humble plane,
although very modest, is sufficient to raise us to the contemplation of
one of the most consoling, but least understood, of the social
harmonies.

It is not true that we must choose between the denial or the
unlawfulness of leisure; thanks to rent and its natural duration,
leisure may arise from labor and saving. It is a pleasing prospect,
which every one may have in view; a noble recompense, to which each may
aspire. It makes its appearance in the world; it distributes itself
proportionably to the exercise of certain virtues; it opens all the
avenues to intelligence; it ennobles, it raises the morals; it
spiritualizes the soul of humanity, not only without laying any weight
on those of our brethren whose lot in life devotes them to severe labor,
but relieving them gradually from the heaviest and most repugnant part
of this labor. It is enough that capitals should be formed, accumulated,
multiplied; should be lent on conditions less and less burdensome; that
they should descend, penetrate into every social circle, and that, by an
admirable progression, after having liberated the lenders, they should
hasten the liberation of the borrowers themselves. For that end, the
laws and customs ought to be favorable to economy, the source of
capital. It is enough to say, that the first of all these conditions is,
not to alarm, to attack, to deny that which is the stimulus of saving
and the reason of its existence--interest.

As long as we see nothing passing from hand to hand, in the character of
loan, but _provisions_, _materials_, _instruments_, things indispensable
to the productiveness of labor itself, the ideas thus far exhibited will
not find many opponents. Who knows, even, that I may not be reproached
for having made great effort to burst what may be said to be an open
door. But as soon as _cash_ makes its appearance as the subject of the
transaction (and it is this which appears almost always), immediately a
crowd of objections are raised. Money, it will be said, will not
reproduce itself, like your _sack of corn_; it does not assist labor,
like your _plane_; it does not afford an immediate satisfaction, like
your _house_. It is incapable, by its nature, of producing interest, of
multiplying itself, and the remuneration it demands is a positive
extortion.

Who cannot see the sophistry of this? Who does not see that cash is
only a transient form, which men give at the time to other _values_, to
real objec