Scotus Academicus, Tomus sextus: De Legibus Divinis et Humanis

That the name of Law is received in various senses, and that its appellation differs, both among sacred and among profane writers, there is no theologian who does not know. For Sacred Scripture illustrates and signifies law under several titles: it sometimes calls it by the name of will. Thus Psalm 102. He made his ways known to Moses, and his wills to the children of Israel. So likewise 2 Machabees 1. May he give you a heart to do his will in all things. Sometimes it expresses it under the name of light and of lamp. Thus Proverbs 6. The commandment is a law, and a light to the way of life. Elsewhere it calls it a yoke, thus Psalm 2. Let us cast away their yoke from us. And Matthew 11. My yoke is sweet. At times it expounds law under the name of precept. Thus Psalm 18. The precept of the Lord is bright. More often it names it commandment. Thus Psalm 118. Thou hast commanded thy commandments to be kept most diligently, and Matthew 19. If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. — But by a more common and more widely current name it is called lex, law. Of this name there is a threefold usage: the first indeed common and improper, for whatever rule of nature, of art, and of human actions. Here the law of nature is called, not that dictate of reason innate in individual men, whereby each one knows what accords with or conflicts with reason; but that which has been implanted by the Author of nature in all things; and it is nothing else than the very inclination of any thing whatsoever, whereby it is borne toward that which is fitting for it: for which reason St. Paul calls the inclination of the sensitive appetite toward a good congruent to it the law of the members, and the law of sin, at Romans 7. The law of art is that which embraces the rules according to which the works of an art must be formed, so that they may be called perfect; thus we speak of the laws of Grammar, etc. Finally, the law of morals is the norm or rule of whatsoever actions both of intellect and of will. — But more strictly, and more properly, law is said to be the rule of morals, whether just or unjust, in which sense even the prescriptions of tyrants are called laws. Thus Isaiah 10. Woe to them that make wicked laws. So likewise St. Isidore uses the term law, book 2. of the Etymologies, chapter 10, when he says that law is the constitution of the people which the elders sanctioned together with the plebs. But most strictly, and in its adequate signification, law is used for the ordination of reason directed to the common good, promulgated by him who has the care of the community, with obligation to its observance. Of this latter usage of law we shall speak in the following Questions.

We devote ourselves to establishing and asserting the necessity and existence of law: for the very defectibility and exigency of the intellectual creature sufficiently makes this plain. For since it very often deflects and wanders from the end of honesty toward which it ought to tend, it has need of some rule by which it may be led as by the hand to the attainment of that end. And if these things are true of the natural end, they must be far more certain concerning the supernatural end, which since it altogether exceeds the understanding and powers of the rational creature itself, and is naturally unknown to the human mind, no one can reach unless he be directed by a higher law and assisted by supernatural aids. — The very great utility of laws for the institution and preservation of the commonwealth proves this same point, whose salvation Aristotle rightly said was constituted in laws, book 5 of his Rhetoric: for if anyone should take away the laws from the republic, he would wrench the soul itself from the body; indeed where laws are lacking, thefts, homicides, and every other crime rage with impunity; whence that well-known saying of Augustine: Justice removed, which is established above all by laws, what are kingdoms but great robberies! To this also accords that saying of Isidore, book 2 Etymologies, chapter 20: Laws were made so that through fear of them human daring might cease, and innocence be safe among the impious, and in the impious themselves, dreading punishment, the faculty of doing harm be broken.

Therefore we undertake here only to expound the nature of law; wherefore

Note 1. Law, according to the etymology of the name, is said either from ligando, binding, because it binds and obliges men to its observance: on which account God complains of the rebellious Jews in Jeremiah 2: You have broken my yoke, you have burst my bands, and you said: I will not serve. And in Matthew 23 Christ, pointing out the hypocrisy and hardness of the Pharisees, says: They bind heavy burdens etc. Secondly, law is said from legendo, reading: because laws, especially positive ones, must be read and promulgated after they have been instituted, so as to bind subjects; or because man reads in the law itself what is to be done and what omitted; or finally, because laws were once handed down in writing so that they might be read and understood by all. Hence Isidore, book 2 Etymologies, chapter 10: This is the difference, he says, between law and custom, that law is written, while custom is a usage approved by antiquity. Cicero confirms this, book 1 On the Laws, where he says the word lex is derived from the verb lego, because it is recited from public tablets so as to become known to all; or it is said from eligendo, choosing, because in it there is a selection of things to be done or avoided: for every law dictates what things are to be chosen and what rejected. This latter usage of lex seems more apt and fitting to our present undertaking. Among the Hebrews, moreover, law is called thorah, from a verb which in the hiphil means to teach, because every law admonishes individual men of their duty and informs them concerning things to be done or avoided. Among the Greeks it is called nomos, from the verb nemеin, which signifies both to rule and to distribute, because according to its precept men ought to be ruled, and to render to each what is his own. Hence St. Augustine, Commentary on Psalm 59 after the middle, observes that although lex in the Latin tongue is of the feminine gender, nomos in Greek is masculine: for it has, he says, rather a masculine force, since it rules and is not ruled.

Note 2. That although law may not absurdly be judged to derive from legendo, reading, nevertheless the principal ground of law must not be placed in written or spoken discourse, but in the things themselves which are commanded or prohibited.

For it belongs only to things themselves to be done or not done, not properly to commands or words, says William of Paris in the treatise De legibus, chapter 1; for he who commands one to run does not command the word, but the running itself; nor does he who obey make the word of running, but the running itself properly; therefore as things are properly said to be done or omitted, so they are properly commanded and prohibited; wherefore also things are properly commanded and prohibited, words figuratively. Therefore precepts, and commandments, and law are first and properly read even as they are understood; for things are properly those whose understanding is properly and first sought. Which indeed he further confirms there, saying: The rules of honesty are such as these, that God is to be honored, that God is to be feared, that God is to be adored, that every man is to be loved, that provision is to be made for every man; whether those rules are written without or not, and whether they are heard without or not, they are true and to be held. And each one is bound by the debt of honoring God and by the debt of fearing him, whether he read it written abroad or not, and whether he hear these things abroad or not. And after this manner it stands with other things which are debts per se; although it be true that greater knowledge of the height and power of God augments the debt of honor and fear owed him, and increases the obligation. It is manifest, therefore, both that the rules of honesty and the debts, that is obligations, of doing certain things and avoiding certain others exist with all speech and writing set aside, and that transgression and sin likewise are without these; wherefore some law exists of necessity beyond this. Furthermore: all honesty is undoubtedly in the soul — I say the honesty of human life and of morals; but honesty of life regulated, ordered, and moderated: yet it is not regulated, or moderated, or ordered except by honesty, nor comely except by honesty. Wherefore the whole of that which orders, regulates, moderates, and adorns human life is in the soul: it is therefore beyond speech and writing, since these are external. Since, then, law is that which orders, regulates, moderates, and adorns human life, it is manifest that true law is in the soul. Furthermore: what is true law, unless a certain art or wisdom of living rightly and honestly? But every art and every wisdom is in the soul; wherefore if it has been truly said that true law is the art and wisdom of living rightly and honestly, truly law is, and by its true nature law is, in the soul.

Hence he concludes that law is said more properly and more truthfully to be that which is in the mind than that which is in writing or voice. But of what faculty the act should be law, whether of intellect or rather of will, that it may appear

Note 3. That law is properly used in two ways: First, indeed, for an act, and that either as it is in the legislator, or as it is in the subject. Secondly, for that which remains by way of habit; namely ever preserving its vigor from that time when it was promulgated, until it is either revoked by the Prince, or abrogated by contrary and long-continued custom; on account of which is current that saying of the Jurists: lex semper loquitur, the law always speaks. Now law insofar as it is an act in the legislator connotes and involves several acts specifically distinct, both on the part of the intellect and on the part of the will. First indeed it includes the intention of procuring the common good. Secondly a speculative judgment, by which it is judged that some means are convenient or inconvenient to the common good. Thirdly a practical judgment dictating that these things are to be avoided by subjects, those embraced. Fourthly the will by which the legislator wills certain things to be done or not done. Fifthly the very act of will whereby the same legislator wills to oblige subjects to the observance of his law. Sixthly finally the act of imperium by which he commands such observance.

But insofar as law is taken for the act which is in subjects, it includes, first, the act of the intellect judging that it is necessary and fitting for itself to observe the law. Secondly, the act of the will, whereby it freely wills and accepts the observance of the law.

Hence a controversy is moved among theologians, in which of all these acts the nature of law properly consists: for there are those who teach with St. Thomas that law consists essentially in the act of intellect alone. Some judge with Gerson, book 2 De potestate Ecclesiastica, consideration 13, that the nature of law is to be constituted in both acts, of intellect and of will. Common, however, among the disciples of the Subtle Doctor is the opinion that it must be placed precisely in the act of will alone. Which opinion, before it be confirmed, let

First Conclusion. — Law in general is rightly described as a persevering rule of human actions, implanted or prescribed, for the sake of the common good, by him who bears the care of the community and holds supreme authority over it, implanted, obliging to something to be done or omitted which is consonant with right reason.

It is called, 1. a Rule: because law formally and per se indicates what is to be done and omitted, in which respect generically it agrees as it were with synderesis and conscience; for these too are rules. — 2. Persevering, that law may be distinguished from a simple mandate and precept, which at the pleasure and will of the one commanding is taken away; for since law draws its origin from the first rectitude and truth, which is God, and since the first truth and rectitude is by its nature immutable, law likewise ought by reason of itself to involve a certain immutability and perpetuity, although sometimes it may be subject to change, whether by reason of the matter to which it is applied, or by reason of the end on whose account it is enacted: thus the ceremonial and judicial laws of the Old Law ceased and were revoked upon the advent of the New Law: the former indeed, because since they were shadows and figures of things to come, upon the advent of the truth they ceased; the latter, however, because since they had been prescribed for a people still enslaved to servitude, they ought to cease at the presence of the Evangelical Law, whose yoke is sweet and burden light: especially since it was prescribed and promulgated out of love, and out of love is to be fulfilled. — 3. Of human actions: for although Angels can be bound by law and precept, and constrained to something to be done or omitted, still we do not here institute discourse about angelic actions, any more than about the natural and necessary actions of man, since those cannot be directed to honesty. — 4. Implanted or prescribed: that both natural law and positive, divine,

Ecclesiastical or political laws are included under this definition. — 2. It is added on account of the common good: since the end of law is the felicity of the commonwealth, it is not lawful to bend it to private advantage. Hence it has rightly been laid down that the scope of laws is honorable utility: for neither God nor the commonwealth has conferred power upon superiors for any other end than that by enacting laws they may procure the common good. Hence this is the difference between a king and a tyrant, that the former seeks the public, the latter private advantage in his administration and governance. — 3. It is implied that it belongs to him who has the care of a community and obtains authority and jurisdiction over it: for he who compels others to comply and obey must necessarily exercise supreme power over them; which power, namely, in the Legislator is ordered to the governance of the community, and is distinguished from private and economic power, which resides in the head of a private family, e. g. in a father with respect to his sons, a master with respect to his servants, to whom he can give domestic precepts, but not prescribe Laws. Therefore that legislative power must extend to some community. It is also necessary that it be supreme: for jurisdiction within a community does not suffice for enacting and prescribing Laws: for it is found limited in most cases for the external forum, e. g. in ordinary judges and subordinate superiors, to whom indeed the authority of political governance belongs, yet not legislative power. — 4. Finally there is subjoined obliging or to do something, etc., so that Law may be distinguished from admonitions, exhortations, counsels, instructions, etc., which induce no obligation but only direction; Law, however, not only directs but also obliges to what is right or consonant with right reason; not indeed solely and simply to the just, because law pertains not to the matter of justice alone, but of other virtues as well. It is likewise distinguished from permission, because permission properly is not an action of law, but the negation of action, except insofar as it binds and restrains others from placing an impediment to the thing permitted.

All these, or at least the principal parts of the definition, will be examined more thoroughly below, so that the nature of Law may appear more clearly.

Second Conclusion. — Law is formally an act of the will, presupposing an act of the intellect whereby the legislator judges the matter of the law to be suitable to be decreed under obligation. This is the teaching of the Doctor in 1. d. 11. n. 2, where he says: I say that certain general right laws dictating things to be done are fixed by the divine will, and not indeed by the divine intellect, so as to precede the act of the divine will. By these words the Doctor plainly signifies that divine Law is to be formally placed not in the act of the divine intellect, but of the divine will: but the same must be said in like manner of human Law, Civil, and Ecclesiastical, on account of the parity of reason: therefore the Doctor holds that every Law must be constituted in an act of the will.

Proof First. In that act must the ratio of law be formally constituted which Sacred Scripture customarily uses to signify and express law: but Sacred Scripture ordinarily signifies Law by an act of the will: therefore in that act the ratio of Law is to be placed. The major stands: the minor is proved from that verse of Psalm 39. In the head of the book it is written of me that I should do thy will: O my God, I have desired it, and thy law in the midst of my heart. And Ps. 102. He made known his ways to Moses, his wills to the children of Israel, that is, his Laws and precepts. And 2 Machab. 1. May he give you all a heart to serve him, and to do his will, that is, that you keep and fulfill his Law. — It is confirmed from the fact that civil laws are said to be the pleasure of Princes: for in lib. 1. ff. De Constit. Princip. it is said: What has pleased the Prince has the force of law. Hence St. August. De Civit. Dei, lib. 6. The pleasure, he says, of Princes served instead of laws. Moreover Aristotle in the Rhetorica, c. 1. affirms that law is the common consent of the city: and Cicero, lib. 1. De Legibus teaches that lex was so called from election: but pleasure approved by consent, and what proceeds from election, implies an act of the will: therefore it is to be placed in an act of the will.

Nor does it avail to reply, with the Thomists, that the aforementioned testimonies intimate indeed that Law is an act of the will; not elicitive indeed, but only connotative and presuppositive; such that there is no Law which does not suppose or connote some act in the will of the legislator; yet that it is not to be formally placed in that act of the will. — This reply, I say, appears utterly groundless: both because the aforementioned testimonies simply and absolutely call Law an act of the will, while they name it either will, or pleasure, or consent, or election; and because the will rather presupposes an act of the intellect than the intellect an act of the will, especially in those operations which must be formed not only inwardly but also brought forth outwardly through the application of the exterior faculties, which certainly pertains to the will, not to the intellect.

The same is proved by theological reasoning: To that faculty does the ratio of law essentially belong which pertains to ordaining to an end; but to ordain to an end belongs to that faculty to which the end itself belongs: yet the attainment of the end pertains only to the will: therefore, etc. The major stands, for law is nothing else than a kind of guidance whereby rational creatures are led to their end as it were by a straight path. The minor also is evident; since the object of the will is the end itself to be attained; for end and good are convertible with each other; but good pertains to the will, as truth to the intellect. — Furthermore, the office of Law, and its proper ratio whereby it is distinguished from other rules of human actions, consists in the obligatory decree whereby subjects are moved to act rightly, or to elicit an operation conformable to the Law: but to move to the exercise of an operation, in order to some end, pertains to the will; because, as was just said, the object of the will is the end, which is the first principle in things to be done: therefore law pertains to the will. — Finally, to that power does the act of law essentially belong to which pertains being the rule of human actions: but the will is itself the rule of human actions: therefore, etc. The major is evident; for Law is essentially a rule and measure of human acts. The minor also is evident: since the divine will is the first rule to which all the acts of rational creatures ought to converge, that they may be judged right and perfect: according to that oracle of Christ the Lord in Matthew 5. Be you therefore also perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect: but the will of Prelates and Princes is the second rule of the rectitude of these same actions, and a certain participation of that divine will: therefore, etc.

What the Thomists bring forward against this assertion proves only the second part of our Conclusion; namely, that Law presupposes an act of the intellect whereby the Legislator judges the matter of the law to accord with the community, for which reason law is sometimes expressed in Sacred Scripture under the name of light; thus Psalm. 4. The light of thy countenance hath been signed upon us: Psal. 18. The commandment of the Lord is lightsome, enlightening the eyes. Prov. 6. The commandment is a lamp, and the law a light, but light and illumination pertain to the intellect; since illumination in spiritual things is nothing else than the manifestation of truth, according to that saying to the Ephes. 5. All that is made manifest is light: and accordingly law implies and presupposes an act of the intellect; wherefore St. August., lib. De libero arbitrio, c. 1. calls Law the highest reason, which must always be obeyed.

For reason is necessarily required for the enactment of law, that it itself may be just and prudent; and so it also in its own way directs subjects through the intimation and signification of the enacted law; yet the proper direction of law, whereby it takes effect through the imposition of obligation to do or omit something, must be traced back solely to the act of the will: whence the will itself also in a manner illuminates and instructs; for which reason St. Anselm, lib. De voluntate Dei, cap. 4. says, the will of God is the teacher of the human will, inasmuch namely as that divine will objectively set before creatures using reason shows them what their will ought to embrace and what to shun, just as the hand of a statue on the road points out which way one must go. — To these considerations is added Cicero, lib. 1. De legibus, where treating of the principles of right, and writing in accordance with the opinion of the Ancients on the definition of law, says: Law is the highest reason implanted in nature, which commands what should be done, and forbids the contrary. And although these words seem to be said of the natural law alone, nevertheless they can be adapted to the establishment of any other law. Whence he subjoins: That reason, when it is confirmed and completed in the mind of man, is law; and hence they judge prudence to be law, whose force is such that it commands right doing and forbids wrongdoing. Hence shortly afterwards he celebrates in splendid fashion the dignity of reason, and of man endowed with reason, in these words:

Animal hoc providum, sagax, multiplex, acutum, memor, plenum rationis et consilii, quem vocamus hominem, praeclara quadam conditione generatum esse a Supremo Deo. Solum est enim ex tot animantium generibus, atque naturis particeps rationis et cogitationis, cum coetera sint omnia expertia. Quid est autem, non dicam in homine, sed in omni coelo, atque terra, ratione divinius? Qua cum adolevit, atque perfecta est, nominatur rite sapientia. Est igitur, quoniam nihil est ratione melius, eaque et in homine et in Deo, prima homini cum Deo rationis societas. Inter quos autem ratio, inter eosdem etiam recta ratio communis est. Quae cum sit lex, lege quoque consociati homines cum Diis putandi sumus. Inter quos porro est communis legis, inter eos communis iuris est. Quibus autem haec sunt inter eos communia, eiusdemque civitatis habendi sunt. Si vero iisdem imperiis et potestatibus parent, multo etiam magis parent huic coelesti descriptioni, mentique divinae, et praepotenti Deo. Unde etiam universus hic mundus una civitas communis Deorum atque hominum est existimanda. Et quod in civitatibus, ratione quadam, de > qua dicetur idoneo loco, agnationibus familiarum distinguuntur status, id in rerum natura tanto est magnificentius, tantoque praeclarius ut homines Deorum agnatione et gente teneantur.

Haec Cicero.

From these considerations therefore it becomes manifest that although law consists principally in an act of the will, nevertheless it presupposes the act of the intellect illuminating and directing the will itself in establishing those things which are consonant with right reason and useful to the public good.

The present Question is an appendix and explanation of the former; in it, namely, certain parts of the definition of law are set forth more clearly, and are established by ampler discussion and declaration, in so far as, by explaining the conditions of law which pertain to its proper notion, its genuine constitutive difference may the more easily be made known. Wherefore

Note 1. It is certain that law must necessarily be brought to bear upon and directed to someone, or to some persons; for St. Paul says to the Romans 3: We know that what things soever the law speaketh, it speaketh to them that are in the law: therefore any law whatever essentially connotes some relation to those to whom it is prescribed; and consequently, in order to explain its notion, the term of this relation and ordination must necessarily be declared.

That this may appear more plainly, it must be observed that man can be regarded under a threefold aspect and relation: namely, either in himself, and with necessary respect to God — for instance if we suppose only one man in the world; or to other men in general; or specifically to those with whom he lives in society. In the first consideration man is ruled by the natural law; in the second by that which they call the law of nations; in the third truly by the civil law, which prescribes the reason of things to be done or avoided, that a peaceful and whole society may be preserved.

