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Contents
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xiii
PART I
Pre-Classical Thought 1
Introduction 1
Aristotle (384–322 BC) 4
Politics 6
Nichomachean Ethics (350 BC) 16
St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) 18
Summa Theologica (1267–1273) 21
Thomas Mun (1571–1641) 35
England’s Treasure by Forraign Trade (1664) 37
William Petty (1623–1687) 51
A Treatise of Taxes and Contributions (1662) 53
John Locke (1632–1704) 64
Of Civil Government (1690) 66
Some Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest,
and Raising the Value of Money (1691) 70
Richard Cantillon (1680?–1734) 86
Essay on the Nature of Commerce in General (1755) 88
François Quesnay (1694–1774) 106
Tableau Économique (1758) 108
Anne Robert Jacques Turgot (1727–1781) 114
Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth (1770) 116
Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733) 131
The Grumbling Hive: Or, Knaves Turn’d Honest (1705) 132
viii Contents
PART II
The Classical School 143
Introduction 143
David Hume (1711–1776) 146
Political Discourses (1752): “Of Money” 148
“Of Interest” 153
“Of the Balance of Trade” 159
Adam Smith (1723–1790) 168
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) 171
Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) 197
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789) 200
A Manual of Political Economy (1795) 203
Anarchical Fallacies (1795) 205
Principles of the Civil Code (1802) 209
Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) 210
An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) 213
Henry Thornton (1760–1815) 226
An Enquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Paper Credit of
Great Britain (1802) 228
David Ricardo (1772–1823) 242
The High Price of Bullion (1810) 244
Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832) 253
A Treatise on Political Economy (1803) 256
David Ricardo (1772–1823) 265
On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817) 268
Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) 302
Principles of Political Economy (1820) 304
James Mill (1773–1836) 324
Elements of Political Economy (1821) 325
Nassau W. Senior (1790–1864) 330
An Outline of the Science of Political Economy (1836) 332
John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) 348
Principles of Political Economy (1848) 351
Contents ix
PART III
The Marxian Challenge 387
Introduction 387
Karl Marx (1818–1883) 394
A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859) 394
Das Kapital (1867) 397
PART IV
The Marginal Revolution 429
Introduction 429
William Stanley Jevons (1835–1882) 432
The Theory of Political Economy (1871) 434
Carl Menger (1840–1921) 463
Principles of Economics (1871) 465
Léon Walras (1834–1910) 483
Elements of Pure Economics (1874) 485
Francis Ysidro Edgeworth (1845–1926) 500
Mathematical Psychics (1881) 502
Alfred Marshall (1842–1924) 526
Principles of Economics (1890) 529
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk (1851–1914) 548
The Positive Theory of Capital (1888) 550
PART V
The Development of Macroeconomics 581
Introduction 581
Knut Wicksell (1851–1926) 583
“The Influence of the Rate of Interest on Prices” (1907) 585
Irving Fisher (1867–1947) 590
The Purchasing Power of Money and Its Determination and Relation to
Credit Interest and Crises (1911) 592
John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) 618
“The End of Laissez-Faire” (1926) 622
“The General Theory of Employment” (1937) 626
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936) 634
x Contents
PART VI
Institutional Economics 641
Introduction 641
Thorstein B. Veblen (1857–1929) 643
The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) 645
John R. Commons (1862–1945) 681
“Institutional Economics” (1931) 683
PART VII
Post-World War II Economics 691
Introduction 691
Milton Friedman (1912–2006) 693
“The Methodology of Positive Economics” (1953) 695
Paul A. Samuelson (1915–2009) 711
“The Pure Theory of Public Expenditure” (1954) 714
“Diagrammatic Exposition of a Theory of Public Expenditure” (1955) 718
A.W. Phillips (1914–1975) 728
“The Relation Between Unemployment and the Rate of Change of Money
Wage Rates in the United Kingdom, 1861–1957” (1958) 730
Milton Friedman (1912–2006) 745
“The Role of Monetary Policy” (1968) 747
Index 759
Preface
Nearly a decade has passed since the publication of the first edition of this Reader, a period
that has witnessed the most significant economic downturn since the Great Depression. Some
of the responsibility for this recession has been laid at the feet of the economics profession,
justifiably or not, and one of the byproducts of this criticism and, in some instances, self-
examination, has been a renewed interest in the history of economic ideas.
The following pages contain some of the great literature in this history. The task of putting
together a Reader such as this is like confronting an endless smorgasbord of delights when
on a highly restrictive diet—so many good things to sample and so little room to actually
indulge. It should be obvious that reading the selections contained herein is no substitute for
reading the original works in their entirety. However, we hope that the reader will find our
selections sufficient to provide a useful overview of some of the major themes in the history
of economic thought as they were developed in the hands of the giants in the field.
No “Reader” can pretend to be comprehensive in its coverage. The scholars chosen for
inclusion, and the passages excerpted from their works, will no doubt please some greatly
and disappoint others. For the latter, we apologize. In putting together this Reader, we have
relied on a broad survey of course reading lists in the field, conversations with various col-
leagues, and our own instincts and intuition regarding topics usually covered in history of
economic thought courses. We have tried both to present the central ideas of each epoch
within economic thought and to avoid overlap across writers. In doing so, we have also paid
attention to the fact that certain of these classic works (e.g., Adam Smith’s The Wealth of
Nations) are readily available in inexpensive paperback editions should the reader wish to
examine them further. Thus, the length of the excepts from, for example, Smith and Keynes
reprinted here are perhaps rather more brief than what their stature in the history of economic
ideas would suggest. We have also endeavored to provide sufficient introductory material1
for each part and each entry to provide a bit of background and plenty of suggestions for
additional reading.
The second edition of this Reader has benefited from the helpful comments on the first
edition made by a variety of professors who have utilized the book and by several reviewers
engaged by the publisher. This edition largely replicates the coverage of the first edition, but
it adds a new part on “Post-World War II Economics” that attempts to provide some insight
into how the profession changed during the 1950s and 1960s and updates the suggestions
for further reading to reflect important developments in various literatures. The addition of
1 We would like to acknowledge the fact that we have drawn heavily on Mark Blaug’s Great Economists Before
Keynes for the biographical information contained in these introductory materials.
xii Preface
material on the post-World War II period poses a special challenge, given the explosion of
literature during this time and the vast expansion of the tools and frameworks utilized by
economists, as well as the domain of economic analysis. We have tried to be sensitive to the
fact that the majority of the audience for this book consists of undergraduate students and so
have selected a set of seminal works that minimize the use of mathematics.
We realize full well that there are many ways of doing history, and many ways of teaching
the history of economic thought. We have tried to be sensitive to this in the preparation of
this volume, and we are hopeful that all readers/students/scholars with interest in the history
of economic ideas will find useful things to take from this volume.
While we anticipate that the primary market for this book will be students in history of
economic thought courses, some of you may be reading this book simply because you have
an interest in the history of ideas—economic or otherwise. For those who are new to the
history of economic thought and wish to supplement your reading with secondary analysis,
we refer you to Roger Backhouse’s The Ordinary Business of Life (The Penguin History of
Economics in the UK), Robert Heilbroner’s The Worldly Philosophers, or the excellent text-
books in the field by Mark Blaug, Robert Ekelund and Robert Hébert, Harry Landreth and
David Colander, Henry Spiegel, Alessandro Roncaglia, and Ingrid Rima—each of which to
some extent embodies its own perspective on the history of the field. If you would like to “sit
a course of lectures” in the field from your easy chair, you may consult Lionel Robbins’s A
History of Economic Thought: The LSE Lectures. The website for Duke University’s Center
for the History of Political Economy (http://hope.econ.duke.edu/) can put the reader in touch
with a wealth of additional resources related to the study of the history of economics.
My wonderful co-editor, mentor, and friend, Warren J. Samuels, passed away while this book
was in the revision process. He was a giant in the field of the history of economics, and as
much for his dedication to the development of the field and his encouragement of the work
of young scholars as for his own voluminous scholarly contributions. While his presence
among us is sorely missed, this volume is testament to the insights and pleasures that accom-
pany his passion—the study of the history of economic ideas.
S.G.M.
Acknowledgments
We are once again indebted to the excellent staff at Routledge—and particularly Rob
Langham, Simon Holt, and Emily Senior—for their efforts in seeing this revision through
to completion. We would also like to thank all those who gave us advice along the way,
including Roger Backhouse, Bill Barber, and several anonymous reviewers, as well as
Matt Powers, who provided invaluable research assistance, and Rodney Spencer and Brian
Duncan for technical assistance. Finally, we would like to thank the various publishers who
have graciously allowed us to reprint the works included in this volume.
The authors and publishers would like to thank the following for granting permission to
reproduce material in this work.
The National Portrait Gallery, London for permission to reproduce images of Sir William
Petty, John Locke, Jeremy Bentham, Henry Thornton, Francis Ysidro Edgeworth, Alfred
Marshall, and John Maynard Keynes.
Corbis for permission to reproduce images of Aristotle and Plato, St. Thomas Aquinas,
and Thorstein B. Veblen.
Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library for permission to reproduce the
image of Irving Fisher.
Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders for their permission to reprint mate-
rial in this book. The publishers would be grateful to hear from any copyright holder who
is not here acknowledged and will undertake to rectify any errors or omissions in future
editions of this book.
Thank you to MIT Press for permission to reproduce Paul A. Samuelson’s articles ‘The Pure
Theory of Public Expenditure’, The Review of Economics and Statistics, 36:4 (November,
1954), pp. 387–389 and ‘Diagrammatic Exposition of a Pure Theory of Public Expenditure’,
The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Nov., 1955), pp. 350–356.
Thank you to John Wiley & Sons for permission to reproduce A.W.H. Phillips’ article
‘The Relation Between Unemployment and the Rate of Change of Money Wage Rates in the
United Kingdom, 1861–1957’, Economica, New Series, 25 (Nov., 1958): 283–99.
Thank you to the American Economic Association for permission to reproduce Milton
Friedman’s article ‘The Role of Monetary Policy’, American Economic Review, Vol. 58,
No. 1 (Mar., 1968), pp. 1–17.
Thank you to the University of Chicago Press for permission to reproduce
Milton Friedman’s article (The Methodology of Positive Economics in Essays in Positive
Economics 1953).
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Part I
Pre-Classical Thought
Introduction
It is a widely held, and probably substantially correct, view that the emergence and devel-
opment of modern economic thought was correlative with the emergence of a commercial,
eventually industrial, capitalist market economy. It is this economic system, especially as
it arose in Western Europe in the eighteenth century, that economics attempts to describe,
interpret, and explain, as well as to justify. This economic thought was both positive and nor-
mative, that is, it combined efforts to objectively describe and explain with those to justify
and/or to prescribe (such as policy). As a positive, scientific discipline, it combined two modes
of thought: (1) empirical observation, dependent upon some more or less implicit theoreti-
cal or interpretive schema, and (2) logical analysis of the relationships between variables,
dependent upon some more or less conscious generalization of interpreted observations.
Prior to this time, speaking generally, there were markets and market relationships but not
market economies as the latter came to be understood after roughly the eighteenth century.
While modern economic theory did not exist, thinkers of various types did speculate about
a set of more or less clearly identified “economic” topics, such as trade, value, money, pro-
duction, and so on. These speculations are found in documents emanating from the ancient
civilizations, such as Sumeria, Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt, Persia, Israel, and the Hittite
empire. Some of these documents are literary or historical; others are legal; still others arose
out of business and family matters; and others involved speculation about current and/or
perennial events and problems. It is clear that economic activity, especially that having to do
with trade, both local and between distant lands, was engaged in by households and special-
ized enterprises, and gave rise to various forms of economic “analysis.”
These documents seem not to have contained anything like what we now recognize as
theoretical or empirical economics. But they do indicate several important concerns, center-
ing on the general problem of the organization and control of economic activity: problems
of class and of hierarchy versus equality, problems of continuity versus change of existing
arrangements, problems of reconciling interpersonal conflicts of interest, problems of the
nature and place of the institution of private property in the social structure, problems of
the distributions of income and taxes, and so on, all interrelated. Much of the speculation
related to current issues rather than to abstract generalizations, but the latter are not absent.
Early economic thought had two other characteristics: One was the mythopoeic nature
of description and explanation: explication through the creation of stories involving either
the gods or, eventually, God, or an anthropomorphic characterization of nature as involving
spirits and transcendental forces. The other was the subordination of economic thinking to
theology and organized religion and, especially, the superimposition of a system of morals
2 Pre-Classical Thought
upon economic (and other forms of) activity. The former remains in the form of the concept
of the “invisible hand”; the latter, in the felt need for the social control of both individual
economic activity and the organization of markets. The latter also gave this analysis more of
a normative cast than one finds in much of modern economics.
“Modern” philosophy in the West traces back to the Greeks during the fifth and fourth
centuries BC. Mythopoetry does not disappear but, one might sense, reaches its highest lev-
els of sophistication, and, especially, existing alongside of self-conscious and self-reflective
philosophical inquiry, the latter becoming increasingly independent—though not without
tension and conflict. The development of philosophy is facilitated and motivated by (1) the
postulation of the existence of principles of an intellectual order in the universe (in nature
and in society), (2) the growing belief in the opportunity accorded by God to study
the nature of things without such activity being deemed an intrusion upon the domain of
God, and inter alia (3) the development of principles of observation, logic, and epistemology.
In the eighth century BC, Hesiod wrote several works, one of which, Ode to Work (or
Works and Days), identified the role of hard, honest labor in production and the studied
approach to husbandry and farming, the latter couched in terms of proceeding in the manner
desired by deified forces of nature, including the seasons. This work was cited three centu-
ries later by Plato and Aristotle. One of their contemporaries was Xenophon (430–355 BC),
whose Oeconomicus dealt with household management (most production was undertaken
by households) and with analyses of the division of labor, money, and the responsibilities of
the wealthy. Xenophon’s Revenue of Athens was a brilliant analysis of the means that could
be employed by the organized city-state to increase both the prosperity of the people and the
revenues of their government, an analysis combined with the injunction, once the program of
measures of economic development had been worked out, to consult the oracles of Dodona
and Delphi if such a program was indeed going to be advantageous.
But it is with Plato (427–347 BC), notably in his Republic and The Laws, and with
Aristotle (384–322 BC), in his Politics and Nichomachean Ethics, that more elaborate and
more sophisticated economic analysis takes place. Both Plato and Aristotle were con-
cerned with (1) aspects of the relation of knowledge to social action; (2) topics of political
economy, such as the nature and implications of “justice” for the organization and control
of the economy, including issues of private property versus communism and/or its social
control; and (3) more technical topics of economics, such as self-sufficiency versus trade, the
consequences of specialization and division of labor (including their relation to trade),
the desirable-necessary location of the city-state, the nature and role of exchange, the roles
of money and money demand, interest on loans, the question of population, prices and price
levels, and the meaning and source of “value.” Their discussions of these topics reflect the
social (read: class) organization of Athens, the deep philosophical positions they held on a
variety of topics, the economic development of Athens and its trading partners, and how
they worked out solutions to serious, perennial problems of social order. In terms of the
canon of Western economic thinking, economic analysis largely disappeared for roughly a
millennium-and-a-half subsequent to the death of Aristotle, not to reappear in a significant
way until the scholastic writers beginning in the thirteenth century AD.
The readings that follow in this section trace the development of economic thought from
the Greeks through the late eighteenth century. Along the way, the reader will be introduced
to classic writings in scholasticism, mercantilism, and physiocracy, as well as to works that
mark a turn in economic thinking toward a more systematic, and some would say scientific,
method of analysis. While economics, throughout this period, was primarily considered to
be, and analyzed from the perspective of, larger systems of social and philosophical thought,
Part I: Introduction 3
the economic system increasingly came to be recognized as a sphere that embodied its own
particular set of laws, worthy of analysis in its own right. The reader will also notice an
increasing recognition over this period of the interdependent nature of economic phenomena
and thus the tendency of the authors to increasingly treat the economic system as an inter-
related whole as opposed to engaging in piecemeal analysis of particular aspects of economic
activity.
References and Further Reading

