This work
was aided, indeed, by a far greater man, Hugo Grotius; but here was
shown the power of an established dogma. Great as Grotius was--and
it may well be held that his book on _War and Peace_ has wrought
more benefit to humanity than any other attributed to human
authorship--he was, in the matter of interest for money, too much
entangled in theological reasoning to do justice to his cause or to
himself. He declared the prohibition of it to be scriptural, but
resisted the doctrine of Aristotle, and allowed interest on certain
natural and practical grounds.
In Germany the struggle lasted longer. Of some little significance,
perhaps, is the demand of Adam Contzen, in 1629, that lenders at
interest should be punished as thieves; but by the end of the
seventeenth century Puffendorf and Leibnitz had gained the victory.
Protestantism, open as it was to the currents of modern thought,
could not long continue under the dominion of ideas unfavourable to
economic development, and perhaps the most remarkable proof of this
was presented early in the eighteenth century in America, by no
less strict a theologian than Cotton Mather.
Pages:
1185
1186
1187
1188
1189
1190
1191
1192
1193
1194
1195
1196
1197
1198
1199
1200
1201
1202
1203
1204
1205
1206
1207
1208
1209