of the owner of property are
+not collected under any single heading in the _Summa_, but must be
+gathered from the various sections dealing with man's duty to his
+fellow-men and to himself. One leading virtue which was inculcated
+with great emphasis by Aquinas was that of temperance. 'All
+pleasurable things which come within the use of man,' we read in the
+section dealing with this subject, 'are ordered to some necessity of
+this life as an end. And therefore temperance accepts the necessity
+of this life as a rule or measure of the things one uses, so that,
+to wit, they should be used according as the necessity of this life
+requires.'[1] St. Thomas explains, moreover, that 'necessary' must be
+taken in the broad sense of suitable to one's condition of life,
+and not merely necessary to maintain existence.[2] The principles of
+temperance did not apply in any special way to the user of property
+more than to the enjoyment of any other good;[3] but they are relevant
+as laying down the broad test of right and wrong in the user of one's
+goods.
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 141, 5.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 2. As Buridan puts it (_Eth._, iv. 4), 'If
+any man has more than is necessary for his own requirements, and
+does not give away anything to the poor, and to his relations and
+neighbours, he is acting against right reason.']
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Rationalis creaturae* vera perfectio est unamquamque
+rem tanti habere quanti habenda est, sicut pluris est anima quam esca;
+fides et aequitas* quam pecunia' (Gerson, _De. Cont._).]
+
+More particularly relevant to the subject before us is the teaching of
+Aquinas on liberality, which is a virtue directly connected with the
+user of property. Aquinas defines liberality as 'a virtue by which
+men use well all those exterior things which are given to us for
+sustenance.'[1] The limitations within which liberality should be
+practised are stated in the same article: 'As St. Basil and St.
+Ambrose say, God has given to many a superabundance of riches, in
+order that they might gain merit by their dispensing them well. Few
+things, however, suffice for one man; and therefore the liberal man
+will advantageously expend more on others than on himself. In the
+spiritual sphere a man must always care for himself before his
+neighbours; and also in temporal things liberality does not demand
+that a man should think of others to the exclusion of himself and
+those dependent on him.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 117, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 1.]
+
+'It is not necessary for liberality that one should give away so much
+of one's riches that not enough remains to sustain himself and to
+enable him to perform works of virtue. This complete giving away
+without reserve belongs to the state of the perfection of spiritual
+life, of which we shall treat lower down; but it must be known that to
+give one's goods liberally is an act of virtue which itself produces
+happiness.'[1] The author proceeds to discuss whether making use of
+money might be an act of liberality, and replies that 'as money is by
+its very nature to be classed among useful goods, because all exterior
+things are destined for the use of man, therefore the proper act of
+liberality is the good use of money and other riches.'[2] Moreover,
+'it belongs to a virtuous man not simply to use well the goods which
+form the matter of his actions, but also to prepare the means and the
+occasions to use them well; thus the brave soldier sharpens his blade
+and keeps it in the scabbard, as well as exercising it on the enemy;
+in like manner, the liberal man should prepare and reserve his riches
+for a suitable use.'[3] It appears from this that to save part of
+one's annual income to provide against emergencies in the future,
+either by means of insurance or by investing in productive
+enterprises, is an act of liberality.
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 117, ad. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, ad. 2. 'Potest concludi quod accipere et
+custodire modificata sunt acta liberalitatis.... Major per hoc
+probatur quod dantem multotiens et consumentem, nihil autem
+accipientem et custodientem cito derelinqueret substantia temporalis;
+et ita perirent omnis ejus actus quia non habent amplius quid dare
+et consumere.... Hic autem acceptio et custodia sic modificari debet.
+Primo quidem oportet ut non sit injusta; secundo quod non sit de
+cupiditate vel avaritia suspecta propter excessum; tertio quod non
+permittat labi substantiam propter defectum ... Dare quando oportet et
+custodire quando oportet dare contrariantur; sed dare quando oportet
+et custodire quando oportet non contrariantur' (Buridan, _Eth._, iv.
+2).]
+
+The question is then discussed whether liberality is a part of
+justice. Aquinas concludes 'that liberality is not a species
+of justice, because justice renders to another what is his, but
+liberality gives him what is the giver's own. Still, it has a certain
+agreement with justice in two points; first that it is to another,
+as justice also is; secondly, that it is about exterior things like
+justice, though in another way. And therefore liberality is laid down
+by some to be a part of justice as a virtue annexed to justice as an
+accessory to a principal.'[1] Again, 'although liberality supposes not
+any legal debt as justice does, still it supposes a certain moral debt
+considering what is becoming in the person himself who practises the
+virtue, not as though he had any obligation to the other party;
+and therefore there is about it very little of the character of a
+debt.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 117, art. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 1.]
+
+It is important to draw attention to the fact that _liberalitas_
+consists in making a good use of property, and not merely in
+distributing it to others, as a confusion with the English word
+'liberality' might lead us to believe. It is, as we said above,
+therefore certain that a wise and prudent saving of money for
+investment would be considered a course of conduct within the meaning
+of the word _liberalitas_, especially if the enterprise in which the
+money were invested were one which would benefit the community as
+a whole. 'Modern industrial conditions demand that a man of wealth
+should distribute a part of his goods indirectly--that is, by
+investing them in productive and labour-employing enterprises.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ryan, _The Alleged Socialism of the Church Fathers_, p.
+20, and see Goyau, _Le Pape et la Question Sociale_, p. 79.]
+
+The nature of the virtue of _liberalitas_ may be more clearly
+understood by an explanation of the vices which stand opposed to it.
+The first of these treated by Aquinas is avarice, which he defines as
+'superfluus amor habendi divitias.' Avarice might be committed in
+two ways--by harbouring an undue desire of acquiring wealth, or by
+an undue reluctance to part with it--'primo autem superabundant
+in retinendo ... secundo ad avaritiam pertinet superabundare in
+accipiendo.'[1] These definitions are amplified in another part of the
+same section. 'For in every action that is directed to the attainment
+of some end goodness consists in the observance of a certain measure.
+The means to the end must be commensurate with the end, as medicine
+with health. But exterior goods have the character of things needful
+to an end. Hence human goodness in the matter of these goods must
+consist in the observance of a certain measure, as is done by a man
+seeking to have exterior riches in so far as they are necessary to his
+life according to his rank and condition. And therefore sin consists
+in exceeding this measure and trying to acquire or retain riches
+beyond the due limit; and this is the proper nature of avarice,
+which is defined to be an immoderate love of having.'[2] 'Avarice may
+involve immoderation regarding exterior things in two ways; in one way
+immediately as to the receiving or keeping of them when one acquires
+or keeps beyond the due amount; and in this respect it is directly a
+sin against one's neighbour, because in exterior things one man cannot
+have superabundance without another being in want, since temporal
+goods cannot be simultaneously possessed by many. The other way in
+which avarice may involve immoderation is in interior affection....'
+These words must not be taken to condemn the acquisition of large
+fortunes by capitalists, which is very often necessary in order that
+the natural resources of a country may be properly exploited. One
+man's possession of great wealth is at the present day frequently the
+means of opening up new sources of wealth and revenue to the entire
+community. In other words, superabundance is a relative term. This,
+like many other passages of St. Thomas, must be given a _contemporanea
+expositio_. 'There were no capitalists in the thirteenth century, but
+only hoarders.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 118, 4.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Rickaby, _Aquinas Ethicus_, vol. ii. p. 234.]
+
+It must also be remembered that what would be considered avarice in
+a man in one station of life would not be considered such in a man in
+another. So long as one did not attempt to acquire an amount of wealth
+disproportionate to the needs of one's station of life, one could not
+be considered avaricious. Thus a common soldier would be avaricious if
+he strove to obtain a uniform of the quality worn by an officer, and
+a simple cleric if he attempted to clothe himself in a style only
+befitting a bishop.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Aquinas, _In Orat. Dom. Expos_., iv. Ashley gives many
+quotations from early English literature to show how fully the idea of
+_status_ was accepted (_Economic History_, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 389).
+On the warfare waged by the Church on luxury in the Middle Ages, see
+Baudrillard, _Histoire du Luxe privé et publique_, vol. iii. pp. 630
+_et seq._]
+
+The avaricious man offended against liberality by caring too much
+about riches; the prodigal, on the other hand, cared too little about
+them, and did not attach to them their proper value. 'In affection
+while the prodigal falls short, not taking due care of them, in
+exterior behaviour it belongs to the prodigal to exceed in giving, but
+to fail in keeping or acquiring, while it belongs to the miser to
+come short in giving, but to superabound in getting and in
+keeping. Therefore it is clear that prodigality is the opposite of
+covetousness.'[1] A man, however, might commit both sins at the same
+time, by being unduly anxious to acquire wealth which he distributed
+prodigally.[2] Prodigality could always be distinguished from extreme
+liberality by a consideration of the circumstances of the particular
+case; a truly liberal man might give away more than a prodigal in
+case of necessity.[3] Prodigality, though a sin, was a sin of a less
+grievous kind than avarice.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 119, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, ad. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, art. 3. 'Per prodigalitatem intelligimus habitum
+quo quis præter vel contra dictamen rectae rationis circa
+pecunias excedit in datione vel consumptione vel custodia; et per
+illiberalitatem intelligimus habitum quo quis contra dietamen rectae
+rationis deficit circa pecunias in datione vel consumptione, vel
+superabundat in acceptione vel custodia ipsarum' (Buridan, _Eth._, iv.
+3).]
+
+In addition to the duties which were imposed on the owners of property
+in all circumstances there was a further duty which only arose on
+special occasions, namely, _magnificentia_, or munificence. This
+virtue is discussed by Aquinas[1], but we shall quote the passages of
+Buridan which explain it, not because they depart in any way from the
+teaching of Aquinas, but because they are clearer and more scientific.
+'By munificence, we understand a habit inclining one to the
+performance of great works, or to the incurring of great expenses,
+when, where, and in the manner in which they are called for (_fuerit
+opportunum_), for example, building a church, assembling great
+armies for a threatened war, and giving splendid marriage feasts.' He
+explains that 'munificence stands in the same relation to liberality
+as bravery acquired by its exercise in danger of death in battle does
+to bravery simply and commonly understood.' Two vices stand opposed
+to munificentia: (1) _parvificentia_, 'a habit inclining one not
+to undertake great works, when circumstances call for them, or to
+undertaking less, or at less expense, than the needs of the situation
+demand,' and (2) (_[Greek: banousia]_,) 'a habit inclining one to
+undertaking great works, which are not called for by circumstances,
+or undertaking them on a greater scale or at a greater expense than is
+necessary[2].'
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 134.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Eth._, iv. 7.]
+
+Both in the case of avarice and prodigality the offending state
+of mind consisted in attaching a wrong value to wealth, and the
+inculcation of the virtue of liberality must have been attended
+with good results not alone to the souls of individuals, but to the
+economic condition of the community. The avaricious man not only
+imperilled his own soul by attaching too much importance to temporal
+gain, but he also injured the community by monopolising too large a
+share of its wealth; the prodigal man, in addition to incurring
+the occasion of various sins of intemperance, also impoverished the
+community by wasting in reckless consumption wealth which might have
+been devoted to productive or charitable purposes. He who neglected
+the duty of munificence, either by refusing to make a great
+expenditure when it was called for (_parvificentia_) or by making one
+when it was unnecessary (_[Greek: banousia]_) was also deemed to have
+done wrong, because in the one case he valued his money too highly,
+and in the other not highly enough. In other words, he attached a
+wrong value to wealth. Nothing could be further from the truth than
+the suggestion that the schoolmen despised or belittled temporal
+riches. Quite on the contrary, they esteemed it a sin to conduct
+oneself in a manner which showed a defective appreciation of their
+value[1]. Riches may have been the occasion of sin; but so was
+poverty. 'The occasions of sin are to be avoided,' says Aquinas, 'but
+poverty is an occasion of evil, because theft, perjury, and flattery
+are frequently brought about by it.
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Non videtur secundum humanam rationem esse boni et
+perfecti divitias abjicere totaliter, sed eis uti bene et reficiendo
+superfluas pauperibus subvenire et amicis' (Buridan, _Eth._, iv. 3).]
+
+Therefore poverty should not be voluntarily undertaken, but rather
+avoided.'[1] Buridan says: 'There is no doubt that it is much more
+difficult to be virtuous in a state of poverty than in one of moderate
+affluence;'[2] and Antoninus of Florence expresses the opinion that
+poverty is in itself an evil thing, although out of it good may
+come.[3] Even the ambition to rise in the world was laudable, because
+every one may rightfully desire to place himself and his dependants in
+a participation of the fullest human felicity of which man is capable,
+and to rid himself of the necessity of corporal labour.[4] Avarice and
+prodigality alike offended against liberality, because they tended to
+deprive the community of the maximum benefit which it should derive
+from the wealth with which it was endowed. Dr. Cunningham may be
+quoted in support of this view. 'One of the gravest defects of the
+Roman Empire lay in the fact that its system left little scope for
+individual aims, and tended to check the energy of capitalists and
+labourers alike. But Christian teaching opened up an unending prospect
+before the individual personally, and encouraged him to activity and
+diligence by an eternal hope. Nor did such concentration of thought
+on a life beyond the grave necessarily divert attention from secular
+duties; Christianity did not disparage them, but set them in a new
+light, and brought out new motives for taking them seriously....
+The acceptance of this higher view of the dignity of human life
+as immortal was followed by a fuller recognition of personal
+responsibility. Ancient philosophy had seen that man is the master of
+material things; but Christianity introduced a new sense of duty in
+regard to the manner of using them.... Christian teachers were forced
+to protest against any employment of wealth that disregarded the glory
+of God and the good of man.'[5] It was the opinion of Knies that
+the peculiarly Christian virtues were of profound economic value.
+'Temperance, thrift, and industry--that is to say, the sun and rain of
+economic activity---were recommended by the Church and inculcated as
+Christian virtues; idleness as the mother of theft, gambling as the
+occasion of fraud, were forbidden; and gain for its own sake was
+classed as a kind of robbery[6].'
+
+[Footnote 1: _Summa cont. Gent._, iii. 131.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Eth._, iv. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Summa_, iv. 12, 3.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Cajetan, _Comm._ on II. ii. 118, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Western Civilisation_, vol. ii. pp. 8-9.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Politische Oekonomie vom Standpuncte der geschichtlichen
+Methode_, p. 116, and see Rambaud, _Histoire_, p. 759; Champagny, _La
+Bible et l'Economie politique_; Thomas Aquinas, _Summa_, II. ii.
+50, 3; Sertillanges, _Socialisme et Christianisme_, p. 53. It was
+nevertheless recognised and insisted on that wealth was not an end in
+itself, but merely a means to an end (Aquinas, _Summa_, I. ii. 2, 1).]
+
+The great rule, then, with regard to the user of property was
+liberality. Closely allied with the duty of liberality was the duty
+of almsgiving--'an act of charity through the medium of money.'[1]
+Almsgiving is not itself a part of liberality except in so far as
+liberality removes an obstacle to such acts, which may arise from
+excessive love of riches, the result of which is that one clings
+to them more than one ought[2]. Aquinas divides alms-deeds into two
+kinds, spiritual and corporal, the latter alone of which concern us
+here. 'Corporal need arises either during this life or afterwards. If
+it occurs during this life, it is either a common need in respect
+of things needed by all, or is a special need occurring through some
+accident supervening. In the first case the need is either internal
+or external. Internal need is twofold: one which is relieved by solid
+food, viz. hunger, in respect of which we have to _feed the hungry_;
+while the other is relieved by liquid food, viz. thirst, in respect
+of which we have to _give drink to the thirsty_. The common need with
+regard to external help is twofold: one in respect of clothing, and as
+to this we have to _clothe the naked_; while the other is in
+respect of a dwelling-place, and as to this we have to _harbour the
+harbourless_. Again, if the need be special, it is either the result
+of an internal cause like sickness, and then we have to _visit the
+sick_, or it results from an external cause, and then we have to
+_ransom the captive_. After this life we _give burial to the dead_.[3]
+Aquinas then proceeds to explain in what circumstances the duty of
+almsgiving arises. 'Almsgiving is a matter of precept. Since, however,
+precepts are about acts of virtue, it follows that all almsgiving must
+be a matter of precept in so far as it is necessary to virtue, namely,
+in so far as it is demanded by right reason. Now right reason demands
+that we should take into consideration something on the part of the
+giver, and something on the part of the recipient. On the part of the
+giver it must be noted that he must give of his surplus according to
+Luke xi. 4, "That which remaineth give alms." This surplus is to be
+taken in reference not only to the giver, but also in reference to
+those of whom he has charge (in which case we have the expression
+_necessary to the person_, taking the word _person_ as expressive
+of dignity).... On the part of the recipient it is necessary that he
+should be in need, else there would be no reason for giving him alms;
+yet since it is not possible for one individual to relieve the needs
+of all, we are not bound to relieve all who are in need, but only
+those who could not be succoured if we did not succour them. For in
+such cases the words of Ambrose apply, "Feed him that is dying of
+hunger; if thou hast not fed him thou hast slain him." Accordingly
+we are bound to give alms of our surplus, as also to give alms to one
+whose need is extreme; otherwise almsgiving, like any other greater
+good, is a matter of counsel.'[4] In replying to the objection that it
+is lawful for every one to keep what is his own, St. Thomas restates
+with emphasis the principle of community of user: 'The temporal goods
+which are given us by God are ours as to the ownership, but as to the
+use of them they belong not to us alone, but also to such others as we
+are able to succour out of what we have over and above our needs.'[5]
+Albertus Magnus states this in very strong words: 'For a man to give
+out of his superfluities is a mere act of justice, because he is
+rather then steward of them for the poor than the owner;'[6] and at an
+earlier date St. Peter Damian had affirmed that 'he who gives to the
+poor returns what he does not himself own, and does not dispose of his
+own goods.' He insists in the same passage that almsgiving is not
+an act of mercy, but of strict justice.[7] In the reply to another
+objection the duty of almsgiving is stated by Aquinas with additional
+vigour. 'There is a time when we sin mortally if we omit to give
+alms--on the part of the recipient when we see that his need is
+evident and urgent, and that he is not likely to be succoured
+otherwise--on the part of the giver when he has superfluous goods,
+which he does not need for the time being, so far as he can judge with
+probability.'[8]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 32, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 3: II. ii. 32, art. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: II. ii. 32, art. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Ibid._, ad. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Jarrett, _Mediæval Socialism_, p. 87.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _De Eleemosynis_, cap. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 8: II. ii. 32, 5, ad. 3.]
+
+The next question which St. Thomas discusses is whether one ought to
+give alms out of what one needs. He distinguishes between two kinds
+of 'necessaries.' The first is that without which existence is
+impossible, out of which kind of necessary things one is not bound to
+give alms save in exceptional cases, when, by doing so, one would be
+helping a great personage or supporting the Church or the State, since
+'the common good is to be preferred to one's own.' The second kind
+of necessaries are those things without which a man cannot live in
+keeping with his social station. St. Thomas recommends the giving of
+alms out of this part of one's estate, but points out that it is only
+a matter of counsel, and not of precept, and one must not give alms
+to such an extent as to impoverish oneself permanently. To this last
+provision, however, there are three exceptions: one, when a man is
+entering religion and giving away all his goods; two, when he can
+easily replace what he gives away; and, three, when he is in presence
+of great indigence on the part of an individual, or great need on the
+part of the common weal. In these three cases it is praiseworthy for
+a man to forgo the requisites of his station in order to provide for a
+greater need.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 32, 6.]
+
+The mediæval teaching on almsgiving is very well summarised by Fr.
+Jarrett,[1] as follows: '(1) A man is obliged to help another in his
+extreme need even at the risk of grave inconvenience to himself; (2) a
+man is obliged to help another who, though not in extreme need, is yet
+in considerable distress, but not at the risk of grave inconvenience
+to himself; (3) a man is not obliged to help another when necessity is
+slight, even though the risk to himself should be quite trifling.'
+
+[Footnote 1: _Mediæval Socialism_, p. 90.]
+
+The importance of the duty of almsgiving further appears from the
+section where Aquinas lays down that the person to whom alms should
+have been given may, if the owner of the goods neglects his duty,
+repair the omission himself. 'All things are common property in a
+case of extreme necessity. Hence one who is in dire straits may take
+another's goods in order to succour himself if he can find no one who
+is willing to give him something.'[1] The duty of using one's goods
+for the benefit of one's neighbours was a fit matter for enforcement
+by the State, provided that the burdens imposed by legislation were
+equitable. 'Laws are said to be just, both from the end, when, to wit,
+they are ordained to the common good--and from their author, that is
+to say, when the law that is made does not exceed the power of the
+law-giver--and from their form, when, to wit, burdens are laid on the
+subjects according to an equality of proportion and with a view to the
+common good. For, since every man is part of the community, each man
+in all that he is and has belongs to the community: just as a part in
+all that it is belongs to the whole; wherefore nature inflicts a loss
+on the part in order to save the whole; so that on this account such
+laws, which impose proportionate burdens, are just and binding in
+conscience.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Ibid._, art. 7 ad. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: I. ii. 96,4.]
+
+There can be no doubt that the practice of the scholastic teaching of
+community of user, in its proper sense, made for social stability. The
+following passage from Trithemius, written at the end of the fifteenth
+century, is interesting as showing how consistently the doctrine of
+St. Thomas was adhered to two hundred years after his death, and
+also that the failure of the rich to put into practice the moderate
+communism of St. Thomas was the cause of the rise of the heretical
+communists, who attacked the very foundations of property itself: 'Let
+the rich remember that their possessions have not been entrusted to
+them in order that they may have the sole enjoyment of them, but
+that they may use and manage them as property belonging to mankind at
+large. Let them remember that when they give to the needy they
+only give them what belongs to them. If the duty of right use and
+management of property, whether worldly or spiritual, is neglected, if
+the rich think that they are the sole lords and masters of that which
+they possess, and do not treat the needy as their brethren, there
+must of necessity arise an inner shattering of the commonwealth. False
+teachers and deceivers of the people will then gain influence, as has
+happened in Bohemia, by preaching to the people that earthly property
+should be equally distributed among all, and that the rich must
+be forcibly condemned to the division of their wealth. Then follow
+lamentable conditions and civil wars; no property is spared; no right
+of ownership is any longer recognised; and the wealthy may then
+with justice complain of the loss of possessions which have been
+unrighteously taken from them; but they should also seriously ask
+themselves the question whether in the days of peace and order they
+recognised in the administration of these goods the right of their
+superior lord and owner, namely, the God of all the earth.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Quoted in Janssen, _op. cit._, vol. ii. p. 91.]
+
+It must not, however, be imagined for a moment that the community
+of user advocated by the scholastics had anything in common with the
+communism recommended by modern Socialists. As we have seen above,
+the scholastic communism did not at all apply to the procuring and
+dispensing of material things, but only to the mode of using them.
+It is not even correct to say that the property of an individual was
+_limited_ by the duty of using it for the common good. As Rambaud
+puts it: 'Les devoirs de charité, d'équité naturelle, et de simple
+convenance sociale peuvent affecter, ou mieux encore, commander un
+certain usage de la richesse; mais ce n'est pas le même chose que
+limiter la propriété.'[1] The community of user of the scholastics was
+distinguished from that of modern Socialists not less strongly by the
+motives which inspired it than by the effect it produced. The former
+was dictated by high spiritual aims, and the contempt of material
+goods; the latter is the fruit of over-attachment to material goods,
+and the envy of their possessors.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 43. The same writer shows that there is no
+authority in Christian teaching for the proposition, advanced by many
+Christian Socialists, that property is a 'social function' (_ibid._,
+p. 774). The right of property even carried with it the _jus
+abutendi_, which, however, did not mean the right to _abuse_, but
+the right to destroy by consumption (see Antoine, _Cours d'Economie
+sociale_, p. 526).]
+
+[Footnote 2: Roscher, _op. cit._, p. 5: 'Vom neuern Socialismus
+freilich unterscheidet sich diese Auffassung nicht blosz durch ihre
+religiöse Grundlage, sondern auch durch ihre, jedem Mammonsdienst
+entgegengesetze, Verachtung der materiellen Güter.']
+
+The large estates which the Church itself owned have frequently been
+pointed to as evidence of hypocrisy in its attitude towards the common
+user of property. This is not the place to inquire into the condition
+of ecclesiastical estates in the Middle Ages, but it is sufficient
+to say that they were usually the centres of charity, and that in the
+opinion of so impartial a writer as Roscher, they rather tended to
+make the rules of using goods for the common use practicable than the
+contrary.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Roscher, _op. cit._, p. 6.]
+
+
+
+SECTION 3.--PROPERTY IN HUMAN BEINGS
+
+
+Before we pass from the subject of property, we must deal with a
+particular kind of property right, namely, that of one human being
+over another. At the present day the idea of one man being owned
+by another is repugnant to all enlightened public opinion, but this
+general repugnance is of very recent growth, and did not exist in
+mediæval Europe. In dealing with the scholastic attitude towards
+slavery, we shall indicate, as we did with regard to its attitude
+towards property in general, the fundamental harmony between the
+teaching of the primitive and the mediæval Church on the subject. No
+apology is needed for this apparent digression, as a comparison of the
+teaching of the Church at the two periods of its development helps us
+to understand precisely what the later doctrine was; and, moreover,
+the close analogy which, as we shall see, existed between the Church's
+view of property and slavery, throws much light on the true nature of
+both institutions.
+
+Although in practice Christianity had done a very great deal to
+mitigate the hardships of the slavery of ancient times, and had in
+a large degree abolished slavery by its encouragement of
+emancipation,[1] it did not, in theory, object to the institution
+itself. There is no necessity to labour a point so universally
+admitted by all students of the Gospels as that Christ and His
+Apostles did not set out to abolish the slavery which they found
+everywhere around them, but rather aimed, by preaching charity to
+the master and patience to the slave, at the same time to lighten the
+burden of servitude, and to render its acceptance a merit rather
+than a disgrace. 'What, in fact,' says Janet, 'is the teaching of
+St. Peter, St. Paul, and the Apostles in general? It is, in the first
+place, that in Christ there are no slaves, and that all men are free
+and equal; and, in the second place, that the slave must obey his
+master, and the master must be gentle to his slave.[2] Thus, although
+there are no slaves in Christ, St. Paul and the Apostles do not deny
+that there may be on earth. I am far from reproaching the Apostles for
+not having proclaimed the immediate necessity of the emancipation of
+slaves. But I say that the question was discussed in precisely the
+same terms by the ancient philosophers of the same period. Seneca, it
+is true, proclaimed not the civil, but the moral equality of men;
+but St. Paul does not speak of anything more than their equality in
+Christ. Seneca instructs the master to treat the slave as he would
+like to be treated himself.[3] Is not this what St. Peter and St.
+Paul say when they recommended the master to be gentle and good? The
+superiority of Christianity over Stoicism in this question arises
+altogether from the very superiority of the Christian spirit....'[4]
+The article on 'Slavery' in the _Catholic Encyclopædia_ expresses the
+same opinion: 'Christian teachers, following the example of St. Paul,
+implicitly accept slavery as not in itself incompatible with the
+Christian law. The Apostle counsels slaves to obey their masters,
+and to bear with their condition patiently. This estimate of slavery
+continued to prevail until it became fixed in the systematised ethical
+teaching of the schools; and so it remained without any conspicuous
+modification until the end of the eighteenth century.' The same
+interpretation of early Christian teaching is accepted by the
+Protestant scholar, Dr. Bartlett: 'The practical attitude of Seneca
+and the early Christians to slavery was much the same. They bade the
+individual rise to a sense of spiritual freedom in spite of outward
+bondage, rather than denounce the institution as an altogether
+illegitimate form of property.'[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Roscher, _Political Economy_, s. 73.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Eph._, vi. 5, 6, 9.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Ep. ad Luc._, 73.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Janet, _op. cit._, p. 317.]
+
+[Footnote 5: 'Biblical and Early Christian Idea of Property,'
+_Property, Its Duties and Rights_ (London, 1915), p. 110; Franck,
+_Réformateurs et Publicistes de l'Europe: Moyen âge_--Renaissance, p.
+87. On the whole question by far the best authority is volume iii. of
+Wallon's _Histoire de l'Esclavage dans l'Antiquité_.]
+
+Several texts might be collected from the writings of the Fathers
+which would seem to show that according to patristic teaching the
+institution of slavery was unjustifiable. We do not propose to cite
+or to explain these texts one by one, in view of the quite clear and
+unambiguous exposition of the subject given by St. Thomas Aquinas,
+whose teaching is the more immediate subject of this essay; we shall
+content ourselves by reminding the reader of the precisely similar
+texts relating to the institution of property which we have examined
+above, and by stating that the corresponding texts on the subject
+of slavery are capable of an exactly similar interpretation. 'The
+teaching of the Apostle,' says Janet, 'and of the Fathers on slavery
+is the same as their teaching on property.'[1] The author from whom we
+are quoting, and on whose judgment too much reliance cannot be placed,
+then proceeds to cite many of the patristic texts on property, which
+we quoted in the section dealing with that subject, and asks: 'What
+conclusion should one draw from these different passages? It is that
+in Christ there are no rich and no poor, no mine and no thine; that
+in Christian perfection all things are common to all men, but that
+nevertheless property is legitimate and derived from human law. Is it
+not in the same sense that the Fathers condemned slavery as contrary
+to divine law, while respecting it as comformable to human law? The
+Fathers abound in texts contrary to slavery, but have we not seen a
+great number of texts contrary to property?'[2] The closeness of the
+analogy between the patristic treatment of slavery and of property
+appears forcibly in the following passage of Lactantius: 'God who
+created man willed that all should be equal. He has imposed on all
+the same condition of living; He has produced all in wisdom; He has
+promised immortality to all; no one is cut off from His heavenly
+benefits. In His sight no one is a slave, no one a master; for if we
+have all the same Father, by an equal right we are all His children;
+no one is poor in the sight of God but he who is without justice, no
+one rich but he who is full of virtue.... Some one will say, Are there
+not among you some poor and others rich; some servants and others
+masters? Is there not some difference between individuals? There is
+none, nor is there any other cause why we mutually bestow on each
+other the name of brethren except that we believe ourselves to be
+equal. For since we measure all human things not by the body but by
+the spirit, although the condition of bodies is different, yet we have
+no servants, but we both regard them, and speak of them as brothers in
+spirit, in religion as fellow-servants.'[3] Slavery was declared to
+be a blessing, because, like poverty, it afforded the opportunity of
+practising the virtues of humility and patience.[4] The treatment
+of the institution of slavery underwent a striking and important
+development in the hands of St. Augustine, who justified it as one of
+the penalties incurred by man as a result of the sin of Adam and Eve.
+'The first holy men,' writes the Saint, 'were rather shepherds than
+kings, God showing herein what both the order of the creation desired,
+and what the deserts of sin exacted. For justly was the burden of
+servitude laid upon the back of transgression. And therefore in all
+the Scriptures we never read the word _servus_ until Noah laid it as
+a curse upon his offending son. So that it was guilt, and not nature,
+that gave origin to that name.... Sin is the mother of servitude and
+the first cause of man's subjection to man.'[5] St. Augustine also
+justifies the enslavement of those conquered in war--'It is God's
+decree to humble the conquered, either reforming their sins herein or
+punishing them.'[6]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 318.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 321.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Div. Inst_., v. 15-16.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Chryst., _Genes._, serm. v. i.; _Ep. ad Cor._, hom. xix.
+4.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _De Civ. Dei_, xix. 14-15.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Ibid._]
+
+Janet ably analyses and expounds the advance which St. Augustine
+made in the treatment of slavery: 'In this theory we must note the
+following points: (1) Slavery is unjust according to the law of
+nature. This is what is contrary to the teaching of Aristotle,
+but conformable to that of the Stoics. (2) Slavery is just as
+a consequence of sin. This is the new principle peculiar to St.
+Augustine. He has found a principle of slavery, which is neither
+natural inequality, nor war, nor agreement, but sin. Slavery is no
+more a transitory fact which we accept provisionally, so as not to
+precipitate a social revolution: it is an institution which has become
+natural as a result of the corruption of our nature. (3) It must not
+be said that slavery, resulting from sin, is destroyed by Christ who
+destroyed sin.... Slavery, according to St. Augustine, must last as
+long as society.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Janet, _op. cit._, p. 302.]
+
+Nowhere does St. Thomas Aquinas appear as clearly as the medium of
+contact and reconciliation between the Fathers of the Church and the
+ancient philosophers as in his treatment of the question of slavery.
+His utterances upon this subject are scattered through many portions
+of his work, but, taken together, they show that he was quite prepared
+to admit the legitimacy of the institution, not alone on the grounds
+put forward by St. Augustine, but also on those suggested by Aristotle
+and the Roman jurists.
+
+He fully adopts the Augustinian argument in the _Summa_, where, in
+answer to the query, whether in the state of innocence all men were
+equal, he states that even in that state there would still have been
+inequalities of sex, knowledge, justice, etc. The only inequalities
+which would not have been present were those arising from sin; but
+the only inequality arising from sin was slavery.[1] 'By the words
+"So long as we are without sin we are equal," Gregory means to exclude
+such inequality as exists between virtue and vice; the result of which
+is that some are placed in subjection to others as a penalty.'[2] In
+the following article St. Thomas distinguishes between political and
+despotic subordination, and shows that the former might have existed
+in a state of innocence. 'Mastership has a twofold meaning; first as
+opposed to servitude, in which case a master means one to whom
+another is subject as a slave. In another sense mastership is commonly
+referred to any kind of subject; and in that sense even he who has the
+office of governing and directing free men can be called a master. In
+the first meaning of mastership man would not have been ruled by man
+in the state of innocence; but in the latter sense man would be ruled
+over by man in that state.'[3] In _De Regimine Principum_ Aquinas also
+accepts what we may call the Augustinian view of slavery. 'But whether
+the dominion of man over man is according to the law of nature, or is
+permitted or provided by God may be certainly resolved. If we speak of
+dominion by means of servile subjection, this was introduced because
+of sin. But if we speak of dominion in so far as it relates to the
+function of advising and directing, it may in this sense be said to be
+natural.'[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: i. 96, 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: i. 96, 4.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _De Reg. Prin._, iii. 9. This is one of the chapters the
+authorship of which is disputed.]
+
+St. Thomas was therefore willing to endorse the argument of St.
+Augustine that slavery was a result of sin; but he also admits the
+justice of Aristotle's reasoning on the subject. In the section of the
+_Summa_ where the question is discussed, whether the law of nations is
+the same as the natural law, one of the objections to be met is that
+'Slavery among men is natural, for some are naturally slaves according
+to the philosopher. Now "slavery belongs to the law of nations," as
+Isidore states. Therefore the right of nations is a natural right.'[1]
+In answer to this objection St. Thomas draws the distinction between
+what is natural absolutely, and what is natural _secundum quid_, the
+passage which we have quoted in treating of property rights.[2]
+He then goes on to apply this distinction to the case of slavery.
+'Considered absolutely, the fact that this particular man should be a
+slave rather than another man, is based, not on natural reason, but on
+some resultant utility, in that it is useful to this man to be ruled
+by a wise man, and to the latter to be helped by the former, as the
+philosopher states. Wherefore slavery which belongs to the law of
+nations is natural in the second way, but not in the first.'[3] It
+will be noted from this passage that St. Thomas partly admits, though
+not entirely, the opinion of Aristotle. In the _De Regimine
+Principum_ he goes much further in the direction of adopting the full
+Aristotelian theory: 'Nature decrees that there should be grades in
+men as in other things. We see this in the elements, a superior and
+an inferior; we see in every mixture that some one element
+predominates.... For we see this also in the relation of the body and
+the mind, and in the powers of the mind compared with one another;
+because some are ordained towards ordering and moving, such as the
+understanding and the will; others to serving. So should it be among
+men; and thus it is proved that some are slaves according to nature.
+Some lack reason through some defect of nature; and such ought to be
+subjected to servile works because they cannot use their reason, and
+this is called the natural law.'[4] In the same chapter the right of
+conquerors to enslave their conquered is referred to without comment,
+and therefore implicitly approved by the author.
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 57, 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Supra_, p. 64.]
+
+[Footnote 3: II. ii 57, ad. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _De Reg. Prin._, ii. 10.]
+
+'Thus,' according to Janet, 'St. Thomas admits slavery as far as one
+can admit it, and for all the reasons for which one can admit it.
+He admits with Aristotle that there is a natural slavery; with St.
+Augustine that slavery is the result of sin; with the jurisconsult
+that slavery is the result of war and convention.'[1] 'The author
+justifies slavery,' says Franck, 'in the name of St. Augustine, and in
+that of Aristotle; in the name of the latter by showing that there are
+two races of men, one born to command, and the other to obey; in
+the name of the former in affirming that slavery had its origin in
+original sin; that by sin man has forfeited his right to liberty.
+Further, we must admit slavery as an institution not only of nature
+and one of the consequences of the fall, we must admit a third
+principle of slavery which appears to St. Thomas as legitimate as the
+other two. War is necessary; therefore it is just; and if it is just
+we must accept its consequences. One of these consequences is the
+absolute right of the conqueror over the life, person, and goods of
+the conquered.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, vol. i. p. 431.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Franck, _op cit_., p. 69.]
+
+Aquinas returns to the question of slavery in another passage, which
+is interesting as showing that he continued to make use of the analogy
+between slavery and property which we have seen in the Fathers. 'A
+thing is said to belong to the natural law in two ways. First,
+because nature inclines thereto, _e.g._ that one should not do harm to
+another. Secondly, because nature did not bring in the contrary; thus
+we might say that for man to be naked is of the natural law because
+nature did not give him clothes, but art invented them. In this sense
+the possession of all things in common and universal freedom is
+said to be of the natural law, because, to wit, the distinction of
+possession and slavery were not brought in by nature, but devised by
+human reason for the benefit of human life. Accordingly, the law of
+nature was not changed in this respect, but by addition.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: I. ii. 94, 5, ad. 3.]
+
+Ægidius Romanus closely follows the teaching of his master on the
+subject of slavery. 'What does Ægidius do? He unites Aristotle and St.
+Augustine against human liberty. He declares with the latter that man
+has lost the right of belonging to himself, since he has fallen from
+the primitive order established by God Himself in nature. He admits
+with Aristotle the existence of two races of men, the one designed
+for liberty, the other for servitude.... This is not all--to this
+servitude which he calls natural, the author joins another, purely
+legal, but which does not seem to him less just, namely, that which is
+founded on the right of war, and which obliges the conquered to become
+the slaves of the conquerors--to give up their liberty in exchange for
+their lives. Our author admits it is just in itself, because in his
+opinion it is useful to the defence of one's country; it excites
+warriors to courage by placing before their eyes the terrible
+consequences of cowardice.'[1] The teachings of St. Thomas and Ægidius
+were accepted by all the later scholastics.[2] Biel, whose opinion is
+always very valuable as being that of the last of a long line, says
+that there are three kinds of slaves--slaves of God, of sin, and of
+man. The first kind of slavery is wholly good, the second wholly bad,
+while the third, though not instituted by, is approved by the _jus
+gentium_. He proceeds to state the four ways in which a man may
+become enslaved: namely, _ex necessitate_, or by being born of a slave
+mother; _ex bello_, by being captured in war; _ex delicto_, or
+by sentence of the law in the case of certain crimes committed by
+freedmen; and _ex propria voluntate_, or by the sale of a man of
+himself into slavery.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Franck, _op. cit._, p. 90.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Franck, _op. cit._, p. 91.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Biel, _Inventarium seu Repertorium generale super qualuor
+libros Sententiarum_, iv. xv. I; and see Carletus, _Summa Angelica_,
+q. ccxii.]
+
+It must not be forgotten that we are dealing purely with theory.
+In fact the Church did an inestimable amount of good to the servile
+classes, and, at the time that Aquinas wrote, thanks to the operation
+of Christianity in this respect, the old Roman slavery had completely
+disappeared. The nearest approach to ancient slavery in the Middle
+Ages was serfdom, which was simply a step in the transition from
+slavery to free labour.[1] Moreover, the rights of the master over
+the slave were strictly confined to the disposal of his services; the
+ancient absolute right over his body had completely disappeared. 'In
+those things,' says St. Thomas, 'which appertain to the disposition
+of human acts and things, the subject is bound to obey his superior
+according to the reason of the superiority; thus a soldier must obey
+his officer in those things which appertain to war; a slave his master
+in those things which appertain to the carrying out of his servile
+works.'[2] 'Slavery does not abolish the natural equality of man,'
+says a writer who is quoted by the _Catholic Encyclopædia_ as
+correctly stating the Catholic doctrine on the subject prior to the
+eighteenth century, 'hence by slavery one man is understood to become
+subject to the dominion of another to the extent that the master has
+a perfect right to the services which one man may justly perform
+for another.'[3] Biel, who lays down the justice of slavery so
+unambiguously, is no less clear in his statement of the limitations
+of the right. 'The body of the slave is not simply in the power of the
+master as the body of an ox is; nor can the master kill or mutilate
+the slave, nor abuse him contrary to the law of God. The temporal
+gains derived from the labour of the slave belong to the master;
+but the master is bound to provide the slave with the necessaries of
+life.'[4] Rambaud very properly points out that the reason that the
+scholastic writers did not fulminate in as strong and as frequent
+language against the tyranny of masters, was not that they felt less
+strongly on the subject, but that the abuses of the ancient slave
+system had almost entirely disappeared under the influence of
+Christian teaching.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Wallon, _op. cit._, vol. iii. p. 93; Brants, _op. cit._,
+p. 87.]
+
+[Footnote 2: II. ii. 104, 5.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Gerdil., _Comp. Inst. Civ. I._, vii.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Biel, _op. cit._, iv. xv. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Op. cit._, p. 83.]
+
+On the other hand, it must not be imagined, as has sometimes been
+suggested, that the slavery defended by Aquinas was not real slavery,
+but rather the ordinary modern relation between employer and employed.
+Such an interpretation is definitely disproved by a passage of the
+article on justice where Aquinas says that 'inducing a slave to leave
+his master is properly an injury against the person ... and, since the
+slave is his master's chattel, it is referred to theft.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 61,3. Brants, _op. cit._, pp. 87 _et seq_., is
+inclined to take a more liberal view of the scholastic doctrine on
+slavery, but we cannot agree with him in view of the contemporary
+texts.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+DUTIES REGARDING THE EXCHANGE OF PROPERTY
+
+
+
+SECTION 1.--THE SALE OF GOODS
+
+
+§ 1. _The Just Price_.
+
+We dealt in the last chapter with the duties which attached to
+property in respect of its acquisition and use, and we now pass to
+the duties which attached to it in respect of its exchange. As we
+indicated above, the right to exchange one's goods for the goods or
+the money of another person was, according to the scholastics, one of
+the necessary corollaries of the right of private property. In order
+that such exchange might be justifiable, it must be conducted on a.
+basis of commutative justice, which, as we have seen, consisted in the
+observance of equality according to the arithmetical mean. We further
+drew attention to the fact that exchanges might be divided into
+sales of goods and sales of the use of money. In the former case the
+regulating principle of the equality of justice was given effect to
+by the observance of the _just price_; in the latter by that of the
+_prohibition of usury_. We shall deal with the former in the present
+and with the latter in the following section.
+
+The mediæval teaching on the just price, about which there has been so
+much discussion and disagreement among modern writers, was simply the
+application to the particular contract of sale of the principles which
+regulated contracts in general. Exchange originally took the form
+of barter; but, as it was found impossible accurately to measure
+the values of the objects exchanged without the intervention of
+some common measure of value, money was invented to serve as such a
+measure. We need not further refer to barter in this section, as the
+principles which applied to it were those that applied to sale. Indeed
+all sales when analysed are really barter through the medium of
+money. That Aquinas simply regarded his article on just price[1] as an
+explanation of the application of his general teaching on justice to
+the particular case of the contract of sale is quite clear from the
+article itself. 'Apart from fraud, we may speak of buying and selling
+in two ways. First, as considered in themselves; and from this point
+of view buying and selling seem to be established for the common
+advantage of both parties, one of whom requires that which belongs
+to the other, and _vice versa_. Now whatever is established for the
+common advantage should not be more of a burden to one part than to
+the other, and consequently all contracts between them should observe
+equality of thing and thing. Again, the quality of a thing that
+comes into human use is measured by the price given for it, for which
+purpose money was invented. Therefore, if either the price exceed the
+quantity of the thing's worth, or conversely the worth of the thing
+exceed the price, there is no longer the equality of justice; and
+consequently to sell a thing for more than its worth, or to buy it for
+less than its worth, is in itself unjust and unlawful.'[2] When two
+contracting parties make an exchange through the medium of money,
+the price is the expression of the exchange value in money. 'The
+just price expresses the equivalence, which is the foundation of
+contractual justice.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 77, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: This opinion was accepted by all the later writers,
+_e.g._ Gerson, _De Cont._, ii. 5; Biel, _op. cit._, IV. xv. 10: 'Si
+pretium excedit quantitatem valoris rei, vel e converso tolleretur
+equalitas, erit contractus iniquus.']
+
+[Footnote 3: Desbuquois, 'La Justice dans l'Echange,' _Semaine
+Sociale de France_, 1911, p. 167. Gerson says: 'Contractus species est
+justitiae commutativae quae respicit aequalitatem rei quae venditur
+ad rem quae emitur, ut servetur aequalitas justi pretii; propter quam
+aequalitatem facilius observandum inventa est moneta, vel numisma, vel
+pecunia,' _De Cont._, ii. 5.]
+
+The conception of the just price, though based on Aristotelian
+conceptions of justice, is essentially Christian. The Roman law had
+allowed the utmost freedom of contract in sales; apart from fraud,
+the two contracting parties were at complete liberty to fix a price
+at their own risk; and selfishness was assumed and allowed to be the
+animating motive of every contracting party. The one limitation to
+this sweeping rule was in favour of the seller. By a rescript of
+Diocletian and Maximian it was enacted that, if a thing were sold
+for less than half its value, the seller could recover the property,
+unless the buyer chose to make up the price to the full amount.
+Although this rescript was perfectly general in its terms, some
+authors contended that it applied only to sales of land, because the
+example given was the sale of a farm.[1] However, the rescript was
+quoted by the Fathers as showing that even the Roman law considered
+that contracts might be questioned on equitable grounds in certain
+cases.[2] The distinctively Christian notion of just price seems to
+have its origin in a passage of St. Augustine;[3] but the notion was
+not placed on a philosophical foundation until the thirteenth century.
+Even Aquinas, however, although he treats of the just price at some
+length, and expresses clear and categorical opinions upon many points
+connected with it, does not state the principles on which the just
+price itself should be arrived at. This omission is due, not to the
+fact that Aquinas was unfamiliar with these principles, but to the
+fact that he took them for granted as they were not disputed or
+doubted.[4] We have consequently to look for enlightenment upon this
+point in writings other than those of Aquinas. The subject can be most
+satisfactorily understood if we divide its treatment into two parts:
+first, a consideration of what constituted the just price in the sale
+of an article, the price of which was fixed by law; and second, a
+consideration of what constituted the just price of an article, the
+price of which was not so fixed.
+
+[Footnote 1: Hunter, _Roman Law_, p. 492.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, p. 133.]
+
+[Footnote 3: 'Scio ipse hominem quum venalis codex ei fuisset oblatus,
+pretiique ejus ignarum ideo quiddam exiguum poscentem cerneret
+venditorem, justum pretium, quod multo amplius erat nec opinanti
+dedisse' (_De Trin._, xiii. 3).]
+
+[Footnote 4: Palgrave, _Dictionary of Political Economy_, tit. 'Justum
+Pretium.']
+
+
+§ 2. _The Just Price when Price fixed by Law_.
+
+Regarding the power of the State to fix prices, the theologians and
+jurists were in complete agreement. According to Gerson: 'The law
+may justly fix the price of things which are sold, both movable and
+immovable, in the nature of rents and not in the nature of rents, and
+feudal and non-feudal, below which price the seller must not give, or
+above which the buyer must not demand, however they may desire to do
+so. As therefore the price is a kind of measure of the equality to be
+observed in contracts, and as it is sometimes difficult to find that
+measure with exactitude, on account of the varied and corrupt desires
+of man, it becomes expedient that the medium should be fixed according
+to the judgment of some wise man.... In the civil state, however,
+nobody is to be decreed wiser than the lawgiving authority. Therefore
+it behoves the latter, whenever it is possible to do so, to fix the
+just price, which may not be exceeded by private consent, and which
+must be enforced.'...[1] Biel practically paraphrases this passage of
+Gerson, and contends that it is the duty of the prince to fix prices,
+mainly on account of the difficulty which private contractors find in
+doing so.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _De Cont._, i. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, IV. xv. 11.]
+
+The rules which we find laid down for the guidance of the prince in
+fixing prices are very interesting, as they show that the mediæval
+writers had a clear idea of the constituent elements of value.
+Langenstein, whose famous work on contracts was considered of high
+authority by later writers, says that the prince should take account
+of the condition of the place for which the price was to be fixed, the
+circumstances of the time, the condition of the mass of the people.
+The different kinds of need which may be felt for goods must also
+be considered, _indigentice naturæ_, _status_, _voluptatis_, and
+_cupiditatis_; and a distinction drawn between extensive and intensive
+need--the former is greater 'quanto plures re aliqua indigent,' the
+latter 'quanto minus de illa re habetur.' The general rule is that the
+prince must seek to find a medium between a price so low as to render
+labourers, artisans, and merchants unable to maintain themselves
+suitably, and one so high as to disable the poor from obtaining the
+necessaries of life. When in doubt, Langenstein concludes, the price
+should err on the low rather than the high side.[1] Biel gives similar
+rules: The legislator must regard the needs of man, the abundance or
+scarcity of things, the difficulty, labour, and risks of production.
+When all these things are carefully considered the legislator is in a
+position to fix a just price.[2] According to Endemann, the labour of
+production, the cost and risk of transport, and the condition of
+the markets had all to be kept in mind when a fair price was being
+fixed.[3] We may mention in passing that the power of fixing the just
+price might be delegated; prices were frequently fixed by the town
+authorities, the guilds, and the Church.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Roscher, _Geschichte_, p. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, IV. xv. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 43.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. i. p. 40; Roscher, _Political
+Economy_, s. 114.]
+
+The passage from Gerson which we quoted above shows that, when a just
+price had been fixed by the competent authority, the parties to
+a contract were bound to keep to it. In other words, the _pretium
+legitimum_ was _ipso facto_ the _justum pretium_. On this point there
+is complete agreement among the writers of the period. Caepolla says,
+'When the price is fixed by law or statute, that is the just price,
+and nobody can receive anything, however small, in excess of it,
+because the law must be observed';[1] and Biel, 'When a price has been
+fixed, the contracting parties have sufficient certainty about the
+equality of value and the justice of the price.'[2] Cossa draws
+attention to the necessity of the fixed price corresponding with
+the real price in order that it should maintain its validity. 'The
+schoolmen talk of the legitimate and irreducible price of a thing
+which was fixed by authority, and was for obvious reasons of special
+importance in the case of the necessaries of life.... The legitimate
+price of a thing as fixed by authority had to be based upon the
+natural price, and therefore lost its validity and became a dead
+letter the moment any change of circumstances made it unfair.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _De Contractibus Simulatis_, 69.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, IV. xv. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Op. cit._, p. 143.]
+
+
+
+§ 3. _The Just Price when Price not fixed by Law_.
+
+When the just price was not fixed by any outside authority, the buyer
+and seller had to arrive at it themselves. The problem before them was
+to equalise their respective burdens, so that there would be equality
+of burden between them, or, in other words, to reduce the value of the
+article sold to terms of money. In order that we may understand how
+this equality was arrived at, it is important to know the factors
+which were held to enter into the determination of value.
+
+The first thing upon which the mediæval teachers insist is that value
+is not determined by the intrinsic excellence of the thing itself,
+because, if it were, a fly would be more valuable than a pearl, as
+being intrinsically more excellent.[1] Nor is the value to be measured
+by the mere utility of the object for satisfying the material needs
+of man, for in that case, corn should be worth more than precious
+stones.[2] The value of an object is to be measured by its capacity
+for satisfying men's wants. 'Valor rerum aestimatur secundum humanam
+indigentiam.... Dicendum est quod indigentia humana est mensura
+naturalis commutabilium; quod probatur sic: bonitas sive valor rei
+attenditur ex fine propter quem exhibetur: unde commentator secundo
+Metaphysicae _nihil est bonum nisi propter causas finales_; sed finis
+naturalis ad quem justitia commutativa ordinet exteriora commutabilia
+est supplementum indigentiae humanae...; igitur supplementum
+indigentiae humanae est vera mensura commutabilium. Sed supplementum
+videtur mensurari per indigentiam; majoris enim valoris est
+supplementum quod majorem supplet indigentiam.... Item hoc probatur
+signo, quia videmus quod illo tempore quo vina deficiunt quia magis
+indigeremus eis ipsa fiunt cariora....[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'In justitia commutativa non estimatur pretium
+commutabilium secundum naturalem valorem ipsorum, sic enim musca plus
+valeret quam totus aurum mundi' (Buridan, _op. cit._, v. 14).]
+
+[Footnote 2: Slater, 'Value in Theology and Political Economy,' _Irish
+Ecclesiastical Record_, Sept. 1901.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Buridan, _op. cit._, v. 14 and 16. Antoninus of Florence
+says that value is determined by three factors, _virtuositas_,
+_raritas_, and _placibilitas_ (_Summa_, ii. 1, 16.)]
+
+The capacity of an object for satisfying man's needs could not be
+measured by its capacity for satisfying the needs of this or that
+individual, but by its capacity for satisfying the needs of the
+average member of the community.[1] The Abbé Desbuquois, in the
+article from which we have already quoted, finds in this elevation of
+the common estimation an illustration of the general principle of the
+mediævals, which we have seen at work in their teaching on the use of
+property, that the individual benefit must always be subordinated to
+the general welfare. According to him, it is but one application of
+the duty of using one's goods for the common good. 'In the same way,
+in allowing the right of exchange--a right, let us remark in passing,
+which is but an application of the right of property--and in allowing
+it as a means of life necessary to everybody, nature does not lose
+sight of the universal destination of economic goods. One conceives
+then that the variations of exchange are not permitted to be left
+to the arbitrary judgment of a single man, nor to be affected by the
+whims and abuses of individuals; that value is defined in view of the
+general good. The exchange value, as it is in the general or social
+order, proceeds from the judgment of the social environment (_milieu
+social_).'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Indigentia istius hominis vel illius non mensurat
+valorem commutabilium; sed indigentia communis eorum qui inter se
+commutare possunt,' Buridan, _op. cit._, v. 16. 'Prout communiter
+venditur in foro,' Henri de Gand, _Quod Lib._, xiv. 14; Nider, _De
+Cont. Merc._, ii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 'La Justice dans l'Echange,' _Semaine Sociale de France_,
+1911, p. 168.]
+
+The writers of the Middle Ages show a very keen perception of the
+elements which invest an object with the value which is accorded to
+it by the general estimation. In Aquinas we find certain elements
+recognised--'diversitas loci vel temporis, labor, raritas'--but it is
+not until the authors of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that
+we find a systematic treatment of value.[1] First and foremost there
+is the cost of production of the article, especially the wages of all
+those who helped to produce it. Langenstein lays down that every one
+can determine for himself the just price of the wares he has to sell
+by reckoning what he needs to support himself in the status which he
+occupies.[2] According to the _Catholic Encyclopædia_,[3] the
+just price of an article included enough to pay fair wages to the
+worker--that is, enough to enable him to maintain the standard of
+living of his class. This, though not stated in so many words
+by Aquinas, was probably assumed by him as too obvious to need
+repetition.[4] 'The cost of production of manufactured products,' says
+Brants, 'is a legitimate constituent element of value; it is according
+to the cost that the producer can properly fix the value of his
+product and of his work.'[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 69.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _De Cont._, quoted by Roscher, _Geschichte_, p. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Tit. 'Political Economy.']
+
+[Footnote 4: Palgrave, _Dictionary_, tit. 'Justum Pretium.']
+
+[Footnote 5: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 202.]
+
+The cost of the labour of production was, however, by no means the
+only factor which was admitted to enter into the determination of
+value. The passage from Gerson dealing with the circumstances to which
+the prince must have regard in fixing a price, which we quoted above,
+shows quite clearly that many other factors were recognised as no
+less important. This appears with special clearness in the treatise
+of Langenstein, whose authority on this subject was always ranked very
+high. Bernardine of Siena is careful to point out that the expense of
+production is only one of the factors which influence the value of an
+object.[1] Biel explains that, when no price has been fixed by law,
+the just price may be arrived at by a reference to the cost of the
+labour of production, and to the state of the market, and the other
+circumstances which we have seen above the prince was bound to have
+regard to in fixing a price. He also allows the price to be raised on
+account of any anxiety which the production of the goods occasioned
+him, or any danger he incurred.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Res potest plus vel minus valere tribus modis; primo
+secundum suam virtutem; secondo modo secundum suam caritatem; tertio
+modo secundum suam placibilitatem et affectionem.... Primo observat
+quemdam naturalem ordinem utilium rerum, secundo observat quemdam
+communem cursum copiae et inopiae, tertio observat periculum et
+industriam rerum seu obsequiorum' (Funk, _Zins und Wucher_, p. 153).]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Sollicitudo et periculum,' _Op. cit._, IV. xv. 10.]
+
+It will be apparent from the whole trend of the above that, whereas
+the remuneration of the labour of all those who were engaged in the
+production of an article, was one of the elements to be taken into
+account in reckoning its value, and consequently its just price,
+it was by no means the only element. Certain so-called Christian
+socialists have endeavoured to find in the writings of the scholastics
+support for the Marxian position that all value arises from labour.[1]
+This endeavour is, however, destined to failure; we shall see in a
+later chapter that many forms of unearned income were tolerated and
+approved by the scholastics; but all that is necessary here is to draw
+the attention of the reader to the passages on value to which we have
+referred. One of the most prominent exponents of the untenable view
+that the mediævals traced all value to labour is the Abbé Hohoff,
+whose argument that there was a divorce between value and just price
+in the scholastic writings, is ably controverted by Rambaud, who
+remarks that nobody would have been more surprised than Aquinas
+himself at the suggestion that he was the forerunner of Karl Marx.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Even Ashley states that 'the doctrine had thus a close
+resemblance to that of modern Socialists; labour it regarded both as
+the sole (human) cause of wealth, and also as the only just claim to
+the possession of wealth' (_Op. cit._, vol. i. part ii. p. 393).]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, p. 50.]
+
+The idea that the scholastics traced all value to the labour expended
+on production is rejected by many of the most prominent writers on
+mediæval economic theory. Roscher draws particular attention to the
+fact that the canonist teaching assigned the correct proportions in
+production to land, capital, and labour, in contrast to all the later
+schools of economists, who have exaggerated the importance of one or
+the other of these factors.[1] Even Knies, who was the first modern
+writer to insist on the importance of the cost of production as an
+element of value, states that the Church sought to fix the price of
+goods in accordance with the cost of production (_Herstellungskosten_)
+_and_ the consumption value (_Gebrauchswerte_).[2] Brants takes the
+same view. 'The expenses of production are in practice the norm of the
+fixing of the sale price in the great majority of cases, above all
+in a very narrow market, where competition is limited; moreover, they
+can, for reasons of public order, form the basis of a fixing that
+will protect the producer and the consumer against the disastrous
+consequences of constant oscillations. The vendor can in principle
+be remunerated for his trouble. It is well that he should be so
+remunerated; it is socially useful, and is used as a basis for fixing
+price; but it cannot in any way be said that this forms the _objective
+measure of value_, but that the work and expense are a sufficient
+title of remuneration for the fixing of the just price of the sale
+of a thing. Some writers have tried to conclude from this that the
+authors of the Middle Ages saw in labour the measure of value. This
+conclusion is exaggerated. We may fully admit that this element
+enters into the sale price; but it is in no way the general measure
+of value.... The expenses of production constitute, then, _one_ of
+the legitimate elements of just price; they are not the _measure_ of
+value, but a factor often influencing its determination.'[3] 'Labour,'
+according to Dr. Cronin, 'is one of the most important of all the
+determinants of value, for labour is the chief element in cost of
+production, and cost of production is one of the chief elements in
+determining the level at which it is useful to buy or sell. But labour
+is not the only determinant of value; there is, _e.g._, the price of
+the raw materials, a price that is not wholly determined by the labour
+of producing those materials.'[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Political Economy_, s. 48.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Politische Oekonomie vom Standpuncte der geschichtlichen
+Methode_, p. 116.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Op. cit._, p. 112.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ethics_, vol. ii. p. 181.]
+
+The just price, then, in the absence of a legal fixing, was held to
+be the price that was in accordance with the _communis estimatio_.
+Of course, this did not mean that a plebiscite had to be taken before
+every sale, but that any price that was in accordance with the general
+course of dealing at the time and place of the sale was considered
+substantially fair. 'A thing is worth what it can generally be sold
+for--at the time of the contract; this means what it can be sold for
+generally either on that day or the preceding or following day. One
+must look to the price at which similar things are generally sold
+in the open market.'[1] 'We must state precisely,' says the Abbé
+Desbuquois, 'the character of this common estimation; it did not mean
+the universal suffrage; although it expresses the universal interest,
+it proceeds in practice from the evaluation of competent men, taken
+in the social environment where the exchange value operates. If one
+supposes a sovereign tribunal of arbitration where all the rights
+of all the weak and all the strong economic factors are taken into
+account, the just price appears as the sentence or decision of this
+court.'[2] 'For the scholastics, the common estimation meant an
+ethical judgment of at least the most influential members of
+the community, anticipating the markets and fixing the rate of
+exchange.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Caepolla, _De Cont. Sim._, 72.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, pp. 169-70.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Fr. Kelleher in the _Irish Theological Quarterly_, vol.
+xi. p. 133.]
+
+It is quite incorrect to say, as has been sometimes said, that the
+mediæval just price was in no way different from the competition
+price of to-day which is arrived at by the higgling of the market.
+Dr. Cunningham is very explicit and clear on this point. 'Common
+estimation is thus the exponent of the natural or normal or just price
+according to either the mediæval or modern view; but, whereas we rely
+on the higgling of the market as the means of bringing out what is the
+common estimate of any object, mediæval economists believed that it
+was possible to bring common estimation into operation beforehand,
+and by the consultation of experts to calculate out what was the just
+price. If common estimation was thus organised, either by the town
+authorities or guilds or parliament, it was possible to determine
+beforehand what the price should be and to lay down a rule to this
+effect; in modern times we can only look back on the competition
+prices and say by reflection what the common estimation has been.'[1]
+'The common estimation of which the Canonists spoke,' says Dr. Ryan,
+'was conscious social judgment that fixed price beforehand, and was
+expressed chiefly in custom, while the social estimate of to-day is
+in reality an unconscious resultant of the higgling of the market, and
+finds its expression only in market price.'[2] The phrase 'res tanti
+valet quanti vendi potest,' which is so often used to prove that
+the mediæval doctors permitted full competitive prices in the modern
+sense, must be understood to mean that a thing could be sold at any
+figure which was within the limits of the minimum and maximum just
+price.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, vol. i. p.
+353.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Living Wage_, p. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Lessius, _De Justitia et Jure_, xxi. 19.]
+
+The last sentence suggests that the just price was not a fixed and
+unalterable standard, but was somewhat wide and elastic. On this all
+writers are agreed. 'The just price of things,' says Aquinas, 'is not
+fixed with mathematical precision, but depends on a kind of estimate,
+so that a slight addition or subtraction would not seem to destroy
+the equality of justice,'[1] Caepolla repeats this dictum, with the
+reservation that, when the just price is fixed by law, it must be
+rigorously observed.[2] 'Note,' says Gerson, 'that the equality of
+commutative justice is not exact or unchangeable, but has a good deal
+of latitude, within the bounds of which a greater or less price may
+be given without justice being infringed;'[3] and Biel insists on the
+same latitude, from which he draws the conclusion that the just price
+is constantly varying from day to day and from place to place.[4]
+Generally it was said that there was a maximum, medium, and minimum
+just price; and that any price between the maximum and minimum was
+valid, although the medium was to be aimed at as far as possible.
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 77, 1, ad. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _De Cont. Sim._, 58.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Cont._, ii. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Op. cit._, IV. xv. 10.]
+
+The price fixed by common estimation was therefore the one to be
+observed in most cases, and it was at all times a safe guide to
+follow. If, however, the parties either knew or had good reason to
+believe that the common estimation had fixed the price wrongly,
+they were not bound to follow it, but should arrive at a just
+price themselves, having regard to the various considerations given
+above.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Nider, _De Cont. Merc._ ii.: 'Si vero scit vel credit
+communitatem errare in estimatione pretii rei; tunc nullo modo debet
+eam sequi; quia etiam si reciperet verum et justum pretium, tamen
+faceret contra conscientiam.']
+
+It did not make any difference whether the price was paid immediately
+or at some future date. To increase the price in return for the giving
+of credit was not allowed, as it was deemed usurious--as indeed it
+was. It was held that the seller, in not taking his money immediately,
+was simply making a loan of that amount to the buyer, and that to
+receive anything more than the sum lent would be usury. Aquinas is
+quite clear on this point. 'If a man wish to sell his goods at a
+higher price than that which is just, so that he may wait for the
+buyer to pay, it is manifestly a case of usury; because this waiting
+for the payment of the price has the character of a loan, so that
+whatever he demands beyond the just price in consideration of this
+delay, is like a price for a loan, which pertains to usury. In like
+manner, if a buyer wishes to buy goods at a lower price than what is
+just, for the reason that he pays for the goods before they can
+be delivered, it is likewise a sin of usury; because again this
+anticipated payment of money has the character of a loan, the price of
+which is the rebate on the just price of the goods sold. On the other
+hand, if a man wishes to allow a rebate on the just price in order
+that he may have his money sooner, he is not guilty of the sin of
+usury.'[1] If, however, the seller, by giving credit, suffered any
+damage, he was entitled to be recompensed; this, as we shall see, was
+an ordinary feature of usury law. It could not be said that the price
+was raised. The price remained the same; but the seller was entitled
+to something further than the price by way of damages.[2] It was
+by the application of this principle that a seller was justified in
+demanding more than the current price for an article which possessed
+some individual or sentimental value for him. 'In such a case the just
+price will depend not only on the thing sold, but on the loss which
+the sale brings on the seller.... No man should sell what is not his,
+though he may charge for the loss he suffers.'[3] On the other
+hand, it was strictly forbidden to raise the price on account of the
+individual need of the buyer.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 78, 2, ad. 7. See _Decret. Greg._, v. 19, _de
+usuris_, cc. 6 and 10.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. ii. pp. 49; Desbuquois, _op.
+cit._, p. 174.]
+
+[Footnote 3: II. ii. 77, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ibid._]
+
+
+
+§ 4. _The Just Price of Labour_.
+
+Particular rules were laid down for determining the just price of
+certain classes of goods. These need not be treated in detail, as they
+were merely applications of the general principle to particular cases,
+and whatever interest they possess is in the domain of practice rather
+than of theory. In the sale of immovable property the rule was that
+the value should be arrived at by a consideration of the annual fruits
+of the property.[1] The only one of the particular contracts which
+need detain us here is that of a contract of service for wages
+(_locatio operarum_). Wages were considered as ruled by the laws
+relating to just price. 'That is called a wage (_merces_) which is
+paid to any one as a recompense for his work and labour. Therefore,
+as it is an act of justice to give a just price for a thing taken from
+another person, so also to pay the wages of work and labour is an act
+of justice.'[2] Again, 'Remuneration of service or work ... can be
+priced at a money value, as may be seen in the case of those who offer
+for hire the labour which they exercise by work or by tongue.'[3] Biel
+insists that the value of labour is subject to the same influences as
+the value of any other commodity which is offered for sale, and that
+therefore a just price must be observed in buying it.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Caepolla, _de Cont. Sim._, 78; Carletus, _Summa
+Angelica_, lxv.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Aquinas, _Summa_, II. ii. 114, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: II. ii. 78, 2, ad. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Op. cit._, IV. xv. 10. Modern Socialists caricature the
+correct principle 'that labour is a commodity' into 'the labourer is
+a commodity'--a great difference, which is not sufficiently understood
+by many present-day writers. (See Roscher, _Political Economy_, s.
+160.)]
+
+This, according to Brants,[1] is essentially a matter upon which more
+enlightenment will be found in histories of the working classes[2]
+than in books dealing with the enunciation of abstract theories;
+nevertheless, it is possible to state generally that it was regarded
+as the duty of employers to give such a wage as would support the
+worker in accordance with the requirements of his class. In the
+great majority of cases the rate of wages was fixed by some
+public--municipal or corporative--authority, but Langenstein
+enunciates a rule which seems to approach the statement of a general
+theory. According to him, when a man has something to sell, and has
+no indication of the just price from its being fixed by any outside
+authority, he must endeavour to get such a price as will _reasonably_
+recompense him for any outlay he may have incurred, and will enable
+him to provide for his needs, spiritual and temporal.[3] It was not
+until the sixteenth century that the fixing of the just price of
+wages was submitted to scientific discussion;[4] in the fourteenth
+and fifteenth centuries there is little to be found bearing on this
+subject except the passage of Langenstein which we have quoted, and
+some strong exhortations by Antoninus of Florence to masters to pay
+good wages.[5] The reason for this paucity of authority upon a subject
+of so much importance is that in practice the machinery provided
+by the guilds had the effect of preserving a substantially just
+remuneration to the artisan. When a man is in perfect health he
+does not bother to read medical books. In the same way, the proper
+remuneration of labour was so universally recognised as a duty, and so
+satisfactorily enforced, that it seems to have been taken for granted,
+and therefore passed over, by the writers of the period. One may agree
+with Brants in concluding that, 'the principle of just price in sales
+was applied to wages; fluctuations in wages were not allowed; the just
+price, as in sales, rested on the approximate equality of the services
+rendered; and that this equality was estimated by common opinion.'[6]
+Of course, in the case of slave labour it could not be said that any
+wage was paid. The master was entitled to the services of the slave,
+and in return was bound to furnish him with the necessaries of
+life.[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 103.]
+
+[Footnote 2: An excellent bibliography of books dealing with the
+history of the working classes in the Middle Ages is to be found in
+Brants, _op. cit._, p. 105. The need for examining concrete economic
+phenomena is insisted on in Ryan's _Living Wage_, p. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Cont._ We have here a recognition of the principle
+that the value of labour is not to be measured by anything extrinsic
+to itself, _e.g._ by the value of the product, but by its own natural
+function and end, and this function and end is the supplying of the
+requirements of human life. The wage must, therefore, be capable of
+supplying the same needs that the expenditure of a labourer's energy
+is meant to supply. (See Cronin, _Ethics_, vol. ii. p. 390.)]
+
+[Footnote 4: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 118.]
+
+[Footnote 5: The passages from the _Summa_ of Antoninus bearing on the
+subject are reprinted in Brants, _op. cit._, p. 120.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Op. cit._, p. 125.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 116, quoting _Le Lime du Trésor_
+of Brunetto Latini.]
+
+
+§ 5. _Value of the Conception of the Just Price_.
+
+It is probably correct to say that the canonical teaching on just
+price was negative rather than positive; in other words, that it did
+not so much aim at positively fixing the price at which goods should
+be sold, as negatively at indicating the practices in buying and
+selling which were unjust. 'The doctrine of just price,' according to
+Dr. Ryan, 'may sometimes have been associated with incorrect views
+of industrial life, but all competent authorities agree that it was a
+fairly sound attempt to define the equities of mediæval exchanges,
+and that it was tolerably successful in practice.'[1] The condition
+of mediæval markets was frequently such that the competition was not
+really fair competition, and consequently the price arrived at
+by competition would be unfair either to buyer or seller. 'This,'
+according to Dr. Cunningham, 'was the very thing which mediæval
+regulation had been intended to prevent, as any attempt to make gain
+out of the necessities of others, or to reap profit from unlooked-for
+occurrences would have been condemned as extortion. It is by taking
+advantage of such fluctuations that money is most frequently made in
+modern times; but the whole scheme of commercial life in the
+Middle Ages was supposed to allow of a regular profit on each
+transaction.'[2] There might be some doubt as to the positive justice
+of this or that price; but there could be no doubt as to the injustice
+of a price which was enhanced by the necessities of the poor, or the
+engrossing of a vital commodity.[3] Merely to buy up the whole supply
+of a certain commodity, even if it were bought up by a 'ring' of
+merchants, provided that the commodity was resold within the limits
+of the just price, was not a sin against justice, though it might be
+a sin against charity.[4] If the authorities granted a monopoly, they
+must at the same time fix a just price.[5] A monopoly which was not
+privileged by the State, and which had for its aim the raising of
+the price of goods above the just price was regarded with universal
+reprobation.[6] 'Whoever buys up corn, meat, and wine,' says
+Trithemius, 'in order to drive up their price and to amass money at
+the cost of others is, according to the laws of the Church, no better
+than a common criminal. In a well-governed community all arbitrary
+raising of prices in the case of articles of food and clothing is
+peremptorily stopped; in times of scarcity merchants who have supplies
+of such commodities can be compelled to sell them at fair prices; for
+in every community care should be taken that all the members should be
+provided for, and not only a small number be allowed to grow rich,
+and revel in luxury to the hurt and prejudice of the many.[7] Thus the
+doctrine of the just price was a deadly weapon with which to fight the
+'profiteer.' The engrosser was looked upon as the natural enemy of the
+poor; and the power of the trading class was justly reckoned so great,
+that in cases of doubt prices were always fixed low rather than high.
+In other words, the buyer--that is to say, the community--was the
+subject of protection rather than the seller.[8]
+
+[Footnote 1: _The Living Wage_, p. 27.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, vol. i. p.
+460.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 60.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Lessius, _De Justitia et Jure_, II. xx. 1, 21.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Ibid._]
+
+[Footnote 6: Langenstein, _De Cont._; Biel, _op. cit._, iv. xv. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Quoted in Janssen, _op. cit._, vol. ii. p. 102.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Roscher, _Geschichte_, p. 12.]
