put you in possession of my ship for a year; and the reason I make this
demand of you is, that, during this year of _delay_, I wish to use the
vessel." That we may not be embarrassed by considerations relative to
the deterioration of the thing lent, I will suppose the shipowner to
add, "I will engage, at the end of the year, to hand over to you the
vessel in the state in which it is to-day." I ask of every candid man, I
ask of M. Proudhon himself, if the citizen has not a right to answer,
"The new clause which you propose entirely alters the proportion or the
equal value of the exchanged services. By it, I shall be deprived, for
the space of a year, both at once of my house and of your vessel. By it,
you will make use of both. If, in the absence of this clause, the
bargain was just, for the same reason the clause is injurious to me. It
stipulates for a loss to me, and a gain to you. You are requiring of me
a new service; I have a right to refuse, or to require of you, as a
compensation, an equivalent service." If the parties are agreed upon
this compensation, the principle of which is incontestable, we can
easily distinguish two transactions in one, two exchanges of service in
one. First, there is the exchange of the house for the vessel; after
this, there is the delay granted by one of the parties, and the
compensation correspondent to this delay yielded by the other. These two
new services take the generic and abstract names of _credit_ and
_interest_. But names do not change the nature of things; and I defy any
one to dare to maintain that there exists here, when all is done, a
service for a service, or a reciprocity of services. To say that one of
these services does not challenge the other, to say that the first ought
to be rendered gratuitously, without injustice, is to say that injustice
consists in the reciprocity of services,--that justice consists in one
of the parties giving and not receiving, which is a contradiction in
terms.