Blaug, Mark, ed. (1991) Pre-Classical Economists, Aldershot: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Hutchison, Terence (1988) Before Adam Smith: The Emergence of Political Economy, 1662–1776,
Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Letwin, William (1964) The Origins of Scientific Economics, Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co.
Lowry, S. Todd, ed. (1987) Pre-Classical Economic Thought: From the Greeks to the Scottish
Enlightenment, Boston, MA: Kluwer.
Rothbard, Murray (1995) Economic Thought Before Adam Smith, Aldershot: Edward Elgar
Publishing.
Spengler, Joseph J. (1980) Origins of Economic Thought and Justice, Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University Press.
ARISTOTLE (384–322 BC)
Aristotle was born in Stagira and spent

some twenty years studying under the
tutelage of Plato in Athens. After a number
of years of travel and serving as tutor to
the young man who would later become
Alexander the Great, Aristotle returned to
Athens and established his own school,
the Lyceum, in 335 BC.
The works of Aristotle span virtually
the entire breadth of human knowledge—
logic, epistemology, metaphysics, ethics,
the natural sciences, rhetoric, politics, and
aesthetics. While only a small fraction of
his writings deal with economics, he did see
matters economic as an important aspect
of the social fabric and thus as necessary
elements of a larger social–philosophical
system of thought. Aristotle’s writings had a
profound influence on Aquinas and, through
Aquinas, on subsequent scholastic thinking.
Indeed, Aristotle’s influence continues to
Aristotle with Plato, by courtesy of Corbis, be present in modern economic theory.
www.corbis.com. In the excerpts from Aristotle’s Politics
and Ethics provided below, we are
introduced to his theories of the natural division of labor within society, household man-
agement (œconomicus) and wealth acquisition (chrematistics), private property versus
communal property, and of the exchange process. The reader may wish to take particular
note of the “reciprocal needs” basis of Aristotle’s division of labor, his view that wealth
acquisition is “unnatural” because it knows no natural limits, his strong defense of private
property (as against his teacher, Plato), and his theory of reciprocity in exchange.

Finley, M.I. (1970) “Aristotle and Economic Analysis,” Past and Present 47 (May): 3–25.
—— (1973) The Ancient Economy, Berkeley: University of California Press.
—— (1987) “Aristotle,” in John Eatwell, Murray Milgate, and Peter Newman (eds.), The New
Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, Vol. 1, London: Macmillan, 112–13.
Aristotle 5
Gordon, Barry (1975) Economic Analysis Before Adam Smith: Hesiod to Lessius, New York: Barnes
and Noble.
Laistner, M.L.W. (1923) Greek Economics: Introduction and Translation, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co.
Langholm, Odd (1979) Price and Value Theory in the Aristotelian Tradition, Bergen:
Universitetsforlaget.
—— (1983) Wealth and Money in the Aristotelian Tradition, Bergen: Universitetsforlaget.
—— (1984) The Aristotelian Analysis of Usury, Bergen: Universitetsforlaget.
Lowry, S. Todd (1969) “Aristotle’s Mathematical Analysis of Exchange,” History of Political
Economy 1 (Spring): 44–66.
—— (1979) “Recent Literature on Ancient Greek Economic Thought,” Journal of Economic Literature
17: 65–86.
—— (1987) The Archaeology of Economic Ideas: The Greek Classical Tradition, Durham, NC: Duke
University Press.
Soudek, Josef (1952) “Aristotle’s Theory of Exchange: An Enquiry into the Origin of Economic
Analysis,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 96: 45–75.
Spengler, Joseph J. (1955) “Aristotle on Economic Imputation and Related Matters,” Southern
Economic Journal 21 (April): 371–89.
—— (1980) Origins of Economic Thought and Justice, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Worland, Stephen T. (1984) “Aristotle and the Neoclassical Tradition: The Shifting Ground of
Complementarity,” History of Political Economy 16: 107–34.
Politics*
Book I
Part I
Every state is a community of some kind, and every community is established with a view
to some good; for mankind always act in order to obtain that which they think good. But,
if all communities aim at some good, the state or political community, which is the highest
of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree than any other, and
at the highest good.
Some people think that the qualifications of a statesman, king, householder, and master are
the same, and that they differ, not in kind, but only in the number of their subjects. For exam-
ple, the ruler over a few is called a master; over more, the manager of a household; over a still
larger number, a statesman or king, as if there were no difference between a great household
and a small state. The distinction which is made between the king and the statesman is as
follows: When the government is personal, the ruler is a king; when, according to the rules of
the political science, the citizens rule and are ruled in turn, then he is called a statesman.
But all this is a mistake; for governments differ in kind, as will be evident to any one
who considers the matter according to the method which has hitherto guided us. As in other
departments of science, so in politics, the compound should always be resolved into the sim-
ple elements or least parts of the whole. We must therefore look at the elements of which the
state is composed, in order that we may see in what the different kinds of rule differ from one
another, and whether any scientific result can be attained about each one of them.
Part II
He who thus considers things in their first growth and origin, whether a state or anything
else, will obtain the clearest view of them. In the first place there must be a union of those
who cannot exist without each other; namely, of male and female, that the race may continue
(and this is a union which is formed, not of deliberate purpose, but because, in common
with other animals and with plants, mankind have a natural desire to leave behind them an
image of themselves), and of natural ruler and subject, that both may be preserved. For that
which can foresee by the exercise of mind is by nature intended to be lord and master, and
that which can with its body give effect to such foresight is a subject, and by nature a slave;
hence master and slave have the same interest. Now nature has distinguished between the
* Translated by Benjamin Jowett.

Aristotle: Politics 7
female and the slave. For she is not niggardly, like the smith who fashions the Delphian knife
for many uses; she makes each thing for a single use, and every instrument is best made
when intended for one and not for many uses. But among barbarians no distinction is
made between women and slaves, because there is no natural ruler among them: they are a
community of slaves, male and female. Wherefore the poets say,
“It is meet that Hellenes should rule over barbarians;”
as if they thought that the barbarian and the slave were by nature one.
Out of these two relationships between man and woman, master and slave, the first thing
to arise is the family, and Hesiod is right when he says,
“First house and wife and an ox for the plow”
for the ox is the poor man’s slave. The family is the association established by nature for the
supply of men’s everyday wants, and the members of it are called by Charondas ‘companions
of the cupboard,’ and by Epimenides the Cretan, ‘companions of the manger.’ But when sev-
eral families are united, and the association aims at something more than the supply of daily
needs, the first society to be formed is the village. And the most natural form of the village
appears to be that of a colony from the family, composed of the children and grandchildren,
who are said to be suckled ‘with the same milk.’ And this is the reason why Hellenic states
were originally governed by kings; because the Hellenes were under royal rule before they
came together, as the barbarians still are. Every family is ruled by the eldest, and therefore
in the colonies of the family the kingly form of government prevailed because they were of
the same blood. As Homer says:
“Each one gives law to his children and to his wives.”
For they lived dispersedly, as was the manner in ancient times. Wherefore men say that
the Gods have a king, because they themselves either are or were in ancient times under the
rule of a king. For they imagine, not only the forms of the Gods, but their ways of life to be
like their own.
When several villages are united in a single complete community, large enough to be
nearly or quite self-sufficing, the state comes into existence, originating in the bare needs of
life, and continuing in existence for the sake of a good life. And therefore, if the earlier forms
of society are natural, so is the state, for it is the end of them, and the nature of a thing is its
end. For what each thing is when fully developed, we call its nature, whether we are speaking
of a man, a horse, or a family. Besides, the final cause and end of a thing is the best, and to
be self-sufficing is the end and the best.
...
Further, the state is by nature clearly prior to the family and to the individual, since the
whole is of necessity prior to the part; for example, if the whole body be destroyed, there
will be no foot or hand, except in an equivocal sense, as we might speak of a stone hand;
for when destroyed the hand will be no better than that. But things are defined by their work-
ing and power; and we ought not to say that they are the same when they no longer have their
proper quality, but only that they have the same name. The proof that the state is a creation
of nature and prior to the individual is that the individual, when isolated, is not self-sufficing;
and therefore he is like a part in relation to the whole. But he who is unable to live in society,
or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god: he
is no part of a state. A social instinct is implanted in all men by nature, and yet he who first
founded the state was the greatest of benefactors. For man, when perfected, is the best of ani-
mals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all; since armed injustice is
the more dangerous, and he is equipped at birth with arms, meant to be used by intelligence
and virtue, which he may use for the worst ends. Wherefore, if he have not virtue, he is the
most unholy and the most savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony. But jus-
tice is the bond of men in states, for the administration of justice, which is the determination
of what is just, is the principle of order in political society.
Part III
Seeing then that the state is made up of households, before speaking of the state we must
speak of the management of the household. The parts of household management correspond
to the persons who compose the household, and a complete household consists of slaves and
freemen. Now we should begin by examining everything in its fewest possible elements;
and the first and fewest possible parts of a family are master and slave, husband and wife,
father and children. We have therefore to consider what each of these three relations is and
ought to be: I mean the relation of master and servant, the marriage relation (the conjunction
of man and wife has no name of its own), and thirdly, the procreative relation (this also has
no proper name). And there is another element of a household, the so-called art of getting
wealth, which, according to some, is identical with household management, according to
others, a principal part of it; the nature of this art will also have to be considered by us.
Let us first speak of master and slave, looking to the needs of practical life and also
seeking to attain some better theory of their relation than exists at present. For some are of
opinion that the rule of a master is a science, and that the management of a household, and
the mastership of slaves, and the political and royal rule, as I was saying at the outset, are
all the same. Others affirm that the rule of a master over slaves is contrary to nature, and that
the distinction between slave and freeman exists by law only, and not by nature; and being
an interference with nature is therefore unjust.
Part IV
Property is a part of the household, and the art of acquiring property is a part of the art of man-
aging the household; for no man can live well, or indeed live at all, unless he be provided with
necessaries. And as in the arts which have a definite sphere the workers must have their own
proper instruments for the accomplishment of their work, so it is in the management of a house-
hold. Now instruments are of various sorts; some are living, others lifeless; in the rudder, the
pilot of a ship has a lifeless, in the look-out man, a living instrument; for in the arts the servant
is a kind of instrument. Thus, too, a possession is an instrument for maintaining life. And so,
in the arrangement of the family, a slave is a living possession, and property a number of such
instruments; and the servant is himself an instrument which takes precedence of all other instru-
ments. For if every instrument could accomplish its own work, obeying or anticipating the will
of others, like the statues of Daedalus, or the tripods of Hephaestus, which, says the poet,
“of their own accord entered the assembly of the Gods;”

