ABSTRACT
THOUGH all cheating is understood to be a serious matter and hateful in any business transaction, 1 it is even more unjust, insupportable, and sour when it proves to be practised at the expense of simple folk, particularly when counterfeit or debased coinage is passed, as I shall demonstrate below, in Bk VI, when I deal with the different kinds of currency. 2 This is why the race of Lapps, or Bothnians, a people of the wilds, is held to be as tranquil at home as it is unknown to the rest of the world outside. It is not troubled by this hazard of deceit for, since these folk have an eye to reckoning the value of goods rather than coins, they obtain what they wish in a pleasant state of serenity. 3 They are therefore ignorant of frenzied clamour and live free from civil discord, dwelling together without envy and sharing everything in common, unaware of deception. Their only striving is to avoid poverty, and not to love riches. These people do not know how to be seekers after gain, for they are unwilling to torment themselves with any cunning dealings. Consequently, living an unruffled existence, they wish only to acquire a modest fortune, so that they may not lack a healthy feeling of prosperity; for them it is a notorious sin to seize what is not their own and they are incapable of purloining another’s property. 3
Cheating hateful
A people unknown to the world
Blessed life
A sin to steal or seize
