3. Plato compares the rational soul in man to a charioteer, driving two horses: one horse representing the concupiscible, the other the irascible part of the sensitive appetite. He draws a vivid picture of the resistance of the concupiscible part against reason, how madly it rushes after lawless pleasure, and how it is only kept in restraint by main force again and again applied, till gradually it grows submissive. This submissiveness, gradually acquired, is the virtue of temperance. Clearly the habit dwells in the appetite, not in reason: in the horse, not in the charioteer. It is that habitual state, which in a horse we callbeing broken in.
The concupiscible appetite isbroken into reason by temperance residing within it. Plato lavishes all evil names on the steed that represents the concupiscible part. But the irascible part, the other steed, has its own fault, and that fault twofold, sometimes of over-venturesomeness, sometimes of shying and turning tail. The habit engendered, in the irascible part, of being neither over-venturesome nor over-timorous, but going by reason, is termed fortitude. [Footnote 6]
[Footnote 6: It will help an Englishman to understand Plato's comparison, if instead ofconcupiscible partandirascible part, we call the one steed Passion and the other Pluck. Pluck fails, and Passion runs to excess, till Pluck is formed to fortitude, and Passion to temperance.]
4. As the will is the rational appetite, the proper object of which is rational good, it does not need to be prompted by any habit to embrace rational good in what concerns only the inward administration of the agent's own self. There is no difficulty in that department, provided the sensitive appetite be kept in hand by fortitude and temperance. But where there is question of external relations with other men, it is not enough that the sensitive appetite be regulated, but a third virtue is necessary, the habit of justice, to be planted in the will, which would otherwise be too weak to attend steadily to points, not of the agent's own good merely, but of the good of other men.
5. Thus we have the four cardinal virtues: prudence, a habit of the intellect; temperance, a habit of the concupiscible appetite; fortitude, a habit of the irascible appetite; and justice, a habit of the will. Temperance and Fortitude in the Home Department; Justice for Foreign Affairs; with Prudence for Premier. Or, to use another comparison, borrowed from Plato, prudence is the health of the soul, temperance its beauty, fortitude its strength, and justice its wealth.
Readings.—St. Thos., 1a 2æ, q. 61, art. 2, in corp.;ib., q. 56, art. 4, in corp., ad 1-3;ib., q. 56, art. 6, in corp., ad 1, 3;ib., q. 59, art. 4, in corp., ad 2; Plato,Laws, 631 B, C.
1. Prudence isright reason applied to practice, or more fully it may be defined, the habit of intellectual discernment that enables one to hit upon the golden mean of moral virtue and the way to secure that mean. Thus prudence tells one what amount of punishment is proper for a particular delinquent, and how to secure his getting it. It is to be observed that prudence does not will the golden mean in question, but simply indicates it. To will and desire the mean is the work of the moral virtue concerned therewith: as in the case given it is the work of vindictive justice.
2. From the definition of moral virtue above given (c. v., s. iv., n. 4, p. 79), it is clear that no moral virtue can come into act without prudence: for it is the judgment of the prudent man that must define in each case thegolden meanin relation to ourselves, which every moral virtue aims at. Thus, without prudence, fortitude passes into rashness, vindictive justice into harshness, clemency into weakness, religion into superstition.
3. But may not one with no prudence to guide him hit upon thegolden meanby some happy impulse, and thus do an act of virtue? We answer, he may do a good act, and if you will, a virtuous act, but not an act of virtue, not an act proceeding from a pre-existent habit in the doer. The act is like a good stroke made by chance, not by skill; and like such a stroke, it cannot be readily repeated at the agent's pleasure. (See c. v., s. i., n. 4, p. 66; and Ar.,Eth., II., iv., 2.)
4. Prudence in its essence is an intellectual virtue, being a habit resident in the understanding: but it deals with the subject-matter of the moral virtues, pointing out the measure of temperance, the bounds of fortitude, or the path of justice. It is the habit of intellectual discernment that must enlighten every moral virtue in its action. There is no virtue that goes blundering and stumbling in the dark.
5. He is a prudent man, that can give counsel to others and to himself in order to the attainment of ends that are worthy of human endeavour. If unworthy ends are intended, however sagaciously they are pursued, that is not prudence. We may call itsagacity, orshrewdness, being a habit of ready discernment and application of means to ends. Napoleon I. was conspicuous for this sagacity. It is the key to success in this world. But prudence discovers worthy ends only, and to them only does it provide means. The intellect is often blinded by passion, by desire and by fear, so as not to discern the proper end and term to make for in a particular instance and a practical case. The general rules of conduct remain in the mind, as that, "In anger be mindful of mercy:" but the propriety of mercy under the present provocation drops out of sight. The intellect does not discern the golden mean of justice and mercy in relation to the circumstances in which the agent now finds himself. In other words, the habit of prudence has failed; and it has failed because of the excess of passion. Thus prudence is dependent on the presence of the virtues that restrain passion, namely, fortitude and temperance. A like argument would hold for the virtue of justice, that rectifies inordinate action in dealing with another. The conclusion is, that as the moral virtues cannot exist without prudence, so neither can prudence exist without them: for vice corrupts the judgment of prudence.
6. Hence we arrive at a settlement of the question, whether the virtues can be separated, or whether to possess one is to possess all. We must distinguish between the rudimentary forms of virtue and the perfect habit. The rudimentary forms certainly can exist separate: they are a matter of temperament and inherited constitution: and the man whom nature has kindly predisposed to benevolence, she has perhaps very imperfectly prepared for prudence, fortitude, or sobriety. But one perfect habit of any one of the four cardinal virtues, acquired by repeated acts, and available at the call of reason, involves the presence, in a matured state, of the other three habits also. A man who acts irrationally upon one ground, will behave irrationally on other grounds also: or if his conduct be rational there, it will not be from regard for reason, but from impulse, temperament, or from some other motive than the proper motive of the virtue which he seems to be exercising.
Readings.—St. Thos., 1a 2æ, q. 54, art. 4;ib., q. 58, art. 5, in corp.;ib., 2a 2æ, q. 47, art. 7, 12, 13; Ar.,Eth., VI., v.;ib., VI., xii., 9, 10;ib., VI., xiii., 6; St. Francis of Sales,Of the Love of God, bk. xi., c. vii.
1. Temperance is a virtue which regulates by the judgment of reason those desires and delights which attend upon the operations whereby human nature is preserved in the individual and propagated in the species. Temperance is the virtue contrary to the two deadly sins of Gluttony and Lust. As against the former, it represents Abstinence, or moderation in solid food, and Sobriety, which is moderation in drink. As against the latter, it is the great virtue of Chastity. The student must bear in mind that, to a philosopher, Temperance does not mean Total Abstinence, and Abstinence is quite independent of Fridays and flesh-meat. Temperance then is made up of Abstinence, Sobriety, and Chastity.
Aristotle writes: "Cases of falling short in the taking of pleasure, and of people enjoying themselves less than they ought, are not apt to occur: for such insensibility is not human: but if there be any one to whom nothing is pleasant, and all comes alike in the matter of taste, he must be far from the state and condition of humanity: such a being has no name, because he is nowhere met with." This is true, because where there is question of a virtue, such as Temperance, resident in the concupiscible appetite, we are not concerned with any sullenness or moroseness of will, nor with any scrupulosity or imbecility of judgment, refusing to gratify the reasonable cravings of appetite, but with the habitual leaning and lie of the appetite itself. Now the concupiscible appetite in every man, of its own nature, leans to its proper object of delectable good. No virtue is requisite to secure it from too little inclination that way: but to restrain the appetite from going out excessively to delight is the function, and the sole function, of Temperance. The measure of restraint is relative, as the golden mean is relative, and varies with different persons and in view of different ends. The training of the athlete is not the training of the saint.