if, in like manner, the shuttle would weave and the plectrum touch the lyre without a hand
to guide them, chief workmen would not want servants, nor masters slaves. Here, however,
another distinction must be drawn; the instruments commonly so called are instruments of
production, whilst a possession is an instrument of action. The shuttle, for example, is not
only of use; but something else is made by it, whereas of a garment or of a bed there is only the
use. Further, as production and action are different in kind, and both require instruments,
the instruments which they employ must likewise differ in kind. But life is action and not
production, and therefore the slave is the minister of action. Again, a possession is spoken of
as a part is spoken of; for the part is not only a part of something else, but wholly belongs to
it; and this is also true of a possession. The master is only the master of the slave; he does not
belong to him, whereas the slave is not only the slave of his master, but wholly belongs to
him. Hence we see what is the nature and office of a slave; he who is by nature not his own
but another’s man, is by nature a slave; and he may be said to be another’s man who, being
a human being, is also a possession. And a possession may be defined as an instrument of
action, separable from the possessor.
Part VIII
Let us now inquire into property generally, and into the art of getting wealth, in accordance
with our usual method, for a slave has been shown to be a part of property. The first question
is whether the art of getting wealth is the same with the art of managing a household or a part
of it, or instrumental to it; and if the last, whether in the way that the art of making shuttles
is instrumental to the art of weaving, or in the way that the casting of bronze is instrumental
to the art of the statuary, for they are not instrumental in the same way, but the one provides
tools and the other material; and by material I mean the substratum out of which any work
is made; thus wool is the material of the weaver, bronze of the statuary. Now it is easy to
see that the art of household management is not identical with the art of getting wealth, for
the one uses the material which the other provides. For the art which uses household stores
can be no other than the art of household management. There is, however, a doubt whether
the art of getting wealth is a part of household management or a distinct art. If the getter
of wealth has to consider whence wealth and property can be procured, but there are many
sorts of property and riches, then are husbandry, and the care and provision of food in gen-
eral, parts of the wealth-getting art or distinct arts? Again, there are many sorts of food, and
therefore there are many kinds of lives both of animals and men; they must all have food,
and the differences in their food have made differences in their ways of life. For of beasts,
some are gregarious, others are solitary; they live in the way which is best adapted to sustain
them, accordingly as they are carnivorous or herbivorous or omnivorous: and their habits are
determined for them by nature in such a manner that they may obtain with greater facility the
food of their choice. But, as different species have different tastes, the same things are not
naturally pleasant to all of them; and therefore the lives of carnivorous or herbivorous ani-
mals further differ among themselves. In the lives of men too there is a great difference. The
laziest are shepherds, who lead an idle life, and get their subsistence without trouble from
tame animals; their flocks having to wander from place to place in search of pasture, they
are compelled to follow them, cultivating a sort of living farm. Others support themselves
by hunting, which is of different kinds. Some, for example, are brigands, others, who dwell
near lakes or marshes or rivers or a sea in which there are fish, are fishermen, and others
live by the pursuit of birds or wild beasts. The greater number obtain a living from the
cultivated fruits of the soil. Such are the modes of subsistence which prevail among those
whose industry springs up of itself, and whose food is not acquired by exchange and retail
trade – there is the shepherd, the husbandman, the brigand, the fisherman, the hunter. Some
gain a comfortable maintenance out of two employments, eking out the deficiencies of one
of them by another: thus the life of a shepherd may be combined with that of a brigand,
the life of a farmer with that of a hunter. Other modes of life are similarly combined in any
way which the needs of men may require. Property, in the sense of a bare livelihood, seems
to be given by nature herself to all, both when they are first born, and when they are grown
up. For some animals bring forth, together with their offspring, so much food as will last
until they are able to supply themselves; of this the vermiparous or oviparous animals are
an instance; and the viviparous animals have up to a certain time a supply of food for their
young in themselves, which is called milk. In like manner we may infer that, after the birth
of animals, plants exist for their sake, and that the other animals exist for the sake of man,
the tame for use and food, the wild, if not all at least the greater part of them, for food, and
for the provision of clothing and various instruments. Now if nature makes nothing incom-
plete, and nothing in vain, the inference must be that she has made all animals for the sake
of man. And so, in one point of view, the art of war is a natural art of acquisition, for the
art of acquisition includes hunting, an art which we ought to practice against wild beasts,
and against men who, though intended by nature to be governed, will not submit; for war of
such a kind is naturally just.
Of the art of acquisition then there is one kind which by nature is a part of the management
of a household, in so far as the art of household management must either find ready to hand,
or itself provide, such things necessary to life, and useful for the community of the family or
state, as can be stored. They are the elements of true riches; for the amount of property which
is needed for a good life is not unlimited, although Solon in one of his poems says that
“No bound to riches has been fixed for man.”
But there is a boundary fixed, just as there is in the other arts; for the instruments of any
art are never unlimited, either in number or size, and riches may be defined as a number of
instruments to be used in a household or in a state. And so we see that there is a natural art
of acquisition which is practiced by managers of households and by statesmen, and what is
the reason of this.
Part IX
There is another variety of the art of acquisition which is commonly and rightly called an art
of wealth-getting, and has in fact suggested the notion that riches and property have no limit.
Being nearly connected with the preceding, it is often identified with it. But though they are
not very different, neither are they the same. The kind already described is given by nature,
the other is gained by experience and art.
Let us begin our discussion of the question with the following considerations:
Of everything which we possess there are two uses: both belong to the thing as such, but not
in the same manner, for one is the proper, and the other the improper or secondary use of it.
For example, a shoe is used for wear, and is used for exchange; both are uses of the shoe.
He who gives a shoe in exchange for money or food to him who wants one, does indeed
use the shoe as a shoe, but this is not its proper or primary purpose, for a shoe is not made
to be an object of barter. The same may be said of all possessions, for the art of exchange
extends to all of them, and it arises at first from what is natural, from the circumstance that
some have too little, others too much. Hence we may infer that retail trade is not a natural
part of the art of getting wealth; had it been so, men would have ceased to exchange when
they had enough. In the first community, indeed, which is the family, this art is obviously
of no use, but it begins to be useful when the society increases. For the members of the
family originally had all things in common; later, when the family divided into parts, the
parts shared in many things, and different parts in different things, which they had to give
in exchange for what they wanted, a kind of barter which is still practiced among barbarous
nations who exchange with one another the necessaries of life and nothing more; giving
and receiving wine, for example, in exchange for coin, and the like. This sort of barter is
not part of the wealth-getting art and is not contrary to nature, but is needed for the satisfac-
tion of men’s natural wants. The other or more complex form of exchange grew, as might
have been inferred, out of the simpler. When the inhabitants of one country became more
dependent on those of another, and they imported what they needed, and exported what
they had too much of, money necessarily came into use. For the various necessaries of life
are not easily carried about, and hence men agreed to employ in their dealings with each
other something which was intrinsically useful and easily applicable to the purposes of life,
for example, iron, silver, and the like. Of this the value was at first measured simply by
size and weight, but in process of time they put a stamp upon it, to save the trouble of
weighing and to mark the value.
When the use of coin had once been discovered, out of the barter of necessary articles
arose the other art of wealth getting, namely, retail trade; which was at first probably a simple
matter, but became more complicated as soon as men learned by experience whence and by
what exchanges the greatest profit might be made. Originating in the use of coin, the art of
getting wealth is generally thought to be chiefly concerned with it, and to be the art which
produces riches and wealth; having to consider how they may be accumulated. Indeed, riches
is assumed by many to be only a quantity of coin, because the arts of getting wealth and retail
trade are concerned with coin. Others maintain that coined money is a mere sham, a thing not
natural, but conventional only, because, if the users substitute another commodity for it, it is
worthless, and because it is not useful as a means to any of the necessities of life, and, indeed,
he who is rich in coin may often be in want of necessary food. But how can that be wealth of
which a man may have a great abundance and yet perish with hunger, like Midas in the fable,
whose insatiable prayer turned everything that was set before him into gold?
Hence men seek after a better notion of riches and of the art of getting wealth than the mere
acquisition of coin, and they are right. For natural riches and the natural art of wealth-getting
are a different thing; in their true form they are part of the management of a household;
whereas retail trade is the art of producing wealth, not in every way, but by exchange. And
it is thought to be concerned with coin; for coin is the unit of exchange and the measure or
limit of it. And there is no bound to the riches which spring from this art of wealth getting.
As in the art of medicine there is no limit to the pursuit of health, and as in the other arts
there is no limit to the pursuit of their several ends, for they aim at accomplishing their ends
to the uttermost (but of the means there is a limit, for the end is always the limit), so, too, in
this art of wealth-getting there is no limit of the end, which is riches of the spurious kind, and
the acquisition of wealth. But the art of wealth-getting which consists in household manage-
ment, on the other hand, has a limit; the unlimited acquisition of wealth is not its business.
And, therefore, in one point of view, all riches must have a limit; nevertheless, as a matter of
fact, we find the opposite to be the case; for all getters of wealth increase their hoard
of coin without limit. The source of the confusion is the near connection between the two
kinds of wealth-getting; in either, the instrument is the same, although the use is different,
and so they pass into one another; for each is a use of the same property, but with a difference:
accumulation is the end in the one case, but there is a further end in the other. Hence some
persons are led to believe that getting wealth is the object of household management, and the
whole idea of their lives is that they ought either to increase their money without limit, or at any
rate not to lose it. The origin of this disposition in men is that they are intent upon living only,
and not upon living well; and, as their desires are unlimited they also desire that the means of
gratifying them should be without limit. Those who do aim at a good life seek the means
of obtaining bodily pleasures; and, since the enjoyment of these appears to depend on property,
they are absorbed in getting wealth: and so there arises the second species of wealth-getting.
For, as their enjoyment is in excess, they seek an art which produces the excess of enjoyment;
and, if they are not able to supply their pleasures by the art of getting wealth, they try other arts,
using in turn every faculty in a manner contrary to nature. The quality of courage, for example,
is not intended to make wealth, but to inspire confidence; neither is this the aim of the general’s
or of the physician’s art; but the one aims at victory and the other at health. Nevertheless, some
men turn every quality or art into a means of getting wealth; this they conceive to be the end,
and to the promotion of the end they think all things must contribute.
Thus, then, we have considered the art of wealth-getting which is unnecessary, and why
men want it; and also the necessary art of wealth-getting, which we have seen to be different
from the other, and to be a natural part of the art of managing a household, concerned with
the provision of food, not, however, like the former kind, unlimited, but having a limit.
Part X
And we have found the answer to our original question, Whether the art of getting wealth
is the business of the manager of a household and of the statesman or not their business?
viz., that wealth is presupposed by them. For as political science does not make men, but
takes them from nature and uses them, so too nature provides them with earth or sea or the
like as a source of food. At this stage begins the duty of the manager of a household, who
has to order the things which nature supplies; he may be compared to the weaver who has
not to make but to use wool, and to know, too, what sort of wool is good and serviceable or
bad and unserviceable. Were this otherwise, it would be difficult to see why the art of getting
wealth is a part of the management of a household and the art of medicine not; for surely the
members of a household must have health just as they must have life or any other necessary.
The answer is that as from one point of view the master of the house and the ruler of the
state have to consider about health, from another point of view not they but the physician;
so in one way the art of household management, in another way the subordinate art, has to
consider about wealth. But, strictly speaking, as I have already said, the means of life must
be provided beforehand by nature; for the business of nature is to furnish food to that which
is born, and the food of the offspring is always what remains over of that from which it is
produced. Wherefore the art of getting wealth out of fruits and animals is always natural.
There are two sorts of wealth-getting, as I have said; one is a part of household manage-
ment, the other is retail trade: the former necessary and honorable, while that which consists
in exchange is justly censured; for it is unnatural, and a mode by which men gain from one
another. The most hated sort, and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out
of money itself, and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used
in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of
money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the
parent. Wherefore of all modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural.
Part XI
Enough has been said about the theory of wealth-getting; we will now proceed to the practi-
cal part. The discussion of such matters is not unworthy of philosophy, but to be engaged
in them practically is illiberal and irksome. The useful parts of wealth-getting are, first, the
knowledge of livestock – which are most profitable, and where, and how – as, for example,
what sort of horses or sheep or oxen or any other animals are most likely to give a return. A
man ought to know which of these pay better than others, and which pay best in particular
places, for some do better in one place and some in another. Secondly, husbandry, which
may be either tillage or planting, and the keeping of bees and of fish, or fowl, or of any
animals which may be useful to man. These are the divisions of the true or proper art of
wealth-getting and come first. Of the other, which consists in exchange, the first and most
important division is commerce (of which there are three kinds – the provision of a ship,
the conveyance of goods, exposure for sale – these again differing as they are safer or more
profitable), the second is usury, the third, service for hire – of this, one kind is employed in
the mechanical arts, the other in unskilled and bodily labor. There is still a third sort of wealth
getting intermediate between this and the first or natural mode which is partly natural, but
is also concerned with exchange, viz., the industries that make their profit from the earth,
and from things growing from the earth which, although they bear no fruit, are nevertheless
profitable; for example, the cutting of timber and all mining. The art of mining, by which
minerals are obtained, itself has many branches, for there are various kinds of things dug
out of the earth. Of the several divisions of wealth-getting I now speak generally; a minute
consideration of them might be useful in practice, but it would be tiresome to dwell upon
them at greater length now.
Those occupations are most truly arts in which there is the least element of chance; they
are the meanest in which the body is most deteriorated, the most servile in which there
is the greatest use of the body, and the most illiberal in which there is the least need of
excellence.
Works have been written upon these subjects by various persons; for example, by Chares
the Parian, and Apollodorus the Lemnian, who have treated of Tillage and Planting, while
others have treated of other branches; any one who cares for such matters may refer to their
writings. It would be well also to collect the scattered stories of the ways in which individu-
als have succeeded in amassing a fortune; for all this is useful to persons who value the art
of getting wealth. There is the anecdote of Thales the Milesian and his financial device,
which involves a principle of universal application, but is attributed to him on account of his
reputation for wisdom. He was reproached for his poverty, which was supposed to show that
philosophy was of no use. According to the story, he knew by his skill in the stars while it
was yet winter that there would be a great harvest of olives in the coming year; so, having a
little money, he gave deposits for the use of all the olive-presses in Chios and Miletus, which
he hired at a low price because no one bid against him. When the harvest-time came, and
many were wanted all at once and of a sudden, he let them out at any rate which he pleased,
and made a quantity of money. Thus he showed the world that philosophers can easily be
rich if they like, but that their ambition is of another sort. He is supposed to have given a
striking proof of his wisdom, but, as I was saying, his device for getting wealth is of universal
application, and is nothing but the creation of a monopoly. It is an art often practiced by cities
when they are want of money; they make a monopoly of provisions.
There was a man of Sicily, who, having money deposited with him, bought up all the iron
from the iron mines; afterwards, when the merchants from their various markets came to buy,
he was the only seller, and without much increasing the price he gained 200 per cent. Which
when Dionysius heard, he told him that he might take away his money, but that he must not
remain at Syracuse, for he thought that the man had discovered a way of making money
which was injurious to his own interests. He made the same discovery as Thales; they both
contrived to create a monopoly for themselves. And statesmen as well ought to know these
things; for a state is often as much in want of money and of such devices for obtaining it as a
household, or even more so; hence some public men devote themselves entirely to finance.
Book II
Part V
Next let us consider what should be our arrangements about property: should the citizens of
the perfect state have their possessions in common or not? This question may be discussed
separately from the enactments about women and children. Even supposing that the women
and children belong to individuals, according to the custom which is at present universal,
may there not be an advantage in having and using possessions in common? Three cases are
possible: (1) the soil may be appropriated, but the produce may be thrown for consumption
into the common stock; and this is the practice of some nations. Or (2), the soil may be com-
mon, and may be cultivated in common, but the produce divided among individuals for their
private use; this is a form of common property which is said to exist among certain barbar-
ians. Or (3), the soil and the produce may be alike common.
When the husbandmen are not the owners, the case will be different and easier to deal with;
but when they till the ground for themselves the question of ownership will give a world of
trouble. If they do not share equally enjoyments and toils, those who labor much and get little
will necessarily complain of those who labor little and receive or consume much. But indeed
there is always a difficulty in men living together and having all human relations in common,
but especially in their having common property. The partnerships of fellow-travelers are an
example to the point; for they generally fall out over everyday matters and quarrel about any
trifle which turns up. So with servants: we are most able to take offense at those with whom
we most frequently come into contact in daily life.
These are only some of the disadvantages which attend the community of property; the
present arrangement, if improved as it might be by good customs and laws, would be far
better, and would have the advantages of both systems. Property should be in a certain sense
common, but, as a general rule, private; for, when everyone has a distinct interest, men will
not complain of one another, and they will make more progress, because every one
will be attending to his own business. And yet by reason of goodness, and in respect of use,
‘Friends,’ as the proverb says, ‘will have all things common.’ Even now there are traces
of such a principle, showing that it is not impracticable, but, in well-ordered states, exists
already to a certain extent and may be carried further. For, although every man has his own
property, some things he will place at the disposal of his friends, while of others he shares the
use with them. The Lacedaemonians, for example, use one another’s slaves, and horses, and
dogs, as if they were their own; and when they lack provisions on a journey, they appropriate
what they find in the fields throughout the country. It is clearly better that property should
be private, but the use of it common; and the special business of the legislator is to create in
men this benevolent disposition. Again, how immeasurably greater is the pleasure, when a
man feels a thing to be his own; for surely the love of self is a feeling implanted by nature
and not given in vain, although selfishness is rightly censured; this, however, is not the mere
love of self, but the love of self in excess, like the miser’s love of money; for all, or almost
all, men love money and other such objects in a measure. And further, there is the greatest
pleasure in doing a kindness or service to friends or guests or companions, which can only
be rendered when a man has private property. These advantages are lost by excessive unifica-
tion of the state. The exhibition of two virtues, besides, is visibly annihilated in such a state:
first, temperance towards women (for it is an honorable action to abstain from another’s wife
for temperance’ sake); secondly, liberality in the matter of property. No one, when men have
all things in common, will any longer set an example of liberality or do any liberal action;
for liberality consists in the use which is made of property.
Such legislation may have a specious appearance of benevolence; men readily listen to
it, and are easily induced to believe that in some wonderful manner everybody will become
everybody’s friend, especially when some one is heard denouncing the evils now existing in
states, suits about contracts, convictions for perjury, flatteries of rich men and the like, which
are said to arise out of the possession of private property. These evils, however, are due to
a very different cause – the wickedness of human nature. Indeed, we see that there is much
more quarreling among those who have all things in common, though there are not many of
them when compared with the vast numbers who have private property.
Nicomachean Ethics (350 BC)*
Book V
Part 5
Some think that reciprocity is without qualification just, as the Pythagoreans said; for they
defined justice without qualification as reciprocity. Now ‘reciprocity’ fits neither distributive
nor rectificatory justice – yet people want even the justice of Rhadamanthus to mean this:
Should a man suffer what he did, right justice would be done – for in many cases recipro-
city and rectificatory justice are not in accord; e.g. (1) if an official has inflicted a wound, he
should not be wounded in return, and if some one has wounded an official, he ought not to be
wounded only but punished in addition. Further (2) there is a great difference between a vol-
untary and an involuntary act. But in associations for exchange this sort of justice does hold
men together – reciprocity in accordance with a proportion and not on the basis of precisely
equal return. For it is by proportionate requital that the city holds together. Men seek to return
either evil for evil – and if they cannot do so, think their position mere slavery – or good for
good – and if they cannot do so there is no exchange, but it is by exchange that they hold
together. This is why they give a prominent place to the temple of the Graces – to promote
the requital of services; for this is characteristic of grace – we should serve in return one who
has shown grace to us, and should another time take the initiative in showing it.
Now proportionate return is secured by cross-conjunction. Let A be a builder, B a shoe-
maker, C a house, D a shoe. The builder, then, must get from the shoemaker the latter’s work,
and must himself give him in return his own. If, then, first there is proportionate equality of
goods, and then reciprocal action takes place, the result we mention will be effected. If not,
the bargain is not equal, and does not hold; for there is nothing to prevent the work of the
one being better than that of the other; they must therefore be equated. (And this is true of
the other arts also; for they would have been destroyed if what the patient suffered had not
been just what the agent did, and of the same amount and kind.) For it is not two doctors
that associate for exchange, but a doctor and a farmer, or in general people who are different
and unequal; but these must be equated. This is why all things that are exchanged must be
somehow comparable. It is for this end that money has been introduced, and it becomes in
a sense an intermediate; for it measures all things, and therefore the excess and the defect –
how many shoes are equal to a house or to a given amount of food. The number of shoes
exchanged for a house (or for a given amount of food) must therefore correspond to the ratio
of builder to shoemaker. For if this be not so, there will be no exchange and no intercourse.
* Translated by W.D. Ross.

