Page:Reflections on the Formation and the Distribution of Riches by Anne Turgot.djvu/99

72 use of the bread: it is the same right as he would have to sell him stones; a right founded entirely upon this,—that, as the bread is his own, nobody has a right to oblige him to give it for nothing.

S75
Reply to an objection.

This reflection makes us realise how false and how distant from the meaning of the Gospel is the application which the Rigorists make of the passage Mutuum date, nihil inde sperantes (Lend, hoping for nothing again). This passage is clear when it is understood, as by moderate and reasonable theologians, as a precept of charity. All men ought to succour one another: a rich man who, when he saw his fellow-creature in distress, instead of providing for his wants sold him his assistance, would fail alike in the duties of Christianity and in those of humanity. In such circumstances charity does not prescribe only lending without interest; it commands lending, and even giving if he needs it. To make out of this precept of charity a precept of rigorous justice is equally repugnant to reason and the sense of the text. Those whom I attack here do not maintain that it is a duty of (Christian) justice to lend one's money; they must then agree that the first words of the passage: Mutuum date. . ., contain only a precept of charity; then, I ask, why do they think that the close of the passage grows into a duty of (Christian) justice? What, shall the lending itself not be a strict precept, but its accessory, the condition of the loan, be made one! Then this is what men were told: "You are free to lend or not to lend, but, if