The methods of economic acquisition are divided by Aristotle into two,one of which has for its aim the appropriation ofnatural products and their application to the material uses of the household;under this head come hunting,fishing,cattle-rearing,and agriculture.With this primary and "natural"method is,in some sense,contrasted the other to whichAristotle gives the name of "chrematistic,"in which an active exchange of products goes on,and money comes intooperation as its medium and regulator.A certain measure of this "non-natural "method,as it may be termed in opposition tothe preceding and simpler form of industrial life,is accepted by Aristotle as a necessary extension of the latter,arising out ofincreased activity of intercourse,and satisfying real wants.But its development on the great scale,founded on the thirst forenjoyment and the unlimited desire of gain,he condemns as unworthy and corrupting.Though his views on this subjectappear to be principally based on moral grounds,there are some indications of his having entertained the erroneous opinionheld by the physiocrats of the eighteenth century,that agriculture alone (with the kindred arts above joined with it)is trulyproductive,whilst the other kinds of industry,which either modify the products of nature or distribute them by way ofexchange,however convenient and useful they may be,make no addition to the wealth of the community.
He rightly regards money as altogether different from wealth,illustrating the difference by the story of Midas.And he seemsto have seen that money,though its use rests on a social convention,must be composed of a material possessing anindependent value of its own.That his views on capital were indistinct appears from his famous argument against interest onloans,which is based on the idea that money is barren and cannot produce money.
Like the other Greek social philosophers,Aristotle recommends to the care of Governments the preservation of a dueproportion between the extent of the civic territory and its population,and relies on ante-nuptial continence,late marriages,and the prevention or destruction of births for the due limitation of the number of citizens,the insufficiency of the latterbeing dangerous to the independence and its superabundance to the tranquillity and good order of the state.
THE ROMANS
Notwithstanding the eminently practical,realistic,and utilitarian character of the Romans,there was no energetic exercise oftheir powers in the economic field;they developed no large and many-sided system of production and exchange.Theirhistoric mission was military and political,and the national energies were mainly devoted to the public service at home andin the field.To agriculture,indeed,much attention was given from the earliest times,and on it was founded the existence ofthe hardy population which won the first steps in the march to universal dominion.But in the course of their history thecultivation of the soil by a native yeomanry gave place to the introduction,in great numbers,of slave labourers acquired bytheir foreign conquests;and for the small properties of the earlier period were substituted the vast estates --the latifundia --which,in the judgment of Pliny,were the ruin of Italy.(1)The industrial arts and commerce (the latter,at least when notconducted on a great scale)they regarded as ignoble pursuits,unworthy of free citizens;and this feeling of contempt wasnot merely a prejudice of narrow or uninstructed minds,but was shared by Cicero and others among the most liberal spiritsof the nation.(2)As might be expected from the want of speculative originality among the Romans,there is little evidence ofserious theoretic inquiry on economic subjects.Their ideas on these as on other social questions were for the most partborrowed from the Greek thinkers.Such traces of economic thought as do occur are to be found in (1)the philosophers,(2)the writers de re rustica ,and (3)the jurists.It must,however,be admitted that many of the passages in these authorsreferred to by those who assert the claim of the Romans to a more prominent place in the history of the science often containonly obvious truths or vague generalities.