Aristotle: Nichomachean Ethics 17
And this proportion will not be effected unless the goods are somehow equal. All goods
must therefore be measured by some one thing, as we said before. Now this unit is in truth
demand, which holds all things together (for if men did not need one another’s goods at all,
or did not need them equally, there would be either no exchange or not the same exchange);
but money has become by convention a sort of representative of demand; and this is why it
has the name ‘money’ (nomisma) – because it exists not by nature but by law (nomos) and
it is in our power to change it and make it useless. There will, then, be reciprocity when the
terms have been equated so that as farmer is to shoemaker, the amount of the shoemaker’s
work is to that of the farmer’s work for which it exchanges. But we must not bring them
into a figure of proportion when they have already exchanged (otherwise one extreme will
have both excesses), but when they still have their own goods. Thus they are equals and
associates just because this equality can be effected in their case. Let A be a farmer, C food,
B a shoemaker, D his product equated to C. If it had not been possible for reciprocity to be
thus effected, there would have been no association of the parties. That demand holds things
together as a single unit is shown by the fact that when men do not need one another, i.e.
when neither needs the other or one does not need the other, they do not exchange, as we
do when some one wants what one has oneself, e.g. when people permit the exportation of
corn in exchange for wine. This equation therefore must be established. And for the future
exchange – that if we do not need a thing now we shall have it if ever we do need it – money
is as it were our surety; for it must be possible for us to get what we want by bringing the
money. Now the same thing happens to money itself as to goods – it is not always worth
the same; yet it tends to be steadier. This is why all goods must have a price set on them; for
then there will always be exchange, and if so, association of man with man. Money, then,
acting as a measure, makes goods commensurate and equates them; for neither would there
have been association if there were not exchange, nor exchange if there were not equality,
nor equality if there were not commensurability. Now in truth it is impossible that things
differing so much should become commensurate, but with reference to demand they may
become so sufficiently. There must, then, be a unit, and that fixed by agreement (for which
reason it is called money); for it is this that makes all things commensurate, since all things
are measured by money. Let A be a house, B ten minae, C a bed. A is half of B, if the house
is worth five minae or equal to them; the bed, C, is a tenth of B; it is plain, then, how many
beds are equal to a house, viz. five. That exchange took place thus before there was money
is plain; for it makes no difference whether it is five beds that exchange for a house, or the
money value of five beds.
ST. THOMAS AQUINAS (1225–1274)
By the thirteenth century, the Roman

