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Saint Thomas and Ourselves Author(s): Alfred O'Rahilly Source: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 67, No. 798 (Dec., 1939), pp. 805-813 Published by: Irish Jesuit Province Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20514628 . Accessed: 16/11/2013 07:36
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805
Saint
Thomas
and Ourselves*
By PROF. ALFRED O'RAHILLY. WI LEN I was a student, there was in vogue a way of teach ing science called " the heuristic method ". The idea was that you were to start with a blank mind and dis cover everything for yourself-as it were to recapitulate in your
investigate everything for themselves. We must accept a tremendous lot on faith without personal verification. The
trouble is that wve are inclined to take entirely too much for granted. We succumb to the prestige of fashionable opinions, we are victims of the propaganda and advertisements which sur round us, we unthinkingly absorb current jargon. One of the most difficult mental operations is to query the seemingly obvious, to find the fallacy in accepted platitudes, to react against that pervasive unformulated philosophy of the world into which we are born. Consider the pre-1914 mentality, that pre-war world of dominant words and ideas which the cynical young people of It was an era of progress and to-day can hardly visualise. and liberalism with an immense belief in human rationality Wells in his perfectibility-typified by H. G. youthful heyday. to be bringing Transport facilities were supposed peoples international together, narrow nationalism was dying; trade,
* A Radio-Talk
of Radio
"
") reproduced by
permission
Author.
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THE
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interest.
system called
democracy " was the final stage in the evolution of political organisation, a reversal of which was considered unthinkable. Having put out the lights of heaven and turned on the neon illumination of earth, men would never again indulge in religious or racial persecution. Such, in brief outline, was the creed of that brave old world. Now that it has collapsed, it reads like a caricature especially in these grim days. But those of us who were brought up in it absorbed a great deal more of it than we find it pleasant now to admit. It was the last world-war which set many of us thinking, for our house of cards came tumbling about our ears and we were brought face to face with stark realities.
Personally-apart
Catholic Faith-I was the victim of many of these up-to-date notions which were in the very air one breathed. had Having the misfortune to pass an examination I thought in economics, I was entitled to bestow a tolerant smile on ancients like Aristotle and medievals like Saint Thomas-who lived before Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill. But the war, with its social and economic consequences, was a staggering blow to our optimism. I began to see that I had been guilty of a false historical perspective, that I had been duped by principles erected on the very unsure founda tion of what was merely a short-lived epoch in human history, which, with the disappearance of certain ephemeral factors and accidental circumstances, was noxv coming to an end. And this led me back again to the great Scholastic thinkers in an attempt
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SAINT
THOMAS AND
OURSELVES
807
to disengage their permanent principles, coeval with human nature, from the external accidents of their particular time. All this sounds very vague; for it is difficult to be detailed
in a short talk. But I would like to try to convey to you some
that Aquinas is amusty old writer who was exclusively engaged in abstractmetaphysics and theology. I want to show you that
he was not only alive to the practical me problems of his own time
The
other way is through trade whereby the necessaries of life But it can be clearly are imported from different regions. is better. For a thing ismore shown that the first method excellent the more it is self-sufficient, since what depends on Now the State whose land another is obviously deficient. suffices for the necessaries of life ismore fully self-sufficient is dependent on trade with others. than the State which if it draws its supplies Hence the State is more excellent from its own land than if it gets them through importers. A.nd this method also appears to provide greater security, inasmuch as the transport of food may be prevented by war and thus the State might be and various vicissitudes,
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808
THE
Is it not rather astonishing-especially to one who has been rea-dingmodem economists-to find Thomas Aquinas boldly advocating a policy of national self-sufficiency? He does not indulge in all these complicated arguments so familiar to us from the free-trade controversy. He gets down to human funda
mentals. If we want an independent State, we must not be too
dependent on outsiders. Especially let us remember-how apposite is this remark written close on 600 years ago !-that transport of essentials may be prevented by war. So when I re-read Saint Thomas I began to think of home-grown wheat and beet-sugar and even of afforestation. What a respectable lineage some of our ideas have, in spite of the recently acquired authority of those who call themselves economists. And what a shock to anyone bred in the pseudo-world of internationalism!
