hypotheses which is not duplicated in economic practice. On the
other hand, political economy is but an impertinent rhapsody, so
long as it affirms as absolutely valid the facts collected by
Adam Smith and J. B. Say.

Another question, no less disputed than the preceding one, is
that of usury, or lending at interest.

Usury, or in other words the price of use, is the emolument, of
whatever nature, which the proprietor derives from the loan of
his property. Quidquid sorti accrescit usura est, say the
theologians. Usury, the foundation of credit, was one of the
first of the means which social spontaneity employed in its work
of organization, and whose analysis discloses the profound laws
of civilization. The ancient philosophers and the Fathers of the
Church, who must be regarded here as the representatives of
socialism in the early centuries of the Christian era, by a
singular fallacy,--which arose however from the paucity of
economic knowledge in their day,--allowed farm-rent and condemned
interest on money, because, as they believed, money was
unproductive. They distinguished consequently between the loan
of things which are consumed by use--among which they included
money--and the loan of things which, without being consumed,
yield a product to the user.

The economists had no difficulty in showing, by generalizing the
idea of rent, that in the economy of society the action of
capital, or its productivity, was the same whether it was
consumed in wages or retained the character of an instrument;
that, consequently, it was necessary either to prohibit the rent