ge, being determined without an objective standard and merely
according to the play of human motives, determines what we call the
just and fair price.'[1] We have already demonstrated that the common
estimation referred to by the mediaeval doctors was something quite
apart from the modern higgling in the market; and that, far from
being merely the result of unbridled competition on both sides, it
was rather the considered judgment of the best-informed members of the
community. As we have seen, even Dr. Cunningham admits that there
was a fundamental difference between the common estimation of
the scholastics and the modern competitive price. This is clearly
demonstrated by Father Kelleher, who further establishes the
proposition that the modern price is purely subjective, and that no
subjective price can rest on an ethical basis. The question at issue
therefore between what we may call the subjective and objective
schools is not whether the sale price was determined by competition
in the modern sense, but whether the common estimation of those best
qualified to form an opinion on the subject in itself determined the
just price, or whether it was merely the most reliable evidence of
what the just price in fact was at a particular moment.

[Footnote 1: _Irish Theological Quarterly_, vol. ix. p. 41.]

Father Kelleher draws attention to the fact that Aquinas in his
article on price did not specifically affirm that the just price
was objective, but he explains this omission by saying that the
objectivity of the price was so well and universally understood that
it was unnecessary expressly to restate it. Indeed, as we saw above,
the teaching of Aquinas on price left a great deal to be supplied by
later writers, not because he was in any doubt about the subject, but
because the theory was so well understood. 'Not even in St. Thomas can
we find a formal discussion of the moral obligation of observing an
objective equivalence in contracts of buying and selling. He simply
took it for granted, as, indeed, was inevitable, seeing that, up to
his time and for long after, all Catholic thought and legislation
proceeded on that hypothesis. But that he actually did take it for
granted, he has given many clear indications in his article on Justice
which leave us no room for reasonable doubt.'[1] As Father Kelleher
very cogently points out, the discussion in Aquinas's article on
commerce, whether it was lawful to buy cheap and sell dear, v