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ETHICS
GENERAL AND SPECIAL
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
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TORONTO
ETHICS
GENERAL AND SPECIAL
BY
OWEN A. HILL, S.J., Ph.D.
Lecturer on Psychology, Natural Theology, Ethics
and Religion, at Fordham University,
New York City, N. Y.
iiaeto gotfe
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1920
AU rights reserved
OOPTEIGHT, 1920,
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped. PubUshed, July, 1920
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Jtsqtrimi patteL
JOSEPHUS H. ROCKWELL, S.J.,
Praepositus Prov. Marylandiae Neo-Ehoracensis.
N!1|U obBtat
ARTHURUS J. SCANLAN, S.T.D.,
Censor Librorum.
Imiiriinatnr.
PATRITIUS J. HAYES, D.D.,
Archiepiscopus Neo-Ehoracensis.
Neo-Ebobaci, die 15 Aprilis, 1920.
435851
FREFACB
The whole trouble with all Modern Philosophy is rank sub-
jectivism, and subjectivism is, perhaps, most destructive in
the domain of Ethics. Protestantism and Modern Philosophy
grow on the same tree, and the root of the tree is subjectivism.
This fact accounts for all the atheism, all the materialism, all
the socialism in the world. It is to blame for all the irreli-
gion, all the injustice, all the tyranny now afflicting large and
small nations; and the World War did not settle matters,
the Peace Conference, in spite of all its good intentions, prac-
tically left things where it found them. Evils persevere as
long as their causes; and till men think right, till Modern
Philosophy js killed from men's minds, till Scholastic Phi-
losophy gets everywhere the hearing it deserves, these evils,
far from being eliminated, will prosper, grow and multiply.
No body of men can regulate mankind, unless mankind itself
is amenable to direction, unless mankind entertains correct
notions regarding God, the Soul, and the nature of author-
ity. I^aws are no better than the men who make them, and
laws are little worth, unless subjects are minded to see and
obey divinity in them. It is awfully hard, in fact it is im-
possible, to persuade anybody to think that any single man
or any collection of men, whether a majority or a minority,
possess independent right over the free wills of other men,
and are empowered to make and execute laws on their own
initiative. God alone holds that supreme prerogative; and
this fact is clear proof not only that all authority is imme-
diately from God, but also that all authority passes imme-
diately from God to ruler, without effective interference with
authority itself on the part of the people. God is immediate
maker of the Natural Law, He is mediate maker of all civil
law; and the presence of God in civil law makes civil law a
sacred obligation. Unjust law is no law at all, because God
has no part in its making. Unjust law has all the force men
VIU
PREFACE
can give it. It has physical force in its favor, because men
can contribute that; and physical force never binds men's
free wills. Unjust law has no moral force, the kind that God
gives; and free wills are servants to moral force alone. All
the moral force in civil law comes from God, men are able
to back it up with physical force; but moral force, because
it touches free wills, is beyond the jurisdiction of mere men,
and necessarily leans for its validity on God alone.
Consent of the governed is one thing before the establish-
ment of government, it is an entirely different thing after
government is once established. Physical freedom is man's
birthright, and remains intact before and after the establish-
ment of government. Civil law is made by the state, and
before government is constituted there is no state, and there-
fore no adequate human lawmaker. Before government be-
comes a fact, natural law is the one restraint on moral free-
dom ; and natural law wants a multitude without government
to form a government at its earliest convenience. A people,
therefore, is not morally free to live with or without govern-
ment. Nature wants men to live in a state, under law and
authority; and nature's wishes are what God wants, nature's
wishes are the Natural Law.
A government de jure and de facto is, of course, better
than a government merely de facto; but when a government
de jure is impossible without continuous strife and universal
bloodshed, a government de facto is better than no govern-
ment at all. Even rights must be prosecuted with prudence,
and in case of such a government de facto, right must await
a more favorable opportunity to assert itself, it must not work
with headlong rashness to its own harm and the destruction
of order.
