[Footnote 2: _Der Kapitalismus fin de siècle_, p. 29.] [Footnote 3: _Das Recht auf den Arbeiterstrag_. See the Abbé Hohoff in _Démocratie Chrétienne_, Sept. 1898, p. 284.] No such conclusion, however, can be properly drawn from the mediæval teaching. The whole discussion on usury turned on the distinction which was drawn between things of which the use could be transferred without the ownership, and things of which the use could not be so transferred. In the former category were placed all things which could be used, either by way of enjoyment or employment for productive purposes, without being destroyed in the process; and in the latter all things of which the use or employment involved the destruction. With regard to income derived from the former, no difficulty was ever felt; a farm or a house might be let at a rent without any question, the return received being universally regarded as one of the legitimate fruits of the ownership of the thing. With regard to the latter, however, a difficulty did arise, because it was felt that a so-called loan of such goods was, when analysed, in reality a sale, and that therefore any increase which the goods produced was in reality the property, not of the lender, but of the borrower. That money was in all cases sterile was never suggested; on the contrary, it was admitted that it might produce a profit if wisely and prudently employed in industry or commerce; but it was felt that such an increase, when it took place, was the rightful property of the owner of the money. But when money was lent, the owner of this money was the borrower, and therefore, when money which was lent was employed in such a way as to produce a profit, that profit belonged to the borrower, not the lender. In this way the schoolmen were strictly logical; they fully admitted that wealth could produce wealth; but they insisted that that additional wealth should accrue to the owner of the wealth that produced it. The fact is, as Böhm-Bawerk has pointed out, that the question of the productivity of capital was never discussed by the mediæval schoolmen, for the simple reason that it was so obvious. The justice of receiving an income from an infungible thing which was temporarily lent by its owner, was discussed and supported; but the justice of the owner of such a thing receiving an income from the thing so long as it remained in his own possession was never discussed, because it was universally admitted.[1] It is perfectly correct to say that the problems which have perplexed modern writers as to the justice of receiving an unearned income from one's property never occurred to the scholastics; such problems can only arise when the institution of private property comes to be questioned; and private property was the keystone of the whole scholastic economic conception. In other words, the justice of a reward for capital was admitted because it was unquestioned. [Footnote 1: _Capital and Interest_, p. 39.]