+
+It must at the same time be clearly kept in mind that the seller
+was also protected. All the authorities are unanimous that it was as
+sinful for the buyer to give too little as for the seller to demand
+too much, and it is this aspect of the just price which appears most
+favourable in comparison with the theory of price of the classical
+economists. In the former case prices were fixed having regard to
+the wages necessary for the producer; in the latter the wages of the
+producer are determined by the price at which he can sell his
+goods, exposed to the competition of machinery or foreign--possibly
+slave--labour.[1] According to the _Catholic Encyclopædia_: 'To the
+mediæval theologian the just price of an article included enough
+to pay fair wages to the worker--that is, enough to enable him to
+maintain the standard of living of his class.'[2] 'The difference,'
+says Dr. Cunningham, 'which emerges according as we start from one
+principle or the other comes out most distinctly with reference to
+wages. In the Middle Ages wages were taken as a first charge; in
+modern times the reward of the labourer cannot but fluctuate in
+connection with fluctuations in the utility and market price of the
+things. There must always be a connection between wages and prices,
+but in the olden times wages were the first charge, and prices on the
+whole depended on them, while in modern times wages are, on the other
+hand, directly affected by prices.'[3] Dr. Cunningham draws attention
+to the fact that the labouring classes rejected the idea of the fixing
+of a just price for their services when, from a variety of causes,
+a situation arose when they were able to earn by open competition a
+reward higher than what was necessary to support them according
+to their state in life.[4] Nowadays the reverse has taken place;
+unrestricted competition has in many cases resulted in the reduction
+of wages to a level below the margin of subsistence; and the general
+cry of the working classes is for the compulsory fixing of minimum
+rates of wages which will ensure that their subsistence will not be
+liable to be impaired by the fluctuations of the markets. What
+the workers of the present day look to as a desirable, but almost
+unattainable, ideal, was the universal practice in the ages when
+economic relations were controlled by Christian principles.
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. i. p. 129.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Art. 'Political Economy.']
+
+[Footnote 3: _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, vol. i. p.
+461.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Christianity and Economic Science_, p. 29.]
+
+
+§ 6. _Was the Just Price Subjective or Objective_?
+
+The question whether the just price was essentially subjective or
+objective has recently formed the subject matter of an interesting
+and ably conducted discussion, provoked by certain remarks in Dr.
+Cunningham's _Western Civilisation_.[1] Dr. Cunningham, although
+admiring the ethical spirit which animated the conception of the just
+price, thought at the same time that the economic ideas underlying the
+conception were so undeveloped and unsound that the theory could not
+be applied in practice at the present day. 'Their economic analysis
+was very defective, and the theory of price which they put forward was
+untenable; but the ethical standpoint which they took is well worth
+examination, and the practical measures which they recommended appear
+to have been highly beneficial in the circumstances in which they had
+to deal. Their actions were not unwise; their common-sense morality
+was sound; but the economic theories by which they tried to give an
+intellectual justification for their rules and their practice were
+quite erroneous.... The attempt to determine an ideal price implies
+that there can and ought to be stability in relative values and
+stability in the measure of values--which is absurd. The mediæval
+doctrine and its application rested upon another assumption which we
+have outlived. Value is not a quality which inheres in an object so
+that it can have the same worth for everybody; it arises from the
+personal preference and needs of different people, some of whom desire
+a thing more and some less, some of whom want to use it in one way and
+some in another. Value is not objective--intrinsic in the object--but
+subjective, varying with the desire and intentions of the possessors
+or would-be possessors; and, because it is thus subjective, there
+cannot be a definite ideal value which every article ought to possess,
+and still more a just price as the measure of that ideal value.' In
+these and similar observations to be found in the _Growth of English
+History and Commerce_, Dr. Cunningham showed that he profoundly
+misunderstood the doctrine of the just price; the objectivity which
+he attributed to it was not the objectivity ascribed to it by the
+scholastics. It was to correct this misunderstanding that Father
+Slater contributed an article to the _Irish Theological Quarterly_[2]
+pointing out that the just price was subjective rather than objective.
+This article, which was afterwards reprinted in _Some Aspects of Moral
+Theology_, and the conclusions of which were embodied in the same
+writer's work on Moral Theology, was controverted in a series of
+articles by Father Kelleher in the _Irish Theological Quarterly_.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Pp. 77-9.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Vol. iv. p. 146.]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Market Prices,' vol. ix. p. 398 and vol. x. p. 163; and
+'Father Slater on Just Price and Value,' vol. xi. p. 159.]
+
+Father Slater draws attention to the fact that Dr. Cunningham
+overlooked to some extent the importance of common estimation in
+arriving at the just price. He points out that, far from objects being
+invested with some immutable objective value, their value was in fact
+determined by the price which the community as a whole was willing to
+pay for them: 'As the value in exchange will be determined by what the
+members of the community at the time are prepared to give, ... it will
+be determined by the social estimation of its utility for the support
+of life and its scarcity. It will depend upon its capacity to satisfy
+the wants and desires of the people with whom commercial transactions
+are possible and practicable. Father Slater then goes on categorically
+to refute Dr. Cunningham's presentation of the objectivity of price:
+'All that that doctrine asserts is that there should be, and that
+there is, an equivalent in social value between the commodity and
+its price at a certain time and in a certain place; it says nothing
+whatever about the stability or permanence of prices at different
+times and at different places. By maintaining that the just price did
+not depend upon the valuation of the individual buyer or seller the
+mediæval doctors did not dream of making it intrinsic to the object.'
+In the work on Moral Theology, to which we have referred, expressions
+occur which lead one to believe that Father Slater did not see any
+great difference between the mediæval just price arrived at by common
+estimation and the modern normal or market price arrived at by
+open competition. Thus, in endeavouring to correct Dr. Cunningham's
+misunderstanding, Father Slater seems to have gone too far in the
+other direction, and his position has been ably and, in our judgment,
+successfully, controverted by Father Kelleher.
+
+The point at issue between the upholders of the two opposing views
+on just price is well stated by Father Kelleher in the first of his
+articles on the subject: 'We must try to find out whether the just
+and fair price determined the rate of exchange, or whether the rate
+of exchange, being determined without an objective standard and merely
+according to the play of human motives, determines what we call the
+just and fair price.'[1] We have already demonstrated that the common
+estimation referred to by the mediæval doctors was something quite
+apart from the modern higgling in the market; and that, far from
+being merely the result of unbridled competition on both sides, it
+was rather the considered judgment of the best-informed members of the
+community. As we have seen, even Dr. Cunningham admits that there
+was a fundamental difference between the common estimation of
+the scholastics and the modern competitive price. This is clearly
+demonstrated by Father Kelleher, who further establishes the
+proposition that the modern price is purely subjective, and that no
+subjective price can rest on an ethical basis. The question at issue
+therefore between what we may call the subjective and objective
+schools is not whether the sale price was determined by competition
+in the modern sense, but whether the common estimation of those best
+qualified to form an opinion on the subject in itself determined the
+just price, or whether it was merely the most reliable evidence of
+what the just price in fact was at a particular moment.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Irish Theological Quarterly_, vol. ix. p. 41.]
+
+Father Kelleher draws attention to the fact that Aquinas in his
+article on price did not specifically affirm that the just price
+was objective, but he explains this omission by saying that the
+objectivity of the price was so well and universally understood that
+it was unnecessary expressly to restate it. Indeed, as we saw above,
+the teaching of Aquinas on price left a great deal to be supplied by
+later writers, not because he was in any doubt about the subject, but
+because the theory was so well understood. 'Not even in St. Thomas can
+we find a formal discussion of the moral obligation of observing an
+objective equivalence in contracts of buying and selling. He simply
+took it for granted, as, indeed, was inevitable, seeing that, up to
+his time and for long after, all Catholic thought and legislation
+proceeded on that hypothesis. But that he actually did take it for
+granted, he has given many clear indications in his article on Justice
+which leave us no room for reasonable doubt.'[1] As Father Kelleher
+very cogently points out, the discussion in Aquinas's article on
+commerce, whether it was lawful to buy cheap and sell dear, very
+clearly indicates that the author maintained the objective theory,
+because if the just price were simply determined by what people were
+willing to give, this question could not have arisen.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Irish Theological Quarterly_, vol. x. p. 165.]
+
+Nor is the fact that the just price admitted of a certain elasticity
+an argument in favour of its being subjective. Father Kelleher fully
+admits that the common estimation was the general criterion of just
+price, and, of course, the common estimation could not, of its very
+nature, be rigid and immutable. Commodities should, indeed, exchange
+according to their objective value, but, even so, commodities could
+not carry their value stamped on their faces. Even if we assume that
+the standard of exchange was the cost of production, there would still
+remain room for a certain amount of difference of opinion as to what
+exactly their value would be in particular instances. Suppose that the
+commodity offered for sale was a suit of clothes, in estimating its
+value on the basis of the cost of production, opinions might differ
+as to the precise amount of time required for making it, or as to the
+cost of the cloth out of which it was made. Unless recourse was to be
+had to an almost interminable process of calculations, nobody could
+say authoritatively what precisely the value was, and in practice the
+determination of value had perforce to be left to the ordinary human
+estimate of what it was, which of its very nature was bound to admit a
+certain margin of fluctuation. Thus we can easily understand how, even
+with an objective standard of value, the just price might be admitted
+to vary within the limits of the maximum as it might be expected to
+be estimated by sellers and the minimum as it would appear just to
+buyers. The sort of estimation of which St. Thomas speaks is therefore
+nothing else than a judgment, which, being human, is liable to be
+slightly in excess or defect of the objective value about which it is
+formed.'[1] As Father Kelleher puts it on a later page, 'There is a
+sense certainly in which, with a solitary exception in the case of
+wages, it may be said with perfect truth that the common estimation
+determines the just price. That is, the common estimation is the
+proximate practical criterion.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Irish Theological Quarterly_, vol. x. p. 166.]
+
+[Footnote 2: P. 173.]
+
+Father Kelleher uses in support of his contention a very ingenious
+argument drawn from the doctrine of usury. As we said in the first
+chapter, and as we shall prove in detail in the next section, the
+prohibition of usury was simply one of the applications of the theory
+of equivalence in contracts--in other words, it was the determination
+of the just price to be paid in an exchange of money for money. If,
+asks Father Kelleher, the common estimation was the final test of just
+price, why was not moderate usury allowed? That the general opinion of
+the community in the Middle Ages was undoubtedly in favour of allowing
+a reasonable percentage on loans is shown by the constant striving of
+the Church to prevent such a practice. Nevertheless the Church did
+not for a moment relax its teaching on usury in spite of the almost
+universal judgment of the people. Here, therefore, is a clear example
+of one contract in which the standard of value is clearly objective,
+and it is only reasonable to draw the conclusion that the same
+standard which applied in contracts of the exchange of money should
+apply in contracts of the sale of other articles.
+
+Father Kelleher's contention seems to be completely supported by the
+passage from Nider which we have cited above, to the effect that the
+common estimation ceases to be the final test of the just price when
+the contracting parties know or believe that the common estimation has
+erred.[1] This seems to us clearly to show that the common estimation
+was but the most generally received test of what the just price
+in fact was, but that it was in no sense a final or irrefutable
+criterion.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _De Cont. Merc._, ii. xv. Nider was regarded as a very
+weighty authority on the subject of contracts (Endemann, _Studien_,
+vol. ii. p. 8).]
+
+[Footnote 2: The argument in favour of what we have called the
+'objective' theory of the just price is strengthened by the
+consideration that goods do not satisfy mere subjective whims, but
+supply real wants. For example, food supplies a real need of the human
+being, as also does clothing; in the one case hunger is appeased,
+and in the other cold is warded off, just as drugs used in medical
+practice produce real objective effects on the person taking them.]
+
+The theory that the just price was objective seems to be accepted by
+the majority of the best modern students of the subject. Sir William
+Ashley says: 'The fundamental difference between the mediæval and
+modern point of view is... that with us value is something entirely
+subjective; it is what each individual cares to give for a thing. With
+Aquinas it was entirely objective; something outside the will of
+the individual purchaser or seller; something attached to the thing
+itself, existing whether he liked it or not, and that he ought to
+recognise.'[1] Palgrave's _Dictionary of Political Economy_, following
+the authority of Knies, expresses the same opinion: 'Perhaps the
+contrast between mediæval and modern ideas of value is best expressed
+by saying that with us value is usually something subjective,
+consisting of the mental determination of buyer and seller, while to
+the schoolmen it was in a sense objective, something intrinsically
+bound up with the commodity itself.'[2] Dr. Ryan agrees with this
+view: 'The theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
+assumed that the objective price would be fair, since it was
+determined by the social estimate. In their opinion the social
+estimate would embody the requirements of objective justice as fully
+as any device or institution that was practically available. For the
+condition of the Middle Ages and the centuries immediately following,
+this reasoning was undoubtedly correct. The agencies which created
+the social estimate and determined prices--namely the civil law, the
+guilds, and custom--succeeded fairly in establishing a price that was
+equitable to all concerned.'[3] Dr. Cleary says: 'True, the _pretium
+legale_ is regarded as being a just price, but in order that it may
+be just, it supposes some objective basis--in other words, it rather
+declares than constitutes the just price.'[4] Haney is also strongly
+of opinion that the just price was objective. 'Briefly stated, the
+doctrine was that every commodity had some one true value which was
+objective and absolute.'[5] The greater number of modern students
+therefore who have given most care and attention to the question are
+inclined to the opinion that the just price was not subjective, but
+objective, and we see no valid reason for disagreeing with this view,
+which seems to be fully warranted by the original authorities.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, vol. i. pt. i. p. 140.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Art. 'Justum Pretium.']
+
+[Footnote 3: 'The Moral Aspect of Monopoly,' by J.A. Ryan, D.D.,
+_Irish Theological Quarterly_, in. p. 275; and see _Distributive
+Justice_, pp. 332-4.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Op. cit._, p. 193.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _History of Economic Thought_, p. 75.]
+
+
+§7. _The Mediæval Attitude towards Commerce_.
+
+Before passing from the question of price, we must discuss the
+legitimacy of the various occupations which were concerned with buying
+and selling. The principal matter which arises for consideration
+in this regard is the attitude of the mediæval theologians towards
+commerce. Aquinas discusses the legitimacy of commerce in the same
+question in which he discusses just price, and indeed the two subjects
+are closely allied, because the importance of the observance of
+justice in buying and selling grew urgent as commerce extended and
+advanced.
+
+In order to understand the disapprobation with which commerce was on
+the whole regarded in the Middle Ages, it is necessary to appreciate
+the importance of the Christian teaching on the dignity of labour. The
+principle that, far from being a degrading or humiliating occupation,
+as it had been regarded in Greece and Rome, manual labour was, on
+the contrary, one of the most noble ways of serving God, effected
+a revolution in the economic sphere analogous to that which the
+Christian sanctification of marriage effected in the domestic sphere.
+The Christian teaching on labour was grounded on the Divine precepts
+contained in both the Old and New Testaments,[1] and upon the example
+of Christ, who was Himself a working man. The Gospel was preached
+amongst the poor, and St. Paul continued his humble labours during
+his apostolate.[2] A life of idleness was considered something to be
+avoided, instead of something to be desired, as it had been in the
+ancient civilisations. Gerson says it is against the nature of man to
+wish to live without labour as usurers do,[3] and Langenstein
+inveighs against usurers and all who live without work.[4] 'We read
+in Sebastian Brant that the idlers are the most foolish amongst fools,
+they are to every people like smoke to the eyes or vinegar to
+the teeth. Only by labour is God truly praised and honoured; and
+Trithemius says "Man is born to labour as the bird to fly, and hence
+it is contrary to the nature of man when he thinks to live without
+work."'[5] The example of the monasteries, where the performance
+of all sorts of manual labour was not thought inconsistent with the
+administration of the sacred offices and the pursuit of the highest
+intellectual exercises, acted as a powerful assertion to the laity
+of the dignity of labour in the scheme of things.[6] The value of the
+monastic example in this respect cannot be too highly estimated. 'When
+we consider the results of the founding of monasteries,' says Dr.
+Cunningham, 'we find influences at work that were plainly economic.
+These communities can be best understood when we think of them as
+Christian industrial colonies, and remember that they moulded society
+rather by example than by precept. We are so familiar with the attacks
+and satires on monastic life that were current at the Reformation
+period, that it may seem almost a paradox to say that the chief
+claim of the monks to our gratitude lies in this, that they helped to
+diffuse a better appreciation of the duty and dignity of labour.'[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: Gen. iii. 19; Ps. cxxvii. 2; 2 Thess. iii. 10. The
+last-mentioned text is explained, in opposition to certain Socialist
+interpretations which have been put on it, by Dr. Hogan in the _Irish
+Ecclesiastical Record_, vol. xxv. p. 45.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Wallon, _op. cit._, vol. iii. p. 401.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Cont._, i. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _De Cont._]
+
+[Footnote 5: Janssen, _op. cit._, vol. ii. pp. 93-4.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Levasseur, _Histoire des Classes ouvrières en France_,
+vol. i. pp. 182 _et seq_.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _Western Civilisation_, vol. ii. p. 35.]
+
+The result of this teaching and example was that, in the Middle Ages,
+labour had been raised to a position of unquestioned dignity. The
+economic benefit of this attitude towards labour must be obvious. It
+made the working classes take a direct pride and interest in their
+work, which was represented to be a means of sanctification. 'Labour,'
+according to Dr. Cunningham, 'was said to be pregnant with a double
+advantage--the privilege of sharing with God in His work of carrying
+out His purpose, and the opportunity of self-discipline and the
+helping of one's fellow-men.'[1] 'Industrial work,' says Levasseur,
+'in the times of antiquity had always had, in spite of the
+institutions of certain Emperors, a degrading character, because it
+had its roots in slavery; after the invasion, the grossness of the
+barbarians and the levelling of towns did not help to rehabilitate it.
+It was the Church which, in proclaiming that Christ was the son of
+a carpenter, and the Apostles were simple workmen, made known to the
+world that work is honourable as well as necessary. The monks proved
+this by their example, and thus helped to give to the working classes
+a certain consideration which ancient society had denied them. Manual
+labour became a source of sanctification.'[2] The high esteem in which
+labour was held appears from the whole artistic output of the Middle
+Ages. 'Many of the simple artists of the time represented the saints
+holding some instrument of work or engaged in some industrial pursuit;
+as, for instance, the Blessed Virgin spinning as she sat by the cradle
+of the divine Infant, and St. Joseph using a saw or carpenter's tools.
+"Since the Saints," says the _Christian Monitor_, "have laboured, so
+shall the Christian learn that by honourable labour he can glorify
+God, do good, and save his own soul."'[3] Work was, alongside of
+prayer and inseparable from it, the perfection of Christian life.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Christianity and Economic Science_, pp. 26-7.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, vol. i. p. 187.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Janssen, _op. cit._, vol. ii. p. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Wallon, _op. cit._, vol. i. p. 410.]
+
+It must not be supposed, however, that manual labour alone was thought
+worthy of praise. On the contrary, the necessity for mental and
+spiritual workers was fully appreciated, and all kinds of labour
+were thought equally worthy of honour. 'Heavy labourer's work is the
+inevitable yoke of punishment, which, according to God's righteous
+verdict, has been laid upon all the sons of Adam. But many of Adam's
+descendants seek in all sorts of cunning ways to escape from the yoke
+and to live in idleness without labour, and at the same time to have
+a superfluity of useful and necessary things; some by robbery and
+plunder, some by usurious dealings, others by lying, deceit, and all
+the countless, forms of dishonest and fraudulent gain, by which men
+are for ever seeking to get riches and abundance without toil. But
+while such men are striving to throw off the yoke righteously imposed
+on them by God, they are heaping on their shoulders a heavy burden
+of sin. Not so, however, do the reasonable sons of Adam proceed; but,
+recognising in sorrow that for the sins of their first father God has
+righteously ordained that only through the toil of labour shall they
+obtain what is necessary to life, they take the yoke patiently on
+them.... Some of them, like the peasants, the handicraftsmen, and the
+tradespeople, procure for themselves and others, in the sweat of their
+brows and by physical work, the necessary sustenance of life. Others,
+who labour in more honourable ways, earn the right to be maintained by
+the sweat of others' brows--for instance, those who stand at the head
+of the commonwealth; for by their laborious exertion the former are
+enabled to enjoy the peace, the security, without which they could not
+exist. The same holds good of those who have the charge of spiritual
+matters....'[1] 'Because,' says Aquinas, 'many things are necessary to
+human life, with which one man cannot provide himself, it is necessary
+that different things should be done by different people; therefore
+some are tillers of the soil, some are raisers of cattle, some are
+builders, and so on; and, because human life does not simply mean
+corporal things, but still more spiritual things, therefore it
+is necessary that some people should be released from the care of
+attending to temporal matters. This distribution of different offices
+amongst different people is in accordance with Divine providence.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Langenstein, quoted in Janssen, _op. cit._, p. 95.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Summa Cont. Gent_., iii. 134.]
+
+All forms of labour being therefore admitted to be honourable and
+necessary, there was no difficulty felt about justifying their reward.
+It was always common ground that services of all kinds were entitled
+to be properly remunerated, and questions of difficulty only arose
+when a claim was made for payment in a transaction where the element
+of service was not apparent.[1] The different occupations in which men
+were engaged were therefore ranked in a well-recognised hierarchy
+of dignity according to the estimate to which they were held to
+be entitled. The Aristotelean division of industry into _artes
+possessivae_ and _artes pecuniativae_ was generally followed, the
+former being ranked higher than the latter. 'The industries called
+_possessivae_, which are immediately useful to the individual, to the
+family, and to society, producing natural wealth, are also the most
+natural as well as the most estimable. But all the others should not
+be despised. The natural arts are the true economic arts, but the arts
+which produce artificial riches are also estimable in so far as they
+serve the true national economy; the commutation of the exchanges and
+the _cambium_ being necessary to the general good, are good in so far
+as they are subordinate to the end of true economy. One may say the
+same thing about commerce. In order, then, to estimate the value of an
+industrial art, one must examine its relation to the general good.'[2]
+Even the _artes possessivae_ were not all considered equally worthy of
+praise, but were ranked in a curious order of professional hierarchy.
+Agriculture was considered the highest, next manufacture, and lastly
+commerce. Roscher says that, whereas all the scholastics were agreed
+on the excellence of agriculture as an occupation, the best they could
+say of manufacture was _Deo non displicet_, whereas of commerce they
+said _Deo placere non potest_; and draws attention to the interesting
+consequence of this, namely, that the various classes of goods that
+took part in the different occupations were also ranked in a certain
+order of sacredness. Immovables were thought more worthy of protection
+against execution and distress than movables, and movables than
+money.[3] Aquinas advises the rulers of States to encourage the _artes
+possessivae_, especially agriculture.[4] The fullest analysis of the
+order in which the different _artes possessivae_ should be ranked is
+to be found in Buridan's _Commentaries on Aristotle's Politics_. He
+places first agriculture, which comprises cattle-breeding, tillage,
+and hunting; secondly, manufacture, which helps to supply man's
+corporal needs, such as building and architecture; thirdly,
+administrative occupations; and lastly, commerce. The Christian
+Exhortation, quoted by Janssen,[5] says, 'The farmer must in all
+things be protected and encouraged, for all depend on his labour,
+from the monarch to the humblest of mankind, and his handiwork is in
+particular honourable and well pleasing to God.'
+
+[Footnote 1: Aquinas, _Summa_, II. ii. 77, 4; Nider, _op. cit._, II.
+x.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 82.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Geschichte_, p. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _De Regimine Principum_, vol. ii. chaps, v. and vi.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Op. cit._, vol. i. p. 297.]
+
+The division of occupations according to their dignity adopted by
+Nicholas Oresme is somewhat unusual. He divides professions into (1)
+honourable, or those which increase the actual quantity of goods in
+the community or help its development, such as ecclesiastical offices,
+the law, the soldiery, the peasantry, artisans, and merchants, and
+(2) degrading--such as _campsores, mercatores monetae sen
+billonatores.'_[1]
+
+No occupation, therefore, which involved labour, whether manual
+or mental, gave any ground for difficulty with regard to its
+remuneration. The business of the trader or merchant, on the other
+hand, was one which called for some explanation. It is important
+to understand what commerce was taken to mean. The definition which
+Aquinas gives was accepted by all later writers: 'A tradesman is one
+whose business consists in the exchange of things. According to the
+philosopher, exchange of things is twofold; one natural, as it were,
+and necessary, whereby one commodity is exchanged for another, or
+money taken in exchange for a commodity in order to satisfy the needs
+of life. Such trading, properly speaking, does not belong to traders,
+but rather to housekeepers or civil servants, who have to provide the
+household or the State with the necessaries of life. The other kind
+of exchange is either that of money for money, or of any commodity for
+money, not on account of the necessities of life, but for profit; and
+this kind of trade, properly speaking, regards traders.' It is to
+be remarked in this definition, that it is essential, to constitute
+trade, that the exchange or sale should be for the sake of profit,
+and this point is further emphasised in a later passage of the same
+article: 'Not every one that sells at a higher price than he bought
+is a trader, but only he who buys that he may sell at a profit. If,
+on the contrary, he buys, not for sale, but for possession, and
+afterwards for some reason wishes to sell, it is not a trade
+transaction, even if he sell at a profit. For he may lawfully do this,
+either because he has bettered the thing, or because the value of the
+thing has changed with the change of place or time, or on account
+of the danger he incurs in transferring the thing from one place to
+another, or again in having it carried by hand. In this sense neither
+buying nor selling is unjust.'[2] The importance of this definition
+is that it rules out of the discussion all cases where the goods have
+been in any way improved or rendered more valuable by the services
+of the seller. Such improvement was always reckoned as the result of
+labour of one kind or another, and therefore entitled to remuneration.
+The essence of trade in the scholastic sense was selling the thing
+unchanged at a higher price than that at which it had been bought, for
+the sake of gain.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Tractatus de Origine, etc., Monetarum_.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Tractatus de Origine, etc., Monetarum_, ad. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 3: 'Fit autem mercatio cum non ut emptor ea utatur sed ut
+earn carius vendat etiam non mutatam suo artificio; illa mercatio
+dicitur proprie negotiatio' (Biel, _op. cit._, IV. xv. 10.)]
+
+The legitimacy of trade in this sense was only gradually admitted. The
+Fathers of the Church had with one voice condemned trade as being an
+occupation fraught with danger to the soul. Tertullian argued that
+there would be no need of trade if there were no desire for gain, and
+that there would be no desire for gain if man were not avaricious.
+Therefore avarice was the necessary basis of all trade.[1] St. Jerome
+thought that one man's gain in trading must always be another's loss;
+and that, in any event, trade was a dangerous occupation since it
+offered so many temptations to fraud to the merchant.[2] St. Augustine
+proclaimed all trade evil because it turns men's minds away from
+seeking true rest, which is only to be found in God, and this opinion
+was embodied in the _Corpus Juris Canonici_.[3] This early view that
+all trade was to be indiscriminately condemned could not in the nature
+of things survive experience, and a great step forward was taken
+when Leo the Great pronounced that trade was neither good nor bad in
+itself, but was rendered good or bad according as it was honestly or
+dishonestly carried on.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: _De Idol_., xi.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. i. p. 129.]
+
+[Footnote 3: See _Corpus Juris Canonici_, Deer. I.D. 88 c. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Epist. ad Rusticum_, c. ix.]
+
+The scholastics, in addition to condemning commerce on the authority
+of the patristic texts, condemned it also on the Aristotelean ground
+that it was a chrematistic art, and this consideration, as we have
+seen above, enters into Aquinas's article on the subject.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Rambaud, _op. cit._, p. 52.]
+
+The extension of commercial life which took place about the beginning
+of the thirteenth century, raised acute controversies about the
+legitimacy of commerce. Probably nothing did more to broaden the
+teaching on this subject than the necessity of justifying trade which
+became more and more insistent after the Crusades.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: On the economic influence of the Crusades the following
+works may be consulted: Blanqui, _Histoire de l'Economie politique_;
+Heeren, _Essai sur l'Influence politique et sociale des Croisades_;
+Scherer, _Histoire du Commerce_; Prutz, _Culturgeschichte der
+Kreuzzüge_; Pigonneau, _Histoire du Commerce de la France_; List, _Die
+Lehren der Handelspolitischen Geschichte_.]
+
+By the time of Aquinas the necessity of commerce had come to be fully
+realised, as appears from the passage in the _De Regimine Principum_:
+'There are two ways in which it is possible to increase the affluence
+of any State. One, which is the more worthy way, is on account of the
+fertility of the country producing an abundance of all things which
+are necessary for human life, the other is through the employment
+of commerce, through which the necessaries of life are brought from
+different places. The former method can be clearly shown to be the
+more desirable.... It is more admirable that a State should possess an
+abundance of riches from its own soil than through commerce. For the
+State which needs a number of merchants to maintain its subsistence
+is liable to be injured in war through a shortage of food if
+communications are in any way impeded. Moreover, the influx of
+strangers corrupts the morals of many of the citizens... whereas,
+if the citizens themselves devote themselves to commerce, a door is
+opened to many vices. For when the desire of merchants is inclined
+greatly to gain, cupidity is aroused in the hearts of many
+citizens.... For the pursuit of a merchant is as contrary as possible
+to military exertion. For merchants abstain from labours, and while
+they enjoy the good things of life, they become soft in mind and their
+bodies are rendered weak and unsuitable for military exercises....
+It therefore behoves the perfect State to make a moderate use of
+commerce.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: ii. 3.]
+
+Aquinas, who, as we have seen, recognised the necessity of commerce,
+did not condemn all trade indiscriminately, as the Fathers had done,
+but made the motive with which commerce was carried on the test of its
+legitimacy: 'Trade is justly deserving of blame, because, considered
+in itself, it satisfies the greed for gain, which knows no limit, and
+tends to infinity. Hence trading, considered in itself, has a certain
+debasement attaching thereto, in so far as, by its very nature, it
+does not imply a virtuous or necessary end. Nevertheless gain, which
+is the end of trading, though not implying, by its nature, anything
+virtuous or necessary, does not, in itself, connote anything sinful
+or contrary to virtue; wherefore nothing prevents gain from being
+directed to some necessary or even virtuous end, and thus trading
+becomes lawful. Thus, for instance, a man may intend the moderate gain
+which he seeks to acquire by trading for the upkeep of his household,
+or for the assistance of the needy; or again, a man may take to trade
+for some public advantage--for instance, lest his country lack the
+necessaries of life--and seek gain, not as an end, but as payment for
+his labour.'[1] This is important in connection with what we have said
+above as to property, as it shows that the trader was quite justified
+in seeking to obtain more profits, provided that they accrued for the
+benefit of the community. This justification of trade according to the
+end for which it was carried on, was not laid down for the first time
+by Aquinas, but may be found stated in an English treatise of the
+tenth century entitled _The Colloquy of Archbishop Alfric_, where,
+when a doctor asks a merchant if he wishes to sell his goods for the
+same price for which he has bought them, the merchant replies: 'I do
+not wish to do so, because if I do so, how would I be recompensed for
+my trouble? but I wish to sell them for more than I paid for them so
+that I might secure some gain wherewith to support myself, my wife,
+and family.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 77, 4.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Loria, _Analysi de la proprietà, capitalista_, ii. 168.]
+
+In spite of the fact that the earlier theory that no commercial gain
+which did not represent payment for labour could be justified
+was still maintained by some writers--for instance, Raymond de
+Pennafort[1]--the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas was generally
+accepted throughout the later Middle Ages. Canonists and theologians
+accepted without hesitation the justification of trade formulated by
+Aquinas.[2] Henri de Gand,[3] Duns Scotus,[4] and François de Mayronis
+[5] unhesitatingly accepted the view of Aquinas, and incorporated it
+in their works.[6] 'An honourable merchant,' says Trithemius, 'who
+does not only think of large profits, and who is guided in all his
+dealings by the laws of God and man, and who gladly gives to the needy
+of his wealth and earnings, deserves the same esteem as any other
+worker. But it is no easy matter to be always honourable in all
+mercantile dealings and not to become usurious. Without commerce
+no community can of course exist, but immoderate commerce is rather
+hurtful than beneficial, because it fosters greed of gain and gold,
+and enervates and emasculates the nation through love of pleasure
+and luxury.'[7] Nider says that to buy not for use but for sale at a
+higher price is called trade. Two special rules apply to this: first,
+that it should be useful to the State, and second, that the price
+should correspond to the diligence, prudence, and risk undertaken in
+the transaction.[8]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Summa Theologica_, II. vii. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, p. 55.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Quodlib_., i. 40.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Lib. Quat. Sent._, xv. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 5: iv. 16, 4.]
+
+[Footnote 6: See Jourdain, _op. cit._, p. 20 _et seq_.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Quoted in Janssen, _op. cit._, vol. ii. p. 97.]
+
+[Footnote 8: _Op. cit._, iv. 10.]
+
+The later writers hi the fifteenth century seem to have regarded trade
+more liberally even than Aquinas, although they quote his dictum on
+the subject as the basis of their teaching. Instead of condemning all
+commerce as wrong unless it was justified by good motives, they were
+rather inclined to treat commerce as being in itself colourless, but
+capable of becoming evil by bad motives. Carletus says: 'Commerce in
+itself is neither bad nor illegal, but it may become bad on account
+of the circumstances and the motive with which it is undertaken, the
+persons who undertake it, or the manner in which it is conducted. For
+instance, commerce undertaken through avarice or a desire for sloth is
+bad; so also is commerce which is injurious to the republic, such as
+engrossing.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Summa Angelica_, 169: 'Mercatio non est mala ex genere,
+sed bona, humano convictui necessaria dum fuerit justa. Mercatio
+simpliciter non est peccatum sed ejus abusus.' Biel, _op. cit._, iv.
+xv. 10.]
+
+Endemann, having thoroughly studied all the fifteenth-century writers
+on the subject, says that commerce might be rendered unjustifiable
+either by subjective or objective reasons. Subjective illegality would
+arise from the person trading--for instance, the clergy--or the motive
+with which trade was undertaken; objective illegality on account of
+the object traded in, such as weapons in war-time, or the bodies
+of free men.[1] Speculative trading, and what we to-day call
+profiteering, were forbidden in all circumstances.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 18.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _The Ayenbite of Inwit_, a thirteenth-century confessor's
+manual, lays it down that speculation is a kind of usury. (Rambaud,
+_Histoire_, p. 56.)]
+
+We need not dwell upon the prohibition of trading by the clergy,
+because it was simply a rule of discipline which has not any bearing
+upon general economic teaching, except in so far as it shows that
+commerce was considered an occupation dangerous to virtue. Aquinas
+puts it as follows: 'Clerics should abstain not only from things that
+are evil in themselves, but even from those that have an appearance of
+evil. This happens in trading, both because it is directed to worldly
+gain, which clerics should despise, and because trading is open to so
+many vices, since "a merchant is hardly free from sins of the lips."
+[1] There is also another reason, because trading engages the mind too
+much with worldly cares, and consequently withdraws it from spiritual
+cares; wherefore the Apostle says:[2] "No man being a soldier to God
+entangleth himself with secular business." Nevertheless it is lawful
+for clerics to engage in the first-mentioned kind of exchange, which
+is directed to supply the necessaries of life, either by buying or by
+selling.'[3] The rule of St. Benedict contains a strong admonition to
+those who may be entrusted with the sale of any of the products of the
+monastery, to avoid all fraud and avarice.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Eccles. xxvi. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 2 Tim. ii. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Summa_, II. ii. 77, 4, ad. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Beg. St. Ben._, 57.]
+
+On the whole, the attitude towards commerce seems to have grown more
+liberal in the course of the Middle Ages. At first all commerce was
+condemned as sinful; at a later period it was said to be justifiable
+provided it was influenced by good motives; while at a still later
+date the method of treatment was rather to regard it as a colourless
+act in itself which might be rendered harmful by the presence of bad
+motives. This gradual broadening of the justification of commerce is
+probably a reflection of the necessities of the age, which witnessed a
+very great expansion of commerce, especially of foreign trade. In the
+earlier centuries remuneration for undertaking risk was prohibited on
+the authority of a passage in the Gregorian Decretals, but the later
+writers refused to disallow it.[1] The following passage from Dr.
+Cunningham's _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_ correctly
+represents the attitude of the Church towards commerce at the end
+of the Middle Ages: 'The ecclesiastic who regarded the merchant as
+exposed to temptations in all his dealings would not condemn him as
+sinful unless it were clear that a transaction were entered on
+solely for greed, and hence it was the tendency for moralists to draw
+additional distinctions, and refuse to pronounce against business
+practices where common sense did not give the benefit of the
+doubt.'[2] We have seen that one motive which would justify the
+carrying on of trade was the desire to support one's self and one's
+family. Of course this motive was capable of bearing a very extended
+and elastic interpretation, and would justify increased commercial
+profits according as the standard of life improved. The other motive
+given by the theologians, namely, the benefit of the State, was also
+one which was capable of a very wide construction. One must remember
+that even the manual labourer was bound not to labour solely for
+avaricious gain, but also for the benefit of his fellow-men. 'It is
+not only to chastise our bodies,' says Basil, 'it is also by the love
+of our neighbour that the labourer's life is useful so that God may
+furnish through us our weaker brethren';[3] and a fifteenth-century
+book on morality says: 'Man should labour for the honour of God.
+He should labour in order to gain for himself and his family the
+necessaries of life and what will contribute to Christian joy, and
+moreover to assist the poor and the sick by his labours. He who acting
+otherwise seeks only the pecuniary recompense of his work does ill,
+and his labours are but usury. In the words of St. Augustine, "thou
+shalt not commit usury with the work of thy hands, for thus wilt thou
+lose thy soul,"'[4] The necessity for altruism and regard for the
+needs of one's neighbour as well as of one's self were therefore
+motives necessary to justify labour as well as commerce; and it would
+be wrong to conclude that the teaching of the scholastics on the
+necessity for a good motive to justify trade operated to damp
+individual enterprise, or to discourage those who were inclined to
+launch commercial undertakings, any more than the insistence on the
+need for a similar motive in labourers was productive of idleness.
+What the mediæval teaching on commerce really amounted to was that,
+while commerce was as legitimate as any other occupation, owing to the
+numerous temptations to avarice and dishonesty which it involved, it
+must be carefully scrutinised and kept within due bounds. It was more
+difficult to insure the observance of the just price in the case of
+a sale by a merchant than in one by an artificer; and the power which
+the merchant possessed of raising the price of the necessaries of life
+on the poor by engrossing and speculation rendered him a person whose
+operations should be carefully controlled.
+
+[Footnote 1: Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_,
+vol. i. p. 255.]
+
+[Footnote 2: P. 255.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Reg. Fus. Tract._, XXXVII. i.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Quoted in Janssen, _op. cit._, vol. ii. p. 9.]
+
+Finally, it must be clearly understood that the attempt of some modern
+writers to base the mediæval justification of commerce on an analysis
+of all commercial gains as the payment for labour rests on a profound
+misunderstanding. As we have already pointed out, Aquinas distinctly
+rules out of consideration in his treatment of commerce the case
+where the goods have been improved in value by the exertions of the
+merchant. When the element of labour entered into the transaction the
+matter was clearly beyond doubt, and the lengthy discussion devoted
+to the question of commerce by Aquinas and his followers shows that in
+justifying commercial gains they were justifying a gain resting not on
+the remuneration for the labour, but on an independent title.
+
+
+§ 8. _Cambium_.
+
+There was one department of commerce, namely, _cambium_, or
+money-changing, which, while it did not give any difficulty in theory,
+involved certain difficulties in practice, owing to the fact that
+it was liable to be used to disguise usurious transactions. Although
+_cambium_ was, strictly speaking, a special branch of commerce, it was
+nevertheless usually treated in the works on usury, the reason being
+that many apparent contracts of _cambium_ were in fact veiled loans,
+and that it was therefore a matter of importance in discussing usury
+to explain the tests by which genuine and usurious exchanges could be
+distinguished. Endemann treats this subject very fully and ably;[1]
+but for the purpose of the present essay it is not necessary to do
+more than to state the main conclusions at which he arrives.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Studien_, vol. i. p. 75.]
+
+Although the practice of exchange grew up slowly and gradually during
+the later Middle Ages, and, consequently, the amount of space devoted
+to the discussion of the theory of exchange became larger as time went
+on, nevertheless there is no serious difference of opinion between
+the writers of the thirteenth century, who treat the subject in
+a fragmentary way, and those of the fifteenth, who deal with it
+exhaustively and systematically. Aquinas does not mention _cambium_
+in the _Summa_, but he recognises the necessity for some system of
+exchange in the _De Eegimine Principum_.[1] All the later writers who
+mention _cambium_ are agreed in regarding it as a species of commerce
+to which the ordinary rules regulating all commerce apply. Francis
+de Mayronis says that the art of _cambium_ is as natural as any
+other kind of commerce, because of the diversity of the currencies
+in different kingdoms, and approves of the campsor receiving some
+remuneration for his labour and trouble.[2] Nicholas de Ausmo, in
+his commentary on the _Summa Pisana_, written in the beginning of the
+fifteenth century, says that the campsor may receive a gain from
+his transactions, provided that they are not conducted with the sole
+object of making a profit, and that the gain he may receive must
+be limited by the common estimation of the place and time. This is
+practically saying that _cambium_ may be carried on under the same
+conditions as any other species of commerce. Biel says that _cambium_
+is only legitimate if the campsor has the motive of keeping up a
+family or benefiting the State, and that the contract may become
+usurious if the gain is not fair and moderate.[3] The right of the
+campsor to some remuneration for risk was only gradually admitted,
+and forms the subject of much discussion amongst the jurists.[4]
+This hesitation in allowing remuneration for risk was not peculiar
+to _cambium_, but, as we have seen above, was common to all commerce.
+Endemann points out how the theologians and jurists unanimously
+insisted that _cambium_ could not be justified except when the just
+price was observed, and that, when the doctrine attained its full
+development, the element of labour was but one of the constituents in
+the estimation of that price.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Cum enim extraneae monetae communicantur in
+permutationibus oportet recurrere ad artem campsoriam, cum talia
+numismata non tantum valeant in regionibus extraneis quantum in
+propriis (_De Reg. Prin._, ii. 13).]
+
+[Footnote 2: In _Quot. Lib. Sent._, iv. 16, 4.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Op. oil_., IV. xv. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. i. pp. 123-36.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Ibid._, p. 213.]
+
+All the writers who treated of exchange divided it into three kinds;
+ordinary exchange of the moneys of different currencies (_cambium
+minutum_), exchange of moneys of different currencies between
+different places, the justification for which rested on remuneration
+for an imaginary transport (_cambium per litteras_), and usurious
+exchange of moneys of the same currency (_cambium siccum_). The
+former two species of cambium were justifiable, whereas the last was
+condemned.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Laurentius de Rodulfis, _De Usuris_, pt. iii. Nos. 1 to
+5.]
+
+The most complete treatise on the subject of money exchange is that
+of Thomas da Vio, written in 1499. The author of this treatise divides
+money-changing into three kinds, just, unjust, and doubtful. There
+were three kinds of just change; _cambium minutum_, in which the
+campsor was entitled to a reasonable remuneration for his labour;
+_cambium per litteras_, in which the campsor was held entitled to a
+wage (_merces_) for an imaginary transportation; and thirdly, when
+the campsor carried money from one place to another, where it was of
+higher value. The unjust change was when the contract was a usurious
+transaction veiled in the guise of a genuine exchange. Under the
+doubtful changes, the author discusses various special points which
+need not detain us here.
+
+Thomas da Vio then goes on to discuss whether the justifiable exchange
+can be said to be a species of loan, and concludes that it can not,
+because all that the campsor receives is an indemnity against loss
+and a remuneration for his labour, trouble, outlay, and risk, which
+is always justifiable. He then goes on to state the very important
+principle, that in _cambium_ money is not to be considered a measure
+of value, but a vendible commodity,[1] a distinction which Endemann
+thinks was productive of very important results in the later teaching
+on the subject.[2] The last question treated in the treatise is the
+measure of the campsor's profit, and here the contract of exchange
+is shown to be on all fours with every other contract, because the
+essential principle laid down for determining its justice is the
+observance of the equivalence between both parties.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Numisma quamvis sit mensura et instrumentum in
+permutationibus; tamen per se aliquid esse potest.' It is this
+principle that justifies the treatment of _cambium_ in this section
+rather than the next.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 212.]
+
+
+
+SECTION 2.--THE SALE OF THE USE OF MONEY
+
+
+§ 1. _Usury in Greece and Rome_.
+
+The prohibition of usury has always occupied such a large place in
+histories of the Middle Ages, and particularly in discussions relating
+to the attitude of the Church towards economic questions, that it is
+important that its precise foundation and extent should be carefully
+studied. The usury prohibition has been the centre of so many bitter
+controversies, that it has almost become part of the stock-in-trade of
+the theological mob orators. The attitude of the Church towards usury
+only takes a slightly less prominent place than its attitude towards
+Galileo in the utterances of those who are anxious to convict it of
+error. We have referred to this current controversy, not in order that
+we might take a part in it, but that, on the contrary, we might avoid
+it. It is no part of our purpose in our treatment of this subject to
+discuss whether the usury prohibition was or was not suitable to
+the conditions of the Middle Ages; whether it did or did not impede
+industrial enterprise and commercial expansion; or whether it was or
+was not universally disregarded and evaded in real life. These are
+inquiries which, though full of interest, would not be in place in
+a discussion of theory. All we are concerned to do in the following
+pages is to indicate the grounds on which the prohibition of usury
+rested, the precise extent of its application, and the conceptions of
+economic theory which it indicated and involved.
+
+[Footnote 1: Brants has a very luminous and interesting section on
+_Cambium, Op. cit._, p. 214 _et seq_.]
+
+We must remark in the first place that the prohibition of usury was in
+no sense peculiar to the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, but,
+on the contrary, was to be found in many other religious and legal
+systems--for instance, in the writings of the Greek and Roman
+philosophers, amongst the Jews, and the followers of Mohammed. We
+shall give a very brief account of the other prohibitions of usury
+before coming to deal with the scholastic teaching on the subject.
+
+We can find no trace of any legal prohibition of usury in ancient
+Greece. Although Solon's laws contained many provisions for the relief
+of poor debtors, they did not forbid the taking of interest, nor did
+they limit the rate of interest that might be taken.[1] In Rome the
+Twelve Tables fixed a maximum rate of interest, which was probably
+ten or twelve per cent, per annum, but which cannot be determined
+with certainty owing to the doubtful signification of the expression
+'_unciarum foenus_.' The legal rate of interest was gradually reduced
+until the year 347 B.C., when five per cent, was fixed as a maximum.
+In 342 B.C. interest was forbidden altogether by the Genucian Law;
+but this law, though never repealed, was in practice quite inoperative
+owing to the facility with which it could be evaded; and consequently
+the oppression of borrowers was prevented by the enactment, or perhaps
+it would be more correct to say the general recognition, of a maximum
+rate of interest of twelve per cent. per annum. This maximum rate--the
+_Centesima_--remained in operation until the time of Justinian.[2]
+Justinian, who was under the influence of Christian teaching, and who
+might therefore be expected to have regarded usury with unfavourable
+eyes, fixed the following maximum rates of interest--maritime loans
+twelve per cent.; loans to ordinary persons, not in business, six per
+cent.; loans to high personages (_illustres_) and agriculturists, four
+per cent.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cleary, _The Church and Usury_, p. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Hunter, _Roman Law_, pp. 652-53; Cleary, _op. cit._, pp.
+22-6; Roscher, _Political Economy_, s. 90.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Code_ 4, 32, 26, 1.]
+
+While the taking of interest was thus approved or tolerated by Greek
+and Roman law, it was at the same time reprobated by the philosophers
+of both countries. Plato objects to usury because it tends to set one
+class, the poor or the borrowers, against another, the rich or the
+lenders; and goes so far as to make it wrong for the borrower to repay
+either the principal or interest of his debt. He further considers
+that the profession of the usurer is to be despised, as it is an
+illiberal and debasing way of making money.[1] While Plato therefore
+disapproves in no ambiguous words of usury, he does not develop the
+philosophical bases of his objection, but is content to condemn it
+rather for its probable ill effects than on account of its inherent
+injustice.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Laws_, v. ch. 11-13.]
+
+Aristotle condemns usury because it is the most extreme and dangerous
+form of chrematistic acquisition, or the art of making money for
+its own sake. As we have seen above, in discussing the legitimacy of
+commerce, buying cheap and selling dear was one form of chrematistic
+acquisition, which could only be justified by the presence of certain
+motives; and usury, according to the philosopher, was a still more
+striking example of the same kind of acquisition, because it consisted
+in making money from money, which was thus employed for a function
+different from that for which it had been originally invented. 'Usury
+is most reasonably detested, as the increase of our fortune arises
+from the money itself, and not by employing it for the purpose for
+which it was intended. For it was devised for the sake of exchange,
+but usury multiplies it. And hence usury has received the name of
+[Greek: tokos], or produce; for whatever is produced is itself like
+its parents; and usury is merely money born of money; so that of all
+means of money-making it is the most contrary to nature.'[1] We need
+not pause here to discuss the precise significance of Aristotle's
+conceptions on this subject, as they are to us not so much of
+importance in themselves, as because they suggested a basis for the
+treatment of usury to Aquinas and his followers.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Aristotle, _Politics_, i. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 29.]
+
+In Rome, as in Greece, the philosophers and moralists were unanimous
+in their condemnation of the practice of usury. Cicero condemns usury
+as being hateful to mankind, and makes Cato say that it is on the
+same level of moral obliquity as murder; and Seneca makes a point that
+became of some importance in the Middle Ages, namely, that usury is
+wrongful because it involves the selling of time.[1] Plutarch develops
+the argument that money is sterile, and condemns the practices
+of contemporary money-lenders as unjust.[2] The teaching of the
+philosophers as to the unlawfulness of usury was reflected in the
+popular feeling of the time.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 29.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _De Vitando Aere Alieno_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Espinas, _op. cit._, pp. 81-2; Roscher, _Political
+Economy_, s. 90.]
+
+
+
+
+§ 2. _Usury in the Old Testament_.
+
+
+The question of usury therefore attracted considerable attention in
+the teaching and practice of pagan antiquity. It occupied an equally
+important place in the Old Testament. In Exodus we find the first
+prohibition of usury: 'If thou lend money to any of my people being
+poor, thou shalt not be to him as a creditor, neither shall ye lay
+upon him usury.'[1] In Leviticus we read: 'And if thy brother be waxen
+poor, and his hand fail with thee; then, thou must uphold him; as a
+stranger and a sojourner shall he live with thee. Take thou no money
+of him or increase, but fear thy God that thy brother may live with
+thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor give him
+victuals for increase.'[2] Deuteronomy lays down a wider prohibition:
+'Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money,
+usury of victuals, usury of anything that is lent upon usury; unto
+a foreigner thou mayest lend upon usury, but unto thy brother thou
+mayest not lend upon usury.'[3] It will be noticed that the first and
+second of these texts do not forbid usury except in the case of loans
+to the poor, and, if we had them alone to consider, we could conclude
+that loans to the rich or to business men were allowed. The last text,
+however, extends the prohibition to all loans to one's brother--an
+expression which was of importance in Christian times, as Christian
+writers maintained the universal brotherhood of man.
+
+[Footnote 1: Exod. xxii. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Lev. xxv. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Deut. xxiii. 19.]
+
+It is unnecessary for us to discuss the underlying considerations
+which prompted these ordinances. Dr. Cleary, who has studied the
+matter with great care, concludes that: 'The legislator was urged
+mostly by economic considerations.... The permission to extract usury
+from strangers--a permission which later writers, such as Maimonides,
+regarded as a command--clearly favours the view that the legislator
+was guided by economic principles. It is more difficult to say whether
+he based his legislation on the principle that usury is intrinsically
+unjust--that is to say, unjust even when taken in moderation. There
+is really nothing in the texts quoted to enable us to decide. The
+universality of the prohibition when there is question solely of Jews
+goes to show that usury as such was regarded as unjust; whilst its
+permission as between Jew and Gentile favours the contradictory
+hypothesis.'[1] Modern Jewish thought is inclined to hold the view
+that these prohibitions were based upon the assumption that usury was
+intrinsically unjust, but that the taking of usury from the Gentiles
+was justified on the principle of compensation; in other words, that
+Jews might exact usury from those who might exact it from them.[2] It
+is at least certain that usury was regarded by the writers of the Old
+Testament as amongst the most terrible of sins.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, pp. 5-6.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Jewish Encyclopaedia_, art. 'Usury.']
+
+[Footnote 3: Ezek. xviii. 13; Jer. xv. 10; Ps. xiv. 5, cix. 11, cxii.
+5; Prov. xxviii. 8; Hes. xviii. 8; 2 Esd. v. I _et seq._]
+
+The general attitude of the Jews towards usury cannot be better
+explained than by quoting Dr. Cleary's final conclusion on the
+subject: 'It appears therefore that in the Old Testament usury was
+universally prohibited between Israelite and Israelite, whilst it
+was permitted between Israelite and Gentile. Furthermore, it
+seems impossible to decide what was the nature of the obligations
+imposed--whether the prohibition supposed and ratified an already
+existing universal obligation, in charity or justice, or merely
+imposed a new obligation in obedience, binding the consciences of men
+for economic or political reasons. So, too, it seems impossible to
+decide absolutely whether the decrees were intended to possess eternal
+validity; the probabilities, however, seem to favour very strongly the
+view that they were intended as mere economic regulations suited to
+the circumstances of the time. This does not, of course, decide the
+other question, whether, apart from such positive regulations, there
+already existed an obligation arising from the natural law; nor would
+the passing of the positive law into desuetude affect the existence of
+the other obligation.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, pp. 17-18.]
+
+Before we pass from the consideration of the Old Testament to that of
+the New, we may mention that the taking of interest by Mohammedans is
+forbidden in the Koran.[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: ii. 30. This prohibition is universally evaded. (Roscher,
+_Political Economy_, s. 90.)]
+
+
+
+
+§ 3. _Usury in the First Twelve Centuries of Christianity_.
+
+The only passage in the Gospels which bears directly on the question
+of usury is a verse of St. Luke, the correct reading of which is a
+matter of considerable difference of opinion.[1] The Revised Version
+reads: 'But love your enemies, and do them good, and lend, never
+despairing (_nihil desperantes_); and your reward shall be great.' If
+this be the true reading of the verse, it does not touch the question
+of usury at all, as it is simply an exhortation to lend without
+worrying whether the debtor fail or not.[2] The more generally
+received reading of this verse, however, is that adopted by the
+Vulgate, 'mutuum date, nihil inde sperantes'--'lend hoping for
+nothing thereby.' If this be the correct reading, the verse raises
+considerable difficulties of interpretation. It may simply mean, as
+Mastrofini interprets it, that all human actions should be performed,
+not in the hope of obtaining any material reward, but for the love of
+God and our neighbour; or it may contain an actual precept or counsel
+relating to the particular subject of loans. If the latter be the
+correct interpretation, the further question arises whether the
+recommendation is to renounce merely the interest of a loan or the
+principal as well. We need not here engage on the details of the
+controversy thus aroused; it is sufficient to say that it is the
+almost unanimous opinion of modern authorities that the verse
+recommends the renunciation of the principal as well as the interest;
+and that, if this interpretation is correct, the recommendation is
+not a precept, but a counsel.[3] Aquinas thought that the verse was a
+counsel as to the repayment of the principal, but a precept as to the
+payment of interest, and this opinion is probably correct.[4] With the
+exception of this verse, there is not a single passage in the Gospels
+which prohibits the taking of usury.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke vi. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 33, following Knabenbaur.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 34.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, p. 35.]
+
+We must now give some account of the teaching on usury which was laid
+down by the Fathers and early councils of the Church; but at the same
+time we shall not attempt to treat this in an exhaustive way, because,
+although the early Christian teaching is of interest in itself,
+it exercised little or no influence upon the great philosophical
+treatment of the same subject by Aquinas and his followers, which is
+the principal subject to be discussed in these pages. The first thing
+we must remark is that the prohibition of usury was not included by
+the Council of Jerusalem amongst the 'necessary things' imposed upon
+converts from the Gentiles.[1] This would seem to show that the taking
+of usury was not regarded as unlawful by the Apostles, who were at
+pains expressly to forbid the commission of offences, the evil of
+which must have appeared plainly from the natural law--for instance,
+fornication. The _Didache_, which was used as a book of catechetical
+instruction for catechumens, does not specifically mention usury; the
+forcing of the repayment of loans from the poor who are unable to pay
+is strongly reprobated; but this is not so in the case of the rich.[2]
+Clement of Alexandria expressly limits his disapprobation of usury to
+the case of loans between brothers, whom he defines as 'participators
+in the same word,' _i.e._ fellow-Christians; and in any event it
+is clear that he regards it as sin against charity, but not against
+justice.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Acts xv. 29.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Didache_, ch. i.; Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 39.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Stromata_, ii. 18.]
+
+Tertullian is one of the first of the Fathers to lay down positively
+that the taking of usury is sinful. He regards it as obviously wrong
+for Christians to exact usury on their loans, and interprets the
+passage of St. Luke, to which we have referred, as a precept against
+looking for even the repayment of the principal.[1] On the other hand,
+Cyprian, writing in the same century, although he declaims eloquently
+and vigorously against the usurious practices of the clergy, does not
+specifically express the opinion that the taking of usury is wrong in
+itself.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Ad Marcion_, iv. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Le Lapsis_, ch. 5-6; Cleary, _op. cit._, pp. 42-3.]
+
+Thus, during the first three centuries of Christianity, there does not
+seem to have been, as far as we can now ascertain, any definite and
+general doctrine laid down on the subject of usury. In the year 305
+or 306 a very important step forward was taken, when the Council of
+Elvira passed a decree against usury. This decree, as given by Ivo
+and Gratian, seems only to have applied to usury on the part of the
+clergy, but as given by Mansi it affected the clergy and laity alike.
+'Should any cleric be found to have taken usury,' the latter version
+runs, 'let him be degraded and excommunicated. Moreover, if any layman
+shall be proved a usurer, and shall have promised, when corrected, to
+abstain from the practice, let him be pardoned. If, on the contrary,
+he perseveres in his evil-doing, he is to be excommunicated.'[1]
+Although the Council of Elvira was but a provincial Council, its
+decrees are important, as they provided a model for later legislation.
+Dr. Cleary thinks that Mansi's version of this decree is probably
+incorrect, and that, therefore, the Council only forbade usury on the
+part of the clergy. In any event, with this one possible and extremely
+doubtful exception, there was no conciliar legislation affecting the
+practice of usury on the part of the laity until the eighth century.
+Certain individual popes censured the taking of usury by laymen, and
+the Council of Nice expressed the opinion that such a practice was
+contrary to Christ's teaching, but there is nowhere to be found an
+imperative and definite prohibition of the taking of usury except by
+the clergy.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 43.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Cleary, _op. cit._, pp. 44-8.]
+
+The inconclusive result of the Christian teaching up to the middle of
+the fourth century is well summarised by Dr. Cleary: 'Hitherto we have
+encountered mere prohibitions of usury with little or no attempt to
+assign a reason for them other than that of positive legislation.
+Most of the statements of these early patristic writers, as well
+as possibly all of the early Christian legislative enactments, deal
+solely with the practice of usury by the clergy; still, there is
+sufficient evidence to show that in those days it was reprobated even
+for the Christian laity, for the _Didache_ and Tertullian clearly
+teach or presuppose its prohibition, while the oecumenical Council
+of Nice certainly presupposed its illegality for the laity, though
+it failed to sustain its doctrinal presuppositions with corresponding
+ecclesiastical penalties. With the exception of some very vague
+statements by Cyprian and Clement of Alexandria, we find no attempt to
+state the nature of the resulting obligation--that is to say, we are
+not told whether there is an obligation of obedience, of justice, or
+of charity. The prohibition indeed seems to be regarded as universal;
+and it may very well be contended that for the cases the Fathers
+consider it was in fact universal--for the loans with which they are
+concerned, being necessitous, should be, in accordance with Christian
+charity, gratuitous--even if speculatively usurious loans in general
+were not unjust.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, pp. 48-9.]
+
+The middle of the fourth century marked the opening of a new
+period--'a period when oratorical denunciations are profuse, and when
+consequently philosophical speculation, though fairly active, is
+of too imaginative a character to be sufficiently definite.'[1]
+St. Basil's _Homilies on the Fourteenth Psalm_ contain a violent
+denunciation of usury, the reasoning of which was repeated by St.
+Gregory of Nyssa[2] and St. Ambrose.[3] These three Fathers draw a
+terrible picture of the state of the poor debtor, who, harassed by
+his creditors, falls deeper and deeper into despair, until he finally
+commits suicide, or has to sell his children into slavery. Usury was
+therefore condemned by these Fathers as a sin against charity; the
+passage from St. Luke was looked on merely as a counsel in so far as
+it related to the repayment of the principal, but as a precept so
+far as it related to usury; but the notion that usury was in its very
+essence a sin against justice does not appear to have arisen. The
+natural sterility of money is referred to, but not developed; and it
+is suggested, though not categorically stated, that usury may be taken
+from wealthy debtors.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 49.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Contra Usurarios_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Tobia_.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 52.]
+
+The other Fathers of the later period do not throw very much light
+on the question of how usury was regarded by the early Church. St.
+Hilary[1] and Jerome[2] still base their objection on the ground of
+its being an offence against charity; and St. Augustine, though he
+would like to make restitution of usury a duty, treats the matter from
+the same point of view.[3] On the other hand, there are to be found
+patristic utterances in favour of the legality of usury, and episcopal
+approbations of civil codes which permitted it.[4] The civil law
+did not attempt to suppress usury, but simply to keep it within due
+bounds.[5] The result of the patristic teaching therefore was on the
+whole unsatisfactory and inconclusive. 'Whilst patristic opinion,'
+says Dr. Cleary, 'is very pronounced in condemning usury, the
+condemnation is launched against it more because of its oppressiveness
+than for its intrinsic injustice. As Dr. Funk has pointed out, one can
+scarcely cite a single patristic opinion which can be said clearly to
+hold that usury is against justice, whilst there are, on the contrary,
+certain undercurrents of thought in many writers, and certain explicit
+statements in others, which tend to show that the Fathers would not
+have been prepared to deal so harshly with usurers, did usurers not
+treat their debtors so cruelly.... Of keen philosophical analysis
+there is none.... On the whole, we find the teachings of the Fathers
+crude and undeveloped.'[6]
+
+[Footnote 1: In Ps. xiv.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ad Ezech._]
+
+[Footnote 3: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 56.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ibid._ pp. 56-7.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Justinian Code_, iv. 32.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Op. cit._, pp. 57-9. On the patristic teaching on usury,
+see Espinas, _Op. cit._, pp. 82-4; Roscher, _Political Economy_, s.
+90; Antoine, _Cours d'Economie sociale_, pp. 588 _et seq_.]
+
+The practical teaching with regard to the taking of usury made an
+important advance in the eighth and ninth centuries, although the
+philosophical analysis of the subject did not develop any more
+fully. A capitulary canon made in 789 decreed 'that each and all are
+forbidden to give anything on usury'; and a capitulary of 813 states
+that 'not only should the Christian clergy not demand usury, laymen
+should not.' In 825 it was decreed that the counts were to assist the
+bishops in their suppression of usury; and in 850 the Synod of Ticinum
+bound usurers to restitution.[1] The underlying principles of these
+enactments is as obscure as their meaning is plain and definite. There
+is not a single trace of the keen analysis with which Aquinas was
+later to illuminate and adorn the subject.
+
+[Footnote 1: These are but a few of the enactments of the period
+directed against usury (Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 61; Favre, _Le prêt à
+intérêt dans l'ancienne France_).]
+
+
+§ 4. _The Mediæval Prohibition of Usury_.
+
+The tenth and eleventh centuries saw no advance in the teaching on
+usury. The twelfth century, however, ushered in a new era. 'Before
+that century controversy had been mostly confined to theologians, and
+treated theologically, with reference to God and the Bible, and only
+rarely with regard to economic considerations. After the twelfth
+century the discussion was conducted on a gradually broadening
+economic basis--appeals to the Fathers, canonists, philosophers, the
+_jus divinum_, the _jus naturale_, the _jus humanum_, became the order
+of the day.'[1] Before we proceed to discuss the new philosophical or
+scholastic treatment of usury which was inaugurated for all practical
+purposes by Aquinas, we must briefly refer to the ecclesiastical
+legislation on the subject.
+
+[Footnote 1: Böhm-Bawerk, _Capital and Interest_, p. 19.]
+
+In 1139 the second Lateran Council issued a very strong declaration
+against usurers. 'We condemn that disgraceful and detestable rapacity,
+condemned alike by human and divine law, by the Old and the New
+Testaments, that insatiable rapacity of usurers, whom we hereby
+cut off from all ecclesiastical consolation; and we order that no
+archbishop, bishop, abbot, or cleric shall receive back usurers except
+with the very greatest caution, but that, on the contrary, usurers
+are to be regarded as infamous, and shall, if they do not repent, be
+deprived of Christian burial.'[1] It might be argued that this decree
+was aimed against immoderate or habitual usury, and not against usury
+in general, but all doubt as regards the attitude of the Church was
+set at rest by a decree of the Lateran Council of 1179. This decree
+runs: 'Since almost in every place the crime of usury has become
+so prevalent that many people give up all other business and become
+usurers, as if it were lawful, regarding not its prohibition in both
+Testaments, we ordain that manifest usurers shall not be admitted to
+communion, nor, if they die in their sins, be admitted to Christian
+burial, and that no priest shall accept their alms.'[2] Meanwhile,
+Alexander III., having given much attention to the subject of usury,
+had come to the conclusion that it was a sin against justice. This
+recognition of the essential injustice of usury marked a turning-point
+in the history of the treatment of the subject; and Alexander III.
+seems entitled to be designated the 'pioneer of its scientific
+study.'[3] Innocent III. followed Alexander in the opinion that usury
+was unjust in itself, and from his time forward there was but little
+further disagreement upon the matter amongst the theologians.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 64.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._]
+
+[Footnote 3: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 65.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, p. 68.]
+
+In 1274 Gregory X., in the Council of Lyons, ordained that no
+community, corporation, or individual should permit foreign usurers to
+hire houses, but that they should expel them from their territory;
+and the disobedient, if prelates, were to have their lands put under
+interdict, and, if laymen, to be visited by their ordinary with
+ecclesiastical censures.[1] By a further canon he ordained that the
+wills of usurers who did not make restitution should be invalid.[2]
+This brought usury definitely within the jurisdiction of the
+ecclesiastical courts.[3] In 1311 the Council of Vienne declared all
+secular legislation in favour of usury null and void, and branded as
+heresy the belief that usury was not sinful.[4] The precise extent and
+interpretation of this decree have given rise to a considerable amount
+of discussion,[5] which need not detain us here, because by that time
+the whole question of usury had come under the treatment of the great
+scholastic writers, whose teaching is more particularly the subject
+matter of the present essay.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Liber Sextus_, v. 5, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, c. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. i. p. 150.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Clementinarum_, v. 5, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Cleary, _op. cit._, pp. 74-8.]
+
+Even as late as the first half of the thirteenth century there was
+no serious discussion of usury by the theologians. William of Paris,
+Alexander of Hales, and Albertus Magnus simply pronounced it sinful
+on account of the texts in the Old and New Testaments, which we have
+quoted above.[1] It was Aquinas who really put the teaching on usury
+upon the new foundation, which was destined to support it for so
+many hundred years, and which even at the present day appeals to many
+sympathetic and impartial inquirers. Mr. Lecky apologises for the
+obscurity of his account of the argument of Aquinas, but adds that the
+confusion is chiefly the fault of the latter;[2] but the fact that Mr.
+Lecky failed to grasp the meaning of the argument should not lead one
+to conclude that the argument itself was either confused or illogical.
+The fact that it for centuries remained the basis of the Catholic
+teaching on the subject is a sufficient proof that its inherent
+absurdity did not appear apparent to many students at least as gifted
+as Mr. Lecky. We shall quote the article of Aquinas at some length,
+because it was universally accepted by all the theologians of the
+fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with whose opinions we are
+concerned in this essay. To quote later writings is simply to repeat
+in different words the conclusions at which Aquinas arrived.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Jourdain, _op. cit._, p. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Rise and Influence, of Rationalism in Europe_, vol. ii.
+p. 261.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. i. p. 17.]
+
+In answer to the question 'whether it is a sin to take usury for money
+lent,' Aquinas replies: 'To take usury for money lent is unjust
+in itself, because this is to sell what does not exist, and this
+evidently leads to inequality, which is contrary to justice.
+
+'In order to make this evident, we must observe that there are certain
+things the use of which consists in their consumption; thus we consume
+wine when we use it for drink, and we consume wheat when we use it for
+food. Wherefore in such-like things the use of the thing must not be
+reckoned apart from the thing itself, and whoever is granted the use
+of the thing is granted the thing itself; and for this reason to lend
+things of this kind is to transfer the ownership. Accordingly, if a
+man wanted to sell wine separately from the use of the wine, he would
+be selling the same thing twice, or he would be selling what does not
+exist, wherefore he would evidently commit a sin of injustice. In like
+manner he commits an injustice who lends wine or wheat, and asks for
+double payment, viz. one, the return of the thing in equal measure,
+the other, the price of the use, which is called usury.
+
+'On the other hand, there are other things the use of which does not
+consist in their consumption; thus to use a house is to dwell in it,
+not to destroy it. Wherefore in such things both may be granted; for
+instance, one man may hand over to another the ownership of his house,
+while reserving to himself the use of it for a time, or, _vice versa_,
+he may grant the use of a house while retaining the ownership. For
+this reason a man may lawfully make a charge for the use of his house,
+and, besides this, revendicate the house from the person to whom he
+has granted its use, as happens in renting and letting a house.
+
+'But money, according to the philosopher,[1] was invented chiefly for
+the purpose of exchange; and consequently the proper and principal
+use of money is its consumption or alienation, whereby it is sunk in
+exchange. Hence it is by its very nature unlawful to take payment for
+the use of money lent, which payment is known as usury; and, just as
+a man is bound to restore other ill-gotten goods, so he is bound to
+restore the money which he has taken in usury.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Eth._ v. _Pol_. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: II. ii. 78, 1.]
+
+The essential thing to notice in this explanation is that the contract
+of _mutuum_ is shown to be a sale. The distinction between things
+which are consumed in use (_res fungibiles_), and which are not
+consumed in use (_res non fungibiles_) was familiar to the civil
+lawyers; but what they had never perceived was precisely what Aquinas
+perceived, namely, that the loan of a fungible thing was in fact not
+a loan at all, but a sale, for the simple reason that the ownership
+in the thing passed. Once the transaction had been shown to be a sale,
+the principle of justice to be applied to it became obvious. As we
+have seen above, in treating of sales, the essential basis of justice
+in exchange was the observance of _aequalitas_ between buyer and
+seller--in other words, the fixing of a just price. The contract of
+_mutuum_, however, was nothing else than a sale of fungibles,
+and therefore the just price in such a contract was the return of
+fungibles of the same value as those lent. If the particular fungible
+sold happened to be money, the estimation of the just price was a
+simple matter--it was the return of an amount of money of equal value.
+As money happened to be the universal measure of value, this simply
+meant the return of the same amount of money. Those who maintained
+that something additional might be claimed for the use of the money
+lost sight of the fact that the money was incapable of being used
+apart from its being consumed.[1] To ask for payment for the sale of
+a thing which not only did not exist, but which was quite incapable
+of existence, was clearly to ask for something for nothing--which
+obviously offended against the first principles of commutative
+justice. 'He that is not bound to lend,' says Aquinas in another part
+of the same article, 'may accept repayment for what he has done, but
+he must not exact more. Now he is repaid according to equality of
+justice if he is repaid as much as he lent, wherefore, if he exacts
+more for the usufruct of a thing which has no other use but the
+consumption of its substance, he exacts a price of something
+non-existent, and so his exaction is unjust.'[2] And in the next
+article the principle that _mutuum_ is a sale appears equally clearly:
+'Money cannot be sold for a greater sum than the amount lent, which
+has to be paid back.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Aquinas did not lose sight of the fact that money might,
+in certain cases, be used apart from being consumed--for instance,
+when it was not used as a means of exchange, but as an ornament.
+He gives the example of money being sewn up and sealed in a bag to
+prevent its being spent, and in this condition lent for any purpose.
+In this case, of course, the transaction would not be a _mutuum_, but
+a _locatio et conductio_, and therefore a price could be charged for
+the use of the money (_Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo_, Q. xiii. art.
+iv. ad. 15, quoted in Cronin's _Ethics_, vol. ii. p. 332).]
+
+[Footnote 2: II. ii. 78, 1, ad. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 3: II. ii. 78, 2, ad. 4. Biel distinguishes three kinds of
+exchange: of goods for goods, or barter; of goods for money, or sale;
+and of money for money; and adds, 'In his contractibus ... generaliter
+justitia in hoc consistit quod fiant sine fraude, et servetur
+aequalitas substantiae, qualitatis, quantitatis in commutatis (_Op.
+cit._, IV. xv. 1). Buridan says that usury is contrary to natural law
+'ex conditione justitiae quae in aequalitate damni et lucri consistit;
+quoniam injustum est pro re semel commutata pluries pretium recipere'
+(In _Lib. Pol._, iv. 6).]
+
+The difficulty which moderns find in understanding this teaching,
+is that it is said to be based on the sterility of money. A moment's
+thought, however, will convince us that money is in fact sterile until
+labour has been applied to it. In this sense money differs in its
+essence from a cow or a tree. A cow will produce calves, or a tree
+will produce fruit without the application of any exertion by its
+owner; but, whatever profit is derived from money, is derived from the
+use to which it is put by the person who owns it. This is all that
+the scholastics meant by the sterility of money. They never thought
+of denying that money, when properly used, was capable of bringing its
+employer a profit; but they emphatically asserted that the profit was
+due to the labour, and not to the money.
