Note 191-10 — Chapter IV

The first scientific defense of interest is generally considered to be that of Salmasius, loc. cit. Yet Bacon, Sermones fideles, C. 39 (after 1539), and at bottom also H. Grotius, De Jure Belli et Pacis, 1626, taught that it was lawful to take interest in so far as it was not against the love due to one's neighbor (Endemann, loc. cit., I, 62 ff.), and Besold, Quaestiones aliquot de Usuris, 1598, was as near the truth as Salmasius.[TN 24] Compare supra, note 4. How earnestly North and Locke labored against the lowering of interest by governmental interference, see Roscher, Z. Gesch. der engl. Volkswirths., 90, 102 ff. The best writers, in strictly Catholic countries, did violence to themselves in this matter for a long time after. Thus Galiani, Della Moneta, II, I seq.; and one cannot help being greatly surprised at witnessing the subtleties which Turgot, Mémoire sur le Prêt d'Argent, 1769, had to have recourse to, to prove the clearest matters. Thus: at the moment of the loan, a sum of money is exchanged against the mere promise of the other party, which is certainly less valuable. [If it were not, why should he borrow?] This difference must, therefore, be made up in interest, etc. Mirabeau even was a decided opponent of interest. (Philos. rurale, ch. 6.) Compare, however, the theological defense by Viaixnes, 1728, in the Traité des Prêts de Commerce, Amsterdam, 1759, IV, 19 ff.