3. Besides the primary virtue of Temperance, and its subordinate species (enumerated above, n. 1), certain other virtues are brought under Temperance in a secondary sense, as observing in easier matters that moderation and self-restraint which the primary virtue keeps in the matter that is most difficult of all. St. Thomas calls thesepotential partsof Temperance. There is question here of what is most difficult to man as an animal, not of what is most difficult to him as a rational being. To rational man, as such, ambition is harder to restrain than sensuality: which is proved by the fact that fewer men, who have any ambition in them, do restrain that passion than those who restrain the animal propensities that are common to all. But to man as an animal (and vast numbers of the human race rise little above the animal state), it is hardest of all things to restrain those appetites that go with the maintenance and propagation of flesh and blood. These then are the proper matter of Temperance: other virtues, potential parts of Temperance, restrain other cravings which are less animal. Of these virtues the most noticeable are humility, meekness, and modesty. [Footnote 7]
[Footnote 7: This is St. Thomas's arrangement, placing Humility under Temperance. The connection of Humility with Magnanimity, and thereby with Fortitude, is indicated pp. 100, 101.]
4. There is a thirst after honour and preeminence, arising from self-esteem, and prevalent especially where there is little thought of God, and scant reverence for the present majesty of heaven. A man who thinks little of his Maker is great in his own eyes, as our green English hills are mountains to one who has not seen the Alpine heights and snows. Apart from the consideration of God there is no humility; and this is why Aristotle, who treats of virtues as they minister to the dealings of man with man, makes no mention of this virtue. There are certain outward manifestations in words, acts, and gestures, the demeanour of a humble man, which is largely identified with modesty and with submission to others as representing God.
5. Modesty is that outward comportment, style of dress, conversation, and carriage, which indicates the presence of Temperance, "set up on holy pedestal" (Plato,Phaedr., 254 B) in the heart within.
6. Meekness is moderation in anger, and is or should be the virtue of all men. Clemency is moderation in punishment, and is the virtue of men in office, who bear the sword or the rod.
7. As regards the vices opposite to Temperance, an important distinction is to be drawn between him who sins by outburst of passion and him whose very principles are corrupt. [Footnote 8] The former in doing evil acknowledges it to be evil, and is prone to repent of it afterwards: the latter has lost his belief in virtue, and his admiration for it: he drinks in iniquity like water, with no after-qualms; he glories in his shame. The former is reclaimable, the latter is reprobate: his intellect as well as his heart is vitiated and gone bad. If there were no miracles, he would be a lost man: but God can work miracles in the moral as in the physical order: in that there is hope for him.
[Footnote 8: See the note inAquinas Ethicus, Vol. I., pp. 170, 171.]
8. A nation need not be virtuous in the great bulk of her citizens, to be great in war and in dominion, in laws, in arts, and in literature: but the bulk of the people must possess at least the sense and appreciation of virtue in order to such national greatness. When that sense is lost, the nation is undone and become impotent, for art no less than for empire. Thus the Greece of Pericles and of Phidias fell, to be "living Greece no more."
9. As in other moral matters, no hard and fast line of division exists between sinning from passion and sinning on principle, but cases of the one shade into cases of the others, and by frequent indulgence of passion principle is brought gradually to decay.
Readings.—Ar.,Eth., III., x.; St. Thos., 2a 2æ, q. 141, art. 2;ib., q. 141, art. 3, in corp.;ib., q. 142, art. 1;ib., q. 143, art. 1, in corp., ad 2, 3;ib., q. 161, art. 1, ad 5;ib., q. 161, art. 2, in corp.;ib., q. 161, art. 6, in corp., ad 1;ib., q. 157, art. 1, in corp., ad 3;ib, q. 156, art. 3; Ar.,Eth., VII., viii.
1. As Temperance is a curb, restraining animal nature in the pursuit of the good to which it goes out most eagerly, namely, life and the means of its continuance, so Fortitude also is a curb, withholding that nature from irrational flight from the evil which it most dreads. Aristotle tells us what that evil is: "Most dreadful of all things is death, for it is the limit, and for the dead man there appears to be no further good nor evil left." (Eth., III, vi., b.) Death is truly the limit to human existence: for, though the soul be immortal, the being of flesh and blood, that we call man, is dissolved in death, and, apart from supernatural hope of the resurrection, extinct for ever. Death therefore is the direst of all evils in the animal economy; and as such, is supremely abhorred by the sensitive appetite, which is the animal part of man. Fortitude moderates this abhorrence and fear by the dictate of reason. Reason shows that there are better things than life, and things worse than death, for man in his spiritual capacity as an intellectual and immortal being.
2. Fortitude is a mean between Cowardice and Rashness, to which opposite extremes we are carried by the contrary passions of Fear and Daring respectively. Fortitude thus is a two-sided virtue, moderating two opposite tendencies: while Temperance is one-sided, moderating Desire alone. Life, rationally considered, bears undoubtedly a high value, and is not to be lightly thrown away, or risked upon trivial or ignoble objects. The brave man is circumspect in his ventures, and moderate in his fears, which implies that he does fear somewhat. He will fear superhuman visitations, as the judgments of God. He will dread disgrace, and still more, sin. He will fear death in an unworthy cause. And even in a good cause, it has well been said: "The truly brave man is not he who fears no danger, but the man whose mind subdues the fear, and braves the danger that nature shrinks from." The Duke of Marlborough is said to have quaked in the saddle as he rode into action, saying: "This poor body trembles at what the mind within is about to do." Fortitude then is the virtue that restrains fear and regulates venturesomeness by the judgment of reason, in danger especially of a grand and glorious death.
3. To the ancients, there was no grander object of devotion than the State, their native city: no direr misfortune than its dissolution, or the loss of its self-government: no nobler death than to die in arms in its defence. As old Tyrtæus sang:
A noble thing it is to lie dead, fallen in the front ranks,A brave man in battle for his country. [Footnote 9]
[Footnote 9:[Greek: tethnamenai gar kalon, eni promachoisi pesonta,andr' agathon peri hae patridi marnamenon.]([Greek: Tyrtaeus apud Lycurg])]
Such a death was taken to be the seal and stamp of the highest fortitude. Nor has Christianity dimmed the glory that invests a soldier's death. Only it points to a brighter glory, and a death in a still nobler cause, the death of the martyr who dies for the faith, and becomes valiant in battle for what is more to him than any earthly city, the Church, the City of God. Nor must the martyr of charity, who dies in succouring his neighbour, go without the praise of fortitude: nor, in short, any one who braves death, or other heavy affliction, in the discharge of duty, or when forwarding a good cause.
