Scotus Academicus, Tomus sextus: De Legibus Divinis et Humanis

Name: Scotus Academicus, Tomus sextus: De Legibus Divinis et Humanis
Author: Claude Frassen

Disputatio II: De Lege naturali

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.

Quaestio I: Quid sit et in quo formaliter consistat legis naturalis essentia

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.

Quaestio II: Quotuplex sit lex naturalis

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.

Quaestio I: Quaenam sit materia circa quam lex naturalis versatur

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.

Quaestio II: Qualiter, et ad quid lex naturalis obliget

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.

Quaestio III: Quid, et quotuplex sit jus

Right, according to the etymology of the name, is so called either because it is close at hand, as Covarruvias wills, book 1 of his Commentary on Civil Law; for "iusta" sometimes signifies a likeness or equality in some office or action; or "ius" is said from "iubendo" (commanding), for "iussum" is the participle of the verb "iubeo" (I command); hence if from the participle "iussum" the second syllable be taken away, there remains the word "ius"; or if you pronounce two syllables separately, it will signify that "iussum", that is, command itself, is itself right — "ius sum", I am right; or lastly "ius" is derived from "iustitia" (justice), for, as Ulpian said in book 1, folio De iustitia et iure, "but right is so called from justice." For although justice rather seems to be derived from right than right from justice — for that is called just which accords with right, whence also justice is defined through right, because it renders to each one his own — nevertheless the appellation of right, of which the jurist speaks, could have arisen from justice: just as laughter is so called because it tends toward the object of laughter, although the visible object is denominated visible by that very sight. From this indeed "ius" could easily be derived, namely by taking away the last part of the word "iustum". And Saint Augustine approved this etymology in book 10 of De Civitate Dei, chapter 21, where he assumes it as a philosophical principle: "They say that to be right which flows from the fountain of justice." And in Psalm 145 he says: "Right and wrong are contraries, for right is what is just." Isidore likewise proved the same in book 5 of his Etymologies, chapter 3, saying: "Right is said of itself because it is just." Therefore, as "just" is denominated from justice, so "right" could be named from the just, and from justice, as far as the etymology of the word goes.

Note 2. The name of right, according to the thing itself, can be taken three ways. First, indeed, so that it be the same as the just. Now the just is taken in two ways according to Aristotle in book 5 of the Ethics, chapter 1, namely generically and in a wider signification for the lawful, and thus every work of virtue, insofar as it accords with the law, is called right and just; and particularly and more strictly for that which is regular and owed to another. For the just, strictly taken, involves these three things, namely equality, debt, and being directed toward another. Second, so that it be the same as law, which is the rule of the just; and since the sentence of a judge is likewise a kind of law, not public but private, it is also called right, on which account a judge is said to declare right and to preside over the declaring of right. Third, right is taken for legitimate power to obtain some thing, or to exercise some function or quasi-function, whose derogation and violation constitutes and effects injury.

Note 3. Right taken for the special just, that is, for that which is regular and owed to another, is the formal object of particular justice, because he is called just in a special manner who loves, intends, and preserves this due equality, while he is unjust who does not preserve it; whereupon this equality, insofar as it is owed, constitutes the formal object of particular justice; for the formal object of every virtue is that honest good which is intended in act through that virtue.

Now right taken in the second way, namely for law, is the rule of justice and of the other virtues; for virtues ought to be directed in their acts according to the dictate and precept of the laws; indeed if they are not conformed to the laws they will not be diligent nor praiseworthy. But insofar as right is employed for legitimate power, it is not indeed the object which justice intends but the formal object in respect of whom: for in justice, as in every virtue which is directed toward another, can be distinguished the object which and the object in respect of whom. The first is what the virtue itself intends and renders outwardly, and this in our case is the rendering of an equal thing insofar as it is owed, or the rendering of what is owed unto the equality of another's right; and such a thing owed cannot exist without a right in the other, for they are correlatives; for the owed is what is owed to a right; whereupon the object of justice includes an order to the right of another. The second, namely the object in respect of whom of justice, is he to whom the debt is rendered; and he is our neighbor insofar as he has a right to something by reason of which that thing is owed to him; for from his right in me or in mine is born in me the duty of rendering that which fulfills and exhausts that right; and that this may be done duly, justice inclines me to will it in affection and render it in effect.

These things having been premised, two things remain here to be opened up: First, what is the legitimate definition of right viewed universally. Second, how manifold is its distribution and division into various species and parts.

First Conclusion. — RIGHT VIEWED GENERALLY IS CORRECTLY SAID TO BE LEGITIMATE POWER TO OBTAIN SOME THING, OR TO EXERCISE SOME FUNCTION OR QUASI-FUNCTION, WHOSE VIOLATION CONSTITUTES INJURY.

First it is said power, that is, a certain aptitude toward something, whence we say something can be done; on which account we read in Genesis 23 that Abraham said to the sons of Heth: Give me the right of a sepulchre, that is, the faculty of burying. Now this power stands either by mode of active potency, as when there is a right to do or retain something; or by mode of passive potency, as in the right which you have to be nourished by your parents, guarded by rulers, served by servants; or by mode of a resisting potency, as in the right which anyone has that another not build in such a place, not raise a wall higher by constructing it, inasmuch as it would not obstruct sight nor light.

Second, legitimate, that is, granted by law; for a faculty which is not according to law is not a right but force and injury. Now the law granting this power is either divine positive, for example, to receive the sacraments; or natural, for example, to use the members for sustaining life by food and drink, to repel force with force; or lastly it is human, for example, to succession of inheritance, to acquiring, possessing, retaining, and alienating through various kinds of contracts; and there are as many kinds of rights as there are kinds of laws which grant right. From which it follows that this power is not something physical but only moral, belonging to man by some ordination, deputation, or concession of God or of men.

Third, to some thing, as to obtain some thing through hereditary succession, through testament, through liberal donation, through contracts, through occupation.

Fourth, to a function, as to the free use of one's members and goods and things specially pertaining to oneself; or quasi-function, for example, to civil and natural possession, to retain dominion, state, and condition in which one is. — Fifthly, finally, there is added, whose violation constitutes injury; because injury is nothing else than violation of another's right, which indeed occurs when, the right remaining intact, one acts against it. Hence when someone is deprived of an office removable at the will of a superior, no injury is done him unless elsewhere he have another right to exercising that office; for there can be a right to a right, and a dominion of right.

From these points gather that right is sometimes distinguished from equity and from good in many respects, as Louis Vives reports in his scholion on lib. 2. De Civit. Dei, cap. 17. Hence Aristotle, 5. Ethics, c. 10, says that equity is an emendation of the just: not indeed insofar as the just is taken for natural debt, which is right according to natural reason; for this nowhere fails if reason does not err; nor even insofar as the just is taken for legal justice, namely that which is established by human law: for although this sometimes fails, yet that failure proceeds not from the law, or from the legislator, but from the matter itself. Therefore, taking equity in either of these ways, it is not an emendation of right, but rather its origin and rule, according to that saying, l. 91. f. de regul. iur.: In all things, but especially in law, equity must be regarded: and so equity is said to be an emendation of the just insofar as equity is taken for a prudent moderation of the written law beyond the force of its words, as Suarez says, book 1, chapter 2; and thus equity is said to be opposed to strict right, for which reason Terentianus said: Between right and equity there is this difference, that right is what demands all things straight and inflexible, while equity is what remits much of the law. And it is with legal right that epieikeia is concerned; since it pertains to the judgment of a prudent man to interpret the words of human law when its exact observance would press against natural equity. For this reason a judge, or prince, interpreting the law thus, is said to act not by right, materially indeed and as the words of the law sound, but to act from equity and good. And therefore perhaps jurisprudence was called the art of the good and the equitable, because in interpreting laws one must always have regard to the good and the equitable, even though at times it may be necessary to temper the force and tenor of the words of the law, lest one depart from natural equity and good.

Second Conclusion. — RIGHT TAKEN GENERALLY CAN BE DIVIDED FIRST INTO NATURAL RIGHT, THE RIGHT OF NATIONS, AND POSITIVE RIGHT.

Natural right, the Doctor says in 1. d. 17. q. 1. n. 3, is that whose truth is known from the terms; for, he says, such is a principle in the law of nature just as in speculative matters a principle is known from the terms, or what follows evidently from such a truth so known, of which kind is a demonstrated practical conclusion; and, strictly speaking, nothing else belongs to the law of nature except a principle or a demonstrated conclusion: yet by extending the term it is sometimes said to be of the law of nature whatever practical truth is consonant with the principles and conclusions of the law of nature: to such a degree that it is immediately known to all that it accords with such a law. From these words the Doctor teaches two things: first, that to be of natural right is whatever has an honesty that appears from the terms; for instance, God is to be worshipped: or whose honesty is inferred from a principle that appears from the terms; for instance, Sacrifices are to be offered to God; which is inferred from that principle, God is to be worshipped. Second, that those things can be reckoned to be of natural right which are consonant with the principles and conclusions of that right itself. Hence in 3. d. 37. n. 5 he distinguishes a twofold natural right, namely strict and most strict. He says, he says, that some things can be said to be of the law of nature in a twofold way: in one way, as first practical principles, known from the terms: or as necessary conclusions following from them: and these are said to be most strictly of the law of nature. He adds at n. 8: In another way some things are said to be of the law of nature because they are greatly consonant with that law; although they do not follow necessarily from practical principles that 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 of the second table are of the law of nature, because their rectitude is highly consonant with the first practical principles that are necessarily known. By these words the Doctor clearly teaches that there pertain to the natural law not only general principles known through themselves concerning things naturally honest and necessary; or concerning things base and illicit, as that virtue is to be embraced, vice to be shunned, God to be worshipped, each one's right to be preserved, and that one is not to do to another what he would not have done to himself: but also particular precepts and conclusions deduced from the general principles concerning whatever things are naturally necessary for living honestly and peaceably in society, or concerning their opposites; for instance, that no one is to be killed unjustly, that one is not to steal, not to lend at usury, and the like; of which some are known through themselves by the natural light, others need some discourse or discipline in order to become known to men, especially the more unlearned. That all these belong to the natural law is evident, because from the very nature of the thing, and with any positive law set aside, they are morally necessary, and their contraries are illicit: wherefore St. Paul, ad Rom. 2, affirms that the nations, following the guidance of the natural light, do naturally the things that are of the law, and are a law to themselves, that is, their conscience bearing witness to them.

