Note 33 — Chapter XII · On Contracts.

The following passage from Judge Blackstone will both elucidate the meaning and support the reasoning of our author. "Though money was originally used only for the purposes of exchange, yet the laws of any state may be well justified in permitting it to be turned to the purposes of profit, if the convenience of society (the great end for which money was invented) shall require it. And that the allowance of moderate interest tends greatly to the benefit of the public, especially in a trading country, will appear from that generally acknowledged principle, that commerce cannot subsist without mutual and extensive credit. Unless money therefore can be borrowed, trade cannot be carried on: and if no premium were allowed for the hire of money, few persons would care to lend it; or at least the ease of borrowing at short warning (which is the life of commerce) would be entirely at an end."—B. ii. ch. 30. p. 454, 455.