In common sense and the natural law legitimate conquest
is as just and secure a title to authority as inheritance or
suffrage or purchase ; and in the words of Suarez nearly every
government in modern times traces its origin to right of con-
quest. This is far from meaning that modem states are built
on physical force for single title. They are built immediately
on physical force, mediately on moral right. Physical force
when employed to pursue a right has all the sacredness of
PEEFACE ix
moral right itself. To take a familiar and up-to-date instance,
the Allies had a perfect moral right to impose on Germany
and Austria all the terms of the armistice. Whatever terms
the Allies exacted from the defeated Germans they exacted
by force; but this force was backed up by clear moral right,
the indisputable right nations have to defend themselves
against an open, bold and aggressive oppressor, to punish his
crime with becoming penalties, and to make it effectively and
forever impossible for him to repeat his dastardly act. When
criminals are captured and convicted, they are not straight-
way liberated. They are fined light or heavy sums, they are
imprisoned for short or long terms; and if the criminal hap-
pens to be a murderer, reason quite approves of his utter de-
struction. Conquest, of course, can be illegitimate or legiti-
mate. Illegitimate conquest is no valid title. Illegitimate
conquest, like everything else illegitimate, is of no value in
the court of morality.
A government or State always implies a body of laws, or
a constitution; and, prior to the establishment of a govern-
ment, the people enjoy full moral freedom to select some set
form of government and appoint a ruler. Moral freedom is
removed by law, law is the denial of moral freedom, because
law means obligation, and obligation means moral necessity,
the diametrical opposite of moral freedom.
Self-determination implies full moral freedom to choose a
form of government and select a ruler. Where no government
exists, no civil law exists, no constitution exists, and this right
to self-determination is sacred; where government is already
established, civil law exists, a constitution or fixed body of
civil laws, exists; and the principle of self-determination is
all wrong. Correct Ethics recognizes no such independent
right in ruler or subjects. Law restricts moral freedom, and
the constitution is law. The constitution stands for the Royal
Compact championed by Suarez. Neither ruler nor people
must override the constitution. This constitution embodies
the respective rights and privileges of ruler and subjects, and
defines the method of procedure to be followed in case of a
dispute between ruler and subjects. As long as the ruler
keeps within the terms of the constitution, his right to author-
PREFACE
ity is beyond question, and subjects by themselves are not at
liberty to change the form of government or curtail the ruler's
prerogatives. The ruler can at intervals make concessions to
his subjects, subjects can at intervals do the same favor to
their ruler; but every such transaction must be mutual and
agreeable to both parties. The ruler can voluntarily abdicate
or forfeit his authority by abuse of his prerogative; and in
either case, unless succession is otherwise settled by the con-
stitution, the multitude reverts to its original condition of
no government, and the people have full moral freedom to
select a form of government and choose a ruler. In the prose-
cution of an unjust war the ruler can lose his authority by
legitimate conquest ; and in this case ruler and subjects pass
under the authority of the conqueror. In pursuance of this
truth the Allies at the Peace Conference imposed a form of
government on Germany and Austria, allowing them a small
measure of liberty in their selection of rulers, disarmed them,
taxed them, and in every way treated them as subject peoples.
The small states previously belonging to Germany and Aus-
tria got from the Allies, for purposes of peace, the right to
self-determination, and in granting this favor the Allies as
victors were clearly within their rights.
CONTENTS
PART I
GENERAL ETHICS
Introduction- Pages 1-7
Thesis I. Every agent worka unto an end. This end is truly a
cause. The will in all its deliberate movements has some
definite last end, whether strictly or relatively such Pages 7-18
Thesis II. Man of his very nature desires complete happiness.
Complete happiness is man's absolutely last end subjectively
taken. This natural desire must be possible of fulfilment.
No created good can secure to man complete happiness.