Moreover it is evident that every law must be directed to man as to its connatural term; since inferior creatures are not capable of laws properly so called, inasmuch as they are incapable of moral acts, which ought to be directed and regulated by law. And although Angels are capable of receiving and fulfilling the divine law, nevertheless no mention is now made of them, especially since we undertake to explain those laws which pertain to ordering man toward his natural or supernatural end. Hence there remains only to be determined whether it is of the reason of law that it be prescribed for some multitude, or whether it can also be directed to one single person.

Note 2. Community can be distinguished as twofold: one indeed from nature, the other from institution. Natural is that whereby men agree together in the same rational nature, which is ordained to society and intercourse; for Man, as Aristotle says, is an animal born and apt for society: but the latter is the political or mystical conjunction of men in the same congregation and same assembly. To the former community pertains the natural law, which is proposed to each man by the light of reason; because it is not borne to each and every man in particular and individually, as such he is, e. g. Peter or

Paul, but in species, and inasmuch as he is man. The latter community can be subdivided into two kinds: one indeed Ecclesiastical, instituted not by human but by divine right; because it has been ordered by God Himself under some head designated by Him, and with some union toward a supernatural end. Such of old was the Synagogue of the Jews, now truly the more excellent Catholic Church, which was instituted by Christ the Lord Himself not for one people or another only, but for the whole world, and ordered by the same with certain laws and sanctions, under the obedience of one head acting in the place of Christ the Lord Himself. To a community of this kind divine positive laws per se first pertain: as the laws of the Old Testament were prescribed for instituting the Jews, and the law of grace of the New Testament was promulgated for the universal Church, for forming the worship of God and the right instruction of the faithful. To the same likewise belong the Canonical laws, although not all are constituted for the universal Church, but according to the intention or power of those who enact them. Another community is Political, namely that which is an assembly of men associated together by human right in order to some natural end, joined under some head; for which reason Aristotle said in Book 3 of his Politics, chapter 10, that a city is the multitude of citizens having among themselves a moral bond under one principal moderator. — Which is again distinguished by the moral Philosophers, and by the jurists, into perfect and imperfect.

A perfect community is called that which is capable of political governance, or which suffices to itself in this order, as Aristotle asserted in book 1 of his Politics, chapter 1, that the city is a perfect community; and with stronger reason the kingdom, of which the city itself is a part, will be a perfect community. That community is called imperfect which does not suffice to itself, and in which the individual persons are not gathered together as principal members to constitute one political body, such as the household, over which the father of the family presides: for such a community, speaking per se, is not governed by its own power of jurisdiction, but by dominative power: and thus, according to the diversity of dominion, it participates in a diverse manner of commanding respectively toward diverse subjects; for the right, or quasi dominion, of the father of the family over his wife is one thing, another over his sons, another over slaves and servants; whence neither does it have perfect unity, or uniform power, nor does it even participate properly in political regimen: and therefore it is called an imperfect community.

Note 3. It is equally certain that Princes can establish laws and edicts concerning tributes and revenues to be justly paid to them by their subjects; which indeed the King of kings Himself approved by His own oracle in Matthew 22, saying: Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's. Just, I say, are those laws, because although they immediately regard the utility and advantage of the Prince to whom tributes are paid, yet remotely they look to the common good; because the more the Prince abounds, the more easily can he repel the enemies of the commonwealth, and relieve his subjects, lest, war pressing hard or some grave necessity and calamity impending, they be harassed by unwonted subsidies. Wherefore Christopher Marcellus, in the oration which he delivered at the fourth session of the Lateran Council under Julius the Second, aptly said: If there be no resources for the Prince, he cannot protect the city, nor declare war, nor preserve peace, nor guard himself within his walls. Hence tributes, the treasury, mints, payments, rents, pensions, taxes must be instituted by the Prince, as is fitting; since these are not poured back into the good of the Prince alone, but into the utility and advantage of the Commonwealth. But whether those laws be just whose utility and fruit redound to the advantage of the Prince alone, must here be determined. These matters having been premised, three things occur here to be determined: First, whether law must of necessity be prescribed to some whole community, so that it cannot be directed to particulars. Second, whether it is ordered per se to the good of the community. Third, whether the Prince can justly enact laws which conduce only to the private good of individuals.

First Conclusion. — It is of the essential reason of law that it be prescribed for some entire community.

The truth of this Conclusion appears especially from this, that law is distinguished from precept in this, that a precept is prescribed to one, law to all: inasmuch as the former regards private direction and ordering of a part, the latter public governance and the moderation and administration of the commonwealth. Moreover it is proved: first indeed by a kind of induction; for the eternal and natural law does not befit one man alone, but is traced in the hearts of all: Likewise the divine law, both old and new, were prescribed to communities, the former indeed to the Jewish people, the latter to the Church universal and propagated through the whole world. The same is evident concerning the civil law; since in book 1 of the ff. De legibus it is said: law is a common precept: ff., same title. Rights are constituted not for individual persons, but generally. The same is evident concerning the Canonical laws; for the Canons and decrees published by the Fathers are said to be public laws. Hence Gregory IX. in the proemium of the Decret. says: Therefore law is set down, that noxious appetite be limited by the rule of right, whereby the human race may be formed to live honestly. Wherefore in 1. ff. De legibus, the definition of law is handed down in this manner: Law is a common precept, the counsel of prudent men, the correction of offenses which are contracted voluntarily or through ignorance, the common pledge of the commonwealth.

It is proved secondly both from this, that law is the principal act of political or royal prudence, whereby it looks per se first to the good of the whole commonwealth or community to which it is prescribed; and consequently it is ordered not to one person only, but to the whole community; and also because, as will appear within, it is of the reason of law that it be perpetual: but no particular person, in this mortal state, for which especially law is prescribed, can be perpetual: therefore law, formally taken, cannot be prescribed to him, but to the community: which is held to be perpetual in so far as it perseveres through continuous succession.

You will object 1. In Canon law law is distinguished into private and public: and the Canons indeed, cap. Licet, de regularibus, and cap. Duce sunt, will the latter to be prescribed to a community, the former truly to a private person. The same likewise is handed down in Civil law; for the Instit. De iure naturali, gentium, et Civili. divide the laws of princes into general ones, which bind all, and personal ones, which are not drawn into precedent, because the princes do not will these: therefore it is not of the reason of law that it be enacted for the whole community.

I answer, by the private law in those Canons is understood a vow conceived under the special inspiration of the Holy Spirit, or divine inspiration itself, which is called a law improperly and metaphorically: because it is written in the heart, and impels and obliges toward the fulfilling of what was promised by the vow, after the manner of a law. But to the text

Institutes says that by personal law is understood that which is borne in favor of, or in punishment of, some person and his successors, or whose execution pertains to that person; but from this it is not licit to conclude that law is not prescribed to the community respectively, that is, for them as members of the community, and for the common good, at least mediately; inasmuch namely as it benefits the common good that the merits of some member of the republic be endowed with privileges, so that others may be thereby spurred and kindled to promote the good of the republic itself through outstanding deeds and diligent works.

You will object 2. Law is the rule of man's moral operations: but not only communities of men, but also individual men have need of this rule, that they may be directed to the end prescribed for them: therefore law of itself does not imply respect to the human community alone, but also to individual men considered singly and individually. It is confirmed. Law is directed most of all to that person by whom it ought to be fulfilled: therefore it is directed rather to a true person than to a fictitious one; for fiction always supposes the truth which it imitates: but the community is a fictitious person; whereas each particular man is held to be a true person: therefore with stronger reason law is directed to individual men than to the whole community.

I answer, that law is not called common precisely because it is prescribed only to the community as community, and as a certain mystical body considered abstractively: but because it ought generally to be proposed as to be kept by all the members of that mystical body for which it is set forth as the rule of right acting. By this reasoning the response to the confirmation is also clear: for law is proposed generally, so that it may pertain to all and each according to the exigency of the time: whereby it is true that it is directed more to true persons than to fictitious ones. In one word, law according to its prescription and designation regards the whole community immediately: but according to execution it bears directly upon the individual members of that same community; and thus it is directed more to singular persons than to the community itself.

You will object 3. When law is borne for the community, either it obliges the community alone as such, or it also comprehends the individual members of that same community: if the first, then the community conducts itself as a particular person, and thereupon law could be directed to one person only: if the second, it is rightly concluded from this too that law can be borne for one alone; if indeed it so benefits it.

I answer, that law is ordinarily borne for the community not collectively, but distributively: namely for this reason, that it be kept by all and each of the community, with an accommodation distributed according to the condition of the law. Nevertheless sometimes law can be borne upon the community itself, as community: namely by commanding, or prohibiting some act, which ought to be exercised by it alone as community, and not by its individual members considered separately, as is evident from the statutes and fixed laws by which the superiors and prefects of Congregations, Universities, Chapters, and Colleges are at times bound to perform certain things concerning the public and common administration of such a body committed to their direction.

You will object 4. Some precept does not seem to be distinct from law: but a precept can be prescribed to one person only: therefore also law.

The minor is evident. The major however is proved: for some precept can be prescribed on account of the common good, and from the power of governing the republic, and of ordering its individual members to their due end: but in this the reason of law especially prevails: therefore, etc. — I deny the major, for precept and law are distinguished from one another, and if perhaps not physically, and as to the natural species of acts, at least they are distinguished morally: namely because law has other conditions than precept: for although every law is a precept, yet not every precept is a law, but it must have special conditions by which it is distinguished from a precept. First, indeed, a precept, although it can be prescribed to the whole community, does not necessarily require this, but can be imposed upon a particular person: whereas law always necessarily regards a community of persons, as has been proved. Second, a precept expires with the death or removal of the one imposing it, even if it be prescribed absolutely and without any limitation of time; but law does not cease by the death of the legislator, since by its nature it demands to be perpetual. Third, a precept can be imposed by any superior whatsoever; but law cannot be borne except by him who obtains the supreme and legislative power either from God or from the republic; whereupon the reason of precept and of law is far different.

Second conclusion. — It belongs to the nature of law that it be prescribed on account of the common good.

Proof, first from distinction 4, c. Erit autem lex, where it is read: No law ought to be written for private advantage, but for the common utility of the citizens. Which certainly is drawn from St. Isidore, book 5, Etymologies, and this accords with the sanction of the Twelve Tables: The safety of the people is the supreme law. It is confirmed from St. Basil, Homily 14 on the beginning of Proverbs, not far from the beginning, where he said: If kingship is legitimate power, it is clear that he is rightly governed by precept and chosen by law; who indeed is truly worthy of this appellation, holding much weight and account, inasmuch as he regards what is useful to all in common, and ordains things not to the mark of his own advantage. And there he adds: In this the tyrant differs from the king, that the former regards and protects his own interests in whatever way: the latter seeks only to provide for his subjects. — It is confirmed moreover from the consensus of all profane authors, most especially Plato, dialogue 1, On Laws, where he says that legislators ought to establish laws for the sake of the common city. Likewise Aristotle in the Politics, chapter 1. Laws, he says, are to be ordered to the common salvation of the people. Similarly Cicero, who in book 1, On Laws, says: Laws were established to be instituted for the safeguarding of the republic.

Reason likewise lends its support. First indeed, because public power is of itself ordered to the public good: but all law must emanate from public power: therefore it must be ordered to the public good. — Then, every law is either from God the legislator, or from man: if from God, it is ordered to the common good; because it is either from God as author of nature, or from the same as author of grace: but in both ways it is ordered to the common good, namely to eternal beatitude, in which men enjoy their ultimate end. If from man, it is likewise directed to the common good: for kings and princes are not lords, but ministers of that kingdom, according to that of Wisdom 6: For when you were ministers of his kingdom, you judged not aright. And from that of the Apostle to the Romans 13: For they are the ministers of God in this very society: therefore they do not possess the power of establishing laws except for the common good: since indeed all power, which they exercise over subjects, is either from God or from the people: if from God, it is clear that it is conferred on account of the common good, which God chiefly intends: if from the people, the same is evident; for just as all confer it, so they confer it for this end and with this mind, that it be exercised for their public good, and not for the private advantage of the Prince alone: whence in the Eighth Council of Toledo, chapter 10, it is prescribed that he who is elected king swear not to look to the advantage of his own right, but to look to the welfare of his fatherland and his people. — Finally, this truth is evident by induction; for the natural law tends of itself to the common good of the whole of human nature: divine positive laws are ordered to the glory of God and the utility of men, according to that of Isaiah 51: A law shall go forth from me, and my judgment shall rest for a light of the peoples. Human laws also, both civil and Ecclesiastical, are ordered to the common good; otherwise they would not be held to be true laws; for the power of enacting laws is not granted to men, whether by God or by the republic, that they may use it at their pleasure and without reason; for even that most ample power conceded to the Apostles was given unto edification, and not unto destruction, as St. Paul teaches, 2 Corinthians 10. Wherefore Legislators ought to use that power for attaining the end of law; namely the good of the republic and the public felicity.

You will object 1. Many are the laws which are ordered to private good only, such as the natural law of preserving one's own life, even with the loss of another's life: likewise the law of giving alms to the poor, which regards only their particular utility: such also is the law of fraternal correction, which regards the amendment of a particular man: finally such are the Ecclesiastical laws concerning the reception of the Sacraments, for instance the making of annual confession and the receiving of sacred Communion at Easter. It is confirmed: even if there were no republic at all, and only one single man existed, the law of nature would no less prevail in him; for while the first Parent was alone, he was not without law, since the natural law had force in him: but such a law then could not be ordered to the common good, because then there was no society of men, nor any republic: therefore, etc.

I answer, granting the antecedent, denying the consequence: for it is one thing to speak of the proximate matter about which a law is concerned, another thing concerning the formal motive on account of which it occupies itself with such matter; I confess indeed that the proximate matter, about which the aforementioned laws in the objection are immediately concerned, is a particular good; nevertheless they are not occupied with it except on account of the motive of the common good which the law regards of itself first: for it concerns the republic to preserve the life of any citizen whatsoever; otherwise the republic itself would be extinguished, inasmuch as it coalesces only from private persons: it equally concerns it that citizens not be in need, otherwise they would be in danger of life, which pertains to the good of the republic. Whence although the law concerning making alms regards the private good of a particular person, as proximate matter; nevertheless it orders the whole of it into the common good, to which it pertains that the republic nourish its members, lest plagues or thefts rage in it. The same must be said of fraternal correction, which regards the amendment of the particular life of man for this reason only, that vices be eliminated from the republic: for that society cannot long stand, in which vice is praised or dissimulated, nor eliminated.

The same also must be said of the laws of the Sacraments, which although they regard a particular good, namely eternal salvation of every believer; nevertheless they are ordered of themselves first to the common good, namely to the worship of God, which is the ultimate end of all men, and the common good of the whole human nature, in which all men communicate. In confirmation I say, that even if there were no commonwealth actually, some society of men would be no less possible: and since man is a social animal, the natural law regards him insofar as private in such a way that it also regards him insofar as he is aptly born for society, and community; and therefore that law although it may regard the particular man immediately, as the subject in which it resides; nevertheless it inheres in him for that end, that it order him toward rightly instituting society with others who either exist, or can exist. Hence Adam was alone with the law in such a way that nevertheless by his nature he sought a companion.

You will object 2. If every law essentially required to be ordered to the common good, it would follow that, the common good and public utility ceasing, the vigor and obligation of the law would likewise cease; nay rather, the motive of the law ceasing, the law itself also ceases: but such a consequent is false: for although, e.g., someone may certainly know that the Church suffers no detriment from the fact that Peter takes up dwelling and associates with those publicly excommunicated, nevertheless by the common opinion he ought not to dwell with them: therefore laws are not always ordered into the common good.

I distinguish the consequence: that the vigor and obligation of the law ought to cease, if by public authority or something equivalent the motive of the law were declared to cease, I concede: otherwise, I deny: for just as public authority declares that the law obliges, so likewise it is necessary that something public intervene, which intimates that the motive of the law ceases: namely either the judgment of the Prince, or of the whole community, or of the wise men among whom the judgment of the community can be supposed to be deposited: for that the motive of the law cease altogether, it does not suffice that it cease with respect to some particular person, or some few out of the community: but it ought to cease with respect to at least the greater part of the community; otherwise particulars, whom this motive does not regard, do not cease to be bound by the law: e.g., the motive why the Council of Trent declared that clandestine marriages would henceforth be invalid, was that various frauds and evils might be met, which are wont to occur in this kind of marriages. Whence although someone in good faith, and without deceit, contracted a clandestine marriage, since no inconveniences and evils arise from it on account of which clandestine marriages entered into were prohibited, therefore such a contracted marriage does not cease to be invalid; for although the reason and motive of the law ceases in this particular case, it does not on that account cease in the general, to which the particular good ought to yield.

You will say 3. The laws and edicts of Princes by which they prescribe and exact tributes, are truly laws: but those in no way regard the common good of subjects, but only the private utility of the king: therefore it is not of the essence of law that it be ordered to the common good.

I distinguish the minor: that those laws of tributes to be paid regard the private utility of the king as proximate matter, I concede: as the sole end, I deny: for they are ordered to the felicity and security of the republic itself, namely that the King through revenues may both procure soldiers by whom the republic may be protected against enemies, and provide in all things for the common good of the republic itself.

You ask: whether a Legislator not intending the common good of the republic, but led into it by hatred, enacts laws, which nevertheless of themselves tend to the common good — whether, I say, those laws are to be called true and legitimate? — I affirm, because that perverse intention of the legislator is merely personal, nor does it redound into the act insofar as it regards the common utility; for just as the perverse intention of a judge does not affect the validity of the sentence, provided it be not against equity; and just as the perverse intention of a minister does not hinder the Sacrament, so long as it be not against its substance, namely if in confecting the Sacrament he indeed truly intend to do what the Church intends, but propose to himself some perverse end, namely either gain, or something else perverse; so in the present case the common good is to be regarded in the law itself, and not indeed in the very intention of the legislator. Which opinion St. Augustine plainly hands down, book 1. De arbitrio, writing: A law enacted for the sake of protecting the people cannot be accused of anyone's lust; since he who enacted it, if he enacted it by the command of God, that is, what eternal justice commands, could have done it devoid of all lust. But if he decreed this with some lust, it does not follow from that that it is necessary to obey that law with lust, and because a good law, it can proceed from a good man. He indicates also another reason of this below, writing, that although he enacted the law with lust, nevertheless that law can be obeyed without lust. Wherefore although the legislator sin through defect of good intention, which he ought to have toward the public good; yet because that constitution of itself is ordered into the common good, it suffices that it be judged to have this condition desired for a true and properly so-called law.

You ask 2. When then can a law rightly be judged to be ordered into the common good? — I answer, that any law whatever is thus judged to be rightly and justly ordered, first when it regards either mediately or immediately the glory of God, and conduces to the ultimate supernatural end. Hence all civil Laws are iniquitous, nor do they obtain the reason of law, vigor, and dignity, if they conflict with the ordinance of God or of the Church: whence Can. Non licet, dist. 10. it is thus established: It is not licit for the Emperor, or for anyone keeping piety, to presume anything against divine mandates, nor to do anything which hinders Evangelical or Prophetic or Apostolic rules. And Can. Suscepimus te, it is decreed that Constitutions of Princes are to be postponed to Ecclesiastical laws: but where they have not stood against Evangelical and Canonical decrees, let them be held worthy of all reverence. Hence Pope Symmachus epist. 7. which is to the Emperor Anastasius writes thus: We indeed accept human powers in their own place, until they raise their wills against God: Moreover, since all power is from God, much more therefore that which is set over divine things. Defer to God in us, and we will defer to God in you: Moreover, if you do not defer to God, you cannot use his privilege whose rights you despise. And St. Augustine lib. 11. De Civit. Dei, cap. 21. What justice of man is that, he says, which takes away true man himself from God? From every quarter the law ought to be just. — Second, a law is judged ordered into the common good, while regarding a city, e.g., which is part of a kingdom, it regards more the good of the kingdom, than the good of the city: but otherwise if the contrary happen: for the good of the part is to be postponed to the good of the whole. — Third, that a law be into the common good, it is not required that it conduce to the good of all other kingdoms, but it can be judged ordered into the common good if it be useful to the kingdom to which it is prescribed: for since several kingdoms are not subordinated to one another, nor is one part of another, as a city is part of a kingdom, it is not necessary that where a law is useful to one kingdom, it ought also to profit other kingdoms: nevertheless as much as can be done, the Prince ought to provide lest, by enacting a law useful to his subjects, he harm neighbors, where the utility of both can be procured. Yet if the Prince cannot provide for the good of his own kingdom without some inconvenience to neighbors, he can no less legitimately enact a law which conduces to the common good of his kingdom, even though it be future to the ruin of neighbors; because before all things he ought to watch over the common good of his kingdom.

