Like the usurer, who lends on property, real or personal, the banker lends on business paper; like the usurer, he takes his interest in advance; like the usurer, he can recover from the borrower if the property is destroyed (that is, if the note is not redeemed),--a circumstance which makes him a money-lender, not a money-seller.

But the banker lends for a short time only, while the usurer's loan may be for one, two, three, or more years.

Now, a difference in the duration of the loan, or the form of the act, does not alter the nature of the transaction.

As for the capitalists who invest their money, either with the State or in commercial operations, at three, four, and five per cent.,--that is, who lend on usury at a little lower rate than the bankers and usurers,--they are the flower of society, the cream of honesty! Moderation in robbery is the height of virtue! [28] But what, then, is usury?
Nothing is more amusing than to see these INSTRUCTORS OF NATIONS hesitate between the authority of the Gospel, which, they say, NEVER CAN HAVE SPOKEN IN VAIN, and the authority of economical demonstrations.

Nothing, to my mind, is more creditable to the Gospel than this old infidelity of its pretended teachers.
Salmasius, having assimilated interest to rent, was REFUTED by Grotius, Pufendorf, Burlamaqui, Wolf, and Heineccius; and, what is more curious still, Salmasius ADMITTED HIS ERROR.