e remembered that the
terms used by the Scholastics do not really solve the problem. They
suggest standards, but do not define them, give names, but cannot tell
us their precise meaning.

Should we say, then, that in this way they had failed? It is not in
place in a book of this kind to sit in judgment on the various theories
quoted, and test them to see how far they hold good, or to what extent
they should be disregarded, for it is the bare recital of mere historic
views which can be here considered. The object has been simply to tell
what systems were thought out and held, without attempting to apprize
them or measure their value, or point out how far they are applicable to
modern times. But in this affair of almsdeeds it is perhaps well to note
that the Scholastics could make this much defence of their vagueness. In
cases of this kind, they might say, we are face to face with human
nature, not as an abstract thing, but in its concrete personal
existence. The circumstances must therefore differ in each single
instance. General laws can be laid down, but only on the distinct
understanding that they are mere principles of direction--in other
words, that they are nothing more than general laws. The Scholastics,
the mediaeval writers of every school, except a few of that Manichean
brood of sects, admitted the necessity of almsgiving. They looked on it
from a moral point of view as a high virtue, and from an economic
standpoint as a correlative to their individualistic ideas on private
property. The one without the other would be unjust. Alone, they would
be unworkable; together, mutually independent, they would make the State
a fair and perfect thing.

But to fix the exact proportion between the two terms, they held to be
the duty of the individual in each case that came to his notice. To give
out of a man's superfluities to the needy was, they held, undoubtedly a
bounden duty. But they could make no attempt to apprize in definite
language what in the receiver was meant by need, and in the giver by
superfluity. They made no pretence to do this, and thereby showed their
wisdom, for obviously the thing cannot be done. Yet we must note, last
of all, that they drew up a list of principles which shall here be set
down, because they sum up in a few sentences the wit of mediaeval
economists, their spirit of orderly arrangement, and their unanimous
opinion on man's moral obligations.

(I) A man is obliged to help anothe