Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/238

 the cash of the nation 'is not of that consequence that many guess it to be,' but that the amount of money in the country should not exceed the amount necessary as a medium of exchange, 'for in most places, especially Ireland, nay England itself, the money of the whole nation is but about a tenth part of the expense of one year, viz. Ireland is thought to have about 400,000l. in cash, and to spend about four millions per annum. Wherefore it is very ill husbandry to double the cash of the nation by destroying half its wealth; or to increase the cash otherwise than by increasing the wealth, simul et semel;' 'for money,' he observes elsewhere, 'is but the fat of the body politick, whereof too much doth as often hinder its agility, as too little makes it sick.'

'Laws made against usury, against raising of money, and against exportation of gold and silver, and many others concerning Trade,' were all in his opinion equally 'frivolous and pernicious, forasmuch as such matters will be governed by the laws of nature and nations only;' and, following out the same order of ideas, he points out that the rate of interest depends upon the accumulation of money and the amount of it in a country at any given time, and that therefore money, like everything else, has a legitimate price according to the amount of it, and the relative difficulty of procuring it at any particular time or particular place: a truth which had been obscured by a mistaken interpretation of Scriptural texts in the Middle Ages. What the Jewish law forbade was usury as between Jews, not loans to foreigners. It was a moral precept to be observed as between members of the same society. But the early Christian doctrine, based on the text, 'Lend, hoping for nothing again,' adopted and enlarged the Jewish view till what was termed 'usury' became the most frightful of moral offences in the eye of the Church, and was forbidden by the Canon Law, as contrary both to the law of nature and to authority. It was to be regarded as worse than theft; even what was termed mental usury—the intention of the lender to