The possession of God is alone complete happiness, and God
is man's absolutely last end objectively taken . . Pages 18--28
Thesis III. Man's destiny in this life, his supremest happiness
on earth, consists in drawing closer and closer to his last
end by the establishment of moral rectitude in his actions.
Between good and bad in the moral order, between right
and wrong, an essential, intrinsic difference exists. The
immediate measure of moral rectitude is the objective order
of things as understood by the intellect ; the mediate measure
is God's wisdom and goodness Pages 28-41
Thesis IV. A Natural Law, unchangeable, universal, eternal,
has place in man ; its complete and full sanction is reserved
for the next life; and eternal punishment is not opposed to
God's goodness. This Natural Law is the foundation and
corner-stone of all Positive Law Pages 41-70
Thesis V. The five causes of morality, final, material, formal, .
model and efficient. Generic and specific morality. Ob-
jective and subjective morality. Good, bad and indifferent
acts. Morality's subjective measure is synderesis and con-
science. Morality's efficient case is intellect and will. Appe-
xii * CONTENTS
tite, the passions, and will. Morality's root is freedom of
will. Voluntary and involuntary acts. End and intention.
Morality's obstacles, ignorance and error affect the intellect ;
the passions, notably fear, affect the will; violence affects
executive not appetitive faculties, ordered not elicited
acts Pages 70-92
Thesis VI. A human act gets its specific morality from the ob-
ject of the act, from the agent's end or purpose, and from
circumstances affecting both ....... Pages 92-101
Thesis VII. Probabilism is a safe and correct system in mat-
ters of conscience Pages 101-110
Thesis VIII. Virtues and Vices Pages 110-122
Thesis IX. Character and Habits Pages 122-127
Thesis X. Rights and Duties Pages 127-137
Thesis XI. Contracts Pages 137-144
Thesis XII. Interest Pages 144-149
Thesis XIII. Merit and Demerit Pages 149-152
Thesis XIV. Utilitarianism is wrong, dangerous and ab-
surd Pages 152-170
Thesis XV. Kant's autonomy of reason is wrong . Pages 170-175
PART II
SPECIAL ETHICS
Introduction Pages 175-177
Thesis I. Religion is man's first duty, a matter of essential
necessity to the individual and to the state. Worship, in-
terior and exterior, public and private, is God's due. Man's
duty towards revelation is to accept it, when known as such ;
to diligently seek and find it, when hidden, and when he has
reason to suppose that it exists. Toleration in matter of
dogma is absurd Pages 177-201
CONTENTS xiii
Thesis II. Suicide is a sin against nature. Death inflicted in
self-defense is under certain conditions justifiable. Private
duels are highly absurd and contrary to the Law of
Nature Pages 201-225
Thesis III. A lie is always and of its very nature wrong. To
safeguard a proportionate right the use of a broad mental
reservation is allowed Pages 225-241
Thesis IV. Man's right to ownership, whether temporary or
lasting, is derived to him not from any formal compact
nor from any civil law, but from nature . . Pages 241-260
Thesis V. Socialism is false in its principles, morally impos-
sible in itself, and quite absurd Pages 260-280
Thesis VI. The right remedy for labor troubles is union be-
tween employers and workmen, based on inequality; con-
sulting the interests of both in such a way, that they
enjoy life and its comforts along with freedom and
peace Pages 280-289
Thesis VII. Marriage is honorable and in harmony with man's
dignity Pages 289-300
Thesis VIII. Celibacy, when love of virtue is its motive, is
more excellent than marriage . . . . . Pages 300-311
Thesis IX. Polygamy, though not against strict Natural Law,
little accords with it ....... . Pages 311-318
Thesis X. Incomplete divorce, or separation without any at-
tempt to contract a new marriage, is sometimes allowable.