Third Conclusion. — A PRINCE COULD NOT ENACT JUST LAWS BY WHICH THE PARTICULAR GOODS OF SUBJECTS WOULD SO YIELD INTO HIS OWN PROPER ADVANTAGE THAT THEY BE IN NO WAY, EVEN REMOTELY, ORDERED TO THE COMMON GOOD OF SUBJECTS.

Which indeed is proved first from Scripture, Deuteronom. 17. where the form of the kingdom, and of rendering judgment, is prescribed in this manner: When he shall be constituted (King) he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor lead back the people into Egypt, being lifted up by the number of cavalry.... he shall not have many wives, who may allure his soul, neither immense weights of silver and gold. But after he shall have sat upon the throne of his kingdom, he shall write out for himself this Deuteronomy of the law in a volume, taking the copy from the Priests of the levitical tribe, and he shall have it with him, and shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, lest his heart be lifted up in pride above his brethren, nor decline to the right hand, or to the left, that he himself and his sons may reign long over Israel. To which divine edict kings have consented according to reason. — Hence 3. Kings cap. 21. God severely took notice of Achab, and Jezabel because they had occupied by force the vineyard of Naboth the Jezrahelite; and Ezechiel 34.¹ Pastors are gravely reproved, under which name all superiors are designated, because they feed themselves: To the Pastors of Israel who fed themselves: Are not flocks fed by Pastors? You ate milk, you were clothed with wool, and what was fat you killed: but my flock you did not feed. What was weak you did not strengthen, and what was sick you did not heal, what was broken you did not bind up, and what was cast away you did not bring back, and what was lost you did not seek: but with harshness you ruled over them, and with power. He has a similar reproof against Princes cap. 22. Hence cap. 46. God established: The Prince shall not take of the inheritance of the people by violence, and from their possessions: but from his own possession he shall give an inheritance to his sons.

The same truth is proved from the Eighth Council of Toledo cap. 1. in which it is held that while the Christian Kings of the Goths instituted and put on the principate, they ought to be such as are described in these words: They shall be assertors of the Catholic faith, they shall be modest in acts, judgments, and life, they shall be sparing rather than extended in provisions of things, that neither by force nor faction of writings, or definitions of whatever kind, they exact contracts from subjects, or intend them to be exacted: they shall be not looking to the advantage of their own right, but consulting their fatherland and people. — Something similar was established in the Council of Paris convened around the year of Christ 829. under Louis, and Lothaire Emperors; where among those things which are acknowledged to pertain to the justice of the King, this holds the first place, To oppress no one unjustly by power: but when a Prince converts the goods of subjects into his own private good, and in no way into the public, that one oppresses subjects by power: therefore, etc.

St. Bernard expressly expounds this truth lib. 3. De Consideratione to Eugenius the supreme Pontiff, cap. 3. where he says: A superior, and singularly: to what end? you need consideration, I say to you: Is it that you grow over your subjects? By no means, but that they grow over you. They constituted you Prince, but for themselves, not for you. Otherwise by what pact do you reckon yourself superior to those from whom you beg the benefice? Hear the Lord: Those who have power over them are called benefactors. But that is said of those who are outside. What is it to us? You would be called mendaciously, unless you were so beneficent that you intended to preside over benefits. It is the part of small and abject minds, not seeking advancement from subjects, but their own profit.... That saying repeated again and again belongs to no mean glory: I require not the gift but the fruit. And below cap. 5. he adds: What unworthy thing to you, than that holding the whole, you be not content with the whole, unless you make certain minutiae and meagre portions of that universality entrusted to you, as though they were not yours, but somehow you were of the whole? Where also he endeavors to remind you of the parable of Nathan, concerning the man who having many sheep coveted the one which belonged to the poor man. To this also returns the deed, nay rather crime, of king Achab, who held the sum of things, and coveted one vineyard. May God turn away from you what he heard: you killed and possessed.

This truth is likewise confirmed by a threefold argument, which the author of the book De regimine Principum, book 3, chapter 11, supplies. First, the true Prince must imitate God, by whose power he commands: but God so governs men for their salvation that he acquires nothing for himself from it; therefore the Prince ought to seek the common good, and not his own private good. Second, the Commonwealth is not the Prince's, but the Prince belongs to the Commonwealth, in accordance with that saying of Seneca in book 2 De Clementia: Know that your Commonwealth is not yours, but that you belong to the Commonwealth. But he who is wholly devoted to the Commonwealth is bound to procure its good only, and not another's; therefore, etc. Thirdly, finally, just as a Bishop, as such, is bound to procure, so far as he can, the salvation of souls, and to give himself wholly to securing their eternal good — whence that well-known saying: What Christians are, is for themselves; what Priests and Bishops are, is for you — so the Prince, by like reason, ought to watch over the temporal good of his subjects. Therefore just as a Bishop would deserve blame who, despising or neglecting his pastoral solicitude, gave himself wholly in retirement to contemplation, even though he proposed to pursue thereby his own private salvation; so also a Prince who directed his efforts to his own advantage, and did not devote himself to procuring and establishing the common good, would seem above all to deserve blame.

You will say 1. To the people of Israel demanding a King, in 1 Kings, chapter 8, Samuel answered with the voice of God: This will be the right of the King that shall reign over you: he will take your sons, and put them in his chariots, and will make him horsemen, and runners before his chariots, and he will appoint of himself tribunes and centurions, etc. Your fields also, and your vineyards, and your best oliveyards will he take, and give to his servants, etc. Therefore the Prince has the right to convert the goods of private persons to his own benefit by laws and edicts.

I deny the consequence: for the law promulgated there is not legitimate royal law, but tyrannical, introduced by the violence of men and the insolence of perverse Princes, as appears from the very context: since it is related that when the people sought a King from Samuel, The word was displeasing in the eyes of Samuel; and when he had consulted God about this matter, the Lord, indignant, answered Samuel: Not you have they rejected, but me, that I should not reign over them, etc. Wherefore there is no doubt that God, in punishment of the rebellion of that people, set before them in place of the King whom they demanded a tyrant and his violent rule, as Clement of Alexandria explains in book 3 of the Paedagogus, chapter 4: When a king was asked for the people, he says, the Lord promises not a human ruler, but threatens how he will deliver unto them one given to insolence, a tyrant. And St. Gregory the Great, on the aforesaid words, says: When, he says, the right of the King is foretold, doubtless it is shown in the person of one carnal ruler what carnal men in general will do out of tyranny, not what the elect ought to imitate. For in the same history of the Kings we read that when King Achab took away Naboth's vineyard, he incurred the wrath of almighty God; but here, when the right of the King is foretold, fields, vineyards, and the best oliveyards are said to be taken away. Since, therefore, it is here foretold that which was committed there once only, it is shown that it is commanded not by divine judgment.

You will object 2. That saying of Christ in Luke 22: The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them, and they that have power over them are called benefactors: by which words he seems to establish a distinction between royal power and that which he himself was about to institute, attributing to civil power this authority, that they lord it over their subjects and are truly their Lords: but the Lord can convert the goods of his servants to his own benefit; therefore with stronger right can Princes enact laws and edicts whereby the particular goods of subjects are converted to their own and private uses.

I answer first, that in that passage there is no question of the rule of all kings, but only of the ordinary administration of the kings of the Gentiles, who, since at that time all were worshippers of devils, and scarcely any of them had a just administration, none, I judge, would say should be proposed to Christian Princes as a model.

I answer second, that by those words of Christ our Lord rather a manner of reigning is disapproved than approved: since Christ wished to deter his Disciples both from the desire of such rule and from its pattern: for he subjoins: But you not so.

Thirdly, finally, I say, that rather the contrary of what the objection intends can be gathered from that passage: since there the question concerns those Princes who, although they rule over the Gentiles, are nevertheless called benefactors, assuredly for no other reason than because they aimed more at the common good of their subjects than at their own private good.

You insist: Kings truly are lords of their subjects: since they bear rule over them: but a lord can dispose of the goods of his servant for his own private benefit: therefore, etc.

I distinguish the major: they are lords by civil and political dominion, I concede: by despotic and lordly dominion, I deny,

And the minor I similarly distinguish: that a lordly and despotic lord can convert the goods of subjects to his own uses, let it pass: that a political and civil one can, I deny; for the members of the Commonwealth, over which the Prince presides, are citizens and free men, and not servants or captives.

You will object 3. Princes exercise the offices of God: therefore as God refers all things to himself, so Princes can licitly refer all the goods of subjects to their own private benefit. — I deny the consequence; for in order that the inference of him who objects might be legitimate, it ought thus to conclude: therefore as God refers nothing to his own benefit — because, as the Royal Prophet says, Thou art my God, for thou hast no need of my goods — so neither ought Princes refer the goods of subjects to their private advantages; but what they gather from taxes paid, they ought above all to pour back into the utility of those same subjects.

Note 1. That a law can be just, and justly enacted, is able to be understood in a threefold way: namely, either on the part of the object which is commanded; or on the part of the Prince enacting the law; or on the part of the form and manner according to which the law itself is established. First indeed, on the part of the object, a Law can be just and honest in a twofold way: negatively, insofar as what it commands or establishes is not base and dishonest; or positively, insofar as what it commands or establishes is honest antecedently to the law, or at least consequently: because although it may be indifferent of itself, by the law it is referred to a good end, and is constituted in some matter of virtue: for certain things can be established by laws which were antecedently indifferent; for instance, to abstain from a certain kind of foods, to wear garments of this or another material or shape, etc. On the part indeed of the one enacting the law, a Law can be judged just, if indeed he prescribes it out of an affection for justice and honesty; and not led by some perverse and evil motive: and this does not seem necessary for the validity of the law; for, as we have said, a Prince can enact a valid and legitimate law which conduces to the common good of subjects, even though he prescribes it led by hatred of them, or on account of another perverse end. Thirdly, a Law can be understood to be justly enacted with respect to form, that is, as regards the manner required on the part of the law; which manner chiefly consists in three things. First, that it be justly enacted on the part of the end, which is the common good: which occurs when the law is useful for attaining or establishing that end. Secondly, that it be justly enacted on the part of the power; namely, that the Legislator establish nothing beyond what his authority extends to, nor prescribe a law to any others than his own subjects; for the act of agents cannot exceed the power of the agent. Thirdly, that the law be enacted according to the equality of proportion; namely while burdens are imposed upon subjects respectively in just proportion for the common good: for it would be against right reason to burden some subjects beyond measure, without regard to their strength and resources. Hence where the contrary happens, those laws do not bind in conscience, except on account of avoiding scandal, or sedition, and preventing public disturbance: for in these cases every particular man is bound to yield his own right. Yet Suarez notes, lib. 1. cap. 2. n. 16., that for the nullity of a law on this head there is required so great an impropriety and inequality, that it redounds to the common detriment and to a grave and unjust burden of many members of the community: for otherwise, if the law is of itself useful, and the grievance or excess affects only a few, the law will not on that account be wholly null, nor will it cease to bind others: but it will not bind only those as to the excess who are unjustly burdened: that this may appear more clearly,

Note 2. That in order for a law to bind, and be justly enacted, three species of the virtue of justice are desired in its enactment: the first is Legal Justice, whose role is to intend the common good, and consequently to preserve the rights due to the community. Hence a just law is discerned from the end of the common good which it regards. The second is Commutative Justice, to which it belongs that the Legislator command no others than his own subjects: which justice is especially necessary for the validity of the law: for, as we said just now, if a Prince enacts a law for those not subject to him, he exceeds his power, and sins against commutative justice with respect to those to whom he prescribes the law: even if he commands an act honest and useful of itself. Thirdly, finally, there is Distributive Justice, which is also required in a law: in commanding the multitude it distributes, as it were, the burden among the parts of the commonwealth in order to establish its good: and therefore it is necessary that in that distribution it observe the equality of proportion, which pertains to distributive justice; and therefore a law will be unjust if it dispenses burdens unequally. Hence the injustice of a law can be regarded either on the part of the matter, or on the part of the form: indeed on the part of the matter, if it should prescribe things impossible, opposed to divine worship and to natural inclination, and conflicting with the common good and honesty: but on the part of the form it can be unjust either from an end of private advantage, and not of the common good: or on the part of the agent, and from defect of power: or from defect of form, that is, of just distribution. Whether, however, all these things are true, namely that in order for a law to be just, and to be justly enacted, it ought to involve all these conditions, this will be resolved here.

Note 3. A twofold perpetuity is customarily distinguished by the Philosophers: one indeed on the part of the beginning, which they call a parte ante: another on the part of the end, which they call a parte post. But here the discourse is chiefly about perpetuity into the future, from the point at which the law has once been fixed and enacted. Which perpetuity can further be distinguished into perpetuity simply, such as eternity: or into perpetuity in a certain respect, such as long duration of time, which Sacred Scripture sometimes calls an age, and an eternal age. Now the perpetuity of which there is question in the present Question chiefly signifies the stability of the law, whereby it comes about that it has its being with validity and efficacy so firm and permanent, as far as lies in the force of its origin and constitution, that it perseveres of itself forever, or at least for an indefinite or lengthy time. Again, this mode of perpetuity can be twofold: one indeed negative, the other positive. Negative is when a law is enacted indefinitely, and therefore has an indefinite duration, although it can be revoked: after which manner a suspension is called perpetual negatively, which is introduced without a term. But positive perpetuity is said of a law which by its nature or by express words is enacted so as to endure forever, and never be revoked; thus deposition and degradation are said to be perpetual suspension. Whether, however, and what perpetuity is desired for a legitimate law, will be declared below.

These things having been set forth in advance, two points are chiefly to be resolved in the present Question: First, that every law ought to be just. Secondly, that of itself it should endure perpetually.

First Conclusion. — IT IS OF THE NATURE OF LAW THAT IT BE JUST, AND JUSTLY ENACTED, ON THE PART OF THE OBJECT, THE LEGISLATOR, AND THE FORM.

This Conclusion comprises three parts, which are proved together. The first indeed by the authority of the Holy Fathers, but especially of St. Augustine, lib. 1. De libero arbitrio, cap. 5. where he said, To me a law does not seem to be a law which has not been just. And of the same thing it can be understood what he says in the book De vera religione, cap. 31.: The founder of temporal laws, if he is good and wise, consults the eternal law, that according to its unchangeable rules he may discern what is to be established and commanded for the time being. Hence just as the eternal law commands only what is just, because it is justice itself by essence, so true human law ought to be a participation of it, and therefore cannot validly command anything except what is just and honest. This same thing St. Isidore teaches, lib. 5. Etymolog., cap. 2., affirming that a law ought to be honest, just, and possible: the same is reported distinct. Erunt autem lex.

Proof 1. From the end of the law, which is to make men good. Hence Aristotle, 2. Ethicorum, says, The makers of laws, accustoming the citizens themselves, make them good. And lib. 3. Politic., cap. 1. he says, The end of the city is to live well, and to participate in some honesty. And cap. 6. he adds: They think about virtue and vice, whoever have care of well instituting a city.

It is proved also by reason: first indeed: every power of enacting laws is either divine, or emanates from God, according to that of Sap. 6.¹ By me Kings reign, and the makers of laws decree just things: But those things which are from God, says the Apostle to the Romans 13, are ordained: For God, who is supremely good and upright by essence, cannot establish by his laws anything except what is just and honest: therefore neither can other Legislators, who hold power derived from God, and themselves subject to him, not unto destruction, but unto edification. Then, no inferior can bind against the law and will of a superior: but a law commanding a depraved and dishonest act would be against the law of God prohibiting it: therefore no law can oblige to anything base and illicit; for from this it would follow that we have simultaneously two contradictory obligations, and be bound both to do something because human law commanded it; and not to do it, because the divine law prohibited the very same thing. Finally, God cannot licitly be offended: but if some law were to prescribe something forbidden and illicit by God, it would follow that God could be offended impunibly and illicitly; he would indeed be offended, because something forbidden by him was done: and that would be done licitly, because it had been provided and sanctioned by law: therefore, etc.

You will say: There are certain human laws which permit evil: therefore a law can be unjust on the part of the object. — I distinguish the antecedent: certain human laws permit evil, and that which is intrinsically illicit, by establishing that it be lawful to commit it, I deny: they permit it by not avenging nor prosecuting it, on account evidently of some greater good arising thence, and a greater evil to be declined, I concede; but this permission is not evil, but honest and reasonable; for one thing is the evil itself, and another the permission of evil by mere toleration: for although the evil be base and illicit, yet for just causes it can sometimes be tolerated by superiors, lest severity in punishing it be the cause of a greater evil, for instance of the rebellion of subjects: for it is congruent to right reason, of two evils simultaneously unavoidable, to avoid and decline that which is greater.

From these gather that no law whatsoever can be enacted concerning what is impossible simply or morally, that is, exceedingly difficult: then because whatever falls under a law falls in some degree under liberty: namely, insofar as it depends upon it whether it be done, or not done: or whether it be, or not be, as it is commanded or established: but the impossible does not fall under liberty: whence rightly St. Augustine says, lib. De Fide contra Manichaeos, cap. 10.: Who would not cry out that it is foolish to give precepts to one for whom it is not free to do what is commanded: and iniquitous to condemn him for whom there was no power to fulfill the commands? And lib. De Natura, et gratia, cap. 43.: God does not command impossibilities: but by commanding he admonishes both to do what you can, and to ask for what you cannot; which words he took from there the Council of Trent, Sess. 6. c. 11., adding, and I adjure you that you may be able. Which truth at any rate is more safely proved, and sufficient for fulfilling every divine law.

Second Conclusion. — IT IS OF THE RATION OF LAW THAT THE LAW BE STABLE AND PERMANENT, AND ENDURE AND BIND UNTIL IT IS REVOKED; AND ACCORDINGLY IT OUGHT TO BE IN SOME WAY PERPETUAL.

It is proved 1. from the common consensus of the Jurists, who assign especially this difference between a precept given by way of personal command, and one issued by way of law or constitution: that a mere precept expires by the death of the one commanding; but a law is not extinguished by the death of the Legislator. The reason of which difference indeed is sought from the nature of the precept itself and of the law; for since a law is enacted for the community, and for the common good, it seems to be enacted by the Prince in the name of the community itself, and by the authority of the commonwealth itself: and accordingly since the commonwealth always remains, the force of the law also perseveres, even if the Prince dies: but a singular precept is prescribed to some one by a Prince or Superior, that he may have care of it: for a Prince or Superior regards not only the common good, but also the singular good of this or that subject or inferior; and therefore since the precept is enacted insofar as it pertains to the care of individual citizens, which care expires by the death or mutation of the Superior, therefore also upon his ceasing, the precept ceases.

This truth is confirmed by induction; for the eternal law, since it exists in the divine mind, is perpetual and immutable: for although, insofar as it regards creatures, it prescribes laws to them according to their diverse mode of existence, not for all time, but according to a mode defined by God Himself; nevertheless the law once conceived by God according to that mode, on the part of God and in His divine mind, perseveres immutable. Similarly the natural law, which is a certain participation of the eternal law, can also be called absolutely perpetual, both on the part of the mind in which it is written, and on the part of its object; for it forbids what is intrinsically evil, and commands what is necessary in itself: but what is necessary is perpetual; and thus it is said to be immutable by Gratian, distinction 1, at the beginning. The divine law of the Old Testament likewise was perpetual, constantly binding all men until the coming of Christ, and until the Evangelical law succeeded it, for which it was disposing men as toward a more perfect law. In like manner the divine law of the New Testament asserts perpetuity for itself, seeing that it is to endure even unto the end of the world. The same must be said of all laws, both Civil and Ecclesiastical, which ought to be permanent and stable, that they may correspond to the administration of human community, which demands stability and uniformity. Hence laws are said to be as it were the foundations of the commonwealth, upon which it rests unmoved, and perseveres in good and in peace. Nor does it matter that there are very many human laws, both Civil and Ecclesiastical, which are abrogated and changed with the passage of time: for here we do not speak of positive perpetuity, whereby a law nowhere varies; but of negative perpetuity, which lasts so long until it be revoked either by contrary custom or by express command of the Prince; for this perpetuity suffices to distinguish a law from a precept, which is temporal not only negatively but also positively, lasting only unto the life of the one commanding, unless it be renewed and confirmed by a succeeding Superior. — For an easier understanding and confirmation of the foregoing, however, it must be observed with Suarez, book 1, chapter 10, number 7, that any law is said to be perpetual with respect to three things: First indeed with respect to the one enacting it; because the law endures even when he is removed or dies; for a law does not expire at the death of the Legislator; otherwise in a commonwealth the greatest change of human laws would occur, not without great detriment to it. Second, on the part of the subjects to whom it is given: because it binds not only those present who were either born, or inhabit the territory when the law is enacted, but also their successors born afterwards, or at length dwelling there. Third, on the part of the law itself; because once enacted it always endures, until either it be revoked, or its matter or cause be so changed that it ceases to be just.

