ters: 'A tradesman is one
whose business consists in the exchange of things. According to the
philosopher, exchange of things is twofold; one natural, as it were,
and necessary, whereby one commodity is exchanged for another, or
money taken in exchange for a commodity in order to satisfy the needs
of life. Such trading, properly speaking, does not belong to traders,
but rather to housekeepers or civil servants, who have to provide the
household or the State with the necessaries of life. The other kind
of exchange is either that of money for money, or of any commodity for
money, not on account of the necessities of life, but for profit; and
this kind of trade, properly speaking, regards traders.' It is to
be remarked in this definition, that it is essential, to constitute
trade, that the exchange or sale should be for the sake of profit,
and this point is further emphasised in a later passage of the same
article: 'Not every one that sells at a higher price than he bought
is a trader, but only he who buys that he may sell at a profit. If,
on the contrary, he buys, not for sale, but for possession, and
afterwards for some reason wishes to sell, it is not a trade
transaction, even if he sell at a profit. For he may lawfully do this,
either because he has bettered the thing, or because the value of the
thing has changed with the change of place or time, or on account
of the danger he incurs in transferring the thing from one place to
another, or again in having it carried by hand. In this sense neither
buying nor selling is unjust.'[2] The importance of this definition
is that it rules out of the discussion all cases where the goods have
been in any way improved or rendered more valuable by the services
of the seller. Such improvement was always reckoned as the result of
labour of one kind or another, and therefore entitled to remuneration.
The essence of trade in the scholastic sense was selling the thing
unchanged at a higher price than that at which it had been bought, for
the sake of gain.[3]

[Footnote 1: _Tractatus de Origine, etc., Monetarum_.]

[Footnote 2: _Tractatus de Origine, etc., Monetarum_, ad. 2.]

[Footnote 3: 'Fit autem mercatio cum non ut emptor ea utatur sed ut
earn carius vendat etiam non mutatam suo artificio; illa mercatio
dicitur proprie negotiatio' (Biel, _op. cit._, IV. xv. 10.)]

The legitimacy of trade in this sense was only gradually admitted. The
Fathers of the Church had with one voice cond