“It is foolish to lay out money in a purchase of repentance.”
“Silks and satins, scarlet and velvets put out the kitchen fire.”
“When the well is dry, they know the worth of water.”
“Pride breakfasted with Plenty, dined with Poverty, and supped with Infamy.”[101]
What Franklin has depicted with greatest force and eloquence, is the humiliation attached to debts, a sad consequence of the want of economy. There is a kind of pride which is not that of Rome and Sparta, nor of the courts and the great, but which has not the less its price.
“He that goes a borrowing, goes a sorrowing. Alas! think well what you do when you run in debt; you give to another power over your liberty. If you cannot pay at the time, you will be ashamed to see your creditor; you will be in fear when you speak to him; you will make poor, pitiful, sneaking excuses, and by degrees come to lose your veracity, and sink into base, downright lying. For lying rides upon Debt’s back. A free-born man ought not to be afraid to see or speak to any man living. But poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue. It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright.”
We should then avoid so to subject ourselves to material things as not to dare make use of them, which is avarice; or to spend them foolishly and thus render ourselves dependent upon men, which is prodigality. Economy lies between the two, and it is one of the virtues upon which Aristotle has most successfully established his theory of the golden mean. Kant, however, does not agree with him on this point. “For,” says he, “if economy is a just medium between two extremes, then should we, in going from one vice to the opposite vice, have to pass through virtue: the latter then would be nothing more than a lesser vice.” According to Kant, it is not the measure but the principle which may serve to distinguish a vice from a virtue: the one is distinguished from the other not quantitatively, but specifically. The two vices, extremes themselves, prodigality and avarice, namely, are opposed to each other, not only in degree, but in kind. What is prodigality? “It is,” says Kant, “to procure means of livelihood with a view to the enjoyment only.” What is avarice? “To acquire and preserve these means in view of possession only, interdicting one’s self the enjoyment thereof.” These two qualities, it is seen, do not only differ from each other in the more or the less, but in their very nature. There would remain next to ask, what is the quality of economy, and that is just what Kant does not tell us. In default of it, it might be formulated thus: “to acquire and preserve the means of livelihood, not for the sake of possession or enjoyment, but for present or future need.” Only there remains still the difficulty of distinguishing need from enjoyment. Where does legitimate need end? Where does barren enjoyment begin? It is here that Aristotle’s formula asserts itself, and that we must finally come to recognize that the virtue of economy consists in a certain medium between prodigality and avarice.
Yet whatever it be, we cannot better close this subject than by citing Aristotle’s admirable description of the prodigal and the miser: La Bruyère shows no greater acuteness and force.
“The prodigal is he who ruins himself on his own accord. The senseless squandering of his property is a sort of self-destruction, since one can only live on what one has. Prodigality is the excess of giving, and the want of receiving; but these two conditions cannot very long keep together; for it is not easy to give to every one, when one receives from no one. This vice, however, should not appear as blameworthy as that of avarice. Age, distress even, may easily enough correct the prodigal and bring him back to a just medium. Thus is the nature of the prodigal on the whole not a bad one; there is nothing vicious or low in this excessive tendency to give much and take nothing in return; it is only folly. It is true that prodigals become greedy and grasping. This is also why their gifts are not truly liberal ... why they enrich some people who should be left in poverty, and refuse doing anything for others far more deserving. They give with open hands to flatterers or people who procure them pleasures as unworthy as those of flattery.
“Avarice is incurable.... Avarice is more natural to man than prodigality; for most of us prefer keeping what we have than giving it away.... It consists of two principal elements: defect of giving, excess of receiving.... Some show more excess of receiving, some more defect of giving. Thus do all those branded by the name shabby, stingy, mean, sin through a defect of giving; yet do they not covet, nor would they take what belongs to others.... Other misers, on the contrary, may be known by their grasping propensities, taking all they can get: for example, all those who engage in ignoble speculations ... usurers and all those who lend small sums at large interest. All these people take where they should not take, and more than they ought to take. Lust for the most shameful lucre seems to be the common vice of all degraded hearts: there is no infamy they are not willing to endure, if they can make it a profit.”[102]