This sketch of the genesis of the modern institution of property and of modern business principles may seem dubious to those who are inclined to give it a more substantial character than that of a habit of thought, — that is to say, those who still adhere to the doctrine of natural rights with something of the eighteenth-century naivete.
But whatever may be accepted as the ulterior grounds of that cultural movement which culminated in the system of Natural Liberty, it is plain that tlie industrial and commercial experience of western Europe, and primarily of England, from the fifteenth to tlie eighteenth century, had much to do with the outcome of the movement in so far as natural liberty touches economic matters.
It is as an outcome of this recently past phase of economic development that we have incorporated in the law, cause and effect. Thia leaning to personal, workmanlike efficiency aa an ultimate term sbows itself even in the science of that time, e.g. la the quaai-personal character imputed to tba so-called "natural laws" wbieh then largely occupied scientific speculation ; similarly In the Romantic literature and political philosophy.
1 As tale as the close of the sixteenth century English law and nsage In the matter of loans for Inlerest and other contracts of a pecuniary character were In a less advanced state, admitted a less full and free discretion, than the correaponding development on the Continent ; but from abont that time the English rapidly gains on the Cuntinenlal oommuolty in the habitual acceptance and application of these " business principles," and it lias since then held the lead in this respect. VI. Ashley, Economic Bittory, vol. 11. ch. VL equity, and common sense of to-day, these peculiarly free and final property rights and obligations, that ia to say, those peculiar principles that control current business and industry. We owe to the eighteenth century a very full discretion and free awing in all pecuniary matters. It has given freedom of contract, together