ustinian; nor can
a remembrance of the manner in which English law is administered in
Ireland in times of excitement, blind us to the political lessons to
be learned from an examination of the British constitution.

[Footnote 1: The many devices which were resorted to in order to evade
the prohibition of usury are explained in Dr. Cunningham's _Growth
of English Industry and Commerce_, vol. i. p. 255. See also Delisle,
_L'Administration financiere des Templiers_, Academie des Inscriptions
et Belles-Lettres, 1889, vol. xxxiii. pt. ii., and Ashley, _Economic
History_, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 426. The _Summa Pastoralis_ of Raymond de
Pennafort analyses and demolishes many of the commoner devices which
were employed to evade the usury laws. On the part played by the Jews,
see Brants, _op. cit._, Appendix I.]

[Footnote 2: _Die Nationaloekonomischen Grundsaetze der canonistischen
Lehre_, p. 192.]

[Footnote 3: _History of the German People_ (Eng. trans.), vol. ii. p.
99.]

SECTION 3.--VALUE OF THE STUDY OF THE SUBJECT

The question may be asked whether the study of a system of economic
teaching, which, even if it ever did receive anything approaching
universal assent, has long since ceased to do so, is not a waste of
labour. We can answer that question in the negative, for two reasons.
In the first place, as we said above, a proper understanding of
the earlier periods of the development of a body of knowledge is
indispensable for a full appreciation of the later. Even if the
canonist system were not worth studying for its own sake, it would
be deserving of attention on account of the light it throws on the
development of later economic doctrine. 'However the canonist theory
may contrast with or resemble modern economics, it is too important
a part of the history of human thought to be disregarded,' says Sir
William Ashley. 'As we cannot fully understand the work of Adam Smith
without giving some attention to the physiocrats, nor the physiocrats
without looking at the mercantilists: so the beginnings of mercantile
theory are hardly intelligible without a knowledge of the canonist
doctrine towards which that theory stands in the relation partly of a
continuation, partly of a protest.'[1]

[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 381.]

But we venture to assert that the study of canonist economics, far
from being useful simply as an introduction to later theories, is of
great value in furnishing us with assistance