The true master
A parable about paper, interest and the four things of nature – about the right measure.
To close the section on philosophy, a parable, retold here in prose.
The parable
An old master invites his four best journeymen to dinner. Each plate holds one of the four things of nature, and each is wrapped in a sheet of paper that hides silver, gold and gemstones. If the journeymen want to taste everything they must trade, but nobody likes to trade something large for something small.
So the master makes a proposal: the journeymen may keep the treasures. He wants only the paper. From now on they are to trade with this paper, and for lending it he takes just a few per cent. Their property serves as security. The journeymen feast and trade, pay their percentages and are surprised in the end to find their pockets empty when it is time to repay.
One of them sees the flaw: when his pockets fill, someone else’s empty. There is no more paper than the master has handed out. So they cannot all pay back the interest. Something is always missing. In the end their property falls to the one who lent the paper.
The master replies only: whoever does not know the measure will be followed by strife. Everything had been there from the start. The journeymen had merely been blinded by greed, for the whole treasure had been carried by a simple sheet of paper.
The lesson
The parable is a critique of interest-bearing money: if money comes into the world only against interest, the interest is always missing from the whole, and property flows to whoever issues the money. In the context of this site it stands for an idea that runs through every section: real things, the four elements, have a measure. The paper that merely wraps them has none. Whoever forgets the measure loses the things.