histofthought1

Protestants and Catholics 143himself, cannot please God'. Particularly influential was the early seventeenthcentury Cambridge University academic, the Rev. William Perkins,who did much to translate Calvinist theology into English practice. Perkinsdenounced four groups of men who had 'no particular calling to walk in':beggars and vagabonds; monks and friars; gentlemen who 'spend their daysin eating and drinking'; and servants, who allegedly spent their time waiting.All these were dangerous because unsettled and undisciplined. Particularlydangerous were wanderers, who 'avoided the authority of all'. Furthermore,believed Perkins, the 'lazy multitude was always inclined ... to popish opinions,always more ready to play than to work; its members would not findtheir way to heaven'.8In contrast to the Calvinist glorification of labour, the Aristotelian-Thomisttradition was quite different:Instead of work, moderate pleasure-seeking and happiness form the center ofeconomic actions, according to Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophy. A certainbalanced hedonism is an integrated part of the Aristotelian theory of the good life.If pleasure in a moderate form is the purpose of economics, then following theAristotelian concept of the final cause, all principles of economics includingvaluation must be derived from this goal. In this pattern of Aristotelian andThomistic thinking, valuation has the function of showing how much pleasure canbe derived from economic goodsYHence, Great Britain, heavily influenced by Calvinist thought and culture,and its glorification of the mere exertion of labour, came to develop a labourtheory of value, while France and Italy, still influenced by Aristotelian andThomist concepts, continued the scholastic emphasis on the consumer andhis subjective valuation as the source of economic value. While there is noway to prove this hypothesis conclusively, the Kauder insight has great valuein explaining the comparative development of economic thought in Britainand in the Catholic countries of Europe after the sixteenth century.5.4 Calvinists on usuryPerhaps because he was considered the greatest French jurist of the midsixteenthcentury, the merit ofthe contributions ofCharles Du Moulin (latinizedname, Carolus Molinaeus) (1500-66), has been highly inflated, in his and inlater times. A Catholic who later converted to Calvinism and was then forcedto leave for Germany, Du Moulin had nothing but contempt for scholasticism,which he attacked vehemently in his highly publicized work, TheTreatise on Contracts and Usury (Paris, 1546). Whereas Molinaeus officiallydenounced the prohibition of usury, in actuality his views were little differentfrom those of the contemporary scholastics or indeed ofCalvin. While clearlydenouncing the view that money is sterile and demonstrating that it is as