Complete divorce, or separation affecting the marriage tie,
though not evidently opposed to strict Natural Law in
every conceivable case, is nevertheless out of harmony with
that secondary Law of Nature, which counsels the
proper Pages 318-342
Thesis XL Education of children belongs to parents first;
to State, last Pages 342-358
Thesis XII. Man is by very nature a social being Pages 358-366
Thesis XIII. A multitude and authority, or subjects and a
ruler, are elements essential to civil society or the
state Pages 366-371
3UV
CONTENTS
:)-V/j! ■ t^- i^/v*
Thesis XIV. Authority proceeds immediately from God. In
the nature of things and ordinarily authority is not cou'
ferred on the people. Ordinarily and in the nature of
things the consent of the people fixes or determines the
person in whom authority resides. It may be implied or
expressed; immediate or gradual; and cannot always b©
withheld Pages 371-388
Thesis XV. Woman suffrage, though legitimate in exceptional
eases, is fraught with dangers Pages 388-398
Thesis XVI. The State enjoys full Legislative Executive and
Judicial rights, the prerogative of Eminent Domain, and the
War-Power Pages 39ft-404
ETHICS, GENERAL AND SPECIAL
PART I
GENERAL ETHICS
INTEODUCTION
A WORD about the importance of our subject. This work
is intended to throw some additional light on the topic of
morality. For Ethics is our theme, and Ethics is the science
of morality. And if any detail of thought has a vital bear-
ing on man's destiny, if any branch of study helps shape his
life, that detail of thought is suggested by Ethics, morality
is that study. Ethics is the science of putting order in man's
free acts; and, when you reflect that all sin, and much trouble,
and hell itself are only varying phases of disorder, it must
be evident that this science, theoretically mastered and sys-
tematically reduced to practice, could effect a revolution in
the world. And the revelutionists would be hailed as the
Emancipators of mankind. They would go down in history,
and they do go down in history as the supremest benefactors
of our race.
Witness the instance of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Even His bitterest enemies, even men who deny Him every
other vestige of divinity, acknowledge that the world was
made better by His presence among men, and attribute to
His maxims and example an abiding influence for good. He
was a teacher of Ethics for whom the world waited with long-
ing for full four thousand years. He was a teacher of Ethics,
whose like the world of to-day misses exceedingly. The wis-
dom of His utterances even from a purely human standpoint,
without regard at all to the spirit of faith and grace's en-
vironment, in which they ought to be accepted, is as much
a subject of concern to the learned of to-day as it was in His
^lyUym \ S\ 'GENERAL ETHICS
own lifetime to the doctors in the temple, to the Scribes and
the Pharisees deeply read in the Law. The wisdom of His
utterances extorts praise from unbelievers, and compels the
attention of the universe. Men who will not worship Him
as God are unable, when face to face with His heavenly doc-
trine and precepts, to withhold the homage due superhuman
intelligence. I insist upon this point as a conclusive proof
of the deep importance attaching to Ethics, because Christ's
ethical teaching is the only claim Christ has on the reverence
and respect of men completely abandoned by faith, and not
wholly bereft of reason. He has other and far more cogent
claims on our homage; but we, as well as strangers to faith,
can learn with profit to appreciate the human side of the
God-man's character. And Christ, apart from His tran-
scending dignity as God, ranks first among the most consum-
mate legislators the world ever entertained, and merits as
such unstinted praise from all mankind, from believer and
unbeliever alike. He owes the homage wrung from unwilling
unbelievers not to the influence of grace, nor yet to the
miracles of wonder He wrought in favor of suffering and
sickness, but mainly to the fact that His discourses breathe
an unerring love for rectitude; and half His lifework was
the ethical instruction of humanity.