+
+Antoninus of Florence clearly realised this: 'Money is not profitable
+of itself alone, nor can it multiply itself, but it may become
+profitable through its employment by merchants';[1] and Bernardine of
+Sienna says: 'Money has not simply the character of money, but it
+has beyond this a productive character, which we commonly call
+capital.'[2] 'What is money,' says Brants, 'if it is not a means of
+exchange, of which the employment and preservation will give a profit,
+if he who possesses it is prudent, active, and intelligent? If this
+money is well employed, it will become a capital, and one may derive
+a profit from it; but this profit arises from the activity of him who
+uses it, and consequently this profit belongs to him--it is the fruit,
+the remuneration of his labour.... Did they (the scholastics) say
+that it was impossible to draw a profit from a sum of money? No; they
+admitted fully that one might _de pecunia lucrari_; but this _lucrum_
+does not come from the _pecunia_, but from the application of labour
+to the sum.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Quoted in Brants, _op. cit._, p. 134.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._]
+
+[Footnote 3: Brants, _op. cit._, pp. 133-5; Nider, _De Cont. Merc._
+iii. 15.]
+
+Therefore, if the borrower did not derive any profit from the loan,
+the sum lent had in fact been sterile, and obviously the just price of
+the loan was the return of the amount lent; if, on the contrary, the
+borrower had made a profit from it, it was the reward of his labour,
+and not the fruit of the loan itself. To repay more than the sum lent
+would therefore be to make a payment to one person for the labour of
+another.[1] The exaction of usury was therefore the exploitation of
+another man's exertion.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Gerson, _De Cont._, iv. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Neumann, when he says that 'it was sinful to recompense
+the use of capital belonging to another' (_Geschichte des Wuchers in
+Deutschland_, p. 25), seems to miss the whole point of the discussion.
+The teaching of the canonists on rents and partnership shows clearly
+that the owner of capital might draw a profit from another's labour,
+and the central point of the usury teaching was that money which has
+been lent, and employed so as to produce a profit by the borrower,
+belongs not 'to another,' but to the very man who employed it, namely,
+the borrower.]
+
+It is interesting to notice how closely the rules applying in the case
+of sales were applied to usury. The raising of the price of a loan
+on account of some special benefit derived from it by the borrower is
+precisely analogous to raising the sale price of an object because it
+is of some special individual utility to the buyer. On the other
+hand, as we shall see further down, any special damage suffered by the
+lender was a sufficient reason for exacting something over and above
+the amount lent; this was precisely the rule that applied in the case
+of sales, when the seller suffered any special damage from parting
+with the object sold. Thus the analogy between sales and loans was
+complete at every point. In both, equality of sacrifice was the test
+of justice.
+
+Nor could it be suggested that the delay in the repayment of the loan
+was a reason for increasing the amount to be repaid, because this
+really amounted to a sale of time, which, of its nature, could not be
+owned.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Rambaud, _op. cit._, p. 63; Aquinas(?), _De Usuris_, i.
+4.]
+
+The scholastic teaching, then, on the subject was quite plain and
+unambiguous. Usury, or the payment of a price for the use of a sum
+lent in addition to the repayment of the sum itself, was in all
+cases prohibited. The fact that the payment demanded was moderate was
+irrelevant; there could be no question of the reasonableness of the
+amount of an essentially unjust payment.[1] Nor was the payment of
+usury rendered just because the loan was for a productive purpose--in
+other words, a commercial loan. Certain writers have maintained that
+in this case usury was tolerated;[2] but they can easily be refuted.
+As we have seen above, _mutuum_ was essentially a sale, and,
+therefore, no additional price could be charged because of some
+special individual advantage enjoyed by the buyer (or borrower).
+It was quite impossible to distinguish, according to the scholastic
+teaching, between taking an additional payment because the lender made
+a profit by using the loan wisely, and taking it because the borrower
+was in great distress, and therefore derived a greater advantage from
+the loan than a person in easier circumstances. The erroneous notion
+that loans for productive purposes were entitled to any special
+treatment was finally dispelled in 1745 by an encyclical of Benedict
+XIV.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Jourdain, _op. cit._, p. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _E.g._ Périn, _Premiers Principes d'Économie politique_,
+p. 305; Claudio Jannet, _Capital Spéculation et Finance_, p. 83; De
+Metz-Noblat, _Lois économiques_, p. 293.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Rambaud, _op. cit._, p. 69.]
+
+
+§ 5. _Extrinsic Titles_.
+
+Usury, therefore, was prohibited in all cases. Many people at the
+present day think that the prohibition of usury was the same thing
+as the prohibition of interest. There could not be a greater mistake.
+While usury was in all circumstances condemned, interest was in every
+case allowed. The justification of interest rested on precisely the
+same ground as the prohibition of usury, namely, the observance of the
+equality of commutative justice. It was unjust that a greater price
+should be paid for the loan of a sum of money than the amount lent;
+but it was no less unjust that the lender should find himself in a
+worse position because of his having made the loan. In other words,
+the consideration for the loan could not be increased because of any
+special benefit which it conferred on the borrower, but it could
+be increased on account of any special damage suffered by the
+lender--precisely the same rule as we have seen applied in the case
+of sales. The borrower must, in addition to the repayment of the loan,
+indemnify the lender for any damage he had suffered. The measure of
+the damage was the difference between the lender's condition before
+the loan was made and after it had been repaid--in other words, he
+was entitled to compensation for the difference in his condition
+occasioned by the transaction--_id quod interest_.
+
+Before we discuss interest properly so called, we must say a word
+about another analogous but not identical title of compensation,
+namely, the _poena conventionalis_. It was a very general practice,
+about the legitimacy of which the scholastics do not seem to have had
+any doubt, to attach to the original contract of loan an agreement
+that a penalty should be paid in case of default in the repayment
+of the loan at the stipulated time.[1] The justice of the _poena
+conventionalis_ was recognised by Alexander of Hales,[2] and by Duns
+Scotus, who gives a typical form of the stipulation as follows: 'I
+have need of my money for commerce, but shall lend it to you till a
+certain day on the condition that, if you do not repay it on that day,
+you shall pay me afterwards a certain sum in addition, since I shall
+suffer much injury through your delay.'[3] The _poena conventionalis_
+must not be confused with either of the titles _damnum emergens_ or
+_lucrum cessans_, which we are about to discuss; it was distinguished
+from the former by being based upon a presumed injury, whereas the
+injury in _damnum emergens_ must be proved; and for the latter because
+the damage must be presumed to have occurred after the expiration of
+the loan period, whereas in _lucrum cessans_ the damage was presumed
+to have occurred during the currency of the loan period. The important
+thing to remember is that these titles were really distinct.[4] The
+essentials of a _poena conventionalis_ were, stipulation from the
+first day of the loan, presumption of damage, and attachment to a
+loan which was itself gratuitous.[5] The _Summa Astesana_ clearly
+maintained the distinction between the two titles of compensation,[6]
+as also did the _Summa Angelica_.[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. i. p. 399.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Biel, _op. cit._, iv. 15, 11.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 93.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, p. 95.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 94.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. i. p. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 7: ccxl.]
+
+The first thing to be noted on passing from the _poena conventionalis_
+to interest proper is that the latter ground of compensation was
+generally divided into two kinds, _damnum emergens_ and _lucrum
+cessans_. The former included all cases where the lender had incurred
+an actual loss by reason of his having made the loan; whereas the
+latter included all cases where the lender, by parting with his money,
+had lost the opportunity of making a profit. This distinction was made
+at least as early as the middle of the thirteenth century, and was
+always adopted by later writers.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 399.]
+
+The title _damnum emergens_ never presented any serious difficulty.
+It was recognised by Albertus Magnus,[1] and laid down so clearly by
+Aquinas that it was not afterwards questioned: 'A lender may without
+sin enter an agreement with the borrower for compensation for the loss
+he incurs of something he ought to have, for this is not to sell
+the use of money, but to avoid a loss. It may also happen that the
+borrower avoids a greater loss than the lender incurs, wherefore the
+borrower may repay the lender with what he has gained.'[2] The usual
+example given to illustrate how _damnum emergens_ might arise, was
+the case of the lender being obliged, on account of the failure of the
+borrower, to borrow money himself at usury.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Roscher, _Geschichte_, p. 27.]
+
+[Footnote 2: II. ii. 78, 2, ad. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. i. p. 400.]
+
+Closely allied to the title of _damnum emergens_ was that of _lucrum
+cessans_. According to some writers, the latter was the only true
+interest. Dr. Cleary quotes some thirteenth-century documents in which
+a clear distinction is made between _damnum_ and _interesse_;[1] and
+it seems to have been the common custom in Germany at a later date
+to distinguish between _interesse_ and _schaden_.[2] Although the
+division between these two titles was very indefinite, they did not
+meet recognition with equal readiness; the title _damnum emergens_
+was universally admitted by all authorities; while that of _lucrum
+cessans_ was but gradually admitted, and hedged round with many
+limitations.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 95.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 401.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 98; Endemann, _Studien_, vol. ii.
+p. 279; Bartolus and Baldus said that _damnum emergens_ and _lucrum
+cessans_ were divided by a very narrow line, and that it was often
+difficult to distinguish between them. They suggested that the
+terms _interesse proximum_ and _interesse remotum_ would be more
+satisfactory, but they were not followed by other writers (Endemann,
+_Studien_, vol. ii, pp. 269-70).]
+
+The first clear recognition of the title _lucrum cessans_ occurs in
+a letter from Alexander III., written in 1176, and addressed to the
+Archbishop of Genoa: 'You tell us that it often happens in your city
+that people buy pepper and cinnamon and other wares, at the time worth
+not more than five pounds, promising those from whom they received
+them six pounds at an appointed time. Though contracts of this
+kind and under such a form cannot strictly be called usurious, yet,
+nevertheless, the vendors incur guilt, unless they are really doubtful
+whether the wares might be worth more or less at the time of payment.
+Your citizens will do well for their own salvation to cease from such
+contracts.'[1] As Dr. Cleary points out, the trader is held by this
+decision to be entitled to a recompense on account of a probable loss
+of profit, and the decision consequently amounts to a recognition of
+the title _lucrum cessans_.[2] The title is also recognised by Scotus
+and Hostiensis.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Decr. Greg._ v. 5, 6.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, p. 67.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, p. 99.]
+
+The attitude of Aquinas to the admission of _lucrum cessans_ is
+obscure. In the article on usury he expressly states that 'the lender
+cannot enter an agreement for compensation through the fact that he
+makes no profit out of his money, because he must not sell that which
+he has not yet, and may be prevented in many ways from having.'[1] Two
+comments must be made on this passage; first, that it only refers to
+making a stipulation in advance for compensation for profit lost, and
+does not condemn the actual payment of compensation;[2] second, that
+the point is made that the probability of gaining a profit on money is
+so problematical as to make it unsaleable. As Ashley points out, the
+latter consideration was peculiarly important at the time when the
+_Summa_ was composed; and, when in the course of the following
+two centuries the opportunities for reasonably safe and profitable
+business investments increased, the great theologians conceived that
+they were following the real thought of Aquinas by giving to this
+explanation a pure _contemporanea expositio_. The argument in favour
+of this construction is strengthened by a reference to the article of
+the _Summa_ dealing with restitution,[3] where it is pointed out that
+a man may suffer in two ways--first, by being deprived of what he
+actually has, and, second, by being prevented from obtaining what he
+was on his way to obtain. In the former case an equivalent must always
+be restored, but in the latter it is not necessary to make good an
+equivalent, 'because to have a thing virtually is less than to have it
+actually, and to be on the way to obtain a thing is to have it
+merely virtually or potentially, and so, were he to be indemnified by
+receiving the thing actually, he would be paid, not the exact value
+taken from him, but more, and this is not necessary for salvation.
+However, he is bound to make some compensation according to the
+condition of persons and things.' Later in the same article we are
+told that 'he that has money has the profit not actually, but only
+virtually; and it may be hindered in many ways.'[4] It seems
+quite clear from these passages that Aquinas admitted the right to
+compensation for a profit which the lender was hindered from making on
+account of the loan; but that, in the circumstances of the time, the
+probability of making such a profit was so remote that it could not
+be made the basis of pecuniary compensation. The probability of there
+being a _lucrum cessans_ was thought small, but the justice of its
+reward, if it did in fact exist, was admitted.
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 78, 2, ad. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Rambaud, _op. cit._, p. 67.]
+
+[Footnote 3: II. ii. 62, 4.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, ad. 1 and 2.]
+
+This interpretation steadily gained ground amongst succeeding writers;
+so that, in spite of some lingering opposition, the justice of the
+title _lucrum cessans_ was practically universally admitted by the
+theologians of the fifteenth century.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, p. 99. _Lucrum cessans_ was defined
+by Navarrus as 'amissio facta a creditore per pecuniam sibi non
+redditam' (Endemann, _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 279).]
+
+Of course the burden of proving that an opportunity for profitable
+investment had been really lost was on the lender, but this onus
+was sufficiently discharged if the probability of such a loss were
+established. In the fifteenth century, with the expansion of commerce,
+it came to be generally recognised that such a probability could be
+presumed in the case of the merchant or trader.[1] The final condition
+of this development of the teaching on _lucrum cessans_ is thus stated
+by Ashley:[2] 'Any merchant, or indeed any person in a trading
+centre where there were opportunities of business investment (outside
+money-lending itself) could, with a perfectly clear conscience,
+and without any fear of molestation, contract to receive periodical
+interest from the person to whom he lent money; _provided only_ that
+he first lent it to him gratuitously, for a period that might be made
+very short, so that technically the payment would not be reward for
+the use, but compensation for the non-return of the money.' At a later
+period than that of which we are treating in the present essay the
+short gratuitous period could be dispensed with, but until the end of
+the fifteenth century it seems to have been considered essential.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 402.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._]
+
+[Footnote 3: Ashley, _op. cit._ vol. i. pt. ii. p. 402; Endemann,
+_Studien_, vol. ii. pp. 253-4; Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 100.]
+
+Of course the amount paid in respect of _lucrum cessans_ must be
+reasonable in regard to the loss of opportunity actually experienced;
+'Lenders,' says Buridan, 'must not take by way of _lucrum
+cessans_ more than they would have actually made by commerce or in
+exchange';[1] and Ambrosius de Vignate explains that compensation
+must only be made for 'the time and just _interesse_ of the lost gain,
+which must be certain and proximate.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Eth._, iv. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _De Usuris_, c. 10.]
+
+There was another title on account of which more than the amount of
+the loan could be recovered, namely, _periculum sortis_. In one sense
+it was a contradiction in terms to speak of the element of risk in
+connection with usury, because from its very definition usury was gain
+without risk as opposed to profit from a trading partnership, which,
+as we shall see presently, consisted of gain coupled with the risk of
+loss. It could not be lost sight of, however, that in fact there might
+be a risk of the loan not being repaid through the insolvency of the
+borrower, or some other cause, and the question arose whether the
+lender could justly claim any compensation for the undertaking of this
+risk. 'Regarded as an extrinsic title, risk of losing the principal
+is connected with the contract of _mutuum_, and entitles the lender to
+some compensation for running the risk of losing his capital in order
+to oblige a possibly insolvent debtor. The greater the danger of
+insolvency, the greater naturally would be the charge. The contract
+was indifferent to the object of the loan; it mattered not whether it
+was intended for commerce or consumption; it was no less indifferent
+to profit on the part of the borrower; it took account simply of the
+latter's ability to pay, and made its charge accordingly. It resembled
+consequently the contracts made by insurance companies, wherein there
+is a readiness to risk the capital sum for a certain rate of payment;
+the only difference was that the probabilities charged for were not
+so much the likelihood of having to pay, as the likelihood of not
+receiving back.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 115.]
+
+We have referred above, when dealing with the legitimacy of commercial
+profits, to the difficulty which was felt in admitting the justice
+of compensation for risk, on account of the Gregorian Decretal on
+the subject. The same decree gave rise to the same difficulty in
+connection with the justification of a recompense for _periculum
+sortis_. There was a serious dispute about the actual wording of the
+decree, and even those who agreed as to its wording differed as to its
+interpretation.[1] The justice of the title was, however, admitted by
+Scotus, who said that it was lawful to stipulate for recompense when
+both the principal and surplus were in danger of being lost[2]; by
+Carletus;[3] and by Nider.[4] The question, however, was still hotly
+disputed at the end of the fifteenth century, and was finally settled
+in favour of the admission of the title as late as 1645.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Ibid._]
+
+[Footnote 2: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 117.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Summa Angelica Usura_, i. 38.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _De Cont. Merc._, iii. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 117.]
+
+
+§ 6. _Other Cases in which more than the Loan could be repaid_.
+
+We have now discussed the extrinsic titles--_poena conventionalis,
+damnum emergens, lucrum cessans_, and _periculum sortis_. There were
+other grounds also, which cannot be reduced to the classification of
+extrinsic titles, on which more than the amount of the loan might be
+justly returned to the lender. In the first place, the lender might
+justly receive anything that the borrower chose to pay over and above
+the loan, voluntarily as a token of gratitude. 'Repayment for a favour
+may be done in two ways,' says Aquinas. 'In one way, as a debt of
+justice; and to such a debt a man may be bound by a fixed contract;
+and its amount is measured according to the favour received. Wherefore
+the borrower of money, or any such thing the use of which is its
+consumption, is not bound to repay more than he received in loan; and
+consequently it is against justice if he is obliged to pay back more.
+In another way a man's obligation to repayment for favour received
+is based on a debt of friendship, and the nature of this debt depends
+more on the feeling with which the favour was conferred than on the
+question of the favour itself. This debt does not carry with it a
+civil obligation, involving a kind of necessity that would exclude the
+spontaneous nature of such a repayment.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 78, 2, ad. 2.]
+
+It was also clearly understood that it was not wrongful to borrow at
+usury under certain conditions. In such cases the lender might commit
+usury in receiving, but the borrower would not commit usury in paying
+an amount greater than the sum lent. It was necessary, however, in
+order that borrowing at usury might be justified, that the borrower
+should be animated by some good motive, such as the relief of his own
+or another's need. The whole question was settled once and for all by
+Aquinas: 'It is by no means lawful to induce a man to sin, yet it is
+lawful to make use of another's sin for a good end, since even God
+uses all sin for some good, since He draws some good from every
+evil.... Accordingly it is by no means lawful to induce a man to lend
+under a condition of usury; yet it is lawful to borrow for usury from
+a man who is ready to do so, and is a usurer by profession, provided
+that the borrower have a good end in view, such as the relief of his
+own or another's need.... He who borrows for usury does not consent
+to the usurer's sin, but makes use of it. Nor is it the usurer's
+acceptance of usury that pleases him, but his lending, which is
+good.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 78, 4.]
+
+We should mention here the _montes pietatis_, which occupied a
+prominent place among the credit-giving agencies of the later Middle
+Ages, although it is difficult to say whether their methods were
+examples of or exceptions to the doctrines forbidding usury. These
+institutions were formed on the model of the _montes profani_, the
+system of public debt resorted to by many Italian States. Starting in
+the middle of the twelfth century,[1] the Italian States had
+recourse to forced loans in order to raise reserves for extraordinary
+necessities, and, in order to prevent the growth of disaffection among
+the citizens, an annual percentage on such loans was paid. A fund
+raised by such means was generally called a _mons_ or heap. The
+propriety of the payment of this percentage was warmly contested
+during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries--the Dominicans and
+Franciscans defending it, and the Augustinians attacking it. But its
+justification was not difficult. In the first place, the loans were
+generally, if not universally, forced, and therefore the payment of
+interest on them was purely voluntary. As we have seen, Aquinas was
+quite clear as to the lawfulness of such a voluntary payment. In
+the second place, the lenders were almost invariably members of
+the trading community, who were the very people in whose favour a
+recompense for _lucrum cessans_ would be allowed.[2] Laurentius de
+Rodulphis argued in favour of the justice of these State loans, and
+contended that the bondholders were entitled to sell their rights, but
+advised good Christians to abstain from the practice of a right about
+the justice of which theologians were in such disagreement[3]; and
+Antoninus of Florence, who was in general so strict on the subject of
+usury, took the same view.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. i. p. 433.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. i. p. 448.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Usuris_.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Ashley, _op. cit._, p. 449.]
+
+It was probably the example of these State loans, or _montes profani_,
+that suggested to the Franciscans the possibility of creating an
+organisation to provide credit facilities for poor borrowers, which
+was in many ways analogous to the modern co-operative credit banks.
+Prior to the middle of the fifteenth century, when this experiment
+was initiated, there had been various attempts by the State to provide
+credit facilities for the poor, but these need not detain us here, as
+they did not come to anything.[1] The first of the _montes pietatis_
+was founded at Orvieto by the Franciscans in 1462, and after that
+year they spread rapidly.[2] The _montes_, although their aim was
+exclusively philanthropic, found themselves obliged to make a small
+charge to defray their working expenses, and, although one would think
+that this could be amply justified by the title of _damnum emergens_,
+it provoked a violent attack by the Dominicans. The principal
+antagonist of the _montes pietatis_ was Thomas da Vio, who wrote a
+special treatise on the subject, in which he made the point that the
+_montes_ charged interest from the very beginning of the loan, which
+was a contradiction of all the previous teaching on interest.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 108; Brants, _op. cit._, p. 159.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Perugia, 1467; Viterbo, 1472; Sevona, 1472; Assisi,
+1485; Mantua, 1486; Cesana and Parma, 1488; Interamna and Lucca,
+1489; Verona, 1490; Padua, 1491, etc. (Endemann, _Studien_, vol. i. p.
+463).]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Monte Pietatis_.]
+
+The general feeling of the Church, however, was in favour of the
+_montes_. It was felt that, if the poor must borrow, it was better
+that they should borrow at a low rate of interest from philanthropic
+institutions than at an extortionate rate from usurers; several
+_montes_ were established under the direct protection of the Popes;[1]
+and finally, in 1515, the Lateran Council gave an authoritative
+judgment in favour of the _montes_. This decree contains an excellent
+definition of usury as it had come to be accepted at that date: 'Usury
+is when gain is sought to be acquired from the use of a thing, not
+fruitful in itself, without labour, expense, or risk on the part of
+the lender.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 111.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 451.]
+
+It was generally admitted by the theologians that the taking of usury
+might be permitted by the civil authorities, although it was insisted
+that acting in accordance with this permission did not absolve the
+conscience of the usurer. Albertus Magnus conceded that 'although
+usury is contrary to the perfection of Christian laws, it is at least
+not contrary to civil interests';[1] and Aquinas also justified the
+toleration of usury by the State: 'Human laws leave certain things
+unpunished, on account of the condition of those who are imperfect,
+and who would be deprived of many advantages if all sins were strictly
+forbidden and punishments appointed for them. Wherefore human law
+has permitted usury, not that it looks upon usury as harmonising
+with justice, but lest the advantage of many should be hindered.'[2]
+Although this opinion was controverted by Ægidius Romanus,[3] it was
+generally accepted by later writers. Thus Gerson says that 'the civil
+law, when it tolerates usury in some cases, must not be said to be
+always contrary to the law of God or the Church. The civil legislator,
+acting in the manner of a wise doctor, tolerates lesser evils that
+greater ones may be avoided. It is obviously less of an evil that
+slight usury should be permitted for the relief of want, than that men
+should be driven by their want to rob or steal, or to sell their goods
+at an unfairly low price.'[4] Buridan explains that the attitude of
+the State towards usury must never be more than one of toleration;
+it must not actively approve of usury, but it may tacitly refuse to
+punish it.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Rambaud, _op. cit._, p. 65; Espinas, _op. cit._, p. 103.]
+
+[Footnote 2: II. ii. 78, 1, ad. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Reg. Prin._, ii. 3, 11.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _De Cont._, ii. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Quaest. super. Lib. Eth._, iv. 6.]
+
+
+§ 7. _The Justice of Unearned Income_.
+
+Many modern socialists--'Christian' and otherwise--have asserted that
+the teaching of the Church on usury was a pronouncement in favour of
+the unproductivity of capital.[1] Thus Rudolf Meyer, one of the
+most distinguished of 'Christian socialists,' has argued that if one
+recognises the productivity of land or stock, one must also recognise
+the productivity of money, and that therefore the Church, in denying
+the productivity of the latter, would be logically driven to deny
+the productivity of the former.[2] Anton Menger expresses the same
+opinion: 'There is not the least reason for attacking from the moral
+and religious standpoints loans at interest and usury more than any
+other form of unearned income. If one questions the legitimacy of
+loans at interest, one must equally condemn as inadmissible the other
+forms of profit from capital and lands, and particularly the feudal
+institutions of the Middle Ages.... It would have been but a logical
+consequence for the Church to have condemned all forms of unearned
+revenue.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 427.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Der Kapitalismus fin de siècle_, p. 29.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Das Recht auf den Arbeiterstrag_. See the Abbé Hohoff in
+_Démocratie Chrétienne_, Sept. 1898, p. 284.]
+
+No such conclusion, however, can be properly drawn from the mediæval
+teaching. The whole discussion on usury turned on the distinction
+which was drawn between things of which the use could be transferred
+without the ownership, and things of which the use could not be so
+transferred. In the former category were placed all things which
+could be used, either by way of enjoyment or employment for productive
+purposes, without being destroyed in the process; and in the latter
+all things of which the use or employment involved the destruction.
+
+With regard to income derived from the former, no difficulty was ever
+felt; a farm or a house might be let at a rent without any question,
+the return received being universally regarded as one of the
+legitimate fruits of the ownership of the thing. With regard to the
+latter, however, a difficulty did arise, because it was felt that a
+so-called loan of such goods was, when analysed, in reality a sale,
+and that therefore any increase which the goods produced was in
+reality the property, not of the lender, but of the borrower. That
+money was in all cases sterile was never suggested; on the contrary,
+it was admitted that it might produce a profit if wisely and prudently
+employed in industry or commerce; but it was felt that such an
+increase, when it took place, was the rightful property of the owner
+of the money. But when money was lent, the owner of this money was
+the borrower, and therefore, when money which was lent was employed
+in such a way as to produce a profit, that profit belonged to the
+borrower, not the lender. In this way the schoolmen were strictly
+logical; they fully admitted that wealth could produce wealth; but
+they insisted that that additional wealth should accrue to the owner
+of the wealth that produced it.
+
+The fact is, as Böhm-Bawerk has pointed out, that the question of the
+productivity of capital was never discussed by the mediæval schoolmen,
+for the simple reason that it was so obvious. The justice of receiving
+an income from an infungible thing which was temporarily lent by its
+owner, was discussed and supported; but the justice of the owner of
+such a thing receiving an income from the thing so long as it remained
+in his own possession was never discussed, because it was universally
+admitted.[1] It is perfectly correct to say that the problems which
+have perplexed modern writers as to the justice of receiving an
+unearned income from one's property never occurred to the scholastics;
+such problems can only arise when the institution of private property
+comes to be questioned; and private property was the keystone of the
+whole scholastic economic conception. In other words, the justice of a
+reward for capital was admitted because it was unquestioned.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Capital and Interest_, p. 39.]
+
+The question that caused difficulty was whether money could
+be considered a form of capital. At the present day, when the
+opportunities of industrial investment are wider than they ever were
+before, the principal use to which money is put is the financing of
+industrial enterprises; but in the Middle Ages this was not the case,
+precisely because the opportunities of profitable investment were
+so few. This is the reason why the mediæval writers did not find it
+necessary to discuss in detail the rights of the owner of money who
+used it for productive purposes. But of the justice of a profit being
+reaped when money was actually so employed there was no doubt at all.
+As we have seen, the borrower of a sum of money might reap a profit
+from its wise employment; there was no question about the justice of
+taking such a profit; and the only matter in dispute was whether that
+profit should belong to the borrower or the lender of the money. This
+dispute was decided in favour of the borrower on the ground that,
+according to the true nature of the contract of _mutuum_, the money
+was his property. It was, therefore, never doubted that even money
+might produce a profit for its owner. The only difference between
+infungible goods and money was that, in the case of the former, the
+use might be transferred apart from the property, whereas, in the case
+of the latter, it could not be so transferred.
+
+The recognition of the title _lucrum cessans_ as a ground for
+remuneration clearly implies the recognition of the legitimacy of the
+owner of money deriving a profit from its use; and the slowness of the
+scholastics to admit this title was precisely because of the rarity of
+opportunities for so employing money in the earlier Middle Ages. The
+nature of capital was clearly understood; but the possibility of money
+constituting capital arose only with the extension of commerce and
+the growth of profitable investments. Those scholastics who strove to
+abolish or to limit the recognition of _lucrum cessans_ as a ground
+for remuneration did not deny the productivity of capital, but simply
+thought the money had not at that time acquired the characteristics of
+capital.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. pp. 434-9.]
+
+If there were any doubt about the fact that the scholastics recognised
+the legitimacy of unearned income, it would be dispelled by an
+understanding of their teaching on rents and partnership, in the
+former of which they distinctly acknowledged the right to draw an
+unearned income from one's land, and in the latter of which they
+acknowledged the same right in regard to one's money.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: On this discussion see Ashley, _Economic History_, vol.
+i. pt. ii. pp. 427 _et seq._; Rambaud, _Histoire_, pp. 57 _et seq._;
+Funk, _Zins und Wucher_; Arnold, _Zur Geschichte des Eigenthums_, pp.
+92 _et seq._; Böhm-Bawerk, _Capital and Interest_ (Eng. trans.), pp.
+1-39.]
+
+
+§ 8. _Rent Charges_.
+
+There was never any difficulty about admitting the justice of
+receiving a rent from a tenant in occupation of one's lands, because
+land was understood to be essentially a thing of which the use could
+be sold apart from the ownership; and it was also recognised that the
+recipient of such a rent might sell his right to a third party, who
+could then demand the rent from the tenant. When this was admitted it
+was but a small step to admit the right of the owner of land to create
+a rent in favour of another person in consideration for some
+payment. The distinctions between a _census reservativus_, or a rent
+established when the possession of land was actually transferred to a
+tenant, and a _census constitutivus_, or a rent created upon property
+remaining in the possession of the payer, did not become the subject
+of discussion or difficulty until the sixteenth century.[1] The
+legitimacy of rent charges does not seem to have been questioned
+by the theologians; the best proof of this being the absence of
+controversy about them in a period when they were undoubtedly very
+common, especially in Germany.[2] Langenstein, whose opinion on
+the subject was followed by many later writers,[3] thought that the
+receipt of income from rent charges was perfectly justifiable, when
+the object was to secure a provision for old age, or to provide an
+income for persons engaged in the services of Church or State, but
+that it was unjustifiable if it was intended to enable nobles to
+live in luxurious idleness, or plebeians to desert honest toil. It is
+obvious that Langenstein did not regard rent charges as wrongful in
+themselves, but simply as being the possible occasions of wrong.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 409.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 104.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 109.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Roscher, _Geschichte_, p. 20.]
+
+In the fifteenth century definite pronouncements on rent charges
+were made by the Popes. A large part of the revenue of ecclesiastical
+bodies consisted of rent charges, and in 1425 several persons in the
+diocese of Breslau refused to pay the rents they owed to their clergy
+on the ground that they were usurious. The question was referred to
+Pope Martin V., whose bull deciding the matter was generally followed
+by all subsequent authorities. The bull decides in favour of the
+lawfulness of rent charges, provided certain conditions were observed.
+They must be charged on fixed property ('super bonis suis, dominiis,
+oppidis, terris, agris, praediis, domibus et hereditatibus') and
+determined beforehand; they must be moderate, not exceeding seven or
+ten per cent.; and they must be capable of being repurchased at any
+moment in whole or in part, by the repayment of the same sum for which
+they were originally created. On the other hand, the payer of the rent
+must never be forced to repay the purchase money, even if the goods on
+which the rent was charged had perished--in other words, the contract
+creating the rent charge was one of sale, and not of loan. The bull
+recites that such conditions had been observed in contracts of this
+nature from time immemorial.[1] A precisely similar decree was issued
+by Calixtus III. in 1455.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Extrav. Commun._, iii. 5, i.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, c. 2.]
+
+These decisions were universally followed in the fifteenth century.[1]
+It was always insisted that a rent could only be charged upon
+something of which the use could be separated from the ownership,
+as otherwise it would savour of usury.[2] In the sixteenth century
+interesting discussions arose about the possibility of creating a
+personal rent charge, not secured on any specific property, but such
+discussions did not trouble the writers of the period which we are
+treating. The only instance of such a contract being considered is
+found in a bull of Nicholas V. in 1452, permitting such personal rent
+charges in the kingdoms of Aragon and Sicily, but this permission was
+purely local, and, as the bull itself shows, was designed to meet the
+exigencies of a special situation.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 410.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Biel, _op. cit._, Sent. IV. xv. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 124.]
+
+
+
+§ 9. _Partnership_.
+
+The teaching on partnership contains such a complete disproof of
+the contention that the mediæval teaching on usury was based on the
+unproductivity of capital, that certain writers have endeavoured
+to prove that the permission of partnership was but a subterfuge,
+consciously designed to justify evasions of the usury law. Further
+historical knowledge, however, has dispelled this misconception;
+and it is now certain that the contract of partnership was widely
+practised and tolerated long before the Church attempted to insist
+on the observance of its usury laws in everyday commercial life.[1]
+However interesting an investigation into the commercial and
+industrial partnerships of the Middle Ages might be, we must not
+attempt to pursue it here, as we have rigidly limited ourselves to a
+consideration of teaching. We must refer, however, to the _commenda_,
+which was the contract from which the later mediæval partnership
+(_societas_) is generally admitted to have developed, because the
+_commenda_ was extensively practised as early as the tenth century,
+and, as far as we know, never provoked any expression of disapproval
+from the Church. This silence amounts to a justification; and we may
+therefore say that, even before Aquinas devoted his attention to the
+subject, the Church fully approved of an institution which provided
+the owner of money with the means of procuring an unearned income.
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 411; Weber,
+_Handelsgesellschaften_, pp. 111-14.]
+
+The _commenda_ was originally a contract by which merchants who wished
+to engage in foreign trade, but who did not wish to travel themselves,
+entrusted their wares to agents or representatives. The merchant was
+known as the _commendator_ or _socius stans_, and the agent as the
+_commendatarius_ or _tractator_. The most usual arrangement for the
+division of the profits of the adventure was that the _commendatarius_
+should receive one-fourth and the _commendator_ three-fourths. At
+a slightly later date contracts came to be common in which the
+_commendatarius_ contributed a share of capital, in which case he
+would receive one-fourth of the whole profit as _commendatarius_, and
+a proportionate share of the remainder as capitalist. This contract
+came to be generally known as _collegantia_ or _societas_. Contracts
+of this kind, though originally chiefly employed in overseas
+enterprise, afterwards came to be utilised in internal trade and
+manufacturing industry.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. pp. 412-14.]
+
+The legitimacy of the profits of the _commendator_ never seems to have
+caused the slightest difficulty to the canonists. In 1206 Innocent
+III. advised the Archbishop of Genoa that a widow's dowry should be
+entrusted to some merchant so that an income might be obtained by
+means of honest gain.[1] Aquinas expressly distinguishes between
+profit made from entrusting one's money to a merchant to be employed
+by him in trade, and profit arising from a loan, on the ground that
+in the former case the ownership of the money does not pass, and that
+therefore the person who derives the profit also risks the loan. 'He
+who lends money transfers the ownership of the money to the borrower.
+Hence the borrower holds the money at his own risk, and is bound to
+pay it all back: wherefore the lender must not exact more. On the
+other hand, he that entrusts his money to a merchant or craftsman so
+as to form a kind of society does not transfer the ownership of the
+money to them, for it remains his, so that at his risk the merchant
+speculates with it, or the craftsman uses it for his craft, and
+consequently he may lawfully demand, as something belonging to him,
+part of the profits derived from his money.'[2] This dictum of Aquinas
+was the foundation of all the later teaching on partnership, and the
+importance of the element of risk was insisted on in strong terms by
+the later writers. According to Baldus, 'when there is no sharing
+of risk there is no partnership';[3] and Paul de Castro says, 'A
+partnership when the gain is shared, but not the loss, is not to be
+permitted.'[4] 'The legitimacy,' says Brants, 'of the contract of
+_commenda_ always rested upon the same principle; capital could not be
+productive except for him who worked it himself, or who caused it
+to be worked on his own responsibility. This latter condition was
+realised in _commenda_.'[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Greg. Decr._, iv. 19, 7.]
+
+[Footnote 2: II. ii. 78, 2, ad. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 167.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Consilia_, ii. 55; also Ambrosius de Vignate, _De
+Usuris_, i. 62; Biel, _Op. cit._, IV. xv. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Op. cit._, p. 172.]
+
+Although the contract of partnership was fully recognised by the
+scholastics, it was not very scientifically treated, nor were the
+different species of the contract systematically classified. The only
+classification adopted was to divide contracts of partnership into
+two kinds--those where both parties contributed labour to a joint
+enterprise, and those where one party contributed labour and the other
+party money. The former gave no difficulty, because the justice of the
+remuneration of labour was admitted; but, while the latter was no
+less fully recognised, cases of it were subjected to careful scrutiny,
+because it was feared that usurious contracts might be concealed under
+the appearance of a partnership.[1] The question which occupied the
+greatest space in the treatises on the subject was the share in which
+the profits should be divided between the parties. The only rule which
+could be laid down, in the absence of an express contract, was that
+the parties should be remunerated in proportion to the services which
+they contributed--a rule the application of which must have been
+attended with enormous difficulties. Laurentius de Rodulphis insists
+that equality must be observed;[2] and Angelus de Periglis de Perusio,
+the first monographist on the subject, does not throw much more light
+on the question. The rule as stated by this last writer is that in the
+first place the person contributing money must be repaid a sum equal
+to what he put in, and the person contributing labour must be paid
+a sum equal to the value of his labour, and that whatever surplus
+remains must be divided between the two parties equally.[3] The
+question of the shares in which the profits should be distributed was
+not one, however, that frequently arose in practice, because it was
+the almost universal custom for the partners to make this a term of
+their original contract. Within fairly wide limits it was possible
+to arrange for the division of the profits in unequal shares--say
+two-thirds and one-third. The shares of gain and loss must, however,
+be the same; one party could not reap two-thirds of the profit and
+bear only one-third of the loss; but it might be contracted that, when
+the loss was deducted from the gain, one party might have two-thirds
+of the balance, and the other one-third.[4] In no case, of course,
+could the party contributing the money stipulate that his principal
+should in all cases be returned, because that was a _mutuum_. The
+party contributing the labour might validly contract that he should
+be paid for his labour in any case, but, if this was so, the contract
+ceased to be a _societas_ and became a _locatio operarum_, or ordinary
+contract of work for wages. In all cases, common participation in the
+gains and losses of the enterprise was an essential feature of the
+contract of partnership.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Summa Astesana_, iii. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _De Usuris_, i. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Societatibus_, i. 130.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _De Societatibus_, i. 130.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Ibid._]
+
+Before concluding the subject of partnership, we must make reference
+to the _trinus contractus_, which caused much discussion and great
+difficulty. As we have seen, a contract of partnership was good so
+long as the person contributing money did not contract that he should
+receive his original money back in all circumstances. A contract of
+insurance was equally justifiable. There was no doubt that A might
+enter into partnership with B; he could further insure himself with C
+against the loss of his capital, and with D against damage caused
+by fluctuations in the rate of profits. Why, then, should he not
+simultaneously enter into all three contracts with B? If he did so, he
+was still B's partner, but at the same time he was protected against
+the loss of his principal and a fair return upon it--in other words,
+he was a partner, protected against the risks of the enterprise. The
+legitimacy of such a contract--the _trinus contractus_, as it was
+called--was maintained by Carletus in the _Summa Angelica_, which was
+published about 1476, and by Biel.[1] Early in the sixteenth century
+Eck, a young professor at Ingolstadt, brought the question of the
+legitimacy of this contract before the University of Bologna, but no
+formal decision was pronounced, and, had it not been for the reaction
+following the Reformation, the _trinus contractus_ would probably have
+gained general acceptance. As it was, it was condemned by a provincial
+synod at Milan in 1565, and by Sixtus V. in 1585.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, IV. xv. 11. Lecky attributed the invention of
+the _trinus contractus_ to the Jesuits--who were only founded in 1534
+(_History of Rationalism_, vol. ii. p. 267).]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. pp. 439 _et seqq._;
+Cleary, _op. cit._, pp. 126 _et seqq._]
+
+We should also refer to the contract of bottomry, which consisted of a
+loan made to the owner--or in some cases the master--of a ship, on
+the security of the ship, to be repaid with interest upon the safe
+conclusion of a voyage. This contract could not be considered a
+partnership, inasmuch as the property in the money passed to the
+borrower; but it probably escaped condemnation as usurious on the
+ground that the lender shared in the risk of the enterprise. The
+payment of some additional sum over and above the money lent might
+thus be justified on the ground of _periculum sortis_. The contract,
+moreover, was really one of insurance for the shipowner, and contracts
+of insurance were clearly legitimate. In any event the legitimacy of
+loans on bottomry was not questioned before the sixteenth century.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. pp. 421-3; Palgrave,
+_Dictionary of Political Economy_, art. 'Bottomry'; Cunningham,
+_Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, vol i. p. 257.]
+
+
+§ 10. _Concluding Remarks on Usury_.
+
+It is to be hoped that the above exposition of the mediæval doctrine
+on usury will dispel the idea that the doctrine was founded upon the
+injustice of unearned income. Far from the receipt of an unearned
+income from money or other capital being in all cases condemned, it
+was unanimously recognised, provided that the income accrued to the
+owner of the capital, and not to somebody else, and that the rate
+of remuneration was just. The teaching on partnership rested on the
+fundamental assumption that a man might trade with his money, either
+by using it himself, or by allowing other people to use it on his
+behalf. In the latter case, the person making use of the money might
+be either assured of being paid a fixed remuneration for his services,
+in which case the contract was one of _locatio operarum_, or he might
+be willing to let his remuneration depend upon the result of the
+enterprise, in which case the contract was one of _societas_. In
+either case the right of the owner of the money to reap a profit from
+the operation was unquestioned, provided only that he was willing to
+share the risks of loss. But if, instead of making use of his money
+for trading either by his own exertions or by those of his partner
+or agent, he chose to sell his money, he was not permitted to receive
+more for it than its just price--which was, in fact, the repayment of
+the same amount. This was what happened in the case of a _mutuum_. In
+that case the ownership of the money was transferred to the borrower,
+who was perfectly at liberty to trade with it, if he so desired, and
+to reap whatever gain that trade produced. The prohibition of usury,
+far from being proof of the injustice of an income from capital, is
+proof of quite the contrary, because it was designed to insure that
+the income from capital should belong to the owner of that capital and
+to no other person.[1] Although, therefore, no price could be paid for
+a loan, the lender must be prevented from suffering any damage from
+making the loan, and he might make good his loss by virtue of the
+implied collateral contract of indemnity, which we discussed above
+when treating of extrinsic titles. If the lender, through making the
+loan, had been prevented from making a profit in trade, he might be
+indemnified for that loss. All through the discussions on usury we
+find express recognition of the justice of the owner of money deriving
+an income from its employment; all that the teaching of usury was at
+pains to define was who the person was to whom money, which was the
+subject matter of a _mutuum_, belonged. It is quite impossible to
+comprehend how modern writers can see in the usury teaching of the
+scholastics a fatal discouragement to the enterprise of traders and
+capitalists; and it is equally impossible to understand how
+socialists can find in that doctrine any suggestion of support for the
+proposition that all unearned income is immoral and unjust.
+
+[Footnote 1: See Rambaud, _op. cit._, p. 59.]
+
+
+
+SECTION 3.--THE MACHINERY OF EXCHANGE
+
+
+We have already drawn attention to the fact that there was no branch
+of economics about which such profound ignorance ruled in the earlier
+Middle Ages as that of money. As we stated above, even as late as
+the twelfth century, the theologians were quite content to quote the
+ill-founded and erroneous opinions of Isidore of Seville as final
+on the subject. It will be remembered that we also remarked that
+the question of money was the first economic question to receive
+systematic scientific treatment from the writers of the later Middle
+Ages. This remarkable development of opinion on this subject is
+practically the work of one man, Nicholas Oresme, Bishop of Lisieux,
+whose treatise, _De Origine, Natura, Jure et Mutationibus Monetarum_,
+is the earliest example of a pure economic monograph in the modern
+sense. 'The scholastics,' says Roscher, 'extended their inquiries from
+the economic point of view further than one is generally disposed to
+believe; although it is true that they often did so under a singular
+form.... We can, however, single out Oresme as the greatest scholastic
+economist for two reasons: on account of the exactitude and clarity
+of his ideas, and because he succeeded in freeing himself from the
+pseudo-theological systematisation of things in general, and from the
+pseudo-philosophical deduction in details.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Quoted in the Introduction to Wolowski's edition of
+Oresme's _Tractatus_ (Paris, 1864).]
+
+Even in the thirteenth century natural economy had not been
+replaced to any large extent by money economy. The great majority
+of transactions between man and man were carried on without the
+intervention of money payments; and the amount of coin in circulation
+was consequently small.[1] The question of currency was not therefore
+one to engage the serious attention of the writers of the time.
+Aquinas does not deal with money in the _Summa_, except
+incidentally, and his references to the subject in the _De Regimine
+Principum_--which occur in the chapters of that work of which
+the authorship is disputed--simply go to the length of approving
+Aristotle's opinions on money, and advising the prince to exercise
+moderation in the exercise of his power of coining _sive in mutando
+sive in diminuendo pondus_.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 179; Rambaud, _op. cit._, p. 73.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _De Reg. Prin._, ii. 13.]
+
+As is often the case, the discussion of the rights and duties of the
+sovereign in connection with the currency only arose when it became
+necessary for the public to protest against abuses. Philip the Fair of
+France made it part of his policy to increase the revenue by tampering
+with the coinage, a policy which was continued by his successors,
+until it became an intolerable grievance to his subjects. In vain did
+the Pope thunder against Philip;[1] in vain did the greatest poet of
+the age denounce
+
+                    'him that doth work
+  With his adulterate money on the Seine.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Le Blant, _Traité historique des Monnaies de France_, p.
+184.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Dante, _Paradiso_, xix.]
+
+Matters continued to grow steadily worse until the middle of the
+fourteenth century. During the year 1348 there were no less than
+eleven variations in the value of money in France; in 1349 there were
+nine, in 1351 eighteen, in 1353 thirteen, and in 1355 eighteen again.
+In the course of a single year the value of the silver mark sprang
+from four to seventeen livres, and fell back again to four.[1] The
+practice of fixing the price of many necessary commodities must have
+aggravated the natural evil consequences of such fluctuations.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Wolowski's Introduction to Oresme's _Tractatus_, p.
+xxvii.]
+
+[Footnote 2: See Endemann, _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 34.]
+
+This grievance had the good result of fixing the attention of scholars
+on the money question. 'Under the stress of facts and of necessity,'
+says Brants, 'thinkers applied their minds to the details of the
+theory of money, which was the department of economics which, thanks
+to events, received the earliest illumination. Lawyers, bankers,
+money-changers, doctors of theology, and publicists of every kind,
+attached a thoroughly justifiable importance to the question of money.
+We are no doubt far from knowing all the treatises which saw the light
+in the fourteenth century upon this weighty question; but we know
+enough to affirm that the monetary doctrine was very developed and
+very far-seeing.'[1] Buridan analysed the different functions and
+utilities of money, and explained the different ways in which its
+value might be changed.[2] He did not, however, proceed to discuss the
+much more important question as to when the sovereign was entitled
+to make these alterations. This was reserved for Nicholas Oresme, who
+published his famous treatise about the year 1373. The merits of this
+work have excited the unanimous admiration of all who have studied it.
+Roscher says that it contains 'a theory of money, elaborated in the
+fourteenth century, which remains perfectly correct to-day, under the
+test of the principles applied in the nineteenth century, and that
+with a brevity, a precision, a clarity, and a simplicity of language
+which is a striking proof of the superior genius of its author.'[3]
+According to Brants, 'the treatise of Oresme is one of the first to
+be devoted _ex professo_ to an economic subject, and it expresses many
+ideas which are very just, more just than those which held the field
+for a long period after him, under the name of mercantilism, and more
+just than those which allowed of the reduction of money as if it were
+nothing more than a counter of exchange.'[4] 'Oresme's treatise on
+money,' says Macleod, 'may be justly said to stand at the head of
+modern economic literature. This treatise laid the foundations of
+monetary science, which are now accepted by all sound economists.'[5]
+'Oresme's completely secular and naturalistic method of treating one
+of the most important problems of political economy,' says Espinas,
+'is a signal of the approaching end of the Middle Ages and the dawn of
+the Renaissance.'[6] Dr. Cunningham adds his tribute of praise: 'The
+conceptions of national wealth and national power were ruling ideas in
+economic matters for several centuries, and Oresme appears to be the
+earliest of the economic writers by whom they were explicitly adopted
+as the very basis of his argument.... A large number of points
+of economic doctrine in regard to coinage are discussed with much
+judgment and clearness.'[7] Endemann alone is[8] inclined to quarrel
+with the pre-eminence of Oresme; but on this question, he is in a
+minority of one.[9]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 186.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Quaest. super Lib. Eth._, v. 17; _Quaest. super Lib.
+Pol._, i. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Quoted in Wolowski, _op. cit._, and see Roscher,
+_Geschichte_, p. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Op. cit._, p. 190.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _History of Economics_, p. 37.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Op. cit._, p. 110.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, vol. i. p.
+359.]
+
+[Footnote 8: _Grundsätze_, p. 75.]
+
+[Footnote 9: See an interesting note in Brants, _op. cit._, p. 187.]
+
+The principal question which Oresme sets out to answer, according to
+the first chapter of this treatise, is whether the sovereign has the
+right to alter the value of the money in circulation at his pleasure,
+and for his own benefit. He begins the discussion by going over the
+same ground as Aristotle in demonstrating the origin and utility of
+money, and then proceeds to discuss the most suitable materials
+which can be made to serve as money. He decides in favour of gold and
+silver, and shows himself an unquestioning bimetallist. He further
+admits the necessity of some token money of small denominations, to be
+composed of the baser metals. Having drawn attention to the transition
+from the circulation of money, the value of which is recognised
+solely by weight, to the circulation of that which is accepted for its
+imprint or superscription, the author insists that the production of
+such an imprinted coinage is essentially a matter for the sovereign
+authority in the State. Oresme now comes to the central point of his
+thesis. Although, he says, the prince has undoubtedly the power to
+manufacture and control the coinage, he is by no means the owner of it
+after it has passed into circulation, because money is a thing which
+in its essence was invented and introduced in the interests of society
+as a whole.
+
+Oresme then proceeds to apply this central principle to the solution
+of the question which he sets himself to answer, and concludes that,
+as money is essentially a thing which exists for the public benefit,
+it must not be tampered with, nor varied in value, except in cases of
+absolute necessity, and in the presence of an uncontroverted general
+utility. He bases his opposition to unnecessary monetary variation on
+the perfectly sound ground that such variation is productive of loss
+either to those who are bound to make or bound to receive fixed sums
+in payment of obligations. The author then goes on to analyse the
+various kinds of variation, which he says are five--_figurae_,
+_proportionis_, _appellationis_, _ponderis_, and _materiae_. Changes
+of form (_figurae_) are only justified when it is found that the
+existing form is liable to increase the damage which the coins suffer
+from the wear and tear of usage, or when the existing currency has
+been degraded by widespread illegal coining; changes _proportionis_
+are only allowable when the relative value of the different metals
+constituting the coinage have themselves changed; simple changes of
+name (_appellationis_), such as calling a mark a pound, are never
+allowed. Changes of the weight of the coins (_ponderis_) are
+pronounced by Oresme to be just as gross a fraud as the arbitrary
+alteration of the weights or measures by which corn or wine are sold;
+and changes of matter (_materiae_) are only to be tolerated when the
+supply of the old metal has become insufficient. The debasement of the
+coinage by the introduction of a cheaper alloy is condemned.
+
+In conclusion, Oresme insists that no alteration of any of the above
+kinds can be justified at the mere injunction of the prince; it must
+be accomplished _per ipsam communitatem_. The prince exercises
+the functions of the community in the matter of coinage not as
+_principalis actor_, but as _ordinationis publicae executor_. It is
+pointed out that arbitrary changes in the value of money are really
+equivalent to a particularly noxious form of taxation; that they
+seriously disorganise commerce and impoverish many merchants; and
+that the bad coinage drives the good out of circulation. This last
+observation is of special interest in a fourteenth-century writer,
+as it shows that Gresham's Law, which is usually credited to a
+sixteenth-century English economist, was perfectly well understood in
+the Middle Ages.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The best edition of Oresme's _Tractatus_ is that by
+Wolowski, published at Paris in 1864, which includes both the Latin
+and French texts.]
+
+This brief account of the ground which Oresme covered, and the
+conclusions at which he arrived, will enable us to appreciate his
+importance. Although his clear elucidation of the principles which
+govern the questions of money was not powerful enough to check the
+financial abuses of the sovereigns of the later Middle Ages, they
+exercised a profound influence on the thought of the period, and were
+accepted by all the theologians of the fifteenth century.[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: Biel, _op. cit._, IV. xv. 11; _De Monetarum Potestate et
+Utilitate_, referred to in Jourdain, _op. cit._, p. 34.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+We have now passed in review the principal economic doctrines of the
+mediæval schoolmen. We do not propose to attempt here any detailed
+criticism of the merits or demerits of the system which we have but
+briefly sketched. All that we have attempted to do is to present the
+doctrines in such a way that the reader may be in a position to pass
+judgment on them. There is one aspect of the subject, however, to
+which we may be allowed to direct attention before concluding this
+essay. It is the fashion of many modern writers, especially those
+hostile to the Catholic Church, to represent the Middle Ages as a
+period when all scientific advance and economic progress were impeded,
+if not entirely prevented, by the action of the Church. It would be
+out of place to inquire into the advances which civilisation achieved
+in the Middle Ages, as this would lead us into an examination of the
+whole history of the period; but we think it well to inquire briefly
+how far the teaching of the Church on economic matters was calculated
+to interfere with material progress. This is the lowest standard
+by which we can judge the mediæval economic teaching, which was
+essentially aimed at the moral and spiritual elevation of mankind; but
+it is a standard which it is worth while to apply, as it is that
+by which the doctrines of the scholastics have been most generally
+condemned by modern critics. To test the mediæval economic doctrine
+by this, the lowest standard, it may be said that it made for the
+establishment and development of a rich and prosperous community. We
+may summarise the aim of the mediæval teaching by saying that, in the
+material sphere, it aimed at extended production, wise consumption,
+and just distribution, which are the chief ends of all economic
+activity.
+
+It aimed at extended production through its insistence on the
+importance and dignity of manual labour.[1] As we showed above, one of
+the principal achievements of Christianity in the social sphere was
+to elevate labour from a degrading to an honourable occupation. The
+example of Christ Himself and the Apostles must have made a deep
+impression on the early Christians; but no less important was the
+living example to be seen in the monasteries. The part played by the
+great religious orders in the propagation of this dignified conception
+cannot be exaggerated. St. Anthony had advised his imitators to busy
+themselves with meditation, prayer, and the labour of their hands, and
+had promised that the fear of God would reside in those who laboured
+at corporal works; and similar exhortations were to be found in the
+rules of Saints Macarius, Pachomius, and Basil.[2] St. Augustine and
+St. Jerome recommended that all religious should work for some
+hours each day with their hands, and a regulation to this effect was
+embodied in the Rule of St. Benedict.[3] The example of educated
+and holy men voluntarily taking upon themselves the most menial and
+tedious employments must have acted as an inspiration to the laity.
+The mere economic value of the monastic institutions themselves must
+have been very great; agriculture was improved owing to the assiduity
+and experiments of the monks;[4] the monasteries were the nurseries
+of all industrial and artistic progress;[5] and the example of
+communities which consumed but a small proportion of what they
+produced was a striking example to the world of the wisdom and virtue
+of saving.[6] Not the least of the services which Christian teaching
+rendered in the domain of production was its insistence upon the
+dominical repose.[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Sabatier, _L'Eglise et le Travail manuel_, and
+Antoine, _Cours d'Economie sociale_, p. 159.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Levasseur, _Histoire des Classes ouvrières en France_,
+vol. i. pp. 182-3.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Reg. St. Ben._, c. 48.]
+
+[Footnote 4: List, _National System of Political Economy_, ch. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Janssen, _History of the German People_, vol. ii. p. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Dublin Review_, N.S., vol. vi. p. 365; see Goyau,
+_Autour du Catholicisme sociale_, vol. ii. pp. 79-118; Gasquet, _Henry
+VIII. and the English Monasteries_, vol. ii. p. 495.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _Dublin Review_, vol. xxxiii. p. 305. See Goyau, _Autour
+du Catholicisme sociale_, vol. ii. pp. 93 _et seq._]
+
+The importance which the scholastics attached to an extended and
+widespread production is evidenced by their attitude towards the
+growth of the population. The fear of over-population does not
+appear to have occurred to the writers of the Middle Ages;[1] on
+the contrary, a rapidly increasing population was considered a great
+blessing for a country.[2] This attitude towards the question of
+population did not arise merely from the fact that Europe was very
+sparsely populated in the Middle Ages, as modern research has proved
+that the density of population was much greater than is generally
+supposed.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 235, quoting Sinigaglia, _La
+Teoria Economica della Populazione in Italia_, Archivio Giuridico,
+Bologna, 1881.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Catholic Encyclopædia_, art. 'Population.' Brants draws
+attention to the interesting fact that a germ of Malthusianism is to
+be found in the much-discussed _Songe du Vergier_, book ii. chaps.
+297-98, and Franciscus Patricius de Senis, writing at the end of
+the fifteenth century, recommends emigration as the remedy against
+over-population (_De Institutione Reipublicae_, ix.).]
+
+[Footnote 3: Dureau de la Malle, 'Mémoire sur la Population de la
+France au xiv^e Siècle,' _Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions et
+Belles-Lettres_, vol. xiv. p. 36.]
+
+The mediæval attitude towards population was founded upon the sanctity
+of marriage and the respect for human life. The utterances of Aquinas
+on the subject of matrimony show his keen appreciation of the natural
+social utility of marriage from the point of view of increasing the
+population of the world, and of securing that the new generation
+shall be brought up as good and valuable citizens.[1] While voluntary
+virginity is recommended as a virtue, it is nevertheless distinctly
+recognised that the precept of virginity is one which by its very
+nature can be practised by only a small proportion of the human race,
+and that it should only be practised by those who seek by detachment
+from earthly pleasures to regard divine things.[2] Aquinas further
+says that large families help to increase the power of the State, and
+deserve well of the commonwealth,[3] and quotes with approbation the
+Biblical injunction to 'increase and multiply.'[4] Ægidius Romanus
+demonstrates at length the advantages of large families in the
+interests of the family and the future of the nation.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Summa Cont. Gent._, iii. 123, 136.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Summa_, II. ii. 151 and 152.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Reg. Prin._, iv. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Gen. i. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _De Reg. Prin._, ii. 1, 6.]
+
+The growth of a healthy population was made possible by the
+reformation of family life, which was one of the greatest achievements
+of Christianity in the social sphere. In the early days of the Church
+the institution of the family had been reconstituted by moderating the
+harshness of the Roman domestic rule (_patria potestas_), by raising
+the moral and social position of women, and by reforming the system of
+testamentary and intestate successions; and the great importance which
+the early Church attached to the family as the basic unit of social
+life remained unaltered throughout the Middle Ages.[5]
+
+[Footnote 5: Troplong, _De l'Influence du Christianisme sur le Droit
+civil des Romains_; Cossa, _Guide_, p. 99; Devas, _Political Economy_,
+p. 168; Périn, _La Richesse dans les Sociétés chrétiennes_, i. 541 _et
+seq._; Hettinger, _Apologie du Christianisme_, v. 230 _et seq._]
+
+The Middle Ages were therefore a period when the production of wealth
+was looked upon as a salutary and honourable vocation. The wonderful
+artistic monuments of that era, which have survived the intervening
+centuries of decay and vandalism, are a striking testimony to
+the perfection of production in a civilisation in which work was
+considered to be but a form of prayer, and the manufacturer was
+prompted to be, not a drudge, but an artist.
+
+In the Middle Ages, however, as we have said before, man did not exist
+for the sake of production, but production for the sake of man; and
+wise consumption was regarded as at least as important as extended
+production. The high estimation in which wealth was held resulted in
+the elaboration of a highly developed code of regulation as to the
+manner in which it should be enjoyed. We do not wish to weary
+the reader with a repetition of that which we have already fully
+discussed; it is enough to call attention to the fact that the golden
+mean of conduct was the observance of liberality, as distinguished,
+on the one hand, from avarice, or a too high estimation of material
+goods, and, on the other hand, from prodigality, or an undue disregard
+for their value. Social virtue consisted in attaching to wealth its
+proper value.
+
+Far more important than its teaching either on production or
+consumption was the teaching of the mediæval Church on distribution,
+which it insisted must be regulated on a basis of strict justice.
+It is in this department of economic study that the teaching of the
+mediævals appears in most marked contrast to the teaching of the
+present day, and it is therefore in this department that the study of
+its doctrines is most valuable. As we said above, the modern world has
+become convinced by bitter experience of the impracticability of mere
+selfishness as the governing factor in distribution; and the economic
+thought of the time is concentrated upon devising some new system
+of society which shall be ruled by justice. On the one hand, we see
+socialists of various schools attempting to construct a Utopia
+in which each man shall be rewarded, not in accordance with his
+opportunities of growing rich at the expense of his fellow-man, but
+according to the services he performs; while, on the other hand,
+we find the Christian economists striving to induce a harassed and
+bewildered world to revert to an older and nobler social ethic.
+
+It is no part of our present purpose to estimate the relative merits
+of these two solutions for our admittedly diseased society. Nor is it
+our purpose to attempt to demonstrate how far the system of economic
+teaching which we have sketched in the foregoing pages is applicable
+at the present day. We must, however, in this connection draw
+attention to one important consideration, namely, that the mediæval
+economic teaching was expressly designed to influence the only
+constant element in human society at every stage of economic
+development. Methods of production may improve, hand may give place to
+machine industry, and mechanical inventions may revolutionise all our
+conceptions of transport and communication; but there is one element
+in economic activity that remains a fixed and immutable factor
+throughout the ages, and that element is man. The desires and the
+conscience of man remain the same, whatever the mechanical environment
+with which he is encompassed. One reason which suggests the view that
+the mediæval teaching is still perfectly applicable to economic life
+is that it was designed to operate upon the only factor of economic
+activity that has not changed since the Middle Ages--namely, the
+desires and conscience of man.
+
+It is important also to draw attention to the fact that the acceptance
+of the economic teaching of the mediæval theologians does not
+necessarily imply acceptance of their teaching on other matters. There
+is at the present day a growing body of thinking men in every country
+who are full of admiration for the ethical teaching of Christianity,
+but are unable or unwilling to believe in the Christian religion. The
+fact of such unbelief or doubt is no reason for refusing to adopt the
+Christian code of social justice, which is founded upon reason rather
+than upon revelation, and which has its roots in Greek philosophy and
+Roman law rather than in the Bible and the writings of the Fathers.
+It has been said that Christianity is the only religion which combines
+religion and ethics in one system of teaching; but although Christian
+religious and ethical teaching are combined in the teaching of the
+Catholic Church, they are not inseparable. Those who are willing to
+discuss the adoption of the Socialist ethic, which is not combined
+with any spiritual dogmas, should not refuse to consider the Christian
+ethic, which might equally be adopted without subscribing to the
+Christian dogma.
+
+As we said above, it is no part of our intention to estimate the
+relative merits of the solutions of our social evils proposed by
+socialists and by Catholic economists. One thing, however, we feel
+bound to emphasise, and that is that these two solutions are not
+identical. It is a favourite device of socialists, especially in
+Catholic countries, to contend that their programme is nothing more
+than a restatement of the economic ideals of the Catholic Church as
+exhibited in the writings of the mediæval scholastics. We hope that
+the foregoing pages are sufficient to demonstrate the incorrectness of
+this assertion. Three main principles appear more or less clearly in
+all modern socialistic thought: first, that private ownership of the
+means of production is unjustifiable; second, that all value comes
+from labour; and, third, that all unearned income is unjust. These
+three great principles may or may not be sound; but it is quite
+certain that not one of them was held by the mediæval theologians.
+In the section on property we have shown that Aquinas, following the
+Fathers and the tradition of the early Church, was an uncompromising
+advocate of private property, and that he drew no distinction between
+the means of production and any other kind of wealth; in the section
+on just price we have shown that labour was regarded by the
+mediævals as but a single one of the elements which entered into the
+determination of value; and in the section on usury we have shown that
+many forms of unearned income were not only tolerated, but approved by
+the scholastics.
+
+We do not lose sight of the fact that socialism is not a mere economic
+system, but a philosophy, and that it is founded on a philosophical
+basis which conflicts with the very foundations of Christianity.
+We are only concerned with it here in its character of an economic
+system, and all we have attempted to show is that, as an economic
+system, it finds no support in the teaching of the scholastic writers.
+We do not pretend to suggest which of these two systems is more likely
+to bring salvation to the modern world; we simply wish to emphasise
+that they are two systems, and not one. One's inability to distinguish
+between Christ and Barabbas should not lead one to conclude that they
+are really the same person.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+  Abelard, 14.
+  _Acts of the Apostles_, 168.
+      communism in, 44, 46.
+  Adam, 140.
+    and Eve, slavery the result of their sin, 92.
+  Administrative occupations, position in _artes possessivae_, 143.
+  Ægidius Romanus, 98, 197, 225.
+  Agriculture, position in _artes possessivae_, 142, 143.
+    its encouragement recommended, 143.
+  Albertus Magnus, 16, 82, 176, 186, 197.
+  Albigenses, the, belief in communism, 66.
+  Alcuin, 14.
+  Alexander of Hales, 176, 185.
+  Alexander III., Pope, 187.
+    attitude to usury, 174.
+  Alfric, see _Colloquy of Archbishop, The_.
+  Almsgiving, as justice, not charity, 69.
+    duty of, 80.
+    enforcement by the State, 85.
+    summary of mediæval teaching on, 84.
+    the early Church on, 52.
+  Ambition, a virtue, 79.
+  Ambrosius de Vignate, 191, 208.
+  Ananias, 46, 52.
+  Ancients, loss of economic teaching of, 15.
+  Angelus de Periglis de Perusio, 209, 210.
+  Antoine, 87, 172, 223.
+  Antoninus of Florence, 9, 68, 79, 110, 122, 181, 196.
+  Ape of Aristotle, the, _see_ Albertus Magnus.
+  Apostles, the, attitude to manual labour, 223.
+    attitude to private property and communism, 48.
+    attitude to usury, 168.
+  Apostles, the, fornication expressly forbidden by, 168.
+    teaching regarding slavery, 89.
+  Apostoli, the, belief in communism, 66.
+  Aquinas, _see_ Thomas Aquinas.
+  Aragon, personal rent charges permitted in, 205.
+  Architecture, _see_ Manufacture.
+  Archivio Giuridico, 225.
+  Ardant, 69.
+  Aristotle, 14, 16, 36, 97, 98, 142, 146, 169, 215, 219.
+    as source for Thomas Aquinas, 62.
+    attitude of Thomas Aquinas to his opinion, 94 _et seq._
+    Cossa on his influence, 17.
+    his principles maintained through Thomas Aquinas, 19.
+    his theory of slavery opposed to that of St. Augustine, 93.
+    influence on controversies of the schools, 17.
+    influence on mediæval thought, 16.
+    renewed study of, 16.
+  Arnold, 203.
+  _Artes pecuniativae_, 142.
+  _Artes possessivae_, 142.
+      encouragement recommended by Aquinas, 143.
+  Arnobius, 45.
+  Ashley, Sir W.H., 3, 6, 7, 18, 21, 23, 27, 29, 30, 33, 40, 76,
+          105, 113, 126, 134, 146, 149, 175, 185, 186, 187, 188,
+          190, 191, 195, 196, 197, 198, 202, 203, 205, 206, 207,
+          211, 212.
+  Augustinians, the, 195.
+  Ausmo, Nicholas de, 156.
+  Avarice, an offence against liberality, 79.
+    a sin towards the individual himself and the community, 78.
+    relativity of, 75.
+  Avarice, the necessary basis of trade, 145.
+  _Ayenbite of Inwit, The_, 151.
+
+  Baldus, 187, 208.
+  [Greek: banousia], a sin, 77, 78.
+  Barabbas, 231.
+  Bartlett, Dr. V., 56, 90.
+  Bartolus, 187.
+  Baudrillard, 76.
+  Beauvais, Vincent de, 7, 16.
+  Bégards, the, belief in communism, 66.
+  Benedict XIV., Pope, an encyclical of, 183.
+  Benigni, 61.
+  Bergier, 45.
+  Bernardine of Siena, 112, 181.
+  Biel, 99, 100, 104, 106, 107, 108, 112, 118, 121, 124, 145, 150,
+       156, 180, 185, 205, 208, 211, 221.
+  Bimetallism, Oresme's support of, 219.
+  Blanqui, 146.
+  Bohemia, communistic teaching in, 86.
+  Böhm-Bawerk, 174, 200, 203, 211.
+  Bottomry, contract of, 211.
+  Brant, Sebastian, 137.
+  Brants, V.L.J.L., 9, 10, 13, 19, 21, 66, 101, 111, 112, 114, 121,
+             122, 123, 142, 159, 181, 208, 215, 216, 217, 218, 225.
+  Breslau, refusal to pay rent in, 204.
+  Brunetto Latini, 123.
+  Building, _see_ Manufacture.
+  Buridan, 70, 72, 76, 77, 78, 109, 110, 143, 180, 191, 198, 217.
+
+  Cabet, 42.
+  Caepolla, 108, 118, 120.
+  Cajetan, 65, 79.
+    on the _Summa_, 68.
+  Calippe, Abbé, 49, 62.
+    on Thomas Aquinas, 68.
+  Calixtus III., Pope, decree regarding rent, 205.
+  _Cambium_, 155.
+    conditions justifying, 157.
+    dealt with by Brants, 159.
+    _minutum_, 157, 158.
+    motives justifying, 157.
+    _per litteras_, 157, 158.
+    _siccum_, 157.
+    the three kinds of, 157, 158.
+    when justifiable, not a loan, 158.
+  Campsor, the, his remuneration approved, 156.
+  Canon law the source of knowledge of Christian economic teaching, 13.
+  Canonist doctrine, dealt with by Sir W. Ashley, 2.
+      Dr. Cunningham's estimate of its importance, 27.
+      its impracticability demonstrated by Endemann, 20.
+      value of the study of, 29.
+  Canonists, the, 117.
+  Capital, question of the productivity of, 198 _et seq._
+  Carletus, 120, 150, 193, 211.
+  Carlyle, Dr., 44, 58, 63.
+  Castro, Paul, 208.
+  _Catholic Encyclopaedia, The_, definition of 'Middle Ages,' 3.
+      on Communism, 46.
+      on Just Price, 112, 126.
+      on Political Economy, 30.
+      on Population, 225.
+      on Slavery, 90, 100.
+  Cato, 162.
+  Cattle-breeding, _see_ Agriculture.
+  _Census constitutivus_, 203.
+      _reservativus_, 203.
+  _Centesima_, the maximum rate of interest in Borne, 161.
+  Cesana, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  Champagny, 80.
+  Change, see _Cambium_.
+  Chevallier, 20.
+  Christ, 42, 231.
+    a working man, 137.
+    attitude to manual labour, 223.
+    attitude to private property and communism, 47.
+    teaching regarding slavery, 89.
+  Christendom, economic unity of, 11.
+  Christian economic teaching, 13.
+    economists, their attempts to reinstitute mediæval economics, 228.
+  _Christian Monitor, The_, 139.
+  Christian Exhortation, The, on the protection of the farmer, 143.
+  Christianity, as providing an ethical basis of society, 31.
+    attitude to manual labour, 137, 223.
+    attitude to slavery, 88.
+    foundations and origin of its code of social justice, 229.
+  Christianity, influence in abolition of Roman slavery, 99 _et seq._
+    possibility of adopting ethics without dogmas of, 229.
+    reformation of family life by, 226.
+    relation of economic teaching of, to socialism, 33.
+    social theory of, 12.
+  Church, economic teaching of the mediæval, 12.
+    the, attitude to commerce at end of the Middle Ages, 152.
+    the, attitude to _monies pietatis_, 197.
+    the, effect of economic teaching of, on material progress, 223.
+    the, necessity for understanding economic teaching of, 32.
+    the, principles followed by, in fixing price, 114.
+    the, prohibition of usury not peculiar to, 160.
+    the, socialist view of its teaching on usury, 198.
+    the early, 230.
+      the early teaching on usury, 167 _et seq._
+  Cicero, 56, 58, 162.
+  Civil Law, Commentaries on, a source of knowledge of Christian
+economic teaching, 13.
+  Civilisation, result of its advance in the thirteenth century, 15.
+  Classical economists, recent reaction against, 29.
+  Cleary, Dr., 35, 135, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168,
+169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 185, 186, 187, 188, 191, 192, 193,
+196, 197, 205.
+  Clement of Alexandria, _see_ St. Clement.
+    of Rome, _see_ St. Clement.
+  Clergy, the, and usury, 169.
+    the, prohibition of trading by, 151.
+  Coinage, _see_ Money.
+  _Collegantia_, 207.
+  _Colloquy of Archbishop Alfric, The_, 149.
+  _Commenda_, the, 206.
+  _Commendatarius_, the, 207.
+  _Commendator_, the, 207.
+  Common estimation, of just price not the final criterion, 134.
+  Commerce, attitude of later fifteenth century to, 150.
