for it is mainly of the blue book type the outpourings of multitudes of pens, using rivers of ink, and ultimately cast into an ocean of print! This form of literature, although occasionally highly instructive and, indeed, indispensable, is peculiarly abhorrent to the average reader; and for this, if for no other reason, we owe a debt of gratitude for Mr. Stebbing's painstaking labours, during the past seven years, in collecting, arranging, sifting, summarising and commenting on this mass of information. Interwoven with the historical work is much personal knowledge of the trees dealt with, and of the peoples of India and their local needs. This monumental work is contained in three thick, but handy, volumes, covering 2000 pages and with some 200 excellent illustrations. The arrangement of the material is according to date. Volume I gives us an idea of the history of the forests of India, from the earliest times down to 1862, when the Government, at long last, fully realized the necessity of taking the forests in hand, in order to conserve the supply of timber, and to regulate exploitation for the good of the country. This phase is appropriately indicated by reprinting at the close of the volume two despatches exchanged between the Government of India and the Secretary of State, which led to the formation of a separate forestry department. The second volume deals with the development of the department between the years 1864 and 1900, and the last and largest summarizes the progress of forest conservancy and the development of research down to the present day, the period covered being from 1900 to 1925. Stebbing's work must be considered rather as a descriptive narrative than as a treatise on any particular form of scientific forestry. And one of its chief merits lies in the interesting way in which it is written. It thus appeals to the general reader, while the thorough manner in which the ground is covered makes it a very useful book of reference for the young forester, whether working in India or in any other tropical country. C. A. BARBER I. PROHIBITION AND USURY The Prohibition Situation. Published by the Department of Research and Education of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. New York. 1925. 2. Geschichte des Wuchers in Deutschland. Von M. NEUMANN. Halle. 1865. 3. An Introduction to English Economic History and Theory. By SIR WILLIAM ASHLEY. Vol. I. part ii. Longmans, Green. 1914. 4. Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. By R. H. TAWNEY. John Murray. 1926. 5. Prêt, Intérêt et Usure. By L. GARRIGUET, Supérieur du Grand Séminaire d'Avignon. Bloud & Cie. 1908. 6. Social Theories of the Middle Ages. By FR. BEDE JARRETT, O.P. Benn. 1926. 7. An Essay on Medieval 'Economic Teaching. By GEGrge O'Brien, 8. An Essay on the Economic Effects of the Reformation. IN By GEORGE N one of the great books of all literature, St. Augustine emphasised the painful yet notorious fact that prohibition too often increases the desire for the unlawful thing—auget enim prohibitio desiderium operis illiciti. St. Thomas Aquinas, with other medieval theologians, shows himself fully aware of this melancholy truth; magis enim concupiscimus quod nobis prohibetur.* Yet, while prohibition is as old as the Garden of Eden, and as new as the General Strike, there is perhaps no period in civilized history during which it flourished so strongly as during those ages which were most dominated by the teaching of Augustine and Aquinas. These may almost be called the classical ages of experiments in prohibition; and, while the Volstead Act of to-day is so hotly discussed, it may be interesting and profitable to regard it from that other angle, and to catch the sidelights reflected on this present-day experiment by similar experiments of the past. In such a retrospect, the mind reverts at once to the Jewish prohibition of pork, blood and other foods, and to the Mohammedan embargo on alcohol as well as pork. The orthodox Jew and Moslem still obey these rules. Among the followers of both religions, indulgence has only grown roughly in proportion as believers have become mingled with unbelievers, and religious *De Civ. Dei, XIII, 5; Sum. Theol. 1a, 2ae q. xcviii. art. I. laxity has set in. But in the Western Empire of the Middle Ages three taboos were enforced which have had a far more varied history, and are therefore more valuable for sociological study. Marriage was forbidden to all clerics in Holy Orders; it was discouraged even among the lower orders of clergy; and, though only one class of society was thus restricted, yet this class was so numerous and influential that the prohibition exercised enormous influence on the social life of the whole community. Secondly, all baptized persons were forbidden to believe otherwise than the hierarchy prescribed to them; for, though in theory the heretic was immune so long as his thoughts found no outward expression, yet it is scarcely conceivable that one man in a million could completely disguise his real beliefs for his whole life long. Thirdly, the practice of usury was forbidden. The first and second of these prohibitions, though in themselves they are most important, need not here detain us long. Most readers know the story in rough outline; and those who wish to learn it thoroughly need only turn to Dr. H. C. Lea's monumental volumes on "Sacerdotal Celibacy" and on "The Inquisition of the Middle Ages," which, written from a broad Quaker standpoint, earned the enthusiastic praise of a Roman Catholic like Lord Acton and an Anglican bishop like Creighton. Although, here and there, some of the most pertinent evidence has escaped even Lea's industry, yet these volumes give a very illuminating picture of the vicissitudes in these two great struggles, and of the extent