But in a twofold way, says Hugo Grotius, book 1 and chapter 1 of the book De iure belli et pacis, it is customary to prove that something belongs to natural right:

Now from what is prior, now from what is posterior; of these reasons of proof the former is subtler, the latter more popular. A priori, if there be shown a necessary congruence or incongruence of any thing with rational and social nature: a posteriori truly, if not with most certain faith, yet at least with considerable probability, that is gathered to be of natural right which among all nations, or the more civilized ones, is believed to be such. For a universal effect requires a universal cause: and scarcely any cause of such an opinion seems able to exist besides the very sense itself of what is called common.

Whence Hesiod: For not wholly vain is the sentiment many
Which the people celebrate. To this Seneca accords, ep. 117: An argument of truth, he says, is that something appear so to all. And Cicero, l. Tusc.: The consent of all nations in a matter is to be deemed the law of nature.

Nor is this hindered by the fact that there are certain nations of barbarous savagery, to whom what seems just and equitable to others does not appeal, because, as Andronicus Rhodius says, among men endowed with a right and sound mind that law of nature, so called, is immutable. But if to those who are of a morbid and distorted mind it seems otherwise, that has nothing to do with the matter. For neither does he lie who says honey is sweet because to the sick it appears otherwise. Aristotle accords, Politics 1: What is natural is to be examined in those things that are well disposed according to nature, not in the depraved.

Hence the Doctor concludes in 1., the aforesaid dist. 17, that Gratian does not speak rightly concerning the right of the law of nature, holding that those things which are in the Scripture of the Old or New Testament belong to the law of nature. Because neither are all those things practical principles known from the terms, nor demonstrated practical conclusions: nor even evidently consonant with such principles and conclusions. Therefore it must be excluded, when he extends natural right to positive right from the Author of nature, as distinguished against positive right from someone who is not the Author of nature.

That is called the right of nations which has been introduced by the usage of all or most nations; namely with natural reason preceding and dictating it as evidently fitting for the human race and society. By this right of nations was introduced the division of goods, the acquisition of dominion over things which belong to no one, through their occupation. To the same belongs the immunity of ambassadors, and all those matters which are treated in cap. Ius gentium dist. 1, although among these is reckoned the right of keeping treaties of peace, and several others that could more fittingly be referred to the law of nature. Nor is it wonderful that the nations conspired in this right as it were by unanimous consent: since they recognized it to be most conformable to natural reason: accordingly individual nations are bound by that right, inasmuch as each nation fixed it for itself whether by its own proper choice and the inclination of nature, or in imitation of other nations. Whence, just as it was introduced by the customs of individual nations, so could it, absolutely speaking, be abolished by each through contrary custom or express revocation, as the Church abolished the right of nations concerning servitude with respect to Christian slaves.

Positive right is that which is not instituted with nature teaching, but by the will of him who has the power of establishing and enacting it. It differs according to the different authority; for divine right is one thing, human another. Divine indeed is that which is sanctioned by divine will, which is wont to be distinguished in the usual twofold manner, namely Old divine right, which God enacted in the Old Testament concerning the rites, ceremonies, and polity of the Jews: and New, or Evangelical, such as all those precepts which were sanctioned in the New Testament either for forming morals uprightly or for administering the sacraments. Positive human right is that which was enacted by human authority, or by mere man; and this again is twofold: namely civil, by the authority of secular Princes; and Canonical, which was instituted by the authority of Pontiffs, or Councils.

Justinian, book 1 of the Institutes, title 2, is of the opinion that the civil law is distinguished from the law of nations in this:

that the law of nations must be judged not from the institutions of peoples, but from that which natural reason itself dictates to be just, that is, from the knowledge of the honorable and the base, of the just and the unjust, implanted in the minds of men. But the civil law is that which particular peoples or their rulers and princes establish for the right ordering of the Republic and for the proper good of their subjects and the common good of the Republic. The civil law, he says, is distinguished from the law of nations in that all peoples who are governed by laws and customs use partly their own proper law, partly the law common to all men: for what each people establishes as law for itself is proper to that state itself, and is called the civil law, as it were the proper law of that state itself. But what natural reason establishes among all men is observed equally among all peoples, and is called the law of nations, as it were the law which all peoples use. Yet certainly the more mature must be considered, for, as we said above, what is natural and consonant with right reason is to be looked for in those who are well disposed according to nature, not in the depraved, as Aristotle says, book 1 of the Politics, chapter 5.

Moreover, right is divided into right simply so called, and right secundum quid. The first is that which is found between persons altogether distinct, and of different order, such as the right between princes and subjects: the second is that which is found between persons not altogether distinct, but only secundum quid.

Again, right secundum quid is divided into paternal, economic, and masterly right. The first is between father and son; since indeed the son is a part of the paternal substance, they are not persons morally altogether distinct: nor can a perfect equality be established between them: seeing that a son cannot render an equivalent to his father: although nevertheless this right is called secundum quid, yet it is called right, insofar as right signifies a debt: for the son owes more to his father than to any other person: the same judgment holds of paternal right between God and men. Economic right is between wife and husband, who are reckoned even morally one person. Masterly right, finally, is between master and slave; he is his possession, and a certain animate instrument, says Aristotle; whence between them there is no right except secundum quid.

Moreover, right, on the part of the term which it regards, is divided into right to a thing, and right in a thing. Right to a thing, says Lessius, book 2, chapter 2, On Right in General, doubt 2, is called:

that which does not confer an action upon a thing, but only upon a person. Such is the right which accrues to you by stipulation, by donation, by purchase, or other contracts before the delivery of the thing; for if that thing be sold to another, and actually delivered to him, it remains his, nor can you claim it; because the thing was not obligated to you, but you have only a personal action against him who defrauded you: such also is the right which you have by election, petition, presentation to a benefice: indeed such even is that which you have by the collation of a benefice before acceptance, and by succession to an inheritance, before its acceptance. Right in a thing is called that which confers a real action, or which has a thing obligated to it. Such is that which is had by purchase and other contracts, the delivery of the thing following; by the collation of a benefice, acceptance following; by testament or succession ab intestato, acceptance following: such also is the right of dominion over a thing, and usufruct, that is, the right of using and of taking the fruits respectively in that which underlies those rights; likewise the rights which are called servitudes; also the right of hypothec and of pledge: finally every right which holds some thing bound to us, whether corporeal, as fields, houses, furniture; or incorporeal, as offices, benefices, revenues, servitudes, and the like, in such wise that from it we can receive fruits, or emoluments, or security for creditors, or honor, is called right in a thing. And wherever such a thing may pass, it can be claimed as bound to us; because everything passes with the burden with which it is affected.

Again, each kind of right, whether in a thing or to a thing, is variously distributed; namely, into dominion, usufruct, use, possession, etc. Dominion in general is the right of governing or of disposing of some thing as one's own. But that is said to be one's own which is so subjected and bound to him whose it is said to be, that he can dispose of it by his own right, not by the commission of another. Thus God has right over the whole creature as over his own thing, because he can decree concerning it whatever pleases him. Thus likewise the King has right and dominion over his kingdom, and anyone over his possessions.

But dominion can be divided into dominion of jurisdiction, and of property. Dominion of jurisdiction is the power of governing one's subjects. The acts of governing are to command, to forbid, etc. Dominion of property is the right of disposing of some thing as one's own for one's own advantage. From this dominion everyone is called lord of his own thing; whether he be a private person or a public one, or a community. For a public person and a republic can possess goods by private right, in the manner of a private person.

Usufruct is the right of using things belonging to another, and of taking their fruits, saving the substance of the things. It is called first the right of using, that the right may be excluded which a creditor has in a pledge, or a depositary in a deposit: for these cannot use those things; but if they use them against the will of the owner, they are bound to restore to him the estimation of the use. There is added of taking the fruits, that there may be excluded the bare right of using some thing, as a hired horse: for by usufruct not only the use of the thing, but the enjoyment of it is granted, that is, the right of receiving all the fruits proceeding from that thing. There is added thirdly, saving the substance of the things: because the usufructuary ought to reserve the thing intact for the proprietor. Hence it comes about that usufruct properly so called cannot be constituted in things which are consumed by use, as in wine, oil, grain, and money. Use is the right of using a thing belonging to another, saving its substance. Which definition is clear from what has been said above concerning usufruct.

The remaining divisions of right you will be able to gather from the various divisions of laws declared in the preceding Article; for since laws either flow from right, or confer right to a thing; it follows that there are as many rights of the genus as there are diverse laws.

You ask. How does the law of nations differ from purely natural law?

Some respond that natural law differs from the law of nations in this, that natural law is common to all living creatures, both brutes and men, as we said above from Justinian, book 1 of the Institutes.