+    attitude of mediæval theologians to, 136.
+    attitude of the Church at end of Middle Ages, 152.
+    condemnation of, by early Christians, 145.
+    condemnation of, by scholastics, 146.
+    dangerous to virtue, 145, 151.
+    definition of, 144.
+    extension of, in thirteenth century, 15.
+    factors making for its illegality, 151.
+    gradual change of mediæval attitude to, 152.
+    justification of, not based on payment for labour, 154.
+    legitimacy dependent on methods, 146.
+    legitimacy dependent on motives, 148.
+    motives regarded as justifying, 153.
+    necessity for, realised, 147.
+    necessity of controlling its operations, 154.
+    not dealt with by early writers, 13.
+    position in the _artes possessivae_, 143.
+    prohibition of speculative, 151.
+    rules applying to, defined by Nider, 150.
+  Communism, alleged, of early Christians, 43.
+    not part of scholastic teaching, 66.
+  Community of user, doctrine of, 85.
+      no relation to modern socialistic communism, 86.
+  Commutations, _see_ Exchange.
+  Compensation, for failure to repay loans by date stipulated, 185.
+    for profit hindered, 189.
+  Competition, effect of unrestricted, 31.
+  Comte, his definition of 'Middle Ages' followed by Dr. Ingram, 3.
+  Conquerors, their right to enslavement of the conquered adopted
+by Aquinas, 96.
+  Constantine, 43.
+  Constantinople, fall of, regarded as end of the Middle Ages, 4.
+  Consumption, regulation of, 32.
+    wise, importance of, 227.
+    wise, the aim of mediæval teaching, 223.
+  Contract, Thomas Aquinas on, 38.
+  _Corinthians, Epistle to the_, 48.
+  Corpus Juris Canonici, 13, 146.
+  Cossa, L.,5, 6, 17, 108, 220.
+  Credit, 119.
+  Crusades, the, influence of, 15.
+    the, influence on trade, 146.
+  Cunningham, Dr. W., 2, 9, 10, 11, 13, 23, 24, 26, 27, 79, 116,
+122, 124, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 138, 139, 152, 212, 218.
+  Currency, _see_ Money.
+  Cyprian, 168, 170.
+    attitude to property, 50.
+
+  Damnum emergens, 185, 196.
+      nature of, 186.
+      universal admission of, 187.
+  Dante, 216.
+  _De Regimine Principum_, doubtful authorship of, 20.
+  Delisle, 27.
+  _Démocratie Chrétienne_, 199.
+  Deposit, Thomas Aquinas on, 38.
+  Desbuquois, Abbé, 36, 39, 104, 110, 116, 120.
+  _Deuteronomy_, 163.
+  Devas, 30, 49, 226.
+  _Dictionary of Political Economy_, 30, 105, 112, 135, 212.
+  _Dictionnaire de Théologie_, 45.
+  _Didache_, the, attitude to usury, 168, 170.
+  Diocletian rescript, regarding sales, 104.
+  Distribution, just, the aim of mediæval teaching, 223.
+    need for just, 31, 227.
+    regulation of, 32.
+  Dominicans, the, 195, 196.
+  _Dominium eminens_ of the State, 69.
+  Donatus, 14.
+  _Dublin Review, The_, 43.
+  Duns Scotus, 149, 185, 188, 192.
+  Dureau de la Malle, 225.
+
+  _Ecclesiastes_, 151.
+  Eck, 211.
+  'Economic,' interpretation of, 3, 6 _et seq._
+  'Economic Man,' imaginary figure conceived by classical economists, 8.
+  _Economic Review, The_, 44.
+  Economics, causes of lack of interest in, 14.
+  Elvira, the Council of, decree against usury, 169.
+  Emperor, the, temporal vicar of God, 11.
+  _Encyclopaedia Britannica, The_, definition of 'Middle Ages,' 4.
+  Endemann, 19, 20, 23, 27, 34, 108, 120, 124, 134, 151, 155, 157, 158,
+177, 186, 187, 190, 191, 195, 196, 203, 204, 216, 218.
+  _Ephesians, Epistle to the_, 89.
+  Equality, of men, 94.
+  _Esdras_, 165.
+  Espinas, A., 8, 17, 163, 197, 218.
+  Essenes, the, and communism, 47.
+  Ethics, error of disregarding in economics, 29.
+  Eve, _see_ Adam and.
+  Exchange, regulation of, 32.
+    justice in, 36 _et seq._
+    theory of, see _Cambium_.
+  _Exodus_, 163.
+  _Ezekiel_, 165.
+
+  Fathers, the, _see_ Church, the early.
+  Favre, 173.
+  Feudalism, increased organisation of, in thirteenth century, 15.
+  Fornication, expressly forbidden by the Apostles, 168.
+  Franciscans, the, 195, 196.
+  Franciscus Patricius de Senlis, 225.
+  Franck, A., 20, 90, 97.
+  Fratricelli, the, belief in communism, 66.
+  _Fundamentum_, distinction from _titulus_, 64 _et seq._
+  Funk, Dr., 113, 172, 203.
+
+  Galileo, 159.
+  Gand, Henri de, 110, 149.
+  Garden of Eden, private property in, 55.
+  Gasquet, 224.
+  _Genesis_, 137, 226.
+  Genoa, the Archbishop of, 207.
+      letter from Alexander III. to, 187.
+  Gentile, prohibition of usury between Jew and, 164.
+  Gentiles, prohibition of usury not imposed on converts from, 168.
+    taking of usury from, justified, 165.
+  Genucian Law, the, interest prohibited by, 160.
+  Gerbert, 14.
+  Gerdilius, 100.
+  Gerson, 39, 71, 104, 106, 108, 112, 118, 137, 182, 197.
+  Gide and Rist, 9.
+  Golden Age, the, private property in, 55.
+  Gospel, the, preached to the poor, 137.
+  Gospels, the, on usury, 166.
+  Goyau, G., 67, 224.
+
+  Haney, L.H., 2, 5, 41, 136.
+  Heeren, A.H.L., 146.
+  Hettinger, 226.
+  Hilary of Poictiers, 60.
+  Hincmar, 14.
+  Hiring, Thomas Aquinas on, 38.
+  Hogan, Dr., 43, 47, 49, 137.
+  Hohoff, Abbé, 114, 199.
+  Hostiensis, 188.
+  Hoyta, Henricus de, 19.
+  Huet, 47.
+  Hunter, W.A., 105, 161.
+  Hunting, _see_ Agriculture.
+
+  Idleness, contrasted attitudes of ancient and Christian civilisations
+to, 137.
+  Income, unearned, approved by scholastics, 113.
+      justice of, 198 _et seq._
+      socialist theory of its injustice not supported by scholastics, 214.
+      recognition of, 212.
+  Individualism, of Christianity, 12.
+  Industry, development of, in thirteenth century, 15.
+  Ingolstadt, 211.
+  Ingram, Dr. J.K., 2, 3, 4, 12, 17, 18, 23, 24.
+  Innocent III., Pope, attitude to usury, 175.
+    in favour of unearned income, 207.
+  Insurance, a contract of, 210.
+  Interamna, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  _Interesse proximum_, suggested alternative term to _damnum emergens_,
+187.
+  _Interesse remotum_, suggested alternative term to _lucrum cessans_, 187.
+  Interest, justification of, 184.
+  Interest, laws regarding, in Rome, 160.
+    taking of, disapproved by Greek and Roman philosophers, 161.
+    _see_ also Usury.
+  _Irish Ecclesiastical Record, The_, 43, 47, 49, 109, 137.
+  _Irish Theological Quarterly, The_, 9, 68, 128, 129, 130, 132, 135.
+  Isidore, 95.
+  Isidore of Seville, 15.
+      his opinions on money regarded as final, 214.
+  Italian States, forced loans in the, 195.
+  Ivo, 169.
+
+  Janet, P.A.R., 59, 61, 89, 91, 93, 97.
+  Jannet, Claudio, 183.
+  Janssen, J., 28, 68, 86, 125, 138, 139, 141, 143, 150, 154, 224.
+  Jarrett, Fr., 83, 84.
+  _Jeremiah_, 165.
+  Jerusalem, the Church of, social system in, 44 _et seq._
+    St. Paul's appeal for funds, 48.
+    the Council of, prohibition of usury not imposed on converts by, 168.
+  Jesuits, the, invention of _trinus contractus_ attributed to, 211.
+  _Jewish Encyclopaedia, The_, on usury, 165.
+  Jews, attitude to usury, 160, 165.
+    prohibition of usury between, 164.
+  John of Salisbury, 14.
+  Jourdain, 5, 14, 16, 149, 176, 183, 221.
+  _Jus abutendi_, 87.
+    _divinum_, 173.
+    _humanum_, 174.
+    _naturale_, 173.
+  Just price, a Christian conception, 104.
+      authorities empowered to fix, 108.
+      comparison of mediæval theory with that of classical economists, 125.
+      difference from modern competition price, 116.
+      elasticity of, 117.
+      factors determining, 109 _et seq._
+  Just price, fixed by common estimation, 115 _et seq._
+      fixing of, by law, 106.
+      in money-lending, 179.
+      mediæval teaching on, 103.
+      necessity for adhering to, 108.
+      of wages, _see_ Wages.
+      rules for guidance in fixing by law, 107.
+      nature of, 127 _et seq._
+      value of canonical doctrine, 123.
+  Justinian, rates of interest fixed by, 161.
+  Justinian Code, 28, 172.
+
+  Kelleher, Father, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134.
+  Knabenbaur, 166.
+  Knies, 80, 114, 135.
+  Koran, the, the taking of interest forbidden in, 166.
+
+  Labour, as title to property, 65.
+    Christian teaching on its dignity, 137.
+    division into honourable and degrading, 141.
+    necessity and honourableness of all forms of, 140.
+    only one constituent in the estimation of just price, 157.
+    relative importance of, in determining value, 113.
+    the motives which should actuate, 153.
+  Lactantius, 45, 56 _et seq._, 91.
+  Langenstein, 19, 107, 111, 112, 121, 122, 124, 137, 141, 203.
+  Larceny Act, the, 27.
+  Lateran Council, the, judgment in favour of _montes pietatis_, 197.
+    Councils, the, of 1139 and 1179, declaration against usurers by, 174.
+  Laurentius de Rodulphis, 157, 195, 209.
+  Law, natural and positive, in relation to property, 64.
+  Le Blant, 216.
+  Lecky, 176, 211.
+  Leo the Great, 146.
+  Lessius, 117, 124.
+  Letting, Thomas Aquinas on, 38.
+  Levasseur, 138, 139, 224.
+  Leviticus, 163.
+  _Liberalitas_, its opposing vices, 74.
+    meaning of, 73.
+  Liberality, relation to justice, 73.
+  Lisieux, Bishop of, _see_ Oresme, Nicholas.
+  List, 146, 224.
+  Loan, Thomas Aquinas on, 38.
+  Loans, analogy between sales and, 182.
+    forced, in the Italian States, 195.
+    the real nature of, 178.
+  _Locatio operarum_, 210, 213.
+  Logic, mediæval study of, 14.
+  Loria, 149.
+  Lucca, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  _Lucrum cessans_, 185, 186, 195, 202.
+      recognition of, 187 _et seq._
+  Lyons, Council of, ordinances against usurers, 175.
+
+  Macleod, 218.
+  _Magnificentia_, duty of, 77.
+  Maimonides, 164.
+  Malthusianism, 225.
+  Mansi, 169.
+  Mantua, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  Manufacture, position in the _artes possessivae_, 142 _et seq._
+  Marcian Capella, 15.
+  Marriage, attitude of Thomas Aquinas towards, 225.
+  Marshall, 30.
+  Martin V., Pope, his bull on rent, 204.
+  Marx, Karl, theory of value not supported by scholastics, 113, 114.
+  Mastrofini, his interpretation of a verse of St. Luke, 166.
+  Maximian, rescript regarding sales, 105.
+  Mayronis, François de, 149, 156.
+  Mediæval, interpretation of, 3 _et seq._
+  Menger, Anton, 199.
+  Merchant, the, necessity for control of, _see_ Commerce.
+  Metz-Noblat, de, 183.
+  Meyer, Rudolph, 198.
+  Middle Ages, definition of the term by various authorities, 3 _et seq._
+      early writers of, no reference to economic questions, 13.
+  Milan, 211.
+  Mohammed, prohibition of usury by his followers, 160.
+  Mohammedans, taking of interest by, forbidden, 166.
+  Monasteries, the, their example in manual labour, 138, 223.
+  Money, as a form of capital, 201.
+    a vendible commodity, 158.
+    changing, see _Cambium_.
+    different kinds of variation of, 219 _et seq._
+    ignorance of early Middle Ages regarding, 214 _et seq._
+    invention of, 103.
+    most suitable metals for, 219.
+    not discussed by early mediæval writers, 14.
+    sterility of, 180.
+    the sovereign's power in relation to, 219.
+    treatment of, by Isidore of Seville, 15.
+    utility of, as treated by Aristotle, 16.
+    variations in value of, 216 _et seq._
+    value of, not to be changed unnecessarily, 219.
+  Monopolies, mediæval views on, 124.
+  _Montes pietatis_, 194.
+      attitude of the Church to, 197.
+      controversy over interest charged by, 196.
+  _Montes profani_, 195 _et seq._
+  Moral theology, 130.
+  Morality, economic, in the Middle Ages, 10.
+  More, Sir Thomas, 48.
+  Mosheim, 44.
+  Munificence, duty of, 77.
+  _Mutuum_, 202, 210, 213, 214.
+    nature of, 178, 183.
+    risk involved in, 192.
+
+  Natural rights, distinction between absolute and commensurate
+in slavery, 95.
+  Navarrus, 190.
+  Necessaries, two kinds distinguished by Thomas Aquinas, 83.
+  Neumann, 182.
+  New Testament, the, 176.
+      cited in support of prohibition of usury, 174.
+  Nice, Council of, on usury, 169, 170.
+  Nicholas v., Pope, bull on personal rent charges, 205.
+  Nider, 39, 110, 118, 134, 150, 181, 193.
+  Nitti, F.S., 43, 69.
+  Noel, Conrad, 49.
+  Numa, as origin of 'nummi,' 15.
+
+  Occupancy, as title to property, 65.
+  Old Testament, the, 176.
+      attitude to usury, 163, 165.
+      cited in support of prohibition of usury, 174.
+  Oresme, Nicholas, 143, 215, 216, 219.
+      his influence, 221.
+      his work on money, 214, 217 _et seq._
+  Origen, 45.
+  Orvieto, first _montes pietatis_ started at, 196.
+  Ownership, _see_ Property.
+
+  Padua, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  Palgrave, 30, 105, 112, 135, 212.
+  Parma, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  Partnership, division of remuneration, 209.
+    scholastic teaching on, 202, 205 _et seq._
+    the two kinds of, 209.
+  _Parvificentia_, a sin, 77, 78.
+  _Patria, potestas_, 226.
+  Pelagius, views condemned by Council, A.D. 415, 61.
+  Pennafort, Raymond de, 27, 149.
+  _Periculum sortis_, 191, 192, 212.
+  Périn, 183, 226.
+  Perugia, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  Philip the Fair, his method of increasing the revenue, 216.
+  Philosophers, the, their condemnation of usury, 161.
+  Pigonneau, 146.
+  Plato, his objection to usury, 161.
+  Plutarch, attitude to usury, 163.
+  _Poena conventionalis_, 185.
+      difference from interest, 186.
+  Political economy, errors of classical school, 8.
+      difference between mediæval and modern methods, 6.
+  Pope, the, his denunciation of Philip the Fair, 216.
+      the spiritual vicar of God, 10.
+  Popes, the, and almsgiving, 69.
+    pronouncements by, on rent, 204.
+    their protection of _montes pietatis_, 197.
+  Population, mediæval attitude to, 224.
+  Poverty, as the cause of sin, 78.
+  Prescription, as title to property, 65.
+  Price, just, _see_ Just price.
+  Priscian, 14.
+  Prodigality, an offence against liberality, 79.
+    a sin towards the individual and the community, 78.
+    distinction from liberality, 76.
+  Production, an honourable vocation, 226.
+    cost of, as a factor in determining value, 111 _et seq._
+    extended, the aim of mediæval teaching, 223.
+    regulation of, 32.
+  Professions, _see_ Labour.
+  Profit, of the campsor to be determined by just price, 158.
+  'Profiteer,' the, doctrine of just price a weapon against, 125.
+  Profiteering, prohibition of, 151.
+  Property, duties attaching to, 69.
+    duties in respect of exchange of, 102.
+    immovable, rule for determining value, 120.
+    in human beings, 88.
+    private, duties attaching to, 40.
+      right of, 39.
+      teaching of mediæval Church, 41 _et seq._
+      the foundation of mediæval economics, 40.
+      the keystone of economic system of later theologians, 66.
+  _Proverbs_, 165.
+  Prutz, 146.
+  _Psalms_, 137, 165, 171.
+
+  Rabanas Mauras, 14.
+  Rambaud, 7, 8, 13, 80, 87, 100, 114, 146, 151, 182, 183, 188, 197,
+203, 213, 215.
+  Reformation, the, 211.
+    attacks on monastic life during, 138.
+  Renaissance, the, 218.
+  Rent, pronouncements on, by the Popes, 204.
+    refusal to pay, in Breslau, 204.
+    scholastic teaching on, 202 _et seq._
+  _Revue Archéologique, La_, 61.
+  Riches, the early Church on their abuse, 53.
+  Rickaby, 75.
+  Risk, remuneration for, 152, 157, 191.
+  Rist, _see_ Gide.
+  Roman Empire, the, fall of, regarded as beginning of Middle Ages, 3.
+    jurists, their views on slavery accepted by Thomas Aquinas, 94.
+  _Romans, Epistle to the_, 48.
+  Rome, condemnation of usury by the philosophers of, 162.
+    laws regarding interest in, 160.
+    Numa, King of, 15.
+    policy of, enforced by clergy, 11.
+    the attitude to manual labour in, 137.
+  Roscher, W.G.F., 5, 13, 19, 34, 46, 48, 87, 88, 107, 108, 112, 114,
+121, 125, 142, 163, 166, 172, 186, 204, 215, 217.
+  Ryan, Dr. J.A., 49, 74, 117, 123, 135.
+
+  Sabatier, 223.
+  St. Ambrose, 49, 52, 60, 82, 171.
+    quoted by Aquinas, 71.
+  St. Anselm, 14.
+  St. Anthony, advice to his followers, 223.
+  St. Augustine, 49, 57, 60, 63, 92, 93, 97, 98, 105, 146, 154, 172, 224.
+    theory of slavery analysed by Janet, 93.
+    views on slavery accepted by Aquinas, 94 _et seq._
+  St. Barnabas, 45.
+  St. Basil, 49, 153, 171, 224.
+    quoted by Aquinas, 71.
+  St. Benedict, 152.
+    Rule of, 224.
+  St. Clement of Alexandria, 45, 49, 54, 168, 170.
+  St. Clement of Rome, 49, 54.
+  St. Cyprian, 45, 50, 168, 170.
+  St. Gregory Nazianzen, 54.
+  St. Gregory of Nyssa, 171.
+  St. Gregory the Great, 49.
+  St. Hilary, 171.
+  St. Isidore, 62.
+  St. Jerome, 49, 145, 171, 224.
+  St. John Chrysostom, 49, 51, 52.
+  St. Joseph, represented as a carpenter, 139.
+  St. Justin, 45.
+  St. Justin Martyn, 49.
+  St. Lucian, 45.
+  St. Luke, 82.
+  St. Luke, doubtful meaning of a verse in, 168.
+    interpretation of a doubtful verse in, 168, 171.
+  St. Macharius, 223.
+  St. Matthew, 38, 47.
+  St. Pachomius, 223.
+  St. Paul, 137.
+    attitude to private property and communism, 48.
+    on possession, cited by St. Augustine, 60.
+    teaching on slavery, 89.
+        followed by Christian teachers, 90.
+  St. Peter, 46.
+    teaching on slavery, 89.
+  St. Peter Damian, 83.
+  St. Thomas, _see_ Thomas Aquinas.
+  Sale, Roman law as applied to, 104.
+    Thomas Aquinas on, 38.
+    treatment by fifteenth-century writers, 18.
+  Sales, analogy between loans and, 182.
+  Salvador, 48.
+  Salvian, 55.
+  Sapphira, 46, 52.
+  Saturnus, result of banishment from heaven, 56.
+  Saving, an act of liberality, 72 _et seq._
+  Scherer, 146.
+  Scotus, Duns, _see_ Duns.
+  Scotus Erigenus, 14.
+  _Semaine Sociale de France, La_, 49, 62, 68, 104, 111.
+  Seneca, 59, 89, 90.
+    view of usury, 163.
+  Serfdom, 99.
+  Sertillanges, 80.
+  _Servus_, St. Augustine's theory of origin, 93.
+  Sevona, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  Sicily, personal rent charges permitted in, 205.
+  Sidgwick, Professor Henry, 29, 31.
+  Sinigaglia, 225.
+  Sixtus V., Pope, condemnation of _trinus contractus_, 211.
+  Slater, Father, 109, 128, 129, 130.
+  Slavery, analogy with property, 97.
+    attitude of Christianity to, 88.
+    limits of master's rights, 100.
+    three kinds of, 99.
+    views of Christian Church and philosophers reconciled by
+Aquinas, 93 _et seq._
+  Smith, Adam, 29.
+  _Societas_, 206, 207, 210, 213.
+  Socialism, as providing an ethical basis of society, 31.
+    danger of, 32.
+    relation of its economic teaching to Christianity, 33.
+  Socialists, claim to authority of the early Christians, 49 _et seq._
+    attempts to construct Utopia, 228.
+    their communism not the 'community of user' advocated by
+scholastics, 86.
+    their interpretations of St. Augustine, 58.
+    their main principles, 230.
+    their philosophy at variance with Christianity, 231.
+    their principles not derived from mediæval teaching, 230.
+    their view of the Church's teaching on usury, 198.
+  _Socius stans_, 207.
+  Solon, laws of, as affecting usury, 160.
+  _Songe du Vergier_, 225.
+  Stagyrite, the, _see_ Aristotle.
+  Stoic tradition, the, 58.
+  Stoicism, inferiority to Christian teaching on slavery, 89.
+  Stoics, the, 93.
+  Stintzing, 20.
+  Sudre, 47, 48.
+  _Summa Angelica_, 186.
+    _Astesana_, 186.
+    _Pisana_, 156.
+  Superabundance, relativity of, 75.
+
+  'Teaching,' interpretation of, 3, 19 _et seq._
+    mediæval, its relation to practice, 21.
+    ethical nature of, 27.
+  Temperance, in the use of goods, 70.
+  Tertullian, 45, 49, 145, 168, 170.
+  _Thessalonians, Epistle to the_, 137.
+  Thirteenth century, progress made in the, 15.
+  Thomas Aquinas, 7, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 36, 41, 42, 46, 52, 62
+_et seq._, 67, 69, 70, 71 _et seq._, 74 _et seq._, 77, 78, 80, 81,
+82, 83, 84, 85, 91, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 101, 105, 111, 112, 114,
+117, 119, 121, 131, 132, 133, 135, 136, 141, 143, 144, 146, 147,
+148, 149, 150, 151, 154, 156, 162, 167, 173, 174, 176, 182, 186,
+188, 189, 193, 194, 195, 197, 206, 207, 208, 215, 230.
+  Ticinum, Synod of, decree on usury, 173.
+  Tillage, _see_ Agriculture.
+  Time, the sale of, 182.
+  _Timothy_, 151.
+  _Titulus_, distinction from _fundamentum_, 64.
+  _Tractatus Universi Juris_, 19.
+  Tradesman, _see_ Commerce.
+  Trade, _see_ Commerce.
+  Troplong, 226.
+  _Trinus contractus_, 210, 211.
+  Trithemius, 85, 124, 137, 149.
+  Twelve Tables, the, maximum rate of interest fixed by, 160.
+
+  _Unciarum foenus_, doubtful meaning of, 160.
+  Usufruct, Aquinas on, 38.
+  Usurers, _see_ Usury.
+  Usury and the clergy, 169.
+    a sin against justice, 175.
+    attitude of the Apostles, 168.
+    attitude of various religious and legal systems, 160.
+    borrowing at, circumstances justifying, 194.
+    broader basis of discussion after twelfth century, 173.
+    dealt with by ecclesiastical courts, 175.
+    condemned by Councils, 13.
+      by philosophers, 161, 162.
+      as a sin against charity, 168, 171.
+    controversies over prohibition, 159.
+    definition of, by Lateran Council, 197.
+    doubt as to Gospel teaching on, 167.
+  Usury, ecclesiastical legislation on, 174.
+    inconclusive teaching of the early Church, 172.
+    increased payment for credit regarded as, 119.
+    injustice of, according to Aristotle, 16.
+    in the Old Testament, 163.
+    not suppressed by civil law, 172.
+    patristic and episcopal utterances in favour of, 172.
+    not permitted by civil authorities, 197 _et seq._
+    popular attitude to, 163.
+    prohibition of, 133, 173, 183, 184.
+      proof of justice of unearned income, 213.
+      position in canonist doctrine, 33.
+      not imposed on converts from Gentiles, 168.
+    secular legislation in favour of, declared void, 175.
+    teaching of the early Church, 167 _et seq._
+    treatment by fifteenth-century writers, 18.
+
+  Value, factors determining, 129.
+    not systematically treated till fourteenth and fifteenth
+centuries, 111.
+    _See_ also Price.
+  Vaudois, the, belief in communism, 66.
+  Verona, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  Vienne, Council of, 175.
+  Vio, Thomas da, 196.
+  Virgin, the Blessed, represented spinning, 139.
+  Virginity, recommended for the few, 225.
+  Viterbo, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+
+  Wages, rules determining, 120.
+    as factor in cost of production, 111.
+    attitude of mediæval and modern working classes towards
+fixing, 126 _et seq._
+    fixed by a public authority, 121.
+  Wages, paucity of authority on, before sixteenth century, 121.
+  Wallon, 90, 137, 140.
+  Wealth, theory of, according to Aristotle, 16.
+  Wealth, not an end in itself, 80.
+  Weber, 206.
+  William of Paris, 176.
+  Wolowski, 216, 217, 221.
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching, by
+George O'Brien
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching
+
+Author: George O'Brien
+
+Release Date: September 17, 2004  [eBook #13488]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ESSAY ON MEDIAEVAL ECONOMIC
+TEACHING***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Brendan Lane, S. R. Ellison, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+AN ESSAY ON MEDIAEVAL ECONOMIC TEACHING
+
+by
+
+GEORGE O'BRIEN, LITT.D., M.R.I.A.
+
+Author of 'The Economic History of Ireland in the Seventeenth Century,'
+and 'The Economic History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century'
+
+1920
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TO THE REV. MICHAEL CRONIN, M.A., D.D.
+UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S NOTE
+
+I wish to express my gratitude to the Rev. Dr. Cronin for his kindness
+in reading the manuscript, and for many valuable suggestions which he
+made; also to Father T.A. Finlay, S.J., and Mr. Arthur Cox for having
+given me much assistance in the reading and revision of the proofs.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER I
+  INTRODUCTORY
+    SECTION 1. AIM AND SCOPE OF THE ESSAY
+    SECTION 2. EXPLANATION OF THE TITLE
+      Sec. 1. Mediaeval
+      Sec. 2. Economic
+      Sec. 3. Teaching
+    SECTION 3. VALUE OF THE STUDY OF THE SUBJECT
+    SECTION 4. DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT
+
+
+  CHAPTER II
+  PROPERTY
+    SECTION 1. THE RIGHT TO PRODUCE AND DISPENSE PROPERTY
+    SECTION 2. DUTIES REGARDING THE ACQUISITION AND USE OF PROPERTY
+    SECTION 3. PROPERTY IN HUMAN BEINGS
+
+
+  CHAPTER III
+  DUTIES REGARDING THE EXCHANGE OF PROPERTY
+    SECTION 1. THE SALE OF GOODS
+      Sec. 1. The Just Price
+      Sec. 2. The Just Price when Price fixed by Law
+      Sec. 3. The Just Price when Price not fixed by Law
+      Sec. 4. The Just Price of Labour
+      Sec. 5. Value of the Conception of the Just Price
+      Sec. 6. Was the Just Price Subjective or Objective?
+      Sec. 7. The Mediaeval Attitude towards Commerce
+      Sec. 8. _Cambium_
+    SECTION 2. THE SALE OF THE USE OF MONEY
+      Sec. 1. Usury in Greece and Rome
+      Sec. 2. Usury in the Old Testament
+      Sec. 3. Usury in the First Twelve Centuries of Christianity
+      Sec. 4. The Mediaeval Prohibition of Usury
+      Sec. 5. Extrinsic Titles
+      Sec. 6. Other Cases in which more than the Loan could be repaid
+      Sec. 7. The Justice of Unearned Income
+      Sec. 8. Rent Charges
+      Sec. 9. Partnership
+      Sec. 10. Concluding Remarks on Usury
+    SECTION 3. THE MACHINERY OF EXCHANGE
+
+  CHAPTER IV
+  CONCLUSION
+
+  INDEX
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+
+
+SECTION 1.--AIM AND SCOPE OF THE ESSAY
+
+
+It is the aim of this essay to examine and present in as concise a
+form as possible the principles and rules which guided and regulated
+men in their economic and social relations during the period known as
+the Middle Ages. The failure of the teaching of the so-called orthodox
+or classical political economists to bring peace and security to
+society has caused those interested in social and economic problems to
+inquire with ever-increasing anxiety into the economic teaching which
+the orthodox economy replaced; and this inquiry has revealed that each
+system of economic thought that has from time to time been accepted
+can be properly understood only by a knowledge of the earlier system
+out of which it grew. A process of historical inquiry of this kind
+leads one ultimately to the Middle Ages, and it is certainly not too
+much to say that no study of modern European economic thought can be
+complete or satisfactory unless it is based upon a knowledge of the
+economic teaching which was accepted in mediaeval Europe. Therefore,
+while many will deny that the economic teaching of that period is
+deserving of approval, or that it is capable of being applied to the
+conditions of the present day, none will deny that it is worthy of
+careful and impartial investigation.
+
+There is thus a demand for information upon the subject dealt with in
+this essay. On the other hand, the supply of such information in the
+English language is extremely limited. The books, such as Ingram's
+_History of Political Economy_ and Haney's _History of Economic
+Thought_, which deal with the whole of economic history, necessarily
+devote but a few pages to the Middle Ages. Ashley's _Economic History_
+contains two excellent chapters dealing with the Canonist teaching;
+but, while these chapters contain a mass of most valuable information
+on particular branches of the mediaeval doctrines, they do not perhaps
+sufficiently indicate the relation between them, nor do they lay
+sufficient emphasis upon the fundamental philosophical principles out
+of which the whole system sprang. One cannot sufficiently acknowledge
+the debt which English students are under to Sir William Ashley for
+his examination of mediaeval opinion on economic matters; his book
+is frequently and gratefully cited as an authority in the following
+pages; but it is undeniable that his treatment of the subject suffers
+somewhat on account of its being introduced but incidentally into a
+work dealing mainly with English economic practice. Dr. Cunningham
+has also made many valuable contributions to particular aspects of the
+subject; and there have also been published, principally in Catholic
+periodicals, many important monographs on special points; but so
+far there has not appeared in English any treatise, which is devoted
+exclusively to mediaeval economic opinion and attempts to treat the
+whole subject completely. It is this want in our economic literature
+that has tempted the author to publish the present essay, although he
+is fully aware of its many defects.
+
+It is necessary, in the first place, to indicate precisely the extent
+of the subject with which we propose to deal; and with this end in
+view to give a definition of the three words, '_mediaeval, economic,
+teaching_.'
+
+
+
+SECTION 2.--EXPLANATION OF THE TITLE
+
+
+Sec. 1. _Mediaeval_.
+
+Ingram, in his well-known book on economic history, following the
+opinion of Comte, refuses to consider the fourteenth and fifteenth
+centuries as part of the Middle Ages.[1] We intend, however, to treat
+of economic teaching up to the end of the fifteenth century. The best
+modern judges are agreed that the term Middle Ages must not be given
+a hard-and-fast meaning, but that it is capable of bearing a very
+elastic interpretation. The definition given in the _Catholic
+Encyclopaedia_ is: 'a term commonly used to designate that period of
+European history between the Fall of the Roman Empire and about the
+middle of the fifteenth century. The precise dates of the beginning,
+culmination, and end of the Middle Ages are more or less arbitrarily
+assumed according to the point of view adopted.' The eleventh edition
+of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ contains a similar opinion: 'This
+name is commonly given to that period of European history which lies
+between what are known as ancient and modern times, and which has
+generally been considered as extending from about the middle of the
+fifth to about the middle of the fifteenth centuries. The two dates
+adopted in old text-books were 476 and 1453, from the setting aside
+of the last emperor of the west until the fall of Constantinople. In
+reality it is impossible to fix any exact dates for the opening and
+close of such a period.'
+
+[Footnote 1: _History of Political Economy_, p. 35.]
+
+We are therefore justified in considering the fifteenth century as
+comprised hi the Middle Ages. This is especially so in the domain
+of economic theory. In actual practice the fourteenth and fifteenth
+centuries may have presented the appearance rather of the first stage
+of a new than of the last stage of an old era. This is Ingram's view.
+However true this may be of practice, it is not at all true of theory,
+which, as we shall see, continued to be entirely based on the
+writings of an author of the thirteenth century. Ingram admits this
+incidentally: 'During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the
+Catholic-feudal system was breaking down by the mutual conflicts of
+its own official members, while the constituent elements of a new
+order were rising beneath it. The movements of this phase can scarcely
+be said to find an echo in any contemporary economic literature.'[1]
+We need not therefore apologise further for including a consideration
+of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in our investigations as to
+the economic teaching of the Middle Ages. We are supported in doing
+so by such excellent authorities as Jourdain,[2] Roscher,[3] and
+Cossa.[4] Haney, in his _History of Economic Thought_,[5] says: 'It
+seems more nearly true to regard the years about 1500 as marking the
+end of mediaeval times.... On large lines, and from the viewpoint of
+systems of thought rather than systems of industry, the Middle Ages
+may with profit be divided into two periods. From 400 down to 1200,
+or shortly thereafter, constitutes the first. During these years
+Christian theology opposed Roman institutions, and Germanic customs
+were superposed, until through action and reaction all were blended.
+This was the reconstruction; it was the "stormy struggle" to found a
+new ecclesiastical and civil system. From 1200 on to 1500 the world
+of thought settled to its level. Feudalism and scholasticism, the
+corner-stones of mediaevalism, emerged and were dominant.'
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Memoires sur les commencements de l'economie politique
+dans les ecoles du moyen age_, Academie des Inscriptions et
+Belles-Lettres, vol. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Geschichte zur National-Oekonomik in Deutschland_.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Introduction to the Study of Political Economy_.]
+
+[Footnote 5: P. 70.]
+
+We shall not continue the study further than the beginning of the
+sixteenth century. It is true that, if we were to refer to several
+sixteenth-century authors, we should be in possession of a very highly
+developed and detailed mass of teaching on many points which
+earlier authors left to some extent obscure. We deliberately
+refrain nevertheless from doing so, because the whole nature of the
+sixteenth-century literature was different from that of the fourteenth
+and fifteenth; the early years of the sixteenth century witnessed the
+abrogation of the central authority which was a basic condition of
+the success of the mediaeval system; and the same period also witnessed
+'radical economic changes, reacting more and more on the scholastic
+doctrines, which found fewer and fewer defenders in their original
+form.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cossa, _op. cit._, p. 151. Ashley warns us that 'we must
+be careful not to interpret the writers of the fifteenth century by
+the writers of the seventeenth' (_Economic History_, vol. i. pt. ii.
+p. 387). These later writers sometimes contain historical accounts
+of controversies in previous centuries, and are relevant on this
+account.]
+
+
+Sec. 2. _Economic_.
+
+It must be clearly understood that the political economy of the
+mediaevals was not a science, like modern political economy, but an
+art. 'It is a branch of the virtue of prudence; it is half-way between
+morality, which regulates the conduct of the individual, and politics,
+which regulates the conduct of the sovereign. It is the morality of
+the family or of the head of the family, from the point of view of the
+good administration of the patrimony, just as politics is the morality
+of the sovereign, from the point of view of the good government of the
+State. There is as yet no question of economic laws in the sense
+of historical and descriptive laws; and political economy, not yet
+existing in the form of a science, is not more than a branch of that
+great tree which is called ethics, or the art of living well.'[1] 'The
+doctrine of the canon law,' says Sir William Ashley, 'differed from
+modern economics in being an art rather than a science. It was a body
+of rules and prescriptions as to conduct, rather than of conclusions
+as to fact. All art indeed in this sense rests on science; but the
+science on which the canonist doctrine rested was theology. Theology,
+or rather that branch of it which we may call Christian ethics, laid
+down certain principles of right and wrong in the economic sphere;
+and it was the work of the canonists to apply them to specific
+transactions and to pronounce judgment as to their permissibility.'[2]
+The conception of economic laws, in the modern sense, was quite
+foreign to the mediaeval treatment of the subject. It was only in
+the middle of the fourteenth century that anything approaching a
+scientific examination of the phenomena of economic life appeared,
+and that was only in relation to a particular subject, namely, the
+doctrine of money.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Rambaud, _Histoire des Doctrines Economiques_, p. 39. 'It
+is evident that a household is a mean between the individual and
+the city or Kingdom, since just as the individual is part of the
+household, so is the household part of the city or Kingdom, and
+therefore, just as prudence commonly so called which governs the
+individual is distinct from political prudence, so must domestic
+prudence (oeconomica) be distinct from both. Riches are related to
+domestic prudence, not as its last end, but as its instrument. On the
+other hand, the end of political prudence is a good life in general as
+regards the conduct of the household. In _Ethics_ i. the philosopher
+speaks of riches as the end of political prudence, by way of example,
+and in accordance with the opinion of many.' Aquinas, _Summa II_. ii.
+50. 3, and see _Sent. III_. xxxiii. 3 and 4. 'Practica quidem scientia
+est, quae recte vivendi modum ac disciplinae formam secundum virtutum
+institutionem disponit. Et haec dividitur in tres, scilicet: primo
+ethicam, id est moralem; et secundo oeconomicam, id est dispensativam;
+et tertio politicam, id est civilem' (Vincent de Beauvais, _Speculum_,
+VII. i. 2).]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, vol. i. part. ii. p. 379.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Rambaud, _op. cit._, p. 83; Ingram, _op. cit._, p. 36. So
+marked was the contrast between the mediaeval and modern conceptions
+of economics that the appearance of this one treatise has been said
+by one high authority to have been the signal of the dawn of the
+Renaissance (Espinas, _Histoire des Doctrines Economiques_, p. 110).]
+
+To say that the mediaeval method of approaching economic problems was
+fundamentally different from the modern, is not in any sense to be
+taken as indicating disapproval of the former. On the contrary, it is
+the general opinion to-day that the so-called classical treatment of
+economics has proved disastrous in its application to real life,
+and that future generations will witness a retreat to the earlier
+position. The classical economists committed the cardinal error of
+subordinating man to wealth, and consumption to production. In their
+attempt to preserve symmetry and order in their generalisations they
+constructed a weird creature, the economic man, who never existed, and
+never could exist. The mediaevals made no such mistake. They insisted
+that all production and gain which did not lead to the good of man was
+not alone wasteful, but positively evil; and that man was infinitely
+more important than wealth. When he exclaims that 'Production is on
+account of man, not man of production,' Antoninus of Florence sums
+up in a few words the whole view-point of his age.[1] 'Consumption,'
+according to Dr. Cunningham, 'was the aspect of human nature which
+attracted most attention.... Regulating consumption wisely was the
+chief practical problem in mediaeval economics.'[2] The great
+practical benefits of such a treatment of the problems relating to the
+acquisition and enjoyment of material wealth must be obvious to every
+one who is familiar with the condition of the world after a century of
+classical political economy. 'To subordinate the economic order to
+the social order, to submit the industrial activity of man to the
+consideration of the final and general end of his whole being, is
+a principle which must exert on every department of the science
+of wealth, an influence easy to understand. Economic laws are the
+codification of the material activity of a sort of _homo economicus_;
+of a being, who, having no end in view but wealth, produces all he
+can, distributes his produce in the way that suits him best,
+and consumes as much as he can. Self interest alone dictates his
+conduct.'[3] Economics, far from being a science whose highest aim
+was to evolve a series of abstractions, was a practical guide to the
+conduct of everyday affairs.[4] 'The pre-eminence of morality in
+the domain of economics constitutes at the same time the distinctive
+feature, the particular merit, and the great teaching of the economic
+lessons of this period.'[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Irish Theological Quarterly_, vol. vii. p. 151.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Christianity and Economic Science_, p. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Brants, _Les Theories economiques aux xiii^{e} et xii^{e}
+siecles, p_. 34.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Gide and Rist, _History of Economic Doctrines_, Eng.
+trans., p. 110.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 9.]
+
+Dr. Cunningham draws attention to the fact that the existence of such
+a universally received code of economic morality was largely due to
+the comparative simplicity of the mediaeval social structure, where
+the _relations of persons_ were all important, in comparison with the
+modern order, where the _exchange of things_ is the dominant factor.
+He further draws attention to the changes which affected the whole
+constitution of society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
+and proceeds: 'These changes had a very important bearing on all
+questions of commercial morality; so long as economic dealings were
+based on a system of personal relationships they all bore an implied
+moral character. To supply a bad article was morally wrong, to demand
+excessive payment for goods or for labour was extortion, and the
+right or wrong of every transaction was easily understood.'[1] The
+application of ethics to economic transactions was rendered possible
+by the existence of one universally recognised code of morality,
+and the presence of one universally accepted moral teacher. 'In the
+thirteenth century, the ecclesiastical organisation gave a unity to
+the social structure throughout the whole of Western Europe; over the
+area in which the Pope was recognised as the spiritual and the Emperor
+as the temporal vicar of God, political and racial differences were
+relatively unimportant. For economic purposes it is scarcely necessary
+to distinguish different countries from one another in the thirteenth
+century, for there were fewer barriers to social intercourse
+within the limits of Christendom than there are to-day.... Similar
+ecclesiastical canons, and similar laws prevailed over large areas,
+where very different admixtures of civil and barbaric laws were in
+vogue. Christendom, though broken into so many fragments politically,
+was one organised society for all the purposes of economic life,
+because there was such free intercommunication between its parts.'[2]
+'There were three great threads,' we read later in the same book,
+'which ran through the whole social system of Christendom. First of
+all there was a common religious life, with the powerful weapons of
+spiritual censure and excommunication which it placed in the hands of
+the clergy, so that they were able to enforce the line of policy which
+Rome approved. Then there was the great judicial system of canon
+law, a common code with similar tribunals for the whole of Western
+Christendom, dealing not merely with strictly ecclesiastical affairs,
+but with many matters that we should regard as economic, such as
+questions of commercial morality, and also with social welfare as
+affected by the law of marriage and the disposition of property by
+will....'[3] 'To the influence of Christianity as a moral doctrine,'
+says Dr. Ingram, 'was added that of the Church as an organisation,
+charged with the application of the doctrine to men's daily
+transactions. Besides the teaching of the sacred books there was a
+mass of ecclesiastical legislation providing specific prescriptions
+for the conduct of the faithful. And this legislation dealt with the
+economic as well as with other provinces of social activity.'[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, vol. i. p.
+465.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Cunningham, _Western Civilisation_, vol. ii. pp. 2-3.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, p. 67.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Op. cit._, p. 27.]
+
+The teaching of the mediaeval Church, therefore, on economic affairs
+was but the application to particular facts and cases of its general
+moral teaching. The suggestion, so often put forward by so-called
+Christian socialists, that Christianity was the exponent of a special
+social theory of its own, is unfounded. The direct opposite would be
+nearer the truth. Far from concerning itself with the outward forms
+of the political or economic structure, Christianity concentrated its
+attention on the conduct of the individual. If Christianity can be
+said to have possessed any distinctive social theory, it was intense
+individualism. 'Christianity brought, from the point of view of
+morals, an altogether new force by the distinctly individual and
+personal character of its precepts. Duty, vice or virtue, eternal
+punishment--all are marked with the most individualist imprint that
+can be imagined. No social or political theory appeared, because it
+was through the individual that society was to be regenerated....
+We can say with truth that there is not any Christian political
+economy--in the sense in which there is a Christian morality or
+a Christian dogma--any more than there is a Christian physic or a
+Christian medicine.'[1] In seeking to learn Christian teaching of
+the Middle Ages on economic matters, we must therefore not look
+for special economic treatises in the modern sense, but seek our
+principles in the works dealing with general morality, in the Canon
+Law, and in the commentaries on the Civil Law. 'We find the first
+worked out economic theory for the whole Catholic world in the _Corpus
+Juris Canonici_, that product of mediaeval science in which for so
+many centuries theology, jurisprudence, philosophy, and politics were
+treated....'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Rambaud, _op. cit._, pp. 34-5; Cunningham, _Western
+Civilisation_, vol. ii. p. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Roscher, _op. cit._, p. 5. It must not be concluded
+that all the opinions expressed by the theologians and lawyers were
+necessarily the official teaching of the Church. Brants says: 'It is
+not our intention to attribute to the Church all the opinions of
+this period; certainly the spirit of the Church dominated the great
+majority of the writers, but one must not conclude from this that
+all their writings are entitled to rank as doctrinal teaching' (_Op.
+cit._, p. 6).]
+
+There is not to be found in the writers of the early Middle Ages, that
+is to say from the eighth to the thirteenth centuries, a trace of any
+attention given to what we at the present day would designate economic
+questions. Usury was condemned by the decrees of several councils, but
+the reasons of this prohibition were not given, nor was the question
+made the subject of any dialectical controversy; commerce was so
+undeveloped as to escape the attention of those who sought to
+guide the people in their daily life; and money was accepted as the
+inevitable instrument of exchange, without any discussion of its
+origin or the laws which regulated it.
+
+The writings of this period therefore betray no sign of any interest
+in economic affairs. Jourdain says that he carefully examined the
+works of Alcuin, Rabanas Mauras, Scotus Erigenus, Hincmar, Gerbert,
+St. Anselm, and Abelard--the greatest lights of theology and
+philosophy in the early Middle Ages--without finding a single passage
+to suggest that any of these authors suspected that the pursuit of
+riches, which they despised, occupied a sufficiently large place in
+national as well as in individual life, to offer to the philosopher a
+subject fruitful in reflections and results. The only work which might
+be adduced as a partial exception to this rule is the _Polycraticus_
+of John of Salisbury; but even this treatise contained only some
+scattered moral reflections on luxury and on zeal for the interest of
+the public treasury.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Jourdain, _op. cit._, p. 4.]
+
+Two causes contributed to produce this almost total lack of interest
+in economic subjects. One was the miserable condition of society,
+still only partially rescued from the ravages of the barbarians, and
+half organised, almost without industry and commerce; the other
+was the absence of all economic tradition. The existence of the
+_Categories_ and _Hermenia_ of Aristotle ensured that the chain
+of logical study was not broken; the works of Donatus and Priscian
+sustained some glimmer of interest in grammatical theory; certain rude
+notions of physics and astronomy were kept alive by the preservation
+of such ancient elementary treatises as those of Marcian Capella; but
+economics had no share in the heritage of the past. Not only had the
+writings of the ancients, who dealt to some extent with the theory of
+wealth, been destroyed, but the very traces of their teaching had been
+long forgotten. A good example of the state of thought in economic
+matters is furnished by the treatment which money receives in the
+_Etymologies_ of Isidore of Seville, which was regarded in the early
+Middle Ages as a reliable encyclopaedia. 'Money,' according to Isidore,
+'is so called because it warns, _monet_, lest any fraud should enter
+into its composition or its weight. The piece of money is the coin of
+gold, silver, or bronze, which is called _nomisma_, because it bears
+the imprint of the name and likeness of the prince.... The pieces of
+money _nummi_ have been so called from the King of Rome, Numa, who was
+the first among the Latins to mark them with the imprint of his image
+and name.'[1] Is it any wonder that the early Middle Ages were barren
+of economic doctrines, when this was the best instruction to which
+they had access?
+
+[Footnote 1: _Etymol_. xvi. 17.]
+
+In the course of the thirteenth century a great change occurred. The
+advance of civilisation, the increased organisation of feudalism, the
+development of industry, and the extension of commerce, largely under
+the influence of the Crusades, all created a condition of affairs in
+which economic questions could no longer be overlooked or neglected.
+At the same time the renewed study of the writings of Aristotle served
+to throw a flood of new light on the nature of wealth.
+
+The _Ethics_ and _Politics_ of Aristotle, although they are not
+principally devoted to a treatment of the theory of wealth, do in
+fact deal with that subject incidentally. Two points in particular
+are touched on, the utility of money and the injustice of usury.
+The passages of the philosopher dealing with these subjects are of
+particular interest, as they may be said, with a good deal of truth,
+to be the true starting point of mediaeval economics.[1] The writings
+of Aristotle arrested the attention, and aroused the admiration of
+the theologians of the thirteenth century; and it would be quite
+impossible to exaggerate the influence which they exercised on the
+later development of mediaeval thought. Albertus Magnus digested,
+interpreted, and systematised the whole of the works of the Stagyrite;
+and was so steeped in the lessons of his philosophic master as to be
+dubbed by some 'the ape of Aristotle.' Aquinas, who was a pupil of
+Albertus, also studied and commented on Aristotle, whose aid he was
+always ready to invoke in the solution of all his difficulties. With
+the single and strange exception of Vincent de Beauvais, Aristotle's
+teaching on money was accepted by all the writers of the thirteenth
+century, and was followed by later generations.[2] The influence
+of Aristotle is apparent in every article of the _Summa_, which was
+itself the starting point from which all discussion sprang for the
+following two centuries; and it is not too much to say that the
+Stagyrite had a decisive influence on the introduction of economic
+notions into the controversies of the Schools. 'We find in the
+writings of St. Thomas Aquinas,' says Ingram, 'the economic doctrines
+of Aristotle reproduced with a partial infusion of Christian
+elements.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Jourdain, _op. cit._, p. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Op. cit._, p. 27. Espinas thinks that the influence
+of Aristotle in this respect has been exaggerated. (_Histoire des
+Doctrines Economiques_, p. 80.)]
+
+In support of the account we have given of the development of economic
+thought in the thirteenth century, we may quote Cossa: 'The revival
+of economic studies in the Middle Ages only dates from the thirteenth
+century. It was due in a great measure to a study of the _Ethics_ and
+_Politics_ of Aristotle, whose theories on wealth were paraphrased by
+a considerable number of commentators. Before that period we can only
+find moral and religious dissertations on such topics as the proper
+use of material goods, the dangers of luxury, and undue desire for
+wealth. This is easily explained when we take into consideration (1)
+the prevalent influence of religious ideas at the time, (2) the
+strong reaction against the materialism of pagan antiquity, (3)
+the predominance of natural economy, (4) the small importance of
+international trade, and (5) the decay of the profane sciences, and
+the metaphysical tendencies of the more solid thinkers of the Middle
+Ages.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 14; Espinas, _op. cit._, p. 80.]
+
+The teaching of Aquinas upon economic affairs remained the groundwork
+of all the later writers until the end of the fifteenth century.
+His opinions on various points were amplified and explained by
+later authors in more detail than he himself employed; monographs of
+considerable length were devoted to the treatment of questions which
+he dismissed in a single article; but the development which took
+place was essentially one of amplification rather than opposition. The
+monographists of the later fifteenth century treat usury and sale in
+considerable detail; many refinements are indicated which are not
+to be found in the _Summa_; but it is quite safe to say that none
+of these later writers ever pretended to supersede the teaching of
+Aquinas, who was always admitted to be the ultimate authority. 'During
+the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the general political doctrine
+of Aquinas was maintained with merely subordinate modifications.'[1]
+'The canonist doctrine of the fifteenth century,' according to Sir
+William Ashley, 'was but a development of the principles to which the
+Church had already given its sanction in earlier centuries. It was the
+outcome of these same principles working in a modified environment.
+But it may more fairly be said to present a _system_ of economic
+thought, because it was no longer a collection of unrelated opinions,
+but a connected whole. The tendency towards a separate department of
+study is shown by the ever-increasing space devoted to the discussion
+of general economic topics in general theological treatises, and
+more notably still in the manuals of casuistry for the use of the
+confessional, and handbooks of canon law for the use of ecclesiastical
+lawyers. It was shown even more distinctly by the appearance of a
+shoal of special treatises on such subjects as contracts, exchange,
+and money, not to mention those on usury.'[2] In all this development,
+however, the principles enunciated by Aquinas, and through him, by
+Aristotle, though they may have been illustrated and applied to new
+instances, were never rejected. The study of the writers of this
+period is therefore the study of an organic whole, the germ of which
+is to be found in the writings of Aquinas.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ingram, _op. cit._, p. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 382.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The volume of literature which bears more or less on
+economic matters dating from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is
+colossal. By far the best account of it is to be found in Endemann's
+_Studien in der Romanisch-canonistischen Wirthschafts- und
+Rechtslehre_, vol. i. pp. 25 _et seq_. Many of the more important
+works written during the period are reprinted in the _Tractatus
+Universi Juris_, vols. vi. and vii. The appendix to the first chapter
+of Reseller's _Geschichte_ also contains a valuable account of certain
+typical writers, especially of Langenstein and Henricus de Hoyta.
+Brants gives a useful bibliographical list of both mediaeval and modern
+authorities in the second chapter of his _Theories economiques aux
+xiii^{e} et xiv^{e} siecles_. Those who desire further information
+about any particular writer of the period will find it in Stintzing,
+_Literaturgeschichte des roem. Rechts_, or in Chevallier's _Repertoire
+historique des Sources du moyen age; Bio-bibliographie_. The
+authorship of the treatise _De Regimine Principum_, from which we
+shall frequently quote, often attributed to Aquinas, is very doubtful.
+The most probable opinion is that the first book and the first three
+chapters of the second are by Aquinas, and the remainder by another
+writer. (See Franck, _Reformateurs et Publicistes_, vol. i. p. 83.)]
+
+
+Sec. 3. _Teaching_.
+
+We shall confine our attention in this essay to the economic teaching
+of the Middle Ages, and shall not deal with the actual practice of the
+period. It may be objected that a study of the former without a study
+of the latter is futile and useless; that the economic teaching of a
+period can only be satisfactorily learnt from a study of its actual
+economic institutions and customs; and that the scholastic teaching
+was nothing but a casuistical attempt to reconcile the early Christian
+dogmas with the ever-widening exigencies of real life. Endemann, for
+instance, devotes a great part of his invaluable books on the subject
+to demonstrating how impracticable the canonist teaching was when it
+was applied to real life, and recounting the casuistical devices that
+were resorted to in order to reconcile the teaching of the Church with
+the accepted mercantile customs of the time. Endemann, however,
+in spite of his colossal research and unrivalled acquaintance with
+original authorities, was essentially hostile to the system which he
+undertook to explain, and thus lacked the most essential quality of a
+satisfactory expositor, namely, sympathy with his subject. He does
+not appear to have realised that development and adaptability to new
+situations, far from being marks of impracticability, are rather the
+signs of vitality and of elasticity. This is not the place to discuss
+how far the doctrine of the late fifteenth differed from that of the
+early thirteenth century; that is a matter which will appear below
+when each of the leading principles of scholastic economic teaching
+is separately considered; it is sufficient to say here that we agree
+entirely with Brants, in opposition to Endemann, that the change
+which took place in the interval was one of development, and not of
+opposition. 'The law,' says Brants, 'remained identical and unchanged;
+justice and charity--nobody can justly enrich himself at the expense
+of his neighbour or of the State, but the reasons justifying gain
+are multiplied according as riches are developed.'[1] 'The canonist
+doctrine of the fifteenth century was but a development of the
+principles to which the Church had already given its sanction in
+earlier centuries. It was the outcome of these same principles working
+in a modified environment.'[2] With these conclusions of Brants and
+Ashley we are in entire agreement.
+
+[Footnote 1: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, p. 381.]
+
+Let us say in passing that the assumption that the mediaeval teaching
+grew out of contemporary practice, rather than that the latter grew
+out of the former, is one which does not find acceptance among the
+majority of the students of the subject. The problem whether a correct
+understanding of mediaeval economic life can be best attained by first
+studying the teaching or the practice is possibly no more soluble than
+the old riddle of the hen and the egg; but it may at least be argued
+that there is a good deal to be said on both sides. The supporters of
+the view that practice moulded theory are by no means unopposed.
+There is no doubt that in many respects the exigencies of everyday
+commercial concerns came into conflict with the tenets of canon law
+and scholastic opinion; but the admission of this fact does not at
+all prove that the former was the element which modified the latter,
+rather than the latter the former. In so far as the expansion of
+commerce and the increasing complexity of intercourse raised questions
+which seemed to indicate that mercantile convenience conflicted with
+received teaching, it is probable that the difficulty was not so much
+caused by a contradiction between the former and the latter, as by the
+fact that an interpretation of the doctrine as applied to the facts
+of the new situation was not available before the new situation had
+actually arisen. This is a phenomenon frequently met with at the
+present day in legal practice; but no lawyer would dream of asserting
+that, because there had arisen an unprecedented state of facts, to
+which the application of the law was a matter of doubt or difficulty,
+therefore the law itself was obsolete or incomplete. Examples of such
+a conflict are familiar to any one who has ever studied the case law
+on any particular subject, either in a country such as England, where
+the law is unwritten, or in continental countries, where the most
+exhaustive and complete codes have been framed. Nevertheless, in spite
+of the occurrence of such difficulties, it would be foolish to contend
+that the laws in force for the time being have not a greater influence
+on the practice of mercantile transactions than the convenience of
+merchants has upon the law. How much more potent must this influence
+have been when the law did not apply simply to outward observances,
+but to the inmost recesses of the consciences of believing Christians!
+
+The opinion that mediaeval teaching exercised a profound effect on
+mediaeval practice is supported by authorities of the weight of Ashley,
+Ingram, and Cunningham,[1] the last of whom was in some respects
+unsympathetic to the teaching the influence of which he rates so
+highly. 'It has indeed,' writes Sir William Ashley, 'not infrequently
+been hinted that all the elaborate argumentation of canonists and
+theologians was "a cobweb of the brain," with no vital relation to
+real life. Certain German writers have, for instance, maintained that,
+alongside of the canonist doctrine with regard to trade, there existed
+in mediaeval Europe a commercial law, recognised in the secular courts,
+and altogether opposed to the peculiar doctrines of the canonists.
+It is true that parts of mercantile jurisprudence, such as the law of
+partnership, had to a large extent originated in the social conditions
+of the time, and would have probably made their appearance even
+if there had been no canon law or theology. But though there were
+branches of commercial law which were, in the main, independent of
+the canonist doctrine, there were none that were opposed to it. On
+the fundamental points of usury and just price, commercial law in the
+later Middle Ages adopted completely the principles of the canonists.
+How entirely these principles were recognised in the practice of the
+courts which had most to do with commercial suits, viz. those of the
+towns, is sufficiently shown by the frequent enactments as to usury
+and as to reasonable price which are found in the town ordinances
+of the Middle Ages; in England as well as in the rest of Western
+Europe.... Whatever may have been the effect, direct or indirect, of
+the canonist doctrine on legislation, it is certain that on its other
+side, as entering into the moral teaching of the Church through the
+pulpit and the confessional, its influence was general and persistent,
+even if it were not always completely successful.'[2] 'Every great
+change of opinion on the destinies of man,' says Ingram, 'and the
+guiding principles of conduct must react in the sphere of material
+interests; and the Catholic religion had a profound influence on the
+economic life of the Middle Ages.... The constant presentations to the
+general mind and conscience of Christian ideas, the dogmatic bases
+of which were as yet scarcely assailed by scepticism, must have had a
+powerful effect in moralising life.'[3] According to Dr. Cunningham:
+'The mediaeval doctrine of price was not a theory intended to explain
+the phenomena of society, but it was laid down as the basis of rules
+which should control the conduct of society and of individuals. At
+the same time current opinion seems to have been so fully formed in
+accordance with it that a brief enumeration of the doctrine of a just
+price will serve to set the practice of the day in clearer light. In
+regard to other matters, it is difficult to determine how far public
+opinion was swayed by practical experience, and how far it was really
+moulded by Christian teaching--this is the case in regard to usury.
+But there can be little doubt about the doctrine of price--which
+really underlies a great deal of commercial and gild regulations,
+and is constantly implied in the early legislation on mercantile
+affairs.'[4] The same author expresses the same opinion in another
+work: 'The Christian doctrine of price, and Christian condemnation
+of gain at the expense of another man, affected all the mediaeval
+organisation of municipal life and regulation of inter-municipal
+commerce, and introduced marked contrasts to the conditions of
+business in ancient cities. The Christian appreciation of the duty of
+work rendered the lot of the mediaeval villain a very different thing
+from that of the slave of the ancient empire. The responsibility of
+proprietors, like the responsibility of prices, was so far insisted
+on as to place substantial checks on tyranny of every kind. For these
+principles were not mere pious opinions, but effective maxims in
+practical life. Owing to the circumstances in which the vestiges of
+Roman civilisation were locally maintained, and the foundations of
+the new society were laid, there was ample opportunity for
+Christian teaching and example to have a marked influence on its
+development.'[5] In Dr. Cunningham's book entitled _Politics and
+Economics_ the same opinion is expressed:[6] 'Religious and industrial
+life were closely interconnected, and there were countless points at
+which the principles of divine law must have been brought to bear
+on the transaction of business, altogether apart from any formal
+tribunal. Nor must we forget the opportunities which directors had for
+influencing the conduct of penitents.... Partly through the operation
+of the royal power, partly through the decisions of ecclesiastical
+authorities, but more generally through the influence of a Christian
+public opinion which had been gradually created, the whole industrial
+organism took its shape, and the acknowledged economic principles were
+framed.' We have quoted these passages from Dr. Cunningham's works at
+length because they are of great value in helping us to estimate
+the rival parts played by theory and practice in mediaeval economic
+teaching; in the first place, because the author was by no means
+prepossessed in favour of the teaching of the canonists, but rather
+unsympathetic to it; in the second place, because, although his work
+was concerned primarily with practice, he found himself obliged
+to make a study of theory before he could properly understand the
+practice; and lastly, because they point particularly to the effect of
+the teaching on just price. When we come to speak of this part of the
+subject we shall find that Dr. Cunningham failed to appreciate the
+true significance of the canonist doctrine. If an eminent author, who
+does not quite appreciate the full import of this doctrine, and who
+is to some extent contemptuous of its practical value, nevertheless
+asserts that it exercised an all-powerful influence on the practice of
+the age in which it was preached, we are surely justified in
+asserting that the study of theory may be profitably pursued without a
+preliminary history of the contemporary practice.
+
+[Footnote 1: Even Endemann warns his readers against assuming that the
+canonist teaching had no influence on everyday life. (_Studien_, vol.
+ii. p. 404.)]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. pp. 383-85. Again:
+'The later canonist dialectic was the midwife of modern economics'
+(_ibid._, p. 397).]
+
+[Footnote 3: _History of Political Economy_, p. 26.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_,
+vol. i. p. 252.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Cunningham, _Western Civilisation_, vol. ii. pp. 9-10.]
+
+[Footnote 6: P. 25.]
+
+But we must not be taken to suggest that there were no conflicts
+between the teaching and the practice of the Middle Ages. As we have
+seen, the economic teaching of that period was ethical, and it would
+be absurd to assert that every man who lived in the Middle Ages lived
+up to the high standard of ethical conduct which was proposed by the
+Church.[1] One might as well say that stealing was an unknown crime
+in England since the passing of the Larceny Act. All we do suggest is
+that the theory had such an important and incalculable influence
+upon practice that the study of it is not rendered futile or useless
+because of occasional or even frequent departures from it in real
+life. Even Endemann says: 'The teaching of the canon law presents a
+noble edifice not less splendid in its methods than in its results.
+It embraces the whole material and spiritual natures of human society
+with such power and completeness that verily no room is left for
+any other life than that decreed by its dogmas.'[2] 'The aim of the
+Church,' says Janssen, 'in view of the tremendous agencies through
+which it worked, in view of the dominion which it really exercised,
+cannot have the impression of its greatness effaced by the unfortunate
+fact that all was not accomplished that had been planned.'[3] The fact
+that tyranny may have been exercised by some provincial governor in
+an outlying island of the Roman Empire cannot close our eyes to the
+benefits to be derived from a study of the code of Justinian; nor can
+a remembrance of the manner in which English law is administered in
+Ireland in times of excitement, blind us to the political lessons to
+be learned from an examination of the British constitution.
+
+[Footnote 1: The many devices which were resorted to in order to evade
+the prohibition of usury are explained in Dr. Cunningham's _Growth
+of English Industry and Commerce_, vol. i. p. 255. See also Delisle,
+_L'Administration financiere des Templiers_, Academie des Inscriptions
+et Belles-Lettres, 1889, vol. xxxiii. pt. ii., and Ashley, _Economic
+History_, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 426. The _Summa Pastoralis_ of Raymond de
+Pennafort analyses and demolishes many of the commoner devices which
+were employed to evade the usury laws. On the part played by the Jews,
+see Brants, _op. cit._, Appendix I.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Die Nationaloekonomischen Grundsaetze der canonistischen
+Lehre_, p. 192.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _History of the German People_ (Eng. trans.), vol. ii. p.
+99.]
+
+
+
+SECTION 3.--VALUE OF THE STUDY OF THE SUBJECT
+
+
+The question may be asked whether the study of a system of economic
+teaching, which, even if it ever did receive anything approaching
+universal assent, has long since ceased to do so, is not a waste of
+labour. We can answer that question in the negative, for two reasons.
+In the first place, as we said above, a proper understanding of
+the earlier periods of the development of a body of knowledge is
+indispensable for a full appreciation of the later. Even if the
+canonist system were not worth studying for its own sake, it would
+be deserving of attention on account of the light it throws on the
+development of later economic doctrine. 'However the canonist theory
+may contrast with or resemble modern economics, it is too important
+a part of the history of human thought to be disregarded,' says Sir
+William Ashley. 'As we cannot fully understand the work of Adam Smith
+without giving some attention to the physiocrats, nor the physiocrats
+without looking at the mercantilists: so the beginnings of mercantile
+theory are hardly intelligible without a knowledge of the canonist
+doctrine towards which that theory stands in the relation partly of a
+continuation, partly of a protest.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 381.]
+
+But we venture to assert that the study of canonist economics, far
+from being useful simply as an introduction to later theories, is of
+great value in furnishing us with assistance in the solution of the
+economic and social problems of the present day. The last fifty years
+have witnessed a reaction against the scientific abstractions of the
+classical economists, and modern thinkers are growing more and more
+dissatisfied with an economic science which leaves ethics out of
+account.[1] Professor Sidgwick, in his _Principles_ _of Political
+Economy_, published in 1883, devotes a separate section to 'The Art
+of Political Economy,' in which he remarks that 'The principles of
+Political Economy are still most commonly understood even in England,
+and in spite of many protests to the contrary, to be practical
+principles--rules of conduct, public or private.'[2] The many
+indications in recent literature and practice that the regulation of
+prices should be controlled by principles of 'fairness' would take too
+long to recite. It is sufficient to refer to the conclusion of Devas
+on this point: 'The notion of just price, worked out in detail by the
+theologians, and in later days rejected as absurd by the classical
+economists, has been rightly revived by modern economists.'[3] Not
+alone in the sphere of price, but in that of every other department
+of economics, the impossibility of treating the subject as an abstract
+science without regard to ethics is being rapidly abandoned. 'The best
+usage of the present time,' according to the _Catholic Encyclopaedia_,
+'is to make political economy an ethical science--that is, to make it
+include a discussion of what ought to be in the economic world as well
+as what is.'[4] We read in the 1917 edition of Palgrave's _Dictionary
+of Political Economy_, that 'The growing importance of distribution as
+a practical problem has led to an increasing mutual interpenetration
+of economic and ethical ideas, which in the development of economic
+doctrine during the last century and a half has taken various forms.'
+[5] The need for some principle by which just distribution can be
+attained has been rendered pressing by the terrible effects of a
+period of unrestricted competition. 'It has been widely maintained
+that a strictly competitive exchange does not tend to be really
+fair--some say cannot be really fair--when one of the parties is
+under pressure of urgent need; and further, that the inequality of
+opportunity which private property involves cannot be fully justified
+on the principle of maintaining equal freedom, and leads, in fact, to
+grave social injustice.'[5] In other words, the present condition of
+affairs is admitted to be intolerable, and the task before the
+world is to discover some alternative. The day when economics can be
+divorced from ethics has passed away; there is a world-wide endeavour
+to establish in the place of the old, a new society founded on an
+ethical basis.[7] There are two, and only two, possible ways to
+the attainment of this ideal--the way of socialism and the way of
+Christianity. There can be no doubt the socialist movement derives a
+great part of its popularity from its promise of a new order, based,
+not on the unregulated pursuit of selfish desires, but on justice. 'To
+this view of justice or equity,' writes Dr. Sidgwick, 'the socialistic
+contention that labour can only receive its due reward if land and
+other instruments of production are taken into public ownership,
+and education of all kinds gratuitously provided by Government--has
+powerfully appealed; and many who are not socialists, nor ignorant of
+economic science, have been led by it to give welcome to the notion
+that the ideally "fair" price of a productive service is a price at
+least rendering possible the maintenance of the producers and their
+families in a condition of health and industrial efficiency.' This
+is not the place to enter into a discussion as to the merits
+or practicability of any of the numerous schemes put forward by
+socialists; it is sufficient to say that socialism is essentially
+unhistorical, and that in our opinion any practical benefits which
+it might bestow on society would be more than counterbalanced by the
+innumerable evils which would be certain to emerge in a system based
+on unsatisfactory foundations.
+
+[Footnote 1: We must guard against the error, which is frequently
+made, that, because the classical economists assumed self-interest
+as the sole motive of economic action, they therefore approved of and
+inculcated it.]
+
+[Footnote 2: P. 401, and see Marshall's Preface to Price's _Industrial
+Peace_, and Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. i. p. 137.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Political Economy_, p. 268.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Tit., 'Political Economy.']
+
+[Footnote 5: Vol. iii. p. 138.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Ibid._]
+
+[Footnote 7: See Laveleye, _Elements of Political Economy_ (Eng.
+trans.), pp. 7-8. On the general conflict between the ethical and the
+non-ethical schools of economists see Keynes, _Scope and Method_, pp.
+20 _et seq_.]
+
+The other road to the establishment of a society based on justice
+is the way of Christianity, and, if we wish to attempt this path, it
+becomes vitally important to understand what was the economic teaching
+of the Church in the period when the Christian ethic was universally
+recognised. During the whole Middle Ages, as we have said above, the
+Canon Law was the test of right and wrong in the domain of economic
+activity; production, consumption, distribution, and exchange were all
+regulated by the universal system of law; once before economic life
+was considered within the scope of moral regulation. It cannot be
+denied that a study of the principles which were accepted during that
+period may be of great value to a generation which is striving to
+place its economic life once more upon an ethical foundation.
+
+One error in particular we must be on our guard to avoid. We said
+above that both the socialists and the Christian economists are agreed
+in their desire to reintroduce justice into economic life. We must not
+conclude, however, that the aims of these two schools are identical.
+One very frequently meets with the statement that the teachings of
+socialism are nothing more or less than the teachings of Christianity.
+This contention is discussed in the following pages, where the
+conclusion will be reached that, far from being in agreement,
+socialism and Christian economics contradict each other on many
+fundamental points. It is, however, not the aim of the discussion to
+appraise the relative merits of either system, or to applaud one and
+disparage the other. All that it is sought to do is to distinguish
+between them; and to demonstrate that, whatever be the merits or
+demerits of the two philosophies, they are two, and not one.
+
+
+
+SECTION 4.--DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT
+
+
+The opinion is general that the distinctive doctrine of the mediaeval
+Church which permeated the whole of its economic thought was the
+doctrine of usury. The holders of this view may lay claim to very
+influential supporters among the students of the subject. Ashley says
+that 'the prohibition of usury was clearly the centre of the canonist
+doctrine.'[1] Roscher expresses the same opinion in practically the
+same words;[2] and Endemann sees the whole economic development of the
+Middle Ages and the Renaissance as the victorious destruction of the
+usury law by the exigencies of real life.[3] However impressed we
+may be by the opinions of such eminent authorities, we, nevertheless,
+cannot help feeling that on this point they are under a misconception.
+There is no doubt that the doctrine of the canonists which impresses
+the modern mind most deeply is the usury prohibition, partly because
+it is not generally realised that the usury doctrine would not have
+forbidden the receipt of any of the commonest kinds of unearned
+revenue of the present day, and partly because the discussion of usury
+occupies such a very large part of the writings of the canonists. It
+may be quite true to say that the doctrine of usury was that which
+gave the greatest trouble to the mediaeval writers, on account of the
+nicety of the distinctions with which it abounded, and on account of
+the ingenuity of avaricious merchants, who continually sought to
+evade the usury laws by disguising illegal under the guise of
+legal transactions. In practice, therefore, the usury doctrine was
+undoubtedly the most prominent part of the canonist teaching, because
+it was the part which most tempted evasion; but to admit that is not
+to agree with the proposition that it was the centre of the canonist
+doctrine.
+
+[Footnote: 1 _Op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 399.]
+
+[Footnote: 2 'Bekanntlich war das Wucherverbot der praktische
+Mittelpunkt der ganzen kanonischen Wirthschaftspolitik,' _Op. cit._,
+p. 8.]
+
+[Footnote: 3 _Studien_, vol. i. p. 2 and _passim_. At vol. ii. p. 31
+it is stated that the teaching on just price is a corollary of the
+usury teaching. But Aquinas treats of usury in the article _following_
+his treatment of just price.]