4. A man may brave death in a good cause, and not be doing an act of fortitude. So he may subscribe a large sum to a charitable purpose without any exercise of the virtue of charity. A virtue is then only exercised, when its outward act is performed from the proper motive of the virtue, and not from any lower motive. Thus the proper motive of Fortitude is the conviction that death is an evil, the risk of which is to be left out of count as a circumstance relatively inconsiderable, when there is question of the defence of certain interests dearer to a good man than life. An improper motive would be anger, which, however useful as an accessory, by itself is not an intellectual motive at all, and therefore no motive of virtue. The recklessness of an angry man is not Fortitude. It is not Fortitude to be brave from ignorance or stupidity, not appreciating the danger: nor again from experience, knowing that the apparent danger is not real, at least to yourself. The brave man looks a real danger in the face, and knows it, and goes on in spite of it, because so it is meet and just, with the cause that he has, to go on.
5. We may notice aspotentialparts of Fortitude (s. vii., n. 3, p. 92), the three virtues of Magnificence, Magnanimity, and Patience. It is the part of Patience, philosophically to endure all sufferings short of death. It is the part of the former two, to dare wisely, not in a matter of life and death, but in the matter of expense, for Magnificence, and of honour, for Magnanimity. Magnificence, technically understood, observes the right measure in the expenditure of large sums of money. As being conversant with large sums, it differs from Liberality. A poor man may be liberal out of his little store, but never magnificent. It is a virtue in the rich, not to be afraid of spending largely and lavishly on a great occasion, or a grand purpose. The expense may be carried beyond what the occasion warrants: that is one vicious extreme. The other extreme would be to mar a costly work by sordid parsimony on a point of detail. It is not easy to be magnificent: in the first place, because not many are rich; and then because riches are seldom united with greatness of soul and good judgment. Something analogous to the virtue of Magnificence is shown in the generous use of great abilities, or, in the supernatural order, of great graces. The destinies of the world lie with those men who have it in their power to be magnificent.
6. We are come to Magnanimity and the Magnanimous Man, the great creation of Aristotle. As Magnanimity ranks under Fortitude, there must be some fear to which the Magnanimous Man rises superior, as the brave man rises superior to the fear of death. What Magnanimity overcomes is the fear of undeserved dishonour. The Magnanimous Man is he who rates himself as worthy of great honours, and is so worthy indeed. When honour is paid to such a one, he makes no great account of it, feeling that it is but his due, or even less than his due. If he is dishonoured and insulted, he despises the insult as an absurdity, offered to a man of his deserts. He is too conscious of his real worth to be much affected by the expression of his neighbour's view of him. For a man is most elated, when complimented on an excellence which he was not very sure of possessing: and most sensibly grieved at an insult, where he half suspects himself of really making a poor figure, whereas he would like to make a good one. It is doubtless the serene and settled conviction that Englishmen generally entertain of the greatness of their country, that enables them to listen with equanimity to abase of England, such as no other people in Europe would endure levelled at themselves.
7.Proudis an epithet pretty freely applied to Englishmen abroad, and it seems to fit the character of the Magnanimous Man. He seems a Pharisee, and worse than a Pharisee. The Pharisee's pride was to some extent mitigated by breaking out into that disease of children and silly persons, vanity: he "did all his works to be seen of men." But here the disease is all driven inwards, and therefore more malignant. The Magnanimous Man is so much in conceit with himself as to have become a scorner of his fellows. He is self-sufficient, a deity to himself, the very type of Satanic pride. These are the charges brought against him.
8. To purify and rectify the character of the Magnanimous Man, we need to take a leaf out of the book of Christianity. Not that there is anything essentially Christian and supernatural in what we are about to allege: otherwise it would not belong to philosophy: it is a truth of reason, but a truth generally overlooked, till it found its exponent in the Christian preacher, and its development in the articles of the Christian faith. The truth is this. There is in every human being what theologians have calledman and man: man as he is of himself, man again as he is by the gift and gracious mercy of God. The reasonably Magnanimous Man is saved from pride by this distinction. Of himself, he knows that he is nothing but nothingness, meanness, sinfulness, and a walking sore of multitudinous actual sins. "I know that there dwelleth not in me, that is, in my flesh, any good." (Rom. vii. 18.) If he is insulted, he takes it as his due, not any questionable due, for then he would resent the insult, but as being undoubtedly what he deserves. If he is honoured, he smiles at the absurdity of the compliments paid to him. It is as if an old gentleman, a prey to gout and rheumatism, were lauded for his fleetness of foot. He is then truly magnanimous on this side of his character by a kind of obverse magnanimity, that bears insults handsomely, as deserved, and honours modestly, as undeserved.
9. But let us go round to the other side of the reasonably Magnanimous Man. He was defined to be, "one that deems himself worthy of great honours, and is so worthy indeed." Now, nothing is truly worthy of honour but virtue. He must then be a good man, full of all virtues; and all this goodness that he has, he recognises as being in him of God. He has "received God's Spirit"—or something analogous in the natural order to the gift of the Holy Ghost—"that he may know the things that are given him of God." (2 Cor. ii. 12.) It is told of St. Francis of Assisi, the humblest of men, that on one occasion when he and his companions received from some persons extraordinary marks of veneration, he, contrary to his usual wont, took it not at all amiss: and said to his companions, who wondered at his behaviour, "Let them alone: they cannot too much honour the work of God in us." This magnanimity bears honours gracefully, and insult unflinchingly, from a consciousness of internal worth, which internal worth and goodness however it takes not for its own native excellence, but holds as received from God, and unto God it refers all the glory.
10. Thus the genuine Magnanimous Man is a paradox and a prodigy. He despises an insult as undeserved, and he takes it as his due. He is conscious of the vast good that is in him; and he knows that there is no good in him. Highly honoured, he thinks that he gets but his due, while he believes that vials of scorn and ignominy may justly be poured upon him. He will bear the scorn, because he deserves it, and again, because it is wholly undeserved. The Magnanimous Man is the humble man. The secret of his marvellous virtue is his habit of practical discernment between the abyss of misery that he has within himself, as of himself, and the high gifts, also within him, which come of the mercy of God. Aristotle well says, "Magnanimity is a sort of robe of honour to the rest of the virtues: it both makes them greater and stands not without them: therefore it is hard to be truly magnanimous, for that cannot be without perfect virtue." We may add, that in the present order of Providence none can be magnanimous without supernatural aid, and supernatural considerations of the life of Christ, which however are not in place here.
Readings.—Ar.,Eth., III., vii.; St. Thos., 2a 2æ, q. 123, art 3, in corp.; Ar.,Eth., III., viii.; St. Thos., 2a 2æ, q. 123, art. i, ad 2; Ar.,Eth., III., vi.; St. Thos., 2a 2æ, q. 123, art. 4, 5. For the Magnificent and Magnanimous Man, Ar.,Eth., IV., ii., iii.; St. Thos., 2a 2æ, q. 129, art. 3, ad 4, 5.
1. Justice is a habit residing in the will, prompting that power constantly to render unto everyone his own. The fundamental notion of Justice is some sort of equality. Equality supposes two terms, physically distinct, or capable of existing separately, one from the other. Between such terms alone can equality be properly predicated. Any less distinction than this leaves room only for equality improperly so called, and therefore no room for what is properly termed Justice. When therefore Plato, going about to find a definition of Justice, which is a main object in hisRepublic, acquiesces in this position, that Justice consists in every part of the soul, rational, irascible, and concupiscible, fulfilling its own proper function, and not taking up the function of another, he fails for this reason, that all Justice is relative to another, but the different parts of one soul are not properlyotherandother, since all go to make up one man: therefore, however much Justice may be identical with doing your own business, and leaving your neighbour free to do his, yet this relation obtaining among the various parts of the soul cannot properly be called Justice. What Plato defines is the beauty, good order, and moral comeliness of the soul, but not Justice in any sense, inasmuch as it is not referred to any being human or divine, collective or individual, outside of the man himself.