Teachers, who appeal to the curious in human nature, will
hold the ears of men until supplanted by other teachers with
more startling novelties for wares; but teachers of morality
will never be without an audience, though they deal out
truths as old as time. Such is the passion of mankind for
what tends to put men in improved relations with themselves,
with one another, and with God, that, as long as a human
heart beats, due importance will be attached to problems of
morality, and propounders of morality will have their uses
in the universe. We men are eminently practical beings, and
the almost total absence of pure theory, and of the strictly
academic discussions common in Logic and Metaphysics from
Moral Philosophy, makes this branch of the science more in-
teresting and absorbing. After all, we were equipped with
minds only to borrow light from them for the operations of
the will, the head is servant to the heart, and life takes all its
true color from action, not from knowledge. To this simple
I
INTRODUCTION 3
fact must be ascribed the undoubted superiority of Ethics in
the kingdom of study. Then, too, we are born with an in-
alienable and harassing love of happiness. We want to be
happy here, we want to be happy hereafter, and the wish
lives of our very life. Every glance of the eye aims at the
discovery of happiness' hiding place, every throb of the heart
is an invitation to happiness' pity, and every single thought
of saint and sinner alike has happiness for mainspring and
motive. There is no help for it ; we were made that way ; and,
to lose the inclination, we should have to get outside of our-
selves. Moral Philosophy professes to mark out the lines
along which we can without loss pursue this fleeting phantom
of happiness, and at the same time makes distinct record
of blunders to which the history of our race bears witness.
It puts on a solid basis principles, that, if practically ful-
filled, can have but one result, the inward approbation of a
conscience, working on and up to the right. And when con-
science approves, remorse is still, this life knows no truer
happiness than peace, and thorough blamelessness is bonded
promise of eternal blessedness.
Moral Philosophy puts us right with the world of being in
which we move, and does the thing in the neatest way con-
ceivable. It first discusses general notions of morality; mo-
tives for action, standards of measure, methods and means of
discovery, palliative circumstances, characteristics, responsi-
bility, merit and blame, helps and hindrances, law. These
abstract questions pave the way for more tangible and posi-
tive considerations. They partake of the nature of principles,
that run through the second or practical part of Moral Phil-
osophy. A man's duties and a man's rights are definitely
settled in this second part, by applying to the different emer-
gencies, in which a man may find himself, all the truths ac-
cumulated and made good in the first part. Thus, the first
condition that confronts us, when brought into being, is that of
dependence on God. Moral Philosophy takes hold of this con-
dition, examines it in every detail, and sternly decrees the
rigid demands of reason with regard to religion, worship and
revelation. It then lays down rules for man's behavior to-
wards himself and towards his fellow-men, taken as indi-
viduals. These rules are far reaching, and define exactly his
4 GENERAL ETHICS
obligations with respect to his body, his soul, his life, and his
neighbor's body, soul and life. They determine the nature
and fairness of private property, and establish the sanctity of
contracts. Society in all its ramifications is the next study.
The family and the State are the topics ; and each meets with
the fullest treatment. The family presents such vital ques-
tions as marriage, its oneness, its perpetuity, its obligations, its
relations with the civil power, parents and children. The
State leads to an analysis of men's inclination to band them-
selves together, of the purpose that actuates the inclination, of
the elements entering into society 's structure ; of authority, its
origin, its phases, its constituents, and of the mutual relations
between ruler and subjects. Tongiorgi offers this other di-
vision of Ethics from its causes: 1, Final cause, or man's
last end; 2, Material cause, or man's moral acts; 3, Formal
cause, or good and evil; 4, Model cause, or Natural Law; 5,
Efficient cause, mind, will and habits, behavior.
These, therefore, are some of the topics destined to occupy
our attention. The field is so vast that we can hope to do any-
thing like justice to only the leading points; and it shall be
my endeavor, while making my treatment of the matter as
thorough as possible, to omit nothing of primary importance.
While devoting no little time to the forward part of Moral,
or General Ethics, we intend to pay more special attention
to the after-part, designated by some authors as Natural Right.
The spirit of Catholicity will of course pervade our whole
work. We shall never forget that we are men of faith, with
the light of the Scriptures as interpreted by the Church for
guide, with the traditions of two thousand years at our serv-
ice, and the example of an army of saints before our eyes.
