NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 327 



This theological hostility to the taking of interest was imbed- 

 ded firmly in the canon law. Again and again it defined usury 

 to be the taking of anything of value beyond the exact original 

 amount of a loan ; and under sanction of the universal Church it 

 denounced this as a crime and declared all persons defending it to 

 be guilty of heresy. What this meant the world knows but too well. 



The whole evolution of European civilization was greatly 

 hindered by this conscientious policy. Money could only be 

 loaned in most countries at the risk of incurring odium in this 

 world and damnation in the next ; hence there was but little capi- 

 tal and few lenders. The rates of interest became at times enor- 

 mous ; as high as forty per cent in England, and ten per cent a 

 month in Italy and Spain. Commerce, manufactures, and general 

 enterprise were dwarfed, while pauperism flourished. 



Yet worse than these were the moral results. Doing what one 

 believes is evil is only second in bad consequences to doing what 

 is really evil ; hence, all lending and borrowing, even for the most 

 legitimate purposes and at the most reasonable rates, tended to 

 debase the character of both borrower and lender. The prohibi- 

 tion of interest for the use of money in continental Europe pro- 

 moted luxury and discouraged economy, the rich, who were not 

 engaged in business, finding no easy way of employing their sav- 

 ings productively. 



One evil effect is felt in all parts of the world to this hour. 

 The Jews, so strong in will and acute in intellect, were virtually 

 drawn or driven out of all other industries or professions by the 

 theory that their race, being accursed, was only fitted for the 

 accursed profession of money-lending.* 



iii, Paris, 1889, question 78, pp. 586 et seq., citing the Scriptures and Aristotle, and espe- 

 cially developing Aristotle's metaphysical idea regarding the " barrenness " of money. For 

 a very good summary of St. Thomas's ideas, see Pearson, pp. 30 d aeq. For Dante, see in 

 Canto XI of the Inferno a revelation of the amazing depth of the hostility to the taking of 

 interest. For the London law of 1390 and the petition to the king, see Cunningham, 

 Growth of English Industry and Commerce, pp. 210 and 326; also the Abridgment of the 

 Records in the Tower of London, p. 339. For the theory that Jews, being damned already, 

 might be allowed to practice usury, see Li^gois, Histoire de I'Usure, p. 82. For St. 

 Bernard's view, see Epist. CCCLXIII, in Migne, tome clxxxii, p. 567. For ideas and 

 anecdotes for preachers' use, see Joannes de San Geminiano, Summa de Exemplis, Ant- 

 werp, 1629, fol. 493, a; also an edition of Venice, 1584, pp. 132 and 159; but especially 

 for multitudes of examples, see the Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, edited by Prof. T. F. 

 Crane, of Cornell University, London, 1890, pp. 203 et seq. For the canon law in relation 

 to usance, see a long line of authorities cited in Die Wucherfrage, St. Louis, 1869, pp. 92 

 et seq., and especially Dccret. Gregor., lib. v, lit. 19, cap. iii, and Clementin, lib. v, lit. 5, sec. 2 ; 

 see also the Corpus Juris Canonici, Paris, 1618, pp. 227, 228. For the position of the Eng. 

 lish Church, see Gibson's Corpus Juris Ecclesiastici Anglicani, pp. 1070, 1071, and 1106. 



* For evil economic results, and especially for the rise of the rate of interest in Eng- 

 land and elsewhere at times to forty per cent, see Cunningham, Growth of English Indus- 

 try and Commerce, Cambridge, 1890, p. 189 ; and for its rising to ten per cent a month, 