2. Going upon the principle that all Justice is of the nature ofequality, and is therefore relative toanother, we arrive at the definition ofgeneral justice, which is all virtue whatsoever, inasmuch as it bears upon another person than him who practises it. This Justice is perfect social virtue, the crown and perfection of all virtue from a statesman's point of view; and in that aspect, as Aristotle says, "neither morning star nor evening star is so beautiful." Whoever has this virtue behaves well, not by himself merely, but towards others—a great addition. Many a one who has done well enough as an individual, has done badly in a public capacity: whence the proverb, that office shows the man. This Justice may well be calledanother man's good: though not in the sense of the sophists of old, and the altruists of our time, that virtue is a very good thing for everyone else than its possessor. Virtue, like health, may be beneficial to neighbours, but the first benefit of it flows in upon the soul to whom it belongs: for virtue is the health of the soul.
3. Another elementary notion of Justice connects it with Law, taking Justice to be conformity to Law. This notion exhibitslegal justice, which is the same thing, under another aspect, as thegeneral justicementioned above, inasmuch asgeneral justiceincludes the exercise of all virtues in so far as they bear upon the good of others: and the law, to whichlegal justiceconforms a man, enjoins acts of all virtues for the common good. It must be observed, however, that though there is no natural virtue of which the law of man may not prescribe some exercise, still no human law enjoins all acts of all virtues, not even all obligatory acts. A man may fail in his duty though he has kept all the laws of man. In order then thatlegal justicemay include the whole duty of man, it must be referred to that natural and eternal law of God, revealed or unrevealed, of which we shall speak hereafter. By being conformed to this divine law a man is ajust man, arighteous man. It is this sense of Justice that appears in the theological term,justification. In this sense, Zachary and Elizabeth "were both just before God, walking in all the commandments of the Lord without blame." (St. Luke i. 6.)
4.General, orlegal, justiceis not the cardinal virtue so called, but is in one point of view identical with all virtue. Distinguished from the other three cardinal virtues isparticular justice, which is divided intodistributiveandcommutative justice.Distributive justiceis exercised by the community through its head towards its individual members, so that there be a fair distribution of the common goods, in varying amount and manner, according to the various merits and deserts of the several recipients. The matters distributed are public emoluments and honours, public burdens, rewards, and also punishments.Distributive justiceis the virtue of the king and of the statesman, of the commander-in-chief, of the judge, and of the public functionary generally. It is violated by favouritism, partiality, and jobbery.Distributive justiceis the Justice that we adore in the great Governor of the Universe, saying that He is "just in all His works," even though we understand them not. When it takes the form of punishing, it is calledvindictive justice. This is what the multitudes clamoured for, that filled the precincts of the Palace of Whitehall in the days of Charles I. with cries of Justice, Justice, for the head of Strafford.
5. Neither legal nor distributive justice fully answers to the definition of that virtue. Justice disposes us to giveto another his own. The party towards whom Justice is practised must be wholly other and different from him who practises it. But it is clear that the member of a civil community is not wholly other and different from the State: he is partially identified with the civil community to which he belongs. Therefore neither the tribute oflegal justicepaid by the individual to the State, nor the grant ofdistributive justicefrom the State to the individual, is an exercise of Justice in the strictest sense. Again, what the individual pays to the State because he is legally bound to pay it, does not become theState's ownuntil after payment. If he withhold it, though he do wrong, yet he is not said to be keeping any portion of the public property in his private hands: he only fails to make some of his private property public, which the law bids him abdicate and make over. If this be true of money and goods, it is still more evidently true of honour and services. In like manner, in the matter ofdistributive justice, the emoluments which a subject has a claim to, the rewards which he has merited of the State, does not becomehistill he actually gets them into his hands. It may be unfair and immoral that they are withheld from him, and in that case, so long as the circumstances remain the same, the obligation rest with and presses upon the State, and those who represent it, to satisfy his claim: still the State is not keeping the individual from that which is as yet his own. In the language of the Roman lawyers, he has at best ajus ad rem, a right that the thing be made his, but not ajus in re; that is, the thing is not properly his before he actually gets it.
6.Commutative justicealone is Justice strictly so called: for therein alone the parties to the act are perfectly other and other, and the matter that passes between them, if withheld by one of the parties, would make a case of keeping the other out of that which he could still properly call by right his own.Commutative justiceruns between two individuals, or two independent States, or between the State and an individual inasmuch as the latter is an independent person, having rights of his own against the former. This justice is calledcommutative, from being concerned withexchanges, or contracts,voluntaryandinvoluntary. The idea of voluntary contract, like that between buyer and seller, is familiar enough. But the notion of aninvoluntary contractis technical, and requires explanation. Whoever, then, wrongfully takes that which belongs to another, enters into an involuntary contract, or makes an involuntary exchange, with the party. This he may do by taking away his property, honour, reputation, liberty, or bodily ease and comfort. This is an involuntary transaction, against the will of the party that suffers. It is a contract, because the party that does the damage takes upon himself, whether he will or no, by the very act of doing it, the obligation of making the damage good, and of restoring what he has taken away. This is the obligation ofrestitution, which attaches to breaches ofcommutative justice, and, strictly speaking, to them alone. Thus, if a minister has not promoted a deserving officer in face of a clear obligation ofdistributive justice, the obligation indeed remains as that of a duty unfulfilled, so long as he remains minister with the patronage in his hands: but the promotion, if he finally makes it, is not an act of restitution: it is giving to the officer that which was not his before. And if the opportunity has passed, he owes the officer nothing in compensation. But if he has insulted the officer, he owes him an apology for all time to come: he must give back that honour which belonged to the officer, and of which he has robbed him. This is restitution. In a thousand practical cases it is important, and often a very nice question to decide, whether a particular offence, such as failure to pay taxes, be a sin againstcommutative justiceor only against some more general form of the virtue. If the former, restitution is due: if the latter, repentance only and purpose of better things in future, but not reparation of the past.
7. The old notion, that Justice is minding your own business, and leaving your neighbour to mind his, furnishes a good rough statement of the obligations ofcommutative justice. They are mainly negative, to leave your neighbour alone in his right of life and limb, of liberty and property, of honour and reputation. But in two ways your neighbour's business may become yours in justice. The first way is, if you have any contract with him, whether a formal contract, as that between a railway company and its passengers, or a virtual contract, by reason of some office that you bear, as the office of a bishop and pastor in relation to the souls of his flock. The second way in which commutative justice binds you to positive action, is when undue damage is likely to occur to another from some activity of yours. If, passing by, I see my neighbour's house on fire, not having contracted to watch it for him, and not having caused the fire myself, I am not bound in strict justice to warn him of his danger. I am bound indeed by charity, but that is not the point here. But if the fire has broken out from my careless use of fire,commutative justicebinds me to raise the alarm.
8. The most notable potential parts of Justice—Religion, Obedience, Truthfulness—enter into the treatise of Natural Law.
Readings.—Ar.,Eth., V., i.; Plato,Rep., 433 A;ib., 443 C, D, E; St. Thos., 2a 2æ, q. 58, art. 2, in corp;ib., q. 58, art. 5;ib., q. 58, art. 6, in corp;ib., q. 58, art. 7;ib., q. 58, art 9, in corp.;ib., q. 61, art. 1, in corp.;ib., q. 61, art. 3, in corp.; Ar.,Eth., V., ii., 12, 13; St. Thos., 2a 2æ, q. 62, art. 1, in corp., ad 2.