But we have declared quite sufficiently that this is less rightly and aptly said; for there is no law truly common to men and other animals, because brute animals are not capable, properly speaking, of obedience, or of justice or injustice. Moreover, the natural law taken generically consists in the dictate of natural reason: but such a dictation cannot be found in brutes; and therefore there cannot be in them a law or rule of nature. Finally, the natural law is not regulated by conformity to sensitive nature, but to rational nature; for it dictates what befits rational nature; and consequently it does not pertain to brutes, which are wholly devoid of reason.

Others respond that the law of nations is purely positive and differs from natural law, because the latter is only permissive, while this is also preceptive, that is, the former only permits something to be done licitly; this moreover obliges one to do it.

But to the contrary; that which is permitted by the law of nations either is licit by natural law, or it is not. If the first, therefore it pertains to the law of nature. If the second, therefore the law of nations militates against the very law of nature and prevails over it, and makes licit what by the nature of the thing was illicit.

Add that by the law of nations many things are not only licit, but even commanded: for instance, that commerce be everywhere free: that certain persons be specially deputed to divine worship, through whom alone sacrifices may be licitly made, etc.

Certain others respond that the law of nations regards men not singly and considered apart, but inasmuch as they are gathered in some society: but natural law does not regard the community itself precisely, but men considered individually.

But this response likewise does not satisfy; for the very institution of society, whereby men live in the union of a city, or kingdom, or commonwealth, proceeds from the law of nations, yet does not arise from community; otherwise it would arise from itself, and would presuppose itself.

Therefore I judge it truer to say, that the law of nations differs from natural law in this, that those things which are prohibited or commanded by natural law are established by the force of natural reason alone; while those which are prohibited or commanded by the law of nations have joined to them at least interpretative human legislation, and an external institution common to all, or at least to most nations. Hence it comes about that the law of nations is truly human, and positive, both on the part of matter and on the part of form: for what natural law merely permits, the law of nations establishes absolutely, and commands to be done; thus, for example, natural law merely permits that there be a division of fields, if men wish to divide those things which nature has exposed in common: but the law of nations establishes that that division be absolutely made, in order better to avoid negligence in cultivating the fields, and to forestall confusion and disturbance of the commonwealth.

Quaestio I: An et quomodo lex naturalis mutari possit

Something can be said to be of the natural law in two ways: First, positively, and properly, insofar as nature directly commands it, or forbids it, and inclines us to its fulfillment, as that God is to be worshipped, and that one is not to do to another what he would not have done to himself. Second, permissively, negatively, and improperly: insofar as the law of nature does not introduce the contrary. In which sense St. Thomas, I-II, qu. 95, art. 5, ad 3, says that man being naked is of the natural law: because nature did not give him clothing: but art discovered it. Likewise for this reason all things are said to be common by the law of nature, and liberty to be one for all, since evidently the distinction of possessions, and servitude, are not introduced by nature, but by the law of nations, and by the authority of men, for the greater utility of human society.

Note 2. The law can be changed in two ways: First, by addition, if evidently something be added to the precepts of the law, whereby its obligation extends to more things than it previously reached. Second, by subtraction, if evidently something ceases to belong to the law which previously truly pertained to the law.

Note 3. The law can be changed by subtraction in six ways: First, by abrogation, when it is taken away entirely, whether by the will and connivance of the Legislator, or by contrary custom, or by the authority of him who is superior to the Legislator; or finally when the time expires for which alone it was constituted, for that time being completed the law is not taken away, but fulfilled: whence Christ the Lord said of the Mosaic Law: I am not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil; since indeed that law was instituted only for a determined time, and until the advent of the Messiah. Second, by derogation, when the law is taken away in part: whence the Gloss on the caput in istis, d.t., says: To abrogate is to take away a law entirely: but to derogate is to detract from the law in part. Third, by irritation, when the obligation of the law ceases through defect of consent, or of other things necessary to its vigor, and firmness. Fourth, by subtraction of the matter which underlies the disposition of the law, while evidently the thing itself ceases to be the matter of the law, and to lie under its obligation; which change takes place chiefly in those things which depend upon human consent, and mutable will: as in vows, oaths, marriages, and the like. Fifth, by interpretation, and epieikeia; while evidently it is determined by some superior that the general prescription of the law does not oblige in a particular matter: for since the law must be universal, and the Legislator cannot foresee every individual case, it is necessary that through Epieikeia the will of the Legislator be expounded, even against the tenor of the law; with this intention evidently, that if the Legislator were present, he would not enact the law in such a case. Sixth and finally, by dispensation, or privilege; which two differ: for dispensation is a certain partial abrogation of the law; but privilege is as it were a subtraction of the matter of the law, and is granted as a private right, which belongs to certain persons so as to act against the common law. Whence in dispensation the change occurs on the part of the law, whose bond is relaxed, the circumstances remaining with which otherwise the law would oblige all were there not that relaxation with respect to the particular person. In privilege, however, the change occurs on the part of the subjects, or of the matter of the law. Of all these changes of the law, we undertake to explain the four former ones in the present Question.

First Conclusion. — THE NATURAL LAW CAN BE CHANGED BY ADDITION, BUT NOT BY ABROGATION. This conclusion embraces two parts; of which:

Proof of the first. The law is then changed by addition, when some new precepts are added to it, by reason of which its obligation becomes broader, and extends itself further: but certain laws can be superadded to the natural law; for many precepts useful to human life have been superadded, both by the divine law, and also by human laws. Second, the precepts of the natural law are not so expounded, and known to us, but that it lies in the power of God from those precepts known to us to infer some conclusion unknown to us: and then indeed the natural law would be changed by the addition of this conclusion, which would have the character of

Proof of the second part, namely, that the natural law as regards its general precepts cannot be changed by abrogation. The first principles of the natural law are altogether immutable; because they are founded in the very nature of man, nor can nature be changed: and if the law of nature were changed as regards principles of this kind, God himself would be changed: wherefore these most general natural laws cannot by any means be abrogated, Good is to be pursued, evil is to be shunned: What you would not have done to yourself, do not do to another.

It is confirmed, because therefore Isaias 21 calls the law of nature an everlasting covenant. And dist. 5: Natural right holds the primacy among all things in time, and dignity; for it existed from the beginning of rational creature; for neither is it altered by time, but remains always: whence Cicero, book 2, De Legibus, calls the natural law something eternal which would govern the whole world, the wisdom of commanding, and forbidding.

You will say. Men for the most part have altered the natural law and the innate law, and have themselves derogated from it as regards its general precepts: therefore the preceding assertion is null. The antecedent is proved: by the natural law all goods were granted in common; yet upon the intervention of the will of men and the command of the powerful there was introduced the division of goods and property, as well as servitude: therefore in very truth the natural law can undergo mutation. Moreover, the Gloss on chapter 17 of Ecclesiasticus expressly pronounces that the natural law is at times amended and corrected by the written law: but this emendation introduces a true and essential mutation: therefore the natural law can truly be changed. Finally, as the Prince stands to the positive and civil law, so God stands to the natural law: for God is no less the author of the natural law than the Prince is of the human: but the Prince can abrogate and rescind any civil law whatsoever: therefore likewise God can abrogate the natural law, and consequently it is not absolutely immutable.

I answer to the first by denying the antecedent; and to its proof I say that the community and liberty of goods are not of themselves of the natural law in such a way that the law itself absolutely forbids men to make certain goods their own, or to subject their liberty to another if they so wish: for the law itself permits men to divide their goods among themselves and to dispose of their liberty, of which they are masters, and to sell it or subject it to another; wherefore the division of things or the introduction of servitude is neither against the law of nature nor does it change it, but only accomplishes what that law permits to be done. Accordingly the community and liberty of goods are said to be of the natural law insofar as nature confers a right of dominion over all goods and over one's own liberty: so that men could not be despoiled of that right against their will, or without just cause, or be hindered from its use.

Secondly, I say that the written law is said to be given for the correction of the natural law either because by the written law what was wanting to the law of nature was supplied and made up; or because the native law, by reason of the corruption and depravation of morals, had been so worn away in the hearts of some as regards certain precepts, that they judged certain things to be licit which are naturally evil; wherefore there was need of the written law for the supplement of the native law itself and for its clearer explication. To the third I deny the major: for God does not stand to the natural law in the same way that the prince stands to the positive law: for the prince attributes to the law its whole force and virtue of binding by his sole will and authority promulgated through external command; but God supposes some obligation on the part of things themselves, which seems essential to those things, because they are honest and good by nature: for, as we said above, this is the distinction between the natural law and the positive law, that the natural law commands those things which are of themselves honest and good, and forbids those which are of themselves evil; but the civil law makes honest only those things which it commands, and evil those which it forbids; and consequently there is no parity between the two laws.

Second conclusion. — THE NATURAL LAW CAN BE CHANGED BY SUBTRACTION OF THE MATTER WHICH UNDERLIES ITS DISPOSITION; BUT IT CANNOT BE CHANGED BY FRUSTRATION.

Proof of the first part: Then the law is changed by subtraction of matter when the matter into which the obligation of the law fell ceases to be the matter of the law: but this can happen. It is proved: the natural law enacts that the goods of another are not to be withheld against the will of the owner, but are to be restored. Now this prescription of the native law binds only so long as the thing remains the goods of another: but that which was the goods of another can become one's own, namely if he who had a right in that good cedes his right. So also the obligation of restitution is removed by the law of prescription, whereby it comes about that what was the goods of another is no longer deemed such. So likewise it is of the law of nature that a deposit is to be returned when the thing deposited is not demanded to the harm of another: but since it can happen that the deposit is demanded for someone's ruin, suppose if a madman should demand a sword deposited, whereby he might slaughter whomsoever he meets: in these cases, I say, the matter of the law concerning restoring the deposit is changed; and accordingly the law itself is deemed materially changed. Yet it is not changed formally, because the law itself, formally considered, does not bear upon the thing considered absolutely and apart from its due circumstances, but according as it is subject to them; for it requires the deposit to be restored, not simply and absolutely, but so long as it is not demanded to the harm of another; but this prescription is never varied, nor can it be varied, since it is simply honest and good.