Catholic Church—for our purposes
the scholastic writers—had achieved
considerable if not essentially com-
plete hegemony in Western Europe.
The fundamental premises of Catholic
socio-economic thought were the neces-
sity of superimposing a system of
values—deemed more or less final—upon
economic life and the subordination of
economic activity to the domain deemed
more important by the Church, namely,
salvation of souls. The practical effect of
this intellectual activity was to construct
the framework of a system of thought
within which economic concepts, rela-
tions, issues, and problems might be
discussed and worked out. This system of
thought has persisted to the present day.
Although it often postulated a stable social
St. Thomas Aquinas, by courtesy of Corbis, order, and the maintenance of stable social
www.corbis.com.
structures as a Christian duty, the structure
of both medieval organized life and that
system of thought, we now know in abundance, exhibited—then and now—considerable
diversity, conflict, and change.
The leading figure of the scholastic period was St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274). Aquinas
was a member of the Dominican order, studied under Albertus Magnus, and spent much
of his life teaching and writing at various institutions of higher learning. His writings are
incredibly extensive, and attempt to integrate and reconcile the teachings of the Scriptures,
the church fathers, and the recently rediscovered Aristotle. Aquinas, like the Greeks before
him, did not construct a cohesive body of economic theory. Rather, his economics was just
one facet of his larger moral philosophy. As relations between man and man (including
those economic), and the justice thereof, are an aspect of the relationship between man and
God, economic matters naturally enter into Aquinas’s theology. His major work, Summa
Theologica, is a comprehensive exposition of Christian theology and philosophy, and this,
along with Aquinas’s various other writings, set the tone of discussion and debate for subse-
quent centuries of scholastic thought and analysis.
St. Thomas Aquinas 19
Aquinas and the Scholastics were overwhelmingly concerned with questions of the
organization and control of economic life—in regard to which they adopted laws and princi-
ples which severely restricted entrepreneurial activity. They were also necessarily concerned
with two great issues: the “just price” and interest on loans, the two topics of analysis in the
excerpts from Aquinas’s Summa Theologica reprinted below.
The approaches taken to the just price by civil and, especially, canonical courts included
emphases, respectively, on the intrinsic nature or quality of a good, its scarcity, its cost of pro-
duction, subjective tastes, and protection of social structure. Inasmuch as litigation involves
disputed transactions in particular social contexts, it is likely that the price in dispute would
be compared by a court with prevalent prices for the good in the area. It is also likely that
over the centuries, with the further extension of markets and of trade, that the price in ques-
tion increasingly became that of the “competitive market,” whatever that might have meant
in practice. Still, while some modern historians of thought have emphasized the increasing
secularization of Church doctrinal practice, others have argued that Church figures had no
meaningful idea of a self-regulating market system and were deeply influenced by then-
traditional modes of theological reasoning.
The charging of interest on loans—usury per se—was conspicuously forbidden by the
Church, which was driven by such ideas as the importance, indeed the obligation, of Christian
charity and the sterility of money. In time, however, distinctions were effectively made
between loans for consumption and loans for business purposes and between consumption
loans due to necessity and consumption loans for conveniences and luxuries. And, in time, it
was held not only that some justification for the charging and paying of interest likely existed
in the case of typical loans, but that administrators of Church monies were obligated to invest
them (at interest). But how interest, and prices, were treated during the medieval period by
local canonical and other tribunals remains unknown.

Baldwin, John W. (1959) “The Medieval Theories of Just Price,” Transactions of the American
Philosophical Society NS 49 (4): 15–92.
De Roover, Raymond (1955) “Scholastic Economics: Survival and Lasting Influence from the Sixteenth
Century to Adam Smith,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 69 (May): 161–90.
—— (1958) “The Concept of the Just Price: Theory and Economic Policy,” Journal of Economic
History 18 (December): 418–34.
—— (1967) San Bernardino of Siena and Sant’ Antonino of Florence: The Two Great Economic
Thinkers of the Middle Ages, Boston, MA: Baker Library, Harvard Graduate School of Business
Administration.
Ghazanfar, S.M. (2000) “The Economic Thought of Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali and St. Thomas Aquinas:
Some Comparative and Parallel Links,” History of Political Economy 32 (Winter): 857–88.
Gordon, Barry (1975) Economic Analysis Before Adam Smith: Hesiod to Lessius, New York: Barnes
and Noble.
—— (1987) “Aquinas, St. Thomas,” in John Eatwell, Murray Milgate, and Peter Newman (eds.), The
New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, Vol. 1, London: Macmillan, 99–100.
Grice-Hutchison, M. (1978) Early Economic Thought in Spain, 1177–1740, London: Allen & Unwin.
Hollander, Samuel (1965) “On the Interpretation of the Just Price,” Kyklos 18 (4): 615–34.
Langholm, Odd (1979) Price and Value Theory in the Aristotelian Tradition, Bergen:
Universitetsforlaget.
—— (1983) Wealth and Money in the Aristotelian Tradition, Bergen: Universitetsforlaget.
—— (1984) The Aristotelian Analysis of Usury, Bergen: Universitetsforlaget.
—— (1998) The Legacy of Scholasticism in Economic Thought: Antecedents of Choice and Power,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lapidus, André (1997) “Metal, Money, and the Prince: John Buridan and Nicholas Oresme after
Thomas Aquinas,” History of Political Economy 29 (Spring): 21–53.
Noonan, J.T. (1957) The Scholastic Analysis of Usury, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Spiegel, Henry W. (1987) “Scholastic Economic Thought,” in John Eatwell, Murray Milgate, and
Peter Newman (eds.), The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, Vol. 4, London: Macmillan,
259–61.
Viner, Jacob (1978) Religious Thought and Economic Society, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Worland, Stephen T. (1967) Scholasticism and Welfare Economics, Notre Dame, IN: University of
Notre Dame Press.
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DANCE ON STILTS AT THE GIRLS’ UNYAGO, NIUCHI
Newala, too, suffers from the distance of its water-supply—at least

the Newala of to-day does; there was once another Newala in a lovely
valley at the foot of the plateau. I visited it and found scarcely a trace
of houses, only a Christian cemetery, with the graves of several
missionaries and their converts, remaining as a monument of its
former glories. But the surroundings are wonderfully beautiful. A
thick grove of splendid mango-trees closes in the weather-worn
crosses and headstones; behind them, combining the useful and the
agreeable, is a whole plantation of lemon-trees covered with ripe
fruit; not the small African kind, but a much larger and also juicier
imported variety, which drops into the hands of the passing traveller,
without calling for any exertion on his part. Old Newala is now under
the jurisdiction of the native pastor, Daudi, at Chingulungulu, who,
as I am on very friendly terms with him, allows me, as a matter of
course, the use of this lemon-grove during my stay at Newala.
FEET MUTILATED BY THE RAVAGES OF THE “JIGGER”
(Sarcopsylla penetrans)
The water-supply of New Newala is in the bottom of the valley,

