undoubtedly the most prominent part of the canonist teaching, because
it was the part which most tempted evasion; but to admit that is not
to agree with the proposition that it was the centre of the canonist
doctrine.

[Footnote: 1 _Op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 399.]

[Footnote: 2 'Bekanntlich war das Wucherverbot der praktische
Mittelpunkt der ganzen kanonischen Wirthschaftspolitik,' _Op. cit._,
p. 8.]

[Footnote: 3 _Studien_, vol. i. p. 2 and _passim_. At vol. ii. p. 31
it is stated that the teaching on just price is a corollary of the
usury teaching. But Aquinas treats of usury in the article _following_
his treatment of just price.]

Our view is that the teaching on usury was simply one of the
applications of the doctrine that all voluntary exchanges of property
must be regulated by the precepts of commutative justice. In one sense
it might be said to be a corollary of the doctrine of just price. This
is apparently the suggestion of Dr. Cleary in his excellent book on
usury: 'It seems to me that the so-called loan of money is really
a sale, and that a loan of meal, wine, oil, gunpowder, and similar
commodities--that is to say, commodities which are consumed in use--is
also a sale. If this is so, as I believe it is, then loans of all
these consumptible goods should be regulated by the principles which
regulate sale contracts. A just price only may be taken, and the
return must be truly equivalent.'[1] This statement of Dr. Cleary's
seems well warranted, and finds support in the analogy which was drawn
between the legitimacy of interest--in the technical sense--and the