With both these arguments he is, however, on purely mediæval ground. He pays but little regard to the new economic situation, though he has a keen eye for the abuses and the injustice which undoubtedly accompanied the new commerce. Instead, however, of confining his censure to these and pointing out how things might be improved, he prefers to take his stand on an already obsolete theory—one, nevertheless, which many shared with him—and condemn unconditionally all such commercial undertakings with the violence and lack of consideration usual in him.[236] In his remarks we often find interesting thoughts on the economic conditions; we see the remarkable range of his intellect and occasionally we may even wonder whence he had his vast store of information. It is also evident, however, that the other work with which he was overwhelmed did not leave him time to digest his matter. Often enough he is right when he stigmatises the excesses, but on the whole he goes much too far. As Frank G. Ward says: “Because he was incapable of passing a discriminating judgment on the abuses that existed he simply condemned all commerce off-hand.”[237] He was too fond of scenting evil usury everywhere. A contemporary of his, the merchant Bonaventura Furtenbach, of Nuremberg, having come across one of Luther’s writings on the subject, possibly his “Von Kauffshandlung,” remarked sarcastically: “Were I to try to write a commentary on the Gospel of Luke everyone would say, you are not qualified to do so. So it is with Luther when he treats of the interest on money; he has never studied such matters.”[238] A Hamburg merchant also made fun of Luther’s economics, and, as the Hamburg Superintendent Æpinus (Johann Hock) reported, quoted the instance of the Peripatetician Phormion, who gave Hannibal a scholastic lecture on the art of war, for which reason it is usual to dub him who tries to speak of things of which he knows nothing, a new Phormion.[239] In his “An den Adel” Luther had shown himself more reticent, though even here he inveighs against interest and trading companies, and says: “I am not conversant with figures, but I cannot understand how, with a hundred florins, it is possible to gain twenty annually.… I leave this to the worldly wise. I, as a theologian, have only to censure the appearance of evil concerning which St. Paul says [1 Thess. v. 22] ‘from all appearance of evil refrain!’ This I know very well,” he continues, speaking from the traditional standpoint, “that it would be much more godly to pay more attention to tilling the soil and less to trade.” Yet, even in this writing, he goes so far as to say: “It is indeed high time that a bit were put in the mouth of the Fuggers and such-like companies.”[240]