some 1,600 feet lower down. The way is not only long and fatiguing,
but the water, when we get it, is thoroughly bad. We are suffering not
only from this, but from the fact that the arrangements at Newala are
nothing short of luxurious. We have a separate kitchen—a hut built
against the boma palisade on the right of the baraza, the interior of
which is not visible from our usual position. Our two cooks were not
long in finding this out, and they consequently do—or rather neglect
to do—what they please. In any case they do not seem to be very
particular about the boiling of our drinking-water—at least I can
attribute to no other cause certain attacks of a dysenteric nature,
from which both Knudsen and I have suffered for some time. If a
man like Omari has to be left unwatched for a moment, he is capable
of anything. Besides this complaint, we are inconvenienced by the
state of our nails, which have become as hard as glass, and crack on
the slightest provocation, and I have the additional infliction of
pimples all over me. As if all this were not enough, we have also, for
the last week been waging war against the jigger, who has found his
Eldorado in the hot sand of the Makonde plateau. Our men are seen
all day long—whenever their chronic colds and the dysentery likewise
raging among them permit—occupied in removing this scourge of
Africa from their feet and trying to prevent the disastrous
consequences of its presence. It is quite common to see natives of
this place with one or two toes missing; many have lost all their toes,
or even the whole front part of the foot, so that a well-formed leg
ends in a shapeless stump. These ravages are caused by the female of
Sarcopsylla penetrans, which bores its way under the skin and there
develops an egg-sac the size of a pea. In all books on the subject, it is
stated that one’s attention is called to the presence of this parasite by
an intolerable itching. This agrees very well with my experience, so
far as the softer parts of the sole, the spaces between and under the
toes, and the side of the foot are concerned, but if the creature
penetrates through the harder parts of the heel or ball of the foot, it
may escape even the most careful search till it has reached maturity.
Then there is no time to be lost, if the horrible ulceration, of which
we see cases by the dozen every day, is to be prevented. It is much
easier, by the way, to discover the insect on the white skin of a
European than on that of a native, on which the dark speck scarcely
shows. The four or five jiggers which, in spite of the fact that I
constantly wore high laced boots, chose my feet to settle in, were
taken out for me by the all-accomplished Knudsen, after which I
thought it advisable to wash out the cavities with corrosive
sublimate. The natives have a different sort of disinfectant—they fill
the hole with scraped roots. In a tiny Makua village on the slope of
the plateau south of Newala, we saw an old woman who had filled all
the spaces under her toe-nails with powdered roots by way of
prophylactic treatment. What will be the result, if any, who can say?
The rest of the many trifling ills which trouble our existence are
really more comic than serious. In the absence of anything else to
smoke, Knudsen and I at last opened a box of cigars procured from
the Indian store-keeper at Lindi, and tried them, with the most
distressing results. Whether they contain opium or some other
narcotic, neither of us can say, but after the tenth puff we were both
“off,” three-quarters stupefied and unspeakably wretched. Slowly we
recovered—and what happened next? Half-an-hour later we were
once more smoking these poisonous concoctions—so insatiable is the
craving for tobacco in the tropics.
Even my present attacks of fever scarcely deserve to be taken
seriously. I have had no less than three here at Newala, all of which
have run their course in an incredibly short time. In the early
afternoon, I am busy with my old natives, asking questions and
making notes. The strong midday coffee has stimulated my spirits to
an extraordinary degree, the brain is active and vigorous, and work
progresses rapidly, while a pleasant warmth pervades the whole
body. Suddenly this gives place to a violent chill, forcing me to put on
my overcoat, though it is only half-past three and the afternoon sun
is at its hottest. Now the brain no longer works with such acuteness
and logical precision; more especially does it fail me in trying to
establish the syntax of the difficult Makua language on which I have
ventured, as if I had not enough to do without it. Under the
circumstances it seems advisable to take my temperature, and I do
so, to save trouble, without leaving my seat, and while going on with
my work. On examination, I find it to be 101·48°. My tutors are
abruptly dismissed and my bed set up in the baraza; a few minutes
later I am in it and treating myself internally with hot water and
lemon-juice.
Three hours later, the thermometer marks nearly 104°, and I make
them carry me back into the tent, bed and all, as I am now perspiring
heavily, and exposure to the cold wind just beginning to blow might
mean a fatal chill. I lie still for a little while, and then find, to my
great relief, that the temperature is not rising, but rather falling. This
is about 7.30 p.m. At 8 p.m. I find, to my unbounded astonishment,
that it has fallen below 98·6°, and I feel perfectly well. I read for an
hour or two, and could very well enjoy a smoke, if I had the
wherewithal—Indian cigars being out of the question.
Having no medical training, I am at a loss to account for this state
of things. It is impossible that these transitory attacks of high fever
should be malarial; it seems more probable that they are due to a
kind of sunstroke. On consulting my note-book, I become more and
more inclined to think this is the case, for these attacks regularly
follow extreme fatigue and long exposure to strong sunshine. They at
least have the advantage of being only short interruptions to my
work, as on the following morning I am always quite fresh and fit.
My treasure of a cook is suffering from an enormous hydrocele which
makes it difficult for him to get up, and Moritz is obliged to keep in
the dark on account of his inflamed eyes. Knudsen’s cook, a raw boy
from somewhere in the bush, knows still less of cooking than Omari;
consequently Nils Knudsen himself has been promoted to the vacant
post. Finding that we had come to the end of our supplies, he began
by sending to Chingulungulu for the four sucking-pigs which we had
bought from Matola and temporarily left in his charge; and when
they came up, neatly packed in a large crate, he callously slaughtered
the biggest of them. The first joint we were thoughtless enough to
entrust for roasting to Knudsen’s mshenzi cook, and it was
consequently uneatable; but we made the rest of the animal into a
jelly which we ate with great relish after weeks of underfeeding,
consuming incredible helpings of it at both midday and evening
meals. The only drawback is a certain want of variety in the tinned
vegetables. Dr. Jäger, to whom the Geographical Commission
entrusted the provisioning of the expeditions—mine as well as his
own—because he had more time on his hands than the rest of us,
seems to have laid in a huge stock of Teltow turnips,[46] an article of
food which is all very well for occasional use, but which quickly palls
when set before one every day; and we seem to have no other tins
left. There is no help for it—we must put up with the turnips; but I
am certain that, once I am home again, I shall not touch them for ten
years to come.
Amid all these minor evils, which, after all, go to make up the
genuine flavour of Africa, there is at least one cheering touch:
Knudsen has, with the dexterity of a skilled mechanic, repaired my 9
× 12 cm. camera, at least so far that I can use it with a little care.
How, in the absence of finger-nails, he was able to accomplish such a
ticklish piece of work, having no tool but a clumsy screw-driver for
taking to pieces and putting together again the complicated
mechanism of the instantaneous shutter, is still a mystery to me; but
he did it successfully. The loss of his finger-nails shows him in a light
contrasting curiously enough with the intelligence evinced by the
above operation; though, after all, it is scarcely surprising after his
ten years’ residence in the bush. One day, at Lindi, he had occasion
to wash a dog, which must have been in need of very thorough
cleansing, for the bottle handed to our friend for the purpose had an
extremely strong smell. Having performed his task in the most
conscientious manner, he perceived with some surprise that the dog
did not appear much the better for it, and was further surprised by
finding his own nails ulcerating away in the course of the next few
days. “How was I to know that carbolic acid has to be diluted?” he
mutters indignantly, from time to time, with a troubled gaze at his
mutilated finger-tips.
Since we came to Newala we have been making excursions in all
directions through the surrounding country, in accordance with old
habit, and also because the akida Sefu did not get together the tribal
elders from whom I wanted information so speedily as he had
promised. There is, however, no harm done, as, even if seen only
from the outside, the country and people are interesting enough.
The Makonde plateau is like a large rectangular table rounded off
at the corners. Measured from the Indian Ocean to Newala, it is
about seventy-five miles long, and between the Rovuma and the
Lukuledi it averages fifty miles in breadth, so that its superficial area
is about two-thirds of that of the kingdom of Saxony. The surface,
however, is not level, but uniformly inclined from its south-western
edge to the ocean. From the upper edge, on which Newala lies, the
eye ranges for many miles east and north-east, without encountering
any obstacle, over the Makonde bush. It is a green sea, from which
here and there thick clouds of smoke rise, to show that it, too, is
inhabited by men who carry on their tillage like so many other
primitive peoples, by cutting down and burning the bush, and
manuring with the ashes. Even in the radiant light of a tropical day
such a fire is a grand sight.
Much less effective is the impression produced just now by the
great western plain as seen from the edge of the plateau. As often as
time permits, I stroll along this edge, sometimes in one direction,
sometimes in another, in the hope of finding the air clear enough to
let me enjoy the view; but I have always been disappointed.
Wherever one looks, clouds of smoke rise from the burning bush,
and the air is full of smoke and vapour. It is a pity, for under more
favourable circumstances the panorama of the whole country up to
the distant Majeje hills must be truly magnificent. It is of little use
taking photographs now, and an outline sketch gives a very poor idea
of the scenery. In one of these excursions I went out of my way to
make a personal attempt on the Makonde bush. The present edge of
the plateau is the result of a far-reaching process of destruction
through erosion and denudation. The Makonde strata are
everywhere cut into by ravines, which, though short, are hundreds of
yards in depth. In consequence of the loose stratification of these
beds, not only are the walls of these ravines nearly vertical, but their
upper end is closed by an equally steep escarpment, so that the
western edge of the Makonde plateau is hemmed in by a series of
deep, basin-like valleys. In order to get from one side of such a ravine
to the other, I cut my way through the bush with a dozen of my men.
It was a very open part, with more grass than scrub, but even so the
short stretch of less than two hundred yards was very hard work; at
the end of it the men’s calicoes were in rags and they themselves
bleeding from hundreds of scratches, while even our strong khaki
suits had not escaped scatheless.
NATIVE PATH THROUGH THE MAKONDE BUSH, NEAR

MAHUTA
I see increasing reason to believe that the view formed some time
back as to the origin of the Makonde bush is the correct one. I have
no doubt that it is not a natural product, but the result of human
occupation. Those parts of the high country where man—as a very
slight amount of practice enables the eye to perceive at once—has not
yet penetrated with axe and hoe, are still occupied by a splendid
timber forest quite able to sustain a comparison with our mixed
forests in Germany. But wherever man has once built his hut or tilled
his field, this horrible bush springs up. Every phase of this process
may be seen in the course of a couple of hours’ walk along the main
road. From the bush to right or left, one hears the sound of the axe—
not from one spot only, but from several directions at once. A few
steps further on, we can see what is taking place. The brush has been
cut down and piled up in heaps to the height of a yard or more,
between which the trunks of the large trees stand up like the last
pillars of a magnificent ruined building. These, too, present a
melancholy spectacle: the destructive Makonde have ringed them—
cut a broad strip of bark all round to ensure their dying off—and also
piled up pyramids of brush round them. Father and son, mother and
son-in-law, are chopping away perseveringly in the background—too
busy, almost, to look round at the white stranger, who usually excites
so much interest. If you pass by the same place a week later, the piles
of brushwood have disappeared and a thick layer of ashes has taken
the place of the green forest. The large trees stretch their
smouldering trunks and branches in dumb accusation to heaven—if
they have not already fallen and been more or less reduced to ashes,
perhaps only showing as a white stripe on the dark ground.
This work of destruction is carried out by the Makonde alike on the
virgin forest and on the bush which has sprung up on sites already
cultivated and deserted. In the second case they are saved the trouble
of burning the large trees, these being entirely absent in the
secondary bush.
After burning this piece of forest ground and loosening it with the
hoe, the native sows his corn and plants his vegetables. All over the
country, he goes in for bed-culture, which requires, and, in fact,
receives, the most careful attention. Weeds are nowhere tolerated in
the south of German East Africa. The crops may fail on the plains,
where droughts are frequent, but never on the plateau with its
abundant rains and heavy dews. Its fortunate inhabitants even have
the satisfaction of seeing the proud Wayao and Wamakua working
for them as labourers, driven by hunger to serve where they were
accustomed to rule.
But the light, sandy soil is soon exhausted, and would yield no
harvest the second year if cultivated twice running. This fact has
been familiar to the native for ages; consequently he provides in
time, and, while his crop is growing, prepares the next plot with axe
and firebrand. Next year he plants this with his various crops and
lets the first piece lie fallow. For a short time it remains waste and
desolate; then nature steps in to repair the destruction wrought by
man; a thousand new growths spring out of the exhausted soil, and
even the old stumps put forth fresh shoots. Next year the new growth
is up to one’s knees, and in a few years more it is that terrible,
impenetrable bush, which maintains its position till the black
occupier of the land has made the round of all the available sites and
come back to his starting point.
The Makonde are, body and soul, so to speak, one with this bush.
According to my Yao informants, indeed, their name means nothing
else but “bush people.” Their own tradition says that they have been
settled up here for a very long time, but to my surprise they laid great
stress on an original immigration. Their old homes were in the
south-east, near Mikindani and the mouth of the Rovuma, whence
their peaceful forefathers were driven by the continual raids of the
Sakalavas from Madagascar and the warlike Shirazis[47] of the coast,
to take refuge on the almost inaccessible plateau. I have studied
African ethnology for twenty years, but the fact that changes of
population in this apparently quiet and peaceable corner of the earth
could have been occasioned by outside enterprises taking place on
the high seas, was completely new to me. It is, no doubt, however,
correct.
The charming tribal legend of the Makonde—besides informing us
of other interesting matters—explains why they have to live in the
thickest of the bush and a long way from the edge of the plateau,
instead of making their permanent homes beside the purling brooks
and springs of the low country.
“The place where the tribe originated is Mahuta, on the southern
side of the plateau towards the Rovuma, where of old time there was
nothing but thick bush. Out of this bush came a man who never
washed himself or shaved his head, and who ate and drank but little.
He went out and made a human figure from the wood of a tree
growing in the open country, which he took home to his abode in the
bush and there set it upright. In the night this image came to life and
was a woman. The man and woman went down together to the
Rovuma to wash themselves. Here the woman gave birth to a still-
born child. They left that place and passed over the high land into the
valley of the Mbemkuru, where the woman had another child, which
was also born dead. Then they returned to the high bush country of
Mahuta, where the third child was born, which lived and grew up. In
course of time, the couple had many more children, and called
themselves Wamatanda. These were the ancestral stock of the
Makonde, also called Wamakonde,[48] i.e., aborigines. Their
forefather, the man from the bush, gave his children the command to
bury their dead upright, in memory of the mother of their race who
was cut out of wood and awoke to life when standing upright. He also
warned them against settling in the valleys and near large streams,
for sickness and death dwelt there. They were to make it a rule to
have their huts at least an hour’s walk from the nearest watering-
place; then their children would thrive and escape illness.”
The explanation of the name Makonde given by my informants is
somewhat different from that contained in the above legend, which I
extract from a little book (small, but packed with information), by
Pater Adams, entitled Lindi und sein Hinterland. Otherwise, my
results agree exactly with the statements of the legend. Washing?
Hapana—there is no such thing. Why should they do so? As it is, the
supply of water scarcely suffices for cooking and drinking; other
people do not wash, so why should the Makonde distinguish himself
by such needless eccentricity? As for shaving the head, the short,
woolly crop scarcely needs it,[49] so the second ancestral precept is
likewise easy enough to follow. Beyond this, however, there is
nothing ridiculous in the ancestor’s advice. I have obtained from
various local artists a fairly large number of figures carved in wood,
ranging from fifteen to twenty-three inches in height, and
representing women belonging to the great group of the Mavia,
Makonde, and Matambwe tribes. The carving is remarkably well
done and renders the female type with great accuracy, especially the
keloid ornamentation, to be described later on. As to the object and
meaning of their works the sculptors either could or (more probably)
would tell me nothing, and I was forced to content myself with the
scanty information vouchsafed by one man, who said that the figures
were merely intended to represent the nembo—the artificial
deformations of pelele, ear-discs, and keloids. The legend recorded
by Pater Adams places these figures in a new light. They must surely
be more than mere dolls; and we may even venture to assume that
they are—though the majority of present-day Makonde are probably
unaware of the fact—representations of the tribal ancestress.
The references in the legend to the descent from Mahuta to the
Rovuma, and to a journey across the highlands into the Mbekuru
valley, undoubtedly indicate the previous history of the tribe, the
travels of the ancestral pair typifying the migrations of their
descendants. The descent to the neighbouring Rovuma valley, with
its extraordinary fertility and great abundance of game, is intelligible
at a glance—but the crossing of the Lukuledi depression, the ascent
to the Rondo Plateau and the descent to the Mbemkuru, also lie
within the bounds of probability, for all these districts have exactly
the same character as the extreme south. Now, however, comes a
point of especial interest for our bacteriological age. The primitive
Makonde did not enjoy their lives in the marshy river-valleys.
Disease raged among them, and many died. It was only after they
had returned to their original home near Mahuta, that the health
conditions of these people improved. We are very apt to think of the
African as a stupid person whose ignorance of nature is only equalled
by his fear of it, and who looks on all mishaps as caused by evil
spirits and malignant natural powers. It is much more correct to
assume in this case that the people very early learnt to distinguish
districts infested with malaria from those where it is absent.
This knowledge is crystallized in the
ancestral warning against settling in the
valleys and near the great waters, the
dwelling-places of disease and death. At the
same time, for security against the hostile
Mavia south of the Rovuma, it was enacted
that every settlement must be not less than a
certain distance from the southern edge of the
plateau. Such in fact is their mode of life at the
present day. It is not such a bad one, and
certainly they are both safer and more
comfortable than the Makua, the recent
intruders from the south, who have made USUAL METHOD OF
good their footing on the western edge of the CLOSING HUT-DOOR
plateau, extending over a fairly wide belt of
country. Neither Makua nor Makonde show in their dwellings
anything of the size and comeliness of the Yao houses in the plain,
especially at Masasi, Chingulungulu and Zuza’s. Jumbe Chauro, a
Makonde hamlet not far from Newala, on the road to Mahuta, is the
most important settlement of the tribe I have yet seen, and has fairly
spacious huts. But how slovenly is their construction compared with
the palatial residences of the elephant-hunters living in the plain.
The roofs are still more untidy than in the general run of huts during
the dry season, the walls show here and there the scanty beginnings
or the lamentable remains of the mud plastering, and the interior is a
veritable dog-kennel; dirt, dust and disorder everywhere. A few huts
only show any attempt at division into rooms, and this consists
merely of very roughly-made bamboo partitions. In one point alone
have I noticed any indication of progress—in the method of fastening
the door. Houses all over the south are secured in a simple but
ingenious manner. The door consists of a set of stout pieces of wood
or bamboo, tied with bark-string to two cross-pieces, and moving in
two grooves round one of the door-posts, so as to open inwards. If
the owner wishes to leave home, he takes two logs as thick as a man’s
upper arm and about a yard long. One of these is placed obliquely
against the middle of the door from the inside, so as to form an angle
of from 60° to 75° with the ground. He then places the second piece
horizontally across the first, pressing it downward with all his might.
It is kept in place by two strong posts planted in the ground a few
inches inside the door. This fastening is absolutely safe, but of course
cannot be applied to both doors at once, otherwise how could the
owner leave or enter his house? I have not yet succeeded in finding
out how the back door is fastened.
MAKONDE LOCK AND KEY AT JUMBE CHAURO

