terest 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. In his Magnalia he argues against the
whole theological view with a boldness, acuteness, and good sense which
cause us to wonder that this can be the same man who was so infatuated
regarding witchcraft. After an argument so conclusive as his, there
could have been little left of the old anti-economic doctrine in New
England.(454)

(454) For Calvin's views, see his letter published in the appendix to
Pearson's Theories on Usury. His position is well-stated in Bohm-Bawerk,
pp. 28 et seq., where citations are given. See also Economic Tracts,
No. IV, New York, 1881, pp. 34, 35; and for some serviceable Protestant
fictions, see Cunningham, Christian Opinion on Usury, pp. 60, 61. For
Dumoulin (Molinaeus), see Bohm-Bawerk, as above, pp. 29 et seq. For
debates on usury in the British Parliament in Elizabeth's time, see
Cobbett, Parliamentary History, vol. i, pp 756 et seq. A striking
passage in Shakespeare is found in the Merchant of Venice, Act I, scene
iii: "If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not as to thy friend; for
when did friendship take a breed for barren metal of his friend?" For
the right direction taken by Lord Bacon, see Neumann, Geschichte des
Wuchers in Deutschland, Halle, 1864, pp. 497, 498. For Salmasius, see
his De Usuris, Leyden, 1638, and for others mentioned, see Bohm-Bawerk,
pp. 34 et seq.; also Lecky, vol. ii. p. 256. For the saving clause
inderted by the bishops in the statute of James I, see the Corpus Juris
Eccles. Anglic., p. 1071; also Murray, History of Usury, Philadelphia,
1866, p. 49.

For Blaxton, see his English Usurer, or Usury Condemned, by John
Blaxton, Preacher of God's Word, London, 1634. Blaxton gives some of
Calvin's earlier utterances against interest. For Bishop Sands;s sermon,
see p. 11. For Filmer, see his Quaestio Quodlibetica, London, 1652,
reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany, vol x, pp. 105 et seq. For
Grotius, see the De Jure Belli ac Pacis, lib. ii, cap. xii. For Cotton
Mather's argument, see the Magnalia, London, 1702, pp. 5, 52.

B