[Here the original essay proceeds:—

. . . store-holders, the deduction being practically made in the payment of rent for houses and lands, of interest on stock, and in other ways hereafter to be examined. At present I wish only to note the broad relations of the two great classes—the currency-holders and the store-holders.1 Of course they are partly united, most monied men having possessions of land or other goods; but they are separate in their nature and functions. The currency-holders as a class regulate the demand for labour, and the store-holders holders the laws of it; the currency-holders determine what shall be produced, and the store-holders the conditions of its production.

1[Ruskin’s note:] “They are (up to the amount of the currency) simply creditors and debtors—the commercial types of the two great sets of humanity which those words describe; for debt, and credit are of course merely the mercantile forms of the words ‘duty’ and ‘creed,’ which give the central ideas; only it is more accurate to say ‘faith’ than ‘creed,’ because creed has been applied carelessly to mere forms of words. Duty properly signifies whatever in substance or act one person owes to another, and faith the other’s trust in his rendering it. The French ‘devoir’ and ‘foi’ are fuller and clearer words than ours; for, faith being the passive of fact, foi comes straight through fides fr om fio; and the French keep the group of words formed from the infinitive—fieri, ‘se fier,’ ‘se défier,’ ‘défiance’ and the grand following ‘défi.’ Our English ‘affiance,’ ‘definance,‘ ‘confidence,’ ‘diffidence’ retain accurate meanings; but our ‘faithful’ has become obscure from being used for ‘faithworthy,’ as well as ‘full of faith.’ ‘His names that sat on him was called Faithful and True.‘

Trust is the passive of true saying, as faith is the passive of due doing; and the right learning of these etymologies, which are in the strictest sense only to be learned ‘by heart,’ is of considerably more importance to the youth of a nation than its reading and ciphering.”

LE: For a further note (in the original essay) on the etymology of “faith,” etc., see below, p. 290 n.; and compare Modern Painters, vol. v. (7.326–27). The Bible quotation is from Revelation xix. 11.


Last modified 14 March 2019