I deny also the second part, namely that the law can be changed through defect of the consent required for its obligation, or through contrary custom: but neither can be affirmed. Not indeed the first: because for the native law to have the force of binding, it does not require the consent of men, but, as we have said, it is inscribed by the Author of nature upon our hearts from the first beginnings of our formation. The second likewise cannot be said: for as Gratian teaches in distinction 5, chapter 1, Natural right obtains the primacy among all things in time and dignity, for it existed from the beginning of rational creature, and it is not varied by time, but remaining immutable endures forever; and thus it is held in chapter Quo iure, distinction 8: The right of nature prevails over custom and constitution: for whatever things are received by custom or comprehended in writing, if they are adverse to natural right, are to be held vain and void: and we read in chapter Veritate: Let no one prefer custom to reason and truth, because reason and truth always prevail over custom. From which it is manifest that the natural law cannot be frustrated by contrary custom or law.

Quaestio II: Utrum lex naturalis admittere possit dispensationem, et interpretationem, seu Epikeian

Dispensation can be distinguished as twofold, namely properly so called, and less properly so called. The former is a relaxation of law and precept, made by the authority of a superior exercising his full right, whereby, that is, of his own pleasure and without some grave concurrent cause requiring it, he exempts some person from the obligation of fulfilling and doing what the law commands. The latter, however, is a mere declaration, whereby the superior signifies that, on account of grave concurrent causes, such a person is to be exempted from the obligation of keeping the law. Thus, for example, the Supreme Pontiff is held to dispense with full right perfectly, when of his own pleasure and motion he dispenses someone from keeping the fast on that day on which he himself had commanded all the faithful to fast: but he dispenses improperly, when, for example, he declares that one who had vowed continence is not bound to keep his vow, when he is so violently agitated by the goads of incontinence that the danger of committing some sin of the flesh is evident, and of losing his salvation. The former dispensation falls upon matter subject to the authority of the one dispensing; the latter, however, pertains even to matter of a higher order, not subject to him.

Note 2. That since the precepts of the Decalogue are of a twofold difference, and some of them are said to be of the first table, which regard God immediately; others, however, of the second table, which pertain to the right of our neighbour to be kept; and since, as we have already said, the precepts of the first table are of the strictest right of nature, if you except the third, namely on keeping the Sabbath, while the rest are only of the proper right of nature, but not the strictest; thence a grave difficulty arises among Theologians; whether God can dispense in any precepts of the Decalogue. On this matter there are two extreme opinions. The first indeed denies that God can dispense by His absolute power in any precept of the Decalogue, except the third concerning the sanctification of the Sabbath. So St. Thomas q. 100. art. 8. and his Commentators and Disciples, whom Suarez cites and follows 2. De Legib. cap. 15. Salas tr. 1. disp. 5. sect. 9. Vazq. disp. 179. c.2. Aversa q. 19. sect. 3. The second, diametrically opposed, holds that God can dispense by His absolute power in certain precepts of the Decalogue. So the Doctor Subtilis with his followers, Gabriel. Almainus. Marsilius. S. Poncius 1. dist. 17. Ockam 2. q. 19. Petrus Alliacen. 1. dist. 11. Andr. de Castronovo dist. 45. Gerson. and others. That, however, the controversy may be resolved more easily and more evidently,

Note 3. That every precept, whether affirmative or negative, involves two precepts: one indeed affirmative, the other truly negative: for the affirmative precept on worshipping God, for example, not only induces the positive obligation of worshipping and loving God at determined and fitting times, but moreover involves the negative precept of never doing or willing to do anything that would impede that divine worship and love: but this negative precept binds always and forever, because nowhere is it licit to will not to love, nor to worship God. Similarly the negative precept of not worshipping false gods, nor killing without cause, involves that very negative precept whereby we are forbidden at any time whatsoever to bestow worship upon false gods: and moreover it involves the affirmative precept of applying all the means which will seem necessary for the observance of that negative precept. It must be observed that when the precept is simply negative, then the affirmative precept joined to it determines only to a means conducive to the observance of that negative precept. Similarly, when the precept is simply affirmative, then the negative precept involved in it determines only to a means necessary for the observance of the affirmative precept.

These things thus premised, three things especially must be determined in the present Question: First, that God can truly dispense with a dispensation properly so called in certain precepts of the Decalogue, and in those things which are of the natural law. Secondly, whether He cannot dispense in the two prior precepts of the first table. Thirdly, whether for any cause human authority, Pontifical or civil, can dispense in those things which are of the natural law.

First Conclusion. — GOD CAN TRULY DISPENSE IN CERTAIN THINGS WHICH ARE OF THE NATURAL LAW: BUT ESPECIALLY IN THE PRECEPTS OF THE SECOND TABLE OF THE DECALOGUE, IF YOU EXCEPT THE EIGHTH. So the aforementioned Doctor q. 37. n. 5. and following.

Proof of this conclusion is usually offered: First indeed from various texts of Scripture, whereby it is established that God dispensed in the precepts of the second table, and also in those which seem to be of the natural law: since indeed in Exodus 11. and 12. He seems to have dispensed in the seventh precept, thou shalt not steal, with the Israelites, that namely they might steal the vessels of the Egyptians: and in Deuteronomy 23. with these same Israelites that they might lend to strangers at usury, which is truly theft. Likewise, for an equal reason He dispensed in the sixth precept with Osee, commanding him that he should take a woman that was a harlot, and beget from her children of fornication. Finally He dispensed with Abraham in the fifth precept against killing, when He commanded him to slay and immolate his son. Whereupon God can dispense, and did in fact dispense, in the precepts of the second table, and in those which are not of the strict right of nature.

I confess it may be answered to the first head, that the concession made to the Israelites that they should despoil Egypt, and that they should carry away with them the vessels of gold and silver which they conveniently received from the Egyptians, was not so much a dispensation of the seventh precept as its explanation; since by that precept only the taking away of another's property is forbidden, whereas what the Israelites received from the Egyptians were not the goods of the Egyptians, but their own: first indeed by the title of the donation made to them by God, who, since He holds supreme power by reason of His supreme dominion over all temporal goods, and of disposing of them according to His good pleasure, can grant them also to whomsoever He will. Secondly, by the title of the wages of their labours, of which they had been defrauded by the Egyptians, as Sacred Scripture attests Wisdom 10. God rendered to the just the reward of their labours: for the Israelites had been oppressed by the Egyptians with most grievous labours through many years altogether without any wages. Thirdly, finally, by a title avenging religion: for St. Augustine says lib. 22. contra Faustum cap. 71. The Egyptians were sacrilegious and iniquitous; for using that gold wickedly to the injury of the Creator, they served their idols, and had afflicted foreign men with gratuitous labour unjustly and grievously: worthy therefore were these (namely the Israelites) to whom such things were commanded, and those, (namely the Egyptians) to suffer such things. Which reasons Philo the Jew elegantly expressed in lib. 1. De vita Moysis, where he says that that spoiling of the Egyptians is excused from sin by a triple title, namely by the title of labour bestowed, by the title of compensating the injury inflicted, and by the title of a just war. First, he says, that they might receive the necessary reward of long-continued labour. Then, that for the injuries received in the time when they had served, if not for merit, yet they might recover some loss; or that, victorious in war, they might despoil the vanquished of their goods.

It could likewise be replied to the second, that by those words God did not grant the Jews the faculty of lending at usury to strangers; for where God said, Thou shalt not lend to thy brother at usury, by this He sufficiently signified that to take anything at usury is simply evil: whence it could be said that it was licit for the Jews to lend at usury to strangers materially only, but not formally; because what they exacted above the principal from strangers could be their own, either by the title of the donation made to them by God, who is the supreme administrator and distributor of things, by which reason He had given them the land of the Amorrhites and of others: or by the title of a just war, as St. Ambrose holds lib. De Tobia c. 15. where he says:

From him exact usury, whom you desire rightly to harm, against whom arms are justly carried, whose usuries are legitimately taken away, whom you cannot conquer in war. From him exact usury, whom it is not a crime to kill: without the sword he fights who demands usury, without the sword he takes vengeance, whoever shall have been a usurious exactor of an enemy.

To the fact of Osee it could likewise be replied that what was commanded was to take into legitimate marriage a wife who had previously been a harlot: so St. Augustine interprets it lib. Contra Secundinum, cap. 21. What, he says, is hostile to the Christian faith, if a harlot, having abandoned fornication, be changed into chaste wedlock? And further below: Therefore when He commanded Osee to take a harlot as wife, counsel was given for correcting the rite of the woman, and the Sacrament was expressed in figure. Nor does he pass over what is added there, Make thee sons of fornication: for these words signify either that the Prophet is commanded to adopt as legitimate the sons begotten by that harlotous woman; or that they are called sons of fornication because they were born of a woman who had previously been a harlot; for it is not unusual in Scripture that things sometimes retain the denomination of what they previously were: for Eve after her formation was called by Adam bone. Bone now of my bones: because before her formation she had been such. Or finally, that it might be signified that the Jews themselves had departed from the true worship of God, exhibiting worship to idols, which in Scripture is a kind of fornication, according to that saying: They shall be counted accursed who commit fornication against thee. Wherefore, setting aside these texts,

Proof of the Conclusion from the authority of St. Bernard lib. De Praecepto et Dispensatione c. 3. where, after he had distinguished a threefold necessity, namely stable, inviolable, and immutable, and had said that the necessity which is stable is that which, handed down and sanctioned by our predecessors, steadfastly perseveres, nor is it granted to any subjects whatsoever to vary or change it in any way: that which is immutable is the necessary which is so established by divine and eternal reason that for no cause whatever can it be altered, even by God Himself in any degree: while the inviolable necessity is that which, not handed down by man, but divinely promulgated, does not suffer to be changed at all except by God who delivered it: he adds:

By way of example, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, and the remaining precepts of that tablet of the law: which, although they admit of no human dispensation whatsoever, so that it neither has been nor ever will be lawful for anyone to absolve any man from them in any way: the Lord nevertheless dispenses from these when He wills and as He wills: whether when the Egyptians were to be despoiled by the Hebrews: or when He commands the Prophet to lie with a harlot. Surely one of these would be reckoned nothing but a grave act of theft? and the other nothing but the foulness of disgrace, had not the authority of the One commanding excused both deeds?

