It is interesting to notice how closely the rules applying in the case of sales were applied to usury.  The raising of the price of a loan on account of some special benefit derived from it by the borrower is precisely analogous to raising the sale price of an object because it is of some special individual utility to the buyer.  On the other hand, as we shall see further down, any special damage suffered by the lender was a sufficient reason for exacting something over and above the amount lent; this was precisely the rule that applied in the case of sales, when the seller suffered any special damage from parting with the object sold.  Thus the analogy between sales and loans was complete at every point.  In both, equality of sacrifice was the test of justice.

Nor could it be suggested that the delay in the repayment of the loan was a reason for increasing the amount to be repaid, because this really amounted to a sale of time, which, of its nature, could not be owned.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Rambaud, op. cit., p. 63; Aquinas(?), De Usuris, i. 4.]

The scholastic teaching, then, on the subject was quite plain and unambiguous.  Usury, or the payment of a price for the use of a sum lent in addition to the repayment of the sum itself, was in all cases prohibited.  The fact that the payment demanded was moderate was irrelevant; there could be no question of the reasonableness of the amount of an essentially unjust payment.[1] Nor was the payment of usury rendered just because the loan was for a productive purpose—­in other words, a commercial loan.  Certain writers have maintained that in this case usury was tolerated;[2] but they can easily be refuted.  As we have seen above, mutuum was essentially a sale, and, therefore, no additional price could be charged because of some special individual advantage enjoyed by the buyer (or borrower).  It was quite impossible to distinguish, according to the scholastic teaching, between taking an additional payment because the lender made a profit by using the loan wisely, and taking it because the borrower was in great distress, and therefore derived a greater advantage from the loan than a person in easier circumstances.  The erroneous notion that loans for productive purposes were entitled to any special treatment was finally dispelled in 1745 by an encyclical of Benedict XIV.[3]

[Footnote 1:  Jourdain, op. cit., p. 35.]

[Footnote 2:  E.g. Perin, Premiers Principes d’Economie politique, p. 305; Claudio Jannet, Capital Speculation et Finance, p. 83; De Metz-Noblat, Lois economiques, p. 293.]

[Footnote 3:  Rambaud, op. cit., p. 69.]

Sec. 5. Extrinsic Titles.