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1. A granite boulder lying on an upland moor stands indifferently the August sun and the January frost, flood and drought. It neither blooms in spring, nor fades in autumn. It is all one to the boulder whether it remain in the picturesque solitude where the glacier dropped it, or be laid in the gutter of a busy street. It has no growth nor development: it is not a subject of evolution: there is no goal of perfection to which it is tending by dint of inward germinal capacity seconded by favourable environment. Therefore it does not matter what you do with it: all things come alike to that lump of rock.
2. But in a cranny or cleft of the same there is a little flower growing. You cannot do what you will with that flower. It has its exigencies and requirements. Had it a voice, it could say, what the stone never could: "I must have this or that: I must have light, I must have moisture, a certain heat, some soil to grow in." There is a course to be run by this flower and the plant that bears it, a development to be wrought out, a perfection to be achieved. For this end certain conditions are necessary, or helpful: certain others prejudicial, or altogether intolerable. In fact, that plant has aprogressive nature, and therewith is a subject of good and evil. Good for that plant is what favours its natural progress, and evil is all that impedes it.
3. All organic natures are progressive: that is, each individual of them is apt to make a certain progress, under certain conditions, from birth to maturity. But man alone has his progress in any degree in his own hands, to make or to mar. Man alone, in the graphic phrase of Appius Claudius, isfaber fortunæ suæ, "the shaper of his own destiny." Any other plant or animal, other than man, however miserable a specimen of its kind it finally prove to be, has always done the best for itself under the circumstances: it has attained the limit fixed for it by its primitive germinal capacity, as modified by the events of its subsequent environment. The miserable animal that howls under your window at night, is the finest dog that could possibly have come of his blood and breeding, nurture and education. But there is no man now on earth that has done all for himself that he might have done. We all fall short in many things of the perfection that is within our reach. Man therefore needs to stir himself, and to be energetic with a free, self-determined energy to come up to the standard of humanity. It is only his free acts that are considered by the moralist. Such is the definition of Moral Science, that it deals withhuman acts; acts, that is, whereof man is master to do or not to do. (c. i., nn. 1, 2.)
4. We have it, then, that a morally good act is an act that makes towards the progress of human nature in him who does it, and which is freely done. Similarly, a morally evil act is a bar to progress, or a diversion of it from the right line, being also a free act. Now, that act only can make for the progress of human nature, which befits and suits human nature, and suits it in its best and most distinctive characteristic. What is best in man, what characterises and makes man, what the old schoolmen called theformof man, is his reason. To be up to reason is to be up to the standard of humanity. Human progress is progress on the lines of reason. To make for that progress, and thereby to be morally good, an act must be done, not blindly, brutishly, sottishly, or on any impulse of passion, however beneficial in its effects, but deliberately, and in conscious accordance with the reasonable nature of the doer.
5. Whatever be man's end and highest good, he must go about to compass it reasonably. He must plan, and be systematic, and act on principle. For instance, if the public health be the highest good, the laws which govern it must be investigated, and their requirements carried out, without regard to sentiment. If pleasure be the good, we must be artists of pleasure. If, however, as has been seen (c. ii.) the highest good of man is the highest play of reason herself in a life of contemplation, to be prepared for, though it cannot be adequately and worthily lived, in this world, then it is through following reason, through subjecting appetite to reason by temperance, and the will to reason by justice, and reason herself by a "reasonable service" to God, that this end and consummation must be wrought out. Thus, in Plato's phrase (Rep., 589 B), the moral man acts so that "the inner man within him, the rational part of his nature, shall be strongest; while he watches with a husbandman's care over the many-headed beast of appetite, rearing and training the creature's tame heads, and not letting the wild ones grow; for this purpose making an ally of the lion, the irascible part of his nature, and caring for all the parts in common, making them friends to one another and to himself." In this way he will meet the true exigency of his natureas a whole, with due regard to the proper order and subordination of the parts. He who lives otherwise, acts in contradiction to his rational self. (c. v., s. iii., n. 3, p. 74).
6. The result of the above reasoning, if result it has, should be to explain and justify the Stoic rule,naturae convenienter vivere, to live according to nature. But some one will say: "That is the very ideal of wickedness: all good in man comes of overcoming nature, and doing violence to natural cravings: live according to nature, and you will go straight to the devil." I answer: "Liveaccording to a part of your nature, and that the baser and lower, though also the more impetuous and clamorous part, and you will certainly go where you say: but liveup to the whole of your nature, as explained in the last paragraph, and you will be a man indeed, and will reach the goal of human happiness." But again it may be objected, that our very reason, to which the rest of our nature is naturally subordinate, frequently prompts us to do amiss. The objection is a just one, in so far as it goes upon a repudiation of the old Platonic position, that all moral evil comes of the body, wherein the soul is imprisoned, and of the desires which the body fastens upon the soul. Were that so, all sins would be sins of sensuality. But there are spiritual sins, not prompted by any lust or weakness of the body, as pride and mutiny, self-opinionatedness, rejection of Divine revelation. The objection turns on sins such as these. The answer is, that spiritual sins do not arise from any exigency of reason, but from a deficiency of reason; not from that faculty calling upon us, as we are reasonable men, to take a certain course, in accordance with a just and full view of the facts of the case, but from reason failing to look facts fully in the face, and considering only some of them to the neglect of others, the consideration of which would alter the decision. Thus a certain proud creature mentioned in Scripture thought of the magnificence of the throne above the stars of God, on the mountain of the covenant, on the sides of the north: he did not think how such a pre-eminence would become him as a creature. He had in view a rational good certainly, but not a rational good for him. Partial reason, like a little knowledge, is a dangerous thing.
7. As it is not in the power of God to bring it about, that the angles of a triangle taken together shall amount to anything else than two right angles, so it is not within the compass of Divine omnipotence to create a man for whom it shall be a good and proper thing, and befitting his nature, to blaspheme, to perjure himself, to abandon himself recklessly to lust, or anger, or any other passion. God need not have created man at all, but He could not have created him with other than human exigencies. The reason is, because God can only create upon the pattern of His own essence, which is imitable, outside of God, in certain definite lines of possibility. These possibilities, founded upon the Divine essence and discerned by the Divine intelligence, are the Archetype Ideas, among which the Divine will has to choose, when it proceeds to create. The denial of this doctrine in the Nominalist and Cartesian Schools, and their reference to the arbitrary will of God of the eternal, immutable, and absolutely necessary relations of possible things, is the subversion of all science and philosophy.
8. Still less are moral distinctions between good and evil to be set down to the law of the State, or the fashion of society. Human convention can no more constitute moral good than it can physical good, or mathematical or logical truth. It is only in cases where two or more courses are tolerable, and one of them needs to be chosen and adhered to for the sake of social order, that human authority steps in to elect and prescribe one of those ways of action, and brand the others as illegitimate, which would otherwise be lawful. This is called the making of apositive law.
Readings.—St. Thos., 1a 2æ, q. 18, art. 5, in corp.; 1a 2æ, q. 71, art. 2; Plato,Rep., 588 B to end of bk. ix.; Ar.,Eth., IX., iv., nn. 4-10; Suarez,De Legibus, II., vi., nn. 4, 11; Cicero,De Legibus, i., cc. 15-17.