Saint Bernard therefore holds that God can truly dispense in some precepts of the Decalogue. — Nor will he cease to object that Saint Bernard must be understood of a dispensation improperly so called. This answer plainly militates against the very words of Saint Bernard, as is evident both from the examples he brings forward; and from the fact that in that book he treats expressly of a dispensation properly so called; and finally because Saint Bernard grants to God such authority to dispense as he denies to men: but the adversaries themselves confess that men can dispense with a dispensation improperly so called in precepts which are of the natural law: therefore they must confess that Saint Bernard is to be understood of a dispensation properly so called, which he attributes to God.

Proof moreover of the Conclusion: God can dispense in the precept forbidding the killing of an innocent: but that precept is of the natural law, and one of the precepts of the Decalogue: therefore a dispensation can be made in them. The minor is evident. The major is proved: for God to be truly held to dispense properly in the precept against killing an innocent, it suffices that by His authority He make that killing, which would otherwise be illicit, become licit: but God can do this, indeed in fact He has done it: therefore God truly can dispense in certain precepts of the Decalogue. The major is established; for this reason a prince is accustomed to dispense in a law laid down by himself, and a Pontiff to dispense in the eating of flesh on Friday, e.g., because each makes licit by his authority that act through the dispensation in all the circumstances in which it would otherwise be illicit, if no dispensation from his law were present. The minor is proved: the killing of Isaac, which Abraham efficaciously intended at God's command, had all the circumstances on account of which it would have to be judged prohibited by the Decalogue precept thou shalt not kill, if there were not a divine dispensation, no less than the eating of meat on Friday by a healthy man of good will has all the circumstances by reason of which it would be an illicit and sinful act if there were not a dispensation of the supreme Pontiff with respect to that healthy man: therefore just as that eating of flesh by that healthy man truly becomes licit by reason of the dispensation; so likewise that killing of the innocent Isaac truly became licit also by reason of the divine dispensation: and consequently that killing was only not evil on account of the dispensation made by that same divine mandate by which God had commanded that killing; and consequently it is true that God in fact dispensed in certain precepts of the Decalogue.

It is confirmed: God in fact commanded Abraham to slay his son in those circumstances, in which, setting aside the command, he would have sinned by killing him; nor did any moral change intervene on the part of that killing to be done except the change which arose from that command, insofar as it was commanded; therefore by a true dispensation God made that killing, which would otherwise have been illicit, to be licit.

The adversaries reply, that divine command given to Abraham concerning the killing of Isaac could not have had the character of a dispensation; because a command obliges to something to be done, whereas a dispensation does not introduce such an obligation, but merely permits a thing to be done licitly.

Against: a dispensation, as a dispensation, precisely has the force of removing the obligation and prohibition of the act upon which the dispensation falls; but a command to do some thing which is otherwise prohibited has the same character and force: since by that very fact it obliges to something to be done, and removes the prohibition by which that thing was guarded against; although besides it has the character of obliging to the act in which the dispensation is made, and whose prohibition is removed by that affirmative command. Which indeed is clear from an example; for there is no one who would not confess that, if the supreme Pontiff were to command another to eat meat on Friday, who was otherwise obliged by the command of the Church not to eat it: the supreme Pontiff would truly dispense with him; and the command to do a thing which is otherwise prohibited has the force and character of a dispensation. Add that by the same reason by which God commanded Abraham to kill his son, He could also not command, but grant him an express and formed license to kill him; but in that case such a killing would be licit: therefore God can properly dispense in the precept, thou shalt not kill.

They reply 2. It is true indeed that that killing would be licit by reason of that divine command, without which it would not be licit if such a command were absent; true, they say, but this would not come about through a true dispensation, but through a subtraction and mutation of matter; for not every kind of killing is forbidden by that precept of the Decalogue, Thou shalt not kill, but only that which is done by private authority. Hence in fact secular Princes confer the faculty of killing, yet do not dispense in that precept.

Against: if secular Princes, by their sole authority, could make a killing of a man, which would otherwise be unjust, become licit, they would truly be held to dispense properly in that precept, thou shalt not kill, just as they can dispense in laws and commands laid down by themselves: therefore since God can dispense by His sole authority, without any mutation of matter, that is, the obligation of that precept, thou shalt not kill, always remaining, which obligation would make that killing illicit, unless either the divine command or counsel intervened: God must truly be held to dispense in that precept.

Finally others will reply, that command given to Abraham was indeed a dispensation; but not one which is a relaxation of the precept: but only one such that that killing of Isaac should not be counted homicide.

But this response is utterly futile: for to say that a dispensation is a relaxation of a precept is nothing else than to say that it is such that by reason of it a precept, which otherwise would oblige if that dispensation were absent, once it is posited is not held to oblige: but that dispensation by which God made it possible for Abraham to kill his son without any sin was of this kind: therefore it likewise truly relaxed the precept.

You will object 1. That Saint Augustine asserts God cannot dispense in the law of nature; for in book De vera religione, chap. 31. he says: Nor could the Father judge concerning the eternal law: and in book one De libero arbitrio, chap. 6.: To the eternal law, he says, there must always be obedience rendered, and it is unchangeable. And further on: Can it ever be unjust that the wicked be wretched, but the good blessed, or that an honorable and grave people create magistrates for themselves: while the dissolute and wicked lack these more willingly? Do you not see this law to be eternal and unchangeable.

I answer, these authorities can rightly be understood of the ordinary power, whereby God indeed disposes all things according to the laws and rules prescribed by Himself, and not of the extraordinary power, whereby according to His pleasure, beyond the ordinances He has established, He can do something by Himself, or command that it be done by another: or the aforesaid authorities can be understood of the strictest law of nature, in which manner, as I judge, the first and second authorities are to be taken. The third, however, is to be understood of the eternal and natural law, as far as it is so from the nature of the thing, unless an act of the divine will disposing the matter otherwise intervenes: for it is certain that it would be unjust for an upright people to create magistrates for itself, if indeed God forbade it, just as He truly can forbid it. Similarly also it could be just that a dissolute and wicked people not lack such authority with the faculty of creating magistrates for itself, if God so commanded.

You will object 2. If God could dispense in the precepts of the second table, especially in Thou shalt not kill, it would follow that a war could be given just on both sides without ignorance: for he with whom God dispensed in the precept of killing could licitly attack someone; but he whom he attacked could also licitly defend himself, and assail and kill the attacker; yet it is against the common opinion of Theologians that a war can be just on both sides without ignorance: therefore our assertion conflicts with the common opinion of Theologians.

I answer 1. this objection militates as much against the Adversaries as against ourselves: since the Adversaries do not deny that God cannot give license in certain cases in which it would not be licit to kill unless God so granted or commanded; for this is plainly evident from the killing of Isaac enjoined upon Abraham, whether meanwhile God brings it about by dispensing, as we assert, or by changing that matter and withdrawing it from the obligation of natural law, as the Adversaries will: but in that case it would be equally licit for him who was to be killed to defend himself and resist his assailant, whether God gave license to kill by changing the matter of that obligation, or by dispensing in that precept Thou shalt not kill: and this difficulty must be solved as much by the Adversaries as by ourselves.

I answer 2. by denying the major: for it would not follow that the war in that case would be just on both sides: for he to whom God commanded the killing would not on that account be bound in every case to will to kill; but he would be held to abstain from killing in those cases in which there was danger lest he himself be killed, or lest he kill others whom he had no faculty to kill. For although God dispensed in the precept of the natural law with respect to the killing of Peter, for example, He nevertheless would not on that account be judged to dispense in the natural precept with respect to the killing of others, or with respect to the manifest danger of his own death: whereupon he would be held to abstain from carrying out the killing in those cases in which there was probable danger lest he either kill those whom it is not licit to kill, or himself be killed: whence if in such cases he did not desist from the killing, the war on his side would be unjust, but just on the side of those whom he attacked.

I answer 3. by denying the minor: for it is not absurd for a war to be just on both sides; for it is certain that while Christian kings contend among themselves, very many soldiers on either side judge themselves called by their princes to lawful war, and they are bound to kill the enemy soldiers. Nay, some even judge it probable, says Pontius, Comment. on dist. 37. n. 143., that even in the case in which some of the said soldiers would know by particular knowledge that their king was fighting unjustly against another king, provided it did not become publicly known, nor could they persuade themselves by opportune reasons to desist from killing their enemies without loss of their life, they are still bound to kill. It is certain, I say, or at least probable, that in such a case the war between the soldiers would be just on both sides, even without any ignorance on their part. — Add what Cavellus says in his Scholion on n. 5 of the aforesaid question 37, that in many cases war seems to many Doctors to be able to be just on both sides; for he who thinks in good faith that he is fighting can attack another whom he knows to be innocent, as Soto teaches 5. De Iust. quaest. 1. art. 1. Likewise one condemned as guilty against the private knowledge of the Judge can resist, scandal set aside, as Corrarubias affirms together with several others, 1. var. cap. n. 13. Likewise if two men in a shipwreck simultaneously attempted to seize a boat capable of holding only one, they could fight with each other, justly on both sides, to keep it for himself, whereby each could preserve his life, as Maior teaches in 1. dist. 15. quaest. 22. etc. Therefore war can sometimes be just on both sides.