Conclusion third. — EVERY LAW OUGHT TO BE PRECEPTIVE AND OBLIGATORY; YET THE PRIMARY REASON OF THE LAW ITSELF CONSISTS UNIVERSALLY IN THIS, THAT IT COMMAND.

This comprises two parts, of which the first is common, and is proved:

First indeed, because no species of law can be shown which is not preceptive; taking precept in its wider usage; namely, both for the affirmative and for the negative or prohibitory. For concerning a law directly commanding or prohibiting the matter is manifest: for it plainly bestows prohibition or command. But a Permissive law, whereby something is permitted to be done, also virtually imports a precept; for it commands that what has been permitted not be impeded from being done, in that mode and order in which it is permitted: thus, for example, the law which permits a wife to be dismissed as regards bed and cohabitation on account of adultery consequently commands that this not be forbidden to be done. Similarly a law establishing a penalty or reward infers a precept upon those to whom it pertains, that they render the penalty or reward to delinquents, or to those fulfilling the precept. In like manner an irritant law consequently commands that such acts not be done, nor have any further account made of them. Likewise a law establishing and decreeing what pertains to the moral being of persons or things: put the case that certain persons are irregular, excommunicate, incapable of receiving the fruits of benefices; it consequently forbids that those whom it has made irregular be promoted to orders, nor, once promoted, exercise them; that Sacraments and the suffrages of the Church not be conferred on the excommunicate, nor fellowship be entered into with them. Similarly, that beneficiaries do not receive fruits from which they are deprived by right, and if they have received them, restore them. Finally, a Declarative law contains the precept of understanding the matter just as it itself declares: and a purely penal law obliges either the delinquent to accept and undergo the penalty, or the Judge or Superior to impose and prescribe it.

It is proved secondly: To every law some non-observance of the law is opposed, which is sin: but it would not itself be sin unless the law induced obligation of precept: therefore every law induces this obligation of precept. The major is evident as regards the first part: for what is ordained by the Legislator can be or not be; for things that exist of necessity do not need one ordaining: but things that can be or not be can freely be committed to execution; but to every free execution non-execution is opposed; and therefore to every law some non-observance can be opposed. — The second part of the same major is also evident, both from what has been said, whereby it is established that sin is a violation of the law, and from the fact that Sacred Scripture uses transgression of the law and iniquity for one and the same thing: thus 1 John 3: All iniquity is sin, and sin is iniquity, or as the Greek version of the third chapter has it, It is transgression of the Law. The minor likewise is evident, namely, that there would not be sin in the non-observance of the law unless there were from it an obligation of precept: for universally there is no sin except against some obligation, and therefore against the reason of precept. Finally, the reason of law consists especially in this, that it decree concerning the moral state of persons, or of things, and of human actions: but this decree imports the reason of precept: for to decree concerning a state of things or actions of this kind is nothing else than that the reason of those things or actions be had, or not had, by subjects; but to decree that subjects have, or have not, the reason of such things in acting is nothing else than to command or forbid that subjects so conduct themselves with respect to such things: therefore every law imports the reason of precept.

The second part is similarly proved, namely, that the primary reason of law imports the reason of precept only consequently, and not primarily. It is proved, I say, because a permissive law does not command first of itself, but only permits something to be done licitly, for example, that a wife can be dismissed on account of adultery: but it only consequently forbids that this be impeded from being done. An irritant law first of itself establishes that the acts which it declares null be invalid, nor have any account of them whatsoever in order to the good of the community: but it consequently commands that they not be done, nor be destined to the good of the community. Likewise a law excommunicating ipso facto with the greater excommunication first of itself deprives of the suffrages of the Church and participation in the Sacraments; but consequently it forbids that suffrages be applied for them, nor Sacraments ministered to them. The same must be said of the other laws: therefore, etc.

You will say against the first part: counsel is a law, as Canonists commonly hold, asserting that the law counseling the civil good, which they call consultory, is truly a law, although no one is held bound by it, as Azorius teaches, book 1, chapter 2, last paragraph: therefore it is false that every law obliges in any way and commands. Moreover, the Evangelical counsels are reckoned among the parts of the Law of grace, whence in the chapter Licet, de Regularibus, the counsel of following the religious state is called a Private law: yet this does not oblige: therefore it is not true that every law obliges by precept. Finally, privilege is a private law, as Isidore teaches, 5 Etymologies, chapter 18: yet privilege does not oblige; since he in whose favor it is introduced can renounce it: therefore it is not true that every law obliges by precept. — I deny the consequence; and to the first proof I say that counsels are called laws, not properly; because counsel can be given by any private man, even interiorly, nor does it require the authority of a superior, such as is desired for enacting a law; but improperly counsel is called a law, inasmuch as in the manner of a law it illuminates, directs, and sweetly moves the will to doing or omitting something; although it does not oblige to executing what it counsels. To the second proof I say that under the name of the Evangelical law sometimes the whole Gospel and the New Testament are comprehended: just as the Old Testament is sometimes signified by the name of the Mosaic law; and therefore it is no wonder if the Evangelical counsels are numbered among the precepts of the new Law, not because they are truly precepts and have the reason of law, but only because they are comprehended under the New Testament, which is called the new Law. To the third proof finally, I answer that privilege, although it does not oblige primarily of itself, nevertheless obliges at least consequently, that neither may others impede the use of the privilege, nor may the privileged one himself at times renounce his privilege: especially when the privilege is granted in respect of some common good: such, for example, are the privileges of Clerics, whereby they are exempted from taxes or forensic acts, which private clerics cannot renounce: and therefore they are obliged to use those privileges insofar as these privileges have a certain reason of law, seeing that they are granted in perpetuity, and to many succeeding one another.

You will say 2 against the second part: The first intention of the Legislator is to oblige subjects to execute or omit what he decrees to be done or avoided: therefore likewise every law obliges primarily and of itself. The antecedent is proved: A law is an ordinance whereby a superior ordains subjects to a congruous end: not indeed in being, but in acting; namely, moving their intellect and will by the way of authority: but whoever moves the intellect and will of another by the way of authority to doing or avoiding something, he either commands or forbids, if he act positively: or if he act quasi-negatively, he dispenses and exempts from obligation: therefore the primary intention of the Legislator is to command or forbid by the way of legitimate authority and superiority.

— I deny the antecedent: for, as was said in the proof of the second part, permissive laws, irritant laws, and others of this kind do not import precept first of themselves, but only consequently, nor does the Legislator in prescribing them primarily intend to infer that obligation, that one, for example, should desert a wife caught in adultery and make divorce: otherwise every husband would sin who did not desert such an adulterous wife, which certainly no one will say; for he can licitly cohabit with her, although he is not bound to it; and therefore it is false that the primary intention of the Legislator in prescribing those laws is to oblige subjects to execute what he decrees, but he only consequently induces this obligation.

You ask 1. — How manifold, and of what kind, is the division of law?

Faustus, Bishop of the Manichaeans, distinguishes laws of threefold genus, in S. Augustine, book 19 of the thirty-three which he wrote against him; and to each law he assigns its own prophets:

There are, he says, three genera of laws: one indeed of the Hebrews, which Paul calls the law of sin and death: another truly of the Gentiles, which he calls natural. For the Gentiles, he says, do naturally the things that are of the law, and not having a law of this kind, they are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts. But the third genus of law is truth, which the Apostle, signifying accordingly, says: For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath delivered me from the law of sin and of death.... likewise of prophets, some are of the Jews, some of the Gentiles, some of truth. But concerning those of the Jews no one would ask, for it is known. Yet if anyone doubts concerning those of the Gentiles, let him hear Paul, who writing to Titus concerning the Cretans said: One of their own prophets said: The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slothful bellies; and therefore it must not be doubted that they too have their own prophets. Nor yet that truth has its own prophets, both the same Paul signifies, and also Jesus. And Jesus indeed, where he said: Behold I send to you wise men and prophets, and of them you shall kill in every place. But Paul, when he said: The Lord Himself constituted first apostles, then Prophets. — But besides that in this division certain things occur, especially in its first member, which S. Augustine there disproves, this division is also more universal than that which suffices for embracing and expounding all laws. Wherefore, that I may make more distinct satisfaction to the proposed question,

I ANSWER, I distributed Law by its primary division of itself into the Eternal and the Temporal. For every law either is in God or outside God: if it is in God, it is eternal, because God Himself is eternal: but every law which is not in God is outside God; and whatever is so outside God is temporal; for the eternal and the temporal differ as created and uncreated differ; because whatever is eternal is uncreated, and whatever is temporal is created. — Now the Eternal Law is a certain ordination of the divine will, fixedly determining from eternity what the rational creature should do or refrain from doing, that it may attain its due end. — The Temporal Law is that which has been enacted in time by God or by men; and it is just like a participation of the eternal law existing in the divine mind, wherefore it is called law by participation, or participated law. — The Temporal Law is further divided into Natural and Positive. — Now the Natural Law is an ordination of the Author of nature permanently and fixedly determining concerning things illicit and licit, to be done and not to be done, insofar as it is declared by the natural dictate of the intellect as its promulgator.

But whether this definition be legitimate and accurate, we shall determine presently, by inquiring into and resolving what natural right is and wherein it consists.

Positive Law is called that law which is not innate to nature or grace intrinsically, but emanated from elsewhere, namely from some principle extrinsic both to nature and to grace having the power whereby it was posited. On account of this it is called Positive, as it were posited alongside the natural law, or added to it: this the Philosopher defines in Book 5 of the Ethics, chapter 3: The legal, that at first it makes no difference if one have it otherwise; but when it has been posited, it makes a difference. He said, at first it makes no difference by whom it is done, because its obligation is not from nature: but when it has been posited by one having authority, it obliges; wherefore he added: Afterwards, when it has been posited, it makes a difference.

Further, Positive Law is twofold, namely Divine and Human. — Divine Positive Law is that which God made known, posited, and prescribed to men in time; and that either through the ministry of Angels or of men. This again is chiefly twofold: The first is the law of the Old Testament, which God posited and prescribed through the ministry of the Angels to Moses, and through Moses to the people of Israel. The second is the law of the New Testament, which Christ the Lord prescribed, and promulgated partly by Himself, partly through the Apostles.

This division is to be understood only of the divine law consigned in writing. For we find the whole body of divine law consigned and the law prescribed to the human race by God four times, namely immediately after man was created, when God forbade Adam to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Secondly, in the restoration of the human race after the flood, when God handed down to Noe and his sons the precepts which are called the Noeidian precepts, of which presently. Thirdly through Moses, to whom He prescribed the ten commandments to be consigned to the Israelites, that they might be kept by them and their posterity, and thereafter by the whole human race. Fourthly and finally through Christ the Lord, who prescribed the Evangelical law embracing all the headings of divine right.

Human Law is that which is borne by immediate human authority; since however this authority is twofold, namely Ecclesiastical and Secular, it comes about that human law be divided into Ecclesiastical and Civil. The former is borne by ecclesiastical power, as of Supreme Pontiffs and Councils; the latter by secular power, as of Kings and Emperors. Each of these, on the part of the object and of the thing commanded, can be subdivided into Natural and Positive; for Ecclesiastical and Civil power can rightly prescribe and confirm those things which belong to Natural Right; it can also establish certain things pertaining to the observance of the law prescribed by God: the former is called Canon Law, the other Civil Law.

OF CANON LAW — Canon Law was integrated out of various laws and diverse constitutions into one body, which on that account is called the corpus of Canon Law. It is divided into the Decretum and the Decretales. — The collector and arranger of the Decretum was Gratian, a Monk of the Order of Saint Benedict, who after the ancient collectors of Canons and Decrets wove together and composed that immense work, partly from the decrees of Supreme Pontiffs, partly from the canons of Councils, partly from the sayings and sentences of the Holy Fathers of the Church, around the year 1151, and which Eugenius III approved and Gregory XIII afterwards confirmed. — The Decretum indeed is divided into three parts: The first part contains one hundred and one distinctions, which are subdivided into chapters, or canons. Places taken from that part are cited thus, Can. or cap. Humanum, dist. 1. The second part embraces thirty-six Causes, which are divided into questions, and the questions into chapters; citations from that part are made thus, Can. or cap. Quicumque studet, 2. q. 1., that is, the chapter or Canon which begins with those words, Cause two, Question one. The third part contains the Treatise De Consecratione: which is divided into five distinctions, and each distinction into chapters: and thus those chapters ought to be cited, can. or c. Pasu de consecratione, dist. 1. In the first part there is treated of Right in general, in the first twenty-six chapters, and of persons or Ecclesiastical ministers in all the rest. In the second part there is treated of those things which concern the form of Ecclesiastical judgments: yet in cause thirty-three, question three, is contained the Treatise De Poenitentia, divided into seven distinctions, which are subdivided into chapters: and this Treatise must be cited thus, Can. or cap. reperiuntur, De Paenit. dist. 13. The third part treats of the consecration of Ecclesiastics, of the celebration of Masses, of the Eucharist, of Ecclesiastical feasts and ceremonies, of Confirmation, and of fastings. — The Decretales were collected and arranged by the authority and ordinance of Gregory IX, Supreme Pontiff, through S. Raymond of Pennafort, not long since received into the catalogue of the Saints, chaplain of the same Pontiff and Penitentiary of the holy Roman Church: they were collected moreover chiefly from the letters and constitutions of Gregory IX and other Pontiffs: wherefore they were called Decretal letters, which are distinguished in this from the Decretum of Gratian, that they were compiled far more from the letters of Pontiffs than from Councils; whereas conversely the Decretum of Gratian relies more on the Decrees of Councils than on the letters or constitutions of Pontiffs. The Decretales comprise five books, in which the matter of Canon Law is expounded. The first book treats of the persons to whom any jurisdiction belongs, and of the preliminaries of judgments. The second explains the order of judgments. The third treats of Ecclesiastical matters which are accustomed to come before a court. The fourth, of betrothals and marriage. The fifth, of crimes and penalties.

The Decretales are otherwise called extra, because they were outside the Decretum of Gratian, which had been digested beforehand: whence among the more ancient writers they were cited thus, extra De Iudaeis, cap. Post Iudaeos: now however, since they enter into the body of Pontifical law, they are cited without addition, thus namely e.g. cap. Tuae nos, de iureiurando, and for the time being the books of the Decretales are understood by excellence, and neither distinctions nor causes are cited, as in the Decretum. — To these five books of the Decretales of Gregory, Boniface VIII added a sixth, compiled from the decretal letters of the Pontiffs successors of Gregory from the Council of Lyons, from certain new Constitutions of Gregory himself, and also from many of his own: and this book is called the Sextus of the Decretales, likewise consisting of five books, whose citation is made in the same manner as the Decretales are cited: except that the chapters and titles of this book are cited with an addition: saying namely in Sexto: thus e.g. cap. Volentes de privilegiis in 6. Clement V shortly afterwards published Constitutions, partly his own, partly taken from the Council of Vienne over which he presided; which John XXII, that same author dying, completed and caused to be published. From their author they are called Clementinae, and so they are cited, Clem. Dudum, de sepulturis, that is, the Clementina which begins with this word Dudum, under the title De usuris. Afterwards finally John XXII published twenty Constitutions, and after his death others issued from various Pontiffs, which are called extravagant; because although now they are of the body of the law, nevertheless they existed for some time outside it, as it were wandering with uncertain seat: and those are accustomed to be cited thus: extrav. Unigenitus, that is, the extravagant constitution under the title Unigenitus.

OF CANON AND CIVIL LAW.

The imperial law, especially the Digest and the Novels, was illustrated with notes so distinguished that they forestalled others from attempting the same thing. Thereafter many celebrated jurists emulated their labors. In Gaul indeed Budaeus, who on account of his outstanding prudence and jurisprudence under Francis I, king of the Franks, was prefect of petitions, and likewise legate of the same king to the Supreme Pontiff Leo X; and Duarenus, who surpassed all the jurists of his age both in elegance of speech and in method of teaching; Charondas Molineus, to be celebrated by a manifold title for the excellent gifts of his soul, had he thought altogether catholically. But far beyond them all came Jacques Cujas, a native of Toulouse, excellently trained in Greek and Latin letters as well as in imperial law, who for 40 years taught the imperial law publicly with highest praise at Toulouse, Cahors, Valence, Turin, and Bordeaux, and illustrated it with his exceptional and massive commentaries. I pass over the other expositors of the same civil law, sufficiently and more than sufficiently known through their excellent works. — Here incidentally it must also be observed what distinguishes the civil statute, the plebiscite, the senatusconsult, the edicts of the praetors, the responsa of the jurists, and custom confirmed by usage. What, says Justinian, book 1. Institutes, title 2, the civil statute is that which princes or magistrates establish with the people requesting it. A plebiscite is what the plebs enacted through a plebeian magistrate such as the tribune among the Romans. Now the plebs differs from the people in the way a species differs from its genus; for under the appellation of people all citizens are signified, patricians and senators included; but under the appellation of plebs the remaining citizens are signified without the patricians and senators. — A senatusconsult is what the senate commands and enacts. For when the Roman people had grown so much that it was difficult to convene it in one body for the purpose of sanctioning statutes, it seemed equitable that the senate be consulted in place of the people. — The edicts of the praetors served as a kind of supplement to the civil law, yet so that they had far less force than statutes, nor could they abrogate established or received law. The curule aediles also proposed edicts concerning certain matters which chiefly pertained to their duties. For, as Cicero notes, book 5. Against Verres, it belonged to them to see that certain buildings were roofed, the waters pure, the aqueducts intact, the roads passable. They were called curule either from the curia which they presided over, or from the chariot in which they rode, or from the curule chair in which they sat. — The responsa of the jurists were the sentences and opinions of those who were permitted to respond on points of law; for in ancient times it was established that there should be men who interpreted the laws publicly, to whom Caesar granted the right of responding, who were called jurisconsults; and the sentences and opinions of all these held such authority that a judge was not permitted to depart from their responsa, as it stands enacted. — Custom, or unwritten law, is that which usage approved; the usages of long standing approved by the consent of those who employ them imitate statute, says Justinian, text 9. For just as an express sanction makes law, so the tacit will of the people makes custom; whence as regards force and effect there is nothing at all between these two, provided the people which introduced the custom be sui juris and subject to no other empire; for cities and regions subject to another empire can no more introduce a custom by tacit consent than a statute by express consent. You will ask, 2. — Which are the principal acts of law? I answer, four principal ones are usually enumerated, namely to command, to forbid, to punish, and to permit. — It is proved: there are as many acts of law as there are different differences of human acts; now there are three generic differences of human acts, namely goodness, malice, and indifference, since human acts are either generically good, generically evil, or indifferent; therefore equally there are four acts or effects of law, namely to command, to forbid, to punish, and to permit; for good acts are commanded, evil acts are forbidden from being committed and punished once committed, indifferent acts are permitted. — These, however, are called acts of law not because they are elicited by the law itself; since it is neither a habit nor a power, it has no elicited acts; rather they are so called by reason of completeness, because namely through these four acts above all the whole law is fulfilled and made complete: not that all of these are found in every particular law, but because they pertain to law in common; for law is chiefly concerned either in commanding good, or forbidding evil, or permitting indifferent acts. You will say: By what rationale are men incited to good and withheld from evil through punishments, and likewise through rewards; therefore just as punishing is an act of law, so too is rewarding, and thus there would be five acts of law, and consequently not only four. — I deny the consequence, for rewarding cannot have the character of an act of law as punishing can, chiefly for three reasons. First, rewarding may belong to anyone whatsoever, and thus, since it is not an act of a superior, it cannot be an act of law; punishing, however, can belong only to the minister of the law, by whose authority punishment is inflicted; whence it is an act of a superior, and of law. Second, because punishing induces action by way of a kind of coercion, whereas rewarding does so not in that manner but by way of a kind of exhortation, and as it were counsel; hence the former is an act of law, but not the latter. Third, because virtue in itself possesses sufficient worth, so as to be desired for its own sake; whence it is to itself a sufficient reward; consequently for inducing to virtue, which is done through law, no proposal of another reward is required; but the threatening of punishment is required, lest men, whose senses are prone toward evil from their youth because of the corruption of nature, follow their passions out of fear of penalty rather than obey the law, and thus the common good be promoted. You will say, 2: Many other acts of law could be enumerated; therefore they are not only four. The antecedent is proved: to direct, to render unfit for dignities and offices, to annul, to set prices upon things, to change ownerships of things, to revoke past laws, are also acts of law; but none of these is comprehended under the four mentioned above; therefore there are more acts of law than the four assigned. — I deny the antecedent, as well as the minor premise of its proof, for these are reduced to the four assigned; indeed directing pertains to those four; for man is directed by law in as many ways as law can enact. Rendering unfit is sometimes reduced to punishing, because unfitness is sometimes inflicted by way of penalty; sometimes to commanding, because unfit is he who lacks the condition which the law requires in this respect for some office or function; sometimes to forbidding, because the law prohibits such a one from being assumed into that office or performing such functions. As for the annulling of contracts, it has the same rationale as the unfitness of persons. Setting prices upon things is reduced to precept if it is ordered that a thing be sold at so great a price, to prohibition if it is decreed that it not exceed it. Changing ownerships of things is reduced to precept, because the Legislator commands by law that he who prescribes be lord over another's goods. Revoking a law is not precisely an act of law; but if it is reduced to the acts of law, it is reduced under that title alone by which it commands, forbids, permits, or punishes. You will ask, 3. — Which are the causes of law? I answer, the material cause in which of law, that is, its subject, is the intellect directive-wise, and the will subjective-wise; for (as we said) when the Legislator, or Superior, intends to frame any law, he first knows whether what he wishes to enact is good and useful to subjects; and that judgment resides in the intellect; next, he prescribes to his inferiors that which seems fitting to himself and useful to them, in which the formal rationale of law consists; but this decree remains in the will as in its proper subject; hence the matter in which of law is the intellect, and the will, of the Legislator. But the secondary matter in which is the tablet, book, writing, voice, and other things of this kind through which the law is declared to inferiors, most especially positive laws, both divine and human; for after laws have been decreed in the mind of the Legislator so as to have their moral essence, which consists in obliging force, they must be made manifest to inferiors through such instruments. But the matter about which laws are concerned are human actions which fall under law, so that through it they may be done rightly and turn aside from the crooked; for this reason laws are enacted, that man may tend along the straight path toward the end prescribed for him. — The final cause of law is the good of the community to be established and instituted; for laws, as we said, must necessarily bear toward and be ordered to the common good, such that if any Prince should issue an edict whose utility redounds only to his private advantage, that decree savors of tyranny rather than of law. — The formal cause is the very norm of justice which the law carries before it; for, as was said in what precedes, every law ought to be just and justly promulgated, so that namely it impose burden according to the proportion of strength; and if to one less strong a heavier work to be performed is prescribed, that prescription will incline more toward tyranny and injustice than toward an approved and right rule of acting. — The efficient cause of law is he who holds supreme authority over subjects, whether he be one, as in a Monarchical Empire, or many, as in a Democratic Empire; for since laws must be prescribed to a community and order inferiors toward the common good, it is necessary that this ordering be done by him who holds supreme jurisdiction over the community; just as in the natural body the head applies the other members to duties proper to themselves for the good and preservation of the whole body, so likewise in the political body, ecclesiastical as well as civil, it is necessary that he who prescribes law to the members of that body hold the role of head regarding things to be done or omitted, and possess supreme authority.

