have said before, man did not exist
for the sake of production, but production for the sake of man; and
wise consumption was regarded as at least as important as extended
production. The high estimation in which wealth was held resulted in
the elaboration of a highly developed code of regulation as to the
manner in which it should be enjoyed. We do not wish to weary
the reader with a repetition of that which we have already fully
discussed; it is enough to call attention to the fact that the golden
mean of conduct was the observance of liberality, as distinguished,
on the one hand, from avarice, or a too high estimation of material
goods, and, on the other hand, from prodigality, or an undue disregard
for their value. Social virtue consisted in attaching to wealth its
proper value.

Far more important than its teaching either on production or
consumption was the teaching of the mediaeval Church on distribution,
which it insisted must be regulated on a basis of strict justice.
It is in this department of economic study that the teaching of the
mediaevals appears in most marked contrast to the teaching of the
present day, and it is therefore in this department that the study of
its doctrines is most valuable. As we said above, the modern world has
become convinced by bitter experience of the impracticability of mere
selfishness as the governing factor in distribution; and the economic
thought of the time is concentrated upon devising some new system
of society which shall be ruled by justice. On the one hand, we see
socialists of various schools attempting to construct a Utopia
in which each man shall be rewarded, not in accordance with his
opportunities of growing rich at the expense of his fellow-man, but
according to the services he performs; while, on the other hand,
we find the Christian economists striving to induce a harassed and
bewildered world to revert to an older and nobler social ethic.

It is no part of our present purpose to estimate the relative merits
of these two solutions for our admittedly diseased society. Nor is it
our purpose to attempt to demonstrate how far the system of economic
teaching which we have sketched in the foregoing pages is applicable
at the present day. We must, however, in this connection draw
attention to one important consideration, namely, that the mediaeval
economic teaching was expressly designed to influence the only
constant element in human society at every stage of econom