is against nature for money to beget money; and the like. I say this only, that usury is a concessum propter duritiem cordis:[1] 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[2] and commodities[3] 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, that it makes fewer merchants. For were it not for this lazy trade of usury, money would not lie still, but would in great part be employed upon merchandizing;[4] which is the vena porta[5] of wealth in a state.
- ↑ A concession on account of the hardness of heart [of men].
- ↑ Incommodities. Disadvantages.
- ↑ Commodities. Advantages.
- ↑ Merchandizing. Buying and selling, trading.
- ↑ Vena porta, or portae, or portarum, that is, the 'vein of the gate,' the gateway (of the liver). The portal vein is a short trunk which receives the blood from the viscera and carries it to the liver. The metaphor illustrates its importance to the physical economy.
Thomas Coryate saw in 1611. In the Ghetto, he says, "the Levantine Jewes, which are borne in Hierusalem, Alexandria, Constantinople, &c., weare Turbents upon their heads as the Turkes do; but the difference is this: the Turkes weare white, the Jewes yellow." In the synagogue of Venice, he goes on, "every one of them whatsoever he be, man or childe, weareth a kinde of light yellowish vaile, made of Linsie Woolsie (as I take it) over his shoulders, something worse than our courser Holland, which reacheth a little beneath the middle of their backes." Sir Walter Scott, describing the dress of the Jew, Isaac of York, says: "He wore a high, square yellow cap of a peculiar fashion, assigned to his nation to distinguish them from Christians, and which he doffed with great humility at the door of the hall." Ivanhoe. V.