This is the general way of closing a house. The Makonde at Jumbe
Chauro, however, have a much more complicated, solid and original
one. Here, too, the door is as already described, except that there is
only one post on the inside, standing by itself about six inches from
one side of the doorway. Opposite this post is a hole in the wall just
large enough to admit a man’s arm. The door is closed inside by a
large wooden bolt passing through a hole in this post and pressing
with its free end against the door. The other end has three holes into
which fit three pegs running in vertical grooves inside the post. The
door is opened with a wooden key about a foot long, somewhat
curved and sloped off at the butt; the other end has three pegs
corresponding to the holes, in the bolt, so that, when it is thrust
through the hole in the wall and inserted into the rectangular
opening in the post, the pegs can be lifted and the bolt drawn out.[50]
MODE OF INSERTING THE KEY
With no small pride first one householder and then a second

showed me on the spot the action of this greatest invention of the
Makonde Highlands. To both with an admiring exclamation of
“Vizuri sana!” (“Very fine!”). I expressed the wish to take back these
marvels with me to Ulaya, to show the Wazungu what clever fellows
the Makonde are. Scarcely five minutes after my return to camp at
Newala, the two men came up sweating under the weight of two
heavy logs which they laid down at my feet, handing over at the same
time the keys of the fallen fortress. Arguing, logically enough, that if
the key was wanted, the lock would be wanted with it, they had taken
their axes and chopped down the posts—as it never occurred to them
to dig them out of the ground and so bring them intact. Thus I have
two badly damaged specimens, and the owners, instead of praise,
come in for a blowing-up.
The Makua huts in the environs of Newala are especially
miserable; their more than slovenly construction reminds one of the
temporary erections of the Makua at Hatia’s, though the people here
have not been concerned in a war. It must therefore be due to
congenital idleness, or else to the absence of a powerful chief. Even
the baraza at Mlipa’s, a short hour’s walk south-east of Newala,
shares in this general neglect. While public buildings in this country
are usually looked after more or less carefully, this is in evident
danger of being blown over by the first strong easterly gale. The only
attractive object in this whole district is the grave of the late chief
Mlipa. I visited it in the morning, while the sun was still trying with
partial success to break through the rolling mists, and the circular
grove of tall euphorbias, which, with a broken pot, is all that marks
the old king’s resting-place, impressed one with a touch of pathos.
Even my very materially-minded carriers seemed to feel something
of the sort, for instead of their usual ribald songs, they chanted
solemnly, as we marched on through the dense green of the Makonde
bush:—
“We shall arrive with the great master; we stand in a row and have
no fear about getting our food and our money from the Serkali (the
Government). We are not afraid; we are going along with the great
master, the lion; we are going down to the coast and back.”
With regard to the characteristic features of the various tribes here
on the western edge of the plateau, I can arrive at no other
conclusion than the one already come to in the plain, viz., that it is
impossible for anyone but a trained anthropologist to assign any
given individual at once to his proper tribe. In fact, I think that even
an anthropological specialist, after the most careful examination,
might find it a difficult task to decide. The whole congeries of peoples
collected in the region bounded on the west by the great Central
African rift, Tanganyika and Nyasa, and on the east by the Indian
Ocean, are closely related to each other—some of their languages are
only distinguished from one another as dialects of the same speech,
and no doubt all the tribes present the same shape of skull and
structure of skeleton. Thus, surely, there can be no very striking
differences in outward appearance.
Even did such exist, I should have no time
to concern myself with them, for day after day,
I have to see or hear, as the case may be—in
any case to grasp and record—an
extraordinary number of ethnographic
phenomena. I am almost disposed to think it
fortunate that some departments of inquiry, at
least, are barred by external circumstances.
Chief among these is the subject of iron-
working. We are apt to think of Africa as a
country where iron ore is everywhere, so to
speak, to be picked up by the roadside, and
where it would be quite surprising if the
inhabitants had not learnt to smelt the
material ready to their hand. In fact, the
knowledge of this art ranges all over the
continent, from the Kabyles in the north to the
Kafirs in the south. Here between the Rovuma
and the Lukuledi the conditions are not so
favourable. According to the statements of the
Makonde, neither ironstone nor any other
form of iron ore is known to them. They have
not therefore advanced to the art of smelting
the metal, but have hitherto bought all their
THE ANCESTRESS OF
THE MAKONDE
iron implements from neighbouring tribes.
Even in the plain the inhabitants are not much
better off. Only one man now living is said to
understand the art of smelting iron. This old fundi lives close to
Huwe, that isolated, steep-sided block of granite which rises out of
the green solitude between Masasi and Chingulungulu, and whose
jagged and splintered top meets the traveller’s eye everywhere. While
still at Masasi I wished to see this man at work, but was told that,
frightened by the rising, he had retired across the Rovuma, though
he would soon return. All subsequent inquiries as to whether the
fundi had come back met with the genuine African answer, “Bado”
(“Not yet”).
BRAZIER
Some consolation was afforded me by a brassfounder, whom I

came across in the bush near Akundonde’s. This man is the favourite
of women, and therefore no doubt of the gods; he welds the glittering
brass rods purchased at the coast into those massive, heavy rings
which, on the wrists and ankles of the local fair ones, continually give
me fresh food for admiration. Like every decent master-craftsman he
had all his tools with him, consisting of a pair of bellows, three
crucibles and a hammer—nothing more, apparently. He was quite
willing to show his skill, and in a twinkling had fixed his bellows on
the ground. They are simply two goat-skins, taken off whole, the four
legs being closed by knots, while the upper opening, intended to
admit the air, is kept stretched by two pieces of wood. At the lower
end of the skin a smaller opening is left into which a wooden tube is
stuck. The fundi has quickly borrowed a heap of wood-embers from
the nearest hut; he then fixes the free ends of the two tubes into an
earthen pipe, and clamps them to the ground by means of a bent
piece of wood. Now he fills one of his small clay crucibles, the dross
on which shows that they have been long in use, with the yellow
material, places it in the midst of the embers, which, at present are
only faintly glimmering, and begins his work. In quick alternation
the smith’s two hands move up and down with the open ends of the
bellows; as he raises his hand he holds the slit wide open, so as to let
the air enter the skin bag unhindered. In pressing it down he closes
the bag, and the air puffs through the bamboo tube and clay pipe into
the fire, which quickly burns up. The smith, however, does not keep
on with this work, but beckons to another man, who relieves him at
the bellows, while he takes some more tools out of a large skin pouch
carried on his back. I look on in wonder as, with a smooth round
stick about the thickness of a finger, he bores a few vertical holes into
the clean sand of the soil. This should not be difficult, yet the man
seems to be taking great pains over it. Then he fastens down to the
ground, with a couple of wooden clamps, a neat little trough made by
splitting a joint of bamboo in half, so that the ends are closed by the
two knots. At last the yellow metal has attained the right consistency,
and the fundi lifts the crucible from the fire by means of two sticks
split at the end to serve as tongs. A short swift turn to the left—a
tilting of the crucible—and the molten brass, hissing and giving forth
clouds of smoke, flows first into the bamboo mould and then into the
holes in the ground.
The technique of this backwoods craftsman may not be very far
advanced, but it cannot be denied that he knows how to obtain an
adequate result by the simplest means. The ladies of highest rank in
this country—that is to say, those who can afford it, wear two kinds
of these massive brass rings, one cylindrical, the other semicircular
in section. The latter are cast in the most ingenious way in the
bamboo mould, the former in the circular hole in the sand. It is quite
a simple matter for the fundi to fit these bars to the limbs of his fair
customers; with a few light strokes of his hammer he bends the
pliable brass round arm or ankle without further inconvenience to
the wearer.
SHAPING THE POT
SMOOTHING WITH MAIZE-COB
CUTTING THE EDGE

