cit._, p. 55.]

[Footnote 3: _Quodlib_., i. 40.]

[Footnote 4: _Lib. Quat. Sent._, xv. 2.]

[Footnote 5: iv. 16, 4.]

[Footnote 6: See Jourdain, _op. cit._, p. 20 _et seq_.]

[Footnote 7: Quoted in Janssen, _op. cit._, vol. ii. p. 97.]

[Footnote 8: _Op. cit._, iv. 10.]

The later writers hi the fifteenth century seem to have regarded trade
more liberally even than Aquinas, although they quote his dictum on
the subject as the basis of their teaching. Instead of condemning all
commerce as wrong unless it was justified by good motives, they were
rather inclined to treat commerce as being in itself colourless, but
capable of becoming evil by bad motives. Carletus says: 'Commerce in
itself is neither bad nor illegal, but it may become bad on account
of the circumstances and the motive with which it is undertaken, the
persons who undertake it, or the manner in which it is conducted. For
instance, commerce undertaken through avarice or a desire for sloth is
bad; so also is commerce which is injurious to the republic, such as
engrossing.'[1]

[Footnote 1: _Summa Angelica_, 169: 'Mercatio non est mala ex genere,
sed bona, humano convictui necessaria dum fuerit justa. Mercatio
simpliciter non est peccatum sed ejus abusus.' Biel, _op. cit._, iv.
xv. 10.]

Endemann, having thoroughly studied all the fifteenth-century writers
on the subject, says that commerce might be rendered unjustifiable
either by subjective or objective reasons. Subjective illegality would
arise from the person trading--for instance, the clergy--or the motive
with which trade was undertaken; objective illegality on account of
the object traded in, such as weapons in war-time, or the bodies
of free men.[1] Speculative trading, and what we to-day call
profiteering, were forbidden in all circumstances.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 18.]

[Footnote 2: _The Ayenbite of Inwit_, a thirteenth-century confessor's
manual, lays it down that speculation is a kind of usury. (Rambaud,
_Histoire_, p. 56.)]

We need not dwell upon the prohibition of trading by the clergy,
because it was simply a rule of discipline which has not any bearing
upon general economic teaching, except in so far as it shows that
commerce was considered an occupation dangerous to virtue. Aquinas
puts it as follows: 'Clerics should abstain not only from things that
are evil in themselves, but even from those that have an appearance of
evil. This happens in trading, both becau