Volume - The Clarence Darrow Collection

282
FROM LEVITICUS TO POLITICAL ECONOMY.
those theological and economic follies of Mohammedan coun-
tries which were similar to those which the theological spirit
had fastened on France.*
By the middle of the eighteenth century the Church au-
thorities at Rome clearly saw the necessity of a concession :
the world would endure theological restriction no longer ;
way of escape must be found. It was seen, even by the mosi
devoted theologians, that mere denunciations and use of the
logical arguments or scriptural texts against the scientifi
idea were futile.
To this feeling it was due that, even in the first years o;
the century, the Jesuit casuists had come to the rescue..
With exquisite subtlety some of their acutest intellects devoted
themselves to explaining away the utterances on this
subject of saints, fathers, doctors, popes, and councils. These
explanations were wonderfully ingenious, but many of thj
older churchmen continued to insist upon the orthodox view,
and at last the Pope himself intervened. Fortunately for the
world, the seat of St. Peter was then occupied by Benedict
XIV, certainly one of the most gifted, morally and intel*
lectually, in the whole line of Roman pontiffs. Tolerant am
sympathetic for the oppressed, he saw the LCI*
I
indJ
necessity of t
ing up the question, and he grappled with it effectually
rendered to Catholicism a service like that which Calvi
had rendered to Protestantism, by shrewdly cutting a w;
through the theological barrier. In 1745 he issued his e
cyclical Vix pcrvcnit, which declared that the doctrine ol
the Church remained consistent with itself ;
a
that usury is iii|
deed a sin, and that it consists in demanding any amount bcyont^
the exact amount lent, but that there are occasions when oil
special grounds the lender may obtain such additional sum.
What these " occasions " and *'
special grounds " mi
but this action was sufficient
be, was left very vague ;
For Vilagut, see his Tractatus de Usuris, Venice, 1589, especially pp. 21,
399. For Leotardi, see his Df Usuris, Venice, 1655, especially preface, pp. 6, *
et seq. For Pascal and Escobar, see the Provincial Letters, edited by Say res
Cambridge, 1880, Letter VIII, pp. 183-186 ; also a note to same letter, p. Ig6. Fo
Liguori, see his Theologia Moralis, Paris, 1834, lib. iii, tract v, cap.
tractihus, dub. vii. For the eighteenth century attack in Italy, see Bohm-Bawerk
pp. 48 et seq. For Montesquieu's view of interest on loans, see the Esprit des Jmi
livre xxii.
3
iii : De Con