You will ask, 4. — Which are the effects and office of law? I answer, the office of law is twofold above all, namely to direct, and to oblige. The first indeed is evident; since every law is a measure and rule of human acts; but it belongs to the rationale of measure and rule that it be directive of what is measured and ruled; therefore law must be directive of men, prescribing to them what they ought to do and what omit. The second also is manifest; for law is said from binding, because, as Cassiodorus says, it binds our minds and holds them obedient to its constitutions. This obligation or binding proceeds either from the very nature of things, if the law be natural, or from the will and power of a superior, if it be positive. Yet this effect is not primary and adequate, as some wish; since, as was said in the preceding Conclusion, the primary rationale of law is not that it obliges, seeing that there are very many laws which have only a consequent power of obliging. — I answer secondly, the principal effect of law is the goodness and ordination of subjects; for every law tends toward this single end, that it institute subjects obedient to itself, indeed so as to make them good; for since every law ought to be just and ordered to good, inferiors cannot obey the law without being reckoned just, ordered, and good. Whence as it is the virtue proper to the Prince to command his subjects justly and rightly, so likewise the goodness and perfection of inferiors derives from the fact that they obey the law and comply with the legislator. — Moreover, the law institutes subjects as good according to the larger, or higher, goodness which it contains. Hence the Evangelical law, the most excellent of all, intends that man become simply good, not only in outward deed but also in the inward soul, and indeed that he become the adopted son of God through grace. The natural law, that he become good through the moral virtues, which are commensurate with nature, and have a life ordered toward other men, doing to another not what he would not wish done to himself. The civil law, that he exist as a good citizen, and perform those things which are ordered to the peace of the commonwealth. The ecclesiastical law, that the Cleric be instituted in upright morals and perform the duties of his office in due order. — Otherwise, the use and office of law may be distinguished as twofold, namely general and particular. General is that which obtains in every state of man, namely that it be the one and certain norm of things to be done by everyone both toward God and toward neighbor, so much so that no work is reckoned good and acceptable to God unless it be consonant with the law and prescribed by the law, at least virtually and implicitly. Particular is that it show forth evil, coerce, and vindicate; whence it has the force of conviction, coercion, and condemnation. Of conviction indeed, for by it man is judged guilty of sin; for it is a mirror in which the gravity of sin and the stains of the soul are recognized and shown forth, the Apostle saying to the Romans 3: by the law is the knowledge of sin. It also has the force of coercion, for by its precepts, terrors, and threats it holds men within due duty, so that they who are touched by no care for the just and the right except when compelled, hearing the penalties prescribed to transgressors of the law, may be deterred from wicked actions, if not from love of justice, at least from fear. Whence law stands in the manner of a bridle by which the petulance of men is tamed and repressed, and contained within the enclosures of right discipline; in respect of which St. Paul, 1. to Timothy 1, writes: the law is not laid down for the just, but for the unjust and disobedient, impious persecutors, etc. Nevertheless it not infrequently happens that this intention of the end is altogether frustrated and turns into the opposite. For it often comes about that on occasion of the law man's appetite toward the prohibited thing is irritated ever more, since we strive after the forbidden and ever desire what is denied: in which sense the Apostle, to the Romans 5: law crept in that sin might abound. — Finally, the third office of law is to adjudge the sinner guilty of transgression to the crimes committed by him against its prescriptions, and to the penalties: whence the Apostle, 2. to Corinthians 3, calls the law the ministration of damnation. And to the Romans 4: The law, he says, worketh wrath, that is, it spurs and induces the prince and magistrate to take cognizance of the transgressors of the law, by which rationale law stands in the manner of a whip and goad by which the soul of the transgressor is pricked and tormented, so that it has no rest and peace; whence David, after the adultery committed, used to say: there is no peace in my bones because of my sins. All of which, although they suit every law whatever, and no law exists which does not discharge this threefold duty, nevertheless ought by prior right to be said of the divine law, whether natural, common to all men, or positive, particular and prescribed to a determinate society of men. For those divine laws illuminate man more resplendently regarding doing good and fleeing evil, recreate and delight the obedient to the law more fully, but prick and torment the transgressor more sharply. Finally you will ask. — Which are the properties of law? I answer, three properties of law are commonly recounted, namely authority, truth, and goodness. For law has a principle, a form, and an end. By reason of the principle framing the law, authority is owed to the law itself; for an edict sanctioned without authority is of no value whatever, nor can it have in any way the rationale of law. By reason of form, truth or rectitude is owed to law; for that which is prescribed with injustice does not attain the rationale of law, but verges into tyranny. By reason of end, goodness is owed to law; since the whole law is ordered to the common good of the society of men, and likewise to the particular good of God, toward whom every good of the creature ought to flow back as to the fountain and head from which it flows forth.

That the natural law is inherent in each individual man, no one possessed of reason will deny. For man, as St. Bernard says in book De diligendo Deo, has a law innate to him and not unknown, which demonstrates by the inward dictation of the light of reason what is to be done and pursued, and what is to be omitted and fled from. Which law indeed, says the Apostle, we have written in our hearts; whence it comes about that the Gentiles, who have not the law — supply: the Mosaic or Evangelical law — naturally do those things which are of the law. Not having such a law, they are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them, and their thoughts between themselves accusing, or also defending them; that is, by which thoughts and deliberations conscience makes use, so as to convict man of having acted well or ill, and to accuse him before God. — This truth St. Augustine lucidly weighs in Psal. 57, writing:

The hand of our Maker, he says, wrote truth in our very hearts: that you do not to another what you would not have done to yourself. This no one was ever permitted to be ignorant of even before the law was given, so that there might be that whereby they should be judged, to whom the law was not given; but lest men should complain that anything was wanting to them, that was also written on tablets which they did not read in their hearts. For they did not lack it because it was not written, but they were unwilling to read it: that was set before their eyes which they were compelled to see in their conscience, and, as it were, the voice of God being applied from without, man was compelled toward his own interior, Scripture saying, for the interrogation of the wicked is in his thoughts; where there is interrogation, there is the law: but because men, desiring outward things, were made exiles even from themselves, the law was also given written; not because it was not written in hearts, but because you were a fugitive from your own heart, you are apprehended by him who is everywhere, and recalled inwardly to yourself. Why therefore does the written law cry out to those who have deserted the law written in their hearts? Return, ye transgressors, to the heart. For who taught you to be unwilling that another should approach your wife? Who taught you to be unwilling that theft be committed against you? Who taught you to be unwilling to suffer injury? And what at all can be said either universally or particularly? For there are many things concerning which men, asked singly, answer with a clear voice that they are unwilling to suffer them. Come now, if you are not willing to suffer these things, are you alone a man? Are you not in the society of this human race? He who was made with you is your companion: and all are made to the image of God, unless with earthly thoughts they wear away what he formed. Therefore what you would not have done to yourself, do not to another. Or, more briefly, as he says in book 2. Confess., chap. 4: Thy law, O Lord, is written in the hearts of men, which no iniquity ever effaces, or shall efface. To the same belongs what St. Ambrose says, book 9. epist. 17. That law, he says, is not inscribed, but inborn; nor is it perceived by any reading, but is expressed in individuals by a certain flowing fountain of nature. The royal Psalmist clearly expounds the same truth in Psal. 4, where, when he had said, many say, who showeth us good things? he immediately answers: The light of thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us: which must be understood of the light of natural reason, whereby it is discerned what is good and what is evil. — Philo the Jew had gone before with this very point in the book which he entitled: that every good man is free. The law, he says, is right reason, incapable of lying, which law is not mortal for this or that mortal man, not lifeless on papers or columns, but incapable of corruption, inasmuch as it is sculpted by immortal nature in the immortal intellect. Tertullian, De corona militis: Which thing, therefore, having God's law as common to all, this in the public place of the world, on natural tablets. The same truth is confirmed by reason. For God has supplied to man, preeminently above all creatures, no less carefully the means by which he could attain the end owed to himself, than to interior creatures: but to inferior creatures, devoid alike of reason and even of life, he impressed and implanted powers and inclinations according to which they are acted upon and directed to their ends: therefore by a prior right he ought to edict a certain law for creatures possessed of reason and liberty, according to which they might act in a manner connatural to themselves, and direct themselves to their end: and this law is called natural: and therefore it must be admitted. Then, we possess an ingenerate light whereby we can uncover the first principles of things to be done, without any benefit of acquired science: therefore by equal reason we ought to have that same innate light, whereby we may apprehend the common principles of things to be done. Now we call this ingenerate light the natural law: and accordingly it must be admitted. Finally, man is born for society, and therefore he ought to have from nature itself that whereby he could enter into perfect society: but, as we said just now from St. Augustine, he could not be so instituted, unless through an innate law he knew that what he would not have done to himself was not to be done to another: therefore etc. These things therefore premised, three things here remain to be declared concerning the natural law: First, what it is and how manifold it is. Second, what its precepts are. Third, in what way it is subject to immutability or mutation. Which things indeed we have undertaken to explain in three following Articles.

It is truly a marvel that the natural law should be that very light innate to man, by which he apprehends the first principles of things to be done, and yet should not manifest to man its own nature. For nowhere do Authors seem more at variance among themselves than in assigning the essence of this law. Some, indeed, with Vasquez, book 2, disp. 150, cap. 3, teach that the natural law is rational nature itself considered in itself, inasmuch namely by reason of its essence it is such that certain actions are morally fitting to it, and therefore honest; others repugnant, and therefore unseemly. Some few with our Alanus, 3 p. q. 27. memb. 2., hold that the natural law is a certain habit, not indeed acquired or superadded to the power, but that very intellectual light considered in act first, and inasmuch as it is a faculty of discerning what is morally honest and base. Others with Gabriel and Almain affirm that the natural law is the dictate of reason, not indeed commanding, but only indicating and showing what is consonant or dissonant to rational nature: and they teach that the natural law is not imperative but merely indicative, because it has no adjunct, nor does it include the command of a superior. But the rest contend that the natural law consists not only with the dictate of good and evil; but also in the divine precept, whereby God willed men to be bound to fulfill and perform those things which by that very light of reason, and the law of reason itself, are said to be to be done or omitted. Which of these opinions seems to us the truer, the following will disclose

Although the terms Natural Law, Synderesis, and Conscience are sometimes used interchangeably for one and the same thing by the Holy Fathers, they nevertheless differ greatly from one another: for the Natural Law is that very ordination of the divine will impressed upon us by God inasmuch as He is the Author and Ruler of nature; Synderesis, however, is that very natural light of the intellect by which we know that divine ordination; but Conscience is the practical judgment of the intellect concerning something to be done or omitted in the particular. Synderesis is concerned with principles of action without any discursive reasoning: under synderesis no error can lie, nor any doubt, opinion, forgetfulness, ignorance, or inattention; for no one can or ever could deny, doubt, forget, or be ignorant that evil in general is to be fled, good to be embraced, etc. Conscience, however, brings forth its practical judgments only by a prior inference of reason, and therefore it lies open to doubt, forgetfulness, and error; whence arises so varied and manifold a diversity of conscience, and its division into right, erroneous, certain, doubtful, etc. This happens not only from the diversity of men, but also from the diversity of time with respect to the same man; for the same man, by reason of different cognitions, is dissolved into different and opposite judgments; hence we are often displeased with what had pleased us; often that smiles upon us which had been odious. The natural law, however, among all nations whatsoever, and at whatever time, always proclaims the same things, is ever self-consistent, and conforms to itself, unless it be impeded from elsewhere. Note 2. Rational nature can be regarded in two ways: in one way in itself, and inasmuch as by reason of such an essence as it has, certain things are convenient to it and others disconvenient; in the other way inasmuch as it has the power of judging about those things which are convenient or disconvenient to it, by means of the natural light of reason. Again, rational nature taken in the latter way, inasmuch as it is judge of what is convenient or disconvenient, can be considered in two ways; namely, either inasmuch as by that judgment it only indicates and shows what is to be done, or what is to be omitted; or inasmuch as it has joined to it a divine precept obliging man to execute what the native law itself indicates and demonstrates to him: so that this law is not only illative and ostensive, but also obligative and preceptive. Note 3. It is certain that the natural law is a divine gift descending from the Father of lights, and proceeds from God effectively; because God is the first cause of all natural goods, among which the greatest is the light of right reason and its use; and also because every manifestation of truth proceeds from God, as St. Paul expressly teaches in Romans 1, where, having said, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those men that detain the truth of God in injustice; afterwards, opening up why he calls it the truth of God, he adds: because that which is known of God is manifest in them. For God hath manifested it unto them, namely by the natural light of reason, and by visible creatures, at whose aspect the invisible things of God can be known. It is evident, therefore, that God is the effector, and as it were the Teacher, of the natural law: but the difficulty to be solved remains, whether the native law itself proceeds from God not only effectively, and as from the first cause, but also preceptively, and as from a legislator commanding. These things having been premised, three things remain here to be determined: First, that the native law is not rational nature itself as an entity and essence. Second, that it is not likewise something existing in the mode of a habit. Third, finally, that it consists in the actual judgment and dictate of the intellect, not only ostensive, but also imperative. First Conclusion. — Natural right, in which the natural law is founded, is not rightly defined by the jurists with Justinian: that which nature taught all animals. This Conclusion is common not only among Theologians, but also among the more eminent Jurisconsults, who with unanimous consent confess that brute animals are destitute of right just as of reason. For where there is right, there must necessarily be reason, and the equitable and the good and justice, and law, and an ordered society: of all these, however, brute animals are incapable, as Lactantius teaches most excellently, book 1.

In all animals, he says, that lack wisdom, we see nature to be the conciliator of their own kind. For they call others to them that they may profit them: for they know not that to harm is evil. Man, however, because he has the knowledge of good and evil, abstained from harming even to his own inconvenience. The same had been taught before by Hesiod, writing: For to humankind a law is given by Jupiter Supreme / Since beasts, fishes, and the tribe of high-flying birds / Turn themselves into mutual food, destitute of right. / But to us Justice has been granted, in whom it best resides. Whence Aristotle, book 5 of the Ethics, chapter 1, and Cicero, book 1 De Officiis, pronounce expressly that of horses and lions we do not speak of justice. And Plutarch, in the life of Cato the elder: by law and justice we employ nature against men only. Hence Polybius, giving the reason why men bear with difficulty injuries done to parents and benefactors, writes in book 6: For since humankind differs from the other animals in this, that it uses mind and reason, it is not at all credible that an act so alien to their nature would be concealed by them, as in the other animals: but that what has been done will be recalled to the soul with a signification of offense. — From these things it is manifest that brute animals are not capable of right, and consequently that natural right is not rightly described as that which is proper to men equally with beasts, nor is it true what Justinian says: that right is not the property of humankind alone, but common to all animals which are born on the earth, which in the sea, and of birds also. You will say 1: Those which are bound to undergo the same punishment with man on account of violated natural right are bound to and subject to the same obligation of natural right: but such is the case with brute animals: since Genesis 9 attests that God will avenge homicide both in beasts and in men; I will require, he says, the blood of your lives at the hand of every beast, and at the hand of man. And Exodus, XXI, v. 28: if an ox gore a man or a woman, and they die, he shall be stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten. Therefore etc. — I answer, these things were sanctioned and prescribed divinely for this reason, not that brute animals were to be held guilty of any crime, and that violated natural right were demanded of them: but for the greater detestation of the shedding of human blood and of homicide. For ancient is the opinion of the Hebrews, that by those words is denoted and restrained human slaughter committed by a brute at the instigation of a man, because, as Salomon Iarchius relates on the aforesaid words of Genesis: among men who lived before the flood, through impiety the custom had prevailed of nourishing most noxious beasts, that namely by their aid they might more conveniently domineer, evidently so that, no regard being had to justice, they would let them loose upon those who opposed themselves; which savagery, that God might turn away from men after the flood, He declares that He will take vengeance for human slaughter, not only perpetrated by man himself by his own act, but also for the slaughter which would be wrought by a beast at the instigation of man. — Another exposition Rabbi Isaac Abarbanel administers in the Dirush Tora, namely that by those words of Genesis God declared that He would by no means suffer the unjust shedding of human blood to go unavenged. So that, he says, if there should be lacking a man to avenge the blood, I will require it at the hand of every beast, or of every beast, as of a beast that would tear in pieces a homicide. And thus I shall pursue the same sense. Wheresoever a man shall be, I will require at his hand the blood of the slain, or the vengeance of so great a crime. — Similarly, as to the text of Exodus I say with Selden, book 1 De Iure naturali, chapter 4, that the ox which had killed a man was commanded to be stoned for this reason, not on account of violated natural right, but, either lest anything further should be done by it on account of a man…… or that its owner might be punished in his own thing, because he had kept it negligently, as Maimonides teaches aptly in the more Nevochim, third part, chapter 12, in these words: when a beast was to be killed because it was killing a man, this was not done for the sake of a penalty to be exacted from it, which would be inflicted upon its owner. And hence it was that the use of the flesh of such an ox was forbidden, namely that even the owners of oxen might show greater diligence in keeping them. — By a like reason the cities guilty of apostasy, not only the inhabitants, as apostates, were to be punished with the sword for the crime committed, but also the beasts of burden, Deuteronomy 13. 16. and 16. and the cattle likewise to be destroyed with the sword, and the other goods to be burned, just as also the graven images of the Chanaanites and the groves dedicated to the gods of the nations, and this not on account of any fault committed by the beasts of burden or the cattle, much less by the goods, graven images and groves, but so that, turned away from apostasy and also from the love of goods, for the sake of posterity the citizens of other cities might be deterred the more, and the crime might be deprived both of its memory and of an occasion of renewing it, as far as possible. Hence we read in Demosthenes, in the oration against Aristocrates, and Pausanias and Eliacus, that by the laws of the Athenians the stone, the wood, the axe, and other things of this kind, whenever they had been instruments of homicide, were brought to trial in the Prytaneum as if in punishment, which nevertheless no sane man would properly say they underwent. And the statue of Theagenes, by the judgment of the Thasians according to the law of Draco, was cast into the sea, because it had been projected on account of a slaughter committed by its own accident, not in punishment of the statue, but out of hatred of homicide. You insist: Beasts fulfill all those things which are derived from and instilled by natural right itself: therefore they are capable of it. The antecedent is proved first indeed by the authority of St. Ambrose, who in books 5 and 6 of the Hexameron proves by very many examples that beasts and birds follow the rights of nature, since either they abhor unions forbidden between diverse species and with those from whom they take their origin, or they practice hospitality, and the care of parents and vengeance upon malefactors, and he concludes that from their example the morals of men ought to be formed and reformed. To him subscribes St. Jerome in his commentary on chapter 5 of the epistle to the Ephesians, where he says: That which in animals and beasts is prescribed by the very right of nature, that the pregnant should not couple until the birth, this in men is known to have been left to free choice, that the reward might be that abstinence from pleasures. Aristotle writes, book 9 of the History of Animals, chapter 47, that camels flee the intercourse of their mothers. Avicenna adds, book 9 De Natura Animalium, that a camel which had coupled with its mother, the keeper of the herd having used a covering so that it might not recognize her, when the covering was removed and it had recognized its mother, killed that camel-keeper with a bite.