You will object 3. The precepts of the natural law are affirmative or negative: the affirmative precepts enjoin that which is in itself just and right; the negative, however, prohibit that which is in itself iniquitous and unjust: but if the affirmative precepts were dispensable, it would be licit not to do that which in itself is licit to do; likewise if the negative precepts were also dispensable, it would be licit to do that which in itself is iniquitous and unjust: which consequence is absurd: therefore also the antecedent.

I distinguish the major: the affirmative precepts enjoin that which is just in itself and independent of any legislative precept whatsoever, I deny; that dependently upon some precept it is judged to be just, and that what is prohibited is judged to be unjust, I concede. For although certain things seem to be just or unjust insofar as they agree or disagree with the natural law and also with the dictate of right reason; nevertheless, since the natural law is nothing other than the very ordination of God prescribing those things which He judges in His pleasure to be fitting or unfitting for rational creature, it follows that the reason of that fittingness or unfitness is sought chiefly from the very ordination of God.

Similarly I distinguish the minor: that it would be licit not to do that which is in itself just, while it remains under the aspect of the just, I deny; that while it does not remain under the same aspect, I concede. It is certain, however, that a thing which was just, and therefore necessarily to be carried out by reason of the divine precept, ceases to be such when the divine dispensation supervenes, by which being posited, that which was just and necessary to do begins to be licit to omit.

You will say 1. All the precepts of the natural law have their foundation in nature, and in that measure are precepts of the natural law insofar as they are conjoined with nature: yet nature cannot even by the divine power be varied: for although from any given creature God can produce a more perfect one to infinity, He cannot however make man otherwise than he is: therefore He cannot equally dispense in the law of nature.

I distinguish the major: that those precepts are founded in nature, that is, have conjunction with nature from the ordination of God the author of nature, thus establishing the state of things, I concede; that is, that they flow from nature itself after the manner of an inseparable property, as though nature being unchanged, these could not vary, I deny: for, as we said, since that character of natural law depends upon the very ordination of God as author of nature, and since that divine ordination is free, God most freely can also command or prohibit whatever He judges fitting or unfitting, nature itself remaining unchanged according to its essence.

You will say finally: Dispensation is an imperfect and inchoate abrogation of law; for just as by abrogation it comes about that, all other circumstances remaining wholly the same, a law does not oblige which otherwise with those circumstances would oblige, so dispensation makes that it not oblige which otherwise would oblige: and hence abrogation is called the death of law; but dispensation the wound of law: therefore dispensation can occur only in that law which can be abrogated; just as he who is immortal is also invulnerable: but from what was said above, the law of nature cannot be abrogated, whereupon neither can dispensation be granted in it, even by God.

I distinguish the minor: the law of nature cannot be abrogated as regards all the precepts it contains, but especially as regards those which belong to the strictest law of nature, such as the two first precepts of the first table, I concede: as regards other precepts, such as the rest of the first or second table (excepting lying), I deny: for just as we contend that by divine authority dispensation can be granted in them with respect to certain persons, so too dispensation could be granted with respect to all; since divine authority and power is no more limited and restricted with respect to many than with respect to one: but that general dispensation would in reality be an abrogation of the law; and thereupon the natural law could be divinely abrogated as regards those precepts.

Second Conclusion. — The precepts of the first table taken negatively, namely inasmuch as they prohibit irreverence shown to God, either through a vain cult of Him, or through taking His divine name in vain, are most strictly of the law of natural law: and therefore they are also indispensably established by God. This is the doctrine of the Doctor in 3. dist. 37. n. 6., where he says of the precepts of the first table, because they look to God immediately as their object, the two first indeed, if they are understood to be merely negative:

The first, Thou shalt not have strange gods: the second, Thou shalt not take the name of thy God in vain, that is, thou shalt not show irreverence to thy God; these are strictly of the natural law, because it follows necessarily, if God is, He is to be loved as God: and that nothing else is to be worshipped as God, nor is irreverence to be shown to God: and consequently in these God will not be able to dispense, so that anyone might licitly do the opposite of such a prohibition.

This is the doctrine of the Doctor, which all Thomists subscribe to, contending that all the precepts of the Decalogue are indispensable; hence they judge those of the first table to be especially indispensable.

Proof of this Conclusion: From the terms it is known that no injury or irreverence can be inflicted upon God without mortal sin: but the highest injury and irreverence would be done to God if He were hated, or if the cult due to Him were bestowed upon another: therefore these things cannot be done licitly. The major is proved: from the terms it is known that no moral evil is to be done, nor can that be done licitly which is known to be against the honest and moral good: for from this there would follow a contradiction, namely that it could be done licitly, and that it could not be so done: but no moral evil can be greater than to inflict irreverence upon God, the sovereign good: therefore no irreverence can licitly be inflicted for any reason. — Further, if God could dispense, and bring it about that irreverence toward Himself were done licitly, chiefly by an act of His divine will, whereby namely the infliction of irreverence, which would otherwise be illicit, would be made licit: but He cannot bring this about through that act of will: therefore neither can He dispense in it. The major and the consequence are evident. The minor is proved: it is no more known from the terms, or from any principle, that what God commands are licit and what He forbids are illicit, than it is known that in that case irreverence would have to be inflicted upon God: therefore just as by no act of His will can God bring it about that what He commanded to be done would not be done licitly, or that what He forbade to be done could be done licitly, for the same instant in which He commanded or forbade; so He cannot bring it about by any act of His will that irreverence toward Himself be licitly exhibited. — Finally, by the very fact that something would be done at the command of God, it would not be irreverent toward Him; since irreverence is not inflicted upon a Prince while satisfaction is made to His precepts and mandates: therefore it is impossible that God could grant the faculty of inflicting irreverence upon Himself.

You will say: From the preceding Conclusion it is clear that dispensation can be divinely granted in the negative precepts of the second table which pertain to the love of neighbor: therefore by equal reason dispensation will be able to be granted in the precepts of the first table which concern the love and cult of God. The antecedent is clear from what has been said. The consequence is proved: all the precepts of the second table are founded in the love of neighbor, and are referred to it uniquely as to their head: but the love of neighbor follows necessarily from the precept of loving God: therefore if this love of God admits no dispensation, neither does that; for the Apostle says, Rom. 13, Thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, and if there be any other commandment, it is comprised in this word. Which is proved above all by the authority of Christ the Savior, who says: On these two commandments dependeth the whole Law and the Prophets: therefore in this precept, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, all the precepts of the second table are necessarily included. The minor is proved, that the love of neighbor follows necessarily from the precept of loving God: the love of God, which is of the law of nature, is perfect love, and not disordered: but ordered love does not tend toward God as though to be appropriated to oneself alone, as if one loving God did not wish to be loved by others; for the love of the common good as appropriated to the one alone who loves it is disordered; and love of anyone who does not wish the beloved to be likewise loved by others is imperfect: therefore since the precept of loving God tends toward perfect and ordered love, it intends also that the love of neighbor follow necessarily from the precept of the love of God.

The Doctor answers in three ways: First indeed, the major can be denied: for it is not certain that loving God is most strictly of the law of nature, inasmuch as that precept is affirmative, but only inasmuch as it is negative, namely insofar as it prohibits hatred of God: hence, after he had premised a reason for defending the affirmative part, namely that the precept of loving God sometimes obliges by the law of nature, otherwise it would follow that a man throughout his whole life would not be bound to elicit any act of the love of God, which seems to conflict with the dictate of right reason: afterward he proves the denying part thus in the same place n. 7.: It is not certain that there is a precept of the strict law of nature that some man love God positively today: therefore neither tomorrow, nor at any other time, because there is no stronger reason why someone should be bound at some determinate time to love God positively than today. And therefore, he says, strictly speaking it does not seem how it can be concluded when anyone is held then or now to exhibit cult to God; and by equal reason not at any time indistinctly, because no one is bound to any act for an indeterminate time for whom he is not bound for some designated time, with suitable occasions concurring. That is, no one can be bound to elicit some act for a determinate time unless he is bound for some determinate time, which could be determined by occurring opportunities and particular circumstances occasionally concurring. Wherefore, with the reason on either side weighed, the Doctor leaves undetermined whether to love and worship God positively is a precept of the strictest law of nature.

He answers 2. by denying the minor, namely that the love of neighbor follows necessarily from the love of God. To the argument for this minor he says, that although the perfect love of God, which would be prescribed by the strict law of nature, is not the love by which one would wish to appropriate God to himself, as if unwilling that He be positively loved by others; nevertheless it could not be the love by which one would necessarily wish God to be positively loved by others, but it suffices that it be love of God Himself in Himself, abstracting from whether one wishes or does not wish God to be loved by others. But the reason why one loving God perfectly might not be bound to wish Him positively to be loved by others, or possessed by them, is because perhaps it would not please God Himself to communicate Himself to other men as He communicates Himself to the one loving Him; or because it would not be known to the lover that it pleased God to communicate Himself to others as well as to himself. For just as although God in fact wishes to communicate Himself to those whom He predestines, and thus to be loved by them with most perfect love, yet He does not wish to communicate Himself to those whom He does not predestine, or to be so loved by them: so it is not wonderful that one who loves God could not wish positively that He be loved by others, because it would not be established by natural knowledge that such a love elicited by other men would be acceptable to God: and accordingly the one preferred, by whom one loves God, cannot naturally oblige Him, so that He should wish to be loved by others.

