see the
Provincial Letters, edited by Sayres, Cambridge, 1880, Letter VIII, pp.
183-186; also a note to the same letter, p. 196. For Liguori, see
his Theologia Moralis, Paris, 1834, lib. iii, tract v, cap. iii: De
Contractibus, dub, vii. For the eighteenth century attack in Italy, see
Bohm-Bawerk, pp. 48 et seq. For Montesquieu's view of interest on loans,
see the Esprit des Lois, livre xxii.

By the middle of the eighteenth century the Church authorities at
Rome clearly saw the necessity of a concession: the world would endure
theological restriction no longer; a way of escape MUST be found. It was
seen, even by the most devoted theologians, that mere denunciations and
use of theological arguments or scriptural texts against the scientific
idea were futile.

To this feeling it was due that, even in the first years of the century,
the Jesuit casuists had come to the rescue. With exquisite subtlety some
of their acutest intellects devoted themselves to explaining away the
utterances on this subject of saints, fathers, doctors, popes, and
councils. These explanations were wonderfully ingenious, but many of the
older churchmen continued to insist upon the orthodox view, and at last
the Pope himself intervened. Fortunately for the world, the seat of
St. Peter was then occupied by Benedict XIV, certainly one of the most
gifted, morally and intellectually, in the whole line of Roman pontiffs.
Tolerant and sympathetic for the oppressed, he saw the necessity of
taking up the question, and he grappled with it effectually: he
rendered to Catholicism a service like that which Calvin had rendered
to Protestantism, by shrewdly cutting a way through the theological
barrier. In 1745 he issued his encyclical Vix pervenit, which declared
that the doctrine of the Church remained consistent with itself; that
usury is indeed a sin, and that it consists in demanding any amount
beyond the exact amount lent, but that there are occasions when on
special grounds the lender may obtain such additional sum.

What these "occasions" and "special grounds" might be, was left very
vague; but this action was sufficient.

At the same time no new restrictions upon books advocating the taking
of interest for money were imposed, and, in the year following his
encyclical, Benedict openly accepted the dedication of one of them--the
work of Maffei, and perhaps the most cogent of all.

Like the casuistry of Boscovich in using the Copernican theory for
"