t uncertainties" usury is sure to
win. It will be noticed also that he mentions only economic arguments
against usury. He does not give ethical and moral reasons. He does not
mention the want of sympathy for the poor and their oppression.

In his statement of the arguments in defence he implies that the
usurer is less grasping than the man he knew who said "The devil take
this usury."

This is the very opposite of the picture of the usurer given by his
contemporary, Shakespeare, in his character, Shylock.

His specious argument for the regulation of the evil "For some small
matter for the license" is familiar to modern reformers in connection
with other sins. He speaks of the reduction of the usury rates as a
general good and believes "It will no whit discourage the lender."
Wrong-doers in all the ages have been ready to part with a portion of
the profits of an unlawful business for the cover of the authority of
the state.

The following is his discussion in full

OF USURY.

"Many have made witty invectives against usury. They say that it is a
pity the devil should have God's part, which is the tithe. That the
usurer is the greatest Sabbath breaker, because his plough goeth every
Sunday. That the usurer is the drone that Virgil speaketh of:

"_Ignavum fucos pecus a praesepibus arcent._

"That the usurer breaketh the first law that was made for mankind
after the fall, which was, _in sudore vultus tui comedes panem tuum;
non in sudore vultus alieni_; (in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat
bread--not in the sweat of another's face.) That usurers should have
orange-tawney bonnets, because they do Judaize. That it is against
nature for money to beget money; and the like. I say only this, that
usury is a _concessum propter duritiem cordis_; (a thing allowed by
reason of the hardness of men's hearts): for since there must be
borrowing and lending, and men are so hard of heart as they will not
lend freely, usury must be permitted. Some others have made suspicious
and cunning propositions of banks, discovery of men's estates and
other inventions. But few have spoken of usury usefully. It is good to
set before us the incommodities and the commodities of usury, that the
good may be either weighed out or culled out; and warily to provide,
that while we make forth to that which is better, we meet not with
that which is worse.

"The discommodities of usury are, first, it makes fewer merchants. For
were it not for this