He answers 3.: That even if God were to be loved by the most strict and indispensable precept of the law of nature, and although by virtue of the same or another precept the neighbor ought similarly to be loved with that love by which we would be bound to wish him efficaciously to love God and to arrive at beatitude; nevertheless from this it would not follow that the precepts of the second table are to be observed by natural law, because only in that respect would it follow necessarily from the precept of having this love of neighbor that the precepts of the second table be observed, inasmuch as without such observation the neighbor could not be loved with such love: but it is not so; for there is no repugnance that one should wish God to love his neighbor, and him to arrive at ultimate beatitude, and at the same time should wish to kill him and despoil him of his goods. Indeed, one could judge, though erroneously, that that killing and that despoiling of goods would conduce him to attaining beatitude; namely if he judged himself to be in the state of grace, in which if he died, he would without doubt be saved: similarly one could judge that the possession of temporal goods would be harmful to the neighbor for obtaining beatitude; and therefore that the despoiling of those goods would conduce the neighbor to attaining beatitude, and consequently although one by the precept of loving God would be positively bound to wish even that God be loved by his neighbor, still it would not follow from this that by equal reason he would be bound to observe the precepts of the second table.

But to the authorities by which it was urged that the love of neighbor follows necessarily from the love of God, which is a precept of the law of nature, the Doctor answers n. 12., first that those things to which the love of neighbor extends indeed follow from the principles of the law of nature, yet they are not truly of the strict law of nature, but only reductively; and therefore they are not per se indispensable: for although the precepts of the second table follow naturally from the love of God, still it is not licit to infer from this that they are indispensable, but it is only concluded, that he who loves God is also bound to love his neighbor, and not to give him occasion of offending God; nor to inflict any injury upon him by taking away his goods: although these do not so necessarily follow but that God may dispense here and now with someone in that prohibition concerning taking away the goods of a neighbor and inflicting injuries upon him, according to His good pleasure.

You will say 2.: Things done against the precepts of the second table directly militate against the law of nature itself, and therefore are per se and of themselves evil and illicit, even independently of positive law: but in things that are per se evil, God cannot dispense; otherwise He would bring it about that evil could be done licitly, which implies a contradiction: for evil as evil is illicit: therefore in those things which are prohibited by the precepts of the second table, God cannot dispense.

I distinguish the major: that they militate directly and per se against the law of nature itself, I deny: from consequence and inference, I concede: that is, they are not of the strictest and indispensable law of nature; since indeed they are neither principles nor conclusions of such a law; but are only inferred consequently from the conclusions of such a law, and therefore ought not always to be judged indispensable. Or otherwise I say that the precepts of the second table are indeed forbidden, or commanded by the will of God, as the Author of nature, yet not commanded, or forbidden under pain of hell, or of privation of eternal life. For something can be prohibited or commanded in two ways: in one way under some penalty in general and indeterminately, or under a determinate penalty of a quasi-natural order, namely of temporal death, or imprisonment, or loss of honors. In another way something could be commanded or prohibited under pain of hell and of privation of beatitude, so that whoever transgressed the command would justly be judged worthy of hell or of privation of beatitude. But it is not necessary that whatever is commanded or prohibited in the Decalogue, especially in the second table, be prohibited or commanded by a precept of the natural law obliging to the eternal punishment of hell independently of any positive ordination of God. Nor indeed is it evident from the terms that there is so great malice in adultery, or homicide, or theft for example, that on account of those committed sins one ought to be punished with a penalty so dire and severe as is that penalty of eternal sense which in fact all adulterers, homicides, and thieves incur who depart this life without salutary penance: nor can any principles be assigned from which this could be naturally gathered, especially since from the nature of the thing it does not appear how injury is inflicted upon God through those crimes, or anything committed which has per se an incompatibility with the last end.

You will say 3. St. Paul to the Romans 2 affirms that whosoever have sinned without the law shall perish without the law. By which he seems to signify that even if there were no positive law of the precepts of the Decalogue, such as was in fact given to the Jews through Moses, and to us through Christ, still one who transgressed those precepts of the natural law could perish, and be punished with eternal death, and with loss of eternal beatitude. Which indeed is confirmed by the same Apostle, 1 Cor. 6: Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators, nor adulterers, etc. shall possess the kingdom of God. Therefore from the Apostle, even if there were no positive law, nevertheless those who perpetrated such crimes would be guilty of eternal damnation, and therefore the natural law obliges even to the punishments of hell.

I answer by denying the consequence: for the Apostle does not speak absolutely, and in the case in which there would be no positive law: but de facto and as things now stand, namely insofar as fornication, adultery, and other such things are prohibited by positive law under pain of eternal damnation. To the former text I say that the Apostle can be understood not of whatever sins are committed against the precepts of nature, but only of those which are committed against the precepts of the strictest natural law, such as are the two first precepts of the Decalogue, whereby the servitude of idols is prohibited, and irreverence toward God.

Third Conclusion. — No human power, whether ecclesiastical or civil, can dispense in those things which are of the natural law.

Proof 1. from the authority of St. Bernard in the praised First Conclusion, where, having conceded that God could dispense in the precepts of the second table, he says: Which although they admit no dispensation whatsoever, neither has it ever been lawful for anyone among men to loose them in any way from these, nor will it ever be lawful.

Proof 2. by reason: An inferior cannot absolve a superior, as is clear from dist. 21, cap. Interior: nor can an inferior loose one bound by a superior, as is found in c. Cum de Clerico aegrotante: but if dispensation could be made in the natural law by human authority, created and inferior authority would loose the obligation which men contracted by the ordination of God: therefore etc. Furthermore, Princes themselves and the Prelates of the Church are bound by the precepts of the natural law: therefore they cannot dispense in them. The consequence is plain: for those who are subject to precepts and held to keep them cannot dispense from the obligation of those precepts. The antecedent also is evident, since the precepts of the natural law pertain to all men whatsoever possessed of reason: therefore especially to those who ought above all to excel in reason and prudence, so as duly to direct and govern others. Finally, if Pontiffs and Princes could dispense in some precepts which either are of the natural law or pertain to it, they could above all dispense in the precepts of the second table: but they cannot do this, otherwise they could grant the power of committing fornication, of killing the innocent, and of taking the goods of others: but this, as is clear, is false: therefore that from which it follows is false also.

You will say: The Supreme Pontiff sometimes dispenses concerning the residence of Pastors: but the residence of Pastors is of the natural law, according to the Council of Trent session 23, c. 1, De reformatione: therefore dispensation can be granted in it. Likewise, it is of the natural law that he who has vowed render to the Lord what he has vowed: but the Supreme Pontiff dispenses in vows: therefore etc.

I answer first, by denying the minor: for the Council of Trent does not affirm that the residence of Pastors is of the natural law, but only signifies that it is of divine law. For it says:

Since by divine command it is enjoined upon all to whom the care of souls is committed, to know their sheep, to offer sacrifice for them, to feed them by the preaching of the word of God, by the administration of the sacraments, and by the example of all good works, to exercise paternal care toward the poor and other miserable persons, and to devote themselves to the other pastoral duties, all which can by no means be performed and fulfilled by those who neither watch over nor assist their flock, but desert it after the manner of hirelings: the most holy Synod admonishes and exhorts them, mindful of the divine precepts, touched by the whole flock, to feed and rule it in judgment and in truth.

By which words it is only signified that the residence of Pastors can be reckoned not indeed of the natural law, but of positive divine law: for from them it cannot be gathered that residence is of another law than that by which pastors are obliged to perform the duties which those absent cannot carry out: but the Council signifies that they are held to perform these, not by the law of nature, but by divine precept, and therefore the residence of pastors could not be reckoned to be of the natural law.

I answer 2. by distinguishing the major: that the Supreme Pontiff dispenses concerning the residence of pastors with a dispensation properly so called, which is done by his own right and his own authority, which looses the obligation of residing, no external grave cause concurring, I deny; with a dispensation improperly so called, which is only a declaration that pastors in that case are not held to reside, on account of grave causes calling them elsewhere, I concede. Therefore the Supreme Pontiff does not properly dispense concerning the residence of pastors when he grants them license to migrate elsewhere; but only declares that in some particular case pastors are not held to residence: for indeed Pastors alone ought to reside with the people committed to them, when the necessity or utility of the public good does not call them elsewhere, which indeed was prudently declared and enacted in the Council of Trent in the place cited, where, having declared that all Pastors, Even though they be Cardinals of holy Roman Church, are obliged to personal residence in their Church or Diocese, where they are held to discharge the office enjoined upon them, nor can they be absent except for certain causes: he adds:

For since Christian charity, pressing necessity, due obedience and faith in the Church, and the utility of the commonwealth sometimes require and demand that certain men be absent, the Most Holy Synod decrees that these causes of legitimate absence are to be approved in writing by the most blessed Roman Pontiff, or by the Metropolitan, or, in his absence, by the suffragan Bishop of longest residence, who must prove the absence of that same Metropolitan.