+
+Our view is that the teaching on usury was simply one of the
+applications of the doctrine that all voluntary exchanges of property
+must be regulated by the precepts of commutative justice. In one sense
+it might be said to be a corollary of the doctrine of just price. This
+is apparently the suggestion of Dr. Cleary in his excellent book on
+usury: 'It seems to me that the so-called loan of money is really
+a sale, and that a loan of meal, wine, oil, gunpowder, and similar
+commodities--that is to say, commodities which are consumed in use--is
+also a sale. If this is so, as I believe it is, then loans of all
+these consumptible goods should be regulated by the principles which
+regulate sale contracts. A just price only may be taken, and the
+return must be truly equivalent.'[1] This statement of Dr. Cleary's
+seems well warranted, and finds support in the analogy which was drawn
+between the legitimacy of interest--in the technical sense--and the
+legitimacy of a vendor's increasing the price of an article by reason
+of some special inconvenience which he would suffer by parting with
+it. Both these titles were justified on the same ground, namely, that
+they were in the nature of compensations, and arose independently of
+the main contract of loan or sale as the case might be. 'Le vendeur
+est en presence de l'acheteur. L'objet a pour lui une valeur
+particuliere: c'est un souvenir, par exemple. A-t-il le droit de
+majorer le prix de vente? de depasser le juste prix convenu? ... Avec
+l'unanimite des docteurs on peut trouver legitime la majoration du
+prix. L'evaluation commune distingue un double element dans l'objet:
+sa valeur ordinaire a laquelle repond le juste prix, et cette valeur
+extraordinaire qui appartient au vendeur, dont il se prive et qui
+merite une compensation: il le fait pour ainsi dire l'objet d'un
+second contrat qui se superpose au premier. Cela est si vrai que le
+supplement de prix n'est pas du au meme titre que le juste prix.'[2]
+The importance of this analogy will appear when we come to treat just
+price and usury in detail; it is simply referred to here in support of
+the proposition that, far from being a special doctrine _sui generis_,
+the usury doctrine of the Church was simply an application to the sale
+of consumptible things of the universal rules which applied to all
+sales. In other words, the doctrines of the just price and of usury
+were founded on the same fundamental precept of justice in exchange.
+If we indicate what this precept was, we can claim to have indicated
+what was the true centre of the canonist doctrine.
+
+[Footnote 1: _The Church and Usury_, p. 186.]
+
+[Footnote 1: Desbuquois, 'La Justice dans l'Echange,' _Semaine Sociale
+de France_, 1911, p. 174.]
+
+The scholastic teaching on the subject of the rules of justice in
+exchange was founded on the famous fifth book of Aristotle's _Ethics_,
+and is very clearly set forth by Aquinas. In the article of the
+_Summa_, where the question is discussed, 'Whether the mean is to be
+observed in the same way in distributive as in commutative justice?'
+we find a clear exposition: 'In commutations something is delivered to
+an individual on account of something of his that has been received,
+as may be seen chiefly in selling and buying, where the notion of
+commutation is found primarily. Hence it is necessary to equalise
+thing with thing, so that the one person should pay back to the other
+just so much as he has become richer out of that which belonged to
+the other. The result of this will be equality according to the
+_arithmetical_ mean, which is gauged according to equal excess in
+quantity. Thus 5 is the mean between 6 and 4, since it exceeds the
+latter, and is exceeded by the former by 1. Accordingly, if at the
+start both persons have 5, and one of them receives 1 out of the
+other's belongings, the one that is the receiver will have 6, and the
+other will be left with 4: and so there will be justice if both are
+brought back to the mean, I being taken from him that has 6 and given
+to him that has 4, for then both will have 5, which is the mean.'[1]
+In the following article the matter of each kind of justice is
+discussed. We are told that: 'Justice is about certain external
+operations, namely, distribution and commutation. These consist in the
+use of certain externals, whether things, persons, or even works: of
+things as when one man takes from or restores to another that which
+is his: of persons as when a man does an injury to the very person of
+another...: and of works as when a man justly enacts a work of another
+or does a work for him.... Commutative justice directs commutations
+that can take place between two persons. Of these some are
+involuntary, some voluntary.... Voluntary commutations are when a
+man voluntarily transfers his chattel to another person. And if he
+transfer it simply so that the recipient incurs no debt, as in the
+case of gifts, it is an act not of justice, but of liberality. A
+voluntary transfer belongs to justice in so far as it includes the
+notion of debt.' Aquinas then goes on to distinguish between the
+different kinds of contract, sale, usufruct, loan, letting and hiring,
+and deposit, and concludes, 'In all these actions the mean is taken in
+the same way according to the equality of repayment. Hence all these
+actions belong to the one species of justice, namely, commutative
+justice.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: ii. ii. 61, 2.]
+
+[Footnote 2: ii. ii. 61, 3. The reasoning of Aristotle is
+characteristically reinforced by the quotation of Matt. vii. 12; ii.
+ii. 77,1.]
+
+This is not the place to discuss the precise meaning of the equality
+upon which Aquinas insists, which will be more properly considered
+when we come to deal with the just price. What is to be noticed at
+present is that all the transactions which are properly comprised in
+a discussion of economic theory--sales, loans, etc.--are grouped
+together as being subject to the same regulative principle. It
+therefore appears more correct to approach the subject which we are
+attempting to treat by following that principle into its various
+applications, than by making one particular application of the
+principle the starting-point of the discussion.
+
+It will be noticed, however, that the principles of commutative
+justice all treat of the commutations of external goods--in other
+words, they assume the existence of property of external goods in
+individuals. Commutations are but a result of private property; in a
+state of communism there could be no commutation. This is well pointed
+out by Gerson[1] and by Nider.[2] It consequently is important,
+before discussing exchange of ownership, to discuss the principle of
+ownership itself; or, in other words, to study the static before the
+dynamic state.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _De Contractibus_, i. 4 'Inventa est autem commutatio
+civilis post peccatum quoniam status innocentias habuit omnia
+communia.']
+
+[Footnote 2: _De Contractibus_, v. 1: 'Nunc videndum est breviter unde
+originaliter proveniat quod rerum dominia sunt distincta, sic quod
+hoc dicatur meum et illud tuum; quia illud est fundamentum omnis
+injustitiae in contractando rem alienam, et post omnis injustitia
+reddendo eam.']
+
+[Footnote 3: See l'Abbe Desbuquois, _op. cit._, p. 168.]
+
+We shall therefore deal in the first place with the right of private
+property, which we shall show to have been fully recognised by the
+mediaeval writers. We shall then point out the duties which this
+right entailed, and shall establish the position that the scholastic
+teaching was directed equally against modern socialistic principles
+and modern unregulated individualism. The next point with which we
+shall deal is the exchange of property between individuals, which is a
+necessary corollary of the right of property. We shall show that such
+exchanges were regulated by well-defined principles of commutative
+justice, which applied equally in the case of the sale of goods and in
+the case of the sale of the use of money. The last matter with which
+we shall deal is the machinery by which exchanges are conducted,
+namely, money. Many other subjects, such as slavery and the legitimacy
+of commerce, will be treated as they arise in the course of our
+treatment of these principal divisions.
+
+In its ultimate analysis, the whole subject may be reduced to a
+classification of the various duties which attached to the right of
+private property. The owner of property, as we shall see, was bound
+to observe certain duties in respect of its acquisition and its
+consumption, and certain other duties in respect of its exchange,
+whether it consisted of goods or of money. The whole fabric of
+mediaeval economics was based on the foundation of private property;
+and the elaborate and logical system of regulations to ensure justice
+in economic life would have had no purpose or no use if the subject
+matter of that justice were abolished.
+
+It must not be understood that the mediaeval writers treated economic
+subjects in this order, or in any order at all. As we have already
+said, economic matters are simply referred to in connection with
+ethics, and were not detached and treated as making up a distinct
+body of teaching. Ashley says: 'The reader will guard himself against
+supposing that any mediaeval writer ever detached these ideas from
+the body of his teaching, and put them together as a modern text-book
+writer might do; or that they were ever presented in this particular
+order, and with the connecting argument definitely stated.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 387.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+PROPERTY
+
+
+
+SECTION 1.--THE RIGHT TO PROCURE AND DISPENSE PROPERTY
+
+
+The teaching of the mediaeval Church on the subject of property was
+perfectly simple and clear. Aquinas devoted a section of the _Summa_
+to it, and his opinion was accepted as final by all the later writers
+of the period, who usually repeat his very words. However, before
+coming to quote and explain Aquinas, it is necessary to deal with
+a difficulty that has occurred to several students of Christian
+economics, namely, that the teaching of the scholastics on the subject
+of property was in some way opposed to the teaching of the early
+Church and of Christ Himself. Thus Haney says: 'It is necessary to
+keep the ideas of Christianity and the Church separate, for few
+will deny that Christianity as a religion is quite distinct from the
+various institutions or Churches which profess it....' And he goes
+on to point out that, whereas Christianity recommended community of
+property, the Church permitted private property and inequality.[1]
+Strictly speaking, the reconciliation of the mediaeval teaching with
+that of the primitive Church might be said to be outside the scope of
+the present essay. In our opinion, however, it is important to insist
+upon the fundamental harmony of the teaching of the Church in the two
+periods, in the first place, because it is impossible to understand
+the later without an understanding of the earlier doctrine from which
+it developed, and secondly, because of the widespread prevalence, even
+among Catholics, of the erroneous idea that the scholastic teaching
+was opposed to the ethical principle laid down by the Founder of
+Christianity.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 73.]
+
+Amongst the arguments which are advanced by socialists none is more
+often met than the alleged socialist teaching and practice of the
+early Christians. For instance, Cabet's _Voyage en Icarie_ contains
+the following passage: 'Mais quand on s'enfonce serieusement et
+ardemment dans la question de savoir comment la societe pourrait etre
+organisee en Democratie, c'est-a-dire sur les bases de l'Egalite et de
+la Fraternite, on arrive a reconnaitre que cette organisation exige
+et entraine necessairement la communaute de biens. Et nous hatons
+d'ajouter que cette communaute etait egalement proclamee par
+Jesus-Christ, par tous ses apotres et ses disciples, par tous les
+peres de l'Eglise et tous les Chretiens des premiers siecles.' The
+fact that St. Thomas Aquinas, the great exponent of Catholic teaching
+in the Middle Ages, defends in unambiguous language the institution of
+private property offers no difficulties to the socialist historian of
+Christianity. He replies simply that St. Thomas wrote in an age when
+the Church was the Church of the rich as well as of the poor; that
+it had to modify its doctrines to ease the consciences of its rich
+members; and that, ever since the conversion of Constantine, the
+primitive Christian teaching on property had been progressively
+corrupted by motives of expediency, until the time of the _Summa_,
+when it had ceased to resemble in any way the teaching of the
+Apostles.[1] We must therefore first of all demonstrate that there is
+no such contradiction between the teaching of the Apostles and that of
+the mediaeval Church on the subject of private property, but that,
+on the contrary, the necessity of private property was at all times
+recognised and insisted on by the Catholic Church. As it is put in an
+anonymous article in the _Dublin Review_: 'Among Christian nations we
+discover at a very early period a strong tendency towards a general
+and equitable distribution of wealth and property among the whole body
+politic. Grounded on an ever-increasing historical evidence, we might
+possibly affirm that the mediaeval Church brought her whole weight to
+bear incessantly upon this one singular and single point.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: See, _e.g._, Nitti, _Catholic Socialism_, p. 71. 'Thus,
+then, according to Nitti, the Christian Church has been guilty of the
+meanest, most selfish, and most corrupt utilitarianism in her attitude
+towards the question of wealth and property. She was communistic when
+she had nothing. She blessed poverty in order to fill her own coffers.
+And when the coffers were full she took rank among the owners of
+land and houses, she became zealous in the interests of property, and
+proclaimed that its origin was divine' ('The Fathers of the Church and
+Socialism,' by Dr. Hogan, _Irish Ecclesiastical Record_, vol. xxv. p.
+226).]
+
+[Footnote 2: 'Christian Political Economy,' _Dublin Review_, N.S.,
+vol. vi. p. 356]
+
+The alleged communism of the first Christians is based on a few verses
+of the Acts of the Apostles describing the condition of the Church of
+Jerusalem. 'And they that believed were together and had all things
+common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to
+all men, as every man had need.'[1] 'And the multitude of them that
+believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them
+that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had
+all things common. Neither was there any amongst them that lacked: for
+as many as were possessors of land or houses sold them, and brought
+the price of the things that were sold, And laid them down at the
+apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as
+he had need.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: ii. 44-45.]
+
+[Footnote 2: iv. 32, 34, 35.]
+
+It is by no means clear whether the state of things here depicted
+really amounted to communism in the strict sense. Several of the most
+enlightened students of the Bible have come to the conclusion that the
+verses quoted simply express in a striking way the great liberality
+and benevolence which prevailed among the Christian fraternity at
+Jerusalem. This view was strongly asserted by Mosheim,[1] and is held
+by Dr. Carlyle. 'A more careful examination of the passages in the
+Acts,' says the latter,[2] 'show clearly enough that this was no
+systematic division of property, but that the charitable instinct
+of the infant Church was so great that those who were in want were
+completely supported by those who were more prosperous.... Still there
+was no systematic communism, no theory of the necessity of it.' Colour
+is lent to this interpretation by the fact that similar words
+and phrases were used to emphasise the prevalence of charity and
+benevolence in later communities of Christians, amongst whom, as
+we know from other sources, the right of private property was fully
+admitted. Thus Tertullian wrote:[3] 'One in mind and soul, we do not
+hesitate to share our earthly goods with one another. All things are
+common among us but our wives.' This passage, if it were taken alone,
+would be quite as strong and unambiguous as those from the Acts; but
+fortunately, a few lines higher up, Tertullian had described how the
+Church was supported, wherein he showed most clearly that private
+property was still recognised and practised: 'Though we have our
+treasure-chest, it is not made up of purchase-money, as of a religion
+that has its price. On the monthly collection day, if he likes, each
+puts in a small donation; but only if he has pleasure, and only if
+he be able; all is voluntary.' This point is well put by Bergier:[4]
+'Towards the end of the first century St. Barnabas; in the second,
+St. Justin and St. Lucian; in the third, St. Clement of Alexandria,
+Tertullian, Origen, St. Cyprian; in the fourth, Arnobius and
+Lactantius, say that among the Christians all goods are common; there
+was then certainly no question of a communism of goods taken in the
+strict sense.'
+
+[Footnote 1: _Dissert. ad Hist. Eccles._, vol. ii. p. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 'The Political Theory of the Ante-Nicene Fathers,'
+_Economic Review_, vol. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Apol._ 39.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Dictionnaire de Theologie_, Paris, 1829, tit.
+'Communaute.']
+
+It is therefore doubtful if the Church at Jerusalem, as described in
+the Acts, practised communism at all, as apart from great liberality
+and benevolence. Assuming, however, that the Acts should be
+interpreted in their strict literal sense, let us see to what the
+so-called communism amounted.
+
+In the first place, it is plain from Acts iv. 32 that the communism
+was one of use, not of ownership. It was not until the individual
+owner had sold his goods and placed the proceeds in the common fund
+that any question of communism arose. 'Whiles it remained was it not
+thine own,' said St. Peter, rebuking Ananias, 'and after it was sold
+was it not in thine own power?'[1] This distinction is particularly
+important in view of the fact that it is precisely that insisted on by
+St. Thomas Aquinas. There is no reason to suppose that the community
+of use practised at Jerusalem was in any way different from that
+advocated by Aquinas--namely, 'the possession by a man of external
+things, not as his own, but in common, so that, to wit, he is ready to
+communicate them to others in their need.'
+
+[Footnote 1: Roscher, _Political Economy_ (Eng. trans.), vol. i. p.
+246; _Catholic Encyclopaedia_, tit. 'Communism.']
+
+In the next place, we must observe that the communism described in the
+Acts was purely voluntary. This is quite obvious from the relation in
+the fifth chapter of the incident of Ananias and Sapphira. There is
+no indication that the abandonment of one's possessory rights was
+preached by the Apostles. Indeed, it would be difficult to understand
+why they should have done so, when Christ Himself had remained
+silent on the subject. Far from advocating communism, the Founder
+of Christianity had urged the practice of many virtues for which
+the possession of private property was essential. 'What Christ
+recommended,' says Sudre,[1] 'was voluntary abnegation or almsgiving.
+But the giving of goods without any hope of compensation, the
+spontaneous deprivation of oneself, could not exist except under a
+system of private property ... they were one of the ways of exercising
+such rights.' Moreover, as the same author points out, private
+property was fully recognised under the Jewish dispensation, and
+Christ would therefore have made use of explicit language if he had
+intended to alter the old law in this fundamental respect. 'Think not
+that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come
+to destroy, but to fulfil.'[2] At the time of Christ's preaching, a
+Jewish sect, the Essenes, were endeavouring to put into practice the
+ideals of communism, but there is not a word in the Gospels to suggest
+that He ever held them up as an example to His followers. 'Communism
+was never preached by Christ, although it was practised under His
+very eyes by the Essenes. This absolute silence is equivalent to an
+implicit condemnation.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Histoire du Communisme_, p. 39.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. v. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Sudre, _op. cit._, p. 44. On the Essenes see 'Historic
+Phases of Socialism,' by Dr. Hogan, _Irish Ecclesiastical Record_,
+vol. xxv. p. 334. Even Huet discounts the importance of this instance
+of communism, _Le Regne social du Christianisme_, p. 38.]
+
+Nor was communism preached as part of Christ's doctrine as taught
+by the Apostles. In Paul's epistles there is no direction to the
+congregations addressed that they should abandon their private
+property; on the contrary, the continued existence of such rights is
+expressly recognised and approved in his appeals for funds for the
+Church at Jerusalem.[1] Can it be that, as Roscher says,[2] the
+experiment in communism had produced a chronic state of poverty in the
+Church at Jerusalem? Certain it is the experiment was never repeated
+in any of the other apostolic congregations. The communism at
+Jerusalem, if it ever existed at all, not only failed to spread to
+other Churches, but failed to continue at Jerusalem itself. It is
+universally admitted by competent students of the question that the
+phenomenon was but temporary and transitory.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _e.g._ Rom. xv. 26, 1 Cor. xvi. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Political Economy_, vol. i. p. 246.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Sudre, _op. cit._; Salvador, _Jesus-Christ et sa
+Doctrine_, vol. ii. p. 221. See More's _Utopia_.]
+
+The utterances of the Fathers of the Church on property are scattered
+and disconnected. Nevertheless, there is sufficient cohesion in them
+to enable us to form an opinion of their teaching on the subject. It
+has, as we have said, frequently been asserted that they favoured
+a system of communism, and disapproved of private ownership. The
+supporters of this view base their arguments on a number of isolated
+texts, taken out of their context, and not interpreted with any regard
+to the circumstances in which they were written. 'The mistake,' as
+Devas says,[1] 'of representing the early Christian Fathers of the
+Church as rank socialists is frequently made by those who are friendly
+to modern socialism; the reason for it is that either they have taken
+passages of orthodox writers apart from their context, and without
+due regard to the circumstances in which they were written, and the
+meaning they would have conveyed to their hearers; or else, by a
+grosser blunder, the perversions of heretics are set forth as the
+doctrine of the Church, and a sad case arises of mistaken identity.' A
+careful study of the patristic texts bearing on the subject leads one
+to the conclusion that Mr. Devas's view is without doubt the correct
+one.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Dublin Review_, Jan. 1898.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Dr. Hogan, in an article entitled 'The Fathers of the
+Church and Socialism,' in the _Irish Ecclesiastical Record_, vol.
+xxv. p. 226, has examined all the texts relative to property in the
+writings of Tertullian, St. Justin Martyn, St. Clement of Rome, St.
+Clement of Alexandria, St. Basil, St. Ambrose, St. John Chrysostom,
+St. Augustine, and St. Gregory the Great; and the utterances of St.
+Basil, St. Ambrose, and St. Jerome are similarly examined in 'The
+Alleged Socialism of the Church Fathers,' by Dr. John A. Ryan.
+The patristic texts are also fully examined by Abbe Calippe in 'Le
+Caractere sociale de la Propriete' in _La Semaine Sociale de France_,
+1909, p. 111. The conclusion come to after thorough examinations such
+as these is always the same. For a good analysis of the patristic
+texts from the communistic standpoint, see Conrad Noel, _Socialism in
+Church History_.]
+
+The passages from the writings of the Fathers which are cited by
+socialists who are anxious to support the proposition that socialism
+formed part of the early Christian teaching may be roughly divided
+into four groups: first, passages where the abandonment of earthly
+possessions is held up as a work of more than ordinary devotion--in
+other words, a counsel of perfection; second, those where the practice
+of almsgiving is recommended in the rhetorical and persuasive language
+of the missioner--where the faithful are exhorted to exercise their
+charity to such a degree that it may be said that the rich and the
+poor have all things in common; third, passages directed against
+avarice and the wrongful acquisition or abuse of riches; and fourth,
+passages where the distinction between the natural and positive law on
+the matter is explained.
+
+The following passage from Cyprian is a good example of an utterance
+which was clearly meant as a counsel of perfection. Isolated sentences
+from this passage have frequently been quoted to prove that Cyprian
+was an advocate of communism; but there can be no doubt from the
+passage as a whole, that all that he was aiming at was to cultivate in
+his followers a high detachment from earthly wealth, and that, in so
+far as complete abandonment of one's property is recommended, it is
+simply indicated as a work of quite unusual devotion. It is noteworthy
+that this passage occurs in a treatise on almsgiving, a practice which
+presupposes a system of individual ownership:[1] 'Let us consider what
+the congregation of believers did in the time of the Apostles, when
+at the first beginnings the mind flourished with greater virtues, when
+the faith of believers burned with a warmth of faith yet new. Thus
+they sold houses and farms, and gladly and liberally presented to
+the Apostles the proceeds to be dispersed to the poor; selling and
+alienating their earthly estate, they transferred their lands thither
+where they might receive the fruits of an eternal possession, and
+there prepared houses where they might begin an eternal habitation.
+Such, then, was the abundance in labours as was the agreement in love,
+as we read in the Acts--"Neither said any of them that aught of
+the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things
+common." This is truly to become son of God by spiritual birth; this
+is to imitate by the heavenly law the equity of God the Father. For
+whatever is of God is common in our use; nor is any one excluded from
+His benefits and His gifts so as to prevent the whole human race from
+enjoying equally the divine goodness and liberality. Thus the day
+equally enlightens, the sun gives radiance, the rain moistens, the
+wind blows, and the sleep is one to those who sleep, and the splendour
+of Stars and of the Moon is common. In which examples of equality he
+who as a possessor in the earth shares his returns and his fruits
+with the fraternity, while he is common and just in his gratuitous
+bounties, is an imitator of God the Father.'
+
+[Footnote 1: _De Opere et Eleemosynis_, 25.]
+
+There is a much-quoted passage of St. John Chrysostom which is
+capable of the same interpretation. In his commentary on the
+alleged communistic existence of the Apostles at Jerusalem the Saint
+emphasises the fact that their communism was voluntary: 'That this was
+in consequence not merely of the miraculous signs, but of their
+own purpose, is manifest from the case of Ananias and Sapphira.' He
+further insists on the fact that the members of this community were
+animated by unusual fervour: 'From the exceeding ardour of the
+givers none was in want.' Further down, in the same homily, St. John
+Chrysostom urges the adoption of a communistic system of housekeeping,
+but purely on the grounds of domestic economy and saving of labour.
+There is not a word to suggest that a communistic system was morally
+preferable to a proprietary one.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Hom, on Acts xi_. That voluntary poverty was regarded
+as a counsel of perfection by Aquinas is abundantly clear from many
+passages in his works, _e.g. Summa_, I. ii. 108, 4; II. ii. 185, 6;
+II. ii. 186, 3; _Summa cont. Gent_., iii. 133. On this, as on every
+other point, the teaching of Aquinas is in line with that of the
+Fathers.]
+
+The second class of patristic texts which are relied on by socialists
+are, as we have said, those 'where the practice of almsgiving
+is recommended in the rhetorical and persuasive language of the
+missioner--where the faithful are exhorted to exercise their charity
+to such a degree that it may be said that the rich and poor have all
+things in common.' Such passages are very frequent throughout the
+writings of the Fathers, but we may give as examples two, which are
+most frequently relied on by socialists. One of these is from St.
+Ambrose:[1] 'Mercy is a part of justice; and if you wish to give to
+the poor, this mercy is justice. "He hath dispersed, he hath given
+to the poor; his righteousness endureth for ever."[2] It is therefore
+unjust that one should not be helped by his neighbour; when God hath
+wished the possession of the earth to be common to all men, and its
+fruits to minister to all; but avarice established possessory rights.
+It is therefore just that if you lay claim to anything as your private
+property, which is really conferred in common to the whole human race,
+that you should dispense something to the poor, so that you may not
+deny nourishment to those who have the right to share with you.' The
+following passage from Gregory the Great[3] is another example of
+this kind of passage: 'Those who rather desire what is another's, nor
+bestow that is their own, are to be admonished to consider carefully
+that the earth out of which they are taken is common to all men, and
+therefore brings forth nourishment for all in common. Vainly, then,
+do they suppose themselves innocent who claim to their own private
+use the common gift of God; those who in not imparting what they have
+received walk in the midst of the slaughter of their neighbours; since
+they almost daily slay so many persons as there are dying poor whose
+subsidies they keep close in their own possession.'
+
+[Footnote 1: _Comm. on Ps. cxviii._, viii. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ps. cxii. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Lib. Reg. Past._, iii. 21.]
+
+The third class of passages to which reference must be made is
+composed of the numerous attacks which the Fathers levelled against
+the abuse or wrongful acquisition of riches. These passages do not
+indicate that the Fathers favoured a system of communism, but point
+in precisely the contrary direction. If property were an evil thing
+in itself, they would not have wasted so much time in emphasising the
+evil uses to which it was sometimes put. The insistence on the abuses
+of an institution is an implicit admission that it has its uses.
+Thus Clement of Alexandria devotes a whole treatise to answering the
+question 'Who is the rich man who can be saved?' in which it appears
+quite plainly that it is the possible abuse of wealth, and the
+possible too great attachment to worldly goods, that are the principal
+dangers in the way of a rich man's salvation. The suggestion that
+in order to be saved a man must abandon all his property is strongly
+controverted. The following passage from St. Gregory Nazianzen[1]
+breathes the same spirit: 'One of us has oppressed the poor, and
+wrested from him his portion of land, and wrongly encroached upon his
+landmarks by fraud or violence, and joined house to house, and field
+to field, to rob his neighbour of something, and has been eager to
+have no neighbour, so as to dwell alone on the earth. Another has
+defiled the land with usury and interest, both gathering where he has
+not sowed and reaping where he has not strewn, farming not the land
+but the necessity of the needy.... Another has had no pity on the
+widow and orphans, and not imparted his bread and meagre nourishment
+to the needy; ... a man perhaps of much property unexpectedly gained,
+for this is the most unjust of all, who finds his very barns too
+narrow for him, fining some and emptying others to build greater ones
+for future crops.' Similarly Clement of Rome advocates _frugality_
+in the enjoyment of wealth;[2] and Salvian has a long passage on the
+dangers of the abuse of riches.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Orat_., xvi. 18.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _The Instructor_, iii. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Ad Eccles._, i. 7.]
+
+The fourth group of passages is that in which the distinction between
+the natural and positive law on the matter is explained. It is here
+that the greatest confusion has been created by socialist writers, who
+conclude, because they read in the works of some of the Fathers that
+private property did not exist by natural law, that it was therefore
+condemned by them as an illegitimate institution. Nothing could be
+more erroneous. All that the Fathers meant in these passages was that
+in the state of nature--the idealised Golden Age of the pagans, or the
+Garden of Eden of the Christians--there was no individual ownership of
+goods. The very moment, however, that man fell from that ideal state,
+communism became impossible, simply on account of the change that had
+taken place in man's own nature. To this extent it is true to say
+that the Fathers regarded property with disapproval; it was one of the
+institutions rendered necessary by the fall of man. Of course it would
+have been preferable that man should not have fallen from his natural
+innocence, in which case he could have lived a life of communism;
+but, as he had fallen, and communism had from that moment become
+impossible, property must be respected as the one institution which
+could put a curb on his avarice, and preserve a society of fallen men
+from chaos and general rapine.
+
+That this is the correct interpretation of the patristic utterances
+regarding property and natural law appears from the following
+passage of _The Divine Institution_ of Lactantius--'the most explicit
+statement bearing on the Christian idea of property in the first four
+centuries':[1] '"They preferred to live content with a simple mode
+of life," as Cicero relates in his poems; and this is peculiar to our
+religion. "It was not even allowed to mark out or to divide the plain
+with a boundary: men sought all things in common,"[2] since God had
+given the earth in common to all, that they might pass their life in
+common, not that mad and raging avarice might claim all things for
+itself, and that riches produced for all might not be wanting to any.
+And this saying of the poet ought so to be taken, not as suggesting
+the idea that individuals at that time had no private property, but it
+must be regarded as a poetical figure, that we may understand that
+men were so liberal, that they did not shut up the fruits of the earth
+produced for them, nor did they in solitude brood over the things
+stored up, but admitted the poor to share the fruits of their labour:
+
+  "Now streams of milk, now streams of nectar flowed."[3]
+
+And no wonder, since the storehouses of the good literally lay open
+to all. Nor did avarice intercept the divine bounty, and thus cause
+hunger and thirst in common; but all alike had abundance, since they
+who had possessions gave liberally and bountifully to those who had
+not. But after Saturnus had been banished from heaven, and had arrived
+in Latium ... not only did the people who had a superfluity fail
+to bestow a share upon others, but they even seized the property of
+others, drawing everything to their private gain; and the things which
+formerly even individuals laboured to obtain for the common use of all
+were now conveyed to the powers of a few. For that they might subdue
+others by slavery, they began to withdraw and collect together the
+necessaries of life, and to keep them firmly shut up, that they might
+make the bounties of heaven their own; not on account of kindness
+(_humanitas_), a feeling which had no existence for them, but that
+they might sweep together all the instruments of lust and avarice.'[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'The Biblical and Early Christian Idea of Property,' by
+Dr. V. Bartlett, in _Property, its Duties and Rights_ (London, 1913).]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Georg._, i. 126.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Ovid, _Met._, I. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Lactantius, _Div. Inst._, v. 5-6.]
+
+It appears from the above passage that Lactantius regarded the era in
+which a system of communism existed as long since vanished, if indeed
+it ever had existed. The same idea emerges from the writings of St.
+Augustine, who drew a distinction between divine and human right. 'By
+what right does every man possess what he possesses?' he asks.[1] 'Is
+it not by human right? For by divine right "the earth is the Lord's,
+and the fullness thereof." The poor and the rich God made of one clay;
+the same earth supports alike the poor and the rich. By human right,
+however, one says, This estate is mine, this servant is mine, this
+house is mine. By human right, therefore, is by right of the Emperor.
+Why so? Because God has distributed to mankind these very human rights
+through the emperors and kings of the world.'
+
+[Footnote 1: _Tract in Joh. Ev._, vi. 25.]
+
+The socialist commentators of St. Augustine have strained this, and
+similar passages, to mean that because property rests on human, and
+not on divine, right, therefore it should not exist at all. It is, of
+course true that what human right has created human right can repeal;
+and it is therefore quite fair to argue that all the citizens of a
+community might agree to live a life of communism. That is simply an
+argument to prove that there is nothing immoral in communism, and does
+not prove in the very slightest degree that there is anything immoral
+in property. On the contrary, so long as 'the emperors and kings of
+the world' ordain that private property shall continue, it would be,
+according to St. Augustine, immoral for any individual to maintain
+that such ordinances were wrongful.
+
+The correct meaning of the patristic distinction between natural and
+positive law with regard to property is excellently summarised in Dr.
+Carlyle's essay on _Property in Mediaeval Theology_:[1] 'What do the
+expressions of the Fathers mean? At first sight they might seem to be
+an assertion of communism, or denunciation of private property as a
+thing which is sinful or unlawful. But this is not what the Fathers
+mean. There can be little doubt that we find the sources of these
+words in such a phrase as that of Cicero--"Sunt autem privata nulla
+natura"[2]--and in the Stoic tradition which is represented in one of
+Seneca's letters, when he describes the primitive life in which men
+lived together in peace and happiness, when there was no system of
+coercive government and no private property, and says that man passed
+out of this primitive condition as their first innocence disappeared,
+as they became avaricious and dissatisfied with the common enjoyment
+of the good things of the world, and desired to hold them as their
+private possession.[3] Here we have the quasi-philosophical theory,
+from which the patristic conception is derived. When men were
+innocent there was no need for private property, or the other great
+conventional institutions of society, but as this innocence passed
+away, they found themselves compelled to organise society and to
+devise institutions which should regulate the ownership and use of
+the good things which men had once held in common. The institution of
+property thus represents the fall of man from his primitive innocence,
+through greed and avarice, which refused to recognise the common
+ownership of things, and also the method by which the blind greed of
+human nature might be controlled and regulated. It is this ambiguous
+origin of the institution which explains how the Fathers could hold
+that private property was not natural, that it grew out of men's
+vicious and sinful desires, and at the same time that it was a
+legitimate institution.'
+
+Janet takes the same view of the patristic utterances on this
+subject:[4] 'What do the Fathers say? It is that in Jesus Christ there
+is no mine and thine. Nothing is more true, without doubt; in the
+divine order, in the order of absolute charity, where men are
+wholly wrapt up in God, distinction and inequality of goods would be
+impossible. But the Fathers saw clearly that such a state of things
+was not realisable here below. What did they do? They established
+property on human law, positive law, imperial law. Communism is
+either a Utopia or a barbarism; a Utopia if one imagine it founded on
+universal devotion; a barbarism if one imposes it by force.'[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Property, Its Duties and Rights_ (London, 1913).]
+
+[Footnote 2: _De Off._, i. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Seneca, _Ep._, xiv. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Histoire de la Science politique_, vol. i. p. 330.]
+
+[Footnote 5: See also Jarrett, _Mediaeval Socialism_.]
+
+It must not be concluded that the evidence of the approbation by the
+Fathers of private property is purely negative or solely derived from
+the interpretation of possibly ambiguous texts. On the contrary,
+the lawfulness of property is emphatically asserted on more than one
+occasion. 'To possess riches,' says Hilary of Poictiers,[1] 'is not
+wrongful, but rather the manner in which possession is used.... It
+is a crime to possess wrongfully rather than simply to possess.' 'Who
+does not understand,' asks St. Augustine,[2] 'that it is not sinful to
+possess riches, but to love and place hope in them, and to prefer them
+to truth or justice?' Again, 'Why do you reproach us by saying that
+men renewed in baptism ought no longer to beget children or to
+possess fields and houses and money? Paul allows it.'[3] According to
+Ambrose,[4] 'Riches themselves are not wrongful. Indeed, "redemptio
+animae* viri divitiae* ejus," because he who gives to the poor saves
+his soul. There is therefore a place for goodness in these material
+riches. You are as steersmen in a great sea. He who steers his ship
+well, quickly crosses the waves, and comes to port; but he who does
+not know how to control his ship is sunk by his own weight. Wherefore
+it is written, "Possessio divitum civitas firmissima."' A Council in
+A.D. 415 condemned the proposition held by Pelagius that 'the rich
+cannot be saved unless they renounced their goods.'[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Comm. on Matt. xix._ 9.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Contra Ad._, xx. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Mor. Eccl. Cath._, i. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Epist._, lxiii. 92.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Revue Archeologique_, 1880, p. 321.]
+
+The more one studies the Fathers the more one becomes convinced that
+property was regarded by them as one of the normal and legitimate
+institutions of human society. Benigni's conclusion, as the result of
+his exceptionally thorough researches, is that according to the early
+Fathers, 'property is lawful and ought scrupulously to be respected.
+But property is subject to the high duties of human fellowship which
+sprang from the equality and brotherhood of man. Collectivism is
+absurd and immoral.'[1] Janet arrived at the same conclusion: 'In
+spite of the words of the Fathers, in spite of the advice given by
+Christ to the rich man to sell all his goods and give to the poor, in
+spite of the communism of the Apostles, can one say that Christianity
+condemned property? Certainly not. Christianity considered it a
+counsel of perfection for a man to deprive himself of his goods; it
+did not abrogate the right of anybody.'[2] The same conclusion is
+reached by the Abbe Calippe in an excellent article published in _La
+Semaine Sociale de France_, 1909. 'The right of property and of the
+property owner are assumed.'[3] 'It is only prejudiced or superficial
+minds which could make the writers of the fourth century the
+precursors of modern communists or collectivists.'[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: _L'Economia Sociale Christiana avanti Costantino_ (Genoa,
+1897).]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Histoire de la Science politique_, vol. i. p. 319.]
+
+[Footnote 3: P. 114.]
+
+[Footnote 4: P. 121.]
+
+When we turn to St. Thomas Aquinas, we find that his teaching on the
+subject of property is not at all out of harmony with that of the
+earlier Fathers of the Church, but, on the contrary, summarises and
+consolidates it. 'It remained to elaborate, to constitute a definite
+theory of the right of property. It sufficed to harmonise, to
+collaborate, and to relate one to the other these elements furnished
+by the Christian doctors of the first four or five centuries; and this
+was precisely the work of the great theologians of the Middle Ages,
+especially of St. Thomas Aquinas.... In establishing his thesis St.
+Thomas did not borrow from the Roman jurisconsults through the medium
+of St. Isidore more than their vocabulary, their formulas, their
+juridical distinctions; he also borrowed from Aristotle the arguments
+upon which the philosopher based his right of property. But the ground
+of his doctrine is undoubtedly of Christian origin. There is, between
+the Fathers and him, a perfect continuity.'[1] 'Community of goods,'
+he writes, 'is ascribed to the natural law, not that the natural
+law dictates that all things should be possessed in common, and that
+nothing should be possessed as one's own; but because the division of
+possession is not according to the natural law, but rather arose from
+human agreement, which belongs to positive law. Hence the ownership
+of possessions is not contrary to the natural law, but an addition
+thereto devised by human reason.' This is simply another way of
+stating St. Augustine's distinction between natural and positive law.
+If it speaks with more respect of positive law than St. Augustine
+had done, it is because Aquinas was influenced by the Aristotelian
+conception of the State being itself a natural institution, owing to
+man being a social animal.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Abbe Calippe, _op. cit._, 1909, p. 124.]
+
+[Footnote 2: See Carlyle, _Property in Mediaeval Theology_. Community
+of goods is said to be according to natural law in the canon law,
+but certain titles of acquiring private property are also said to be
+natural, so that the passage does not help the discussion very much
+(_Corp, Jur. Can._, Dec. 1. Dist. i. c. 7.)]
+
+The explanation which St. Thomas gives of the necessity for property
+also shows how clearly he agreed with the Fathers' teaching on natural
+communism: 'Two things are competent to man in respect of external
+things. One is the power to procure and dispense them, and in this
+regard it is lawful for a man to possess property. Moreover, this is
+necessary to human life for three reasons. First, because every man is
+more careful to procure what is for himself alone than that which is
+common to many or to all: since each one would shirk the labour, and
+would leave to another that which concerns the community, as happens
+when there is a great number of servants. Secondly, because human
+affairs are conducted in more orderly fashion if each man is charged
+with taking care of some particular thing himself, whereas there
+would be confusion if everybody had to look after any one thing
+indeterminately. Thirdly, because a more peaceful state is ensured to
+man if each one is contented with his own. Hence it is to be observed
+that quarrels more frequently occur when there is no division of the
+things possessed.[1] It is quite clear from this passage that Aquinas
+regarded property as something essential to the existence of society
+in the natural condition of human nature--that is to say, the
+condition that it had acquired at the fall. It is precisely the greed
+and avarice of fallen man that renders property an indispensable
+institution.
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 66, 2.]
+
+There was another sense in which property was said to be according
+to human law, in distinction to the natural law, namely, in the sense
+that, whereas the general principle that men should own things might
+be said to be natural, the particular proprietary rights of each
+individual were determined by positive law. In other words, the
+_fundamentum_ of property rights was natural, whereas the _titulus_
+of particular property rights was according to positive law. This
+distinction is stated clearly by Aquinas:[1] 'The natural right or
+just is that which by its very nature is adjusted to or commensurate
+with another person. Now this may happen in two ways; first, according
+as it is considered absolutely; thus the male by its very nature is
+commensurate with the female to beget offspring by her, and a parent
+is commensurate with the offspring to nourish it. Secondly, a thing
+is naturally commensurate with another person, not according as it
+is considered absolutely, but according to something resultant from
+it--for instance, the possession of property. For if a particular
+piece of land be considered absolutely, it contains no reason why it
+should belong to one man more than to another, but if it be considered
+in respect of its adaptability to cultivation, and the unmolested use
+of the land, it has a certain commensuration to be the property of
+one and not of another man, as the Philosopher shows.' Cajetan's
+commentary on this article clearly emphasises the distinction between
+_fundamentum_ and _titulus_: 'In the ownership of goods two things are
+to be discussed. The first is why one thing should belong to one man
+and another thing to another. The second is why this particular field
+should belong to this man, that field to that man. With regard to
+the former inquiry, it may be said that the ownership of things is
+according to the law of nations, but with regard to the second, it may
+be said to result from the positive law, because in former times one
+thing was appropriated by one man and another thing by another.' It
+must not be supposed, however, from what we have just said, that there
+are no natural titles to property. Labour, for instance, is a title
+flowing from the natural law, as also is occupancy, and in certain
+circumstances, prescription. All that is meant by the distinction
+between _fundamentum_ and _titulus_ is that, whereas it can be clearly
+demonstrated by natural law that the goods of the earth, which are
+given by God for the benefit of the whole of mankind, cannot be made
+use of to their full advantage unless they are made the subject of
+private ownership, particular goods cannot be demonstrated to be
+the lawful property of this or that person unless some human act
+has intervened. This human act need not necessarily be an act of
+agreement; it may equally be an act of some other kind--for instance,
+a decree of the law-giver, or the exercise of labour upon one's own
+goods. In the latter case, the additional value of the goods becomes
+the lawful property of the person who has exerted the labour. Aquinas
+therefore pronounced unmistakably in favour of the legitimacy of
+private property, and in doing so was in full agreement with the
+Fathers of the Church. He was followed without hesitation by all the
+later theologians, and it is abundantly evident from their writings
+that the right of private property was the keystone of their whole
+economic system.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 57, 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: A community of goods, more or less complete, and a denial
+of the rights of private property was part of the teaching of many
+sects which were condemned as heretical--for instance, the Albigenses,
+the Vaudois, the Begards, the Apostoli, and the Fratricelli. (See
+Brants, _Op. cit._, Appendix II.)]
+
+Communism therefore was no part of the scholastic teaching, but it
+must not be concluded from this that the mediaevals approved of the
+unregulated individualism which modern opinion allows to the owners of
+property. The very strength of the right to own property entailed as a
+consequence the duty of making good use of it; and a clear distinction
+was drawn between the power 'of procuring and dispensing' property
+and the power of using it. We have dealt with the former power in the
+present section, and we shall pass to the consideration of the latter
+in the next. In a later chapter we shall proceed to discuss the duties
+which attached to the owners of property in regard to its exchange.
+
+
+
+SECTION 2.--DUTIES REGARDING THE ACQUISITION AND USE OF PROPERTY
+
+
+We referred at the end of the last section to the very important
+distinction which Aquinas draws between the power of procuring and
+dispensing[1] exterior things and the power of using them. 'The second
+thing that is competent to man with regard to external things is their
+use. In this respect man ought to possess external things, not as his
+own, but as common, so that, to wit, he is ready to communicate them
+to others in their need.'[2] These words wherein St. Thomas lays
+down the doctrine of community of user of property were considered
+as authoritative by all later writers on the subject, and were
+universally quoted with approval by them,[3] and may therefore be
+taken as expressing the generally held view of the Middle Ages. They
+require careful explanation in order that their meaning be accurately
+understood.[4] Cajetan's gloss on this section of the _Summa_ enables
+us to understand its significance in a broad sense, but fuller
+information must be derived from a study of other parts of the _Summa_
+itself. 'Note,' says Cajetan, 'that the words that community of goods
+in respect of use arises from the law of nature may be understood
+in two ways, one positively, the other negatively. And if they are
+understood in their positive sense they mean that the law of nature
+dictates that all things are common to all men; if in their negative
+sense, that the law of nature did not establish private ownership of
+possessions. And in either sense the proposition is true if correctly
+understood. In the first place, if they are taken in their positive
+sense, a man who is in a position of extreme necessity may take
+whatever he can find to succour himself or another in the same
+condition, nor is he bound in such a case to restitution, because by
+natural law he has but made use of his own. And in the negative sense
+they are equally true, because the law of nature did not institute
+one thing the property of one person, and another thing of another
+person.' The principle of community of user flows logically from the
+very nature of property itself as defined by Aquinas, who taught that
+the supreme justification of private property was that it was the
+most advantageous method of securing for the community the benefits of
+material riches. While the owner of property has therefore an absolute
+right to the goods he possesses, he must at the same time remember
+that this right is established primarily on his power to benefit
+his neighbour by his proper use of it. The best evidence of the
+correctness of this statement is the fact that the scholastics
+admitted that, if the owner of property was withholding it from the
+community, or from any member of the community who had a real need of
+it, he could be forced to apply it to its proper end. If the community
+could pay for it, it was bound to do so; but if the necessitous person
+could not pay for it, he was none the less entitled to take it.
+The former of these cases was illustrated by the principle of the
+_dominium eminens_ of the State; and the latter by the principle that
+the giving of alms to a person in real need was a duty not of charity,
+but of justice.[5] We shall see in a moment that the most usual
+application of the principle enunciated by Aquinas was in the case
+of one person's extreme necessity which required almsgiving from
+another's superfluity, but, even short of such cases, there were rules
+of conduct in respect of the user of property on all occasions which
+were of extreme importance in the economic life of the time.
+
+[Footnote 1: Goyau insists on the importance of the words 'procure'
+and 'dispense.' 'Dont le premier eveille l'idee d'une constante
+sollicitude, et dont le second evoque l'image d'une generosite
+sympathetique' (_Autaur du Catholicisme Sociale_, vol. ii. p. 93).]
+
+[Footnote 2: II. ii. 66, 2. In another part of the _Summa_ the same
+distinction is clearly laid down. 'Bona temporalia quae* homini
+divinitus conferuntur, ejus quidem sunt quantum ad proprietatem; sed
+quantum ad usum non solum desent esse ejus, sed aliorum qui en eis
+sustentari possunt en eo quod ei superfluit,' II. ii. 32, 6, ad 2.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Janssen, _op. cit._, vol. ii. p. 91.]
+
+[Footnote 4: The Abbe Calippe summarises St. Thomas's doctrine as
+follows: 'Le droit de propriete est un droit reel; mais ce n'est pas
+un droit illimite, les proprietaires ont des devoirs; ils ont des
+devoirs parce que Dieu qui a cree la terre ne l'a pas creee pour eux
+seuls, mais pour tous' (_Semaine Sociale de France_, 1909, p. 123).
+According to Antoninus of Florence, goods could be evilly acquired,
+evilly distributed, or evilly consumed (_Irish Theological Quarterly_,
+vol. vii. p. 146).]
+
+[Footnote 5: On the application of this principle by the popes in the
+thirteenth and fifteenth centuries in the case of their own estates,
+see Ardant, _Papes et Paysans_, a work which must be read with a
+certain degree of caution (Nitti, _Catholic Socialism_, p. 290).]
+
+These principles for the guidance of the owner of property are
+not collected under any single heading in the _Summa_, but must be
+gathered from the various sections dealing with man's duty to his
+fellow-men and to himself. One leading virtue which was inculcated
+with great emphasis by Aquinas was that of temperance. 'All
+pleasurable things which come within the use of man,' we read in the
+section dealing with this subject, 'are ordered to some necessity of
+this life as an end. And therefore temperance accepts the necessity
+of this life as a rule or measure of the things one uses, so that,
+to wit, they should be used according as the necessity of this life
+requires.'[1] St. Thomas explains, moreover, that 'necessary' must be
+taken in the broad sense of suitable to one's condition of life,
+and not merely necessary to maintain existence.[2] The principles of
+temperance did not apply in any special way to the user of property
+more than to the enjoyment of any other good;[3] but they are relevant
+as laying down the broad test of right and wrong in the user of one's
+goods.
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 141, 5.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 2. As Buridan puts it (_Eth._, iv. 4), 'If
+any man has more than is necessary for his own requirements, and
+does not give away anything to the poor, and to his relations and
+neighbours, he is acting against right reason.']
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Rationalis creaturae* vera perfectio est unamquamque
+rem tanti habere quanti habenda est, sicut pluris est anima quam esca;
+fides et aequitas* quam pecunia' (Gerson, _De. Cont._).]
+
+More particularly relevant to the subject before us is the teaching of
+Aquinas on liberality, which is a virtue directly connected with the
+user of property. Aquinas defines liberality as 'a virtue by which
+men use well all those exterior things which are given to us for
+sustenance.'[1] The limitations within which liberality should be
+practised are stated in the same article: 'As St. Basil and St.
+Ambrose say, God has given to many a superabundance of riches, in
+order that they might gain merit by their dispensing them well. Few
+things, however, suffice for one man; and therefore the liberal man
+will advantageously expend more on others than on himself. In the
+spiritual sphere a man must always care for himself before his
+neighbours; and also in temporal things liberality does not demand
+that a man should think of others to the exclusion of himself and
+those dependent on him.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 117, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 1.]
+
+'It is not necessary for liberality that one should give away so much
+of one's riches that not enough remains to sustain himself and to
+enable him to perform works of virtue. This complete giving away
+without reserve belongs to the state of the perfection of spiritual
+life, of which we shall treat lower down; but it must be known that to
+give one's goods liberally is an act of virtue which itself produces
+happiness.'[1] The author proceeds to discuss whether making use of
+money might be an act of liberality, and replies that 'as money is by
+its very nature to be classed among useful goods, because all exterior
+things are destined for the use of man, therefore the proper act of
+liberality is the good use of money and other riches.'[2] Moreover,
+'it belongs to a virtuous man not simply to use well the goods which
+form the matter of his actions, but also to prepare the means and the
+occasions to use them well; thus the brave soldier sharpens his blade
+and keeps it in the scabbard, as well as exercising it on the enemy;
+in like manner, the liberal man should prepare and reserve his riches
+for a suitable use.'[3] It appears from this that to save part of
+one's annual income to provide against emergencies in the future,
+either by means of insurance or by investing in productive
+enterprises, is an act of liberality.
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 117, ad. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, ad. 2. 'Potest concludi quod accipere et
+custodire modificata sunt acta liberalitatis.... Major per hoc
+probatur quod dantem multotiens et consumentem, nihil autem
+accipientem et custodientem cito derelinqueret substantia temporalis;
+et ita perirent omnis ejus actus quia non habent amplius quid dare
+et consumere.... Hic autem acceptio et custodia sic modificari debet.
+Primo quidem oportet ut non sit injusta; secundo quod non sit de
+cupiditate vel avaritia suspecta propter excessum; tertio quod non
+permittat labi substantiam propter defectum ... Dare quando oportet et
+custodire quando oportet dare contrariantur; sed dare quando oportet
+et custodire quando oportet non contrariantur' (Buridan, _Eth._, iv.
+2).]
+
+The question is then discussed whether liberality is a part of
+justice. Aquinas concludes 'that liberality is not a species
+of justice, because justice renders to another what is his, but
+liberality gives him what is the giver's own. Still, it has a certain
+agreement with justice in two points; first that it is to another,
+as justice also is; secondly, that it is about exterior things like
+justice, though in another way. And therefore liberality is laid down
+by some to be a part of justice as a virtue annexed to justice as an
+accessory to a principal.'[1] Again, 'although liberality supposes not
+any legal debt as justice does, still it supposes a certain moral debt
+considering what is becoming in the person himself who practises the
+virtue, not as though he had any obligation to the other party;
+and therefore there is about it very little of the character of a
+debt.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 117, art. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 1.]
+
+It is important to draw attention to the fact that _liberalitas_
+consists in making a good use of property, and not merely in
+distributing it to others, as a confusion with the English word
+'liberality' might lead us to believe. It is, as we said above,
+therefore certain that a wise and prudent saving of money for
+investment would be considered a course of conduct within the meaning
+of the word _liberalitas_, especially if the enterprise in which the
+money were invested were one which would benefit the community as
+a whole. 'Modern industrial conditions demand that a man of wealth
+should distribute a part of his goods indirectly--that is, by
+investing them in productive and labour-employing enterprises.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ryan, _The Alleged Socialism of the Church Fathers_, p.
+20, and see Goyau, _Le Pape et la Question Sociale_, p. 79.]
+
+The nature of the virtue of _liberalitas_ may be more clearly
+understood by an explanation of the vices which stand opposed to it.
+The first of these treated by Aquinas is avarice, which he defines as
+'superfluus amor habendi divitias.' Avarice might be committed in
+two ways--by harbouring an undue desire of acquiring wealth, or by
+an undue reluctance to part with it--'primo autem superabundant
+in retinendo ... secundo ad avaritiam pertinet superabundare in
+accipiendo.'[1] These definitions are amplified in another part of the
+same section. 'For in every action that is directed to the attainment
+of some end goodness consists in the observance of a certain measure.
+The means to the end must be commensurate with the end, as medicine
+with health. But exterior goods have the character of things needful
+to an end. Hence human goodness in the matter of these goods must
+consist in the observance of a certain measure, as is done by a man
+seeking to have exterior riches in so far as they are necessary to his
+life according to his rank and condition. And therefore sin consists
+in exceeding this measure and trying to acquire or retain riches
+beyond the due limit; and this is the proper nature of avarice,
+which is defined to be an immoderate love of having.'[2] 'Avarice may
+involve immoderation regarding exterior things in two ways; in one way
+immediately as to the receiving or keeping of them when one acquires
+or keeps beyond the due amount; and in this respect it is directly a
+sin against one's neighbour, because in exterior things one man cannot
+have superabundance without another being in want, since temporal
+goods cannot be simultaneously possessed by many. The other way in
+which avarice may involve immoderation is in interior affection....'
+These words must not be taken to condemn the acquisition of large
+fortunes by capitalists, which is very often necessary in order that
+the natural resources of a country may be properly exploited. One
+man's possession of great wealth is at the present day frequently the
+means of opening up new sources of wealth and revenue to the entire
+community. In other words, superabundance is a relative term. This,
+like many other passages of St. Thomas, must be given a _contemporanea
+expositio_. 'There were no capitalists in the thirteenth century, but
+only hoarders.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 118, 4.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Rickaby, _Aquinas Ethicus_, vol. ii. p. 234.]
+
+It must also be remembered that what would be considered avarice in
+a man in one station of life would not be considered such in a man in
+another. So long as one did not attempt to acquire an amount of wealth
+disproportionate to the needs of one's station of life, one could not
+be considered avaricious. Thus a common soldier would be avaricious if
+he strove to obtain a uniform of the quality worn by an officer, and
+a simple cleric if he attempted to clothe himself in a style only
+befitting a bishop.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Aquinas, _In Orat. Dom. Expos_., iv. Ashley gives many
+quotations from early English literature to show how fully the idea of
+_status_ was accepted (_Economic History_, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 389).
+On the warfare waged by the Church on luxury in the Middle Ages, see
+Baudrillard, _Histoire du Luxe prive et publique_, vol. iii. pp. 630
+_et seq._]
+
+The avaricious man offended against liberality by caring too much
+about riches; the prodigal, on the other hand, cared too little about
+them, and did not attach to them their proper value. 'In affection
+while the prodigal falls short, not taking due care of them, in
+exterior behaviour it belongs to the prodigal to exceed in giving, but
+to fail in keeping or acquiring, while it belongs to the miser to
+come short in giving, but to superabound in getting and in
+keeping. Therefore it is clear that prodigality is the opposite of
+covetousness.'[1] A man, however, might commit both sins at the same
+time, by being unduly anxious to acquire wealth which he distributed
+prodigally.[2] Prodigality could always be distinguished from extreme
+liberality by a consideration of the circumstances of the particular
+case; a truly liberal man might give away more than a prodigal in
+case of necessity.[3] Prodigality, though a sin, was a sin of a less
+grievous kind than avarice.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 119, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, ad. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, art. 3. 'Per prodigalitatem intelligimus habitum
+quo quis praeter vel contra dictamen rectae rationis circa
+pecunias excedit in datione vel consumptione vel custodia; et per
+illiberalitatem intelligimus habitum quo quis contra dietamen rectae
+rationis deficit circa pecunias in datione vel consumptione, vel
+superabundat in acceptione vel custodia ipsarum' (Buridan, _Eth._, iv.
+3).]
+
+In addition to the duties which were imposed on the owners of property
+in all circumstances there was a further duty which only arose on
+special occasions, namely, _magnificentia_, or munificence. This
+virtue is discussed by Aquinas[1], but we shall quote the passages of
+Buridan which explain it, not because they depart in any way from the
+teaching of Aquinas, but because they are clearer and more scientific.
+'By munificence, we understand a habit inclining one to the
+performance of great works, or to the incurring of great expenses,
+when, where, and in the manner in which they are called for (_fuerit
+opportunum_), for example, building a church, assembling great
+armies for a threatened war, and giving splendid marriage feasts.' He
+explains that 'munificence stands in the same relation to liberality
+as bravery acquired by its exercise in danger of death in battle does
+to bravery simply and commonly understood.' Two vices stand opposed
+to munificentia: (1) _parvificentia_, 'a habit inclining one not
+to undertake great works, when circumstances call for them, or to
+undertaking less, or at less expense, than the needs of the situation
+demand,' and (2) (_[Greek: banousia]_,) 'a habit inclining one to
+undertaking great works, which are not called for by circumstances,
+or undertaking them on a greater scale or at a greater expense than is
+necessary[2].'
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 134.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Eth._, iv. 7.]
+
+Both in the case of avarice and prodigality the offending state
+of mind consisted in attaching a wrong value to wealth, and the
+inculcation of the virtue of liberality must have been attended
+with good results not alone to the souls of individuals, but to the
+economic condition of the community. The avaricious man not only
+imperilled his own soul by attaching too much importance to temporal
+gain, but he also injured the community by monopolising too large a
+share of its wealth; the prodigal man, in addition to incurring
+the occasion of various sins of intemperance, also impoverished the
+community by wasting in reckless consumption wealth which might have
+been devoted to productive or charitable purposes. He who neglected
+the duty of munificence, either by refusing to make a great
+expenditure when it was called for (_parvificentia_) or by making one
+when it was unnecessary (_[Greek: banousia]_) was also deemed to have
+done wrong, because in the one case he valued his money too highly,
+and in the other not highly enough. In other words, he attached a
+wrong value to wealth. Nothing could be further from the truth than
+the suggestion that the schoolmen despised or belittled temporal
+riches. Quite on the contrary, they esteemed it a sin to conduct
+oneself in a manner which showed a defective appreciation of their
+value[1]. Riches may have been the occasion of sin; but so was
+poverty. 'The occasions of sin are to be avoided,' says Aquinas, 'but
+poverty is an occasion of evil, because theft, perjury, and flattery
+are frequently brought about by it.
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Non videtur secundum humanam rationem esse boni et
+perfecti divitias abjicere totaliter, sed eis uti bene et reficiendo
+superfluas pauperibus subvenire et amicis' (Buridan, _Eth._, iv. 3).]
+
+Therefore poverty should not be voluntarily undertaken, but rather
+avoided.'[1] Buridan says: 'There is no doubt that it is much more
+difficult to be virtuous in a state of poverty than in one of moderate
+affluence;'[2] and Antoninus of Florence expresses the opinion that
+poverty is in itself an evil thing, although out of it good may
+come.[3] Even the ambition to rise in the world was laudable, because
+every one may rightfully desire to place himself and his dependants in
+a participation of the fullest human felicity of which man is capable,
+and to rid himself of the necessity of corporal labour.[4] Avarice and
+prodigality alike offended against liberality, because they tended to
+deprive the community of the maximum benefit which it should derive
+from the wealth with which it was endowed. Dr. Cunningham may be
+quoted in support of this view. 'One of the gravest defects of the
+Roman Empire lay in the fact that its system left little scope for
+individual aims, and tended to check the energy of capitalists and
+labourers alike. But Christian teaching opened up an unending prospect
+before the individual personally, and encouraged him to activity and
+diligence by an eternal hope. Nor did such concentration of thought
+on a life beyond the grave necessarily divert attention from secular
+duties; Christianity did not disparage them, but set them in a new
+light, and brought out new motives for taking them seriously....
+The acceptance of this higher view of the dignity of human life
+as immortal was followed by a fuller recognition of personal
+responsibility. Ancient philosophy had seen that man is the master of
+material things; but Christianity introduced a new sense of duty in
+regard to the manner of using them.... Christian teachers were forced
+to protest against any employment of wealth that disregarded the glory
+of God and the good of man.'[5] It was the opinion of Knies that
+the peculiarly Christian virtues were of profound economic value.
+'Temperance, thrift, and industry--that is to say, the sun and rain of
+economic activity---were recommended by the Church and inculcated as
+Christian virtues; idleness as the mother of theft, gambling as the
+occasion of fraud, were forbidden; and gain for its own sake was
+classed as a kind of robbery[6].'
+
+[Footnote 1: _Summa cont. Gent._, iii. 131.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Eth._, iv. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Summa_, iv. 12, 3.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Cajetan, _Comm._ on II. ii. 118, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Western Civilisation_, vol. ii. pp. 8-9.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Politische Oekonomie vom Standpuncte der geschichtlichen
+Methode_, p. 116, and see Rambaud, _Histoire_, p. 759; Champagny, _La
+Bible et l'Economie politique_; Thomas Aquinas, _Summa_, II. ii.
+50, 3; Sertillanges, _Socialisme et Christianisme_, p. 53. It was
+nevertheless recognised and insisted on that wealth was not an end in
+itself, but merely a means to an end (Aquinas, _Summa_, I. ii. 2, 1).]
+
+The great rule, then, with regard to the user of property was
+liberality. Closely allied with the duty of liberality was the duty
+of almsgiving--'an act of charity through the medium of money.'[1]
+Almsgiving is not itself a part of liberality except in so far as
+liberality removes an obstacle to such acts, which may arise from
+excessive love of riches, the result of which is that one clings
+to them more than one ought[2]. Aquinas divides alms-deeds into two
+kinds, spiritual and corporal, the latter alone of which concern us
+here. 'Corporal need arises either during this life or afterwards. If
+it occurs during this life, it is either a common need in respect
+of things needed by all, or is a special need occurring through some
+accident supervening. In the first case the need is either internal
+or external. Internal need is twofold: one which is relieved by solid
+food, viz. hunger, in respect of which we have to _feed the hungry_;
+while the other is relieved by liquid food, viz. thirst, in respect
+of which we have to _give drink to the thirsty_. The common need with
+regard to external help is twofold: one in respect of clothing, and as
+to this we have to _clothe the naked_; while the other is in
+respect of a dwelling-place, and as to this we have to _harbour the
+harbourless_. Again, if the need be special, it is either the result
+of an internal cause like sickness, and then we have to _visit the
+sick_, or it results from an external cause, and then we have to
+_ransom the captive_. After this life we _give burial to the dead_.[3]
+Aquinas then proceeds to explain in what circumstances the duty of
+almsgiving arises. 'Almsgiving is a matter of precept. Since, however,
+precepts are about acts of virtue, it follows that all almsgiving must
+be a matter of precept in so far as it is necessary to virtue, namely,
+in so far as it is demanded by right reason. Now right reason demands
+that we should take into consideration something on the part of the
+giver, and something on the part of the recipient. On the part of the
+giver it must be noted that he must give of his surplus according to
+Luke xi. 4, "That which remaineth give alms." This surplus is to be
+taken in reference not only to the giver, but also in reference to
+those of whom he has charge (in which case we have the expression
+_necessary to the person_, taking the word _person_ as expressive
+of dignity).... On the part of the recipient it is necessary that he
+should be in need, else there would be no reason for giving him alms;
+yet since it is not possible for one individual to relieve the needs
+of all, we are not bound to relieve all who are in need, but only
+those who could not be succoured if we did not succour them. For in
+such cases the words of Ambrose apply, "Feed him that is dying of
+hunger; if thou hast not fed him thou hast slain him." Accordingly
+we are bound to give alms of our surplus, as also to give alms to one
+whose need is extreme; otherwise almsgiving, like any other greater
+good, is a matter of counsel.'[4] In replying to the objection that it
+is lawful for every one to keep what is his own, St. Thomas restates
+with emphasis the principle of community of user: 'The temporal goods
+which are given us by God are ours as to the ownership, but as to the
+use of them they belong not to us alone, but also to such others as we
+are able to succour out of what we have over and above our needs.'[5]
+Albertus Magnus states this in very strong words: 'For a man to give
+out of his superfluities is a mere act of justice, because he is
+rather then steward of them for the poor than the owner;'[6] and at an
+earlier date St. Peter Damian had affirmed that 'he who gives to the
+poor returns what he does not himself own, and does not dispose of his
+own goods.' He insists in the same passage that almsgiving is not
+an act of mercy, but of strict justice.[7] In the reply to another
+objection the duty of almsgiving is stated by Aquinas with additional
+vigour. 'There is a time when we sin mortally if we omit to give
+alms--on the part of the recipient when we see that his need is
+evident and urgent, and that he is not likely to be succoured
+otherwise--on the part of the giver when he has superfluous goods,
+which he does not need for the time being, so far as he can judge with
+probability.'[8]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 32, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 3: II. ii. 32, art. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: II. ii. 32, art. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Ibid._, ad. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Jarrett, _Mediaeval Socialism_, p. 87.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _De Eleemosynis_, cap. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 8: II. ii. 32, 5, ad. 3.]
+
+The next question which St. Thomas discusses is whether one ought to
+give alms out of what one needs. He distinguishes between two kinds
+of 'necessaries.' The first is that without which existence is
+impossible, out of which kind of necessary things one is not bound to
+give alms save in exceptional cases, when, by doing so, one would be
+helping a great personage or supporting the Church or the State, since
+'the common good is to be preferred to one's own.' The second kind
+of necessaries are those things without which a man cannot live in
+keeping with his social station. St. Thomas recommends the giving of
+alms out of this part of one's estate, but points out that it is only
+a matter of counsel, and not of precept, and one must not give alms
+to such an extent as to impoverish oneself permanently. To this last
+provision, however, there are three exceptions: one, when a man is
+entering religion and giving away all his goods; two, when he can
+easily replace what he gives away; and, three, when he is in presence
+of great indigence on the part of an individual, or great need on the
+part of the common weal. In these three cases it is praiseworthy for
+a man to forgo the requisites of his station in order to provide for a
+greater need.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 32, 6.]
+
+The mediaeval teaching on almsgiving is very well summarised by Fr.
+Jarrett,[1] as follows: '(1) A man is obliged to help another in his
+extreme need even at the risk of grave inconvenience to himself; (2) a
+man is obliged to help another who, though not in extreme need, is yet
+in considerable distress, but not at the risk of grave inconvenience
+to himself; (3) a man is not obliged to help another when necessity is
+slight, even though the risk to himself should be quite trifling.'
+
+[Footnote 1: _Mediaeval Socialism_, p. 90.]
+
+The importance of the duty of almsgiving further appears from the
+section where Aquinas lays down that the person to whom alms should
+have been given may, if the owner of the goods neglects his duty,
+repair the omission himself. 'All things are common property in a
+case of extreme necessity. Hence one who is in dire straits may take
+another's goods in order to succour himself if he can find no one who
+is willing to give him something.'[1] The duty of using one's goods
+for the benefit of one's neighbours was a fit matter for enforcement
+by the State, provided that the burdens imposed by legislation were
+equitable. 'Laws are said to be just, both from the end, when, to wit,
+they are ordained to the common good--and from their author, that is
+to say, when the law that is made does not exceed the power of the
+law-giver--and from their form, when, to wit, burdens are laid on the
+subjects according to an equality of proportion and with a view to the
+common good. For, since every man is part of the community, each man
+in all that he is and has belongs to the community: just as a part in
+all that it is belongs to the whole; wherefore nature inflicts a loss
+on the part in order to save the whole; so that on this account such
+laws, which impose proportionate burdens, are just and binding in
+conscience.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Ibid._, art. 7 ad. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: I. ii. 96,4.]
+
+There can be no doubt that the practice of the scholastic teaching of
+community of user, in its proper sense, made for social stability. The
+following passage from Trithemius, written at the end of the fifteenth
+century, is interesting as showing how consistently the doctrine of
+St. Thomas was adhered to two hundred years after his death, and
+also that the failure of the rich to put into practice the moderate
+communism of St. Thomas was the cause of the rise of the heretical
+communists, who attacked the very foundations of property itself: 'Let
+the rich remember that their possessions have not been entrusted to
+them in order that they may have the sole enjoyment of them, but
+that they may use and manage them as property belonging to mankind at
+large. Let them remember that when they give to the needy they
+only give them what belongs to them. If the duty of right use and
+management of property, whether worldly or spiritual, is neglected, if
+the rich think that they are the sole lords and masters of that which
+they possess, and do not treat the needy as their brethren, there
+must of necessity arise an inner shattering of the commonwealth. False
+teachers and deceivers of the people will then gain influence, as has
+happened in Bohemia, by preaching to the people that earthly property
+should be equally distributed among all, and that the rich must
+be forcibly condemned to the division of their wealth. Then follow
+lamentable conditions and civil wars; no property is spared; no right
+of ownership is any longer recognised; and the wealthy may then
+with justice complain of the loss of possessions which have been
+unrighteously taken from them; but they should also seriously ask
+themselves the question whether in the days of peace and order they
+recognised in the administration of these goods the right of their
+superior lord and owner, namely, the God of all the earth.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Quoted in Janssen, _op. cit._, vol. ii. p. 91.]
+
+It must not, however, be imagined for a moment that the community
+of user advocated by the scholastics had anything in common with the
+communism recommended by modern Socialists. As we have seen above,
+the scholastic communism did not at all apply to the procuring and
+dispensing of material things, but only to the mode of using them.
+It is not even correct to say that the property of an individual was
+_limited_ by the duty of using it for the common good. As Rambaud
+puts it: 'Les devoirs de charite, d'equite naturelle, et de simple
+convenance sociale peuvent affecter, ou mieux encore, commander un
+certain usage de la richesse; mais ce n'est pas le meme chose que
+limiter la propriete.'[1] The community of user of the scholastics was
+distinguished from that of modern Socialists not less strongly by the
+motives which inspired it than by the effect it produced. The former
+was dictated by high spiritual aims, and the contempt of material
+goods; the latter is the fruit of over-attachment to material goods,
+and the envy of their possessors.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 43. The same writer shows that there is no
+authority in Christian teaching for the proposition, advanced by many
+Christian Socialists, that property is a 'social function' (_ibid._,
+p. 774). The right of property even carried with it the _jus
+abutendi_, which, however, did not mean the right to _abuse_, but
+the right to destroy by consumption (see Antoine, _Cours d'Economie
+sociale_, p. 526).]
+
+[Footnote 2: Roscher, _op. cit._, p. 5: 'Vom neuern Socialismus
+freilich unterscheidet sich diese Auffassung nicht blosz durch ihre
+religioese Grundlage, sondern auch durch ihre, jedem Mammonsdienst
+entgegengesetze, Verachtung der materiellen Gueter.']
+
+The large estates which the Church itself owned have frequently been
+pointed to as evidence of hypocrisy in its attitude towards the common
+user of property. This is not the place to inquire into the condition
+of ecclesiastical estates in the Middle Ages, but it is sufficient
+to say that they were usually the centres of charity, and that in the
+opinion of so impartial a writer as Roscher, they rather tended to
+make the rules of using goods for the common use practicable than the
+contrary.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Roscher, _op. cit._, p. 6.]
+
+
+
+SECTION 3.--PROPERTY IN HUMAN BEINGS
+
+
+Before we pass from the subject of property, we must deal with a
+particular kind of property right, namely, that of one human being
+over another. At the present day the idea of one man being owned
+by another is repugnant to all enlightened public opinion, but this
+general repugnance is of very recent growth, and did not exist in
+mediaeval Europe. In dealing with the scholastic attitude towards
+slavery, we shall indicate, as we did with regard to its attitude
+towards property in general, the fundamental harmony between the
+teaching of the primitive and the mediaeval Church on the subject. No
+apology is needed for this apparent digression, as a comparison of the
+teaching of the Church at the two periods of its development helps us
+to understand precisely what the later doctrine was; and, moreover,
+the close analogy which, as we shall see, existed between the Church's
+view of property and slavery, throws much light on the true nature of
+both institutions.
+
+Although in practice Christianity had done a very great deal to
+mitigate the hardships of the slavery of ancient times, and had in
+a large degree abolished slavery by its encouragement of
+emancipation,[1] it did not, in theory, object to the institution
+itself. There is no necessity to labour a point so universally
+admitted by all students of the Gospels as that Christ and His
+Apostles did not set out to abolish the slavery which they found
+everywhere around them, but rather aimed, by preaching charity to
+the master and patience to the slave, at the same time to lighten the
+burden of servitude, and to render its acceptance a merit rather
+than a disgrace. 'What, in fact,' says Janet, 'is the teaching of
+St. Peter, St. Paul, and the Apostles in general? It is, in the first
+place, that in Christ there are no slaves, and that all men are free
+and equal; and, in the second place, that the slave must obey his
+master, and the master must be gentle to his slave.[2] Thus, although
+there are no slaves in Christ, St. Paul and the Apostles do not deny
+that there may be on earth. I am far from reproaching the Apostles for
+not having proclaimed the immediate necessity of the emancipation of
+slaves. But I say that the question was discussed in precisely the
+same terms by the ancient philosophers of the same period. Seneca, it
+is true, proclaimed not the civil, but the moral equality of men;
+but St. Paul does not speak of anything more than their equality in
+Christ. Seneca instructs the master to treat the slave as he would
+like to be treated himself.[3] Is not this what St. Peter and St.
