NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 323 



NEW CHAPTERS IN" THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 



XIV. THEOLOGY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



By ANDEEW DICKSON WHITE, LL. D., L. H. D., 



EX-PEESIDENT OF CORNELL UNIVEESITY. 



AMONG questions on which the supporters of right reason in 

 political and social science have only conquered theologi- 

 cal opposition after centuries of war, is the taking of interest on 

 loans. In hardly any struggle has rigid adherence to the letter 

 of our sacred books been more prolonged and injurious. 



Certainly, if the criterion of truth, as regards any doctrine, be 

 that of St. Vincent of Lerins, that it has been believed in the 

 Church " always, everywhere, and by all," then on no point may 

 a Christian of these days be more sure than that every savings 

 institution, every loan and trust company, every bank, every loan 

 of capital by an individual, every means by which accumulated 

 capital has been lawfully lent even at the most moderate interest, 

 to make men workers rather than paupers, is based on deadly sin. 



The early evolution of the belief that taking interest for 

 money is sinful presents a curious working-together of meta- 

 physical, theological, and humanitarian ideas. 



In the great center of ancient Greek civilization, the loaning 

 of money at interest came to be accepted at an early period as a 

 condition of productive industry, and no legal restriction was im- 

 posed. In Rome there was a long process of development. The 

 greed of creditors in early times led to laws against the taking 

 of interest, but, though these lasted long, that strong practical 

 sense, which gave Rome the empire of the world, substituted 

 finally, for this absolute prohibition, the establishment of rates 

 fixed by law. Yet many of the leading Greek and Roman thinkers 

 opposed this practical settlement of the question, and, foremost 

 of all, Aristotle. In a metaphysical way he declared that money 

 is by nature "barren"; that the birth of money from money 

 is therefore " unnatural " ; and hence that the taking of interest 

 is to be censured and hated. Plato, Plutarch, both the Catos, 

 Cicero, Seneca, and various other leaders of ancient thought 

 arrived at much the same conclusion — sometimes, from sympathy 

 with oppressed debtors; sometimes, from hatred of usurers; 

 sometimes, from simple contempt of trade. 



From these sources there came into the early Church the germ 

 of a theological theory upon the subject. 



But far greater was the stream of influence from the Jewish 

 and Christian sacred books. In the Old Testament stood a mul- 

 titude of texts condemning usury, the term usury meaning any 



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