Chapter 1: About Commerce

The matters which follow demand to be treated with greater extensiveness. But the nature of this work does not permit it. I would wish to float along a tranquil river; I am borne by a torrent.

Commerce cures destructive prejudices. And it is almost a general rule that, everywhere that there are gentle morals, there is commerce, and that, everywhere that there is commerce, there are gentle morals.

Let no one be surprised, therefore, if our morals are less ferocious than they were before. Commerce has produced the result that knowledge of the morals of all nations has penetrated everywhere. Folk have compared them with one another, and from this there have resulted great goods.

One may say that the laws of commerce perfect morals for the same reason that these same laws are fatal to morals. Commerce corrupts pure morals (a). That was the subject of Plato's complaints. It polishes and softens barbarian morals, as we see in our day.

Chapter 2: About the Spirit of Commerce

The natural effect of commerce is to incline to peace. Two nations which trade together make themselves reciprocally dependent. If one has the interest in buying, the other has the interest of selling. And all unions are founded on mutual needs.

But, if the spirit of commerce unites nations, it does not similarly unite individuals. We see that, in countries (ab) where folk are only affected by the spirit of commerce, they traffic in every human action and all the moral virtues. The pettiest matters, those demanded by humanity, there are performed or given for the sake of money.

The spirit of commerce produces in men a certain sentiment of exact justice, opposed on the one hand to banditry and, on the other, all those moral virtues which cause that one does not always discuss his interests with rigidity, and that he may neglect them for the sake of others’ interests.

The complete privation of commerce, to the contrary, produces the banditry which Aristotle ranks in the number of means of acquisitions. Its spirit is not opposed to certain moral virtues. For example, hospitality, most rare in commercial countries, is wonderfully found among bandit peoples.