+Paul say when they recommended the master to be gentle and good? The
+superiority of Christianity over Stoicism in this question arises
+altogether from the very superiority of the Christian spirit....'[4]
+The article on 'Slavery' in the _Catholic Encyclopaedia_ expresses the
+same opinion: 'Christian teachers, following the example of St. Paul,
+implicitly accept slavery as not in itself incompatible with the
+Christian law. The Apostle counsels slaves to obey their masters,
+and to bear with their condition patiently. This estimate of slavery
+continued to prevail until it became fixed in the systematised ethical
+teaching of the schools; and so it remained without any conspicuous
+modification until the end of the eighteenth century.' The same
+interpretation of early Christian teaching is accepted by the
+Protestant scholar, Dr. Bartlett: 'The practical attitude of Seneca
+and the early Christians to slavery was much the same. They bade the
+individual rise to a sense of spiritual freedom in spite of outward
+bondage, rather than denounce the institution as an altogether
+illegitimate form of property.'[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Roscher, _Political Economy_, s. 73.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Eph._, vi. 5, 6, 9.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Ep. ad Luc._, 73.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Janet, _op. cit._, p. 317.]
+
+[Footnote 5: 'Biblical and Early Christian Idea of Property,'
+_Property, Its Duties and Rights_ (London, 1915), p. 110; Franck,
+_Reformateurs et Publicistes de l'Europe: Moyen age_--Renaissance, p.
+87. On the whole question by far the best authority is volume iii. of
+Wallon's _Histoire de l'Esclavage dans l'Antiquite_.]
+
+Several texts might be collected from the writings of the Fathers
+which would seem to show that according to patristic teaching the
+institution of slavery was unjustifiable. We do not propose to cite
+or to explain these texts one by one, in view of the quite clear and
+unambiguous exposition of the subject given by St. Thomas Aquinas,
+whose teaching is the more immediate subject of this essay; we shall
+content ourselves by reminding the reader of the precisely similar
+texts relating to the institution of property which we have examined
+above, and by stating that the corresponding texts on the subject
+of slavery are capable of an exactly similar interpretation. 'The
+teaching of the Apostle,' says Janet, 'and of the Fathers on slavery
+is the same as their teaching on property.'[1] The author from whom we
+are quoting, and on whose judgment too much reliance cannot be placed,
+then proceeds to cite many of the patristic texts on property, which
+we quoted in the section dealing with that subject, and asks: 'What
+conclusion should one draw from these different passages? It is that
+in Christ there are no rich and no poor, no mine and no thine; that
+in Christian perfection all things are common to all men, but that
+nevertheless property is legitimate and derived from human law. Is it
+not in the same sense that the Fathers condemned slavery as contrary
+to divine law, while respecting it as comformable to human law? The
+Fathers abound in texts contrary to slavery, but have we not seen a
+great number of texts contrary to property?'[2] The closeness of the
+analogy between the patristic treatment of slavery and of property
+appears forcibly in the following passage of Lactantius: 'God who
+created man willed that all should be equal. He has imposed on all
+the same condition of living; He has produced all in wisdom; He has
+promised immortality to all; no one is cut off from His heavenly
+benefits. In His sight no one is a slave, no one a master; for if we
+have all the same Father, by an equal right we are all His children;
+no one is poor in the sight of God but he who is without justice, no
+one rich but he who is full of virtue.... Some one will say, Are there
+not among you some poor and others rich; some servants and others
+masters? Is there not some difference between individuals? There is
+none, nor is there any other cause why we mutually bestow on each
+other the name of brethren except that we believe ourselves to be
+equal. For since we measure all human things not by the body but by
+the spirit, although the condition of bodies is different, yet we have
+no servants, but we both regard them, and speak of them as brothers in
+spirit, in religion as fellow-servants.'[3] Slavery was declared to
+be a blessing, because, like poverty, it afforded the opportunity of
+practising the virtues of humility and patience.[4] The treatment
+of the institution of slavery underwent a striking and important
+development in the hands of St. Augustine, who justified it as one of
+the penalties incurred by man as a result of the sin of Adam and Eve.
+'The first holy men,' writes the Saint, 'were rather shepherds than
+kings, God showing herein what both the order of the creation desired,
+and what the deserts of sin exacted. For justly was the burden of
+servitude laid upon the back of transgression. And therefore in all
+the Scriptures we never read the word _servus_ until Noah laid it as
+a curse upon his offending son. So that it was guilt, and not nature,
+that gave origin to that name.... Sin is the mother of servitude and
+the first cause of man's subjection to man.'[5] St. Augustine also
+justifies the enslavement of those conquered in war--'It is God's
+decree to humble the conquered, either reforming their sins herein or
+punishing them.'[6]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 318.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 321.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Div. Inst_., v. 15-16.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Chryst., _Genes._, serm. v. i.; _Ep. ad Cor._, hom. xix.
+4.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _De Civ. Dei_, xix. 14-15.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Ibid._]
+
+Janet ably analyses and expounds the advance which St. Augustine
+made in the treatment of slavery: 'In this theory we must note the
+following points: (1) Slavery is unjust according to the law of
+nature. This is what is contrary to the teaching of Aristotle,
+but conformable to that of the Stoics. (2) Slavery is just as
+a consequence of sin. This is the new principle peculiar to St.
+Augustine. He has found a principle of slavery, which is neither
+natural inequality, nor war, nor agreement, but sin. Slavery is no
+more a transitory fact which we accept provisionally, so as not to
+precipitate a social revolution: it is an institution which has become
+natural as a result of the corruption of our nature. (3) It must not
+be said that slavery, resulting from sin, is destroyed by Christ who
+destroyed sin.... Slavery, according to St. Augustine, must last as
+long as society.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Janet, _op. cit._, p. 302.]
+
+Nowhere does St. Thomas Aquinas appear as clearly as the medium of
+contact and reconciliation between the Fathers of the Church and the
+ancient philosophers as in his treatment of the question of slavery.
+His utterances upon this subject are scattered through many portions
+of his work, but, taken together, they show that he was quite prepared
+to admit the legitimacy of the institution, not alone on the grounds
+put forward by St. Augustine, but also on those suggested by Aristotle
+and the Roman jurists.
+
+He fully adopts the Augustinian argument in the _Summa_, where, in
+answer to the query, whether in the state of innocence all men were
+equal, he states that even in that state there would still have been
+inequalities of sex, knowledge, justice, etc. The only inequalities
+which would not have been present were those arising from sin; but
+the only inequality arising from sin was slavery.[1] 'By the words
+"So long as we are without sin we are equal," Gregory means to exclude
+such inequality as exists between virtue and vice; the result of which
+is that some are placed in subjection to others as a penalty.'[2] In
+the following article St. Thomas distinguishes between political and
+despotic subordination, and shows that the former might have existed
+in a state of innocence. 'Mastership has a twofold meaning; first as
+opposed to servitude, in which case a master means one to whom
+another is subject as a slave. In another sense mastership is commonly
+referred to any kind of subject; and in that sense even he who has the
+office of governing and directing free men can be called a master. In
+the first meaning of mastership man would not have been ruled by man
+in the state of innocence; but in the latter sense man would be ruled
+over by man in that state.'[3] In _De Regimine Principum_ Aquinas also
+accepts what we may call the Augustinian view of slavery. 'But whether
+the dominion of man over man is according to the law of nature, or is
+permitted or provided by God may be certainly resolved. If we speak of
+dominion by means of servile subjection, this was introduced because
+of sin. But if we speak of dominion in so far as it relates to the
+function of advising and directing, it may in this sense be said to be
+natural.'[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: i. 96, 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: i. 96, 4.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _De Reg. Prin._, iii. 9. This is one of the chapters the
+authorship of which is disputed.]
+
+St. Thomas was therefore willing to endorse the argument of St.
+Augustine that slavery was a result of sin; but he also admits the
+justice of Aristotle's reasoning on the subject. In the section of the
+_Summa_ where the question is discussed, whether the law of nations is
+the same as the natural law, one of the objections to be met is that
+'Slavery among men is natural, for some are naturally slaves according
+to the philosopher. Now "slavery belongs to the law of nations," as
+Isidore states. Therefore the right of nations is a natural right.'[1]
+In answer to this objection St. Thomas draws the distinction between
+what is natural absolutely, and what is natural _secundum quid_, the
+passage which we have quoted in treating of property rights.[2]
+He then goes on to apply this distinction to the case of slavery.
+'Considered absolutely, the fact that this particular man should be a
+slave rather than another man, is based, not on natural reason, but on
+some resultant utility, in that it is useful to this man to be ruled
+by a wise man, and to the latter to be helped by the former, as the
+philosopher states. Wherefore slavery which belongs to the law of
+nations is natural in the second way, but not in the first.'[3] It
+will be noted from this passage that St. Thomas partly admits, though
+not entirely, the opinion of Aristotle. In the _De Regimine
+Principum_ he goes much further in the direction of adopting the full
+Aristotelian theory: 'Nature decrees that there should be grades in
+men as in other things. We see this in the elements, a superior and
+an inferior; we see in every mixture that some one element
+predominates.... For we see this also in the relation of the body and
+the mind, and in the powers of the mind compared with one another;
+because some are ordained towards ordering and moving, such as the
+understanding and the will; others to serving. So should it be among
+men; and thus it is proved that some are slaves according to nature.
+Some lack reason through some defect of nature; and such ought to be
+subjected to servile works because they cannot use their reason, and
+this is called the natural law.'[4] In the same chapter the right of
+conquerors to enslave their conquered is referred to without comment,
+and therefore implicitly approved by the author.
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 57, 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Supra_, p. 64.]
+
+[Footnote 3: II. ii 57, ad. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _De Reg. Prin._, ii. 10.]
+
+'Thus,' according to Janet, 'St. Thomas admits slavery as far as one
+can admit it, and for all the reasons for which one can admit it.
+He admits with Aristotle that there is a natural slavery; with St.
+Augustine that slavery is the result of sin; with the jurisconsult
+that slavery is the result of war and convention.'[1] 'The author
+justifies slavery,' says Franck, 'in the name of St. Augustine, and in
+that of Aristotle; in the name of the latter by showing that there are
+two races of men, one born to command, and the other to obey; in
+the name of the former in affirming that slavery had its origin in
+original sin; that by sin man has forfeited his right to liberty.
+Further, we must admit slavery as an institution not only of nature
+and one of the consequences of the fall, we must admit a third
+principle of slavery which appears to St. Thomas as legitimate as the
+other two. War is necessary; therefore it is just; and if it is just
+we must accept its consequences. One of these consequences is the
+absolute right of the conqueror over the life, person, and goods of
+the conquered.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, vol. i. p. 431.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Franck, _op cit_., p. 69.]
+
+Aquinas returns to the question of slavery in another passage, which
+is interesting as showing that he continued to make use of the analogy
+between slavery and property which we have seen in the Fathers. 'A
+thing is said to belong to the natural law in two ways. First,
+because nature inclines thereto, _e.g._ that one should not do harm to
+another. Secondly, because nature did not bring in the contrary; thus
+we might say that for man to be naked is of the natural law because
+nature did not give him clothes, but art invented them. In this sense
+the possession of all things in common and universal freedom is
+said to be of the natural law, because, to wit, the distinction of
+possession and slavery were not brought in by nature, but devised by
+human reason for the benefit of human life. Accordingly, the law of
+nature was not changed in this respect, but by addition.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: I. ii. 94, 5, ad. 3.]
+
+AEgidius Romanus closely follows the teaching of his master on the
+subject of slavery. 'What does AEgidius do? He unites Aristotle and St.
+Augustine against human liberty. He declares with the latter that man
+has lost the right of belonging to himself, since he has fallen from
+the primitive order established by God Himself in nature. He admits
+with Aristotle the existence of two races of men, the one designed
+for liberty, the other for servitude.... This is not all--to this
+servitude which he calls natural, the author joins another, purely
+legal, but which does not seem to him less just, namely, that which is
+founded on the right of war, and which obliges the conquered to become
+the slaves of the conquerors--to give up their liberty in exchange for
+their lives. Our author admits it is just in itself, because in his
+opinion it is useful to the defence of one's country; it excites
+warriors to courage by placing before their eyes the terrible
+consequences of cowardice.'[1] The teachings of St. Thomas and AEgidius
+were accepted by all the later scholastics.[2] Biel, whose opinion is
+always very valuable as being that of the last of a long line, says
+that there are three kinds of slaves--slaves of God, of sin, and of
+man. The first kind of slavery is wholly good, the second wholly bad,
+while the third, though not instituted by, is approved by the _jus
+gentium_. He proceeds to state the four ways in which a man may
+become enslaved: namely, _ex necessitate_, or by being born of a slave
+mother; _ex bello_, by being captured in war; _ex delicto_, or
+by sentence of the law in the case of certain crimes committed by
+freedmen; and _ex propria voluntate_, or by the sale of a man of
+himself into slavery.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Franck, _op. cit._, p. 90.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Franck, _op. cit._, p. 91.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Biel, _Inventarium seu Repertorium generale super qualuor
+libros Sententiarum_, iv. xv. I; and see Carletus, _Summa Angelica_,
+q. ccxii.]
+
+It must not be forgotten that we are dealing purely with theory.
+In fact the Church did an inestimable amount of good to the servile
+classes, and, at the time that Aquinas wrote, thanks to the operation
+of Christianity in this respect, the old Roman slavery had completely
+disappeared. The nearest approach to ancient slavery in the Middle
+Ages was serfdom, which was simply a step in the transition from
+slavery to free labour.[1] Moreover, the rights of the master over
+the slave were strictly confined to the disposal of his services; the
+ancient absolute right over his body had completely disappeared. 'In
+those things,' says St. Thomas, 'which appertain to the disposition
+of human acts and things, the subject is bound to obey his superior
+according to the reason of the superiority; thus a soldier must obey
+his officer in those things which appertain to war; a slave his master
+in those things which appertain to the carrying out of his servile
+works.'[2] 'Slavery does not abolish the natural equality of man,'
+says a writer who is quoted by the _Catholic Encyclopaedia_ as
+correctly stating the Catholic doctrine on the subject prior to the
+eighteenth century, 'hence by slavery one man is understood to become
+subject to the dominion of another to the extent that the master has
+a perfect right to the services which one man may justly perform
+for another.'[3] Biel, who lays down the justice of slavery so
+unambiguously, is no less clear in his statement of the limitations
+of the right. 'The body of the slave is not simply in the power of the
+master as the body of an ox is; nor can the master kill or mutilate
+the slave, nor abuse him contrary to the law of God. The temporal
+gains derived from the labour of the slave belong to the master;
+but the master is bound to provide the slave with the necessaries of
+life.'[4] Rambaud very properly points out that the reason that the
+scholastic writers did not fulminate in as strong and as frequent
+language against the tyranny of masters, was not that they felt less
+strongly on the subject, but that the abuses of the ancient slave
+system had almost entirely disappeared under the influence of
+Christian teaching.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Wallon, _op. cit._, vol. iii. p. 93; Brants, _op. cit._,
+p. 87.]
+
+[Footnote 2: II. ii. 104, 5.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Gerdil., _Comp. Inst. Civ. I._, vii.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Biel, _op. cit._, iv. xv. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Op. cit._, p. 83.]
+
+On the other hand, it must not be imagined, as has sometimes been
+suggested, that the slavery defended by Aquinas was not real slavery,
+but rather the ordinary modern relation between employer and employed.
+Such an interpretation is definitely disproved by a passage of the
+article on justice where Aquinas says that 'inducing a slave to leave
+his master is properly an injury against the person ... and, since the
+slave is his master's chattel, it is referred to theft.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 61,3. Brants, _op. cit._, pp. 87 _et seq_., is
+inclined to take a more liberal view of the scholastic doctrine on
+slavery, but we cannot agree with him in view of the contemporary
+texts.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+DUTIES REGARDING THE EXCHANGE OF PROPERTY
+
+
+
+SECTION 1.--THE SALE OF GOODS
+
+
+Sec. 1. _The Just Price_.
+
+We dealt in the last chapter with the duties which attached to
+property in respect of its acquisition and use, and we now pass to
+the duties which attached to it in respect of its exchange. As we
+indicated above, the right to exchange one's goods for the goods or
+the money of another person was, according to the scholastics, one of
+the necessary corollaries of the right of private property. In order
+that such exchange might be justifiable, it must be conducted on a.
+basis of commutative justice, which, as we have seen, consisted in the
+observance of equality according to the arithmetical mean. We further
+drew attention to the fact that exchanges might be divided into
+sales of goods and sales of the use of money. In the former case the
+regulating principle of the equality of justice was given effect to
+by the observance of the _just price_; in the latter by that of the
+_prohibition of usury_. We shall deal with the former in the present
+and with the latter in the following section.
+
+The mediaeval teaching on the just price, about which there has been so
+much discussion and disagreement among modern writers, was simply the
+application to the particular contract of sale of the principles which
+regulated contracts in general. Exchange originally took the form
+of barter; but, as it was found impossible accurately to measure
+the values of the objects exchanged without the intervention of
+some common measure of value, money was invented to serve as such a
+measure. We need not further refer to barter in this section, as the
+principles which applied to it were those that applied to sale. Indeed
+all sales when analysed are really barter through the medium of
+money. That Aquinas simply regarded his article on just price[1] as an
+explanation of the application of his general teaching on justice to
+the particular case of the contract of sale is quite clear from the
+article itself. 'Apart from fraud, we may speak of buying and selling
+in two ways. First, as considered in themselves; and from this point
+of view buying and selling seem to be established for the common
+advantage of both parties, one of whom requires that which belongs
+to the other, and _vice versa_. Now whatever is established for the
+common advantage should not be more of a burden to one part than to
+the other, and consequently all contracts between them should observe
+equality of thing and thing. Again, the quality of a thing that
+comes into human use is measured by the price given for it, for which
+purpose money was invented. Therefore, if either the price exceed the
+quantity of the thing's worth, or conversely the worth of the thing
+exceed the price, there is no longer the equality of justice; and
+consequently to sell a thing for more than its worth, or to buy it for
+less than its worth, is in itself unjust and unlawful.'[2] When two
+contracting parties make an exchange through the medium of money,
+the price is the expression of the exchange value in money. 'The
+just price expresses the equivalence, which is the foundation of
+contractual justice.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 77, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: This opinion was accepted by all the later writers,
+_e.g._ Gerson, _De Cont._, ii. 5; Biel, _op. cit._, IV. xv. 10: 'Si
+pretium excedit quantitatem valoris rei, vel e converso tolleretur
+equalitas, erit contractus iniquus.']
+
+[Footnote 3: Desbuquois, 'La Justice dans l'Echange,' _Semaine
+Sociale de France_, 1911, p. 167. Gerson says: 'Contractus species est
+justitiae commutativae quae respicit aequalitatem rei quae venditur
+ad rem quae emitur, ut servetur aequalitas justi pretii; propter quam
+aequalitatem facilius observandum inventa est moneta, vel numisma, vel
+pecunia,' _De Cont._, ii. 5.]
+
+The conception of the just price, though based on Aristotelian
+conceptions of justice, is essentially Christian. The Roman law had
+allowed the utmost freedom of contract in sales; apart from fraud,
+the two contracting parties were at complete liberty to fix a price
+at their own risk; and selfishness was assumed and allowed to be the
+animating motive of every contracting party. The one limitation to
+this sweeping rule was in favour of the seller. By a rescript of
+Diocletian and Maximian it was enacted that, if a thing were sold
+for less than half its value, the seller could recover the property,
+unless the buyer chose to make up the price to the full amount.
+Although this rescript was perfectly general in its terms, some
+authors contended that it applied only to sales of land, because the
+example given was the sale of a farm.[1] However, the rescript was
+quoted by the Fathers as showing that even the Roman law considered
+that contracts might be questioned on equitable grounds in certain
+cases.[2] The distinctively Christian notion of just price seems to
+have its origin in a passage of St. Augustine;[3] but the notion was
+not placed on a philosophical foundation until the thirteenth century.
+Even Aquinas, however, although he treats of the just price at some
+length, and expresses clear and categorical opinions upon many points
+connected with it, does not state the principles on which the just
+price itself should be arrived at. This omission is due, not to the
+fact that Aquinas was unfamiliar with these principles, but to the
+fact that he took them for granted as they were not disputed or
+doubted.[4] We have consequently to look for enlightenment upon this
+point in writings other than those of Aquinas. The subject can be most
+satisfactorily understood if we divide its treatment into two parts:
+first, a consideration of what constituted the just price in the sale
+of an article, the price of which was fixed by law; and second, a
+consideration of what constituted the just price of an article, the
+price of which was not so fixed.
+
+[Footnote 1: Hunter, _Roman Law_, p. 492.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, p. 133.]
+
+[Footnote 3: 'Scio ipse hominem quum venalis codex ei fuisset oblatus,
+pretiique ejus ignarum ideo quiddam exiguum poscentem cerneret
+venditorem, justum pretium, quod multo amplius erat nec opinanti
+dedisse' (_De Trin._, xiii. 3).]
+
+[Footnote 4: Palgrave, _Dictionary of Political Economy_, tit. 'Justum
+Pretium.']
+
+
+Sec. 2. _The Just Price when Price fixed by Law_.
+
+Regarding the power of the State to fix prices, the theologians and
+jurists were in complete agreement. According to Gerson: 'The law
+may justly fix the price of things which are sold, both movable and
+immovable, in the nature of rents and not in the nature of rents, and
+feudal and non-feudal, below which price the seller must not give, or
+above which the buyer must not demand, however they may desire to do
+so. As therefore the price is a kind of measure of the equality to be
+observed in contracts, and as it is sometimes difficult to find that
+measure with exactitude, on account of the varied and corrupt desires
+of man, it becomes expedient that the medium should be fixed according
+to the judgment of some wise man.... In the civil state, however,
+nobody is to be decreed wiser than the lawgiving authority. Therefore
+it behoves the latter, whenever it is possible to do so, to fix the
+just price, which may not be exceeded by private consent, and which
+must be enforced.'...[1] Biel practically paraphrases this passage of
+Gerson, and contends that it is the duty of the prince to fix prices,
+mainly on account of the difficulty which private contractors find in
+doing so.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _De Cont._, i. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, IV. xv. 11.]
+
+The rules which we find laid down for the guidance of the prince in
+fixing prices are very interesting, as they show that the mediaeval
+writers had a clear idea of the constituent elements of value.
+Langenstein, whose famous work on contracts was considered of high
+authority by later writers, says that the prince should take account
+of the condition of the place for which the price was to be fixed, the
+circumstances of the time, the condition of the mass of the people.
+The different kinds of need which may be felt for goods must also
+be considered, _indigentice naturae_, _status_, _voluptatis_, and
+_cupiditatis_; and a distinction drawn between extensive and intensive
+need--the former is greater 'quanto plures re aliqua indigent,' the
+latter 'quanto minus de illa re habetur.' The general rule is that the
+prince must seek to find a medium between a price so low as to render
+labourers, artisans, and merchants unable to maintain themselves
+suitably, and one so high as to disable the poor from obtaining the
+necessaries of life. When in doubt, Langenstein concludes, the price
+should err on the low rather than the high side.[1] Biel gives similar
+rules: The legislator must regard the needs of man, the abundance or
+scarcity of things, the difficulty, labour, and risks of production.
+When all these things are carefully considered the legislator is in a
+position to fix a just price.[2] According to Endemann, the labour of
+production, the cost and risk of transport, and the condition of
+the markets had all to be kept in mind when a fair price was being
+fixed.[3] We may mention in passing that the power of fixing the just
+price might be delegated; prices were frequently fixed by the town
+authorities, the guilds, and the Church.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Roscher, _Geschichte_, p. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, IV. xv. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 43.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. i. p. 40; Roscher, _Political
+Economy_, s. 114.]
+
+The passage from Gerson which we quoted above shows that, when a just
+price had been fixed by the competent authority, the parties to
+a contract were bound to keep to it. In other words, the _pretium
+legitimum_ was _ipso facto_ the _justum pretium_. On this point there
+is complete agreement among the writers of the period. Caepolla says,
+'When the price is fixed by law or statute, that is the just price,
+and nobody can receive anything, however small, in excess of it,
+because the law must be observed';[1] and Biel, 'When a price has been
+fixed, the contracting parties have sufficient certainty about the
+equality of value and the justice of the price.'[2] Cossa draws
+attention to the necessity of the fixed price corresponding with
+the real price in order that it should maintain its validity. 'The
+schoolmen talk of the legitimate and irreducible price of a thing
+which was fixed by authority, and was for obvious reasons of special
+importance in the case of the necessaries of life.... The legitimate
+price of a thing as fixed by authority had to be based upon the
+natural price, and therefore lost its validity and became a dead
+letter the moment any change of circumstances made it unfair.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _De Contractibus Simulatis_, 69.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, IV. xv. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Op. cit._, p. 143.]
+
+
+
+Sec. 3. _The Just Price when Price not fixed by Law_.
+
+When the just price was not fixed by any outside authority, the buyer
+and seller had to arrive at it themselves. The problem before them was
+to equalise their respective burdens, so that there would be equality
+of burden between them, or, in other words, to reduce the value of the
+article sold to terms of money. In order that we may understand how
+this equality was arrived at, it is important to know the factors
+which were held to enter into the determination of value.
+
+The first thing upon which the mediaeval teachers insist is that value
+is not determined by the intrinsic excellence of the thing itself,
+because, if it were, a fly would be more valuable than a pearl, as
+being intrinsically more excellent.[1] Nor is the value to be measured
+by the mere utility of the object for satisfying the material needs
+of man, for in that case, corn should be worth more than precious
+stones.[2] The value of an object is to be measured by its capacity
+for satisfying men's wants. 'Valor rerum aestimatur secundum humanam
+indigentiam.... Dicendum est quod indigentia humana est mensura
+naturalis commutabilium; quod probatur sic: bonitas sive valor rei
+attenditur ex fine propter quem exhibetur: unde commentator secundo
+Metaphysicae _nihil est bonum nisi propter causas finales_; sed finis
+naturalis ad quem justitia commutativa ordinet exteriora commutabilia
+est supplementum indigentiae humanae...; igitur supplementum
+indigentiae humanae est vera mensura commutabilium. Sed supplementum
+videtur mensurari per indigentiam; majoris enim valoris est
+supplementum quod majorem supplet indigentiam.... Item hoc probatur
+signo, quia videmus quod illo tempore quo vina deficiunt quia magis
+indigeremus eis ipsa fiunt cariora....[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'In justitia commutativa non estimatur pretium
+commutabilium secundum naturalem valorem ipsorum, sic enim musca plus
+valeret quam totus aurum mundi' (Buridan, _op. cit._, v. 14).]
+
+[Footnote 2: Slater, 'Value in Theology and Political Economy,' _Irish
+Ecclesiastical Record_, Sept. 1901.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Buridan, _op. cit._, v. 14 and 16. Antoninus of Florence
+says that value is determined by three factors, _virtuositas_,
+_raritas_, and _placibilitas_ (_Summa_, ii. 1, 16.)]
+
+The capacity of an object for satisfying man's needs could not be
+measured by its capacity for satisfying the needs of this or that
+individual, but by its capacity for satisfying the needs of the
+average member of the community.[1] The Abbe Desbuquois, in the
+article from which we have already quoted, finds in this elevation of
+the common estimation an illustration of the general principle of the
+mediaevals, which we have seen at work in their teaching on the use of
+property, that the individual benefit must always be subordinated to
+the general welfare. According to him, it is but one application of
+the duty of using one's goods for the common good. 'In the same way,
+in allowing the right of exchange--a right, let us remark in passing,
+which is but an application of the right of property--and in allowing
+it as a means of life necessary to everybody, nature does not lose
+sight of the universal destination of economic goods. One conceives
+then that the variations of exchange are not permitted to be left
+to the arbitrary judgment of a single man, nor to be affected by the
+whims and abuses of individuals; that value is defined in view of the
+general good. The exchange value, as it is in the general or social
+order, proceeds from the judgment of the social environment (_milieu
+social_).'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Indigentia istius hominis vel illius non mensurat
+valorem commutabilium; sed indigentia communis eorum qui inter se
+commutare possunt,' Buridan, _op. cit._, v. 16. 'Prout communiter
+venditur in foro,' Henri de Gand, _Quod Lib._, xiv. 14; Nider, _De
+Cont. Merc._, ii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 'La Justice dans l'Echange,' _Semaine Sociale de France_,
+1911, p. 168.]
+
+The writers of the Middle Ages show a very keen perception of the
+elements which invest an object with the value which is accorded to
+it by the general estimation. In Aquinas we find certain elements
+recognised--'diversitas loci vel temporis, labor, raritas'--but it is
+not until the authors of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that
+we find a systematic treatment of value.[1] First and foremost there
+is the cost of production of the article, especially the wages of all
+those who helped to produce it. Langenstein lays down that every one
+can determine for himself the just price of the wares he has to sell
+by reckoning what he needs to support himself in the status which he
+occupies.[2] According to the _Catholic Encyclopaedia_,[3] the
+just price of an article included enough to pay fair wages to the
+worker--that is, enough to enable him to maintain the standard of
+living of his class. This, though not stated in so many words
+by Aquinas, was probably assumed by him as too obvious to need
+repetition.[4] 'The cost of production of manufactured products,' says
+Brants, 'is a legitimate constituent element of value; it is according
+to the cost that the producer can properly fix the value of his
+product and of his work.'[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 69.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _De Cont._, quoted by Roscher, _Geschichte_, p. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Tit. 'Political Economy.']
+
+[Footnote 4: Palgrave, _Dictionary_, tit. 'Justum Pretium.']
+
+[Footnote 5: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 202.]
+
+The cost of the labour of production was, however, by no means the
+only factor which was admitted to enter into the determination of
+value. The passage from Gerson dealing with the circumstances to which
+the prince must have regard in fixing a price, which we quoted above,
+shows quite clearly that many other factors were recognised as no
+less important. This appears with special clearness in the treatise
+of Langenstein, whose authority on this subject was always ranked very
+high. Bernardine of Siena is careful to point out that the expense of
+production is only one of the factors which influence the value of an
+object.[1] Biel explains that, when no price has been fixed by law,
+the just price may be arrived at by a reference to the cost of the
+labour of production, and to the state of the market, and the other
+circumstances which we have seen above the prince was bound to have
+regard to in fixing a price. He also allows the price to be raised on
+account of any anxiety which the production of the goods occasioned
+him, or any danger he incurred.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Res potest plus vel minus valere tribus modis; primo
+secundum suam virtutem; secondo modo secundum suam caritatem; tertio
+modo secundum suam placibilitatem et affectionem.... Primo observat
+quemdam naturalem ordinem utilium rerum, secundo observat quemdam
+communem cursum copiae et inopiae, tertio observat periculum et
+industriam rerum seu obsequiorum' (Funk, _Zins und Wucher_, p. 153).]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Sollicitudo et periculum,' _Op. cit._, IV. xv. 10.]
+
+It will be apparent from the whole trend of the above that, whereas
+the remuneration of the labour of all those who were engaged in the
+production of an article, was one of the elements to be taken into
+account in reckoning its value, and consequently its just price,
+it was by no means the only element. Certain so-called Christian
+socialists have endeavoured to find in the writings of the scholastics
+support for the Marxian position that all value arises from labour.[1]
+This endeavour is, however, destined to failure; we shall see in a
+later chapter that many forms of unearned income were tolerated and
+approved by the scholastics; but all that is necessary here is to draw
+the attention of the reader to the passages on value to which we have
+referred. One of the most prominent exponents of the untenable view
+that the mediaevals traced all value to labour is the Abbe Hohoff,
+whose argument that there was a divorce between value and just price
+in the scholastic writings, is ably controverted by Rambaud, who
+remarks that nobody would have been more surprised than Aquinas
+himself at the suggestion that he was the forerunner of Karl Marx.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Even Ashley states that 'the doctrine had thus a close
+resemblance to that of modern Socialists; labour it regarded both as
+the sole (human) cause of wealth, and also as the only just claim to
+the possession of wealth' (_Op. cit._, vol. i. part ii. p. 393).]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, p. 50.]
+
+The idea that the scholastics traced all value to the labour expended
+on production is rejected by many of the most prominent writers on
+mediaeval economic theory. Roscher draws particular attention to the
+fact that the canonist teaching assigned the correct proportions in
+production to land, capital, and labour, in contrast to all the later
+schools of economists, who have exaggerated the importance of one or
+the other of these factors.[1] Even Knies, who was the first modern
+writer to insist on the importance of the cost of production as an
+element of value, states that the Church sought to fix the price of
+goods in accordance with the cost of production (_Herstellungskosten_)
+_and_ the consumption value (_Gebrauchswerte_).[2] Brants takes the
+same view. 'The expenses of production are in practice the norm of the
+fixing of the sale price in the great majority of cases, above all
+in a very narrow market, where competition is limited; moreover, they
+can, for reasons of public order, form the basis of a fixing that
+will protect the producer and the consumer against the disastrous
+consequences of constant oscillations. The vendor can in principle
+be remunerated for his trouble. It is well that he should be so
+remunerated; it is socially useful, and is used as a basis for fixing
+price; but it cannot in any way be said that this forms the _objective
+measure of value_, but that the work and expense are a sufficient
+title of remuneration for the fixing of the just price of the sale
+of a thing. Some writers have tried to conclude from this that the
+authors of the Middle Ages saw in labour the measure of value. This
+conclusion is exaggerated. We may fully admit that this element
+enters into the sale price; but it is in no way the general measure
+of value.... The expenses of production constitute, then, _one_ of
+the legitimate elements of just price; they are not the _measure_ of
+value, but a factor often influencing its determination.'[3] 'Labour,'
+according to Dr. Cronin, 'is one of the most important of all the
+determinants of value, for labour is the chief element in cost of
+production, and cost of production is one of the chief elements in
+determining the level at which it is useful to buy or sell. But labour
+is not the only determinant of value; there is, _e.g._, the price of
+the raw materials, a price that is not wholly determined by the labour
+of producing those materials.'[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Political Economy_, s. 48.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Politische Oekonomie vom Standpuncte der geschichtlichen
+Methode_, p. 116.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Op. cit._, p. 112.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ethics_, vol. ii. p. 181.]
+
+The just price, then, in the absence of a legal fixing, was held to
+be the price that was in accordance with the _communis estimatio_.
+Of course, this did not mean that a plebiscite had to be taken before
+every sale, but that any price that was in accordance with the general
+course of dealing at the time and place of the sale was considered
+substantially fair. 'A thing is worth what it can generally be sold
+for--at the time of the contract; this means what it can be sold for
+generally either on that day or the preceding or following day. One
+must look to the price at which similar things are generally sold
+in the open market.'[1] 'We must state precisely,' says the Abbe
+Desbuquois, 'the character of this common estimation; it did not mean
+the universal suffrage; although it expresses the universal interest,
+it proceeds in practice from the evaluation of competent men, taken
+in the social environment where the exchange value operates. If one
+supposes a sovereign tribunal of arbitration where all the rights
+of all the weak and all the strong economic factors are taken into
+account, the just price appears as the sentence or decision of this
+court.'[2] 'For the scholastics, the common estimation meant an
+ethical judgment of at least the most influential members of
+the community, anticipating the markets and fixing the rate of
+exchange.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Caepolla, _De Cont. Sim._, 72.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, pp. 169-70.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Fr. Kelleher in the _Irish Theological Quarterly_, vol.
+xi. p. 133.]
+
+It is quite incorrect to say, as has been sometimes said, that the
+mediaeval just price was in no way different from the competition
+price of to-day which is arrived at by the higgling of the market.
+Dr. Cunningham is very explicit and clear on this point. 'Common
+estimation is thus the exponent of the natural or normal or just price
+according to either the mediaeval or modern view; but, whereas we rely
+on the higgling of the market as the means of bringing out what is the
+common estimate of any object, mediaeval economists believed that it
+was possible to bring common estimation into operation beforehand,
+and by the consultation of experts to calculate out what was the just
+price. If common estimation was thus organised, either by the town
+authorities or guilds or parliament, it was possible to determine
+beforehand what the price should be and to lay down a rule to this
+effect; in modern times we can only look back on the competition
+prices and say by reflection what the common estimation has been.'[1]
+'The common estimation of which the Canonists spoke,' says Dr. Ryan,
+'was conscious social judgment that fixed price beforehand, and was
+expressed chiefly in custom, while the social estimate of to-day is
+in reality an unconscious resultant of the higgling of the market, and
+finds its expression only in market price.'[2] The phrase 'res tanti
+valet quanti vendi potest,' which is so often used to prove that
+the mediaeval doctors permitted full competitive prices in the modern
+sense, must be understood to mean that a thing could be sold at any
+figure which was within the limits of the minimum and maximum just
+price.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, vol. i. p.
+353.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Living Wage_, p. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Lessius, _De Justitia et Jure_, xxi. 19.]
+
+The last sentence suggests that the just price was not a fixed and
+unalterable standard, but was somewhat wide and elastic. On this all
+writers are agreed. 'The just price of things,' says Aquinas, 'is not
+fixed with mathematical precision, but depends on a kind of estimate,
+so that a slight addition or subtraction would not seem to destroy
+the equality of justice,'[1] Caepolla repeats this dictum, with the
+reservation that, when the just price is fixed by law, it must be
+rigorously observed.[2] 'Note,' says Gerson, 'that the equality of
+commutative justice is not exact or unchangeable, but has a good deal
+of latitude, within the bounds of which a greater or less price may
+be given without justice being infringed;'[3] and Biel insists on the
+same latitude, from which he draws the conclusion that the just price
+is constantly varying from day to day and from place to place.[4]
+Generally it was said that there was a maximum, medium, and minimum
+just price; and that any price between the maximum and minimum was
+valid, although the medium was to be aimed at as far as possible.
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 77, 1, ad. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _De Cont. Sim._, 58.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Cont._, ii. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Op. cit._, IV. xv. 10.]
+
+The price fixed by common estimation was therefore the one to be
+observed in most cases, and it was at all times a safe guide to
+follow. If, however, the parties either knew or had good reason to
+believe that the common estimation had fixed the price wrongly,
+they were not bound to follow it, but should arrive at a just
+price themselves, having regard to the various considerations given
+above.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Nider, _De Cont. Merc._ ii.: 'Si vero scit vel credit
+communitatem errare in estimatione pretii rei; tunc nullo modo debet
+eam sequi; quia etiam si reciperet verum et justum pretium, tamen
+faceret contra conscientiam.']
+
+It did not make any difference whether the price was paid immediately
+or at some future date. To increase the price in return for the giving
+of credit was not allowed, as it was deemed usurious--as indeed it
+was. It was held that the seller, in not taking his money immediately,
+was simply making a loan of that amount to the buyer, and that to
+receive anything more than the sum lent would be usury. Aquinas is
+quite clear on this point. 'If a man wish to sell his goods at a
+higher price than that which is just, so that he may wait for the
+buyer to pay, it is manifestly a case of usury; because this waiting
+for the payment of the price has the character of a loan, so that
+whatever he demands beyond the just price in consideration of this
+delay, is like a price for a loan, which pertains to usury. In like
+manner, if a buyer wishes to buy goods at a lower price than what is
+just, for the reason that he pays for the goods before they can
+be delivered, it is likewise a sin of usury; because again this
+anticipated payment of money has the character of a loan, the price of
+which is the rebate on the just price of the goods sold. On the other
+hand, if a man wishes to allow a rebate on the just price in order
+that he may have his money sooner, he is not guilty of the sin of
+usury.'[1] If, however, the seller, by giving credit, suffered any
+damage, he was entitled to be recompensed; this, as we shall see, was
+an ordinary feature of usury law. It could not be said that the price
+was raised. The price remained the same; but the seller was entitled
+to something further than the price by way of damages.[2] It was
+by the application of this principle that a seller was justified in
+demanding more than the current price for an article which possessed
+some individual or sentimental value for him. 'In such a case the just
+price will depend not only on the thing sold, but on the loss which
+the sale brings on the seller.... No man should sell what is not his,
+though he may charge for the loss he suffers.'[3] On the other
+hand, it was strictly forbidden to raise the price on account of the
+individual need of the buyer.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 78, 2, ad. 7. See _Decret. Greg._, v. 19, _de
+usuris_, cc. 6 and 10.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. ii. pp. 49; Desbuquois, _op.
+cit._, p. 174.]
+
+[Footnote 3: II. ii. 77, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ibid._]
+
+
+
+Sec. 4. _The Just Price of Labour_.
+
+Particular rules were laid down for determining the just price of
+certain classes of goods. These need not be treated in detail, as they
+were merely applications of the general principle to particular cases,
+and whatever interest they possess is in the domain of practice rather
+than of theory. In the sale of immovable property the rule was that
+the value should be arrived at by a consideration of the annual fruits
+of the property.[1] The only one of the particular contracts which
+need detain us here is that of a contract of service for wages
+(_locatio operarum_). Wages were considered as ruled by the laws
+relating to just price. 'That is called a wage (_merces_) which is
+paid to any one as a recompense for his work and labour. Therefore,
+as it is an act of justice to give a just price for a thing taken from
+another person, so also to pay the wages of work and labour is an act
+of justice.'[2] Again, 'Remuneration of service or work ... can be
+priced at a money value, as may be seen in the case of those who offer
+for hire the labour which they exercise by work or by tongue.'[3] Biel
+insists that the value of labour is subject to the same influences as
+the value of any other commodity which is offered for sale, and that
+therefore a just price must be observed in buying it.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Caepolla, _de Cont. Sim._, 78; Carletus, _Summa
+Angelica_, lxv.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Aquinas, _Summa_, II. ii. 114, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: II. ii. 78, 2, ad. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Op. cit._, IV. xv. 10. Modern Socialists caricature the
+correct principle 'that labour is a commodity' into 'the labourer is
+a commodity'--a great difference, which is not sufficiently understood
+by many present-day writers. (See Roscher, _Political Economy_, s.
+160.)]
+
+This, according to Brants,[1] is essentially a matter upon which more
+enlightenment will be found in histories of the working classes[2]
+than in books dealing with the enunciation of abstract theories;
+nevertheless, it is possible to state generally that it was regarded
+as the duty of employers to give such a wage as would support the
+worker in accordance with the requirements of his class. In the
+great majority of cases the rate of wages was fixed by some
+public--municipal or corporative--authority, but Langenstein
+enunciates a rule which seems to approach the statement of a general
+theory. According to him, when a man has something to sell, and has
+no indication of the just price from its being fixed by any outside
+authority, he must endeavour to get such a price as will _reasonably_
+recompense him for any outlay he may have incurred, and will enable
+him to provide for his needs, spiritual and temporal.[3] It was not
+until the sixteenth century that the fixing of the just price of
+wages was submitted to scientific discussion;[4] in the fourteenth
+and fifteenth centuries there is little to be found bearing on this
+subject except the passage of Langenstein which we have quoted, and
+some strong exhortations by Antoninus of Florence to masters to pay
+good wages.[5] The reason for this paucity of authority upon a subject
+of so much importance is that in practice the machinery provided
+by the guilds had the effect of preserving a substantially just
+remuneration to the artisan. When a man is in perfect health he
+does not bother to read medical books. In the same way, the proper
+remuneration of labour was so universally recognised as a duty, and so
+satisfactorily enforced, that it seems to have been taken for granted,
+and therefore passed over, by the writers of the period. One may agree
+with Brants in concluding that, 'the principle of just price in sales
+was applied to wages; fluctuations in wages were not allowed; the just
+price, as in sales, rested on the approximate equality of the services
+rendered; and that this equality was estimated by common opinion.'[6]
+Of course, in the case of slave labour it could not be said that any
+wage was paid. The master was entitled to the services of the slave,
+and in return was bound to furnish him with the necessaries of
+life.[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 103.]
+
+[Footnote 2: An excellent bibliography of books dealing with the
+history of the working classes in the Middle Ages is to be found in
+Brants, _op. cit._, p. 105. The need for examining concrete economic
+phenomena is insisted on in Ryan's _Living Wage_, p. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Cont._ We have here a recognition of the principle
+that the value of labour is not to be measured by anything extrinsic
+to itself, _e.g._ by the value of the product, but by its own natural
+function and end, and this function and end is the supplying of the
+requirements of human life. The wage must, therefore, be capable of
+supplying the same needs that the expenditure of a labourer's energy
+is meant to supply. (See Cronin, _Ethics_, vol. ii. p. 390.)]
+
+[Footnote 4: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 118.]
+
+[Footnote 5: The passages from the _Summa_ of Antoninus bearing on the
+subject are reprinted in Brants, _op. cit._, p. 120.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Op. cit._, p. 125.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 116, quoting _Le Lime du Tresor_
+of Brunetto Latini.]
+
+
+Sec. 5. _Value of the Conception of the Just Price_.
+
+It is probably correct to say that the canonical teaching on just
+price was negative rather than positive; in other words, that it did
+not so much aim at positively fixing the price at which goods should
+be sold, as negatively at indicating the practices in buying and
+selling which were unjust. 'The doctrine of just price,' according to
+Dr. Ryan, 'may sometimes have been associated with incorrect views
+of industrial life, but all competent authorities agree that it was a
+fairly sound attempt to define the equities of mediaeval exchanges,
+and that it was tolerably successful in practice.'[1] The condition
+of mediaeval markets was frequently such that the competition was not
+really fair competition, and consequently the price arrived at
+by competition would be unfair either to buyer or seller. 'This,'
+according to Dr. Cunningham, 'was the very thing which mediaeval
+regulation had been intended to prevent, as any attempt to make gain
+out of the necessities of others, or to reap profit from unlooked-for
+occurrences would have been condemned as extortion. It is by taking
+advantage of such fluctuations that money is most frequently made in
+modern times; but the whole scheme of commercial life in the
+Middle Ages was supposed to allow of a regular profit on each
+transaction.'[2] There might be some doubt as to the positive justice
+of this or that price; but there could be no doubt as to the injustice
+of a price which was enhanced by the necessities of the poor, or the
+engrossing of a vital commodity.[3] Merely to buy up the whole supply
+of a certain commodity, even if it were bought up by a 'ring' of
+merchants, provided that the commodity was resold within the limits
+of the just price, was not a sin against justice, though it might be
+a sin against charity.[4] If the authorities granted a monopoly, they
+must at the same time fix a just price.[5] A monopoly which was not
+privileged by the State, and which had for its aim the raising of
+the price of goods above the just price was regarded with universal
+reprobation.[6] 'Whoever buys up corn, meat, and wine,' says
+Trithemius, 'in order to drive up their price and to amass money at
+the cost of others is, according to the laws of the Church, no better
+than a common criminal. In a well-governed community all arbitrary
+raising of prices in the case of articles of food and clothing is
+peremptorily stopped; in times of scarcity merchants who have supplies
+of such commodities can be compelled to sell them at fair prices; for
+in every community care should be taken that all the members should be
+provided for, and not only a small number be allowed to grow rich,
+and revel in luxury to the hurt and prejudice of the many.[7] Thus the
+doctrine of the just price was a deadly weapon with which to fight the
+'profiteer.' The engrosser was looked upon as the natural enemy of the
+poor; and the power of the trading class was justly reckoned so great,
+that in cases of doubt prices were always fixed low rather than high.
+In other words, the buyer--that is to say, the community--was the
+subject of protection rather than the seller.[8]
+
+[Footnote 1: _The Living Wage_, p. 27.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, vol. i. p.
+460.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 60.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Lessius, _De Justitia et Jure_, II. xx. 1, 21.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Ibid._]
+
+[Footnote 6: Langenstein, _De Cont._; Biel, _op. cit._, iv. xv. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Quoted in Janssen, _op. cit._, vol. ii. p. 102.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Roscher, _Geschichte_, p. 12.]
+
+It must at the same time be clearly kept in mind that the seller
+was also protected. All the authorities are unanimous that it was as
+sinful for the buyer to give too little as for the seller to demand
+too much, and it is this aspect of the just price which appears most
+favourable in comparison with the theory of price of the classical
+economists. In the former case prices were fixed having regard to
+the wages necessary for the producer; in the latter the wages of the
+producer are determined by the price at which he can sell his
+goods, exposed to the competition of machinery or foreign--possibly
+slave--labour.[1] According to the _Catholic Encyclopaedia_: 'To the
+mediaeval theologian the just price of an article included enough
+to pay fair wages to the worker--that is, enough to enable him to
+maintain the standard of living of his class.'[2] 'The difference,'
+says Dr. Cunningham, 'which emerges according as we start from one
+principle or the other comes out most distinctly with reference to
+wages. In the Middle Ages wages were taken as a first charge; in
+modern times the reward of the labourer cannot but fluctuate in
+connection with fluctuations in the utility and market price of the
+things. There must always be a connection between wages and prices,
+but in the olden times wages were the first charge, and prices on the
+whole depended on them, while in modern times wages are, on the other
+hand, directly affected by prices.'[3] Dr. Cunningham draws attention
+to the fact that the labouring classes rejected the idea of the fixing
+of a just price for their services when, from a variety of causes,
+a situation arose when they were able to earn by open competition a
+reward higher than what was necessary to support them according
+to their state in life.[4] Nowadays the reverse has taken place;
+unrestricted competition has in many cases resulted in the reduction
+of wages to a level below the margin of subsistence; and the general
+cry of the working classes is for the compulsory fixing of minimum
+rates of wages which will ensure that their subsistence will not be
+liable to be impaired by the fluctuations of the markets. What
+the workers of the present day look to as a desirable, but almost
+unattainable, ideal, was the universal practice in the ages when
+economic relations were controlled by Christian principles.
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. i. p. 129.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Art. 'Political Economy.']
+
+[Footnote 3: _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, vol. i. p.
+461.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Christianity and Economic Science_, p. 29.]
+
+
+Sec. 6. _Was the Just Price Subjective or Objective_?
+
+The question whether the just price was essentially subjective or
+objective has recently formed the subject matter of an interesting
+and ably conducted discussion, provoked by certain remarks in Dr.
+Cunningham's _Western Civilisation_.[1] Dr. Cunningham, although
+admiring the ethical spirit which animated the conception of the just
+price, thought at the same time that the economic ideas underlying the
+conception were so undeveloped and unsound that the theory could not
+be applied in practice at the present day. 'Their economic analysis
+was very defective, and the theory of price which they put forward was
+untenable; but the ethical standpoint which they took is well worth
+examination, and the practical measures which they recommended appear
+to have been highly beneficial in the circumstances in which they had
+to deal. Their actions were not unwise; their common-sense morality
+was sound; but the economic theories by which they tried to give an
+intellectual justification for their rules and their practice were
+quite erroneous.... The attempt to determine an ideal price implies
+that there can and ought to be stability in relative values and
+stability in the measure of values--which is absurd. The mediaeval
+doctrine and its application rested upon another assumption which we
+have outlived. Value is not a quality which inheres in an object so
+that it can have the same worth for everybody; it arises from the
+personal preference and needs of different people, some of whom desire
+a thing more and some less, some of whom want to use it in one way and
+some in another. Value is not objective--intrinsic in the object--but
+subjective, varying with the desire and intentions of the possessors
+or would-be possessors; and, because it is thus subjective, there
+cannot be a definite ideal value which every article ought to possess,
+and still more a just price as the measure of that ideal value.' In
+these and similar observations to be found in the _Growth of English
+History and Commerce_, Dr. Cunningham showed that he profoundly
+misunderstood the doctrine of the just price; the objectivity which
+he attributed to it was not the objectivity ascribed to it by the
+scholastics. It was to correct this misunderstanding that Father
+Slater contributed an article to the _Irish Theological Quarterly_[2]
+pointing out that the just price was subjective rather than objective.
+This article, which was afterwards reprinted in _Some Aspects of Moral
+Theology_, and the conclusions of which were embodied in the same
+writer's work on Moral Theology, was controverted in a series of
+articles by Father Kelleher in the _Irish Theological Quarterly_.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Pp. 77-9.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Vol. iv. p. 146.]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Market Prices,' vol. ix. p. 398 and vol. x. p. 163; and
+'Father Slater on Just Price and Value,' vol. xi. p. 159.]
+
+Father Slater draws attention to the fact that Dr. Cunningham
+overlooked to some extent the importance of common estimation in
+arriving at the just price. He points out that, far from objects being
+invested with some immutable objective value, their value was in fact
+determined by the price which the community as a whole was willing to
+pay for them: 'As the value in exchange will be determined by what the
+members of the community at the time are prepared to give, ... it will
+be determined by the social estimation of its utility for the support
+of life and its scarcity. It will depend upon its capacity to satisfy
+the wants and desires of the people with whom commercial transactions
+are possible and practicable. Father Slater then goes on categorically
+to refute Dr. Cunningham's presentation of the objectivity of price:
+'All that that doctrine asserts is that there should be, and that
+there is, an equivalent in social value between the commodity and
+its price at a certain time and in a certain place; it says nothing
+whatever about the stability or permanence of prices at different
+times and at different places. By maintaining that the just price did
+not depend upon the valuation of the individual buyer or seller the
+mediaeval doctors did not dream of making it intrinsic to the object.'
+In the work on Moral Theology, to which we have referred, expressions
+occur which lead one to believe that Father Slater did not see any
+great difference between the mediaeval just price arrived at by common
+estimation and the modern normal or market price arrived at by
+open competition. Thus, in endeavouring to correct Dr. Cunningham's
+misunderstanding, Father Slater seems to have gone too far in the
+other direction, and his position has been ably and, in our judgment,
+successfully, controverted by Father Kelleher.
+
+The point at issue between the upholders of the two opposing views
+on just price is well stated by Father Kelleher in the first of his
+articles on the subject: 'We must try to find out whether the just
+and fair price determined the rate of exchange, or whether the rate
+of exchange, being determined without an objective standard and merely
+according to the play of human motives, determines what we call the
+just and fair price.'[1] We have already demonstrated that the common
+estimation referred to by the mediaeval doctors was something quite
+apart from the modern higgling in the market; and that, far from
+being merely the result of unbridled competition on both sides, it
+was rather the considered judgment of the best-informed members of the
+community. As we have seen, even Dr. Cunningham admits that there
+was a fundamental difference between the common estimation of
+the scholastics and the modern competitive price. This is clearly
+demonstrated by Father Kelleher, who further establishes the
+proposition that the modern price is purely subjective, and that no
+subjective price can rest on an ethical basis. The question at issue
+therefore between what we may call the subjective and objective
+schools is not whether the sale price was determined by competition
+in the modern sense, but whether the common estimation of those best
+qualified to form an opinion on the subject in itself determined the
+just price, or whether it was merely the most reliable evidence of
+what the just price in fact was at a particular moment.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Irish Theological Quarterly_, vol. ix. p. 41.]
+
+Father Kelleher draws attention to the fact that Aquinas in his
+article on price did not specifically affirm that the just price
+was objective, but he explains this omission by saying that the
+objectivity of the price was so well and universally understood that
+it was unnecessary expressly to restate it. Indeed, as we saw above,
+the teaching of Aquinas on price left a great deal to be supplied by
+later writers, not because he was in any doubt about the subject, but
+because the theory was so well understood. 'Not even in St. Thomas can
+we find a formal discussion of the moral obligation of observing an
+objective equivalence in contracts of buying and selling. He simply
+took it for granted, as, indeed, was inevitable, seeing that, up to
+his time and for long after, all Catholic thought and legislation
+proceeded on that hypothesis. But that he actually did take it for
+granted, he has given many clear indications in his article on Justice
+which leave us no room for reasonable doubt.'[1] As Father Kelleher
+very cogently points out, the discussion in Aquinas's article on
+commerce, whether it was lawful to buy cheap and sell dear, very
+clearly indicates that the author maintained the objective theory,
+because if the just price were simply determined by what people were
+willing to give, this question could not have arisen.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Irish Theological Quarterly_, vol. x. p. 165.]
+
+Nor is the fact that the just price admitted of a certain elasticity
+an argument in favour of its being subjective. Father Kelleher fully
+admits that the common estimation was the general criterion of just
+price, and, of course, the common estimation could not, of its very
+nature, be rigid and immutable. Commodities should, indeed, exchange
+according to their objective value, but, even so, commodities could
+not carry their value stamped on their faces. Even if we assume that
+the standard of exchange was the cost of production, there would still
+remain room for a certain amount of difference of opinion as to what
+exactly their value would be in particular instances. Suppose that the
+commodity offered for sale was a suit of clothes, in estimating its
+value on the basis of the cost of production, opinions might differ
+as to the precise amount of time required for making it, or as to the
+cost of the cloth out of which it was made. Unless recourse was to be
+had to an almost interminable process of calculations, nobody could
+say authoritatively what precisely the value was, and in practice the
+determination of value had perforce to be left to the ordinary human
+estimate of what it was, which of its very nature was bound to admit a
+certain margin of fluctuation. Thus we can easily understand how, even
+with an objective standard of value, the just price might be admitted
+to vary within the limits of the maximum as it might be expected to
+be estimated by sellers and the minimum as it would appear just to
+buyers. The sort of estimation of which St. Thomas speaks is therefore
+nothing else than a judgment, which, being human, is liable to be
+slightly in excess or defect of the objective value about which it is
+formed.'[1] As Father Kelleher puts it on a later page, 'There is a
+sense certainly in which, with a solitary exception in the case of
+wages, it may be said with perfect truth that the common estimation
+determines the just price. That is, the common estimation is the
+proximate practical criterion.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Irish Theological Quarterly_, vol. x. p. 166.]
+
+[Footnote 2: P. 173.]
+
+Father Kelleher uses in support of his contention a very ingenious
+argument drawn from the doctrine of usury. As we said in the first
+chapter, and as we shall prove in detail in the next section, the
+prohibition of usury was simply one of the applications of the theory
+of equivalence in contracts--in other words, it was the determination
+of the just price to be paid in an exchange of money for money. If,
+asks Father Kelleher, the common estimation was the final test of just
+price, why was not moderate usury allowed? That the general opinion of
+the community in the Middle Ages was undoubtedly in favour of allowing
+a reasonable percentage on loans is shown by the constant striving of
+the Church to prevent such a practice. Nevertheless the Church did
+not for a moment relax its teaching on usury in spite of the almost
+universal judgment of the people. Here, therefore, is a clear example
+of one contract in which the standard of value is clearly objective,
+and it is only reasonable to draw the conclusion that the same
+standard which applied in contracts of the exchange of money should
+apply in contracts of the sale of other articles.
+
+Father Kelleher's contention seems to be completely supported by the
+passage from Nider which we have cited above, to the effect that the
+common estimation ceases to be the final test of the just price when
+the contracting parties know or believe that the common estimation has
+erred.[1] This seems to us clearly to show that the common estimation
+was but the most generally received test of what the just price
+in fact was, but that it was in no sense a final or irrefutable
+criterion.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _De Cont. Merc._, ii. xv. Nider was regarded as a very
+weighty authority on the subject of contracts (Endemann, _Studien_,
+vol. ii. p. 8).]
+
+[Footnote 2: The argument in favour of what we have called the
+'objective' theory of the just price is strengthened by the
+consideration that goods do not satisfy mere subjective whims, but
+supply real wants. For example, food supplies a real need of the human
+being, as also does clothing; in the one case hunger is appeased,
+and in the other cold is warded off, just as drugs used in medical
+practice produce real objective effects on the person taking them.]
+
+The theory that the just price was objective seems to be accepted by
+the majority of the best modern students of the subject. Sir William
+Ashley says: 'The fundamental difference between the mediaeval and
+modern point of view is... that with us value is something entirely
+subjective; it is what each individual cares to give for a thing. With
+Aquinas it was entirely objective; something outside the will of
+the individual purchaser or seller; something attached to the thing
+itself, existing whether he liked it or not, and that he ought to
+recognise.'[1] Palgrave's _Dictionary of Political Economy_, following
+the authority of Knies, expresses the same opinion: 'Perhaps the
+contrast between mediaeval and modern ideas of value is best expressed
+by saying that with us value is usually something subjective,
+consisting of the mental determination of buyer and seller, while to
+the schoolmen it was in a sense objective, something intrinsically
+bound up with the commodity itself.'[2] Dr. Ryan agrees with this
+view: 'The theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
+assumed that the objective price would be fair, since it was
+determined by the social estimate. In their opinion the social
+estimate would embody the requirements of objective justice as fully
+as any device or institution that was practically available. For the
+condition of the Middle Ages and the centuries immediately following,
+this reasoning was undoubtedly correct. The agencies which created
+the social estimate and determined prices--namely the civil law, the
+guilds, and custom--succeeded fairly in establishing a price that was
+equitable to all concerned.'[3] Dr. Cleary says: 'True, the _pretium
+legale_ is regarded as being a just price, but in order that it may
+be just, it supposes some objective basis--in other words, it rather
+declares than constitutes the just price.'[4] Haney is also strongly
+of opinion that the just price was objective. 'Briefly stated, the
+doctrine was that every commodity had some one true value which was
+objective and absolute.'[5] The greater number of modern students
+therefore who have given most care and attention to the question are
+inclined to the opinion that the just price was not subjective, but
+objective, and we see no valid reason for disagreeing with this view,
+which seems to be fully warranted by the original authorities.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, vol. i. pt. i. p. 140.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Art. 'Justum Pretium.']
+
+[Footnote 3: 'The Moral Aspect of Monopoly,' by J.A. Ryan, D.D.,
+_Irish Theological Quarterly_, in. p. 275; and see _Distributive
+Justice_, pp. 332-4.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Op. cit._, p. 193.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _History of Economic Thought_, p. 75.]
+
+
+Sec. 7. _The Mediaeval Attitude towards Commerce_.
+
+Before passing from the question of price, we must discuss the
+legitimacy of the various occupations which were concerned with buying
+and selling. The principal matter which arises for consideration
+in this regard is the attitude of the mediaeval theologians towards
+commerce. Aquinas discusses the legitimacy of commerce in the same
+question in which he discusses just price, and indeed the two subjects
+are closely allied, because the importance of the observance of
+justice in buying and selling grew urgent as commerce extended and
+advanced.
+
+In order to understand the disapprobation with which commerce was on
+the whole regarded in the Middle Ages, it is necessary to appreciate
+the importance of the Christian teaching on the dignity of labour. The
+principle that, far from being a degrading or humiliating occupation,
+as it had been regarded in Greece and Rome, manual labour was, on
+the contrary, one of the most noble ways of serving God, effected
+a revolution in the economic sphere analogous to that which the
+Christian sanctification of marriage effected in the domestic sphere.
+The Christian teaching on labour was grounded on the Divine precepts
+contained in both the Old and New Testaments,[1] and upon the example
+of Christ, who was Himself a working man. The Gospel was preached
+amongst the poor, and St. Paul continued his humble labours during
+his apostolate.[2] A life of idleness was considered something to be
+avoided, instead of something to be desired, as it had been in the
+ancient civilisations. Gerson says it is against the nature of man to
+wish to live without labour as usurers do,[3] and Langenstein
+inveighs against usurers and all who live without work.[4] 'We read
+in Sebastian Brant that the idlers are the most foolish amongst fools,
+they are to every people like smoke to the eyes or vinegar to
+the teeth. Only by labour is God truly praised and honoured; and
+Trithemius says "Man is born to labour as the bird to fly, and hence
+it is contrary to the nature of man when he thinks to live without
+work."'[5] The example of the monasteries, where the performance
+of all sorts of manual labour was not thought inconsistent with the
+administration of the sacred offices and the pursuit of the highest
+intellectual exercises, acted as a powerful assertion to the laity
+of the dignity of labour in the scheme of things.[6] The value of the
+monastic example in this respect cannot be too highly estimated. 'When
+we consider the results of the founding of monasteries,' says Dr.
+Cunningham, 'we find influences at work that were plainly economic.
+These communities can be best understood when we think of them as
+Christian industrial colonies, and remember that they moulded society
+rather by example than by precept. We are so familiar with the attacks
+and satires on monastic life that were current at the Reformation
+period, that it may seem almost a paradox to say that the chief
+claim of the monks to our gratitude lies in this, that they helped to
+diffuse a better appreciation of the duty and dignity of labour.'[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: Gen. iii. 19; Ps. cxxvii. 2; 2 Thess. iii. 10. The
+last-mentioned text is explained, in opposition to certain Socialist
+interpretations which have been put on it, by Dr. Hogan in the _Irish
+Ecclesiastical Record_, vol. xxv. p. 45.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Wallon, _op. cit._, vol. iii. p. 401.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Cont._, i. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _De Cont._]
+
+[Footnote 5: Janssen, _op. cit._, vol. ii. pp. 93-4.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Levasseur, _Histoire des Classes ouvrieres en France_,
+vol. i. pp. 182 _et seq_.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _Western Civilisation_, vol. ii. p. 35.]
+
+The result of this teaching and example was that, in the Middle Ages,
+labour had been raised to a position of unquestioned dignity. The
+economic benefit of this attitude towards labour must be obvious. It
+made the working classes take a direct pride and interest in their
+work, which was represented to be a means of sanctification. 'Labour,'
+according to Dr. Cunningham, 'was said to be pregnant with a double
+advantage--the privilege of sharing with God in His work of carrying
+out His purpose, and the opportunity of self-discipline and the
+helping of one's fellow-men.'[1] 'Industrial work,' says Levasseur,
+'in the times of antiquity had always had, in spite of the
+institutions of certain Emperors, a degrading character, because it
+had its roots in slavery; after the invasion, the grossness of the
+barbarians and the levelling of towns did not help to rehabilitate it.
+It was the Church which, in proclaiming that Christ was the son of
+a carpenter, and the Apostles were simple workmen, made known to the
+world that work is honourable as well as necessary. The monks proved
+this by their example, and thus helped to give to the working classes
+a certain consideration which ancient society had denied them. Manual
+labour became a source of sanctification.'[2] The high esteem in which
+labour was held appears from the whole artistic output of the Middle
+Ages. 'Many of the simple artists of the time represented the saints
+holding some instrument of work or engaged in some industrial pursuit;
+as, for instance, the Blessed Virgin spinning as she sat by the cradle
+of the divine Infant, and St. Joseph using a saw or carpenter's tools.
+"Since the Saints," says the _Christian Monitor_, "have laboured, so
+shall the Christian learn that by honourable labour he can glorify
+God, do good, and save his own soul."'[3] Work was, alongside of
+prayer and inseparable from it, the perfection of Christian life.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Christianity and Economic Science_, pp. 26-7.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, vol. i. p. 187.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Janssen, _op. cit._, vol. ii. p. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Wallon, _op. cit._, vol. i. p. 410.]
+
+It must not be supposed, however, that manual labour alone was thought
+worthy of praise. On the contrary, the necessity for mental and
+spiritual workers was fully appreciated, and all kinds of labour
+were thought equally worthy of honour. 'Heavy labourer's work is the
+inevitable yoke of punishment, which, according to God's righteous
+verdict, has been laid upon all the sons of Adam. But many of Adam's
+descendants seek in all sorts of cunning ways to escape from the yoke
+and to live in idleness without labour, and at the same time to have
+a superfluity of useful and necessary things; some by robbery and
+plunder, some by usurious dealings, others by lying, deceit, and all
+the countless, forms of dishonest and fraudulent gain, by which men
+are for ever seeking to get riches and abundance without toil. But
+while such men are striving to throw off the yoke righteously imposed
+on them by God, they are heaping on their shoulders a heavy burden
+of sin. Not so, however, do the reasonable sons of Adam proceed; but,
+recognising in sorrow that for the sins of their first father God has
+righteously ordained that only through the toil of labour shall they
+obtain what is necessary to life, they take the yoke patiently on
+them.... Some of them, like the peasants, the handicraftsmen, and the
+tradespeople, procure for themselves and others, in the sweat of their
+brows and by physical work, the necessary sustenance of life. Others,
+who labour in more honourable ways, earn the right to be maintained by
+the sweat of others' brows--for instance, those who stand at the head
+of the commonwealth; for by their laborious exertion the former are
+enabled to enjoy the peace, the security, without which they could not
+exist. The same holds good of those who have the charge of spiritual
+matters....'[1] 'Because,' says Aquinas, 'many things are necessary to
+human life, with which one man cannot provide himself, it is necessary
+that different things should be done by different people; therefore
+some are tillers of the soil, some are raisers of cattle, some are
+builders, and so on; and, because human life does not simply mean
+corporal things, but still more spiritual things, therefore it
+is necessary that some people should be released from the care of
+attending to temporal matters. This distribution of different offices
+amongst different people is in accordance with Divine providence.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Langenstein, quoted in Janssen, _op. cit._, p. 95.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Summa Cont. Gent_., iii. 134.]
+
+All forms of labour being therefore admitted to be honourable and
+necessary, there was no difficulty felt about justifying their reward.
+It was always common ground that services of all kinds were entitled
+to be properly remunerated, and questions of difficulty only arose
+when a claim was made for payment in a transaction where the element
+of service was not apparent.[1] The different occupations in which men
+were engaged were therefore ranked in a well-recognised hierarchy
+of dignity according to the estimate to which they were held to
+be entitled. The Aristotelean division of industry into _artes
+possessivae_ and _artes pecuniativae_ was generally followed, the
+former being ranked higher than the latter. 'The industries called
+_possessivae_, which are immediately useful to the individual, to the
+family, and to society, producing natural wealth, are also the most
+natural as well as the most estimable. But all the others should not
+be despised. The natural arts are the true economic arts, but the arts
+which produce artificial riches are also estimable in so far as they
+serve the true national economy; the commutation of the exchanges and
+the _cambium_ being necessary to the general good, are good in so far
+as they are subordinate to the end of true economy. One may say the
+same thing about commerce. In order, then, to estimate the value of an
+industrial art, one must examine its relation to the general good.'[2]
+Even the _artes possessivae_ were not all considered equally worthy of
+praise, but were ranked in a curious order of professional hierarchy.
+Agriculture was considered the highest, next manufacture, and lastly
+commerce. Roscher says that, whereas all the scholastics were agreed
+on the excellence of agriculture as an occupation, the best they could
+say of manufacture was _Deo non displicet_, whereas of commerce they
+said _Deo placere non potest_; and draws attention to the interesting
+consequence of this, namely, that the various classes of goods that
+took part in the different occupations were also ranked in a certain
+order of sacredness. Immovables were thought more worthy of protection
+against execution and distress than movables, and movables than
+money.[3] Aquinas advises the rulers of States to encourage the _artes
+possessivae_, especially agriculture.[4] The fullest analysis of the
+order in which the different _artes possessivae_ should be ranked is
+to be found in Buridan's _Commentaries on Aristotle's Politics_. He
+places first agriculture, which comprises cattle-breeding, tillage,
+and hunting; secondly, manufacture, which helps to supply man's
+corporal needs, such as building and architecture; thirdly,
+administrative occupations; and lastly, commerce. The Christian
+Exhortation, quoted by Janssen,[5] says, 'The farmer must in all
+things be protected and encouraged, for all depend on his labour,
+from the monarch to the humblest of mankind, and his handiwork is in
+particular honourable and well pleasing to God.'
+
+[Footnote 1: Aquinas, _Summa_, II. ii. 77, 4; Nider, _op. cit._, II.
+x.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 82.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Geschichte_, p. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _De Regimine Principum_, vol. ii. chaps, v. and vi.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Op. cit._, vol. i. p. 297.]
+
+The division of occupations according to their dignity adopted by
+Nicholas Oresme is somewhat unusual. He divides professions into (1)
+honourable, or those which increase the actual quantity of goods in
+the community or help its development, such as ecclesiastical offices,
+the law, the soldiery, the peasantry, artisans, and merchants, and
+(2) degrading--such as _campsores, mercatores monetae sen
+billonatores.'_[1]
+
+No occupation, therefore, which involved labour, whether manual
+or mental, gave any ground for difficulty with regard to its
+remuneration. The business of the trader or merchant, on the other
+hand, was one which called for some explanation. It is important
+to understand what commerce was taken to mean. The definition which
+Aquinas gives was accepted by all later writers: 'A tradesman is one
+whose business consists in the exchange of things. According to the
+philosopher, exchange of things is twofold; one natural, as it were,
+and necessary, whereby one commodity is exchanged for another, or
+money taken in exchange for a commodity in order to satisfy the needs
+of life. Such trading, properly speaking, does not belong to traders,
+but rather to housekeepers or civil servants, who have to provide the
+household or the State with the necessaries of life. The other kind
+of exchange is either that of money for money, or of any commodity for
+money, not on account of the necessities of life, but for profit; and
+this kind of trade, properly speaking, regards traders.' It is to
+be remarked in this definition, that it is essential, to constitute
+trade, that the exchange or sale should be for the sake of profit,
+and this point is further emphasised in a later passage of the same
+article: 'Not every one that sells at a higher price than he bought
+is a trader, but only he who buys that he may sell at a profit. If,
+on the contrary, he buys, not for sale, but for possession, and
+afterwards for some reason wishes to sell, it is not a trade
+transaction, even if he sell at a profit. For he may lawfully do this,
+either because he has bettered the thing, or because the value of the
+thing has changed with the change of place or time, or on account
+of the danger he incurs in transferring the thing from one place to
+another, or again in having it carried by hand. In this sense neither
+buying nor selling is unjust.'[2] The importance of this definition
+is that it rules out of the discussion all cases where the goods have
+been in any way improved or rendered more valuable by the services
+of the seller. Such improvement was always reckoned as the result of
+labour of one kind or another, and therefore entitled to remuneration.
+The essence of trade in the scholastic sense was selling the thing
+unchanged at a higher price than that at which it had been bought, for
+the sake of gain.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Tractatus de Origine, etc., Monetarum_.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Tractatus de Origine, etc., Monetarum_, ad. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 3: 'Fit autem mercatio cum non ut emptor ea utatur sed ut
+earn carius vendat etiam non mutatam suo artificio; illa mercatio
+dicitur proprie negotiatio' (Biel, _op. cit._, IV. xv. 10.)]
