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Plato in his Laws1permits not any one to go and
draw water from his neighbor's well, who has not first
digged and sunk a pit in his own ground till he is come to
a vein of clay, and has by his sounding experimented that
the place will not yield a spring. For the clay or potter's
earth, being of its own nature fatty, solid, and strong,
retains the moisture it receives, and will not let it soak or
pierce through. But it must be lawful for them to take
water from another's ground, when there is no way or
means for them to find any in their own; for the law ought
to provide for men's necessity, but not favor their laziness.
Should there not be the like ordinance also concerning
money; that none should be allowed to borrow upon
usury, nor to go and dive into other men's purses,—as
it were into their wells and fountains,—before they have
first searched at home and sounded every means for the
obtaining it; having collected (as it were) and gathered
together all the gutters and springs, to try if they can
draw from them what may suffice to supply their most
necessary occasions? But on the contrary, many there
are who, to defray their idle expenses and to satisfy their
extravagant and superfluous delights, make not use of
their own, but have recourse to others, running themselves
deeply into debt without any necessity. Now this may
[p. 413]
easily be judged, if one does but consider that usurers do
not ordinarily lend to those which are in distress, but only
to such as desire to obtain somewhat that is superfluous
and of which they stand not in need. So that the credit
given by the lender is a testimony sufficiently proving
that the borrower has of his own; whereas on the contrary, since he has of his own, he ought to keep himself
from borrowing.
1 Plato, Laws, VIII. p. 844 B.
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