72. False ideas on lending upon interest.
The rate of interest is by no means founded, as may be
imagined, on the profit the borrower hopes to make, with the
capital of which he purchases the use. This rate like the price
of all other merchandize, is fixed by the circumstances of buyer
and seller; by the proportion of the sum offered with the demand.
People borrow with every kind of view, and with every sort of
motive. One borrows to undertake an enterprize that is to make
his fortune, another to buy an estate, another to pay his losses
at play, another to supply the loss of his revenue, of which some
accident has deprived him, another to exist on, in expectation of
what he is able to gain by his labour. but all these motives
which determine the borrower, are very indifferent to the lender.
He attends to two things only, the interest he is to receive, and
the safety of his capital. He never attends to the use the
borrower puts it to, as a merchant does not care to what use the
buyer applies the commodities he sells him.
