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Quotation from Religion and the Rise of Capitalism by R. H. Tawney
“So merciless is the tyranny of economic appetites, so prone to self-aggrandizement the empire of economic interests, that a doctrine which confines them to their proper sphere, as the servant, not the master, of civilization, may reasonably be regarded as among the pregnant truisms which are a permanent element in any sane philosophy.”
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, Ch. I, The Medieval Background, sec. 3, The Ideal and the Reality (Project Gutenberg #71223 (Harcourt, Brace, 1926))
Tawney's estimate of what remains of permanent value in medieval social teaching, despite its failures in practice.
Citation: "So merciless is the tyranny of economic appetites, so prone to self-aggrandizement the empire of economic interests, that a doctrine which confines them to their proper sphere, as the servant, not the master, of civilization, may reasonably be regarded as among the pregnant truisms which are a permanent element in any sane philosophy." — R. H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, Ch. I, The Medieval Background, sec. 3, The Ideal and the Reality (Project Gutenberg #71223 (Harcourt, Brace, 1926)). (id tawney-religion-and-the-rise-of-capitalism-q2)
