An acquaintance with this sort of logarithms—tables of which, calculated to a very high degree, are possessed by proprietors—will give us the key to the most puzzling problems, and cause us to experience a series of surprises.
By this logarithmic theory of the right of increase, a piece of property, together with its income, may be defined as a number whose logarithm is equal to the sum of its units divided by one hundred, and multiplied by the rate of interest. For instance; a house valued at one hundred thousand francs, and leased at five per cent., yields a revenue of five thousand francs, according to the formula 100,000 x 5 100 = five thousand. Vice versa, a piece of land which yields, at two and a half per cent., a revenue of three thousand francs is worth one hundred and twenty thousand francs, according to this other formula; 3,000 x 100 2½ = one hundred and twenty thousand.
In the first case, the ratio of the progression which marks the increase of interest is five; in the second, it is two and a half.
Observation.—The forms of increase known as farm-rent, income, and interest are paid annually; rent is paid by the week, the month, or the year; profits and gains are paid at the time of exchange. Thus, the amount of increase is proportional both to the thing increased, and the time during which it increases; in other words, usury grows like a cancer—fœnus serpit sicut cancer.
2. The increase paid to the proprietor by the occupant is a dead loss to the latter. For if the proprietor owed, in exchange for the increase which he receives, some thing more than the permission which he grants, his right of property would not be perfect—he would not possess jure optimo, jure perfecto; that is, he would not be in reality a proprietor. Then, all which passes from the hands of the occupant into