We enter not into this enquiry in the disposition of Rational-
ists, who exercise to-day so wide an influence in the world
of thought, outside the one true Church. We hesitate to re-
move God's messages to men from the field of morality. We
refuse to regard man as an absolute, self-sufficient being, in-
dependent of his surroundings, accountable to no superior for
his conduct, his own guide, his own reward, his own punish-
ment. We maintain, on the contrary, that every instant of
his life is beset with well defined relations; that he is poor,
and weak, and erring ; that he is affected by his environment,
INTRODUCTION 5
strictly responsible before an all-wise, an all-holy, and an all-
powerful God for his thoughts, his words and his acts; and
a candidate for the Heaven or hell of Scripture, for the place
of delight with golden streets, or the prison house of fire
that knows no surcease of pain. Reason with us is quite as
important a factor in morality as it is with the Rationalists.
"We hold it in even higher esteem than they. We follow as
far as it leads, accept all its legitimate conclusions, and allow
neither prejudice nor passion to meddle with our loyalty to
its counsels. We take no half -measures, we journey not to
a certain point and then stop short. But, when reason makes
clear the undoubted existence of a teaching Church, the real-
ity of a code of law harassing in the extreme to human na-
ture, we adopt its teaching with all the responsibilities and
all the sacrifices implied. When reason proclaims in a loud
voice its own proneness to confound the false with the true,
its inability to cope with problems, capable of taxing even
angelic minds, we take reason's word for the statement, and
accept on God's authority what reason cannot even under-
stand. Reason without a guide is not sufficient in the deli-
cate task of arranging the moral details of a man 's life. Rea-
son was made to adopt the truth, not to fathom all truth ; and
reason is then exerting its proper activity, when in matters
beyond its grasp it humbly submits to instructions from a
superior. Reason is of its nature infallible, but it is by acci-
dent capable of mistake, and accidents are nowhere so likely
to occur as in the domain of moral teaching. IntellectuaJ
pride is the forerunner of unbelief, unbelief gives loose rein
to license, license kills conscience; and, when conscience is
once dead, man sinks lower than the level of a beast, and
becomes a veritable monster of iniquity.
There are certain basic truths we take for granted in all
these discussions, not because they cannot be proved, but be-
cause they belong to other departments of philosophy. They
are all abundantly proved elsewhere, and we are justified in
carrying over truths made good in other portions of the study.
Chief among these truths I should reckon the existence of
God; His supreme ownership of all else, man not excepted;
the immortality of the soul; free will; and man's ability to
compass certainty in the domain of knowledge. Atheism, Ma-
6 GENERAL ETHICS
terialism, Determinism, and Scepticism are theories opposed
to these several points of doctrine, and are overwhelmingly
refuted in Natural Theology, Psychology, and Logic. We
prove God a living reality from the need of one unproduced
actual being, to explain the produced beings that fall under
our experience. Deny God, and the universe of creatures is
without explanation, an effect with no cause. We prove God
a living reality from the wonderful order apparent in the
physical universe, written large across the sky, the earth, and
the sea. We prove God a living reality from a moral order
embodied in the voice of conscience, proclaiming aloud the
wishes of a superior compelling us with threats and promises
to cherish right and despise wrong, to do good and avoid
evil. We prove God a living reality from the common con-
sent of mankind, dating back to the earliest ages of history,
and enduring with undiminished vigor down to our own times.