Refers also Varro, book 2, chapter 1, De re rustica, that the horse of the king of the Cretans, admitted to intercourse with its mother by the same art, as soon as it recognized her, threw itself over a precipice. Relates also William of Auxerre, bishop of Paris, in the first part De Universo, chapter 5.: In my time, he says, a stork, as it were convicted of adultery by the smell of its mate, a multitude of storks having gathered, I know not how, its male accusing or disclosing its crime, was plucked of its feathers and torn in pieces by that whole multitude, as if by the counsel or judgment of all it had been adjudged of adultery. It is related with variation of a horse which had ignorantly committed debauchery with its mother, that after it perceived this, it cut off its own genitals with its own teeth, as it were taking vengeance upon itself for the incest which it seemed to itself to have committed, though in ignorance, because its mother had been hidden from it by a covering while it knew her. Pliny also writes, book 10, that an asp was seen which killed with its own fang its own young, because he had killed the son of a guest. Many other examples similar to these are brought forward by authors, from which appear the signs of natural right observed by beasts. — Why, even Plutarch in the book De Fortuna Romanorum, and Pliny, book 29 of the Natural History, relate that dogs undergo punishment every year and are fastened alive to a fork, because by their nocturnal silence the Capitol would have been captured by the Gauls, unless the geese had aroused the Romans to defend it by the clatter of their wings. Whence an annual honor was rendered to them on account of the citadel preserved. — I answer first, that most of the examples adduced are fictitious and invented for arguing against and correcting more effectively the depraved morals of men, the argument being drawn from brute animals, namely that those who perpetrated those crimes would be worse, and more alien from reason than the very beasts, by which indeed alone, by the instinct of nature alone, they were averse from those criminal actions. But that beasts truly do not abstain from commixture and intercourse with their parents is evident from the fact that Myrrha, inflamed with incestuous love of her father, sings in Ovid, Metamorphoses 10:

animals couple with no Other fault: nor is it held a shame for heifers To bear their father on the back; the horse's daughter becomes his mate And the goat enters the flocks he begot; and the very bird conceived of his Seed conceives from him. I answer second, that brute animals perform many things from natural instinct which men are accustomed to accomplish by the guidance of reason: for in them, as we said, as it were little sparks and certain vestiges of reason shine forth: so likewise in them appear certain seeds and vestiges of virtue and prudence. Wherefore Sacred Scripture sometimes sends men away to them as to a school and academy: thus Solomon, Proverbs 6.: go to the ant, O sluggard, and consider her ways, and learn wisdom: which, although it have no guide, nor master, nor prince, prepares food for itself in the summer, and gathers in the harvest what it may eat in the winter. Thus also Christ the Lord admonishes his disciples, Matthew 10, to be prudent as serpents and simple as doves. — As to the punishment inflicted upon the dogs by the Romans every year, I answer that in this scheme, as it were in a certain apologue, they wished to signify to the citizens every year, especially the younger ones, in what manner the vigilant guardians and defenders of the Republic ought to be rewarded with prizes; but the dull and the slothful to be mulcted with punishment. Second Conclusion. — The natural law does not consist in rational nature itself regarded in itself, inasmuch as certain actions are morally convenient and honest to it; others, however, repugnant and dishonest. It is proved 1. Major: the natural law is truly and properly called a law: but rational nature itself, precisely taken, cannot be a law properly so called: therefore the natural law cannot consist in it. The major is evident from the common opinion of Theologians and Philosophers, who speak of it as of a law truly and properly so called. The minor is proved: a law properly so called is the ordination and constitution of some superior, decreeing and commanding something by his right: but rational nature precisely taken is not an ordination: since ordination is a second act of the intellect and of the will; but nature itself is a first act; and therefore it cannot be held to be an ordination. Further, the effects of a law are to direct, to illuminate, to oblige, and to be the rule of human actions: but these cannot fall immediately upon rational nature: for they proceed from the dictate of reason and the command of the will: therefore not in rational nature itself, but rather in that dictate of reason and command of the will, the essence of the natural law is to be placed. The consequence is evident, for in that the law consists essentially, from which the effects of the law chiefly proceed. But the minor is proved: for before the dictate of reason, by which something is indicated or shown to be good or evil, man is not morally obliged, nor are his operations directed or regulated to the end due to him; nor consequently do they have the reason of morality, as is evident in those who lack the use of reason, etc. Finally, from the natural law human actions have that they are good or evil: but actions which independently of every positive law are good or evil, because indeed they fight against the law of nature, cannot be such from rational nature itself; and therefore this cannot be called the natural law. The major is evident. The minor is proved: diverse reasons in acts cannot be derived from the same term, under the same formal reason: therefore goodness and malice, which are diverse reasons of human acts, cannot proceed from the same rational nature, unless there be diverse reasons in that nature, by which it assigns malice to one act, goodness to another: but those diverse reasons cannot be assigned on the part of that rational nature: for there is no reason why it should refer goodness to one act rather than to another, unless because in that act there is some reason why it is capable of that goodness rather than of malice: and therefore independently of that conveniency with rational nature, such an act already of itself has that it can be called good and honest. The Conclusion is confirmed by assailing the foundation of the adversaries. For this reason Vasquez and those who think with him affirm that the essence of the natural law is to be constituted in rational nature itself, because, they say, rational nature itself is the foundation and measure of the natural law and of its honesty, inasmuch as whatsoever the natural law commands or forbids, of itself befits or unbefits rational nature: but this reason is null. It is proved; because whatsoever is the foundation and measure of a law or of honesty, is not on that account a law; since public peace and felicity is the measure and foundation of human laws, and yet on that account they are not themselves human laws. Similarly, the greater or lesser indigence of a poor man is the foundation or measure of a law or precept of giving a greater or lesser alms; and yet that indigence itself is not held to be a law of giving alms. Likewise, the end is the rule and measure of the means; and yet the end is not said to have the reason of a law. Equally, the object is the rule and measure of acts; and yet on that account it is not held to be a law. Therefore by equal right, although rational nature be the foundation of honesty and the rule of the objective rectitude of moral human acts, on that account it cannot be called a law. I add with Suarez, book 2, chapter 4, n. 7, that if rational nature were the law of our acts, because they befit it; it would follow in like manner that the divine nature is the law of free divine acts, because such acts likewise befit it: but there is none of the Holy Fathers and Theologians who has taught and proved this consequence: therefore neither ought there to be any who teach the antecedent. You will say: Rational nature existing, the natural law cannot not exist, but it can be not that ordination of God; because since it is free, God can posit it or not posit it: therefore the natural law is not that ordination of God itself; but rather it is rational nature itself, inasmuch as it is the foundation of the conveniency and honesty, or disconveniency and dishonesty of human actions. — I distinguish the minor: It can not be the divine ordination by which a rational creature is directed to its end, on the hypothesis that rational nature itself exist. I deny absolutely; I concede on the hypothesis: for although the divine operation ad extra be absolutely free; nevertheless on the supposition that the divine will has decreed to create rational nature with sufficient cognition for operating good and evil, and with sufficient concurrence on the part of God, and also with the free faculty of the creature itself for operating either, it implies that God does not ordain that creature to the attainment of its end by convenient acts: and therefore it equally implies that God does not will to forbid such a creature intrinsically evil acts, and to command honest acts naturally necessary: for as God cannot lie, because He is supreme truth, so also He cannot not forbid those things which are opposed to honesty, because He is supreme goodness, and the rule of rectitude and honesty: therefore for the same reason, God, the will of revealing something being posited, is necessitated to reveal the true, because He cannot lie, since He is supreme truth: so on the hypothesis that He has instituted a rational creature to be ordained to an end, He cannot not command it good and honest acts and not forbid it evil and dishonest acts, because He is supreme equity and rectitude. You insist: It is absurd to assert that God by a necessary will obliges his subjects, since this obligation, being moral, ought to proceed from a free moral agent, and one commanding freely: for which reason no Prince can oblige himself by a vow or promise, or by any other precept and command, unless this obligation arise from full liberty: for things which are done by force and coercion have no force of obliging: but an obligation freely made could have not been made: therefore God could not impose that obligation upon rational nature from the beginning of its formation; nay, He can even revoke that obligation once imposed: and thereupon rational nature can exist without such an obligation prescribed to it: but it cannot exist without the natural law: therefore the natural law is not to be constituted in the obligation superadded, but in rational nature itself. —

I distinguish the minor: That an obligation freely made could have not been made, absolutely, I concede; hypothetically, I deny. I confess indeed that God by his liberty could have abstained from forming rational creatures, and constituting them in a connatural state; and consequently not obliging them by the natural law; but on the hypothesis that He created them, and constituted them in such a state, He was bound of necessity, by a consequent necessity, to rule and care for those intellectual creatures created by Himself that they might live conformably to their nature, and to oblige them thereto by his authority: which authority, however it be interposed, induces a moral obligation; moral, I say, not from the fact that it was freely imposed, so that it could not be prescribed; since on the hypothesis this obligation is necessarily prescribed: but this obligation is called moral from the fact that it leads to moral and imputable acts, so that they cannot be omitted without sin. Nor does it matter that this obligation follows from the necessary and natural ordination of rational nature itself, for some moral obligation can arise from a necessary and natural principle; since the obligation of honoring parents arises from the natural generation received from them.

You will say 2. There are some actions so intrinsically evil from their nature, e. g. hatred of God, that their malice depends in no way upon the dictate of the intellect, or upon an extrinsic prohibition and the divine will: conversely some are so intrinsically good from their nature, e. g. to worship God; that they depend in no way upon an extrinsic cause for this: but they cannot have that malice or goodness from elsewhere, except inasmuch as they are convenient or disconvenient to rational nature: therefore rational nature itself has the reason of a law. —

I answer, that in intrinsically good or intrinsically evil acts, a double goodness and malice can be regarded; one indeed in the being of nature, the other in the being of morality. The first is not derived from the order to any law, but from the conveniency or inconveniency to rational nature, inasmuch as it is understood to have an inclination to the good, considered in the being of nature antecedently to every law. The second, however, is taken proximately indeed from the order to the dictate of natural reason, but remotely from the order to the eternal law, namely inasmuch as the dictate of natural reason is a certain participation of the eternal law, and has the reason of the natural law in order to those very acts.

Third Conclusion. — The formal reason of the innate law is not constituted adequately in that habitual and natural light itself regarded in the first act, and inasmuch as it is the power of discerning the honest and the base, the licit and the illicit.

It is proved: Every law properly so called is an ordination, as we said above: but the natural light taken habitually is not an ordination, but only a power of understanding: therefore neither is the formal reason of the natural law to be placed in it. Further, God has a light connatural to Himself by which He knows most perfectly whatsoever things are honest and base: but God cannot be said to have a natural law: therefore the natural law is not to be placed in that habitual light itself. Finally, as is proved in the following Conclusion, every law is the command or prohibition of some superior: but that habitual natural light itself is neither a command nor a prohibition of a superior: therefore neither is it the natural law.

You will say 1. St. Paul, Romans 2, calls a law the natural conscience, namely dictating what is to be done or fled according to natural reason; for having said, the Gentiles who have not the law, do by nature those things that are of the law: these, having not the law, are a law to themselves: as it were declaring in what way they are a law to themselves, and what that law is, he adds: who shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them: he holds, therefore, that the natural law of which he speaks is the natural dictate of right reason, by reason of which man is a law to himself. Further, the Holy Fathers in like manner affirm that the natural law was naturally implanted in us by God and written in our hearts, and that God is its author, inasmuch as He is the author and founder of our nature. Thus St. Ambrose, book 1, Epistle 71. That law, he says, is not inscribed, but inborn: nor is it perceived by anyone through reading, but it is brought forth from a certain fountain of nature and expressed in each one. And St. Maximus, in the Centuries, chapter 13. The law of nature, he says, is natural reason which holds captive the sense, for the destruction of the irrational power. Finally Tullius in the book De Legibus, with supreme eloquence and an almost divine voice, as Lactantius says, book 6 De vero cultu, chapter 8, describing the natural law, says: Indeed true law is right reason, congruent with nature, diffused among all, constant, eternal, which calls to duty by commanding, and deters from fraud by forbidding. It is evident, therefore, from these that the natural law is posited in the light of reason itself: not indeed actual, otherwise, when we do nothing, the natural law would not remain in us: therefore it is to be placed in that habitual light itself. —

I answer, that the aforesaid authorities prove nothing else than that the natural law is sometimes taken for conscience and synderesis, namely inasmuch as it dictates what is to be done or omitted, as conscience does. Nevertheless, as we have already observed in the first Notable, the natural law differs from conscience in many respects: for law signifies a rule generally constituted concerning things to be done: but conscience signifies a practical dictate in the particular; whence conscience extends more widely than the natural law, because it applies not only the natural law, but also any other whatsoever, whether divine or human. Further, conscience is accustomed not only to apply the true law, but also the supposed one; hence sometimes there is given an erroneous conscience: but an erroneous law cannot be given: for by that very fact it would not be a law, which is especially true of the natural law which has God for its author. Finally, law properly bears upon things to be done; but conscience is concerned with those things which have already been done; and therefore to it is attributed not only to bind and oblige, but also to accuse, to bear witness, to condemn, and to torment.

You will object 2. Whatsoever is in our souls is either a power, or a passion, or an act, or a habit: but the natural law is neither a power of the soul, nor a passion, nor an act; otherwise, when we do nothing, the natural law would not remain in us: therefore it is a habit. —

I answer, to the minor, that the natural law is not a power or a passion, but is an act; because it is a prescription, or dictation of right reason. To what is subjoined, that if it were an act, since we do nothing at all times it would not remain in us: I answer by denying that consequence: for an act is not said to exist as though it always existed actually, but because either it exists in act, or it is an act naturally apt to exist; and such a dictation remains virtually, and thus it is an act of reason, existing either in reality or in virtuality.

You will object 3. The natural law remains in children and the insane: yet in them there is no act of reason, nor a faculty ready for reasoning: therefore it must be that the natural law itself is a habitual light, and natural, considered in first act. —

I distinguish the major: that the natural law remains in children and the insane in second act, this I deny; in first act, I concede: for although they judge by some exercise of reason about things to be done, they do not nevertheless judge with that perfect cognition which has annexed to it the character of command, and of a rule, or norm conformed to right reason; moreover such a judgment is necessary for the natural law: whence the natural law remains in them only after the manner of a habit improperly so called, just as there remains in them the habit of the first principles, which we call intelligence. — To these words I add that the habitual natural light itself, as also conscience and synderesis, can truly be called the natural law; not indeed adequately, but inadequately; for the adequate reason of the natural law must be placed not only in the very dictation of reason concerning those things which are to be done, or omitted, but chiefly in the divine precept itself, or prohibition proceeding from the will of God, as from the author and rector of nature, as he will show.

Fourth conclusion. — The natural law does not consist formally in the dictation and judgment merely demonstrative and indicative of good and evil: but also in that which is preceptive and imperative and obliging to those things which are prescribed by such a law. This conclusion is held in common with the Seraphic Doctor in book 2, dist. 35, doubt 4, and with Gerson, Tract. De vita spirituali, lib. 2, Corol. 5, where he defines the natural law thus: The natural law is a preceptive sign impressed upon every man not unskilled in the use of reason, and declarative of the divine will, which wills that rational human creature be bound to do or not do something in order to attain its natural end.

Proof: The natural law is truly and properly called a law, as all Philosophers and Theologians confess: but a law properly so called is truly preceptive: therefore, etc. The minor is proved: Both because it belongs to the reason of a law truly and properly so called that it be preceptive; inasmuch as law is an act of prudence, which consists formally in an act of command, and is consequently preceptive: And because the natural law is properly called the rule and measure of the goodness or malice of a human act: but a judgment indicative and demonstrative of good and evil cannot be such a rule and measure of the goodness or malice of a human act; inasmuch as it presupposes that goodness or malice, and only judges it; whereas a rule and measure of anything regulated and measured does not presuppose its rectitude or obliquity; inasmuch as this is not known except by application to the rule: therefore, etc.

Further, God has a demonstrative judgment concerning those things which befit or misbefit his divine nature, against which judgment he himself cannot act; and yet he has no law properly so called; and consequently the natural law, since it is truly and properly called a law, cannot formally consist in the mere dictation and judgment merely demonstrative of good and evil.

Finally, whatever is done against the prescription of the natural law is truly sin: but every sin is a transgression and violation of some precept: therefore the natural law must be prescriptive. The major is proved from the Apostle to the Romans 1, where he teaches that the Gentiles were inexcusable, and guilty of great sin, from the fact that by the natural law they knew what was to be done, and what to be omitted; yet they fulfilled neither the one nor the other prescription of that law. The minor is proved from St. Ambrose, lib. De Paradiso, cap. 8, where he defines sin generally thus: Sin is the transgression of the divine law, and disobedience to the heavenly commandments. Likewise from St. Augustine, who in lib. 2 contra Faustum, cap. 27, defines sin to be a word, deed, or desire against the eternal law: and he adds that the eternal law is the reason, or will of God. He holds, therefore, that it belongs to the reason of sin that it be against the proper law of some superior. Which indeed he indicates more clearly in lib. 2, De peccat. meritis, et remiss., cap. 1, where he says: how is it forgiven by the mercy of God if it is not sin, or how is it not punished by the justice of God if it is sin? By which he signifies that it is no less repugnant that something be sin and not prohibited by God, than that it need forgiveness and have not been sin. — The same the Doctor teaches in book 1, dist. 50, num. 1, where he says: Whatever sin is sin for this reason, because it is against the divine precept.