1. The great problem of Moral Philosophy is the explanation of the idea,I ought, (c. i., n. 6). We are now come close up to the solution of that problem. The wordoughtdenotes the necessary bearing of means upon end. To everyoughtthere is a pendentif. The meansoughtto be taken,ifthe end is to be secured. Thus we say: "Yououghtto start betimes,ifyou are to catch your train." "Yououghtto study harder,ifyou are to pass your examination." The person spoken to might reply: "But what if I do miss my train, and fail in my examination?" He might be met with anotherought: "Yououghtnot to miss the one,ifyou are to keep your appointment: or to fail in the other,ifyou are to get into a profession." Thus the train ofoughtsandifsextends, until we come finally to a concatenation like the following: "Yououghtnot to break your word, or to give needless pain to your parents,ifyou don't want to do violence to that nature which is yours as a reasonable being," or "to thwart your own moral development,"—and so on in a variety of phrases descriptive of the argument of the last section. Here it seems the chain is made fast to a staple in the wall. If a person goes on to ask, "Well, what if I do contradict my rational self?" we can only tell him that he is a fool for his question. Theoughts, such as those wherewith our illustration commenced, Kant calls thehypothetical imperative, the form being, "You must, unless:" but theoughtwherein it terminated, he calls thecategorical imperative, the alternative being such as no rational man can accept, and therefore no alternative at all.
2. This doctrine of the Categorical Imperative is correct and valuable so far as it goes. But then it does not go far enough. The full notion of what a manought, is what hemust do under pain of sin. Sin is more than folly, more than a breach of reason. It is mild reproach to a great criminal to tell him that he is a very foolish person, a walking unreasonableness. If he chooses to contradict his rational self, is not that his own affair? Is he not his own master, and may he not play the fool if he likes? The answer is, "No, he is not his own master; he is under law, and his folly and self-abuse becomes criminal and sinful, by being in contravention of the law that forbids him to throw himself away thus wantonly."
3. Kant readily takes up this idea, shaping it after his own fashion. He contends,—and herein his doctrine is not merely deficient, but positively in error,—that the Categorical Imperative, uttered by a man's own reason, has the force of a law, made by that same reason; so that the legislative authority is within the breast of the doer, who owes it obedience. This he calls theautonomy of reason. It is also called Independent Morality, inasmuch as it establishes right and wrong without regard to external authority, or to the consequences of actions, or to rewards and punishments. The doctrine is erroneous, inasmuch as it undertakes to settle the matter of right and wrong without reference to external authority; and inasmuch as it makes the reason within a man, not the promulgator of the law to him, but his own legislator. For a law is a precept, a command: now no one issues precepts, or gives commands, to himself. To command is an act of jurisdiction; and jurisdiction, like justice (see c. v., s. ix., n. 1, p. 102) requires a distinction of persons, one ruler, and another subject. But the reason in a man is not a distinct subject from the will, appetites, or other faculties within him, to which reason dictates: they are all one nature, one person, one man; consequently, no one of them can strictly be said to command the rest; and the dictate of reason, as emanating from within oneself, is not a law. But without a law, there is no strict obligation. Therefore the whole theory of obligation is not locked up in the Categorical Imperative, as Kant formulated it.
4. The above argumentation evinces that God is not under any law; for there is no other God above Him to command Him. As for the ideas of what is meet and just in the Divine intelligence, though the Divine will, being a perfect will, is not liable to act against them, yet are those ideas improperly called a law to the Divine will, because intellect and will are identified in one God. Kant's doctrine makes us all gods. It is a deification of the human intellect, and identification of that intellect with the supreme and universal Reason; and at the same time a release of the human will from all authority extraneous to the individual. This amounts to a putting off of all authority properly so called, and makes each man as sovereign and unaccountable as his Maker. "Thy heart is lifted up, and thou hast said: I am God, and sit in the chair of God: and hast set thy heart as if it were the heart of God: whereas thou art a man and not God." (Ezech. xxviii. 2.) Kant is thus the father of the pantheistic school of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel.
5. But it has been contended that this phrase about a man who does wrongbreaking a law, is only a metaphor and figure of speech, unless it be used with reference to the enactment of some civil community. Thus John Austin says that anatural lawis a law which is not, but which he who uses the expression thinks ought to be made. At this ratesinis not a transgression of any law, except so far as it happens to be, in the lawyer's sense of the word, acrime, or something punishable in a human court of justice. There will then be no law but man's law. How then am Iobligedto obey man's law? Dr. Bain answers: "Because, if you disobey, you will bepunished." But that punishment will be either just or unjust: if unjust, it originates no obligation: if just, it presupposes an obligation, as it presupposes a crime and sin, that is, an obligation violated. There seems to be nothing left for John Austin but to fall back upon Kant and his Categorical Imperative, and say that whoever rebels against the duly constituted authority of the State in which he lives, is a rebel against the reason that dwells within his own breast, and which requires him to behave like a citizen. So that ultimately it is not the State, but his own reason that he has offended; and the State has no authority over him except what his own reason gives.
6. If this were true, there would be no sin anywhere except what is calledphilosophical sin, that is, a breach of the dignity of man's rational nature; and the hardest thing that could be said in reprobation of a wrongdoer, would be that he had gone against himself, and against his fellow-men, by outraging reason, the common attribute of the race.
7. Far worse than that has the sinner done. He has offended against his own reason, and thereby against a higher Reason, substantially distinct from his, standing to it in the relation of Archetype to type, a Living Reason, [Greek: hepsychos logos] (cf. Ar.,Eth., V., iv., 7), purely and supremely rational. The Archetype is outraged by the violation of the type. Moreover, as the two are substantially distinct, the one being God, the other a faculty of man, there is room for a command, for law. A man may transgress and sin, in more than thephilosophicalsense of the word: he may be properly alaw-breaker, by offending against this supreme Reason, higher and other than his own.
8. Here we must pause and meditate a parable.—There was a certain monastery where the monks lived in continual violation of monastic observance. Their Abbot was a holy man, a model of what a monk ought to be. But though perfectly cognisant of the delinquencies of his community, he was content to display to his subjects the edifying example of his own life, and to let it appear that he was aware of their doings and pained at them. He would croon softly as he went about the house old Hell's words: "Not so, my sons, not so: why do ye these kind of things, very wicked things?" But the monks took no notice of him. It happened in course of time that the Abbot went away for about ten days. What he did in that time, never transpired: though there was some whisper of certain "spiritual exercises," which he was said to have been engaged in. Certain it is, that he returned to his monastery, as he left it, a monk devout and regular: the monk was the same, but the Abbot was mightily altered. The morning after his arrival, a Chapter was held; the Abbot had the Rule read from cover to cover, and announced his intention of enforcing the same. And he was as good as his word. Transgressions of course abounded: but the monks discovered that to transgress was quite a different thing now from what it had been. Seeing the law proclaimed, and the Abbot in earnest to enforce it, they too reformed themselves: the few who would not reform had to leave. The subsequent holy lives of those monks do not enter into this history.
