rtion the former are
enabled to enjoy the peace, the security, without which they could not
exist. The same holds good of those who have the charge of spiritual
matters....'[1] 'Because,' says Aquinas, 'many things are necessary to
human life, with which one man cannot provide himself, it is necessary
that different things should be done by different people; therefore
some are tillers of the soil, some are raisers of cattle, some are
builders, and so on; and, because human life does not simply mean
corporal things, but still more spiritual things, therefore it
is necessary that some people should be released from the care of
attending to temporal matters. This distribution of different offices
amongst different people is in accordance with Divine providence.'[2]

[Footnote 1: Langenstein, quoted in Janssen, _op. cit._, p. 95.]

[Footnote 2: _Summa Cont. Gent_., iii. 134.]

All forms of labour being therefore admitted to be honourable and
necessary, there was no difficulty felt about justifying their reward.
It was always common ground that services of all kinds were entitled
to be properly remunerated, and questions of difficulty only arose
when a claim was made for payment in a transaction where the element
of service was not apparent.[1] The different occupations in which men
were engaged were therefore ranked in a well-recognised hierarchy
of dignity according to the estimate to which they were held to
be entitled. The Aristotelean division of industry into _artes
possessivae_ and _artes pecuniativae_ was generally followed, the
former being ranked higher than the latter. 'The industries called
_possessivae_, which are immediately useful to the individual, to the
family, and to society, producing natural wealth, are also the most
natural as well as the most estimable. But all the others should not
be despised. The natural arts are the true economic arts, but the arts
which produce artificial riches are also estimable in so far as they
serve the true national economy; the commutation of the exchanges and
the _cambium_ being necessary to the general good, are good in so far
as they are subordinate to the end of true economy. One may say the
same thing about commerce. In order, then, to estimate the value of an
industrial art, one must examine its relation to the general good.'[2]
Even the _artes possessivae_ were not all considered equally worthy of
praise, but were ranked in a curious order of professional hierarchy