You will say. If the natural law were preceptive, it would be chiefly either the precept of a man to another, or to himself, or of God to men: but neither can be affirmed: therefore neither can it be asserted to be preceptive. The major stands by a sufficient enumeration of the parts. The minor is manifest as to the first and second part; because the precept of a man to another pertains to human law; moreover the command of a man over himself with respect to his own actions cannot have the true reason of law; since law is the ordination of a superior to a subject; but no one is superior to himself. The same minor is evident also as to the third part: both because the precept by which God commands something to men pertains to the divine law; but the divine law differs from the natural: and because, setting aside any precept of God whatsoever, the dictation of natural reason sufficiently dictates what is good, and what evil: therefore the natural law is by no means preceptive. —

I deny the minor as to the third part: and to its first proof I say that the natural law is also called divine; for, says St. Damascene, lib. 1, De Fide, cap. 23: The law of God, kindling our mind, draws him to itself, and illumines our conscience, which is itself likewise called the law of our mind. And so he judges the natural law to be equally the law of God, inasmuch namely as it is a certain participation, and application of the eternal law. To the second proof I deny the antecedent; for since the dictation by which God commands men good works, and forbids evil works, is derived from the law of God eternal, and is, as we just now said, a certain participation, and application of it: the consequence follows that, setting aside the eternal law of God and its prescription, there would be no dictation of natural reason indicating and declaring to men what is good or evil.

It is certain that the Natural Law is one: 1. by unity of light, because it illuminates man with a single natural light, and proclaims and demonstrates to him what must be done and what must be omitted. 2. By unity of principle, because it has one God as its Legislator and Author. 3. By unity of end, because it looks toward this one end, that it may constitute man upright according to the inclination of nature. Whether it is also one by unity of precept is to be resolved here. The sense of this question can be threefold: First, whether the precepts of the law of nature are the same among all. Second, whether those precepts are many, or indeed only one. Third, whether, on the hypothesis that they are many, they can be reduced to one.

Note 2. The precepts of the law of nature are of a twofold kind; for some are general, and known to all men, such as these: good is to be done, evil to be shunned: what you would not have done to yourself, do not do to another, etc. Others are proper and particular, which are inferred from those general principles; and this in two ways: for either they are deduced with ease and without any difficulty, such as this one: what belongs to another is not to be kept against the owner's will: or they can be inferred from general principles only with great diligence, such as this one: money is not to be lent at usury. It is asked, then, whether both of these kinds of precepts of the law of nature are the same among all men whatsoever, or can be diverse.

Note 3. The precepts of the law of nature, both general and particular, can be considered either as regards certainty, or as regards knowledge and evidence. Now it is certain that the general ones are more certain and better known than the particulars, since they become known through the very ingenerate light of reason: whence just as in speculative matters the first principles, which are apprehended by understanding, are far more certain and better known than the conclusions drawn from them by science, so too in practical matters the first precepts, which are the matrix rules of things to be done, seem to be far more certain than the particular precepts that are inferred from them.

These things thus premised, three things remain here to be determined: First, whether the general precepts of the law of nature are the same among all men whatsoever, considered in whatever state. Second, whether the particular precepts have the same force, certainty, and knowledge among all. Third, whether the precepts of the law of nature are many in any given man, and how they are ordered among themselves.

First Conclusion. — The natural law is entirely the same in all men considered in whatever state, as regards the general principles. This is common among Theologians and Jurists.

Proof, first indeed, because this law is like a property consequent not upon the proper and particular reason of some individual, but upon the specific nature: but this nature is the same in all: therefore also the law itself. Then, just as in speculative matters the first principles are known, whose truth no one can dissent from, so in practical matters, as regards the first principles and general precepts, there is the same truth and the same rectitude known to all. Finally, everywhere and always it is acknowledged and held as certain that good is to be embraced, evil to be shunned: that what you would not have done to yourself is not to be done to another: and therefore these precepts are accessible to all and everywhere.

You will say. Diverse nations have established various laws contrary to the precepts of natural law: for Julius Caesar, book 6 On the Gallic War, reports that among the Germans theft was once not disapproved, but permitted. The same concerning the Lacedaemonians is reported by Castro from Plutarch, book On Penal Law, chapter 14. Similarly Plutarch reports in the life of Lycurgus that adultery was approved by him as permitted by nature: but theft and adultery conflict with the very precepts of the law of nature: therefore these do not seem to be known to all. —

I distinguish the major: nations have established many laws opposed to the general precepts of nature, and which stand in the manner of first principles in practical matters — this I deny; opposed to the particular precepts, and those inferred from the former ones — this I concede. For just as although all men agree in the first principles of speculation, nor does any of them call their truth into doubt, nevertheless they very often conflict with one another over the conclusions drawn from those principles, so likewise, although all men agree together in the general precepts prescribed by the law of nature: yet they can deviate from the truth when from those general principles they infer particular laws as if agreeing with nature: whence it is no wonder if those special laws sanctioned by different Nations conflict not only among themselves, but even with the very general precepts of nature.

You will say 2. The law of nature is that which is contained chiefly in the Gospel, as we read in dist. 1: yet what is contained in the Gospel is not common to all; For all men do not obey the Gospel, says St. Paul to the Romans 10. Therefore the law of nature is not one among all.

I answer to the minor, that it is not to be understood thus, as if all things contained in the Gospel were of the natural law, but the sense of that proposition is only that those things which are of the natural law are handed down fully in the Gospel: whence when Gratian had said, There the law of nature is found which is contained in the Law and the Gospel: immediately explaining himself he adds: That each one is bidden to do to another what he wishes done to himself; upon this law of nature very many precepts of the greatest Evangelical law are founded.

Second Conclusion. — The particular precepts of the law of nature, which are inferred from the general ones, are for the most part the same among all: yet they sometimes fail among very many, both as regards their rectitude and as regards knowledge of them. This likewise is common as regards both parts, of which the former is evident of itself: for many particular principles inferred from general ones are true, and are held as true by all. But the latter part is shown; because it sometimes happens that conclusions deduced from general principles are not right; thus, for example, from that general principle a deposit is to be restored to its owner, this conclusion which is inferred is not right: therefore a deposit is to be restored to the owner demanding it to the ruin of his fatherland. But the reason of this thing is, that common principles of operable things suffer exception and distinction in particular events. For there is a difference between speculative conclusions, and practical and operable ones, in that speculative ones have the same truth perpetually, and among all; practical ones not so, because they concern particular things which admit various circumstances, according to which those conclusions are varied. Hence it comes about that from a change of circumstances, that which was just and right ceases to be right and just. Wherefore although it be perpetually true in speculative matters that an odd number cannot be divided into two equal parts; yet in practical matters it is not perpetually true that a deposit, for example, is to be restored to the owner demanding it; for in those circumstances in which it would be demanded to the ruin of the commonwealth, it would not have to be restored to the petitioner; because private good must yield to the public good. It is clear, therefore, that the law of nature is not one among all according to the rectitude of particular prescriptions. — It is likewise clear that it also sometimes is not one and the same among all according to knowledge, and the inference of such prescriptions from general principles; because right judgment in things to be done is hindered sometimes either by passion, which perverts the use of reason, or by bad custom, or by the depraved disposition of nature itself; whence it comes about that robberies seemed to certain peoples not unjust; among others usury was not held right; among very many simple fornication had no place among crimes. — Hence also it comes about that concerning certain precepts inferred from general precepts there is sometimes less agreement among Theologians than concerning other precepts, which happens because the more the conclusion differs from the principles, the less evident it is; thus, for example, from this principle, what you do not wish done to yourself, do not do to another, there follows most evidently: therefore false testimony is not to be brought against another: but not so evidently is it gathered: therefore a lie is not to be told to preserve the life of a man: likewise from the same principle it is gathered most evidently that one must not steal: but not so evidently does it follow, that one's own money is not to be lent at usury: although these two, one must not lie to preserve the life of a man, and money must not be given at usury, are precepts of the law of nature equally with the two later ones, namely false testimony must not be brought, and one must not steal.

Third Conclusion. — The natural law has one first principle from which the others are derived as from a fountain, and to which they are recalled as to their head, namely: good is to be done, evil is to be avoided. This likewise is common among Theologians, and

Proof: As principles stand related to the speculative reason, so do they stand related to the practical reason: but just as in speculative matters this principle, it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be at the same time, is on that account judged to be the first of all principles, because all the conclusions of science are inferred from it, and proved by it: by parity of reason in practical matters this principle, good is to be done, evil avoided, is first and chief; since the others are recalled to it, and confirmed by it: therefore truly this principle will be the first. The minor is proved from the parity of reason; because as in speculative matters all principles are recalled and confirmed by the first, which is founded upon the reason of being and non-being, between which there is no medium; so likewise in practical matters all the precepts of the law of nature are recalled to this, good is to be done, and evil avoided, which can indeed easily be proved thus by induction. For the precepts of nature are of a threefold kind, of which some regard man as he is substance: others as he is an animal; others finally as he is rational; for since good is the object of appetite or inclination, as many inclinations as are to be distinguished in man by which he tends toward natural good, so many precepts of the law of nature are to be distinguished in him; since the native law is ordered to this one end, that it rectify the inclinations of man, and direct them to that which is fitting for him: but there is in man some inclination, inasmuch as he is a being, and substance: namely an inclination toward the conservation of his own being, and toward acquiring all those things which can serve his conservation and utility: there is moreover in him an inclination, inasmuch as he is an animal, toward the conservation of his species, by generating one like to himself: there is likewise in him an inclination, inasmuch as he is rational, that he enter into society not only with other men, and lead a social and political life without offense to others, but also with God as the Author of nature, to whom he is wholly ordered, and of whose knowledge and love he is capable: therefore likewise precepts of a threefold kind are to be distinguished in the law of nature, by which man may be directed and regulated. First respectively to himself, by living decently according to the inclination implanted by nature, whereby he is borne toward his own conservation in food and drink, and in warding off things harmful to him. Second, respectively to communicating his nature to another, whereby he is borne toward the conservation of the species by decently generating one like to himself. Finally third, by living decently in order toward God, and men with whom he ought to enter into society. To the first kind temperance furnishes precepts concerning food and drink taken moderately; fortitude however supplies force and strength for repelling things harmful to the conservation of life. To the second belong the precepts of chastity and prudence, by which propagation and the education of children may be fittingly accomplished. To the third truly pertain the precepts of religion, justice, etc. by which he may both worship God, and honor parents, and obey superiors, and live with all so that he offend no one. — To this are to be recalled those things which we read in St. Ambrose, comment. on chapter 5 of the epistle to the Romans.

The natural law has three parts, of which the first is this, that the Creator, when acknowledged, be honored, nor let His charity and majesty be deputed to any creature. But the second part is moral, that is, that one live well, with modesty governing. For it befits man, having knowledge of the Creator, to curb his life by law, lest the acknowledgment be made void. Truly the third part is docile, that the knowledge of God the Creator, and the example of morals be handed on to others, that they may learn how merit is placed with the Creator.

— But all these precepts are easily recalled to the first and chief precept, namely good is to be done, evil avoided; wherefore this precept is the first and chief to which the others can be recalled.

Since the chief power and rationale of every law consists in its obligation to pursue or avoid something, the right and just method of speaking requires that, after having delineated the essence of the Natural Law, we now declare its binding force: which we shall indeed carry out in the following Questions; the First of which will disclose over what matter the Law of Nature extends itself; the Second, in what way men are held and obliged to fulfil its precepts.

It is certain that everything which the natural light judges and indicates of itself to be necessary, or in harmony with rational nature, is to be reckoned as the matter of the Natural Law; for the natural law, according to the most common teaching of Theologians, is distinguished above all from positive law in this, that the former concerns things necessary by the nature of the thing for the uprightness of a rational creature, while the latter concerns things necessary only from the will of the Legislator. Hence not only the first principles of morals, but also practical conclusions evidently deduced from them, belong to the law of nature, as the Doctor rightly teaches in 3 dist. 37 n. 6. I say, he declares, that some things can belong to the Law of Nature in two ways: in one way as first practical principles arising from their terms, or as conclusions necessarily following from them: and these are said to belong most strictly to the Law of Nature. For such conclusions are as necessary to a rational creature as the principles from which they are deduced; since if the conclusion be destroyed, the principle likewise falls, according to the mode of arguing from the opposite of the consequent. Wherefore the Apostle deservedly comprehends under the Law of Nature generally, Rom. 2, all those things which the nations judge by natural instinct to be good or evil, or to be done or avoided. Therefore everything must be held with certainty to pertain to the law of nature which the natural light judges to beseem or unbecome rational nature. But what things specially pertain to that law itself is not so certain.

Note 2. The laws and precepts of nature must be regarded not only respectively with respect to that nature considered according to its natural state, but also with respect to the same nature as it is raised to the supernatural state and illuminated by the light of faith. For since the ingenerate light of nature universally teaches that what is fitting to nature itself ought to be suitably pursued; and since rational nature can be led not only to an end fixed by the Author of nature, but also to an end determined by God himself as author of grace through fitting means: it follows that the precepts of the Law of nature intimate and indicate that every end owed to nature itself ought to be fitfully pursued. Hence, given the institution of the Sacraments, for example, whereby the supernatural end can be attained, the Law of nature, which universally teaches that the end is to be attained by means fittingly applied, likewise teaches that the Sacraments are not to be received unworthily, nor treated irreverently. For although these and similar precepts are sometimes called supernatural, because indeed they are ordered to a supernatural end, yet they are truly connatural to rational nature raised to the state of grace and ordered to a supernatural end, and as such are distinguished against positive precepts: for right reason illumined by faith can judge, even setting aside any particular ordinance of a higher order, that the Sacraments are not to be administered to the unworthy, nor treated unworthily. Whence, in order to discern the precepts of the Law of nature, inasmuch as they are distinguished against the precepts of positive law, heed must be paid to the light of nature not only in nature considered in its natural state, but also as it is raised to the state of grace and illuminated by the light of faith.

Note 3. The controversy is chiefly raised concerning the acts of virtues and the precepts of the Decalogue, namely whether the native law is concerned with these as with matter suitable and proper to itself, so that, any positive ordination of the Legislator being set aside, these are declared by the natural light to be to be pursued and fulfilled as agreeable to rational nature. Now since virtues are of two kinds, of which some are necessary for duly instructing man in those things that pertain to the natural state, which serve for rightly regulating his threefold inclination, whereby he is carried either toward the conservation of himself, or toward the propagation of his species, or toward entering duly into society with superiors, equals, and subjects; while others are not so necessary but fall only under counsel, and are called works of supererogation: the question arises how the Law of nature is concerned with these. And since likewise the precepts of the Decalogue are of two tables, and some pertain to God, such as the three precepts of the first table, while others pertain to life to be duly ordered with respect to men, the difficulty is likewise raised whether all these precepts of either table of the Decalogue pertain to the matter of the Law of nature.

Three things here especially remain to be determined: First, whether every act of virtue pertains to the law of nature. Second, whether the law of nature commands not only the entity of the act of virtue, but also the manner in which it ought to be elicited. Thirdly, finally, whether, and how, all the precepts of the Decalogue pertain to the law of nature itself.

First Conclusion. — The law of nature is concerned with all the acts of virtues considered in common: but if they are regarded in particular, not all are of the natural law. This comprises two parts, of which

The first part is proved: Everything pertains to the natural law to which man is inclined according to his nature: but man is naturally inclined to act according to virtue: for each thing has a natural inclination according as its own proper form requires, just as fire is naturally inclined to heat; now the proper form of man, which is the rational soul, requires that man act according to virtue. And hence it is that St. Damascene said that the virtues are natural to man.

The second part is proved in like manner; because many things are done by man according to virtue to which nature does not incline first and of itself, but which men have discovered by inquiry of reason as accommodated to living well and tranquilly: or if nature inclines first to those things, yet it does not incline to them by way of precept, such being some acts of virtue.

You will object against the first part of our proposition: acts of virtue which are only of counsel are not of the natural Law, since they are not in precept: therefore it is false that all acts of virtue are of the natural law. Likewise, acts of supernatural virtues are not of the natural law; for nature dictates nothing about supernatural works. Likewise, it would follow from this part of our proposition that it cannot be established among those things which first something is commanded by human law, belongs to the genus of virtue, and therefore, if our doctrine be true, is of the law of nature. — I answer to the first part, that acts of virtue of counsel only are of the natural law if they are regarded in the universal: but not if they are considered in particular: but things regarded in the universal, as such, do not fall under precept, but only those in particular; for nothing is commanded except what is to be done: but things in the universal are not to be done, but only things in particular. Whence it is one thing for a thing to be of the natural law, and another for it to be of the precept of the natural law; just as the Evangelical counsels are indeed of the Evangelical law, yet are not of the precept of that Evangelical law. To the second part I say the Conclusion is especially to be understood of the natural virtues. But if it be extended also to supernatural virtues, I say that nature dictates concerning them, if not immediately, at least mediately and confusedly, insofar as it dictates concerning the last end, which is the clear and intuitive vision of God, to which the acts of supernatural virtues are ordered as means to an end. To the third I say there is a distinction between the natural law and human law, in that things which are of human law, if considered in the universal, are of the natural law, and in no wise if considered in particular: for, as Aristotle says 5 Ethic., chap. 7. Natural right has the same force everywhere, and not because it seems or seems not: but positive right is that which from the beginning matters not whether it be done thus or otherwise: but after it has been enacted, it matters much: wherefore it has all its force from imposition. Whence I say that things which are of the natural law differ only in a twofold way: for some are so necessary for the attainment of the end that their necessity is evident to all: such are these precepts, not to lie, not to commit adultery. Others indeed are necessary, but their necessity is not evident to all; rather they need declaration and careful industry, for example, that such a contract is usurious: others again are things which conduce to the end but are not necessary, and vary with the diversity of times and regions: and these are of the natural law in the universal: but they are not of the natural law in the particular.

You will object against the other part of our Conclusion. First, the Law of nature commands that we obey superiors: therefore since Christ is a superior, the law of nature commands that we obey him; and consequently all the precepts instituted by Christ the Lord must be reckoned to be of the law of nature. Moreover, just as the visual power perceives all colors, and accordingly is inclined to see all colors, whether those colors be produced by nature, or by art, or by a natural faculty: by equal reason, if, as was said in the prior part of the Conclusion, nature inclines to the acts of virtues viewed generically, and inasmuch as they are virtuous acts, it will likewise incline to those acts of virtue from whomsoever, and in whatsoever manner, those virtues are commanded or counseled. —

I answer the first, I grant the antecedent and the first consequence, denying the second: for precepts, inasmuch as they proceed from the Legislator through some judgment and voluntary ordination, are not reckoned to belong to the law of nature, if they be considered in particular. To the second, I deny the consequence; because colors of whatever kind are contained within the breadth of the object of sight, and accordingly pertain per se to the visual power, and that power is in turn per se ordered to beholding them; but the acts of supernatural virtues are not contained within the natural genus, nor are they comprehended by natural reason; and therefore it is no wonder if they do not fall under the precepts of nature.

You will object 3. against either part of the Conclusion: Not all sins are against the law of nature: therefore neither do all acts of the virtues, even natural ones, both in common and in particular, pertain to the law of nature. —

I distinguish the antecedent: they are not against the law of nature inasmuch as it is considered only according to the reason of an animal, and insofar as it is common to all animals, namely in that manner in which the defilers of males are said to sin against nature, I grant: they are not against nature, inasmuch as it is rational, and insofar as it follows the dictate of right reason and the natural light dictating what things befit man or disbefit him, I deny. For it must be known, as we said above, that three grades are distinguished in man: namely, of a substantial and living being, of a sentient animal, and of a rational and sociable one; from which follow diverse inclinations of man toward various goods. Hence it comes about that man regarded according to the first grade is said to sin against nature, either when he kills himself, or when he denies himself necessary nourishment; for, as Tully says, chapter 1 De Officiis, "In the first place, every genus of animals has been endowed by nature with the instinct to defend its life and its body." But regarded according to the grade of a living animal, and inasmuch as he is ordered to the preservation of his species in a becoming manner, he is said to sin against nature as often as he admits the abominable crimes of sodomy, bestiality, etc., which fight against the lawful propagation of mankind. Finally, man regarded according to the grade of reason: all sins whatsoever are said to be against the nature of man, because they are contrary to reason and to the innate natural light dictating what is to be pursued and what to be shunned. Yet the two first kinds of sins are especially said to be against nature, because indeed it is horrible and unspeakable to commit that from which even brutes themselves shrink.