FINISHING THE BOTTOM
LAST SMOOTHING BEFORE

BURNING
FIRING THE BRUSH-PILE

LIGHTING THE FARTHER SIDE OF
THE PILE
TURNING THE RED-HOT VESSEL
NYASA WOMAN MAKING POTS AT MASASI

Pottery is an art which must always and everywhere excite the
interest of the student, just because it is so intimately connected with
the development of human culture, and because its relics are one of
the principal factors in the reconstruction of our own condition in
prehistoric times. I shall always remember with pleasure the two or
three afternoons at Masasi when Salim Matola’s mother, a slightly-
built, graceful, pleasant-looking woman, explained to me with
touching patience, by means of concrete illustrations, the ceramic art
of her people. The only implements for this primitive process were a
lump of clay in her left hand, and in the right a calabash containing
the following valuables: the fragment of a maize-cob stripped of all
its grains, a smooth, oval pebble, about the size of a pigeon’s egg, a
few chips of gourd-shell, a bamboo splinter about the length of one’s
hand, a small shell, and a bunch of some herb resembling spinach.
Nothing more. The woman scraped with the
shell a round, shallow hole in the soft, fine
sand of the soil, and, when an active young
girl had filled the calabash with water for her,
she began to knead the clay. As if by magic it
gradually assumed the shape of a rough but
already well-shaped vessel, which only wanted
a little touching up with the instruments
before mentioned. I looked out with the
MAKUA WOMAN closest attention for any indication of the use
MAKING A POT. of the potter’s wheel, in however rudimentary
SHOWS THE a form, but no—hapana (there is none). The
BEGINNINGS OF THE embryo pot stood firmly in its little
POTTER’S WHEEL
depression, and the woman walked round it in
a stooping posture, whether she was removing
small stones or similar foreign bodies with the maize-cob, smoothing
the inner or outer surface with the splinter of bamboo, or later, after
letting it dry for a day, pricking in the ornamentation with a pointed
bit of gourd-shell, or working out the bottom, or cutting the edge
with a sharp bamboo knife, or giving the last touches to the finished
vessel. This occupation of the women is infinitely toilsome, but it is
without doubt an accurate reproduction of the process in use among
our ancestors of the Neolithic and Bronze ages.
There is no doubt that the invention of pottery, an item in human
progress whose importance cannot be over-estimated, is due to
women. Rough, coarse and unfeeling, the men of the horde range
over the countryside. When the united cunning of the hunters has
succeeded in killing the game; not one of them thinks of carrying
home the spoil. A bright fire, kindled by a vigorous wielding of the
drill, is crackling beside them; the animal has been cleaned and cut
up secundum artem, and, after a slight singeing, will soon disappear
under their sharp teeth; no one all this time giving a single thought
to wife or child.
To what shifts, on the other hand, the primitive wife, and still more
the primitive mother, was put! Not even prehistoric stomachs could
endure an unvarying diet of raw food. Something or other suggested
the beneficial effect of hot water on the majority of approved but
indigestible dishes. Perhaps a neighbour had tried holding the hard
roots or tubers over the fire in a calabash filled with water—or maybe
an ostrich-egg-shell, or a hastily improvised vessel of bark. They
became much softer and more palatable than they had previously
been; but, unfortunately, the vessel could not stand the fire and got
charred on the outside. That can be remedied, thought our
ancestress, and plastered a layer of wet clay round a similar vessel.
This is an improvement; the cooking utensil remains uninjured, but
the heat of the fire has shrunk it, so that it is loose in its shell. The
next step is to detach it, so, with a firm grip and a jerk, shell and
kernel are separated, and pottery is invented. Perhaps, however, the
discovery which led to an intelligent use of the burnt-clay shell, was
made in a slightly different way. Ostrich-eggs and calabashes are not
to be found in every part of the world, but everywhere mankind has
arrived at the art of making baskets out of pliant materials, such as
bark, bast, strips of palm-leaf, supple twigs, etc. Our inventor has no
water-tight vessel provided by nature. “Never mind, let us line the
basket with clay.” This answers the purpose, but alas! the basket gets
burnt over the blazing fire, the woman watches the process of
cooking with increasing uneasiness, fearing a leak, but no leak
appears. The food, done to a turn, is eaten with peculiar relish; and
the cooking-vessel is examined, half in curiosity, half in satisfaction
at the result. The plastic clay is now hard as stone, and at the same
time looks exceedingly well, for the neat plaiting of the burnt basket
is traced all over it in a pretty pattern. Thus, simultaneously with
pottery, its ornamentation was invented.
Primitive woman has another claim to respect. It was the man,
roving abroad, who invented the art of producing fire at will, but the
woman, unable to imitate him in this, has been a Vestal from the
earliest times. Nothing gives so much trouble as the keeping alight of
the smouldering brand, and, above all, when all the men are absent
from the camp. Heavy rain-clouds gather, already the first large
drops are falling, the first gusts of the storm rage over the plain. The
little flame, a greater anxiety to the woman than her own children,
flickers unsteadily in the blast. What is to be done? A sudden thought
occurs to her, and in an instant she has constructed a primitive hut
out of strips of bark, to protect the flame against rain and wind.
This, or something very like it, was the way in which the principle
of the house was discovered; and even the most hardened misogynist
cannot fairly refuse a woman the credit of it. The protection of the
hearth-fire from the weather is the germ from which the human
dwelling was evolved. Men had little, if any share, in this forward
step, and that only at a late stage. Even at the present day, the
plastering of the housewall with clay and the manufacture of pottery
are exclusively the women’s business. These are two very significant
survivals. Our European kitchen-garden, too, is originally a woman’s
invention, and the hoe, the primitive instrument of agriculture, is,
characteristically enough, still used in this department. But the
noblest achievement which we owe to the other sex is unquestionably
the art of cookery. Roasting alone—the oldest process—is one for
which men took the hint (a very obvious one) from nature. It must
have been suggested by the scorched carcase of some animal
overtaken by the destructive forest-fires. But boiling—the process of
improving organic substances by the help of water heated to boiling-
point—is a much later discovery. It is so recent that it has not even
yet penetrated to all parts of the world. The Polynesians understand
how to steam food, that is, to cook it, neatly wrapped in leaves, in a
hole in the earth between hot stones, the air being excluded, and
(sometimes) a few drops of water sprinkled on the stones; but they
do not understand boiling.
To come back from this digression, we find that the slender Nyasa
woman has, after once more carefully examining the finished pot,
put it aside in the shade to dry. On the following day she sends me
word by her son, Salim Matola, who is always on hand, that she is
going to do the burning, and, on coming out of my house, I find her
already hard at work. She has spread on the ground a layer of very
dry sticks, about as thick as one’s thumb, has laid the pot (now of a
yellowish-grey colour) on them, and is piling brushwood round it.
My faithful Pesa mbili, the mnyampara, who has been standing by,
most obligingly, with a lighted stick, now hands it to her. Both of
them, blowing steadily, light the pile on the lee side, and, when the
flame begins to catch, on the weather side also. Soon the whole is in a
blaze, but the dry fuel is quickly consumed and the fire dies down, so
that we see the red-hot vessel rising from the ashes. The woman
turns it continually with a long stick, sometimes one way and
sometimes another, so that it may be evenly heated all over. In
twenty minutes she rolls it out of the ash-heap, takes up the bundle
of spinach, which has been lying for two days in a jar of water, and
sprinkles the red-hot clay with it. The places where the drops fall are
marked by black spots on the uniform reddish-brown surface. With a
sigh of relief, and with visible satisfaction, the woman rises to an
erect position; she is standing just in a line between me and the fire,
from which a cloud of smoke is just rising: I press the ball of my
camera, the shutter clicks—the apotheosis is achieved! Like a
priestess, representative of her inventive sex, the graceful woman
stands: at her feet the hearth-fire she has given us beside her the
invention she has devised for us, in the background the home she has
built for us.
At Newala, also, I have had the manufacture of pottery carried on
in my presence. Technically the process is better than that already
described, for here we find the beginnings of the potter’s wheel,
which does not seem to exist in the plains; at least I have seen
nothing of the sort. The artist, a frightfully stupid Makua woman, did
not make a depression in the ground to receive the pot she was about
to shape, but used instead a large potsherd. Otherwise, she went to
work in much the same way as Salim’s mother, except that she saved
herself the trouble of walking round and round her work by squatting
at her ease and letting the pot and potsherd rotate round her; this is
surely the first step towards a machine. But it does not follow that
the pot was improved by the process. It is true that it was beautifully
rounded and presented a very creditable appearance when finished,
but the numerous large and small vessels which I have seen, and, in
part, collected, in the “less advanced” districts, are no less so. We
moderns imagine that instruments of precision are necessary to
produce excellent results. Go to the prehistoric collections of our
museums and look at the pots, urns and bowls of our ancestors in the
dim ages of the past, and you will at once perceive your error.
MAKING LONGITUDINAL CUT IN
BARK
DRAWING THE BARK OFF THE LOG
REMOVING THE OUTER BARK

BEATING THE BARK
WORKING THE BARK-CLOTH AFTER BEATING, TO MAKE IT

SOFT
MANUFACTURE OF BARK-CLOTH AT NEWALA

To-day, nearly the whole population of German East Africa is
clothed in imported calico. This was not always the case; even now in
some parts of the north dressed skins are still the prevailing wear,
and in the north-western districts—east and north of Lake
Tanganyika—lies a zone where bark-cloth has not yet been
superseded. Probably not many generations have passed since such
bark fabrics and kilts of skins were the only clothing even in the
south. Even to-day, large quantities of this bright-red or drab
material are still to be found; but if we wish to see it, we must look in
the granaries and on the drying stages inside the native huts, where
it serves less ambitious uses as wrappings for those seeds and fruits
which require to be packed with special care. The salt produced at
Masasi, too, is packed for transport to a distance in large sheets of
bark-cloth. Wherever I found it in any degree possible, I studied the
process of making this cloth. The native requisitioned for the
purpose arrived, carrying a log between two and three yards long and
as thick as his thigh, and nothing else except a curiously-shaped
mallet and the usual long, sharp and pointed knife which all men and
boys wear in a belt at their backs without a sheath—horribile dictu!
[51]
Silently he squats down before me, and with two rapid cuts has
drawn a couple of circles round the log some two yards apart, and
slits the bark lengthwise between them with the point of his knife.
With evident care, he then scrapes off the outer rind all round the
log, so that in a quarter of an hour the inner red layer of the bark
shows up brightly-coloured between the two untouched ends. With
some trouble and much caution, he now loosens the bark at one end,
and opens the cylinder. He then stands up, takes hold of the free
edge with both hands, and turning it inside out, slowly but steadily
pulls it off in one piece. Now comes the troublesome work of
scraping all superfluous particles of outer bark from the outside of
the long, narrow piece of material, while the inner side is carefully
scrutinised for defective spots. At last it is ready for beating. Having
signalled to a friend, who immediately places a bowl of water beside
him, the artificer damps his sheet of bark all over, seizes his mallet,
lays one end of the stuff on the smoothest spot of the log, and
hammers away slowly but continuously. “Very simple!” I think to
myself. “Why, I could do that, too!”—but I am forced to change my
opinions a little later on; for the beating is quite an art, if the fabric is
not to be beaten to pieces. To prevent the breaking of the fibres, the
stuff is several times folded across, so as to interpose several
thicknesses between the mallet and the block. At last the required
state is reached, and the fundi seizes the sheet, still folded, by both
ends, and wrings it out, or calls an assistant to take one end while he
holds the other. The cloth produced in this way is not nearly so fine
and uniform in texture as the famous Uganda bark-cloth, but it is
quite soft, and, above all, cheap.
Now, too, I examine the mallet. My craftsman has been using the
simpler but better form of this implement, a conical block of some
hard wood, its base—the striking surface—being scored across and
across with more or less deeply-cut grooves, and the handle stuck
into a hole in the middle. The other and earlier form of mallet is
shaped in the same way, but the head is fastened by an ingenious
network of bark strips into the split bamboo serving as a handle. The
observation so often made, that ancient customs persist longest in
connection with religious ceremonies and in the life of children, here
finds confirmation. As we shall soon see, bark-cloth is still worn
during the unyago,[52] having been prepared with special solemn
ceremonies; and many a mother, if she has no other garment handy,
will still put her little one into a kilt of bark-cloth, which, after all,
looks better, besides being more in keeping with its African
surroundings, than the ridiculous bit of print from Ulaya.
MAKUA WOMEN

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References and Further Reading

Aristotle was born in Stagira and spent

References and Further Reading

* Translated by Benjamin Jowett.

“It is meet that Hellenes should rule over barbarians;”

“First house and wife and an ox for the plow”

“Each one gives law to his children and to his wives.”

“of their own accord entered the assembly of the Gods;”

“No bound to riches has been fixed for man.”

* Translated by W.D. Ross.

By the thirteenth century, the Roman

References and Further Reading

Newala, too, suffers from the distance of its water-supply—at least

The water-supply of New Newala is in the bottom of the valley,

NATIVE PATH THROUGH THE MAKONDE BUSH, NEAR

MAKONDE LOCK AND KEY AT JUMBE CHAURO

MODE OF INSERTING THE KEY

With no small pride first one householder and then a second

Some consolation was afforded me by a brassfounder, whom I

SMOOTHING WITH MAIZE-COB

CUTTING THE EDGE

LAST SMOOTHING BEFORE

FIRING THE BRUSH-PILE

TURNING THE RED-HOT VESSEL

NYASA WOMAN MAKING POTS AT MASASI

DRAWING THE BARK OFF THE LOG

REMOVING THE OUTER BARK

WORKING THE BARK-CLOTH AFTER BEATING, TO MAKE IT

MANUFACTURE OF BARK-CLOTH AT NEWALA

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