9. Now, we might fancy God our Lord like the Abbot of that monastery in the early years of his rule. We might fancy the Supreme Reason, displeased indeed, as Reason must be, at the excesses and follies of mankind, but not otherwise commanding men to avoid those evil courses. Were God to be thus quiescent, what we have called (n. 6)philosophical sin, would indeed carry this additional malice, beyond what was there set down, of being an offence against God, but it would not be a grievous offence: for it would not be a sin in the proper sense of the term, not being a transgression of the law of God, inasmuch as God, by the supposition, would have given no law. But the supposition itself is absurd. God could not so withhold His command. He is free indeed not to command, but that only by not creating. If He wills to have creatures, He must likewise will to bind them to certain lines of action: which will to bind in God is a law to the creature.
10. This assertion, thatGod cannot but will to bind His creatures to certain lines of action, must be proved, though in the ascent we have to mount to high regions, and breathe those subtle airs that are wafted round the throne of the Eternal. As God is the one source of all reality and of all power, not only can there be no being which He has not created and does not still preserve, but no action either can take place without His concurrence. God must go with His every creature in its every act: otherwise, on the creature's part, nothing could be done. Now, God cannot be indifferent what manner of act He shall concur unto. A servant or a subject may be indifferent what command he receives: he may will simply to obey,—to go here or there, as he is bid, or to be left without orders where he is. That is because he leaves the entire direction and management of the household to his master. But for God to be thus indifferent what action He should lend His concurrence to, would be to forego all design and purpose of His own as to the use and destiny of the creatures which He has made and continually preserves. This God cannot do, for He cannot act aimlessly. It would be renouncing the direction of His own work, and making the creature His superior. God is incapable of such renunciation and subservience. He must, then, will the cooperation which He lends, and the concurrent action of the creature, to take a certain course, regulated and prescribed by Himself: which is our proposition, that God cannot but will to bind His creatures to certain lines of action. If His free creatures choose to stray from these lines, God indeed still cooperates, and to His cooperation is to be ascribed thephysical goodnessof the action, not itsmoral inordinateness and inopportuneness. Still, as the action is morally inordinate, God may be said to cooperate, in a manner, where He would not: whence we gather some conception of the enormity of sin. (See c. vii., nn. 5, 6, pp. 130, 131.)
11. The lines of action laid down and prescribed by God are not arbitrary and irrespective of the subject of the command. They are determined in each case by the nature of the subject. The Author of Nature is not apt to subvert that order which proceeds from Himself. He bids every creature act up to that nature wherein He has created it. His commands follow the line of natural exigency. What this natural exigency amounts to in man in regard to his human acts, we have already seen, (c. vi., s. i., p. 109.)
12. The difference between a necessary and a free agent is, that the former is determined by its nature to act in a certain way, and cannot act otherwise: the latter may act in more ways than one. Still, as we have seen, the nature even of a free agent is not indifferent to all manner of action. It requires, though it does not constrain, the agent to act in certain definite ways, the ways of moral goodness. Acting otherwise, as he may do, the free agent gainsays his own nature, taken as a whole, a thing that a necessary agent can nowise do. God therefore who, as we have shown, wills and commands all creatures whatsoever to act on the lines of their nature, has especial reason to give this command to His rational creatures, with whom alone rests the momentous freedom to disobey.
13. We are now abreast of the question, of such burning interest in these days, as to the connection of Ethics with Theology, or of Morality with Religion. I will not enquire whether the dogmatic atheist is logically consistent in maintaining any distinction between right and wrong: happily, dogmatic atheists do not abound. But there are many who hold that, whether there be a God or no, the fact ought not to be imported into Moral Science: that a Professor of Ethics, as such, has no business with the name of the Almighty on his lips, any more than a lecturer on Chemistry or Fortification. This statement must be at once qualified by an important proviso. If we have any duties of worship and praise towards our Maker: if there is such a virtue as religion, and such a sin as blasphemy: surely a Professor of Morals must point that out. He cannot in that case suppress all reference to God, for the same reason that he cannot help going into the duties of a man to his wife, or of an individual to the State, if marriage and civil government are natural institutions. If there is a God to be worshipped, any book on Moral Science is incomplete without a chapter on Religion. But the question remains, whether the name of God should enter into the other chapters, and His being and authority into the very foundations of the science. I do not mean the metaphysical foundations; for Metaphysics are like a two-edged sword, that cleaves down to the very marrow of things, and must therefore reveal and discover God. But Morality, like Mathematics, takes certain metaphysical foundations for granted, without enquiring into them. On these foundations we rear the walls, so to speak, of the science of Ethics without reference to God, but we cannot put the roof and crown upon the erection, unless we speak of Him and of His law. Moral distinctions, as we saw (c. vi., s. i. n. 7, p. 113), are antecedent to the Divine command to observe them: and though they rest ultimately on the Divine nature, that ultimate ground belongs to Metaphysics, not to Ethics. Ethics begins with human nature, pointing out that there are certain human acts that do become a man, and others that do not. (c. vi., s. i., p. 109.) To see this, it is not necessary to look up above man. Thus we shall prove lying, suicide, and murder to be wrong, and good fellowship a duty, without needing to mention the Divine Being, though by considering Him the proof gains in cogency. Or rather, apart from God we shall prove certain acts wrong, and other acts obligatory as duties,philosophicallyspeaking, with an initial and fundamental wrongness and obligation. In the present section we have proved once for all, that what is wrong philosophically, or is philosophically a duty, is the same alsotheologically. Thus the initial and fundamental obligation is transformed into an obligation formal and complete. Therefore, hereafter we shall be content to have established the philosophical obligation, knowing that the theological side is invariably conjoined therewith. As St. Thomas says (1a 2æ, q. 71, art. 6, ad 5): "By theologians sin is considered principally as it is an offence against God: but by the moral philosopher, inasmuch as it is contrary to reason." But what is contrary to reason offends God, and is forbidden by Divine law, and thus becomes asin. No God, no sin. Away from God, there isindecencyandimpropriety, unreasonableness, abomination, andbrutality, all this in view of outraged humanity: there is likewisecrimeagainst the State: but the formal element ofsinis wanting. With sin, of course, disappears also the punishment of sin as such. Thus to leave God wholly out of Ethics and Natural Law, is to rob moral evil of half its terrors, and of that very half which is more easily "understanded of the people." A consideration for school-managers.
Readings.—St. Thos., 1a, q. 22, art. 2, in corp. (against Lucretius, ii. 646-651); Suarez,De Legibus, II., vi., nn. 3, 5-9, 13, 14, 17, 20-24.