Saint Thomas wisdom I myself gives some further arguments have become convinced. Here in favour of self iswhat he says:
Moreover
the way will be open to many vices. For, since the object of traders tends especially to profit, greed is induced in the in the country becomes citizens' hearts; so that everything
valued inmoney
without State cities. seeking
. . Finally, that
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SAINT
THOMAS AND
OURSELVES
809
its food supplies from its own land than that it should be altogether dependent on trade." From this it can be inferred that Saint Thomas is opposed to financialpenetration by foreigners, that he advocates independent home-producers, that he is against large urban centres. It is at first sight rather surprising to find the Saint somewhat lukewarm-to express itmildly-in defence of what we call busi
ness and trade. So let us turn to another work of his where he
of goods. But, as the Philosopher says, there are two kinds of exchange:
(1) The first kind is as-it-were natural and necessary,
namely, the exchange of goods for goods or of goods and money on account of the needs of life. Such exchange is properly the business not of traders but of householders
or statesmen who have to provide what in. household or State. is necessary for life
for is that of money (2) The second kind of exchange not on account of what is money or of goods for money, necessary for life but in pursuit of gain. And, according to this kind of exchange is properly the busi the Philosopher,
ness of traders.
Now the first kind of exchange is praiseworthy, for it
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though in its own nature it does not imply anything honour able or necessary, does not in its nature imply any thing vicious or contrary to virtue. So nothing prevents gain from being directed to a necessary or even honourable end, and thus trade will be made lawful. For example, when anyone directs the moderate gain he seeks in trade towards the support of his household or also towards helping those in want; or when anyone engages in trade on account of the public utility-i.e., so that the country may not lack what is necessary for life; and when he seeks gain not as if it were an end but only as a recompense for his labour." Summa Theologica, 2.2, q. 77, a. 4. This is a very illuminating quotation. According to Saint T'homas, just as the householder has to provide for the family, so the Government But trading has to provide for the community. for profit or gain he will admit to be lawful only when, profiteer ing being excluded, it is directed to the good of the community. T'he moderate gain thus accruing is to be regarded not as an end
in itself but only as stipendium labo7is, a recompense for useful service. It requires little reflection to realise how pregnant in practical consequences is this functional view of business enter
prise and profit. It is at the basis of the medieval ideas of private
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SAINT
THOMAS AND
OURSELVES
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to confound money with themetallic commodity inwhich it was then embodied. Saint Thomas distinguishes clearly between
what he calls the primary use of money as a means of quantita tively exchanging goods and services, and the secondary use of money, i.e., metal or coin, as a pledge, an ornament or so much
commodity. In his Commentary on Aristotle's Ethics he gives an example. Five beds, he says, are exchanged for one house. This could occur without any intervention of money. Suppose
the house is sold for ?200 and five beds are bought for
this amount. Then, according to Saint Thomas, the ?200 (qufa money) is not an intermediate commodity at all; it is merely
the means for effecting the barter of five beds for a house. In
munity. If this simple idea is grasped, one becomes immune from a lot of monetary nonsense, both orthodox and heterodox. St. T'homas himself drew practical conclusions from this view. For instance, the sterility or barrenness of money-an idea so unjustly derided by most economists since Bentham. But
if money as such is not a physical but only a moral entity-a It is only the right or a claim-the conclusion is self-evident. bounty of nature, aided by human industry, which is ultimately fruitful. Hence what we call " money "-i.e., making piling not a physical operation up claims on the industry of others-is so far from constituting real shoes. like, say, making And, wealth, money on the contrary is debt, i.e., claims on or sub
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812
a claimant. You
THE
IRISH MONTHLY
of this claim and
authorise its effectuation or exercise in the form of goods, of which you are the owner or co-owner. You must then accept the responsibility and risk and you co-operate in business enter prise. But, without other serious extrinsic grounds for recom
pense, you have no right to lend money in the sense of trans
ferring your claim to another to be owned and exercised by him -and then, in addition to the subsequent return of an equivalent claim, to demand to share in the results of thatworker's industry and enterprise. Such, in a nutshell, is Saint Thomas's view of usury. It is quite coherent with the already quoted view that
business-gains are justified only as the " stipend for labour ". Trhe whole idea of usury has been laughed out of court by
for oneself and discovers the solid moral and social arguments he adduces.
At least it was a great shock to me, forever shattering any traces of that smug up-to-date complacency which is so much I mention this not at all associated with academic economics. are of any because I think my own biographical reminiscences interest to my listeners, not even to explain why I appear so
Saint Thomas is to us an example of practical Christianity. I have tried to show you this on a few points selected almost at
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SAINT
THOMAS AND
OURSELVES
818
the workaday world around him. He did not confine his activities to puremental speculation or to pious exhortations. He boldly entered the arena of lay-life. He refused to shut up his message in the sacristy and the cloister. We want men of that spirit to-day. The world is crumbling
around us. As never before in our history we are up against bed
rock realities: provision for the essential needs of our people, the subordination of themonetary mechanism to the primary end of civil life, the necessity for securing the conformity of the indivi
dual's activities to the common good, our duty as a people to
proclaim the spiritual ideals for which we stand. These are problems which we canmeet, not if our creed is timorous, partial
and vague, disaster, establish but only if, in the spirit of Thomas Aquinas, we
to
to
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