The title of
interest here given is recognized by divines as _lucrum cessans_,
"interruption of profit." The interest is taken, so far as it goes
upon a lawful title, not upon the fact of the borrower's profit--that
is irrelevant--but upon the profit that the lender might have made,
had he kept the money in hand.
11. This latter case (n. 10) represents that putting of money out to
interest, which is an essential feature of modern commerce. The former
case (n. 9) is the aspect that money-lending commonly bore in the
Middle Ages. In those days land was hard to buy, agriculture backward,
roads bad, seas unnavigable, carrying-trade precarious, messages slow,
raids and marauders frequent, population sparse, commerce confined to
a few centres, mines unworked, manufactures mostly domestic, capital
yet unformed. Men kept their money in their cellars, or deposited it
for safety in religious houses: whence the stories of treasure-trove
belonging to those days. They took out the coin as they wanted it to
spend on housekeeping, or on war, or feasting. It was very hard, next
to impossible, to lay out money so as to make more money by it.
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