NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 329 



Another mode of obtaining relief was tried. Subtle theolo- 

 gians devised evasions of various sorts. Two among these in- 

 ventions of the schoolmen obtained much notoriety. 



The first was the doctrine of " damnum emergens " : if a man, 

 in order to loan money, was obliged to withdraw it from profit- 

 able business, and so suffer loss, it was claimed that he might 

 demand of the borrower compensation for such loss. Equally 

 cogent was the doctrine of " lucrum, cessans '' : if a man, in order 

 to loan money, was obliged to diminish his income from pro- 

 ductive enterprises, it was claimed that he might receive in return, 

 in addition to his money, an amount exactly equal to this diminu- 

 tion in his income. 



But such evasions were looked upon with little favor by the 

 great body of theologians, and the name of St. Thomas Aquinas 

 was cited against them. 



Opposition on scriptural grounds to the taking of interest was 

 not confined to the older Church. Protestantism was led by 

 Luther and several of his associates into the same line of thought 

 and practice. Said Luther : " To exchange anything with any one 

 and gain by the exchange is not to do a charity, but to steal. 

 Every usurer is a thief worthy of the gibbet. I call those usurers 

 who lend money at five or six per cent." But it is only just to 

 say that at a later period Luther took a much more moderate 

 view. Melanchthon, defining usury as any interest whatever, con- 

 demned it again and again ; and the Goldberg Catechism of 1558, 

 for which he wrote a preface and recommendation, declares every 

 person taking interest for money a thief ; from generation to gen- 

 eration this doctrine was upheld by the more eminent divines 

 of the Lutheran Church in all parts of Germany. 



The English reformers showed the same hostility to interest- 

 bearing loans. Under Henry VIII the law of Henry VII against 

 taking interest had been modified for the better ; but the revival 

 of religious feeling under Edward VI caused in 1553 the passage 



laumin, Dictionnaire, article Int^rSt. For the renewed opposition to the taking of inter- 

 est in England, see Craik, History of British Commerce, chap. vi. The statute cited fs 

 3 Henry VII, chap. vi. It is found in Gibson's Corpus Juris Eccles. Anglic, p. 1071. For 

 the adverse decree of Leo X, see Li6gois, p. V6. See also Lecky, Rationalism, vol. ii. 

 For the di-agging out of the usurer's body at Piacenza, see Burckhardt, The Renaissance in 

 Italy, London, 1878, vol. ii, p. 339. For public opinion of similar strength on this subject 

 in England, see Cunningham, p. 239 ; also Pike, History of Crime in England, vol. i, pp. 

 127, 193. For good general observations on the same, see Stephen, History of Criminal 

 Law in England, London, 1883, vol. iii, pp. 195-197. For usury laws in Castile and Ara- 

 gon, see Bedarride, pp. 191, 192. For exceedingly valuable details as to the attitude of 

 the mediaeval Church, see Leopold Delisle, Etudes sur la Classe Agricole en Normaudie au 

 Moyen Age, Evreux, 1851, pp. 200 et seq., also p. 468. For penalties in France, see 

 Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, in Master of the Rolls series, especially vol. iii, pp. 

 191, 192. 



