Acquisition

     "The natural form therefore, of the art of acquisition is always, and in all cases, acquisition from fruits and animals.  That art, as we have said, has two forms:  one which is connected with retail trade, and another which is connected with the management of the household.  Of these two forms, the latter is necessary and laudable; the former is a method of exchange which is justly censured, because the gain in which it results is not naturally made, but is made at the expense of other men.  The trade of the petty usurer is hated most, and with most reason:  it makes a profit from currency itself, instead of making it from the process (i.e., of exchange) which currency was meant to serve.  Currency came into existence merely as a means of exchange; usury tries to make it increase (as though it were an end in itself).  This is the reason why usury is called by the word we commonly use (the word tokos, which in Greek also means breed or offspring); for as the offspring resembles its parent, so the interest bred by money is like the principal which breeds it and it may be called 'currency the son of currency.'  Hence we can understand why, of all modes of acquisition, usury is the most unnatural."         Aristotle  350 B.C.