+
+The legitimacy of trade in this sense was only gradually admitted. The
+Fathers of the Church had with one voice condemned trade as being an
+occupation fraught with danger to the soul. Tertullian argued that
+there would be no need of trade if there were no desire for gain, and
+that there would be no desire for gain if man were not avaricious.
+Therefore avarice was the necessary basis of all trade.[1] St. Jerome
+thought that one man's gain in trading must always be another's loss;
+and that, in any event, trade was a dangerous occupation since it
+offered so many temptations to fraud to the merchant.[2] St. Augustine
+proclaimed all trade evil because it turns men's minds away from
+seeking true rest, which is only to be found in God, and this opinion
+was embodied in the _Corpus Juris Canonici_.[3] This early view that
+all trade was to be indiscriminately condemned could not in the nature
+of things survive experience, and a great step forward was taken
+when Leo the Great pronounced that trade was neither good nor bad in
+itself, but was rendered good or bad according as it was honestly or
+dishonestly carried on.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: _De Idol_., xi.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. i. p. 129.]
+
+[Footnote 3: See _Corpus Juris Canonici_, Deer. I.D. 88 c. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Epist. ad Rusticum_, c. ix.]
+
+The scholastics, in addition to condemning commerce on the authority
+of the patristic texts, condemned it also on the Aristotelean ground
+that it was a chrematistic art, and this consideration, as we have
+seen above, enters into Aquinas's article on the subject.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Rambaud, _op. cit._, p. 52.]
+
+The extension of commercial life which took place about the beginning
+of the thirteenth century, raised acute controversies about the
+legitimacy of commerce. Probably nothing did more to broaden the
+teaching on this subject than the necessity of justifying trade which
+became more and more insistent after the Crusades.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: On the economic influence of the Crusades the following
+works may be consulted: Blanqui, _Histoire de l'Economie politique_;
+Heeren, _Essai sur l'Influence politique et sociale des Croisades_;
+Scherer, _Histoire du Commerce_; Prutz, _Culturgeschichte der
+Kreuzzuege_; Pigonneau, _Histoire du Commerce de la France_; List, _Die
+Lehren der Handelspolitischen Geschichte_.]
+
+By the time of Aquinas the necessity of commerce had come to be fully
+realised, as appears from the passage in the _De Regimine Principum_:
+'There are two ways in which it is possible to increase the affluence
+of any State. One, which is the more worthy way, is on account of the
+fertility of the country producing an abundance of all things which
+are necessary for human life, the other is through the employment
+of commerce, through which the necessaries of life are brought from
+different places. The former method can be clearly shown to be the
+more desirable.... It is more admirable that a State should possess an
+abundance of riches from its own soil than through commerce. For the
+State which needs a number of merchants to maintain its subsistence
+is liable to be injured in war through a shortage of food if
+communications are in any way impeded. Moreover, the influx of
+strangers corrupts the morals of many of the citizens... whereas,
+if the citizens themselves devote themselves to commerce, a door is
+opened to many vices. For when the desire of merchants is inclined
+greatly to gain, cupidity is aroused in the hearts of many
+citizens.... For the pursuit of a merchant is as contrary as possible
+to military exertion. For merchants abstain from labours, and while
+they enjoy the good things of life, they become soft in mind and their
+bodies are rendered weak and unsuitable for military exercises....
+It therefore behoves the perfect State to make a moderate use of
+commerce.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: ii. 3.]
+
+Aquinas, who, as we have seen, recognised the necessity of commerce,
+did not condemn all trade indiscriminately, as the Fathers had done,
+but made the motive with which commerce was carried on the test of its
+legitimacy: 'Trade is justly deserving of blame, because, considered
+in itself, it satisfies the greed for gain, which knows no limit, and
+tends to infinity. Hence trading, considered in itself, has a certain
+debasement attaching thereto, in so far as, by its very nature, it
+does not imply a virtuous or necessary end. Nevertheless gain, which
+is the end of trading, though not implying, by its nature, anything
+virtuous or necessary, does not, in itself, connote anything sinful
+or contrary to virtue; wherefore nothing prevents gain from being
+directed to some necessary or even virtuous end, and thus trading
+becomes lawful. Thus, for instance, a man may intend the moderate gain
+which he seeks to acquire by trading for the upkeep of his household,
+or for the assistance of the needy; or again, a man may take to trade
+for some public advantage--for instance, lest his country lack the
+necessaries of life--and seek gain, not as an end, but as payment for
+his labour.'[1] This is important in connection with what we have said
+above as to property, as it shows that the trader was quite justified
+in seeking to obtain more profits, provided that they accrued for the
+benefit of the community. This justification of trade according to the
+end for which it was carried on, was not laid down for the first time
+by Aquinas, but may be found stated in an English treatise of the
+tenth century entitled _The Colloquy of Archbishop Alfric_, where,
+when a doctor asks a merchant if he wishes to sell his goods for the
+same price for which he has bought them, the merchant replies: 'I do
+not wish to do so, because if I do so, how would I be recompensed for
+my trouble? but I wish to sell them for more than I paid for them so
+that I might secure some gain wherewith to support myself, my wife,
+and family.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 77, 4.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Loria, _Analysi de la proprieta, capitalista_, ii. 168.]
+
+In spite of the fact that the earlier theory that no commercial gain
+which did not represent payment for labour could be justified
+was still maintained by some writers--for instance, Raymond de
+Pennafort[1]--the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas was generally
+accepted throughout the later Middle Ages. Canonists and theologians
+accepted without hesitation the justification of trade formulated by
+Aquinas.[2] Henri de Gand,[3] Duns Scotus,[4] and Francois de Mayronis
+[5] unhesitatingly accepted the view of Aquinas, and incorporated it
+in their works.[6] 'An honourable merchant,' says Trithemius, 'who
+does not only think of large profits, and who is guided in all his
+dealings by the laws of God and man, and who gladly gives to the needy
+of his wealth and earnings, deserves the same esteem as any other
+worker. But it is no easy matter to be always honourable in all
+mercantile dealings and not to become usurious. Without commerce
+no community can of course exist, but immoderate commerce is rather
+hurtful than beneficial, because it fosters greed of gain and gold,
+and enervates and emasculates the nation through love of pleasure
+and luxury.'[7] Nider says that to buy not for use but for sale at a
+higher price is called trade. Two special rules apply to this: first,
+that it should be useful to the State, and second, that the price
+should correspond to the diligence, prudence, and risk undertaken in
+the transaction.[8]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Summa Theologica_, II. vii. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, p. 55.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Quodlib_., i. 40.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Lib. Quat. Sent._, xv. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 5: iv. 16, 4.]
+
+[Footnote 6: See Jourdain, _op. cit._, p. 20 _et seq_.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Quoted in Janssen, _op. cit._, vol. ii. p. 97.]
+
+[Footnote 8: _Op. cit._, iv. 10.]
+
+The later writers hi the fifteenth century seem to have regarded trade
+more liberally even than Aquinas, although they quote his dictum on
+the subject as the basis of their teaching. Instead of condemning all
+commerce as wrong unless it was justified by good motives, they were
+rather inclined to treat commerce as being in itself colourless, but
+capable of becoming evil by bad motives. Carletus says: 'Commerce in
+itself is neither bad nor illegal, but it may become bad on account
+of the circumstances and the motive with which it is undertaken, the
+persons who undertake it, or the manner in which it is conducted. For
+instance, commerce undertaken through avarice or a desire for sloth is
+bad; so also is commerce which is injurious to the republic, such as
+engrossing.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Summa Angelica_, 169: 'Mercatio non est mala ex genere,
+sed bona, humano convictui necessaria dum fuerit justa. Mercatio
+simpliciter non est peccatum sed ejus abusus.' Biel, _op. cit._, iv.
+xv. 10.]
+
+Endemann, having thoroughly studied all the fifteenth-century writers
+on the subject, says that commerce might be rendered unjustifiable
+either by subjective or objective reasons. Subjective illegality would
+arise from the person trading--for instance, the clergy--or the motive
+with which trade was undertaken; objective illegality on account of
+the object traded in, such as weapons in war-time, or the bodies
+of free men.[1] Speculative trading, and what we to-day call
+profiteering, were forbidden in all circumstances.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 18.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _The Ayenbite of Inwit_, a thirteenth-century confessor's
+manual, lays it down that speculation is a kind of usury. (Rambaud,
+_Histoire_, p. 56.)]
+
+We need not dwell upon the prohibition of trading by the clergy,
+because it was simply a rule of discipline which has not any bearing
+upon general economic teaching, except in so far as it shows that
+commerce was considered an occupation dangerous to virtue. Aquinas
+puts it as follows: 'Clerics should abstain not only from things that
+are evil in themselves, but even from those that have an appearance of
+evil. This happens in trading, both because it is directed to worldly
+gain, which clerics should despise, and because trading is open to so
+many vices, since "a merchant is hardly free from sins of the lips."
+[1] There is also another reason, because trading engages the mind too
+much with worldly cares, and consequently withdraws it from spiritual
+cares; wherefore the Apostle says:[2] "No man being a soldier to God
+entangleth himself with secular business." Nevertheless it is lawful
+for clerics to engage in the first-mentioned kind of exchange, which
+is directed to supply the necessaries of life, either by buying or by
+selling.'[3] The rule of St. Benedict contains a strong admonition to
+those who may be entrusted with the sale of any of the products of the
+monastery, to avoid all fraud and avarice.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Eccles. xxvi. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 2 Tim. ii. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Summa_, II. ii. 77, 4, ad. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Beg. St. Ben._, 57.]
+
+On the whole, the attitude towards commerce seems to have grown more
+liberal in the course of the Middle Ages. At first all commerce was
+condemned as sinful; at a later period it was said to be justifiable
+provided it was influenced by good motives; while at a still later
+date the method of treatment was rather to regard it as a colourless
+act in itself which might be rendered harmful by the presence of bad
+motives. This gradual broadening of the justification of commerce is
+probably a reflection of the necessities of the age, which witnessed a
+very great expansion of commerce, especially of foreign trade. In the
+earlier centuries remuneration for undertaking risk was prohibited on
+the authority of a passage in the Gregorian Decretals, but the later
+writers refused to disallow it.[1] The following passage from Dr.
+Cunningham's _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_ correctly
+represents the attitude of the Church towards commerce at the end
+of the Middle Ages: 'The ecclesiastic who regarded the merchant as
+exposed to temptations in all his dealings would not condemn him as
+sinful unless it were clear that a transaction were entered on
+solely for greed, and hence it was the tendency for moralists to draw
+additional distinctions, and refuse to pronounce against business
+practices where common sense did not give the benefit of the
+doubt.'[2] We have seen that one motive which would justify the
+carrying on of trade was the desire to support one's self and one's
+family. Of course this motive was capable of bearing a very extended
+and elastic interpretation, and would justify increased commercial
+profits according as the standard of life improved. The other motive
+given by the theologians, namely, the benefit of the State, was also
+one which was capable of a very wide construction. One must remember
+that even the manual labourer was bound not to labour solely for
+avaricious gain, but also for the benefit of his fellow-men. 'It is
+not only to chastise our bodies,' says Basil, 'it is also by the love
+of our neighbour that the labourer's life is useful so that God may
+furnish through us our weaker brethren';[3] and a fifteenth-century
+book on morality says: 'Man should labour for the honour of God.
+He should labour in order to gain for himself and his family the
+necessaries of life and what will contribute to Christian joy, and
+moreover to assist the poor and the sick by his labours. He who acting
+otherwise seeks only the pecuniary recompense of his work does ill,
+and his labours are but usury. In the words of St. Augustine, "thou
+shalt not commit usury with the work of thy hands, for thus wilt thou
+lose thy soul,"'[4] The necessity for altruism and regard for the
+needs of one's neighbour as well as of one's self were therefore
+motives necessary to justify labour as well as commerce; and it would
+be wrong to conclude that the teaching of the scholastics on the
+necessity for a good motive to justify trade operated to damp
+individual enterprise, or to discourage those who were inclined to
+launch commercial undertakings, any more than the insistence on the
+need for a similar motive in labourers was productive of idleness.
+What the mediaeval teaching on commerce really amounted to was that,
+while commerce was as legitimate as any other occupation, owing to the
+numerous temptations to avarice and dishonesty which it involved, it
+must be carefully scrutinised and kept within due bounds. It was more
+difficult to insure the observance of the just price in the case of
+a sale by a merchant than in one by an artificer; and the power which
+the merchant possessed of raising the price of the necessaries of life
+on the poor by engrossing and speculation rendered him a person whose
+operations should be carefully controlled.
+
+[Footnote 1: Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_,
+vol. i. p. 255.]
+
+[Footnote 2: P. 255.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Reg. Fus. Tract._, XXXVII. i.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Quoted in Janssen, _op. cit._, vol. ii. p. 9.]
+
+Finally, it must be clearly understood that the attempt of some modern
+writers to base the mediaeval justification of commerce on an analysis
+of all commercial gains as the payment for labour rests on a profound
+misunderstanding. As we have already pointed out, Aquinas distinctly
+rules out of consideration in his treatment of commerce the case
+where the goods have been improved in value by the exertions of the
+merchant. When the element of labour entered into the transaction the
+matter was clearly beyond doubt, and the lengthy discussion devoted
+to the question of commerce by Aquinas and his followers shows that in
+justifying commercial gains they were justifying a gain resting not on
+the remuneration for the labour, but on an independent title.
+
+
+Sec. 8. _Cambium_.
+
+There was one department of commerce, namely, _cambium_, or
+money-changing, which, while it did not give any difficulty in theory,
+involved certain difficulties in practice, owing to the fact that
+it was liable to be used to disguise usurious transactions. Although
+_cambium_ was, strictly speaking, a special branch of commerce, it was
+nevertheless usually treated in the works on usury, the reason being
+that many apparent contracts of _cambium_ were in fact veiled loans,
+and that it was therefore a matter of importance in discussing usury
+to explain the tests by which genuine and usurious exchanges could be
+distinguished. Endemann treats this subject very fully and ably;[1]
+but for the purpose of the present essay it is not necessary to do
+more than to state the main conclusions at which he arrives.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Studien_, vol. i. p. 75.]
+
+Although the practice of exchange grew up slowly and gradually during
+the later Middle Ages, and, consequently, the amount of space devoted
+to the discussion of the theory of exchange became larger as time went
+on, nevertheless there is no serious difference of opinion between
+the writers of the thirteenth century, who treat the subject in
+a fragmentary way, and those of the fifteenth, who deal with it
+exhaustively and systematically. Aquinas does not mention _cambium_
+in the _Summa_, but he recognises the necessity for some system of
+exchange in the _De Eegimine Principum_.[1] All the later writers who
+mention _cambium_ are agreed in regarding it as a species of commerce
+to which the ordinary rules regulating all commerce apply. Francis
+de Mayronis says that the art of _cambium_ is as natural as any
+other kind of commerce, because of the diversity of the currencies
+in different kingdoms, and approves of the campsor receiving some
+remuneration for his labour and trouble.[2] Nicholas de Ausmo, in
+his commentary on the _Summa Pisana_, written in the beginning of the
+fifteenth century, says that the campsor may receive a gain from
+his transactions, provided that they are not conducted with the sole
+object of making a profit, and that the gain he may receive must
+be limited by the common estimation of the place and time. This is
+practically saying that _cambium_ may be carried on under the same
+conditions as any other species of commerce. Biel says that _cambium_
+is only legitimate if the campsor has the motive of keeping up a
+family or benefiting the State, and that the contract may become
+usurious if the gain is not fair and moderate.[3] The right of the
+campsor to some remuneration for risk was only gradually admitted,
+and forms the subject of much discussion amongst the jurists.[4]
+This hesitation in allowing remuneration for risk was not peculiar
+to _cambium_, but, as we have seen above, was common to all commerce.
+Endemann points out how the theologians and jurists unanimously
+insisted that _cambium_ could not be justified except when the just
+price was observed, and that, when the doctrine attained its full
+development, the element of labour was but one of the constituents in
+the estimation of that price.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Cum enim extraneae monetae communicantur in
+permutationibus oportet recurrere ad artem campsoriam, cum talia
+numismata non tantum valeant in regionibus extraneis quantum in
+propriis (_De Reg. Prin._, ii. 13).]
+
+[Footnote 2: In _Quot. Lib. Sent._, iv. 16, 4.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Op. oil_., IV. xv. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. i. pp. 123-36.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Ibid._, p. 213.]
+
+All the writers who treated of exchange divided it into three kinds;
+ordinary exchange of the moneys of different currencies (_cambium
+minutum_), exchange of moneys of different currencies between
+different places, the justification for which rested on remuneration
+for an imaginary transport (_cambium per litteras_), and usurious
+exchange of moneys of the same currency (_cambium siccum_). The
+former two species of cambium were justifiable, whereas the last was
+condemned.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Laurentius de Rodulfis, _De Usuris_, pt. iii. Nos. 1 to
+5.]
+
+The most complete treatise on the subject of money exchange is that
+of Thomas da Vio, written in 1499. The author of this treatise divides
+money-changing into three kinds, just, unjust, and doubtful. There
+were three kinds of just change; _cambium minutum_, in which the
+campsor was entitled to a reasonable remuneration for his labour;
+_cambium per litteras_, in which the campsor was held entitled to a
+wage (_merces_) for an imaginary transportation; and thirdly, when
+the campsor carried money from one place to another, where it was of
+higher value. The unjust change was when the contract was a usurious
+transaction veiled in the guise of a genuine exchange. Under the
+doubtful changes, the author discusses various special points which
+need not detain us here.
+
+Thomas da Vio then goes on to discuss whether the justifiable exchange
+can be said to be a species of loan, and concludes that it can not,
+because all that the campsor receives is an indemnity against loss
+and a remuneration for his labour, trouble, outlay, and risk, which
+is always justifiable. He then goes on to state the very important
+principle, that in _cambium_ money is not to be considered a measure
+of value, but a vendible commodity,[1] a distinction which Endemann
+thinks was productive of very important results in the later teaching
+on the subject.[2] The last question treated in the treatise is the
+measure of the campsor's profit, and here the contract of exchange
+is shown to be on all fours with every other contract, because the
+essential principle laid down for determining its justice is the
+observance of the equivalence between both parties.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Numisma quamvis sit mensura et instrumentum in
+permutationibus; tamen per se aliquid esse potest.' It is this
+principle that justifies the treatment of _cambium_ in this section
+rather than the next.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 212.]
+
+
+
+SECTION 2.--THE SALE OF THE USE OF MONEY
+
+
+Sec. 1. _Usury in Greece and Rome_.
+
+The prohibition of usury has always occupied such a large place in
+histories of the Middle Ages, and particularly in discussions relating
+to the attitude of the Church towards economic questions, that it is
+important that its precise foundation and extent should be carefully
+studied. The usury prohibition has been the centre of so many bitter
+controversies, that it has almost become part of the stock-in-trade of
+the theological mob orators. The attitude of the Church towards usury
+only takes a slightly less prominent place than its attitude towards
+Galileo in the utterances of those who are anxious to convict it of
+error. We have referred to this current controversy, not in order that
+we might take a part in it, but that, on the contrary, we might avoid
+it. It is no part of our purpose in our treatment of this subject to
+discuss whether the usury prohibition was or was not suitable to
+the conditions of the Middle Ages; whether it did or did not impede
+industrial enterprise and commercial expansion; or whether it was or
+was not universally disregarded and evaded in real life. These are
+inquiries which, though full of interest, would not be in place in
+a discussion of theory. All we are concerned to do in the following
+pages is to indicate the grounds on which the prohibition of usury
+rested, the precise extent of its application, and the conceptions of
+economic theory which it indicated and involved.
+
+[Footnote 1: Brants has a very luminous and interesting section on
+_Cambium, Op. cit._, p. 214 _et seq_.]
+
+We must remark in the first place that the prohibition of usury was in
+no sense peculiar to the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, but,
+on the contrary, was to be found in many other religious and legal
+systems--for instance, in the writings of the Greek and Roman
+philosophers, amongst the Jews, and the followers of Mohammed. We
+shall give a very brief account of the other prohibitions of usury
+before coming to deal with the scholastic teaching on the subject.
+
+We can find no trace of any legal prohibition of usury in ancient
+Greece. Although Solon's laws contained many provisions for the relief
+of poor debtors, they did not forbid the taking of interest, nor did
+they limit the rate of interest that might be taken.[1] In Rome the
+Twelve Tables fixed a maximum rate of interest, which was probably
+ten or twelve per cent, per annum, but which cannot be determined
+with certainty owing to the doubtful signification of the expression
+'_unciarum foenus_.' The legal rate of interest was gradually reduced
+until the year 347 B.C., when five per cent, was fixed as a maximum.
+In 342 B.C. interest was forbidden altogether by the Genucian Law;
+but this law, though never repealed, was in practice quite inoperative
+owing to the facility with which it could be evaded; and consequently
+the oppression of borrowers was prevented by the enactment, or perhaps
+it would be more correct to say the general recognition, of a maximum
+rate of interest of twelve per cent. per annum. This maximum rate--the
+_Centesima_--remained in operation until the time of Justinian.[2]
+Justinian, who was under the influence of Christian teaching, and who
+might therefore be expected to have regarded usury with unfavourable
+eyes, fixed the following maximum rates of interest--maritime loans
+twelve per cent.; loans to ordinary persons, not in business, six per
+cent.; loans to high personages (_illustres_) and agriculturists, four
+per cent.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cleary, _The Church and Usury_, p. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Hunter, _Roman Law_, pp. 652-53; Cleary, _op. cit._, pp.
+22-6; Roscher, _Political Economy_, s. 90.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Code_ 4, 32, 26, 1.]
+
+While the taking of interest was thus approved or tolerated by Greek
+and Roman law, it was at the same time reprobated by the philosophers
+of both countries. Plato objects to usury because it tends to set one
+class, the poor or the borrowers, against another, the rich or the
+lenders; and goes so far as to make it wrong for the borrower to repay
+either the principal or interest of his debt. He further considers
+that the profession of the usurer is to be despised, as it is an
+illiberal and debasing way of making money.[1] While Plato therefore
+disapproves in no ambiguous words of usury, he does not develop the
+philosophical bases of his objection, but is content to condemn it
+rather for its probable ill effects than on account of its inherent
+injustice.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Laws_, v. ch. 11-13.]
+
+Aristotle condemns usury because it is the most extreme and dangerous
+form of chrematistic acquisition, or the art of making money for
+its own sake. As we have seen above, in discussing the legitimacy of
+commerce, buying cheap and selling dear was one form of chrematistic
+acquisition, which could only be justified by the presence of certain
+motives; and usury, according to the philosopher, was a still more
+striking example of the same kind of acquisition, because it consisted
+in making money from money, which was thus employed for a function
+different from that for which it had been originally invented. 'Usury
+is most reasonably detested, as the increase of our fortune arises
+from the money itself, and not by employing it for the purpose for
+which it was intended. For it was devised for the sake of exchange,
+but usury multiplies it. And hence usury has received the name of
+[Greek: tokos], or produce; for whatever is produced is itself like
+its parents; and usury is merely money born of money; so that of all
+means of money-making it is the most contrary to nature.'[1] We need
+not pause here to discuss the precise significance of Aristotle's
+conceptions on this subject, as they are to us not so much of
+importance in themselves, as because they suggested a basis for the
+treatment of usury to Aquinas and his followers.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Aristotle, _Politics_, i. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 29.]
+
+In Rome, as in Greece, the philosophers and moralists were unanimous
+in their condemnation of the practice of usury. Cicero condemns usury
+as being hateful to mankind, and makes Cato say that it is on the
+same level of moral obliquity as murder; and Seneca makes a point that
+became of some importance in the Middle Ages, namely, that usury is
+wrongful because it involves the selling of time.[1] Plutarch develops
+the argument that money is sterile, and condemns the practices
+of contemporary money-lenders as unjust.[2] The teaching of the
+philosophers as to the unlawfulness of usury was reflected in the
+popular feeling of the time.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 29.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _De Vitando Aere Alieno_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Espinas, _op. cit._, pp. 81-2; Roscher, _Political
+Economy_, s. 90.]
+
+
+
+
+Sec. 2. _Usury in the Old Testament_.
+
+
+The question of usury therefore attracted considerable attention in
+the teaching and practice of pagan antiquity. It occupied an equally
+important place in the Old Testament. In Exodus we find the first
+prohibition of usury: 'If thou lend money to any of my people being
+poor, thou shalt not be to him as a creditor, neither shall ye lay
+upon him usury.'[1] In Leviticus we read: 'And if thy brother be waxen
+poor, and his hand fail with thee; then, thou must uphold him; as a
+stranger and a sojourner shall he live with thee. Take thou no money
+of him or increase, but fear thy God that thy brother may live with
+thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor give him
+victuals for increase.'[2] Deuteronomy lays down a wider prohibition:
+'Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money,
+usury of victuals, usury of anything that is lent upon usury; unto
+a foreigner thou mayest lend upon usury, but unto thy brother thou
+mayest not lend upon usury.'[3] It will be noticed that the first and
+second of these texts do not forbid usury except in the case of loans
+to the poor, and, if we had them alone to consider, we could conclude
+that loans to the rich or to business men were allowed. The last text,
+however, extends the prohibition to all loans to one's brother--an
+expression which was of importance in Christian times, as Christian
+writers maintained the universal brotherhood of man.
+
+[Footnote 1: Exod. xxii. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Lev. xxv. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Deut. xxiii. 19.]
+
+It is unnecessary for us to discuss the underlying considerations
+which prompted these ordinances. Dr. Cleary, who has studied the
+matter with great care, concludes that: 'The legislator was urged
+mostly by economic considerations.... The permission to extract usury
+from strangers--a permission which later writers, such as Maimonides,
+regarded as a command--clearly favours the view that the legislator
+was guided by economic principles. It is more difficult to say whether
+he based his legislation on the principle that usury is intrinsically
+unjust--that is to say, unjust even when taken in moderation. There
+is really nothing in the texts quoted to enable us to decide. The
+universality of the prohibition when there is question solely of Jews
+goes to show that usury as such was regarded as unjust; whilst its
+permission as between Jew and Gentile favours the contradictory
+hypothesis.'[1] Modern Jewish thought is inclined to hold the view
+that these prohibitions were based upon the assumption that usury was
+intrinsically unjust, but that the taking of usury from the Gentiles
+was justified on the principle of compensation; in other words, that
+Jews might exact usury from those who might exact it from them.[2] It
+is at least certain that usury was regarded by the writers of the Old
+Testament as amongst the most terrible of sins.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, pp. 5-6.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Jewish Encyclopaedia_, art. 'Usury.']
+
+[Footnote 3: Ezek. xviii. 13; Jer. xv. 10; Ps. xiv. 5, cix. 11, cxii.
+5; Prov. xxviii. 8; Hes. xviii. 8; 2 Esd. v. I _et seq._]
+
+The general attitude of the Jews towards usury cannot be better
+explained than by quoting Dr. Cleary's final conclusion on the
+subject: 'It appears therefore that in the Old Testament usury was
+universally prohibited between Israelite and Israelite, whilst it
+was permitted between Israelite and Gentile. Furthermore, it
+seems impossible to decide what was the nature of the obligations
+imposed--whether the prohibition supposed and ratified an already
+existing universal obligation, in charity or justice, or merely
+imposed a new obligation in obedience, binding the consciences of men
+for economic or political reasons. So, too, it seems impossible to
+decide absolutely whether the decrees were intended to possess eternal
+validity; the probabilities, however, seem to favour very strongly the
+view that they were intended as mere economic regulations suited to
+the circumstances of the time. This does not, of course, decide the
+other question, whether, apart from such positive regulations, there
+already existed an obligation arising from the natural law; nor would
+the passing of the positive law into desuetude affect the existence of
+the other obligation.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, pp. 17-18.]
+
+Before we pass from the consideration of the Old Testament to that of
+the New, we may mention that the taking of interest by Mohammedans is
+forbidden in the Koran.[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: ii. 30. This prohibition is universally evaded. (Roscher,
+_Political Economy_, s. 90.)]
+
+
+
+
+Sec. 3. _Usury in the First Twelve Centuries of Christianity_.
+
+The only passage in the Gospels which bears directly on the question
+of usury is a verse of St. Luke, the correct reading of which is a
+matter of considerable difference of opinion.[1] The Revised Version
+reads: 'But love your enemies, and do them good, and lend, never
+despairing (_nihil desperantes_); and your reward shall be great.' If
+this be the true reading of the verse, it does not touch the question
+of usury at all, as it is simply an exhortation to lend without
+worrying whether the debtor fail or not.[2] The more generally
+received reading of this verse, however, is that adopted by the
+Vulgate, 'mutuum date, nihil inde sperantes'--'lend hoping for
+nothing thereby.' If this be the correct reading, the verse raises
+considerable difficulties of interpretation. It may simply mean, as
+Mastrofini interprets it, that all human actions should be performed,
+not in the hope of obtaining any material reward, but for the love of
+God and our neighbour; or it may contain an actual precept or counsel
+relating to the particular subject of loans. If the latter be the
+correct interpretation, the further question arises whether the
+recommendation is to renounce merely the interest of a loan or the
+principal as well. We need not here engage on the details of the
+controversy thus aroused; it is sufficient to say that it is the
+almost unanimous opinion of modern authorities that the verse
+recommends the renunciation of the principal as well as the interest;
+and that, if this interpretation is correct, the recommendation is
+not a precept, but a counsel.[3] Aquinas thought that the verse was a
+counsel as to the repayment of the principal, but a precept as to the
+payment of interest, and this opinion is probably correct.[4] With the
+exception of this verse, there is not a single passage in the Gospels
+which prohibits the taking of usury.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke vi. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 33, following Knabenbaur.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 34.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, p. 35.]
+
+We must now give some account of the teaching on usury which was laid
+down by the Fathers and early councils of the Church; but at the same
+time we shall not attempt to treat this in an exhaustive way, because,
+although the early Christian teaching is of interest in itself,
+it exercised little or no influence upon the great philosophical
+treatment of the same subject by Aquinas and his followers, which is
+the principal subject to be discussed in these pages. The first thing
+we must remark is that the prohibition of usury was not included by
+the Council of Jerusalem amongst the 'necessary things' imposed upon
+converts from the Gentiles.[1] This would seem to show that the taking
+of usury was not regarded as unlawful by the Apostles, who were at
+pains expressly to forbid the commission of offences, the evil of
+which must have appeared plainly from the natural law--for instance,
+fornication. The _Didache_, which was used as a book of catechetical
+instruction for catechumens, does not specifically mention usury; the
+forcing of the repayment of loans from the poor who are unable to pay
+is strongly reprobated; but this is not so in the case of the rich.[2]
+Clement of Alexandria expressly limits his disapprobation of usury to
+the case of loans between brothers, whom he defines as 'participators
+in the same word,' _i.e._ fellow-Christians; and in any event it
+is clear that he regards it as sin against charity, but not against
+justice.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Acts xv. 29.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Didache_, ch. i.; Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 39.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Stromata_, ii. 18.]
+
+Tertullian is one of the first of the Fathers to lay down positively
+that the taking of usury is sinful. He regards it as obviously wrong
+for Christians to exact usury on their loans, and interprets the
+passage of St. Luke, to which we have referred, as a precept against
+looking for even the repayment of the principal.[1] On the other hand,
+Cyprian, writing in the same century, although he declaims eloquently
+and vigorously against the usurious practices of the clergy, does not
+specifically express the opinion that the taking of usury is wrong in
+itself.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Ad Marcion_, iv. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Le Lapsis_, ch. 5-6; Cleary, _op. cit._, pp. 42-3.]
+
+Thus, during the first three centuries of Christianity, there does not
+seem to have been, as far as we can now ascertain, any definite and
+general doctrine laid down on the subject of usury. In the year 305
+or 306 a very important step forward was taken, when the Council of
+Elvira passed a decree against usury. This decree, as given by Ivo
+and Gratian, seems only to have applied to usury on the part of the
+clergy, but as given by Mansi it affected the clergy and laity alike.
+'Should any cleric be found to have taken usury,' the latter version
+runs, 'let him be degraded and excommunicated. Moreover, if any layman
+shall be proved a usurer, and shall have promised, when corrected, to
+abstain from the practice, let him be pardoned. If, on the contrary,
+he perseveres in his evil-doing, he is to be excommunicated.'[1]
+Although the Council of Elvira was but a provincial Council, its
+decrees are important, as they provided a model for later legislation.
+Dr. Cleary thinks that Mansi's version of this decree is probably
+incorrect, and that, therefore, the Council only forbade usury on the
+part of the clergy. In any event, with this one possible and extremely
+doubtful exception, there was no conciliar legislation affecting the
+practice of usury on the part of the laity until the eighth century.
+Certain individual popes censured the taking of usury by laymen, and
+the Council of Nice expressed the opinion that such a practice was
+contrary to Christ's teaching, but there is nowhere to be found an
+imperative and definite prohibition of the taking of usury except by
+the clergy.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 43.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Cleary, _op. cit._, pp. 44-8.]
+
+The inconclusive result of the Christian teaching up to the middle of
+the fourth century is well summarised by Dr. Cleary: 'Hitherto we have
+encountered mere prohibitions of usury with little or no attempt to
+assign a reason for them other than that of positive legislation.
+Most of the statements of these early patristic writers, as well
+as possibly all of the early Christian legislative enactments, deal
+solely with the practice of usury by the clergy; still, there is
+sufficient evidence to show that in those days it was reprobated even
+for the Christian laity, for the _Didache_ and Tertullian clearly
+teach or presuppose its prohibition, while the oecumenical Council
+of Nice certainly presupposed its illegality for the laity, though
+it failed to sustain its doctrinal presuppositions with corresponding
+ecclesiastical penalties. With the exception of some very vague
+statements by Cyprian and Clement of Alexandria, we find no attempt to
+state the nature of the resulting obligation--that is to say, we are
+not told whether there is an obligation of obedience, of justice, or
+of charity. The prohibition indeed seems to be regarded as universal;
+and it may very well be contended that for the cases the Fathers
+consider it was in fact universal--for the loans with which they are
+concerned, being necessitous, should be, in accordance with Christian
+charity, gratuitous--even if speculatively usurious loans in general
+were not unjust.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, pp. 48-9.]
+
+The middle of the fourth century marked the opening of a new
+period--'a period when oratorical denunciations are profuse, and when
+consequently philosophical speculation, though fairly active, is
+of too imaginative a character to be sufficiently definite.'[1]
+St. Basil's _Homilies on the Fourteenth Psalm_ contain a violent
+denunciation of usury, the reasoning of which was repeated by St.
+Gregory of Nyssa[2] and St. Ambrose.[3] These three Fathers draw a
+terrible picture of the state of the poor debtor, who, harassed by
+his creditors, falls deeper and deeper into despair, until he finally
+commits suicide, or has to sell his children into slavery. Usury was
+therefore condemned by these Fathers as a sin against charity; the
+passage from St. Luke was looked on merely as a counsel in so far as
+it related to the repayment of the principal, but as a precept so
+far as it related to usury; but the notion that usury was in its very
+essence a sin against justice does not appear to have arisen. The
+natural sterility of money is referred to, but not developed; and it
+is suggested, though not categorically stated, that usury may be taken
+from wealthy debtors.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 49.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Contra Usurarios_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Tobia_.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 52.]
+
+The other Fathers of the later period do not throw very much light
+on the question of how usury was regarded by the early Church. St.
+Hilary[1] and Jerome[2] still base their objection on the ground of
+its being an offence against charity; and St. Augustine, though he
+would like to make restitution of usury a duty, treats the matter from
+the same point of view.[3] On the other hand, there are to be found
+patristic utterances in favour of the legality of usury, and episcopal
+approbations of civil codes which permitted it.[4] The civil law
+did not attempt to suppress usury, but simply to keep it within due
+bounds.[5] The result of the patristic teaching therefore was on the
+whole unsatisfactory and inconclusive. 'Whilst patristic opinion,'
+says Dr. Cleary, 'is very pronounced in condemning usury, the
+condemnation is launched against it more because of its oppressiveness
+than for its intrinsic injustice. As Dr. Funk has pointed out, one can
+scarcely cite a single patristic opinion which can be said clearly to
+hold that usury is against justice, whilst there are, on the contrary,
+certain undercurrents of thought in many writers, and certain explicit
+statements in others, which tend to show that the Fathers would not
+have been prepared to deal so harshly with usurers, did usurers not
+treat their debtors so cruelly.... Of keen philosophical analysis
+there is none.... On the whole, we find the teachings of the Fathers
+crude and undeveloped.'[6]
+
+[Footnote 1: In Ps. xiv.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ad Ezech._]
+
+[Footnote 3: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 56.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ibid._ pp. 56-7.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Justinian Code_, iv. 32.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Op. cit._, pp. 57-9. On the patristic teaching on usury,
+see Espinas, _Op. cit._, pp. 82-4; Roscher, _Political Economy_, s.
+90; Antoine, _Cours d'Economie sociale_, pp. 588 _et seq_.]
+
+The practical teaching with regard to the taking of usury made an
+important advance in the eighth and ninth centuries, although the
+philosophical analysis of the subject did not develop any more
+fully. A capitulary canon made in 789 decreed 'that each and all are
+forbidden to give anything on usury'; and a capitulary of 813 states
+that 'not only should the Christian clergy not demand usury, laymen
+should not.' In 825 it was decreed that the counts were to assist the
+bishops in their suppression of usury; and in 850 the Synod of Ticinum
+bound usurers to restitution.[1] The underlying principles of these
+enactments is as obscure as their meaning is plain and definite. There
+is not a single trace of the keen analysis with which Aquinas was
+later to illuminate and adorn the subject.
+
+[Footnote 1: These are but a few of the enactments of the period
+directed against usury (Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 61; Favre, _Le pret a
+interet dans l'ancienne France_).]
+
+
+Sec. 4. _The Mediaeval Prohibition of Usury_.
+
+The tenth and eleventh centuries saw no advance in the teaching on
+usury. The twelfth century, however, ushered in a new era. 'Before
+that century controversy had been mostly confined to theologians, and
+treated theologically, with reference to God and the Bible, and only
+rarely with regard to economic considerations. After the twelfth
+century the discussion was conducted on a gradually broadening
+economic basis--appeals to the Fathers, canonists, philosophers, the
+_jus divinum_, the _jus naturale_, the _jus humanum_, became the order
+of the day.'[1] Before we proceed to discuss the new philosophical or
+scholastic treatment of usury which was inaugurated for all practical
+purposes by Aquinas, we must briefly refer to the ecclesiastical
+legislation on the subject.
+
+[Footnote 1: Boehm-Bawerk, _Capital and Interest_, p. 19.]
+
+In 1139 the second Lateran Council issued a very strong declaration
+against usurers. 'We condemn that disgraceful and detestable rapacity,
+condemned alike by human and divine law, by the Old and the New
+Testaments, that insatiable rapacity of usurers, whom we hereby
+cut off from all ecclesiastical consolation; and we order that no
+archbishop, bishop, abbot, or cleric shall receive back usurers except
+with the very greatest caution, but that, on the contrary, usurers
+are to be regarded as infamous, and shall, if they do not repent, be
+deprived of Christian burial.'[1] It might be argued that this decree
+was aimed against immoderate or habitual usury, and not against usury
+in general, but all doubt as regards the attitude of the Church was
+set at rest by a decree of the Lateran Council of 1179. This decree
+runs: 'Since almost in every place the crime of usury has become
+so prevalent that many people give up all other business and become
+usurers, as if it were lawful, regarding not its prohibition in both
+Testaments, we ordain that manifest usurers shall not be admitted to
+communion, nor, if they die in their sins, be admitted to Christian
+burial, and that no priest shall accept their alms.'[2] Meanwhile,
+Alexander III., having given much attention to the subject of usury,
+had come to the conclusion that it was a sin against justice. This
+recognition of the essential injustice of usury marked a turning-point
+in the history of the treatment of the subject; and Alexander III.
+seems entitled to be designated the 'pioneer of its scientific
+study.'[3] Innocent III. followed Alexander in the opinion that usury
+was unjust in itself, and from his time forward there was but little
+further disagreement upon the matter amongst the theologians.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 64.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._]
+
+[Footnote 3: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 65.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, p. 68.]
+
+In 1274 Gregory X., in the Council of Lyons, ordained that no
+community, corporation, or individual should permit foreign usurers to
+hire houses, but that they should expel them from their territory;
+and the disobedient, if prelates, were to have their lands put under
+interdict, and, if laymen, to be visited by their ordinary with
+ecclesiastical censures.[1] By a further canon he ordained that the
+wills of usurers who did not make restitution should be invalid.[2]
+This brought usury definitely within the jurisdiction of the
+ecclesiastical courts.[3] In 1311 the Council of Vienne declared all
+secular legislation in favour of usury null and void, and branded as
+heresy the belief that usury was not sinful.[4] The precise extent and
+interpretation of this decree have given rise to a considerable amount
+of discussion,[5] which need not detain us here, because by that time
+the whole question of usury had come under the treatment of the great
+scholastic writers, whose teaching is more particularly the subject
+matter of the present essay.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Liber Sextus_, v. 5, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, c. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. i. p. 150.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Clementinarum_, v. 5, 1.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Cleary, _op. cit._, pp. 74-8.]
+
+Even as late as the first half of the thirteenth century there was
+no serious discussion of usury by the theologians. William of Paris,
+Alexander of Hales, and Albertus Magnus simply pronounced it sinful
+on account of the texts in the Old and New Testaments, which we have
+quoted above.[1] It was Aquinas who really put the teaching on usury
+upon the new foundation, which was destined to support it for so
+many hundred years, and which even at the present day appeals to many
+sympathetic and impartial inquirers. Mr. Lecky apologises for the
+obscurity of his account of the argument of Aquinas, but adds that the
+confusion is chiefly the fault of the latter;[2] but the fact that Mr.
+Lecky failed to grasp the meaning of the argument should not lead one
+to conclude that the argument itself was either confused or illogical.
+The fact that it for centuries remained the basis of the Catholic
+teaching on the subject is a sufficient proof that its inherent
+absurdity did not appear apparent to many students at least as gifted
+as Mr. Lecky. We shall quote the article of Aquinas at some length,
+because it was universally accepted by all the theologians of the
+fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with whose opinions we are
+concerned in this essay. To quote later writings is simply to repeat
+in different words the conclusions at which Aquinas arrived.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Jourdain, _op. cit._, p. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Rise and Influence, of Rationalism in Europe_, vol. ii.
+p. 261.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. i. p. 17.]
+
+In answer to the question 'whether it is a sin to take usury for money
+lent,' Aquinas replies: 'To take usury for money lent is unjust
+in itself, because this is to sell what does not exist, and this
+evidently leads to inequality, which is contrary to justice.
+
+'In order to make this evident, we must observe that there are certain
+things the use of which consists in their consumption; thus we consume
+wine when we use it for drink, and we consume wheat when we use it for
+food. Wherefore in such-like things the use of the thing must not be
+reckoned apart from the thing itself, and whoever is granted the use
+of the thing is granted the thing itself; and for this reason to lend
+things of this kind is to transfer the ownership. Accordingly, if a
+man wanted to sell wine separately from the use of the wine, he would
+be selling the same thing twice, or he would be selling what does not
+exist, wherefore he would evidently commit a sin of injustice. In like
+manner he commits an injustice who lends wine or wheat, and asks for
+double payment, viz. one, the return of the thing in equal measure,
+the other, the price of the use, which is called usury.
+
+'On the other hand, there are other things the use of which does not
+consist in their consumption; thus to use a house is to dwell in it,
+not to destroy it. Wherefore in such things both may be granted; for
+instance, one man may hand over to another the ownership of his house,
+while reserving to himself the use of it for a time, or, _vice versa_,
+he may grant the use of a house while retaining the ownership. For
+this reason a man may lawfully make a charge for the use of his house,
+and, besides this, revendicate the house from the person to whom he
+has granted its use, as happens in renting and letting a house.
+
+'But money, according to the philosopher,[1] was invented chiefly for
+the purpose of exchange; and consequently the proper and principal
+use of money is its consumption or alienation, whereby it is sunk in
+exchange. Hence it is by its very nature unlawful to take payment for
+the use of money lent, which payment is known as usury; and, just as
+a man is bound to restore other ill-gotten goods, so he is bound to
+restore the money which he has taken in usury.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Eth._ v. _Pol_. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: II. ii. 78, 1.]
+
+The essential thing to notice in this explanation is that the contract
+of _mutuum_ is shown to be a sale. The distinction between things
+which are consumed in use (_res fungibiles_), and which are not
+consumed in use (_res non fungibiles_) was familiar to the civil
+lawyers; but what they had never perceived was precisely what Aquinas
+perceived, namely, that the loan of a fungible thing was in fact not
+a loan at all, but a sale, for the simple reason that the ownership
+in the thing passed. Once the transaction had been shown to be a sale,
+the principle of justice to be applied to it became obvious. As we
+have seen above, in treating of sales, the essential basis of justice
+in exchange was the observance of _aequalitas_ between buyer and
+seller--in other words, the fixing of a just price. The contract of
+_mutuum_, however, was nothing else than a sale of fungibles,
+and therefore the just price in such a contract was the return of
+fungibles of the same value as those lent. If the particular fungible
+sold happened to be money, the estimation of the just price was a
+simple matter--it was the return of an amount of money of equal value.
+As money happened to be the universal measure of value, this simply
+meant the return of the same amount of money. Those who maintained
+that something additional might be claimed for the use of the money
+lost sight of the fact that the money was incapable of being used
+apart from its being consumed.[1] To ask for payment for the sale of
+a thing which not only did not exist, but which was quite incapable
+of existence, was clearly to ask for something for nothing--which
+obviously offended against the first principles of commutative
+justice. 'He that is not bound to lend,' says Aquinas in another part
+of the same article, 'may accept repayment for what he has done, but
+he must not exact more. Now he is repaid according to equality of
+justice if he is repaid as much as he lent, wherefore, if he exacts
+more for the usufruct of a thing which has no other use but the
+consumption of its substance, he exacts a price of something
+non-existent, and so his exaction is unjust.'[2] And in the next
+article the principle that _mutuum_ is a sale appears equally clearly:
+'Money cannot be sold for a greater sum than the amount lent, which
+has to be paid back.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Aquinas did not lose sight of the fact that money might,
+in certain cases, be used apart from being consumed--for instance,
+when it was not used as a means of exchange, but as an ornament.
+He gives the example of money being sewn up and sealed in a bag to
+prevent its being spent, and in this condition lent for any purpose.
+In this case, of course, the transaction would not be a _mutuum_, but
+a _locatio et conductio_, and therefore a price could be charged for
+the use of the money (_Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo_, Q. xiii. art.
+iv. ad. 15, quoted in Cronin's _Ethics_, vol. ii. p. 332).]
+
+[Footnote 2: II. ii. 78, 1, ad. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 3: II. ii. 78, 2, ad. 4. Biel distinguishes three kinds of
+exchange: of goods for goods, or barter; of goods for money, or sale;
+and of money for money; and adds, 'In his contractibus ... generaliter
+justitia in hoc consistit quod fiant sine fraude, et servetur
+aequalitas substantiae, qualitatis, quantitatis in commutatis (_Op.
+cit._, IV. xv. 1). Buridan says that usury is contrary to natural law
+'ex conditione justitiae quae in aequalitate damni et lucri consistit;
+quoniam injustum est pro re semel commutata pluries pretium recipere'
+(In _Lib. Pol._, iv. 6).]
+
+The difficulty which moderns find in understanding this teaching,
+is that it is said to be based on the sterility of money. A moment's
+thought, however, will convince us that money is in fact sterile until
+labour has been applied to it. In this sense money differs in its
+essence from a cow or a tree. A cow will produce calves, or a tree
+will produce fruit without the application of any exertion by its
+owner; but, whatever profit is derived from money, is derived from the
+use to which it is put by the person who owns it. This is all that
+the scholastics meant by the sterility of money. They never thought
+of denying that money, when properly used, was capable of bringing its
+employer a profit; but they emphatically asserted that the profit was
+due to the labour, and not to the money.
+
+Antoninus of Florence clearly realised this: 'Money is not profitable
+of itself alone, nor can it multiply itself, but it may become
+profitable through its employment by merchants';[1] and Bernardine of
+Sienna says: 'Money has not simply the character of money, but it
+has beyond this a productive character, which we commonly call
+capital.'[2] 'What is money,' says Brants, 'if it is not a means of
+exchange, of which the employment and preservation will give a profit,
+if he who possesses it is prudent, active, and intelligent? If this
+money is well employed, it will become a capital, and one may derive
+a profit from it; but this profit arises from the activity of him who
+uses it, and consequently this profit belongs to him--it is the fruit,
+the remuneration of his labour.... Did they (the scholastics) say
+that it was impossible to draw a profit from a sum of money? No; they
+admitted fully that one might _de pecunia lucrari_; but this _lucrum_
+does not come from the _pecunia_, but from the application of labour
+to the sum.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Quoted in Brants, _op. cit._, p. 134.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._]
+
+[Footnote 3: Brants, _op. cit._, pp. 133-5; Nider, _De Cont. Merc._
+iii. 15.]
+
+Therefore, if the borrower did not derive any profit from the loan,
+the sum lent had in fact been sterile, and obviously the just price of
+the loan was the return of the amount lent; if, on the contrary, the
+borrower had made a profit from it, it was the reward of his labour,
+and not the fruit of the loan itself. To repay more than the sum lent
+would therefore be to make a payment to one person for the labour of
+another.[1] The exaction of usury was therefore the exploitation of
+another man's exertion.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Gerson, _De Cont._, iv. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Neumann, when he says that 'it was sinful to recompense
+the use of capital belonging to another' (_Geschichte des Wuchers in
+Deutschland_, p. 25), seems to miss the whole point of the discussion.
+The teaching of the canonists on rents and partnership shows clearly
+that the owner of capital might draw a profit from another's labour,
+and the central point of the usury teaching was that money which has
+been lent, and employed so as to produce a profit by the borrower,
+belongs not 'to another,' but to the very man who employed it, namely,
+the borrower.]
+
+It is interesting to notice how closely the rules applying in the case
+of sales were applied to usury. The raising of the price of a loan
+on account of some special benefit derived from it by the borrower is
+precisely analogous to raising the sale price of an object because it
+is of some special individual utility to the buyer. On the other
+hand, as we shall see further down, any special damage suffered by the
+lender was a sufficient reason for exacting something over and above
+the amount lent; this was precisely the rule that applied in the case
+of sales, when the seller suffered any special damage from parting
+with the object sold. Thus the analogy between sales and loans was
+complete at every point. In both, equality of sacrifice was the test
+of justice.
+
+Nor could it be suggested that the delay in the repayment of the loan
+was a reason for increasing the amount to be repaid, because this
+really amounted to a sale of time, which, of its nature, could not be
+owned.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Rambaud, _op. cit._, p. 63; Aquinas(?), _De Usuris_, i.
+4.]
+
+The scholastic teaching, then, on the subject was quite plain and
+unambiguous. Usury, or the payment of a price for the use of a sum
+lent in addition to the repayment of the sum itself, was in all
+cases prohibited. The fact that the payment demanded was moderate was
+irrelevant; there could be no question of the reasonableness of the
+amount of an essentially unjust payment.[1] Nor was the payment of
+usury rendered just because the loan was for a productive purpose--in
+other words, a commercial loan. Certain writers have maintained that
+in this case usury was tolerated;[2] but they can easily be refuted.
+As we have seen above, _mutuum_ was essentially a sale, and,
+therefore, no additional price could be charged because of some
+special individual advantage enjoyed by the buyer (or borrower).
+It was quite impossible to distinguish, according to the scholastic
+teaching, between taking an additional payment because the lender made
+a profit by using the loan wisely, and taking it because the borrower
+was in great distress, and therefore derived a greater advantage from
+the loan than a person in easier circumstances. The erroneous notion
+that loans for productive purposes were entitled to any special
+treatment was finally dispelled in 1745 by an encyclical of Benedict
+XIV.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Jourdain, _op. cit._, p. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _E.g._ Perin, _Premiers Principes d'Economie politique_,
+p. 305; Claudio Jannet, _Capital Speculation et Finance_, p. 83; De
+Metz-Noblat, _Lois economiques_, p. 293.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Rambaud, _op. cit._, p. 69.]
+
+
+Sec. 5. _Extrinsic Titles_.
+
+Usury, therefore, was prohibited in all cases. Many people at the
+present day think that the prohibition of usury was the same thing
+as the prohibition of interest. There could not be a greater mistake.
+While usury was in all circumstances condemned, interest was in every
+case allowed. The justification of interest rested on precisely the
+same ground as the prohibition of usury, namely, the observance of the
+equality of commutative justice. It was unjust that a greater price
+should be paid for the loan of a sum of money than the amount lent;
+but it was no less unjust that the lender should find himself in a
+worse position because of his having made the loan. In other words,
+the consideration for the loan could not be increased because of any
+special benefit which it conferred on the borrower, but it could
+be increased on account of any special damage suffered by the
+lender--precisely the same rule as we have seen applied in the case
+of sales. The borrower must, in addition to the repayment of the loan,
+indemnify the lender for any damage he had suffered. The measure of
+the damage was the difference between the lender's condition before
+the loan was made and after it had been repaid--in other words, he
+was entitled to compensation for the difference in his condition
+occasioned by the transaction--_id quod interest_.
+
+Before we discuss interest properly so called, we must say a word
+about another analogous but not identical title of compensation,
+namely, the _poena conventionalis_. It was a very general practice,
+about the legitimacy of which the scholastics do not seem to have had
+any doubt, to attach to the original contract of loan an agreement
+that a penalty should be paid in case of default in the repayment
+of the loan at the stipulated time.[1] The justice of the _poena
+conventionalis_ was recognised by Alexander of Hales,[2] and by Duns
+Scotus, who gives a typical form of the stipulation as follows: 'I
+have need of my money for commerce, but shall lend it to you till a
+certain day on the condition that, if you do not repay it on that day,
+you shall pay me afterwards a certain sum in addition, since I shall
+suffer much injury through your delay.'[3] The _poena conventionalis_
+must not be confused with either of the titles _damnum emergens_ or
+_lucrum cessans_, which we are about to discuss; it was distinguished
+from the former by being based upon a presumed injury, whereas the
+injury in _damnum emergens_ must be proved; and for the latter because
+the damage must be presumed to have occurred after the expiration of
+the loan period, whereas in _lucrum cessans_ the damage was presumed
+to have occurred during the currency of the loan period. The important
+thing to remember is that these titles were really distinct.[4] The
+essentials of a _poena conventionalis_ were, stipulation from the
+first day of the loan, presumption of damage, and attachment to a
+loan which was itself gratuitous.[5] The _Summa Astesana_ clearly
+maintained the distinction between the two titles of compensation,[6]
+as also did the _Summa Angelica_.[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. i. p. 399.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Biel, _op. cit._, iv. 15, 11.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 93.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, p. 95.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 94.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. i. p. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 7: ccxl.]
+
+The first thing to be noted on passing from the _poena conventionalis_
+to interest proper is that the latter ground of compensation was
+generally divided into two kinds, _damnum emergens_ and _lucrum
+cessans_. The former included all cases where the lender had incurred
+an actual loss by reason of his having made the loan; whereas the
+latter included all cases where the lender, by parting with his money,
+had lost the opportunity of making a profit. This distinction was made
+at least as early as the middle of the thirteenth century, and was
+always adopted by later writers.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 399.]
+
+The title _damnum emergens_ never presented any serious difficulty.
+It was recognised by Albertus Magnus,[1] and laid down so clearly by
+Aquinas that it was not afterwards questioned: 'A lender may without
+sin enter an agreement with the borrower for compensation for the loss
+he incurs of something he ought to have, for this is not to sell
+the use of money, but to avoid a loss. It may also happen that the
+borrower avoids a greater loss than the lender incurs, wherefore the
+borrower may repay the lender with what he has gained.'[2] The usual
+example given to illustrate how _damnum emergens_ might arise, was
+the case of the lender being obliged, on account of the failure of the
+borrower, to borrow money himself at usury.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Roscher, _Geschichte_, p. 27.]
+
+[Footnote 2: II. ii. 78, 2, ad. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. i. p. 400.]
+
+Closely allied to the title of _damnum emergens_ was that of _lucrum
+cessans_. According to some writers, the latter was the only true
+interest. Dr. Cleary quotes some thirteenth-century documents in which
+a clear distinction is made between _damnum_ and _interesse_;[1] and
+it seems to have been the common custom in Germany at a later date
+to distinguish between _interesse_ and _schaden_.[2] Although the
+division between these two titles was very indefinite, they did not
+meet recognition with equal readiness; the title _damnum emergens_
+was universally admitted by all authorities; while that of _lucrum
+cessans_ was but gradually admitted, and hedged round with many
+limitations.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 95.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 401.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 98; Endemann, _Studien_, vol. ii.
+p. 279; Bartolus and Baldus said that _damnum emergens_ and _lucrum
+cessans_ were divided by a very narrow line, and that it was often
+difficult to distinguish between them. They suggested that the
+terms _interesse proximum_ and _interesse remotum_ would be more
+satisfactory, but they were not followed by other writers (Endemann,
+_Studien_, vol. ii, pp. 269-70).]
+
+The first clear recognition of the title _lucrum cessans_ occurs in
+a letter from Alexander III., written in 1176, and addressed to the
+Archbishop of Genoa: 'You tell us that it often happens in your city
+that people buy pepper and cinnamon and other wares, at the time worth
+not more than five pounds, promising those from whom they received
+them six pounds at an appointed time. Though contracts of this
+kind and under such a form cannot strictly be called usurious, yet,
+nevertheless, the vendors incur guilt, unless they are really doubtful
+whether the wares might be worth more or less at the time of payment.
+Your citizens will do well for their own salvation to cease from such
+contracts.'[1] As Dr. Cleary points out, the trader is held by this
+decision to be entitled to a recompense on account of a probable loss
+of profit, and the decision consequently amounts to a recognition of
+the title _lucrum cessans_.[2] The title is also recognised by Scotus
+and Hostiensis.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Decr. Greg._ v. 5, 6.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, p. 67.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, p. 99.]
+
+The attitude of Aquinas to the admission of _lucrum cessans_ is
+obscure. In the article on usury he expressly states that 'the lender
+cannot enter an agreement for compensation through the fact that he
+makes no profit out of his money, because he must not sell that which
+he has not yet, and may be prevented in many ways from having.'[1] Two
+comments must be made on this passage; first, that it only refers to
+making a stipulation in advance for compensation for profit lost, and
+does not condemn the actual payment of compensation;[2] second, that
+the point is made that the probability of gaining a profit on money is
+so problematical as to make it unsaleable. As Ashley points out, the
+latter consideration was peculiarly important at the time when the
+_Summa_ was composed; and, when in the course of the following
+two centuries the opportunities for reasonably safe and profitable
+business investments increased, the great theologians conceived that
+they were following the real thought of Aquinas by giving to this
+explanation a pure _contemporanea expositio_. The argument in favour
+of this construction is strengthened by a reference to the article of
+the _Summa_ dealing with restitution,[3] where it is pointed out that
+a man may suffer in two ways--first, by being deprived of what he
+actually has, and, second, by being prevented from obtaining what he
+was on his way to obtain. In the former case an equivalent must always
+be restored, but in the latter it is not necessary to make good an
+equivalent, 'because to have a thing virtually is less than to have it
+actually, and to be on the way to obtain a thing is to have it
+merely virtually or potentially, and so, were he to be indemnified by
+receiving the thing actually, he would be paid, not the exact value
+taken from him, but more, and this is not necessary for salvation.
+However, he is bound to make some compensation according to the
+condition of persons and things.' Later in the same article we are
+told that 'he that has money has the profit not actually, but only
+virtually; and it may be hindered in many ways.'[4] It seems
+quite clear from these passages that Aquinas admitted the right to
+compensation for a profit which the lender was hindered from making on
+account of the loan; but that, in the circumstances of the time, the
+probability of making such a profit was so remote that it could not
+be made the basis of pecuniary compensation. The probability of there
+being a _lucrum cessans_ was thought small, but the justice of its
+reward, if it did in fact exist, was admitted.
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 78, 2, ad. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Rambaud, _op. cit._, p. 67.]
+
+[Footnote 3: II. ii. 62, 4.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, ad. 1 and 2.]
+
+This interpretation steadily gained ground amongst succeeding writers;
+so that, in spite of some lingering opposition, the justice of the
+title _lucrum cessans_ was practically universally admitted by the
+theologians of the fifteenth century.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, p. 99. _Lucrum cessans_ was defined
+by Navarrus as 'amissio facta a creditore per pecuniam sibi non
+redditam' (Endemann, _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 279).]
+
+Of course the burden of proving that an opportunity for profitable
+investment had been really lost was on the lender, but this onus
+was sufficiently discharged if the probability of such a loss were
+established. In the fifteenth century, with the expansion of commerce,
+it came to be generally recognised that such a probability could be
+presumed in the case of the merchant or trader.[1] The final condition
+of this development of the teaching on _lucrum cessans_ is thus stated
+by Ashley:[2] 'Any merchant, or indeed any person in a trading
+centre where there were opportunities of business investment (outside
+money-lending itself) could, with a perfectly clear conscience,
+and without any fear of molestation, contract to receive periodical
+interest from the person to whom he lent money; _provided only_ that
+he first lent it to him gratuitously, for a period that might be made
+very short, so that technically the payment would not be reward for
+the use, but compensation for the non-return of the money.' At a later
+period than that of which we are treating in the present essay the
+short gratuitous period could be dispensed with, but until the end of
+the fifteenth century it seems to have been considered essential.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 402.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._]
+
+[Footnote 3: Ashley, _op. cit._ vol. i. pt. ii. p. 402; Endemann,
+_Studien_, vol. ii. pp. 253-4; Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 100.]
+
+Of course the amount paid in respect of _lucrum cessans_ must be
+reasonable in regard to the loss of opportunity actually experienced;
+'Lenders,' says Buridan, 'must not take by way of _lucrum
+cessans_ more than they would have actually made by commerce or in
+exchange';[1] and Ambrosius de Vignate explains that compensation
+must only be made for 'the time and just _interesse_ of the lost gain,
+which must be certain and proximate.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Eth._, iv. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _De Usuris_, c. 10.]
+
+There was another title on account of which more than the amount of
+the loan could be recovered, namely, _periculum sortis_. In one sense
+it was a contradiction in terms to speak of the element of risk in
+connection with usury, because from its very definition usury was gain
+without risk as opposed to profit from a trading partnership, which,
+as we shall see presently, consisted of gain coupled with the risk of
+loss. It could not be lost sight of, however, that in fact there might
+be a risk of the loan not being repaid through the insolvency of the
+borrower, or some other cause, and the question arose whether the
+lender could justly claim any compensation for the undertaking of this
+risk. 'Regarded as an extrinsic title, risk of losing the principal
+is connected with the contract of _mutuum_, and entitles the lender to
+some compensation for running the risk of losing his capital in order
+to oblige a possibly insolvent debtor. The greater the danger of
+insolvency, the greater naturally would be the charge. The contract
+was indifferent to the object of the loan; it mattered not whether it
+was intended for commerce or consumption; it was no less indifferent
+to profit on the part of the borrower; it took account simply of the
+latter's ability to pay, and made its charge accordingly. It resembled
+consequently the contracts made by insurance companies, wherein there
+is a readiness to risk the capital sum for a certain rate of payment;
+the only difference was that the probabilities charged for were not
+so much the likelihood of having to pay, as the likelihood of not
+receiving back.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 115.]
+
+We have referred above, when dealing with the legitimacy of commercial
+profits, to the difficulty which was felt in admitting the justice
+of compensation for risk, on account of the Gregorian Decretal on
+the subject. The same decree gave rise to the same difficulty in
+connection with the justification of a recompense for _periculum
+sortis_. There was a serious dispute about the actual wording of the
+decree, and even those who agreed as to its wording differed as to its
+interpretation.[1] The justice of the title was, however, admitted by
+Scotus, who said that it was lawful to stipulate for recompense when
+both the principal and surplus were in danger of being lost[2]; by
+Carletus;[3] and by Nider.[4] The question, however, was still hotly
+disputed at the end of the fifteenth century, and was finally settled
+in favour of the admission of the title as late as 1645.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Ibid._]
+
+[Footnote 2: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 117.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Summa Angelica Usura_, i. 38.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _De Cont. Merc._, iii. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 117.]
+
+
+Sec. 6. _Other Cases in which more than the Loan could be repaid_.
+
+We have now discussed the extrinsic titles--_poena conventionalis,
+damnum emergens, lucrum cessans_, and _periculum sortis_. There were
+other grounds also, which cannot be reduced to the classification of
+extrinsic titles, on which more than the amount of the loan might be
+justly returned to the lender. In the first place, the lender might
+justly receive anything that the borrower chose to pay over and above
+the loan, voluntarily as a token of gratitude. 'Repayment for a favour
+may be done in two ways,' says Aquinas. 'In one way, as a debt of
+justice; and to such a debt a man may be bound by a fixed contract;
+and its amount is measured according to the favour received. Wherefore
+the borrower of money, or any such thing the use of which is its
+consumption, is not bound to repay more than he received in loan; and
+consequently it is against justice if he is obliged to pay back more.
+In another way a man's obligation to repayment for favour received
+is based on a debt of friendship, and the nature of this debt depends
+more on the feeling with which the favour was conferred than on the
+question of the favour itself. This debt does not carry with it a
+civil obligation, involving a kind of necessity that would exclude the
+spontaneous nature of such a repayment.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 78, 2, ad. 2.]
+
+It was also clearly understood that it was not wrongful to borrow at
+usury under certain conditions. In such cases the lender might commit
+usury in receiving, but the borrower would not commit usury in paying
+an amount greater than the sum lent. It was necessary, however, in
+order that borrowing at usury might be justified, that the borrower
+should be animated by some good motive, such as the relief of his own
+or another's need. The whole question was settled once and for all by
+Aquinas: 'It is by no means lawful to induce a man to sin, yet it is
+lawful to make use of another's sin for a good end, since even God
+uses all sin for some good, since He draws some good from every
+evil.... Accordingly it is by no means lawful to induce a man to lend
+under a condition of usury; yet it is lawful to borrow for usury from
+a man who is ready to do so, and is a usurer by profession, provided
+that the borrower have a good end in view, such as the relief of his
+own or another's need.... He who borrows for usury does not consent
+to the usurer's sin, but makes use of it. Nor is it the usurer's
+acceptance of usury that pleases him, but his lending, which is
+good.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: II. ii. 78, 4.]
+
+We should mention here the _montes pietatis_, which occupied a
+prominent place among the credit-giving agencies of the later Middle
+Ages, although it is difficult to say whether their methods were
+examples of or exceptions to the doctrines forbidding usury. These
+institutions were formed on the model of the _montes profani_, the
+system of public debt resorted to by many Italian States. Starting in
+the middle of the twelfth century,[1] the Italian States had
+recourse to forced loans in order to raise reserves for extraordinary
+necessities, and, in order to prevent the growth of disaffection among
+the citizens, an annual percentage on such loans was paid. A fund
+raised by such means was generally called a _mons_ or heap. The
+propriety of the payment of this percentage was warmly contested
+during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries--the Dominicans and
+Franciscans defending it, and the Augustinians attacking it. But its
+justification was not difficult. In the first place, the loans were
+generally, if not universally, forced, and therefore the payment of
+interest on them was purely voluntary. As we have seen, Aquinas was
+quite clear as to the lawfulness of such a voluntary payment. In
+the second place, the lenders were almost invariably members of
+the trading community, who were the very people in whose favour a
+recompense for _lucrum cessans_ would be allowed.[2] Laurentius de
+Rodulphis argued in favour of the justice of these State loans, and
+contended that the bondholders were entitled to sell their rights, but
+advised good Christians to abstain from the practice of a right about
+the justice of which theologians were in such disagreement[3]; and
+Antoninus of Florence, who was in general so strict on the subject of
+usury, took the same view.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. i. p. 433.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. i. p. 448.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Usuris_.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Ashley, _op. cit._, p. 449.]
+
+It was probably the example of these State loans, or _montes profani_,
+that suggested to the Franciscans the possibility of creating an
+organisation to provide credit facilities for poor borrowers, which
+was in many ways analogous to the modern co-operative credit banks.
+Prior to the middle of the fifteenth century, when this experiment
+was initiated, there had been various attempts by the State to provide
+credit facilities for the poor, but these need not detain us here, as
+they did not come to anything.[1] The first of the _montes pietatis_
+was founded at Orvieto by the Franciscans in 1462, and after that
+year they spread rapidly.[2] The _montes_, although their aim was
+exclusively philanthropic, found themselves obliged to make a small
+charge to defray their working expenses, and, although one would think
+that this could be amply justified by the title of _damnum emergens_,
+it provoked a violent attack by the Dominicans. The principal
+antagonist of the _montes pietatis_ was Thomas da Vio, who wrote a
+special treatise on the subject, in which he made the point that the
+_montes_ charged interest from the very beginning of the loan, which
+was a contradiction of all the previous teaching on interest.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 108; Brants, _op. cit._, p. 159.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Perugia, 1467; Viterbo, 1472; Sevona, 1472; Assisi,
+1485; Mantua, 1486; Cesana and Parma, 1488; Interamna and Lucca,
+1489; Verona, 1490; Padua, 1491, etc. (Endemann, _Studien_, vol. i. p.
+463).]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Monte Pietatis_.]
+
+The general feeling of the Church, however, was in favour of the
+_montes_. It was felt that, if the poor must borrow, it was better
+that they should borrow at a low rate of interest from philanthropic
+institutions than at an extortionate rate from usurers; several
+_montes_ were established under the direct protection of the Popes;[1]
+and finally, in 1515, the Lateran Council gave an authoritative
+judgment in favour of the _montes_. This decree contains an excellent
+definition of usury as it had come to be accepted at that date: 'Usury
+is when gain is sought to be acquired from the use of a thing, not
+fruitful in itself, without labour, expense, or risk on the part of
+the lender.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 111.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 451.]
+
+It was generally admitted by the theologians that the taking of usury
+might be permitted by the civil authorities, although it was insisted
+that acting in accordance with this permission did not absolve the
+conscience of the usurer. Albertus Magnus conceded that 'although
+usury is contrary to the perfection of Christian laws, it is at least
+not contrary to civil interests';[1] and Aquinas also justified the
+toleration of usury by the State: 'Human laws leave certain things
+unpunished, on account of the condition of those who are imperfect,
+and who would be deprived of many advantages if all sins were strictly
+forbidden and punishments appointed for them. Wherefore human law
+has permitted usury, not that it looks upon usury as harmonising
+with justice, but lest the advantage of many should be hindered.'[2]
+Although this opinion was controverted by AEgidius Romanus,[3] it was
+generally accepted by later writers. Thus Gerson says that 'the civil
+law, when it tolerates usury in some cases, must not be said to be
+always contrary to the law of God or the Church. The civil legislator,
+acting in the manner of a wise doctor, tolerates lesser evils that
+greater ones may be avoided. It is obviously less of an evil that
+slight usury should be permitted for the relief of want, than that men
+should be driven by their want to rob or steal, or to sell their goods
+at an unfairly low price.'[4] Buridan explains that the attitude of
+the State towards usury must never be more than one of toleration;
+it must not actively approve of usury, but it may tacitly refuse to
+punish it.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Rambaud, _op. cit._, p. 65; Espinas, _op. cit._, p. 103.]
+
+[Footnote 2: II. ii. 78, 1, ad. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Reg. Prin._, ii. 3, 11.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _De Cont._, ii. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Quaest. super. Lib. Eth._, iv. 6.]
+
+
+Sec. 7. _The Justice of Unearned Income_.
+
+Many modern socialists--'Christian' and otherwise--have asserted that
+the teaching of the Church on usury was a pronouncement in favour of
+the unproductivity of capital.[1] Thus Rudolf Meyer, one of the
+most distinguished of 'Christian socialists,' has argued that if one
+recognises the productivity of land or stock, one must also recognise
+the productivity of money, and that therefore the Church, in denying
+the productivity of the latter, would be logically driven to deny
+the productivity of the former.[2] Anton Menger expresses the same
+opinion: 'There is not the least reason for attacking from the moral
+and religious standpoints loans at interest and usury more than any
+other form of unearned income. If one questions the legitimacy of
+loans at interest, one must equally condemn as inadmissible the other
+forms of profit from capital and lands, and particularly the feudal
+institutions of the Middle Ages.... It would have been but a logical
+consequence for the Church to have condemned all forms of unearned
+revenue.'[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 427.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Der Kapitalismus fin de siecle_, p. 29.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Das Recht auf den Arbeiterstrag_. See the Abbe Hohoff in
+_Democratie Chretienne_, Sept. 1898, p. 284.]
+
+No such conclusion, however, can be properly drawn from the mediaeval
+teaching. The whole discussion on usury turned on the distinction
+which was drawn between things of which the use could be transferred
+without the ownership, and things of which the use could not be so
+transferred. In the former category were placed all things which
+could be used, either by way of enjoyment or employment for productive
+purposes, without being destroyed in the process; and in the latter
+all things of which the use or employment involved the destruction.
+
+With regard to income derived from the former, no difficulty was ever
+felt; a farm or a house might be let at a rent without any question,
+the return received being universally regarded as one of the
+legitimate fruits of the ownership of the thing. With regard to the
+latter, however, a difficulty did arise, because it was felt that a
+so-called loan of such goods was, when analysed, in reality a sale,
+and that therefore any increase which the goods produced was in
+reality the property, not of the lender, but of the borrower. That
+money was in all cases sterile was never suggested; on the contrary,
+it was admitted that it might produce a profit if wisely and prudently
+employed in industry or commerce; but it was felt that such an
+increase, when it took place, was the rightful property of the owner
+of the money. But when money was lent, the owner of this money was
+the borrower, and therefore, when money which was lent was employed
+in such a way as to produce a profit, that profit belonged to the
+borrower, not the lender. In this way the schoolmen were strictly
+logical; they fully admitted that wealth could produce wealth; but
+they insisted that that additional wealth should accrue to the owner
+of the wealth that produced it.