Second Conclusion. — The natural law brings it about that the act commanded of virtue be done voluntarily, with prior knowledge of the precept, and that it be ordered to an honest end, and done decently. This conclusion embraces especially three parts, of which

The first is proved: The natural law directly regards human action: but an act cannot be human unless it be done voluntarily, and consequently be free: therefore such a mode of acting regards the very natural law. Hence it follows that, through failure of this condition, he does not properly satisfy the precept of justice, or of mercy, who restores another's property, or gives alms to one in extreme need, while in drunkenness, or otherwise impeded in the use of reason; for he who does the work of the law involuntarily, although he may seem to keep it, is nevertheless a transgressor of the law, as St. Augustine teaches, book 2 contra duas epistolas Pelagii chapter 9, affirming that where good is done not out of love of justice, but out of fear of punishment, in such wise that the fear be so servile that it carry with it the conjoined desire not to do the work commanded if no punishment were to be inflicted upon the delinquent; he, I say, does not satisfy the law, nor is he reckoned to accomplish the good. — Yet he who would so restore or confer alms would not be bound again to give alms or make restitution; because the matter of the precept has been taken away by the other receiving what is his own, and the necessity of the poor man relieved.

The second part is also evident; for in order that an act be truly an act of virtue and human, it must not only be voluntary, but also elicited with advertence and deliberation: and it cannot be such without some prior knowledge of the precept. Nevertheless I should judge that it is not required absolutely, for fulfilling the precept of nature, that it be distinctly known in particular; the reason is, because the law commands nothing else than that the act be done: whence if it happen that someone voluntarily give alms to a poor man in extreme need, and consequently at the time when the natural precept obliges, although he who gives the alms did not recognize that necessity and obligation, he truly satisfies the precept; so that afterwards, when he shall have learned of this obligation, he is not bound again to give alms. Similarly, even if the obligation of worshipping God on some day, for instance of hearing Mass, be unknown to him who yet on that very day hears Mass out of devotion, he is held to have satisfied the precept, nor is he bound afterwards, when aware of the obligation of the precept, to hear Mass anew: inasmuch as the precept bears only the obligation of hearing Mass, which he satisfied by hearing Mass, even though he did not recognize such a precept.

The third part is also evident, namely that the law of nature brings it about that the act be done on account of an honest end and motive: because the native law is ordered to the perfection of man: but man is not held perfect in operating unless he act from a motive of honesty, and according to the decency and honesty consonant with his nature: therefore nature brings it about that works be done in such a manner. Yet it is not necessary that one operate in such a manner in order to fulfill the precepts of nature: since the tenor of the precepts conveys nothing else than that an honest act be commanded, for instance that the neighbor's necessity be relieved through alms, and property restored to its proper owner: which can be fulfilled even on account of an end not honest; for he who restores a debt keeps the natural precept of restitution, even if he do it in an unbecoming manner; and he who gives alms keeps the natural precept of mercy, even if he bestow the alms itself out of vainglory. Hence it comes about that some law of nature can be fulfilled by an indifferent act, which, since no other law forbids it, follows that some law of nature can by means of it be fulfilled without transgression of any other law: nay, it can even be fulfilled by an act vitiated by circumstance, and forbidden by another precept of nature: thus, for example, someone satisfies the precept of giving alms or honoring parents, even if he execute it out of vainglory, which is forbidden by another law of nature, so that, as we already said, he who has thus bestowed alms on a poor man in extreme need is not bound, on account of another honest motive, to give alms again. — I confess however that by an act vicious by reason of circumstance the whole law of nature is truly not kept nor fulfilled; for this law differs from positive human law in this, that a human precept can be wholly kept by an act vitious by circumstance or end, because that malice which inheres in such an act is often not against any human precept, but only against the general law; which, since it is ordered to the moral perfection of man, intends not only the execution of that which right reason dictates to be done, but also the manner in which it is required that man be held to operate decently.

Third Conclusion. — All the precepts of the Decalogue, if you except the third concerning the sanctification of the Sabbath, pertain to the law of nature: yet not in the same manner. This is the doctrine of the Doctor in 3 dist. 37 n. 6 and following, as to its three parts, of which

The first is proved: That belongs to the law of nature, according to Aristotle, 5 Ethics, chapter 1, "which everywhere has that force, not because it seems so or seems not so:" that is, it has its force from the nature of the thing, and not because it is instituted voluntarily and arbitrarily: now such is the law by which we are bound to observe all the precepts of the Decalogue, excepting the special determination of the feast day; for that law does not arise from any voluntary and arbitrary institution: otherwise it would not prevail among all Nations: but it obliges by the force of natural reason alone, as is evident regarding the worship of God, and the honor of parents frequently shown, and likewise regarding homicide, adultery, and the rest: therefore all the precepts of the Decalogue must be judged to pertain to the law of nature. Furthermore, those things pertain to the natural law which most of all befit rational nature: but such are all the precepts of the Decalogue; for what befits man more than to worship with due worship the supreme Artificer of his formation, namely God, and likewise those from whom he received life and nature? What so congruous, and so necessary for human society and tranquillity, as to avoid and flee adulteries, thefts, homicides, and other things of this kind, which are forbidden by the precepts of the Decalogue? Finally, in this the natural law differs from positive law, that the former supposes in its object the honesty which it commands, and the moral deformity and malice which it prohibits: but the latter does not so suppose in its object, which commands or prohibits, the moral necessity of doing or omitting, but introduces it: those things which the natural law commands are not good because commanded, nor evil because prohibited; but on the contrary it commands them because they are good and morally necessary from the nature of the thing, or prohibits them because they are evil and naturally unbecoming of themselves: whereas those things which are commanded by positive law are morally necessary only because they are commanded; and those which are prohibited by it are evil and illicit only because prohibited: but all things which are commanded or prohibited by the Decalogue, excepting the determination of the feast day in the Sabbath, are good and honest, or shameful and unbecoming from the very nature of the thing, and apart from any positive law whatsoever, as appears in the worship of God, the honor of parents, homicide, theft.

The second part is also evident, namely that the worship to be rendered to God chiefly on the Sabbath day is not of the law of nature, or as the Doctor says:

The third precept, which concerns the Sabbath, is affirmative, inasmuch as some worship is to be exhibited to God at a determined time; and as regards the determination of this time or of that, it is not of the law of nature strictly speaking. Nor likewise does it belong to the negative part which is included: namely, by which a servile act is prohibited for a determined time, hindering one from the worship then to be exhibited to God: for that act is not prohibited except because it impedes or withdraws from that worship which is commanded.

In these words the Doctor first supposes three things to be involved in the precept concerning the keeping of the Sabbath: First, that some worship is to be exhibited to God at some determined time; and as regards this, that precept is affirmative, nor does it oblige so that at all times some positive worship be exhibited to God. Second, that this worship be rendered to God on the Sabbath day; and as regards this, that precept also is affirmative. Finally, the third thing that precept comprises is that one must abstain from servile works on those Sabbath days; by reason of which this precept is negative; because servile works are permitted on no part of the Sabbath day. These things presupposed, he concludes that this precept, as regards the two latter heads, is not of the strictest law of nature, and consequently is not indispensable. Which indeed is evident as regards the first head: since the Church has transferred that obligation from the Sabbath day to Sunday; which certainly she would not have done if the precept concerning the exhibiting of worship to God on the Sabbath day had been of the strictest law of nature. Add that no reason can be assigned which would urge the exhibition of worship to God rather on the Sabbath or on Sunday than on Friday or Thursday, if only the natural light is considered. Therefore just as there is not a precept of exhibiting a particular worship to God on Thursday or Friday from the dictate of natural light; so neither would it have to be exhibited on the Sabbath or on Sunday unless a positive law commanded God to be honored on the Sabbath or on Sunday: therefore this worship to be exhibited on such a day is not of the law of nature.

The same truth is also evident as regards the second head, namely concerning abstaining from servile works on those days: both on account of the reasons already set forth; and because, as the Doctor said, insofar as abstaining from those works is a precept, insofar would those servile works remove from the divine worship to be rendered: therefore if there is not a precept of the strictest law of nature concerning the exhibiting of worship to God on Sabbath days or Sundays rather than on other days, neither will there be a precept of such law to abstain from servile works on those days rather than on others.

But as regards the first head which that precept includes, namely that worship should be specially rendered to God at some determined time rather than at another, whether it be of the strictest law of nature, the Doctor resolves nothing, but with the matter balanced on either side he remains in doubt.

Finally, the third part of the Conclusion is evident, namely that not all the precepts of the Decalogue are equally of the law of nature: for, says the Doctor in the same place, the law of nature is twofold, namely proper, and strict, which obliges to doing or not doing independently of the act of any will commanding or prohibiting; another indeed most strict, which can admit no dispensation whatsoever, such as are the two former precepts of the first table; namely that God alone is to be honored, nor is worship to be exhibited to strange gods; and that the divine name of God is not to be taken in vain; for these two precepts of the first table are most strictly of the law of nature; because, says the Doctor, num. 6, it follows necessarily: if God is, He is to be loved as God: and that nothing else is to be honored as God, nor is irreverence to be shown to God; and consequently in these God could not dispense, so that anyone might licitly do the opposite of such a prohibition. As if the Doctor were saying: it is known from the terms that no injury can be inflicted on God without fault, because it is evident that irreverence is not to be exhibited to parents or kings and other superiors: therefore much more evident is it that no irreverence ought in any way to be inflicted upon God, who is the King of Kings, and the Parent of all men.

But as regards the precepts of the second table, the Doctor indeed grants that they are of the law of nature, though not indeed of the strictest; since dispensation can fall upon them. In another way, he says n. 8, certain things are said to be of the law of nature because they are very consonant to that law, although they do not follow necessarily from practical principles which are known from the terms; and are necessarily known to every intellect apprehending them: and in this way it is certain that all the precepts even of the second table are of the law of nature, because their rectitude is greatly consonant with the first practical principles necessarily known. By these words the Doctor does not assert that the precepts of the second table are not of the law of nature, as Suarez wishes lib. 2. cap. 15. num. 8. and Salas disp. 5. sect. 9. n. 56. and others who seem not to have understood the Doctor quite correctly; but the Doctor only wished that these precepts are not of the strictest law of nature, in that manner in which the two former of the first table: for here is the distinction between these two: the precepts of the second table are not of the proper law of nature, and they are not of the law of nature most strictly. The Doctor denies the first, and affirms the second; which he opens more plainly below, where, gathering together what he had said, he states: First it was denied that all the precepts of the second table are of the law of nature strictly speaking. Second it was granted that the two first of the first table are of the law of nature strictly speaking. Third doubt was raised about the third precept of the first table. And fourth it was granted that all are of the law of nature largely speaking.

Two things especially are proposed for discussion in this Question: First, whether the natural law binds in conscience to the fulfilling of its precepts. Second, whether it binds so that those precepts be fulfilled out of love of God, or by the motive of divine love natural or supernatural: whose resolution, that it may appear more evident,

Note 1. That conscience is an act of the practical intellect judging something to be done or avoided in the singular. Hence also the name is deserved. It is called an act, that it may be distinguished from synderesis, and from the law or natural light, which are after the manner of a habit, from which conscience proceeds as an effect from its causes. Intellect is added, since conscience, by a just etymology of its name, sounds the same as knowledge with another, that is, the concurrence of knowledge for forming a judgment: whence Ecclesiasticus chap. 7. Thy conscience knoweth that thou hast often cursed others, that is, it instructs thee and points out thy curses to thee, setting before thine eyes as it were the evil thou hast committed: wherefore Origen, book 2. on chapter 2. of Romans, Conscience, he says, is the corrector of the spirit, and the pedagogue of the soul, that when it admonishes of better things, it may chastise, convict, and accuse of faults: the rest is added to signify that conscience does not consist in the first operation of the intellect, which is the simple cognition and apprehension of a thing, nor in the second by which there is deliberation, but in the third which is judgment; for conscience judges practically, and after the manner of a definitive sentence that something is worthy of praise or blame: whence

Note 2. That obligation to do something can be said to be threefold, according to the threefold principle from which the operation to be performed is urged; namely, from counsel, from precept, and from advantage. Things done from counsel regard only the greater or lesser perfection and utility of the one acting: those from precept introduce necessity; and if done otherwise, they are subject to penalties and chastisement: but those from advantage regard only the private good and utility of the one acting. And although these three principles sometimes concur in keeping the precepts of any law whatever; yet here the discourse concerns only the obligation proceeding from precept: namely, whether we are bound to fulfil the precepts of the law of nature, such that whoever omits them ought to be punished with penalties either by man or by God.

Note 3. That the love of God is customarily distinguished as twofold, namely natural and supernatural, innate and infused; whereby we love God as the author, moderator, and end of nature, or as the bestower, propagator, and remunerator of grace. And we suppose as certain that in human nature there can be a love of God as author of nature distinct from supernatural love of Him. We suppose further that the innate law itself contains a special precept about loving God as the artificer, ruler, and end of nature. We suppose finally that this precept is affirmative, and does not bind except at opportune times. Whence although every natural precept tends toward God as the last end, and redounds to the glory of God, because by it His divine will is fulfilled, even if the agent does not formally intend this; nevertheless it is not necessary that one fulfilling the precepts of nature always have an actual love of God joined thereto, as will be proved below.

First Conclusion. — THE NATURAL LAW BINDS IN CONSCIENCE TO THE KEEPING OF ITS PRECEPTS.

Proof, first from the Apostle to the Romans 2. where he says: Whosoever have sinned without the law, that is without the written law, shall perish without the law: but they ought not to perish, unless because they are sinners, nor be sinners, unless because they have violated the natural law, concerning which the Apostle subjoins: The Gentiles who have not the law, do by nature those things that are of the law… Their conscience bearing witness to them. And therefore the Apostle judges that the natural law binds in conscience, and that its transgressors are held guilty of divine chastisement and vengeance.

It is proved further from the same Apostle, Romans 11. last verse: All that is not of faith is sin, that is, what is not of the dictate of conscience judging the good or the licit to be that which is done; for the Apostle there takes faith for conscience, and for such a dictate, as is clear from the text.

It is confirmed from Innocent III, on chapter 13. De restitutione spoliatorum, saying: What is against conscience builds toward hell: doubtless because the dictate of conscience is the proximate rule of human actions, to which they must conform that they may be honest and licit.

Reason urges this same truth; for, as we said above, the natural law commanding or forbidding is the command of God as author of nature, to whom obedience is due as to a legitimate superior, and it is against reason itself to withdraw oneself from His command: but every divine law, and every divine command, binds in conscience: therefore also the natural law. Then, the natural law is the proximate rule of moral honesty, and what is opposed to it carries moral evil attached; but everything that carries moral evil attached is against conscience; therefore everything done against the law of nature fights against conscience, and consequently the law of nature itself binds in conscience to the keeping of its precepts. Finally, the natural law forbids or commands all that disgraces or befits rational nature; but as often as illicit things are admitted, or necessary ones are not done, sin is committed against conscience itself, which most of all approves licit things and disapproves illicit ones: therefore, etc. — Hence it appears that the law of nature sometimes binds under mortal sin; namely according to the gravity of the matter, and the disposition and affection of the sinner; since whoever sins in a grave matter against the precepts of the natural law knows formally, and actually or virtually, that he gravely offends God as author and ruler of nature, in which virtual contempt of God is involved sufficient for mortal sin. Wherefore the Apostle praised above rightly said, that whosoever have sinned without the law shall perish without the law; namely on account of sins committed, not indeed against the positive and written law, which they did not know, and therefore are said to have sinned without the law; but against the natural law, which no one possessed of reason is ignorant of.

You will say 1. A law cannot bind to a penalty which it can neither manifest nor inflict: but the natural law cannot manifest eternal punishment, since it is not known by natural light, nor indeed can it inflict it: therefore it cannot bind under guilt of eternal punishment; and consequently neither under mortal sin, which introduces the guilt of eternal punishment.

I deny the major. For in order to incur the liability to some punishment, it is not necessary that the punishment be made manifest by the law, nor that the subject and transgressor know the punishment due to his transgression: but it suffices that he commit an act worthy of such a punishment, which is known and inferred from God as the author of nature, and the vindicator of the natural law.

You will say 2. The natural law does not make obligation, but presupposes it: therefore obligation is not its effect. The antecedent is clear from what has been said: for the natural law is distinguished from positive law in this, that the latter forbids something because it is evil: but the former forbids something which becomes evil because it is forbidden. And the same holds proportionally for command and for the precept of doing good because it is good.

I answer. With Suarez, book 2, chapter 9, this objection is a confirmation of our assertion: for, he says, if this law forbids something because it is evil, it induces a proper and special necessity of avoiding it, because this is intrinsic to the prohibition, namely that what is forbidden be avoided. This objection also proves that this law presupposes something which pertains to the intrinsic due of nature; since each thing in a certain manner owes to itself that it do nothing at variance with its own nature. But beyond this due, the natural law likewise adds a special moral obligation, which the experts in law call natural obligation: not because it is not moral, but that they may distinguish it from civil obligation.

Second conclusion. — THE NATURAL LAW DOES NOT OBLIGATE US TO DO ALL THINGS OUT OF A NATURAL LOVE OF GOD.

Proof: The precept of loving God, which is imposed by nature, is affirmative: but an affirmative precept does not bind always, but only at some certain and determinate time: therefore by the natural law we are not bound to elicit all our acts out of love of God the author of nature. The major is evident. The minor likewise; for this is the difference between an affirmative and a negative precept, that the former binds only at some certain determinate time; the latter, however, infers a perpetual obligation at every moment of time; since nowhere is it licit to steal, to commit homicide, etc. It follows therefore that the love of God is not necessary as often as the ordination of other precepts obliges; and accordingly other precepts of nature can be observed without an actual love of God as the author of nature. — Next, the honest good of the other virtues has from itself, and per se, that it can be honestly loved, and from its own motive, for instance the temperate because it is temperate: but it is consonant with reason, and congruent with the law of nature, to love whatever is honest as such, although concerning some other external amiable object it is not required, for instance concerning loving God: therefore natural precepts of virtues of this kind can be fulfilled without any actual love of God. Finally, the obligation of doing all things for God is shown by no natural reason, or sufficient authority: and therefore it ought not to be affirmed gratuitously.

You will say. The Apostle, first to the Corinthians 10, admonishes that all things are to be done to the glory of God: therefore truly all works must be done out of love of God. — I distinguish the antecedent: that the Apostle admonishes this as something which is precepted by the natural law, I deny: as a counsel which he himself supplies, and which to observe is indeed best and most salutary, but not necessary under pain of sin, I concede.

You will say 2. St. Augustine, book 1, On the Morals of the Church, chapter 11, says that all goods are to be referred to the highest good: whence he infers in chapter 11 that nothing is virtue except the supreme love of God, and through this he defines all the virtues: therefore in book 19, Of the City of God, chapter 25, he says that it is proud to love even the virtues themselves on account of themselves, because God alone is supremely good, and therefore He alone is to be willed on account of Himself: therefore all things which are done are either vicious, or must be done out of love of God. Which same Augustine indeed confirms in book 1, Retractations, chapter 15, where he says that the will without charity is a vicious cupidity.

I answer. St. Augustine in these and similar sayings wishes nothing else than that either there be no perfect virtue, meritorious of eternal salvation, without habitual charity and sanctifying grace: or that the will without charity itself be a vicious cupidity, that is, that it be very often overcome by vicious cupidities; because on the one hand it is very weak, and prone to evil, owing to the natural corruption of man; on the other, however, it is deprived of the abundance of aids which are given to the just and to the friends of God. But St. Augustine does not wish every elicited act which does not proceed from the love of God to be vicious; for the honest good is lovable on account of itself, and it suffices for the honesty of the act, even if one does not think of God actually, nor has thought of Him beforehand in such wise that a past love of God might somewhat influence the act.

Suarez adds, book 2, chapter 11, number 5, that it is one thing to love something as the highest good; another indeed to love something as a good lovable per se. The former is proper to God; the latter, however, is communicated by God Himself to every honest good, and therefore in thus loving the honest good, nothing is done against God. Nor does it follow from this that all created goods are to be lovable on account of themselves, because there are no inferior goods, useful or delightful, which are not to be desired on account of honesty. Finally, although a created honest good is loved on account of itself, it is not loved as the last end: but such a love by its nature tends into God, and this is sufficient, that the man not be said to enjoy such a good, but to use it; but then would he be said to enjoy it, when he should constitute in it his last end, and this is what Augustine said was proud.