ce." Again Liguori tells us, "It is not usury to
exact something in return for the danger and expense of regaining
the principal." The old subterfuges of "Damnum emergens" and "Lucrum
cessans" are made to do full duty. A remarkable quibble is found in the
answer to the question whether he sins who furnishes money to a man
whom he knows to intend employing it in usury. After citing affirmative
opinions from many writers, Liguori says, "Notwithstanding these
opinions, the better opinion seems to me to be that the man thus putting
out his money is not bound to make restitution, for his action is not
injurious to the borrower, but rather favourable to him," and this
reasoning the saint develops at great length.

In the Latin countries this sort of casuistry eased the relations of
the Church with the bankers, and it was full time; for now there came
arguments of a different kind. The eighteenth century philosophy
had come upon the stage, and the first effective onset of political
scientists against the theological opposition in southern Europe was
made in Italy--the most noted leaders in the attack being Galiani and
Maffei. Here and there feeble efforts were made to meet them, but it was
felt more and more by thinking churchmen that entirely different tactics
must be adopted.

About the same time came an attack in France, and though its results
were less immediate at home, they were much more effective abroad. In
1748 appeared Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws. In this famous book were
concentrated twenty years of study and thought by a great thinker on
the interests of the world about him. In eighteen months it went through
twenty-two editions; it was translated into every civilized language;
and among the things on which Montesquieu brought his wit and wisdom
to bear with especial force was the doctrine of the Church regarding
interest on loans. In doing this he was obliged to use a caution in
forms which seems strangely at variance with the boldness of his ideas.
In view of the strictness of ecclesiastical control in France, he felt
it safest to make his whole attack upon those theological and economic
follies of Mohammedan countries which were similar to those which the
theological spirit had fastened on France.(456)

(456) For Vilagut, see his Tractatus de Usuris, Venice, 1589, especially
pp. 21, 25, 399. For Leotardi, see his De Usuris, Venice, 1655,
especially preface, pp. 6, 7 et seq. For Pascal and Escobar,