+
+The fact is, as Boehm-Bawerk has pointed out, that the question of the
+productivity of capital was never discussed by the mediaeval schoolmen,
+for the simple reason that it was so obvious. The justice of receiving
+an income from an infungible thing which was temporarily lent by its
+owner, was discussed and supported; but the justice of the owner of
+such a thing receiving an income from the thing so long as it remained
+in his own possession was never discussed, because it was universally
+admitted.[1] It is perfectly correct to say that the problems which
+have perplexed modern writers as to the justice of receiving an
+unearned income from one's property never occurred to the scholastics;
+such problems can only arise when the institution of private property
+comes to be questioned; and private property was the keystone of the
+whole scholastic economic conception. In other words, the justice of a
+reward for capital was admitted because it was unquestioned.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Capital and Interest_, p. 39.]
+
+The question that caused difficulty was whether money could
+be considered a form of capital. At the present day, when the
+opportunities of industrial investment are wider than they ever were
+before, the principal use to which money is put is the financing of
+industrial enterprises; but in the Middle Ages this was not the case,
+precisely because the opportunities of profitable investment were
+so few. This is the reason why the mediaeval writers did not find it
+necessary to discuss in detail the rights of the owner of money who
+used it for productive purposes. But of the justice of a profit being
+reaped when money was actually so employed there was no doubt at all.
+As we have seen, the borrower of a sum of money might reap a profit
+from its wise employment; there was no question about the justice of
+taking such a profit; and the only matter in dispute was whether that
+profit should belong to the borrower or the lender of the money. This
+dispute was decided in favour of the borrower on the ground that,
+according to the true nature of the contract of _mutuum_, the money
+was his property. It was, therefore, never doubted that even money
+might produce a profit for its owner. The only difference between
+infungible goods and money was that, in the case of the former, the
+use might be transferred apart from the property, whereas, in the case
+of the latter, it could not be so transferred.
+
+The recognition of the title _lucrum cessans_ as a ground for
+remuneration clearly implies the recognition of the legitimacy of the
+owner of money deriving a profit from its use; and the slowness of the
+scholastics to admit this title was precisely because of the rarity of
+opportunities for so employing money in the earlier Middle Ages. The
+nature of capital was clearly understood; but the possibility of money
+constituting capital arose only with the extension of commerce and
+the growth of profitable investments. Those scholastics who strove to
+abolish or to limit the recognition of _lucrum cessans_ as a ground
+for remuneration did not deny the productivity of capital, but simply
+thought the money had not at that time acquired the characteristics of
+capital.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. pp. 434-9.]
+
+If there were any doubt about the fact that the scholastics recognised
+the legitimacy of unearned income, it would be dispelled by an
+understanding of their teaching on rents and partnership, in the
+former of which they distinctly acknowledged the right to draw an
+unearned income from one's land, and in the latter of which they
+acknowledged the same right in regard to one's money.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: On this discussion see Ashley, _Economic History_, vol.
+i. pt. ii. pp. 427 _et seq._; Rambaud, _Histoire_, pp. 57 _et seq._;
+Funk, _Zins und Wucher_; Arnold, _Zur Geschichte des Eigenthums_, pp.
+92 _et seq._; Boehm-Bawerk, _Capital and Interest_ (Eng. trans.), pp.
+1-39.]
+
+
+Sec. 8. _Rent Charges_.
+
+There was never any difficulty about admitting the justice of
+receiving a rent from a tenant in occupation of one's lands, because
+land was understood to be essentially a thing of which the use could
+be sold apart from the ownership; and it was also recognised that the
+recipient of such a rent might sell his right to a third party, who
+could then demand the rent from the tenant. When this was admitted it
+was but a small step to admit the right of the owner of land to create
+a rent in favour of another person in consideration for some
+payment. The distinctions between a _census reservativus_, or a rent
+established when the possession of land was actually transferred to a
+tenant, and a _census constitutivus_, or a rent created upon property
+remaining in the possession of the payer, did not become the subject
+of discussion or difficulty until the sixteenth century.[1] The
+legitimacy of rent charges does not seem to have been questioned
+by the theologians; the best proof of this being the absence of
+controversy about them in a period when they were undoubtedly very
+common, especially in Germany.[2] Langenstein, whose opinion on
+the subject was followed by many later writers,[3] thought that the
+receipt of income from rent charges was perfectly justifiable, when
+the object was to secure a provision for old age, or to provide an
+income for persons engaged in the services of Church or State, but
+that it was unjustifiable if it was intended to enable nobles to
+live in luxurious idleness, or plebeians to desert honest toil. It is
+obvious that Langenstein did not regard rent charges as wrongful in
+themselves, but simply as being the possible occasions of wrong.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 409.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 104.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 109.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Roscher, _Geschichte_, p. 20.]
+
+In the fifteenth century definite pronouncements on rent charges
+were made by the Popes. A large part of the revenue of ecclesiastical
+bodies consisted of rent charges, and in 1425 several persons in the
+diocese of Breslau refused to pay the rents they owed to their clergy
+on the ground that they were usurious. The question was referred to
+Pope Martin V., whose bull deciding the matter was generally followed
+by all subsequent authorities. The bull decides in favour of the
+lawfulness of rent charges, provided certain conditions were observed.
+They must be charged on fixed property ('super bonis suis, dominiis,
+oppidis, terris, agris, praediis, domibus et hereditatibus') and
+determined beforehand; they must be moderate, not exceeding seven or
+ten per cent.; and they must be capable of being repurchased at any
+moment in whole or in part, by the repayment of the same sum for which
+they were originally created. On the other hand, the payer of the rent
+must never be forced to repay the purchase money, even if the goods on
+which the rent was charged had perished--in other words, the contract
+creating the rent charge was one of sale, and not of loan. The bull
+recites that such conditions had been observed in contracts of this
+nature from time immemorial.[1] A precisely similar decree was issued
+by Calixtus III. in 1455.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Extrav. Commun._, iii. 5, i.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, c. 2.]
+
+These decisions were universally followed in the fifteenth century.[1]
+It was always insisted that a rent could only be charged upon
+something of which the use could be separated from the ownership,
+as otherwise it would savour of usury.[2] In the sixteenth century
+interesting discussions arose about the possibility of creating a
+personal rent charge, not secured on any specific property, but such
+discussions did not trouble the writers of the period which we are
+treating. The only instance of such a contract being considered is
+found in a bull of Nicholas V. in 1452, permitting such personal rent
+charges in the kingdoms of Aragon and Sicily, but this permission was
+purely local, and, as the bull itself shows, was designed to meet the
+exigencies of a special situation.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 410.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Biel, _op. cit._, Sent. IV. xv. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 124.]
+
+
+
+Sec. 9. _Partnership_.
+
+The teaching on partnership contains such a complete disproof of
+the contention that the mediaeval teaching on usury was based on the
+unproductivity of capital, that certain writers have endeavoured
+to prove that the permission of partnership was but a subterfuge,
+consciously designed to justify evasions of the usury law. Further
+historical knowledge, however, has dispelled this misconception;
+and it is now certain that the contract of partnership was widely
+practised and tolerated long before the Church attempted to insist
+on the observance of its usury laws in everyday commercial life.[1]
+However interesting an investigation into the commercial and
+industrial partnerships of the Middle Ages might be, we must not
+attempt to pursue it here, as we have rigidly limited ourselves to a
+consideration of teaching. We must refer, however, to the _commenda_,
+which was the contract from which the later mediaeval partnership
+(_societas_) is generally admitted to have developed, because the
+_commenda_ was extensively practised as early as the tenth century,
+and, as far as we know, never provoked any expression of disapproval
+from the Church. This silence amounts to a justification; and we may
+therefore say that, even before Aquinas devoted his attention to the
+subject, the Church fully approved of an institution which provided
+the owner of money with the means of procuring an unearned income.
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 411; Weber,
+_Handelsgesellschaften_, pp. 111-14.]
+
+The _commenda_ was originally a contract by which merchants who wished
+to engage in foreign trade, but who did not wish to travel themselves,
+entrusted their wares to agents or representatives. The merchant was
+known as the _commendator_ or _socius stans_, and the agent as the
+_commendatarius_ or _tractator_. The most usual arrangement for the
+division of the profits of the adventure was that the _commendatarius_
+should receive one-fourth and the _commendator_ three-fourths. At
+a slightly later date contracts came to be common in which the
+_commendatarius_ contributed a share of capital, in which case he
+would receive one-fourth of the whole profit as _commendatarius_, and
+a proportionate share of the remainder as capitalist. This contract
+came to be generally known as _collegantia_ or _societas_. Contracts
+of this kind, though originally chiefly employed in overseas
+enterprise, afterwards came to be utilised in internal trade and
+manufacturing industry.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. pp. 412-14.]
+
+The legitimacy of the profits of the _commendator_ never seems to have
+caused the slightest difficulty to the canonists. In 1206 Innocent
+III. advised the Archbishop of Genoa that a widow's dowry should be
+entrusted to some merchant so that an income might be obtained by
+means of honest gain.[1] Aquinas expressly distinguishes between
+profit made from entrusting one's money to a merchant to be employed
+by him in trade, and profit arising from a loan, on the ground that
+in the former case the ownership of the money does not pass, and that
+therefore the person who derives the profit also risks the loan. 'He
+who lends money transfers the ownership of the money to the borrower.
+Hence the borrower holds the money at his own risk, and is bound to
+pay it all back: wherefore the lender must not exact more. On the
+other hand, he that entrusts his money to a merchant or craftsman so
+as to form a kind of society does not transfer the ownership of the
+money to them, for it remains his, so that at his risk the merchant
+speculates with it, or the craftsman uses it for his craft, and
+consequently he may lawfully demand, as something belonging to him,
+part of the profits derived from his money.'[2] This dictum of Aquinas
+was the foundation of all the later teaching on partnership, and the
+importance of the element of risk was insisted on in strong terms by
+the later writers. According to Baldus, 'when there is no sharing
+of risk there is no partnership';[3] and Paul de Castro says, 'A
+partnership when the gain is shared, but not the loss, is not to be
+permitted.'[4] 'The legitimacy,' says Brants, 'of the contract of
+_commenda_ always rested upon the same principle; capital could not be
+productive except for him who worked it himself, or who caused it
+to be worked on his own responsibility. This latter condition was
+realised in _commenda_.'[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Greg. Decr._, iv. 19, 7.]
+
+[Footnote 2: II. ii. 78, 2, ad. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 167.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Consilia_, ii. 55; also Ambrosius de Vignate, _De
+Usuris_, i. 62; Biel, _Op. cit._, IV. xv. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Op. cit._, p. 172.]
+
+Although the contract of partnership was fully recognised by the
+scholastics, it was not very scientifically treated, nor were the
+different species of the contract systematically classified. The only
+classification adopted was to divide contracts of partnership into
+two kinds--those where both parties contributed labour to a joint
+enterprise, and those where one party contributed labour and the other
+party money. The former gave no difficulty, because the justice of the
+remuneration of labour was admitted; but, while the latter was no
+less fully recognised, cases of it were subjected to careful scrutiny,
+because it was feared that usurious contracts might be concealed under
+the appearance of a partnership.[1] The question which occupied the
+greatest space in the treatises on the subject was the share in which
+the profits should be divided between the parties. The only rule which
+could be laid down, in the absence of an express contract, was that
+the parties should be remunerated in proportion to the services which
+they contributed--a rule the application of which must have been
+attended with enormous difficulties. Laurentius de Rodulphis insists
+that equality must be observed;[2] and Angelus de Periglis de Perusio,
+the first monographist on the subject, does not throw much more light
+on the question. The rule as stated by this last writer is that in the
+first place the person contributing money must be repaid a sum equal
+to what he put in, and the person contributing labour must be paid
+a sum equal to the value of his labour, and that whatever surplus
+remains must be divided between the two parties equally.[3] The
+question of the shares in which the profits should be distributed was
+not one, however, that frequently arose in practice, because it was
+the almost universal custom for the partners to make this a term of
+their original contract. Within fairly wide limits it was possible
+to arrange for the division of the profits in unequal shares--say
+two-thirds and one-third. The shares of gain and loss must, however,
+be the same; one party could not reap two-thirds of the profit and
+bear only one-third of the loss; but it might be contracted that, when
+the loss was deducted from the gain, one party might have two-thirds
+of the balance, and the other one-third.[4] In no case, of course,
+could the party contributing the money stipulate that his principal
+should in all cases be returned, because that was a _mutuum_. The
+party contributing the labour might validly contract that he should
+be paid for his labour in any case, but, if this was so, the contract
+ceased to be a _societas_ and became a _locatio operarum_, or ordinary
+contract of work for wages. In all cases, common participation in the
+gains and losses of the enterprise was an essential feature of the
+contract of partnership.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Summa Astesana_, iii. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _De Usuris_, i. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Societatibus_, i. 130.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _De Societatibus_, i. 130.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Ibid._]
+
+Before concluding the subject of partnership, we must make reference
+to the _trinus contractus_, which caused much discussion and great
+difficulty. As we have seen, a contract of partnership was good so
+long as the person contributing money did not contract that he should
+receive his original money back in all circumstances. A contract of
+insurance was equally justifiable. There was no doubt that A might
+enter into partnership with B; he could further insure himself with C
+against the loss of his capital, and with D against damage caused
+by fluctuations in the rate of profits. Why, then, should he not
+simultaneously enter into all three contracts with B? If he did so, he
+was still B's partner, but at the same time he was protected against
+the loss of his principal and a fair return upon it--in other words,
+he was a partner, protected against the risks of the enterprise. The
+legitimacy of such a contract--the _trinus contractus_, as it was
+called--was maintained by Carletus in the _Summa Angelica_, which was
+published about 1476, and by Biel.[1] Early in the sixteenth century
+Eck, a young professor at Ingolstadt, brought the question of the
+legitimacy of this contract before the University of Bologna, but no
+formal decision was pronounced, and, had it not been for the reaction
+following the Reformation, the _trinus contractus_ would probably have
+gained general acceptance. As it was, it was condemned by a provincial
+synod at Milan in 1565, and by Sixtus V. in 1585.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, IV. xv. 11. Lecky attributed the invention of
+the _trinus contractus_ to the Jesuits--who were only founded in 1534
+(_History of Rationalism_, vol. ii. p. 267).]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. pp. 439 _et seqq._;
+Cleary, _op. cit._, pp. 126 _et seqq._]
+
+We should also refer to the contract of bottomry, which consisted of a
+loan made to the owner--or in some cases the master--of a ship, on
+the security of the ship, to be repaid with interest upon the safe
+conclusion of a voyage. This contract could not be considered a
+partnership, inasmuch as the property in the money passed to the
+borrower; but it probably escaped condemnation as usurious on the
+ground that the lender shared in the risk of the enterprise. The
+payment of some additional sum over and above the money lent might
+thus be justified on the ground of _periculum sortis_. The contract,
+moreover, was really one of insurance for the shipowner, and contracts
+of insurance were clearly legitimate. In any event the legitimacy of
+loans on bottomry was not questioned before the sixteenth century.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. pp. 421-3; Palgrave,
+_Dictionary of Political Economy_, art. 'Bottomry'; Cunningham,
+_Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, vol i. p. 257.]
+
+
+Sec. 10. _Concluding Remarks on Usury_.
+
+It is to be hoped that the above exposition of the mediaeval doctrine
+on usury will dispel the idea that the doctrine was founded upon the
+injustice of unearned income. Far from the receipt of an unearned
+income from money or other capital being in all cases condemned, it
+was unanimously recognised, provided that the income accrued to the
+owner of the capital, and not to somebody else, and that the rate
+of remuneration was just. The teaching on partnership rested on the
+fundamental assumption that a man might trade with his money, either
+by using it himself, or by allowing other people to use it on his
+behalf. In the latter case, the person making use of the money might
+be either assured of being paid a fixed remuneration for his services,
+in which case the contract was one of _locatio operarum_, or he might
+be willing to let his remuneration depend upon the result of the
+enterprise, in which case the contract was one of _societas_. In
+either case the right of the owner of the money to reap a profit from
+the operation was unquestioned, provided only that he was willing to
+share the risks of loss. But if, instead of making use of his money
+for trading either by his own exertions or by those of his partner
+or agent, he chose to sell his money, he was not permitted to receive
+more for it than its just price--which was, in fact, the repayment of
+the same amount. This was what happened in the case of a _mutuum_. In
+that case the ownership of the money was transferred to the borrower,
+who was perfectly at liberty to trade with it, if he so desired, and
+to reap whatever gain that trade produced. The prohibition of usury,
+far from being proof of the injustice of an income from capital, is
+proof of quite the contrary, because it was designed to insure that
+the income from capital should belong to the owner of that capital and
+to no other person.[1] Although, therefore, no price could be paid for
+a loan, the lender must be prevented from suffering any damage from
+making the loan, and he might make good his loss by virtue of the
+implied collateral contract of indemnity, which we discussed above
+when treating of extrinsic titles. If the lender, through making the
+loan, had been prevented from making a profit in trade, he might be
+indemnified for that loss. All through the discussions on usury we
+find express recognition of the justice of the owner of money deriving
+an income from its employment; all that the teaching of usury was at
+pains to define was who the person was to whom money, which was the
+subject matter of a _mutuum_, belonged. It is quite impossible to
+comprehend how modern writers can see in the usury teaching of the
+scholastics a fatal discouragement to the enterprise of traders and
+capitalists; and it is equally impossible to understand how
+socialists can find in that doctrine any suggestion of support for the
+proposition that all unearned income is immoral and unjust.
+
+[Footnote 1: See Rambaud, _op. cit._, p. 59.]
+
+
+
+SECTION 3.--THE MACHINERY OF EXCHANGE
+
+
+We have already drawn attention to the fact that there was no branch
+of economics about which such profound ignorance ruled in the earlier
+Middle Ages as that of money. As we stated above, even as late as
+the twelfth century, the theologians were quite content to quote the
+ill-founded and erroneous opinions of Isidore of Seville as final
+on the subject. It will be remembered that we also remarked that
+the question of money was the first economic question to receive
+systematic scientific treatment from the writers of the later Middle
+Ages. This remarkable development of opinion on this subject is
+practically the work of one man, Nicholas Oresme, Bishop of Lisieux,
+whose treatise, _De Origine, Natura, Jure et Mutationibus Monetarum_,
+is the earliest example of a pure economic monograph in the modern
+sense. 'The scholastics,' says Roscher, 'extended their inquiries from
+the economic point of view further than one is generally disposed to
+believe; although it is true that they often did so under a singular
+form.... We can, however, single out Oresme as the greatest scholastic
+economist for two reasons: on account of the exactitude and clarity
+of his ideas, and because he succeeded in freeing himself from the
+pseudo-theological systematisation of things in general, and from the
+pseudo-philosophical deduction in details.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Quoted in the Introduction to Wolowski's edition of
+Oresme's _Tractatus_ (Paris, 1864).]
+
+Even in the thirteenth century natural economy had not been
+replaced to any large extent by money economy. The great majority
+of transactions between man and man were carried on without the
+intervention of money payments; and the amount of coin in circulation
+was consequently small.[1] The question of currency was not therefore
+one to engage the serious attention of the writers of the time.
+Aquinas does not deal with money in the _Summa_, except
+incidentally, and his references to the subject in the _De Regimine
+Principum_--which occur in the chapters of that work of which
+the authorship is disputed--simply go to the length of approving
+Aristotle's opinions on money, and advising the prince to exercise
+moderation in the exercise of his power of coining _sive in mutando
+sive in diminuendo pondus_.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 179; Rambaud, _op. cit._, p. 73.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _De Reg. Prin._, ii. 13.]
+
+As is often the case, the discussion of the rights and duties of the
+sovereign in connection with the currency only arose when it became
+necessary for the public to protest against abuses. Philip the Fair of
+France made it part of his policy to increase the revenue by tampering
+with the coinage, a policy which was continued by his successors,
+until it became an intolerable grievance to his subjects. In vain did
+the Pope thunder against Philip;[1] in vain did the greatest poet of
+the age denounce
+
+                    'him that doth work
+  With his adulterate money on the Seine.'[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Le Blant, _Traite historique des Monnaies de France_, p.
+184.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Dante, _Paradiso_, xix.]
+
+Matters continued to grow steadily worse until the middle of the
+fourteenth century. During the year 1348 there were no less than
+eleven variations in the value of money in France; in 1349 there were
+nine, in 1351 eighteen, in 1353 thirteen, and in 1355 eighteen again.
+In the course of a single year the value of the silver mark sprang
+from four to seventeen livres, and fell back again to four.[1] The
+practice of fixing the price of many necessary commodities must have
+aggravated the natural evil consequences of such fluctuations.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Wolowski's Introduction to Oresme's _Tractatus_, p.
+xxvii.]
+
+[Footnote 2: See Endemann, _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 34.]
+
+This grievance had the good result of fixing the attention of scholars
+on the money question. 'Under the stress of facts and of necessity,'
+says Brants, 'thinkers applied their minds to the details of the
+theory of money, which was the department of economics which, thanks
+to events, received the earliest illumination. Lawyers, bankers,
+money-changers, doctors of theology, and publicists of every kind,
+attached a thoroughly justifiable importance to the question of money.
+We are no doubt far from knowing all the treatises which saw the light
+in the fourteenth century upon this weighty question; but we know
+enough to affirm that the monetary doctrine was very developed and
+very far-seeing.'[1] Buridan analysed the different functions and
+utilities of money, and explained the different ways in which its
+value might be changed.[2] He did not, however, proceed to discuss the
+much more important question as to when the sovereign was entitled
+to make these alterations. This was reserved for Nicholas Oresme, who
+published his famous treatise about the year 1373. The merits of this
+work have excited the unanimous admiration of all who have studied it.
+Roscher says that it contains 'a theory of money, elaborated in the
+fourteenth century, which remains perfectly correct to-day, under the
+test of the principles applied in the nineteenth century, and that
+with a brevity, a precision, a clarity, and a simplicity of language
+which is a striking proof of the superior genius of its author.'[3]
+According to Brants, 'the treatise of Oresme is one of the first to
+be devoted _ex professo_ to an economic subject, and it expresses many
+ideas which are very just, more just than those which held the field
+for a long period after him, under the name of mercantilism, and more
+just than those which allowed of the reduction of money as if it were
+nothing more than a counter of exchange.'[4] 'Oresme's treatise on
+money,' says Macleod, 'may be justly said to stand at the head of
+modern economic literature. This treatise laid the foundations of
+monetary science, which are now accepted by all sound economists.'[5]
+'Oresme's completely secular and naturalistic method of treating one
+of the most important problems of political economy,' says Espinas,
+'is a signal of the approaching end of the Middle Ages and the dawn of
+the Renaissance.'[6] Dr. Cunningham adds his tribute of praise: 'The
+conceptions of national wealth and national power were ruling ideas in
+economic matters for several centuries, and Oresme appears to be the
+earliest of the economic writers by whom they were explicitly adopted
+as the very basis of his argument.... A large number of points
+of economic doctrine in regard to coinage are discussed with much
+judgment and clearness.'[7] Endemann alone is[8] inclined to quarrel
+with the pre-eminence of Oresme; but on this question, he is in a
+minority of one.[9]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 186.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Quaest. super Lib. Eth._, v. 17; _Quaest. super Lib.
+Pol._, i. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Quoted in Wolowski, _op. cit._, and see Roscher,
+_Geschichte_, p. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Op. cit._, p. 190.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _History of Economics_, p. 37.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Op. cit._, p. 110.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, vol. i. p.
+359.]
+
+[Footnote 8: _Grundsaetze_, p. 75.]
+
+[Footnote 9: See an interesting note in Brants, _op. cit._, p. 187.]
+
+The principal question which Oresme sets out to answer, according to
+the first chapter of this treatise, is whether the sovereign has the
+right to alter the value of the money in circulation at his pleasure,
+and for his own benefit. He begins the discussion by going over the
+same ground as Aristotle in demonstrating the origin and utility of
+money, and then proceeds to discuss the most suitable materials
+which can be made to serve as money. He decides in favour of gold and
+silver, and shows himself an unquestioning bimetallist. He further
+admits the necessity of some token money of small denominations, to be
+composed of the baser metals. Having drawn attention to the transition
+from the circulation of money, the value of which is recognised
+solely by weight, to the circulation of that which is accepted for its
+imprint or superscription, the author insists that the production of
+such an imprinted coinage is essentially a matter for the sovereign
+authority in the State. Oresme now comes to the central point of his
+thesis. Although, he says, the prince has undoubtedly the power to
+manufacture and control the coinage, he is by no means the owner of it
+after it has passed into circulation, because money is a thing which
+in its essence was invented and introduced in the interests of society
+as a whole.
+
+Oresme then proceeds to apply this central principle to the solution
+of the question which he sets himself to answer, and concludes that,
+as money is essentially a thing which exists for the public benefit,
+it must not be tampered with, nor varied in value, except in cases of
+absolute necessity, and in the presence of an uncontroverted general
+utility. He bases his opposition to unnecessary monetary variation on
+the perfectly sound ground that such variation is productive of loss
+either to those who are bound to make or bound to receive fixed sums
+in payment of obligations. The author then goes on to analyse the
+various kinds of variation, which he says are five--_figurae_,
+_proportionis_, _appellationis_, _ponderis_, and _materiae_. Changes
+of form (_figurae_) are only justified when it is found that the
+existing form is liable to increase the damage which the coins suffer
+from the wear and tear of usage, or when the existing currency has
+been degraded by widespread illegal coining; changes _proportionis_
+are only allowable when the relative value of the different metals
+constituting the coinage have themselves changed; simple changes of
+name (_appellationis_), such as calling a mark a pound, are never
+allowed. Changes of the weight of the coins (_ponderis_) are
+pronounced by Oresme to be just as gross a fraud as the arbitrary
+alteration of the weights or measures by which corn or wine are sold;
+and changes of matter (_materiae_) are only to be tolerated when the
+supply of the old metal has become insufficient. The debasement of the
+coinage by the introduction of a cheaper alloy is condemned.
+
+In conclusion, Oresme insists that no alteration of any of the above
+kinds can be justified at the mere injunction of the prince; it must
+be accomplished _per ipsam communitatem_. The prince exercises
+the functions of the community in the matter of coinage not as
+_principalis actor_, but as _ordinationis publicae executor_. It is
+pointed out that arbitrary changes in the value of money are really
+equivalent to a particularly noxious form of taxation; that they
+seriously disorganise commerce and impoverish many merchants; and
+that the bad coinage drives the good out of circulation. This last
+observation is of special interest in a fourteenth-century writer,
+as it shows that Gresham's Law, which is usually credited to a
+sixteenth-century English economist, was perfectly well understood in
+the Middle Ages.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The best edition of Oresme's _Tractatus_ is that by
+Wolowski, published at Paris in 1864, which includes both the Latin
+and French texts.]
+
+This brief account of the ground which Oresme covered, and the
+conclusions at which he arrived, will enable us to appreciate his
+importance. Although his clear elucidation of the principles which
+govern the questions of money was not powerful enough to check the
+financial abuses of the sovereigns of the later Middle Ages, they
+exercised a profound influence on the thought of the period, and were
+accepted by all the theologians of the fifteenth century.[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: Biel, _op. cit._, IV. xv. 11; _De Monetarum Potestate et
+Utilitate_, referred to in Jourdain, _op. cit._, p. 34.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+We have now passed in review the principal economic doctrines of the
+mediaeval schoolmen. We do not propose to attempt here any detailed
+criticism of the merits or demerits of the system which we have but
+briefly sketched. All that we have attempted to do is to present the
+doctrines in such a way that the reader may be in a position to pass
+judgment on them. There is one aspect of the subject, however, to
+which we may be allowed to direct attention before concluding this
+essay. It is the fashion of many modern writers, especially those
+hostile to the Catholic Church, to represent the Middle Ages as a
+period when all scientific advance and economic progress were impeded,
+if not entirely prevented, by the action of the Church. It would be
+out of place to inquire into the advances which civilisation achieved
+in the Middle Ages, as this would lead us into an examination of the
+whole history of the period; but we think it well to inquire briefly
+how far the teaching of the Church on economic matters was calculated
+to interfere with material progress. This is the lowest standard
+by which we can judge the mediaeval economic teaching, which was
+essentially aimed at the moral and spiritual elevation of mankind; but
+it is a standard which it is worth while to apply, as it is that
+by which the doctrines of the scholastics have been most generally
+condemned by modern critics. To test the mediaeval economic doctrine
+by this, the lowest standard, it may be said that it made for the
+establishment and development of a rich and prosperous community. We
+may summarise the aim of the mediaeval teaching by saying that, in the
+material sphere, it aimed at extended production, wise consumption,
+and just distribution, which are the chief ends of all economic
+activity.
+
+It aimed at extended production through its insistence on the
+importance and dignity of manual labour.[1] As we showed above, one of
+the principal achievements of Christianity in the social sphere was
+to elevate labour from a degrading to an honourable occupation. The
+example of Christ Himself and the Apostles must have made a deep
+impression on the early Christians; but no less important was the
+living example to be seen in the monasteries. The part played by the
+great religious orders in the propagation of this dignified conception
+cannot be exaggerated. St. Anthony had advised his imitators to busy
+themselves with meditation, prayer, and the labour of their hands, and
+had promised that the fear of God would reside in those who laboured
+at corporal works; and similar exhortations were to be found in the
+rules of Saints Macarius, Pachomius, and Basil.[2] St. Augustine and
+St. Jerome recommended that all religious should work for some
+hours each day with their hands, and a regulation to this effect was
+embodied in the Rule of St. Benedict.[3] The example of educated
+and holy men voluntarily taking upon themselves the most menial and
+tedious employments must have acted as an inspiration to the laity.
+The mere economic value of the monastic institutions themselves must
+have been very great; agriculture was improved owing to the assiduity
+and experiments of the monks;[4] the monasteries were the nurseries
+of all industrial and artistic progress;[5] and the example of
+communities which consumed but a small proportion of what they
+produced was a striking example to the world of the wisdom and virtue
+of saving.[6] Not the least of the services which Christian teaching
+rendered in the domain of production was its insistence upon the
+dominical repose.[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Sabatier, _L'Eglise et le Travail manuel_, and
+Antoine, _Cours d'Economie sociale_, p. 159.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Levasseur, _Histoire des Classes ouvrieres en France_,
+vol. i. pp. 182-3.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Reg. St. Ben._, c. 48.]
+
+[Footnote 4: List, _National System of Political Economy_, ch. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Janssen, _History of the German People_, vol. ii. p. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Dublin Review_, N.S., vol. vi. p. 365; see Goyau,
+_Autour du Catholicisme sociale_, vol. ii. pp. 79-118; Gasquet, _Henry
+VIII. and the English Monasteries_, vol. ii. p. 495.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _Dublin Review_, vol. xxxiii. p. 305. See Goyau, _Autour
+du Catholicisme sociale_, vol. ii. pp. 93 _et seq._]
+
+The importance which the scholastics attached to an extended and
+widespread production is evidenced by their attitude towards the
+growth of the population. The fear of over-population does not
+appear to have occurred to the writers of the Middle Ages;[1] on
+the contrary, a rapidly increasing population was considered a great
+blessing for a country.[2] This attitude towards the question of
+population did not arise merely from the fact that Europe was very
+sparsely populated in the Middle Ages, as modern research has proved
+that the density of population was much greater than is generally
+supposed.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 235, quoting Sinigaglia, _La
+Teoria Economica della Populazione in Italia_, Archivio Giuridico,
+Bologna, 1881.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Catholic Encyclopaedia_, art. 'Population.' Brants draws
+attention to the interesting fact that a germ of Malthusianism is to
+be found in the much-discussed _Songe du Vergier_, book ii. chaps.
+297-98, and Franciscus Patricius de Senis, writing at the end of
+the fifteenth century, recommends emigration as the remedy against
+over-population (_De Institutione Reipublicae_, ix.).]
+
+[Footnote 3: Dureau de la Malle, 'Memoire sur la Population de la
+France au xiv^e Siecle,' _Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions et
+Belles-Lettres_, vol. xiv. p. 36.]
+
+The mediaeval attitude towards population was founded upon the sanctity
+of marriage and the respect for human life. The utterances of Aquinas
+on the subject of matrimony show his keen appreciation of the natural
+social utility of marriage from the point of view of increasing the
+population of the world, and of securing that the new generation
+shall be brought up as good and valuable citizens.[1] While voluntary
+virginity is recommended as a virtue, it is nevertheless distinctly
+recognised that the precept of virginity is one which by its very
+nature can be practised by only a small proportion of the human race,
+and that it should only be practised by those who seek by detachment
+from earthly pleasures to regard divine things.[2] Aquinas further
+says that large families help to increase the power of the State, and
+deserve well of the commonwealth,[3] and quotes with approbation the
+Biblical injunction to 'increase and multiply.'[4] AEgidius Romanus
+demonstrates at length the advantages of large families in the
+interests of the family and the future of the nation.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Summa Cont. Gent._, iii. 123, 136.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Summa_, II. ii. 151 and 152.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _De Reg. Prin._, iv. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Gen. i. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _De Reg. Prin._, ii. 1, 6.]
+
+The growth of a healthy population was made possible by the
+reformation of family life, which was one of the greatest achievements
+of Christianity in the social sphere. In the early days of the Church
+the institution of the family had been reconstituted by moderating the
+harshness of the Roman domestic rule (_patria potestas_), by raising
+the moral and social position of women, and by reforming the system of
+testamentary and intestate successions; and the great importance which
+the early Church attached to the family as the basic unit of social
+life remained unaltered throughout the Middle Ages.[5]
+
+[Footnote 5: Troplong, _De l'Influence du Christianisme sur le Droit
+civil des Romains_; Cossa, _Guide_, p. 99; Devas, _Political Economy_,
+p. 168; Perin, _La Richesse dans les Societes chretiennes_, i. 541 _et
+seq._; Hettinger, _Apologie du Christianisme_, v. 230 _et seq._]
+
+The Middle Ages were therefore a period when the production of wealth
+was looked upon as a salutary and honourable vocation. The wonderful
+artistic monuments of that era, which have survived the intervening
+centuries of decay and vandalism, are a striking testimony to
+the perfection of production in a civilisation in which work was
+considered to be but a form of prayer, and the manufacturer was
+prompted to be, not a drudge, but an artist.
+
+In the Middle Ages, however, as we have said before, man did not exist
+for the sake of production, but production for the sake of man; and
+wise consumption was regarded as at least as important as extended
+production. The high estimation in which wealth was held resulted in
+the elaboration of a highly developed code of regulation as to the
+manner in which it should be enjoyed. We do not wish to weary
+the reader with a repetition of that which we have already fully
+discussed; it is enough to call attention to the fact that the golden
+mean of conduct was the observance of liberality, as distinguished,
+on the one hand, from avarice, or a too high estimation of material
+goods, and, on the other hand, from prodigality, or an undue disregard
+for their value. Social virtue consisted in attaching to wealth its
+proper value.
+
+Far more important than its teaching either on production or
+consumption was the teaching of the mediaeval Church on distribution,
+which it insisted must be regulated on a basis of strict justice.
+It is in this department of economic study that the teaching of the
+mediaevals appears in most marked contrast to the teaching of the
+present day, and it is therefore in this department that the study of
+its doctrines is most valuable. As we said above, the modern world has
+become convinced by bitter experience of the impracticability of mere
+selfishness as the governing factor in distribution; and the economic
+thought of the time is concentrated upon devising some new system
+of society which shall be ruled by justice. On the one hand, we see
+socialists of various schools attempting to construct a Utopia
+in which each man shall be rewarded, not in accordance with his
+opportunities of growing rich at the expense of his fellow-man, but
+according to the services he performs; while, on the other hand,
+we find the Christian economists striving to induce a harassed and
+bewildered world to revert to an older and nobler social ethic.
+
+It is no part of our present purpose to estimate the relative merits
+of these two solutions for our admittedly diseased society. Nor is it
+our purpose to attempt to demonstrate how far the system of economic
+teaching which we have sketched in the foregoing pages is applicable
+at the present day. We must, however, in this connection draw
+attention to one important consideration, namely, that the mediaeval
+economic teaching was expressly designed to influence the only
+constant element in human society at every stage of economic
+development. Methods of production may improve, hand may give place to
+machine industry, and mechanical inventions may revolutionise all our
+conceptions of transport and communication; but there is one element
+in economic activity that remains a fixed and immutable factor
+throughout the ages, and that element is man. The desires and the
+conscience of man remain the same, whatever the mechanical environment
+with which he is encompassed. One reason which suggests the view that
+the mediaeval teaching is still perfectly applicable to economic life
+is that it was designed to operate upon the only factor of economic
+activity that has not changed since the Middle Ages--namely, the
+desires and conscience of man.
+
+It is important also to draw attention to the fact that the acceptance
+of the economic teaching of the mediaeval theologians does not
+necessarily imply acceptance of their teaching on other matters. There
+is at the present day a growing body of thinking men in every country
+who are full of admiration for the ethical teaching of Christianity,
+but are unable or unwilling to believe in the Christian religion. The
+fact of such unbelief or doubt is no reason for refusing to adopt the
+Christian code of social justice, which is founded upon reason rather
+than upon revelation, and which has its roots in Greek philosophy and
+Roman law rather than in the Bible and the writings of the Fathers.
+It has been said that Christianity is the only religion which combines
+religion and ethics in one system of teaching; but although Christian
+religious and ethical teaching are combined in the teaching of the
+Catholic Church, they are not inseparable. Those who are willing to
+discuss the adoption of the Socialist ethic, which is not combined
+with any spiritual dogmas, should not refuse to consider the Christian
+ethic, which might equally be adopted without subscribing to the
+Christian dogma.
+
+As we said above, it is no part of our intention to estimate the
+relative merits of the solutions of our social evils proposed by
+socialists and by Catholic economists. One thing, however, we feel
+bound to emphasise, and that is that these two solutions are not
+identical. It is a favourite device of socialists, especially in
+Catholic countries, to contend that their programme is nothing more
+than a restatement of the economic ideals of the Catholic Church as
+exhibited in the writings of the mediaeval scholastics. We hope that
+the foregoing pages are sufficient to demonstrate the incorrectness of
+this assertion. Three main principles appear more or less clearly in
+all modern socialistic thought: first, that private ownership of the
+means of production is unjustifiable; second, that all value comes
+from labour; and, third, that all unearned income is unjust. These
+three great principles may or may not be sound; but it is quite
+certain that not one of them was held by the mediaeval theologians.
+In the section on property we have shown that Aquinas, following the
+Fathers and the tradition of the early Church, was an uncompromising
+advocate of private property, and that he drew no distinction between
+the means of production and any other kind of wealth; in the section
+on just price we have shown that labour was regarded by the
+mediaevals as but a single one of the elements which entered into the
+determination of value; and in the section on usury we have shown that
+many forms of unearned income were not only tolerated, but approved by
+the scholastics.
+
+We do not lose sight of the fact that socialism is not a mere economic
+system, but a philosophy, and that it is founded on a philosophical
+basis which conflicts with the very foundations of Christianity.
+We are only concerned with it here in its character of an economic
+system, and all we have attempted to show is that, as an economic
+system, it finds no support in the teaching of the scholastic writers.
+We do not pretend to suggest which of these two systems is more likely
+to bring salvation to the modern world; we simply wish to emphasise
+that they are two systems, and not one. One's inability to distinguish
+between Christ and Barabbas should not lead one to conclude that they
+are really the same person.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+  Abelard, 14.
+  _Acts of the Apostles_, 168.
+      communism in, 44, 46.
+  Adam, 140.
+    and Eve, slavery the result of their sin, 92.
+  Administrative occupations, position in _artes possessivae_, 143.
+  AEgidius Romanus, 98, 197, 225.
+  Agriculture, position in _artes possessivae_, 142, 143.
+    its encouragement recommended, 143.
+  Albertus Magnus, 16, 82, 176, 186, 197.
+  Albigenses, the, belief in communism, 66.
+  Alcuin, 14.
+  Alexander of Hales, 176, 185.
+  Alexander III., Pope, 187.
+    attitude to usury, 174.
+  Alfric, see _Colloquy of Archbishop, The_.
+  Almsgiving, as justice, not charity, 69.
+    duty of, 80.
+    enforcement by the State, 85.
+    summary of mediaeval teaching on, 84.
+    the early Church on, 52.
+  Ambition, a virtue, 79.
+  Ambrosius de Vignate, 191, 208.
+  Ananias, 46, 52.
+  Ancients, loss of economic teaching of, 15.
+  Angelus de Periglis de Perusio, 209, 210.
+  Antoine, 87, 172, 223.
+  Antoninus of Florence, 9, 68, 79, 110, 122, 181, 196.
+  Ape of Aristotle, the, _see_ Albertus Magnus.
+  Apostles, the, attitude to manual labour, 223.
+    attitude to private property and communism, 48.
+    attitude to usury, 168.
+  Apostles, the, fornication expressly forbidden by, 168.
+    teaching regarding slavery, 89.
+  Apostoli, the, belief in communism, 66.
+  Aquinas, _see_ Thomas Aquinas.
+  Aragon, personal rent charges permitted in, 205.
+  Architecture, _see_ Manufacture.
+  Archivio Giuridico, 225.
+  Ardant, 69.
+  Aristotle, 14, 16, 36, 97, 98, 142, 146, 169, 215, 219.
+    as source for Thomas Aquinas, 62.
+    attitude of Thomas Aquinas to his opinion, 94 _et seq._
+    Cossa on his influence, 17.
+    his principles maintained through Thomas Aquinas, 19.
+    his theory of slavery opposed to that of St. Augustine, 93.
+    influence on controversies of the schools, 17.
+    influence on mediaeval thought, 16.
+    renewed study of, 16.
+  Arnold, 203.
+  _Artes pecuniativae_, 142.
+  _Artes possessivae_, 142.
+      encouragement recommended by Aquinas, 143.
+  Arnobius, 45.
+  Ashley, Sir W.H., 3, 6, 7, 18, 21, 23, 27, 29, 30, 33, 40, 76,
+          105, 113, 126, 134, 146, 149, 175, 185, 186, 187, 188,
+          190, 191, 195, 196, 197, 198, 202, 203, 205, 206, 207,
+          211, 212.
+  Augustinians, the, 195.
+  Ausmo, Nicholas de, 156.
+  Avarice, an offence against liberality, 79.
+    a sin towards the individual himself and the community, 78.
+    relativity of, 75.
+  Avarice, the necessary basis of trade, 145.
+  _Ayenbite of Inwit, The_, 151.
+
+  Baldus, 187, 208.
+  [Greek: banousia], a sin, 77, 78.
+  Barabbas, 231.
+  Bartlett, Dr. V., 56, 90.
+  Bartolus, 187.
+  Baudrillard, 76.
+  Beauvais, Vincent de, 7, 16.
+  Begards, the, belief in communism, 66.
+  Benedict XIV., Pope, an encyclical of, 183.
+  Benigni, 61.
+  Bergier, 45.
+  Bernardine of Siena, 112, 181.
+  Biel, 99, 100, 104, 106, 107, 108, 112, 118, 121, 124, 145, 150,
+       156, 180, 185, 205, 208, 211, 221.
+  Bimetallism, Oresme's support of, 219.
+  Blanqui, 146.
+  Bohemia, communistic teaching in, 86.
+  Boehm-Bawerk, 174, 200, 203, 211.
+  Bottomry, contract of, 211.
+  Brant, Sebastian, 137.
+  Brants, V.L.J.L., 9, 10, 13, 19, 21, 66, 101, 111, 112, 114, 121,
+             122, 123, 142, 159, 181, 208, 215, 216, 217, 218, 225.
+  Breslau, refusal to pay rent in, 204.
+  Brunetto Latini, 123.
+  Building, _see_ Manufacture.
+  Buridan, 70, 72, 76, 77, 78, 109, 110, 143, 180, 191, 198, 217.
+
+  Cabet, 42.
+  Caepolla, 108, 118, 120.
+  Cajetan, 65, 79.
+    on the _Summa_, 68.
+  Calippe, Abbe, 49, 62.
+    on Thomas Aquinas, 68.
+  Calixtus III., Pope, decree regarding rent, 205.
+  _Cambium_, 155.
+    conditions justifying, 157.
+    dealt with by Brants, 159.
+    _minutum_, 157, 158.
+    motives justifying, 157.
+    _per litteras_, 157, 158.
+    _siccum_, 157.
+    the three kinds of, 157, 158.
+    when justifiable, not a loan, 158.
+  Campsor, the, his remuneration approved, 156.
+  Canon law the source of knowledge of Christian economic teaching, 13.
+  Canonist doctrine, dealt with by Sir W. Ashley, 2.
+      Dr. Cunningham's estimate of its importance, 27.
+      its impracticability demonstrated by Endemann, 20.
+      value of the study of, 29.
+  Canonists, the, 117.
+  Capital, question of the productivity of, 198 _et seq._
+  Carletus, 120, 150, 193, 211.
+  Carlyle, Dr., 44, 58, 63.
+  Castro, Paul, 208.
+  _Catholic Encyclopaedia, The_, definition of 'Middle Ages,' 3.
+      on Communism, 46.
+      on Just Price, 112, 126.
+      on Political Economy, 30.
+      on Population, 225.
+      on Slavery, 90, 100.
+  Cato, 162.
+  Cattle-breeding, _see_ Agriculture.
+  _Census constitutivus_, 203.
+      _reservativus_, 203.
+  _Centesima_, the maximum rate of interest in Borne, 161.
+  Cesana, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  Champagny, 80.
+  Change, see _Cambium_.
+  Chevallier, 20.
+  Christ, 42, 231.
+    a working man, 137.
+    attitude to manual labour, 223.
+    attitude to private property and communism, 47.
+    teaching regarding slavery, 89.
+  Christendom, economic unity of, 11.
+  Christian economic teaching, 13.
+    economists, their attempts to reinstitute mediaeval economics, 228.
+  _Christian Monitor, The_, 139.
+  Christian Exhortation, The, on the protection of the farmer, 143.
+  Christianity, as providing an ethical basis of society, 31.
+    attitude to manual labour, 137, 223.
+    attitude to slavery, 88.
+    foundations and origin of its code of social justice, 229.
+  Christianity, influence in abolition of Roman slavery, 99 _et seq._
+    possibility of adopting ethics without dogmas of, 229.
+    reformation of family life by, 226.
+    relation of economic teaching of, to socialism, 33.
+    social theory of, 12.
+  Church, economic teaching of the mediaeval, 12.
+    the, attitude to commerce at end of the Middle Ages, 152.
+    the, attitude to _monies pietatis_, 197.
+    the, effect of economic teaching of, on material progress, 223.
+    the, necessity for understanding economic teaching of, 32.
+    the, principles followed by, in fixing price, 114.
+    the, prohibition of usury not peculiar to, 160.
+    the, socialist view of its teaching on usury, 198.
+    the early, 230.
+      the early teaching on usury, 167 _et seq._
+  Cicero, 56, 58, 162.
+  Civil Law, Commentaries on, a source of knowledge of Christian
+economic teaching, 13.
+  Civilisation, result of its advance in the thirteenth century, 15.
+  Classical economists, recent reaction against, 29.
+  Cleary, Dr., 35, 135, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168,
+169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 185, 186, 187, 188, 191, 192, 193,
+196, 197, 205.
+  Clement of Alexandria, _see_ St. Clement.
+    of Rome, _see_ St. Clement.
+  Clergy, the, and usury, 169.
+    the, prohibition of trading by, 151.
+  Coinage, _see_ Money.
+  _Collegantia_, 207.
+  _Colloquy of Archbishop Alfric, The_, 149.
+  _Commenda_, the, 206.
+  _Commendatarius_, the, 207.
+  _Commendator_, the, 207.
+  Common estimation, of just price not the final criterion, 134.
+  Commerce, attitude of later fifteenth century to, 150.
+    attitude of mediaeval theologians to, 136.
+    attitude of the Church at end of Middle Ages, 152.
+    condemnation of, by early Christians, 145.
+    condemnation of, by scholastics, 146.
+    dangerous to virtue, 145, 151.
+    definition of, 144.
+    extension of, in thirteenth century, 15.
+    factors making for its illegality, 151.
+    gradual change of mediaeval attitude to, 152.
+    justification of, not based on payment for labour, 154.
+    legitimacy dependent on methods, 146.
+    legitimacy dependent on motives, 148.
+    motives regarded as justifying, 153.
+    necessity for, realised, 147.
+    necessity of controlling its operations, 154.
+    not dealt with by early writers, 13.
+    position in the _artes possessivae_, 143.
+    prohibition of speculative, 151.
+    rules applying to, defined by Nider, 150.
+  Communism, alleged, of early Christians, 43.
+    not part of scholastic teaching, 66.
+  Community of user, doctrine of, 85.
+      no relation to modern socialistic communism, 86.
+  Commutations, _see_ Exchange.
+  Compensation, for failure to repay loans by date stipulated, 185.
+    for profit hindered, 189.
+  Competition, effect of unrestricted, 31.
+  Comte, his definition of 'Middle Ages' followed by Dr. Ingram, 3.
+  Conquerors, their right to enslavement of the conquered adopted
+by Aquinas, 96.
+  Constantine, 43.
+  Constantinople, fall of, regarded as end of the Middle Ages, 4.
+  Consumption, regulation of, 32.
+    wise, importance of, 227.
+    wise, the aim of mediaeval teaching, 223.
+  Contract, Thomas Aquinas on, 38.
+  _Corinthians, Epistle to the_, 48.
+  Corpus Juris Canonici, 13, 146.
+  Cossa, L.,5, 6, 17, 108, 220.
+  Credit, 119.
+  Crusades, the, influence of, 15.
+    the, influence on trade, 146.
+  Cunningham, Dr. W., 2, 9, 10, 11, 13, 23, 24, 26, 27, 79, 116,
+122, 124, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 138, 139, 152, 212, 218.
+  Currency, _see_ Money.
+  Cyprian, 168, 170.
+    attitude to property, 50.
+
+  Damnum emergens, 185, 196.
+      nature of, 186.
+      universal admission of, 187.
+  Dante, 216.
+  _De Regimine Principum_, doubtful authorship of, 20.
+  Delisle, 27.
+  _Democratie Chretienne_, 199.
+  Deposit, Thomas Aquinas on, 38.
+  Desbuquois, Abbe, 36, 39, 104, 110, 116, 120.
+  _Deuteronomy_, 163.
+  Devas, 30, 49, 226.
+  _Dictionary of Political Economy_, 30, 105, 112, 135, 212.
+  _Dictionnaire de Theologie_, 45.
+  _Didache_, the, attitude to usury, 168, 170.
+  Diocletian rescript, regarding sales, 104.
+  Distribution, just, the aim of mediaeval teaching, 223.
+    need for just, 31, 227.
+    regulation of, 32.
+  Dominicans, the, 195, 196.
+  _Dominium eminens_ of the State, 69.
+  Donatus, 14.
+  _Dublin Review, The_, 43.
+  Duns Scotus, 149, 185, 188, 192.
+  Dureau de la Malle, 225.
+
+  _Ecclesiastes_, 151.
+  Eck, 211.
+  'Economic,' interpretation of, 3, 6 _et seq._
+  'Economic Man,' imaginary figure conceived by classical economists, 8.
+  _Economic Review, The_, 44.
+  Economics, causes of lack of interest in, 14.
+  Elvira, the Council of, decree against usury, 169.
+  Emperor, the, temporal vicar of God, 11.
+  _Encyclopaedia Britannica, The_, definition of 'Middle Ages,' 4.
+  Endemann, 19, 20, 23, 27, 34, 108, 120, 124, 134, 151, 155, 157, 158,
+177, 186, 187, 190, 191, 195, 196, 203, 204, 216, 218.
+  _Ephesians, Epistle to the_, 89.
+  Equality, of men, 94.
+  _Esdras_, 165.
+  Espinas, A., 8, 17, 163, 197, 218.
+  Essenes, the, and communism, 47.
+  Ethics, error of disregarding in economics, 29.
+  Eve, _see_ Adam and.
+  Exchange, regulation of, 32.
+    justice in, 36 _et seq._
+    theory of, see _Cambium_.
+  _Exodus_, 163.
+  _Ezekiel_, 165.
+
+  Fathers, the, _see_ Church, the early.
+  Favre, 173.
+  Feudalism, increased organisation of, in thirteenth century, 15.
+  Fornication, expressly forbidden by the Apostles, 168.
+  Franciscans, the, 195, 196.
+  Franciscus Patricius de Senlis, 225.
+  Franck, A., 20, 90, 97.
+  Fratricelli, the, belief in communism, 66.
+  _Fundamentum_, distinction from _titulus_, 64 _et seq._
+  Funk, Dr., 113, 172, 203.
+
+  Galileo, 159.
+  Gand, Henri de, 110, 149.
+  Garden of Eden, private property in, 55.
+  Gasquet, 224.
+  _Genesis_, 137, 226.
+  Genoa, the Archbishop of, 207.
+      letter from Alexander III. to, 187.
+  Gentile, prohibition of usury between Jew and, 164.
+  Gentiles, prohibition of usury not imposed on converts from, 168.
+    taking of usury from, justified, 165.
+  Genucian Law, the, interest prohibited by, 160.
+  Gerbert, 14.
+  Gerdilius, 100.
+  Gerson, 39, 71, 104, 106, 108, 112, 118, 137, 182, 197.
+  Gide and Rist, 9.
+  Golden Age, the, private property in, 55.
+  Gospel, the, preached to the poor, 137.
+  Gospels, the, on usury, 166.
+  Goyau, G., 67, 224.
+
+  Haney, L.H., 2, 5, 41, 136.
+  Heeren, A.H.L., 146.
+  Hettinger, 226.
+  Hilary of Poictiers, 60.
+  Hincmar, 14.
+  Hiring, Thomas Aquinas on, 38.
+  Hogan, Dr., 43, 47, 49, 137.
+  Hohoff, Abbe, 114, 199.
+  Hostiensis, 188.
+  Hoyta, Henricus de, 19.
+  Huet, 47.
+  Hunter, W.A., 105, 161.
+  Hunting, _see_ Agriculture.
+
+  Idleness, contrasted attitudes of ancient and Christian civilisations
+to, 137.
+  Income, unearned, approved by scholastics, 113.
+      justice of, 198 _et seq._
+      socialist theory of its injustice not supported by scholastics, 214.
+      recognition of, 212.
+  Individualism, of Christianity, 12.
+  Industry, development of, in thirteenth century, 15.
+  Ingolstadt, 211.
+  Ingram, Dr. J.K., 2, 3, 4, 12, 17, 18, 23, 24.
+  Innocent III., Pope, attitude to usury, 175.
+    in favour of unearned income, 207.
+  Insurance, a contract of, 210.
+  Interamna, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  _Interesse proximum_, suggested alternative term to _damnum emergens_,
+187.
+  _Interesse remotum_, suggested alternative term to _lucrum cessans_, 187.
+  Interest, justification of, 184.
+  Interest, laws regarding, in Rome, 160.
+    taking of, disapproved by Greek and Roman philosophers, 161.
+    _see_ also Usury.
+  _Irish Ecclesiastical Record, The_, 43, 47, 49, 109, 137.
+  _Irish Theological Quarterly, The_, 9, 68, 128, 129, 130, 132, 135.
+  Isidore, 95.
+  Isidore of Seville, 15.
+      his opinions on money regarded as final, 214.
+  Italian States, forced loans in the, 195.
+  Ivo, 169.
+
+  Janet, P.A.R., 59, 61, 89, 91, 93, 97.
+  Jannet, Claudio, 183.
+  Janssen, J., 28, 68, 86, 125, 138, 139, 141, 143, 150, 154, 224.
+  Jarrett, Fr., 83, 84.
+  _Jeremiah_, 165.
+  Jerusalem, the Church of, social system in, 44 _et seq._
+    St. Paul's appeal for funds, 48.
+    the Council of, prohibition of usury not imposed on converts by, 168.
+  Jesuits, the, invention of _trinus contractus_ attributed to, 211.
+  _Jewish Encyclopaedia, The_, on usury, 165.
+  Jews, attitude to usury, 160, 165.
+    prohibition of usury between, 164.
+  John of Salisbury, 14.
+  Jourdain, 5, 14, 16, 149, 176, 183, 221.
+  _Jus abutendi_, 87.
+    _divinum_, 173.
+    _humanum_, 174.
+    _naturale_, 173.
+  Just price, a Christian conception, 104.
+      authorities empowered to fix, 108.
+      comparison of mediaeval theory with that of classical economists, 125.
+      difference from modern competition price, 116.
+      elasticity of, 117.
+      factors determining, 109 _et seq._
+  Just price, fixed by common estimation, 115 _et seq._
+      fixing of, by law, 106.
+      in money-lending, 179.
+      mediaeval teaching on, 103.
+      necessity for adhering to, 108.
+      of wages, _see_ Wages.
+      rules for guidance in fixing by law, 107.
+      nature of, 127 _et seq._
+      value of canonical doctrine, 123.
+  Justinian, rates of interest fixed by, 161.
+  Justinian Code, 28, 172.
+
+  Kelleher, Father, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134.
+  Knabenbaur, 166.
+  Knies, 80, 114, 135.
+  Koran, the, the taking of interest forbidden in, 166.
+
+  Labour, as title to property, 65.
+    Christian teaching on its dignity, 137.
+    division into honourable and degrading, 141.
+    necessity and honourableness of all forms of, 140.
+    only one constituent in the estimation of just price, 157.
+    relative importance of, in determining value, 113.
+    the motives which should actuate, 153.
+  Lactantius, 45, 56 _et seq._, 91.
+  Langenstein, 19, 107, 111, 112, 121, 122, 124, 137, 141, 203.
+  Larceny Act, the, 27.
+  Lateran Council, the, judgment in favour of _montes pietatis_, 197.
+    Councils, the, of 1139 and 1179, declaration against usurers by, 174.
+  Laurentius de Rodulphis, 157, 195, 209.
+  Law, natural and positive, in relation to property, 64.
+  Le Blant, 216.
+  Lecky, 176, 211.
+  Leo the Great, 146.
+  Lessius, 117, 124.
+  Letting, Thomas Aquinas on, 38.
+  Levasseur, 138, 139, 224.
+  Leviticus, 163.
+  _Liberalitas_, its opposing vices, 74.
+    meaning of, 73.
+  Liberality, relation to justice, 73.
+  Lisieux, Bishop of, _see_ Oresme, Nicholas.
+  List, 146, 224.
+  Loan, Thomas Aquinas on, 38.
+  Loans, analogy between sales and, 182.
+    forced, in the Italian States, 195.
+    the real nature of, 178.
+  _Locatio operarum_, 210, 213.
+  Logic, mediaeval study of, 14.
+  Loria, 149.
+  Lucca, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  _Lucrum cessans_, 185, 186, 195, 202.
+      recognition of, 187 _et seq._
+  Lyons, Council of, ordinances against usurers, 175.
+
+  Macleod, 218.
+  _Magnificentia_, duty of, 77.
+  Maimonides, 164.
+  Malthusianism, 225.
+  Mansi, 169.
+  Mantua, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  Manufacture, position in the _artes possessivae_, 142 _et seq._
+  Marcian Capella, 15.
+  Marriage, attitude of Thomas Aquinas towards, 225.
+  Marshall, 30.
+  Martin V., Pope, his bull on rent, 204.
+  Marx, Karl, theory of value not supported by scholastics, 113, 114.
+  Mastrofini, his interpretation of a verse of St. Luke, 166.
+  Maximian, rescript regarding sales, 105.
+  Mayronis, Francois de, 149, 156.
+  Mediaeval, interpretation of, 3 _et seq._
+  Menger, Anton, 199.
+  Merchant, the, necessity for control of, _see_ Commerce.
+  Metz-Noblat, de, 183.
+  Meyer, Rudolph, 198.
+  Middle Ages, definition of the term by various authorities, 3 _et seq._
+      early writers of, no reference to economic questions, 13.
+  Milan, 211.
+  Mohammed, prohibition of usury by his followers, 160.
+  Mohammedans, taking of interest by, forbidden, 166.
+  Monasteries, the, their example in manual labour, 138, 223.
+  Money, as a form of capital, 201.
+    a vendible commodity, 158.
+    changing, see _Cambium_.
+    different kinds of variation of, 219 _et seq._
+    ignorance of early Middle Ages regarding, 214 _et seq._
+    invention of, 103.
+    most suitable metals for, 219.
+    not discussed by early mediaeval writers, 14.
+    sterility of, 180.
+    the sovereign's power in relation to, 219.
+    treatment of, by Isidore of Seville, 15.
+    utility of, as treated by Aristotle, 16.
+    variations in value of, 216 _et seq._
+    value of, not to be changed unnecessarily, 219.
+  Monopolies, mediaeval views on, 124.
+  _Montes pietatis_, 194.
+      attitude of the Church to, 197.
+      controversy over interest charged by, 196.
+  _Montes profani_, 195 _et seq._
+  Moral theology, 130.
+  Morality, economic, in the Middle Ages, 10.
+  More, Sir Thomas, 48.
+  Mosheim, 44.
+  Munificence, duty of, 77.
+  _Mutuum_, 202, 210, 213, 214.
+    nature of, 178, 183.
+    risk involved in, 192.
+
+  Natural rights, distinction between absolute and commensurate
+in slavery, 95.
+  Navarrus, 190.
+  Necessaries, two kinds distinguished by Thomas Aquinas, 83.
+  Neumann, 182.
+  New Testament, the, 176.
+      cited in support of prohibition of usury, 174.
+  Nice, Council of, on usury, 169, 170.
+  Nicholas v., Pope, bull on personal rent charges, 205.
+  Nider, 39, 110, 118, 134, 150, 181, 193.
+  Nitti, F.S., 43, 69.
+  Noel, Conrad, 49.
+  Numa, as origin of 'nummi,' 15.
+
+  Occupancy, as title to property, 65.
+  Old Testament, the, 176.
+      attitude to usury, 163, 165.
+      cited in support of prohibition of usury, 174.
+  Oresme, Nicholas, 143, 215, 216, 219.
+      his influence, 221.
+      his work on money, 214, 217 _et seq._
+  Origen, 45.
+  Orvieto, first _montes pietatis_ started at, 196.
+  Ownership, _see_ Property.
+
+  Padua, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  Palgrave, 30, 105, 112, 135, 212.
+  Parma, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  Partnership, division of remuneration, 209.
+    scholastic teaching on, 202, 205 _et seq._
+    the two kinds of, 209.
+  _Parvificentia_, a sin, 77, 78.
+  _Patria, potestas_, 226.
+  Pelagius, views condemned by Council, A.D. 415, 61.
+  Pennafort, Raymond de, 27, 149.
+  _Periculum sortis_, 191, 192, 212.
+  Perin, 183, 226.
+  Perugia, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  Philip the Fair, his method of increasing the revenue, 216.
+  Philosophers, the, their condemnation of usury, 161.
+  Pigonneau, 146.
+  Plato, his objection to usury, 161.
+  Plutarch, attitude to usury, 163.
+  _Poena conventionalis_, 185.
+      difference from interest, 186.
+  Political economy, errors of classical school, 8.
+      difference between mediaeval and modern methods, 6.
+  Pope, the, his denunciation of Philip the Fair, 216.
+      the spiritual vicar of God, 10.
+  Popes, the, and almsgiving, 69.
+    pronouncements by, on rent, 204.
+    their protection of _montes pietatis_, 197.
+  Population, mediaeval attitude to, 224.
+  Poverty, as the cause of sin, 78.
+  Prescription, as title to property, 65.
+  Price, just, _see_ Just price.
+  Priscian, 14.
+  Prodigality, an offence against liberality, 79.
+    a sin towards the individual and the community, 78.
+    distinction from liberality, 76.
+  Production, an honourable vocation, 226.
+    cost of, as a factor in determining value, 111 _et seq._
+    extended, the aim of mediaeval teaching, 223.
+    regulation of, 32.
+  Professions, _see_ Labour.
+  Profit, of the campsor to be determined by just price, 158.
+  'Profiteer,' the, doctrine of just price a weapon against, 125.
+  Profiteering, prohibition of, 151.
+  Property, duties attaching to, 69.
+    duties in respect of exchange of, 102.
+    immovable, rule for determining value, 120.
+    in human beings, 88.
+    private, duties attaching to, 40.
+      right of, 39.
+      teaching of mediaeval Church, 41 _et seq._
+      the foundation of mediaeval economics, 40.
+      the keystone of economic system of later theologians, 66.
+  _Proverbs_, 165.
+  Prutz, 146.
+  _Psalms_, 137, 165, 171.
+
+  Rabanas Mauras, 14.
+  Rambaud, 7, 8, 13, 80, 87, 100, 114, 146, 151, 182, 183, 188, 197,
+203, 213, 215.
+  Reformation, the, 211.
+    attacks on monastic life during, 138.
+  Renaissance, the, 218.
+  Rent, pronouncements on, by the Popes, 204.
+    refusal to pay, in Breslau, 204.
+    scholastic teaching on, 202 _et seq._
+  _Revue Archeologique, La_, 61.
+  Riches, the early Church on their abuse, 53.
+  Rickaby, 75.
+  Risk, remuneration for, 152, 157, 191.
+  Rist, _see_ Gide.
+  Roman Empire, the, fall of, regarded as beginning of Middle Ages, 3.
+    jurists, their views on slavery accepted by Thomas Aquinas, 94.
+  _Romans, Epistle to the_, 48.
+  Rome, condemnation of usury by the philosophers of, 162.
+    laws regarding interest in, 160.
+    Numa, King of, 15.
+    policy of, enforced by clergy, 11.
+    the attitude to manual labour in, 137.
+  Roscher, W.G.F., 5, 13, 19, 34, 46, 48, 87, 88, 107, 108, 112, 114,
+121, 125, 142, 163, 166, 172, 186, 204, 215, 217.
+  Ryan, Dr. J.A., 49, 74, 117, 123, 135.
+
+  Sabatier, 223.
+  St. Ambrose, 49, 52, 60, 82, 171.
+    quoted by Aquinas, 71.
+  St. Anselm, 14.
+  St. Anthony, advice to his followers, 223.
+  St. Augustine, 49, 57, 60, 63, 92, 93, 97, 98, 105, 146, 154, 172, 224.
+    theory of slavery analysed by Janet, 93.
+    views on slavery accepted by Aquinas, 94 _et seq._
+  St. Barnabas, 45.
+  St. Basil, 49, 153, 171, 224.
+    quoted by Aquinas, 71.
+  St. Benedict, 152.
+    Rule of, 224.
+  St. Clement of Alexandria, 45, 49, 54, 168, 170.
+  St. Clement of Rome, 49, 54.
+  St. Cyprian, 45, 50, 168, 170.
+  St. Gregory Nazianzen, 54.
+  St. Gregory of Nyssa, 171.
+  St. Gregory the Great, 49.
+  St. Hilary, 171.
+  St. Isidore, 62.
+  St. Jerome, 49, 145, 171, 224.
+  St. John Chrysostom, 49, 51, 52.
+  St. Joseph, represented as a carpenter, 139.
+  St. Justin, 45.
+  St. Justin Martyn, 49.
+  St. Lucian, 45.
+  St. Luke, 82.
+  St. Luke, doubtful meaning of a verse in, 168.
+    interpretation of a doubtful verse in, 168, 171.
+  St. Macharius, 223.
+  St. Matthew, 38, 47.
+  St. Pachomius, 223.
+  St. Paul, 137.
+    attitude to private property and communism, 48.
+    on possession, cited by St. Augustine, 60.
+    teaching on slavery, 89.
+        followed by Christian teachers, 90.
+  St. Peter, 46.
+    teaching on slavery, 89.
+  St. Peter Damian, 83.
+  St. Thomas, _see_ Thomas Aquinas.
+  Sale, Roman law as applied to, 104.
+    Thomas Aquinas on, 38.
+    treatment by fifteenth-century writers, 18.
+  Sales, analogy between loans and, 182.
+  Salvador, 48.
+  Salvian, 55.
+  Sapphira, 46, 52.
+  Saturnus, result of banishment from heaven, 56.
+  Saving, an act of liberality, 72 _et seq._
+  Scherer, 146.
+  Scotus, Duns, _see_ Duns.
+  Scotus Erigenus, 14.
+  _Semaine Sociale de France, La_, 49, 62, 68, 104, 111.
+  Seneca, 59, 89, 90.
+    view of usury, 163.
+  Serfdom, 99.
+  Sertillanges, 80.
+  _Servus_, St. Augustine's theory of origin, 93.
+  Sevona, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  Sicily, personal rent charges permitted in, 205.
+  Sidgwick, Professor Henry, 29, 31.
+  Sinigaglia, 225.
+  Sixtus V., Pope, condemnation of _trinus contractus_, 211.
+  Slater, Father, 109, 128, 129, 130.
+  Slavery, analogy with property, 97.
+    attitude of Christianity to, 88.
+    limits of master's rights, 100.
+    three kinds of, 99.
+    views of Christian Church and philosophers reconciled by
+Aquinas, 93 _et seq._
+  Smith, Adam, 29.
+  _Societas_, 206, 207, 210, 213.
+  Socialism, as providing an ethical basis of society, 31.
+    danger of, 32.
+    relation of its economic teaching to Christianity, 33.
+  Socialists, claim to authority of the early Christians, 49 _et seq._
+    attempts to construct Utopia, 228.
+    their communism not the 'community of user' advocated by
+scholastics, 86.
+    their interpretations of St. Augustine, 58.
+    their main principles, 230.
+    their philosophy at variance with Christianity, 231.
+    their principles not derived from mediaeval teaching, 230.
+    their view of the Church's teaching on usury, 198.
+  _Socius stans_, 207.
+  Solon, laws of, as affecting usury, 160.
+  _Songe du Vergier_, 225.
+  Stagyrite, the, _see_ Aristotle.
+  Stoic tradition, the, 58.
+  Stoicism, inferiority to Christian teaching on slavery, 89.
+  Stoics, the, 93.
+  Stintzing, 20.
+  Sudre, 47, 48.
+  _Summa Angelica_, 186.
+    _Astesana_, 186.
+    _Pisana_, 156.
+  Superabundance, relativity of, 75.
+
+  'Teaching,' interpretation of, 3, 19 _et seq._
+    mediaeval, its relation to practice, 21.
+    ethical nature of, 27.
+  Temperance, in the use of goods, 70.
+  Tertullian, 45, 49, 145, 168, 170.
+  _Thessalonians, Epistle to the_, 137.
+  Thirteenth century, progress made in the, 15.
+  Thomas Aquinas, 7, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 36, 41, 42, 46, 52, 62
+_et seq._, 67, 69, 70, 71 _et seq._, 74 _et seq._, 77, 78, 80, 81,
+82, 83, 84, 85, 91, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 101, 105, 111, 112, 114,
+117, 119, 121, 131, 132, 133, 135, 136, 141, 143, 144, 146, 147,
+148, 149, 150, 151, 154, 156, 162, 167, 173, 174, 176, 182, 186,
+188, 189, 193, 194, 195, 197, 206, 207, 208, 215, 230.
+  Ticinum, Synod of, decree on usury, 173.
+  Tillage, _see_ Agriculture.
+  Time, the sale of, 182.
+  _Timothy_, 151.
+  _Titulus_, distinction from _fundamentum_, 64.
+  _Tractatus Universi Juris_, 19.
+  Tradesman, _see_ Commerce.
+  Trade, _see_ Commerce.
+  Troplong, 226.
+  _Trinus contractus_, 210, 211.
+  Trithemius, 85, 124, 137, 149.
+  Twelve Tables, the, maximum rate of interest fixed by, 160.
+
+  _Unciarum foenus_, doubtful meaning of, 160.
+  Usufruct, Aquinas on, 38.
+  Usurers, _see_ Usury.
+  Usury and the clergy, 169.
+    a sin against justice, 175.
+    attitude of the Apostles, 168.
+    attitude of various religious and legal systems, 160.
+    borrowing at, circumstances justifying, 194.
+    broader basis of discussion after twelfth century, 173.
+    dealt with by ecclesiastical courts, 175.
+    condemned by Councils, 13.
+      by philosophers, 161, 162.
+      as a sin against charity, 168, 171.
+    controversies over prohibition, 159.
+    definition of, by Lateran Council, 197.
+    doubt as to Gospel teaching on, 167.
+  Usury, ecclesiastical legislation on, 174.
+    inconclusive teaching of the early Church, 172.
+    increased payment for credit regarded as, 119.
+    injustice of, according to Aristotle, 16.
+    in the Old Testament, 163.
+    not suppressed by civil law, 172.
+    patristic and episcopal utterances in favour of, 172.
+    not permitted by civil authorities, 197 _et seq._
+    popular attitude to, 163.
+    prohibition of, 133, 173, 183, 184.
+      proof of justice of unearned income, 213.
+      position in canonist doctrine, 33.
+      not imposed on converts from Gentiles, 168.
+    secular legislation in favour of, declared void, 175.
+    teaching of the early Church, 167 _et seq._
+    treatment by fifteenth-century writers, 18.
+
+  Value, factors determining, 129.
+    not systematically treated till fourteenth and fifteenth
+centuries, 111.
+    _See_ also Price.
+  Vaudois, the, belief in communism, 66.
+  Verona, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+  Vienne, Council of, 175.
+  Vio, Thomas da, 196.
+  Virgin, the Blessed, represented spinning, 139.
+  Virginity, recommended for the few, 225.
+  Viterbo, _montes pietatis_ at, 196.
+
+  Wages, rules determining, 120.
+    as factor in cost of production, 111.
+    attitude of mediaeval and modern working classes towards
+fixing, 126 _et seq._
+    fixed by a public authority, 121.
+  Wages, paucity of authority on, before sixteenth century, 121.
+  Wallon, 90, 137, 140.
+  Wealth, theory of, according to Aristotle, 16.
+  Wealth, not an end in itself, 80.
+  Weber, 206.
+  William of Paris, 176.
+  Wolowski, 216, 217, 221.
+
+
+
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