The supreme Pontiff, therefore, cannot in fact dispense with Bishops so that they do not reside during that time in which there is an obligation of law, whether natural or divine, to reside, except for a most grave cause, and such a one for which he can rightly judge that neither God nor nature, that cause being posited, obliges to residence. But when the supreme Pontiff dispenses Pastors from residence for light causes — if indeed he ever does this — he grants this only when the Pastor's presence does not seem so necessary or useful to the flock but that it can prudently be judged that in that case neither God nor nature commands such residence. To the second I answer in the same manner as to the first; for the supreme Pontiff properly dispenses in no vow or oath, nor even in ratified marriage; but on account of grave concurrent causes he merely declares that those who have emitted a vow are not bound by the law of nature to fulfil it in such a particular case; for it is indeed of the law of nature that he who vows, all circumstances remaining entirely the same, render to the Lord what he has vowed; but it is not of the law of nature that a vow be paid in certain concurrent circumstances and cases, namely if the matter of the vow be rendered morally impossible: e.g., if someone had vowed to give one hundred gold coins to the Church within a year, but after a month were stripped of all his goods and reduced to extreme necessity, then he would not be bound by the law of nature to pay the vow, because the matter of the vow is morally impossible to him; or if the observance of the vow be of lesser perfection and merit before God: as if, e.g., someone had vowed to give the Church a candle, he would without doubt satisfy the vow if in place of the candle he gave a golden chalice, because the law of nature never binds necessarily to omitting a greater good in order to pay a lesser good. The same must be said when danger of the loss of a greater good occurs, as if someone has vowed chastity by a simple vow, and afterwards, sorely vexed by the goads of concupiscence, found himself in danger not only of breaking the vow but also of sinning by the sin of fornication, or adultery, or some other worse sin, from which danger he would be delivered if, absolved from the vow, he could licitly take a wife: this, I say, in such a case the supreme Pontiff legitimately declares him not bound by the law of nature to remain in the vow: first because the vower himself must morally be judged not to have had the will of extending his vow to that morally impossible case; second, because the law of nature is not held to oblige to the performance of anything from which so grave a loss follows as is total incontinence; finally, because natural reason itself declares that when the loss of two goods diverse in reason and estimation must necessarily be incurred, the loss of the lesser rather than the greater good is rather to be made; for it is better to suffer the cutting off of an arm, or of another part of the body, than death itself, because the integrity of the body is a lesser good than the destruction of life. Therefore, since the state of virginal chastity, however excellent, is a lesser good than the state of sanctifying grace, whose loss he who has vowed is in peril of incurring: in that case the supreme Pontiff declares him absolved from the vow, and forthwith the supreme Pontiff does not dispense, nor can he dispense in any vow with perfect dispensation, just as he can dispense in ecclesiastical laws enacted by himself with full right and without any cause.

You will say: That cause which the supreme Pontiff would require in order to dispense legitimately either dissolves the obligation of the natural law or it does not: if it does not dissolve it, then the supreme Pontiff is judged truly to dispense with full right: if it does dissolve it, then recourse is had in vain to the supreme Pontiff for obtaining a dispensation from that obligation which already no longer exists.

I answer, that grave cause occurring truly does dissolve the obligation of the law of nature, and yet for that very reason recourse is none the less to be had to the supreme Pontiff, but that he may declare it dissolved, as the supreme head of the Church. For just as, although someone might be truly certain that the thing which his neighbor detains belongs to himself, he could not yet at times licitly claim it for himself by his own authority, but for this the sentence of a judge must be awaited and sought: so likewise, although someone may be certain that he has sufficient cause why he should be considered absolved from the obligation of paying a vow, yet he ought not break the vow until, the cause being set forth before the supreme Pontiff, he should have his declaration, whereby indeed both to himself and to the Church it is established that he is no longer bound to the payment of the vow.

You will insist: Not only does the supreme Pontiff declare that the obligation of the vow no longer presses, but he also truly absolves the vower from it: therefore he properly dispenses. The antecedent is clear, because he uses the word dispensing equally when he absolves from the obligation of a vow, and when he dispenses from a law laid down by himself: but while he uses this word in dissolving a law laid down by himself, he truly and properly dispenses with full right: therefore for a like reason he dispenses when he absolves from a vow.

I deny the antecedent, and for its proof I say, that although the supreme Pontiff uses the word dispensing in those declarations, it does not follow from this that he truly dispenses in them: for the word "I dispense" is equivocal, and sometimes signifies any act whatsoever of a superior by which something is made, or is known to be, licit which would otherwise be illicit, or would not be known to be licit, whether meanwhile that act be a proper dispensation or a mere declaration. Nor does it matter that he uses this word simply, both in dissolving the obligation of vows and in dissolving laws laid down by himself: for the diversity of signification in that case is not to be sought from the words, but from the nature of the subject matter. Hence, because the matter of Pontifical law is subject absolutely to the supreme Pontiff, so that without any antecedent cause he can by his own volition grant anyone a licence not to execute what is commanded, therefore when he grants this licence he is properly said to dispense: but because the matter of the natural law is not absolutely subject to any human authority, therefore the supreme Pontiff cannot dispense in it with full right, unless some grave cause concur. Whence then the word "I dispense" used by him does not have its true and proper signification: nevertheless he rightly employs that manner of speaking: partly because it is equivalent as regards the practice and common usage of the faithful; partly because it contributes not a little to removing the scruples of fearful consciences of the simple.

You will urge: The supreme Pontiff has the power of loosing whatsoever bond on earth, as is clear from those words of Matthew 18: Whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven: therefore he can loose with full right any bond whatever of vow, of oath, and of ratified marriage.

I distinguish the antecedent: that he has this supreme authority with respect to determinate matter subject to himself, I concede; with respect to any matter whatsoever, I deny. Otherwise indeed the supreme Pontiff could dispense in the obligation of telling the truth, of eliciting the love of God, of preserving the life of an innocent man: and thus bring it about that lying, hatred of God, and perjury would be licit. Whence although the supreme Pontiff holds supreme power in the Church, yet he is not held able to loose every dispensation of man; otherwise, since the Emperor also holds supreme power in temporal affairs, he could likewise loose the natural obligation of subjects in promises, pacts, etc., which is nonetheless condemned in the Constitution Pastoralis, on judicial matters, at the end, where it is laid down that it is not lawful for the Emperor to abolish those things which are of the natural law.

You ask: whether the natural law can admit explication and declaration?

I affirm: since indeed all things which are of the natural law are not equally known and easy to understand, and since grave circumstances can at times occur, in which two conflicting precepts of nature seem to concur to be observed, declaration and explication are necessarily required, whereby it is established what is to be done in those circumstances. Thus, e.g., although the natural law commands that what belongs to another be restored, since nevertheless it commands that life and reputation be preserved, it follows that the sword is not to be restored to a madman while danger is present lest he kill either himself, or the restorer, or others. This declaration, however, is not properly to be called Epikeia: for since this is called by Aristotle, book 5 of the Ethics, chapter 10, an emendation of the law, on the part wherein it is deficient on account of its universality: this cannot fall to the law of nature, because the latter does not prohibit, nor command, universally and absolutely, but only in those cases in which the commanded act is necessary from the nature of the thing, and the prohibited act is evil, and necessarily to be fled.

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Tractatus I: De Legibus Divinis, et Humanis

Disputatio I: De Legibus in Communi

Quaestio I: De natura, et definitione legis

Quaestio II: Utrum lex necessario debeat esse ad bonum commune ordinata, et communitati praescripta

Quaestio III: Sitne de ratione legis ut justa sit, justeque feratur, et quod obliget in perpetuum, idque sub praescripto

Disputatio II: De Lege naturali

Articulus I: De nativae Legis essentia, principiis, et partibus

Quaestio I: Quid sit et in quo formaliter consistat legis naturalis essentia

Quaestio II: Quotuplex sit lex naturalis

Articulus II: De materia, et obligatione Legis Naturalis

Quaestio I: Quaenam sit materia circa quam lex naturalis versatur

Quaestio II: Qualiter, et ad quid lex naturalis obliget

Quaestio III: Quid, et quotuplex sit jus

Articulus III: De Legis Naturalis immutabilitate

Quaestio I: An et quomodo lex naturalis mutari possit

Quaestio II: Utrum lex naturalis admittere possit dispensationem, et interpretationem, seu Epikeian

Disputatio III: De Lege Divina

Articulus I: De Lege Divina aeterna

Quaestio I: An et quid sit lex aeterna

Quaestio II: Qualis, et quotuplex sit lex aeterna

Quaestio III: Quaenam aeternae Dei legi subjiciantur

Articulus II: De Lege positiva, et scripta, quam Veterem, et Mosaycam appellamus

Quaestio I: Quasnam Vetus lex habuerit causas

Quaestio II: Qualis, et quam ob finem lex Mosis lata fuerit

Quaestio III: Quot, et quae fuerint praecepta veteris legis

Quaestio IV: An et quando lex Vetus abrogata fuerit, et obligare desierit

Articulus III: De Lege Evangelica

Quaestio I: An, et qualem novam legem Christus instituerit

Quaestio II: Qualiter nova lex praescripta fuerit, et quae praecepta contineat

Quaestio III: In quibus praecipue nova lex differat a veteri, eamque excedat

Disputatio IV: De Legibus Humanis

Articulus I: De existentia, et causis Legum Humanarum

Quaestio I: An, quid, et quotuplex sit lex humana

Quaestio II: Penes quos resideat legislativa potestas

Quaestio III: Quinam legibus humanis teneantur

Articulus II: De efficacia, et obligatione Legum Humanarum

Quaestio I: Circa quid humanae leges versentur

Quaestio II: Qualiter humanae leges obligent

Quaestio III: Quas conditiones lex requirat ut revera obliget

Articulus III: De Legis Humanae relaxatione per consuetudinem, abrogationem, dispensationem, interpretationem, et privilegium

Quaestio I: Quid, et qualis sit consuetudo

Quaestio II: Quid, quotuplex, et qualis sit lex favorabilis seu privilegium

Quaestio III: Quot modis variari, ac mutari possit lex humana