Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/341

Rh This theological hostility to the taking of interest was imbedded 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 capital and few lenders. The rates of interest became at times enormous; 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 prohibition of interest for the use of money in continental Europe promoted luxury and discouraged economy, the rich, who were not engaged in business, finding no easy way of employing their savings 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.