1. A law is defined to be: A precept just and abiding, given for promulgation to a perfect community. A law is primarily a rule of action. The first attribute of a law is that it bejust: just to the subject on whom it is imposed, as being no harmful abridgment of his rights: just also to other men, as not moving him to injustice against them. An unjust law is no law at all, for it is not a rule of action. Still, we may sometimes be bound, when only our own rights are infringed, to submit to such an imposition, not as a law, for it is none, but on the score of prudence, to escape direr evils. A law is no fleeting, occasional rule of conduct, suited to meet some passing emergency or superficial disturbance. The reason of a law lies deep down, lasting and widespread in the nature of the governed. A law, then, has these two further attributes of permanence in duration and amplitude in area. Every law is made for all time, and lives on with the life of the community for whom it is enacted, for ever, unless it be either expressly or implicitly repealed. A law in a community is like a habit in an individual, an accretion to nature, which abides as part of the natural being, and guides henceforth the course of natural action. This analogy holds especially of those laws, which are not enacted all of a sudden—and such are rarely the best laws—but grow upon the people with gradual growth unmarked, like a habit by the repetition of acts, in the way of immemorial custom. I have said that a law is for a community, that it requires amplitude and large area. A law is not laid down for an individual, except so far as his action is of importance to the community. The private concerns of one man do not afford scope and room enough for a law. Neither do the domestic affairs of one family. A father is not a legislator. A law aims at a deep, far-reaching, primary good. But the private good of an individual, and the domestic good of a family, are not primary goods, inasmuch as the individual and the family are not primary but subordinate beings: not complete and independent, but dependent and partial; not wholes but parts. The individual is part of the family, and the family is part of a higher community. It is only when we are come to some community which is not part of any higher, that we have found the being, the good of which is primary good, the aim of law. Such a community, not being part of any higher community in the same order, is in its own order a perfect community. Thus, in the temporal order, the individual is part of the State. The State is a perfect community; and the good of the State is of more consequence than the temporal well-being of any individual citizen. The temporal good of the individual, then, is matter of law, in so far as it is subservient to the good of the State. We have, then, to hold that a law is given to the members of a perfect community for the good of the whole. Not every precept, therefore, is a law: nor every superior a lawgiver: for it is not every superior that has charge of the good of a perfect community. Many a precept is given to an individual, either for his private good, as when a father commands his child, or for the private good of him that issues the precept, as when a master commands a servant. But every law is a precept: for a law is an imperative rule of action, in view of a good that is necessary, at least with the necessity of convenience. To every law there are counsels attached. A law may be said to be anucleusof precept, having anenvelopeof counsel. Every law has also a pendent called punishment for those who break it: this is called thesanctionof the law. A law is also forpromulgation, as a birch rod forapplication. The promulgation, or application, brings the law home to the subject, but is not part of the law itself. So much for the definition of Law.
2. We have to learn to look upon the whole created universe, and the fulness thereof, angels, men, earth, sun, planets, fixed stars, all things visible and invisible, as one great and perfect community, whose King and Lawgiver is God. He is King, because He is Creator and Lord. But lordship and kingship are different things, even in God. It is one thing to be lord and master, owner and proprietor of a chattel, property and domain: it is another thing to be king and governor, lawgiver and judge of political subjects. The former is calledpower of dominion, or right of ownership, the latter ispower of jurisdiction. Power of dominion is for the good of him who wields it: but power of jurisdiction is for the good of the governed. As God is Lord of the universe, He directs all its operations to His own glory. As He is King, He governs as a king should govern, for the good of His subjects. In intellectual creatures, whose will is not set in opposition to God, the subject's good and the glory of the Lord finally coincide. God's power of dominion is the concern of theologians: the moralist is taken up with His power of jurisdiction, from whence emanates the moral law.
3. In the last chapter (s. ii., nn. 9, 10, pp. 120, 121), we stated the moral law in these terms, thatGod wills to bind His creatures to certain lines of action, not arbitrary lines, as we saw, but the natural lines of each creature's being. The law thus stated takes in manifestly a wider field than that of moral action. There is in fact no action of created things that is not comprehended under this statement. It comprises the laws of physical nature and the action of physical causes, no less than the moral law and human acts. It is the one primeval law of the universe, antecedent to all actual creation, and co-eternal with God. And yet not necessary as God: for had God not decreed from all eternity to create—and He need not have decreed it—neither would He have passed in His own Divine Mind this second decree, necessarily consequent as it is upon the decree of creation, namely, that every creature should act in the mode of action proper of its kind. This decree, supervening from eternity upon the creative decree, is called the Eternal Law.
4. This law does not govern the acts of God Himself. God ever does what is wise and good, not because He binds Himself by the decree of His own will so to act, but because of His all-perfect nature. His own decrees have not for Him the force of a precept: that is impossible in any case: yet He cannot act against them, as His nature allows not of irresolution, change of mind, and inconsistency.
5. Emanating from the will of God, and resting upon the nature of the creature, it would seem that the Eternal Law must be irresistible. "Who resisteth His will?" asks the Apostle. (Rom. ix. 19.) "The streams of sacred rivers are flowing upwards, and justice and the universal order is wrenched back." (Euripides,Medea, 499.) It is only the perversion spoken of by the poet, that can anywise supply the instance asked for by the Apostle. The thing is impossible in the physical order. The rivers cannot flow upwards, under the conditions under which rivers usually flow: but justice and purity, truth and religion may be wrenched back, in violation of nature and of the law eternal. The one thing that breaks this law is sin. Sin alone is properly unnatural. The world is full of physical evils, pain, famine, blindness, disease, decay and death. But herein is nothing against nature: the several agents act up to their nature, so far as it goes: it is the defect of nature that makes the evil. But sin is no mere shortcoming: it is a turning round and going against nature, as though the July sun should freeze a man, or the summer air suffocate him. Physical evil comes by the defect of nature, and by permission of the Eternal Law. But the moral evil of sin is a breach of that law.
6. A great point with modern thinkers is the inviolability of the laws of physical nature,e.g., of gravitation or of electrical induction. If these laws are represented, as J. S. Mill said they should be, astendenciesonly, they are truly inviolable. The law of gravitation is equally fulfilled in a falling body, in a body suspended by a string, and in a body borne up by the ministry of an angel. There is no law of nature to the effect that a supernatural force shall never intervene. Even if, as may be done perhaps in the greatest miracles, God suspends His concurrence, so that the creature acts not at all, even that would be no violation of the physical law of the creature's action: for all that such a law provides is, that the creature, if it acts at all, shall act in a certain way, not that God shall always give the concurrence which is the necessary condition of its acting at all. The laws of physical nature then are, strictly speaking, never violated, although thecourseof nature is occasionally altered by supernatural interference, and continually by free human volition. But the laws of physical nature, in the highest generality, are identified with the moral law. The one Eternal Law embraces all the laws of creation. It has a physical and a moral side. On the former iteffects, on the latter itobliges, but on both sides it is imperative; and though in moral matters it be temporarily defeated by sin, still the moral behest must in the end be fulfilled as surely as the physical behest. The defeat of the law must be made good, the sin must be punished. Of the Eternal Law working itself out in the form of punishment, we shall speak presently.
7. It is important to hold this conception of the Eternal Law as embracing physical nature along with rational agents. To confine the law, as modern writers do, to rational agents alone, is sadly to abridge the view of its binding force. The rigid application of physical laws is brought home to us daily by science and by experience: it is a point gained, to come to understand that the moral law, being ultimately one with those physical laws, is no less absolute and indefeasible, though in a different manner, than they.
It is hard for us to conceive of laws being given to senseless things. We cannot ourselves prescribe to iron or to sulphur the manner of its action. As Bacon says (Novum Organum, i., Aphorism 4): "Man can only put natural bodies together or asunder: nature does the rest within." That is, man cannot make the laws of nature: he can only arrange collocations of materials so as to avail himself of those laws. But God makes the law, issuing His command, the warrant without which no creature could do anything, that every creature, rational and irrational, shall act each according to its kind or nature. Such is the Eternal Law.
Readings.—Suarez,De Legibus, I., xii.; St. Thos., 1a 2æ, q. 90, art. 2-4;ib., q. 91, art. 1, in corp., ad 1;ib., q. 93, art. 1, in corp.;ib., q. 93, art. 4, in corp.;ib., q. 93, art. 5, in corp.;ib., q. 93, art. 6, in corp.; Suarez,De Legibus, II., vi.; Cicero,De Legibus, II., iv.;id.,De Republica, iii. 22.