to which both prohibitions have succeeded or failed. With regard to sacerdotal celibacy, though it was decreed by Pope Siricius in 385 A.D. as a divine and irrevocable law, to be kept on pain of degradation from priestly rank and functions, yet, nearly seven centuries later, so great a Pope as Gregory VII found it incomparably more difficult to enforce this simple decree than to bring an Emperor to public penance. Three consecutive archbishops of Rouen, about this time, had their wives or their concubines; and so pious and determined a primate as Anselm was unable effectively to maintain the law in England, where, as Paschal II complained, " there is so great an abundance of such (sinners) that almost the greater and the better portion of the clergy is reckoned to be of this sort " (Ep. 221). Though the efforts of Gregory VII and his successors did crush almost all open rebellion, yet pious churchmen in the later Middle Ages still doubted at times concerning a prohibition which was so often evaded, and which had created a widespread and pernicious system of bribery among higher or lower officials. One of the greatest of the Oxford Chancellors, Thomas Gascoigne, writing about 1450, asserted that the Bishop of St. David's reckoned these bribes for himself at 400 marks a year, or about £4,000 in modern purchasing power. A visitation of the Diocese of Lausanne, in 1416-17, specifies 79 concubinary clergy in 273 parishes, besides "many "others, whose names are not recorded.* Moreover, in modern life itself, where people in general have far more respect for the law, where the hierarchy holds the reins of discipline more strictly, and where the priesthood lives as a very small minority under critical scrutiny from thousands of outsiders, pious and orthodox clerics have given very strong reasons for doubting the wisdom of this age-long prohibition; and it would be very rash to assume that the "irrevocable" law of fifteen centuries ago will never be revoked. Even from the Vatican Council of 1870, a large party hoped for a frank discussion of this burning question.† This prohibition, then, may perhaps break down some day. Certainly that of the Inquisition has broken down already; true, the principles upon which it was based are still asserted (though with caution), and no orthodox writer dares explicitly to deny them. The late W. H. Mallock, drifting towards conversion to Roman Catholicism, pointed out that prohibition of free thought was still an essential principle in the Church to which he tended; that, with her, tolerance could only be a matter of opportunism; and that, if the world ever saw a purely Catholic State again, that State must needs refuse religious liberty to nonCatholics. But the third matter, that of usury, is even more enlightening as a struggle of authority against human nature; as a contest between rival ideals; and as a fight diversified by many changes of front, many vicissitudes, many alternations of success and failure. Theoretically, usury was condemned in the Middle *Gascoigne, "Loci e Libro Veritatum," p. 35. The Lausanne evidence I have analyzed in the postscript to my "Medieval Village." +Lea," Sac. Cel.," II, 328; this, the last chapter of the book, is of special interest in its evidence of modern misgivings on the subject. The Nineteenth Century. Jan., 1879. Ages, both by Church and by State; but what was the practice? How did this prohibition work? We are often told that, in those days, Church and State were merely one single society viewed from two different angles. This is a half-truth which we can never safely neglect, but which we must never treat as a full and final statement of the facts. Hopeless confusion is often brought into this department of history by writers who, on one side, attribute all that was good in the Middle Ages to "The Church," without further qualification; or, again, by their opponents who, with equal lack of discrimination, attribute medieval deficiencies to "The Church." They seldom let their readers know (and often they seem never to have decided for themselves) whether they use this word in the sense of the Hierarchy; or, again, of the Teaching Church (which would include both Hierarchy and University Thought); or, again, of the whole mass of the clergy; or, again, of the whole multitude of faithful, clergy and laity together. The story In the present case, clear distinction is even more important than in most others. That which now passes for the voice of the Church par excellence (i.e., papal pronouncement ex cathedra) has been silent all through this moral question which has vexed the Christian mind for nineteen centuries. Therefore even the clergy have been divided on important points; and the whole community has acted, century after century, after the fashion of the last five years in North America; men have kept the law, or evaded it, or openly broken it, in proportion to their different opportunities, or their stricter and laxer moral sense. was put into a nutshell by a contemporary of Chaucer, the Bolognese Professor, Benvenuto da Imola, who was one of the earliest lecturers upon Dante. Where the poet shows the souls of myriads of usurers writhing under a pitiless hail of infernal fire, the commentator writes: "Every man in this world liveth by the falsehood of his trade . . . he who practiseth usury goeth to hell, and he who practiseth it not treadeth on the brink of beggary "—qui facit usuram vadit ad infernum, et qui non facit vergit ad inopiam.* Commentum," ed. Lacaita; Vol. I, p. 579. Petrus Cantor, one of the greatest Parisian theologians of the twelfth century, had already complained that " in our days there are few who are not either usurers or beggars, except those who enjoy definite salaries." (Migne, P.L., vol. 205, col. 263.) |