ledge, which enters more or less into all commercial dealing, and its rightness depends on the care that

Speculative trade.

is taken to harm no others. It is manifestly Right that one who carefully cultivates and uses his intelligence to some serviceable end should have the benefit of an advantage over those who do not; and this can come to him in trade with no loss to others, whose benefit is merely less, and justly less, than his own. He is bound by the great Rule of Right to use any advantage he may happen to possess, whether of strength in his body, or of energy in his spirit, or of capability in his mind, with careful consideration for his fellow men. That marks a limit which each must find for himself.

Within that limit, if he is performing a useful part in society, as a middleman between producer and consumer, it is clearly his right to buy to-day instead of to-morrow, and sell to-morrow instead of to-day, with some risk of loss for a chance of increased gain; and this is speculative trade or "business" in the proper sense of the words. What one gains in it is not obtained by making another lose. A may win a profit which B, with equal sagacity or alertness, might have had; but A's gain makes B no poorer than he was before.

EXAMPLES AND OPINIONS

FRAUD WORSE THAN THEFT IN THE MORALS OF THE LILLIPUTIANS. In the satirical romance of "Gulliver's Travels," Dean Swift represents Gulliver as saying of the Lillipu

tians: "They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death; for they allege that care and vigilance, with a very common understanding, may preserve a man's goods from thieves, but honesty has no fence against superior cunning; and since it is necessary that there should be a perpetual intercourse of buying and selling, and dealing upon credit, where fraud is permitted and connived at, or has no law to punish it, the honest dealer is always undone, and the knave gets the advantage. I remember, when I was once interceding with the king for a criminal who had wronged his master of a great sum of money, which he had received by order and ran away with, and happening to tell his majesty, by way of extenuation, that it was only a breach of trust, the emperor thought it monstrous in me to offer as a defence the greatest aggravation of the crime; and truly I had little to say in return,

farther than the common answer, that different nations had different customs; for, I confess, I was heartily ashamed."

CICERO ON THE MORALS OF TRADE. The following passages are from chapters v., vi., xii., and xiii. of the Third Book of Cicero's "Offices," the treatise on Moral Duties which he wrote for the instruction of his son Mar

cus:

"To take away wrongfully from another, and for one man to advance his own interest by the disadvantage of another man, is more contrary to nature than death, than poverty, than pain, than any other evils which can befall either our bodies or external circumstances. For, in the first place, it destroys human intercourse and society; for if each for his own gain shall despoil or offer violence to another, the inevitable consequence is that the society of the human race, which is most consistent with nature, will be broken asunder.

... It is indeed allowed, nature not opposing, that each should rather acquire for himself than for another, whatever pertains to the enjoyment of life; but nature does not allow this, that by the spoliation of others we should increase our own means, resources and opulence." "One thing, therefore, ought to be aimed at by all men: that the interest of each individually and of all collectively should be the same; for if each should grasp at his individual interest, all human society will be dissolved."

In another part of this fine treatise, Cicero illustrates his idea of honor or rightness in trade by the following example: "Cases often occur when profit seems to be opposed to rectitude, so that it is necessary to consider whether it is plainly opposed, or can be reconciled with rectitude. Of that sort are these questions: If, for example, an honest man has brought from Alexandria to Rhodes a great quantity of