God is supreme owner of all else in virtue of the principle
that to the maker belongs the thing he makes; and God cre-
ated, made from nothing, the world and all the minerals,
plants, brutes and men the world contains. Apart from other
compelling arguments, the soul's immortality is settled by its
simplicity and spirituality. It has no parts, and is, therefore,
in itself incorruptible or indestructible. It is intrinsically
independent of matter, and is, therefore, safe from accidental
corruption or destruction. The omnipotence of God cannot
annihilate a human soul without doing violence to God's other
attributes; and no one attribute in God runs counter to an-
other. Every individual man is a living witness to his pos-
session of free will. All human intercourse is based on this
quality of men; and in any other hypothesis law and social
order would have no meaning; honesty and virtue would
perish from the earth ; reward and punishment would be idle
terms without a show of significance. Scepticism is a huge
joke in philosophy; a direct insult to the goodness and wis-
dom of God; and its own completest refutation. Therefore,
with perfect right we suppose everywhere in these discussions
that God exists, that man is His property to dispose of as He
pleases, that man's soul will live forever, that man is free,
and that all doubt is a diseased condition of the mind that
study and observation can cure.
THESIS I
Every agent works unto an end. This end is truly a cause.
The will in all its deliberate movements has some definite last
end, whether absolutely or relatively such. Jomn, 5-19;
Rickaby, 3-6.
QUESTION
By a sort of paradox we begin our Ethics with the end.
Ethics is a set of rules for conduct, man's conduct is a series
of his deliberate acts, and the beginning of every deliberate
act is some end or purpose the man proposes to himself to
accomplish or effect. And so the paradox ceases. While
true to its name in one order, the end is false to its name in
another. It is last in the order of execution, first in the order
of intention. The house as a finished product is the last thing
to reward the builder's eyes, after weeks and months of work;
the same house, as it existed in his mind and will, was the first
thing to suggest plans and operations, running all the way
from cellar to roof. We are therefore justified in beginning
with the end, because intention precedes execution, and no-
body builds a house without prior thought of plans, without
prior wish of a habitation. People never build a house with-
out caring what will be the result of their endeavors; they
never build a house, when they want an automobile. Inten-
tion is end energizing the will, and on this account intentional
and deliberate are practically synonymous. To energize the
will, the end must first fall under the notice of the intellect ;
and a deliberate act is an act done with full knowledge and
consent. Unintentional for the same reason is in our language
an equivalent for indeliberate. The philosophy of the thing
is plain in our expression, ''Where no offense is intended, no
offense can be taken." Wise men pay no attention to a hurt,
when the wrong-doer has no desire to hurt, or hardly knows
that his conduct causes pain. Intention, therefore, presup-
poses an intellect and a will working together in mutual har-
7
8 GENERAL ETHICS
mony, and the use of the word is regularly restricted to man.
In brutes, plants and minerals the same phenomenon of
finality, or seeking an end, is verified in every exertion of
their energy, and is best named appetency, tendency, nature.
A brute has instinct for guide and appetite for root of de-
sire, both are constrained faculties without a vestige of free-
dom ; and they base a certain imperfect deliberation, a certain
show of intention, attributed in philosophy to brutes. Brutes
never in reality choose, when of two or more alternatives they
adopt or embrace one ; the transaction is due not to choice or
selection, but to an inexorable law imposed on them by their
Maker, and instinct is with us a handy term for that law.
The whole process in brutes is not intention, but appetency;
and the perfect deliberation present in man's acts is always
absent from the acts of brutes. Plants enjoy neither sense nor
appetite; and they grow, nourish and reproduce themselves
without any knowledge whatever on their part, without any
desire whatever, but wholly in virtue of a tendency or bent
communicated to them by their Maker. In their case, all
knowledge of end and all desire of its accomplishment are
in God. And what is true of plants is true of minerals, with
this single difference that capacity for self-motion attaches
to plants, while it is absent from minerals. Minerals, there-
fore, prosecute their end by very nature, in virtue of obedi-
ence to the law of gravity, and to whatever other physical
and chemical laws obtain in creation, God imposing this duty
of obedience.
Every agent works unto an end; and the saying, when re-
stricted to minerals, plants and brutes, is of small or no im-
portance in Ethics, because every such agent is outside the
sphere of morality. In common with other creatures, man
works towards an end ; and, what is more important in Ethics,
man in all his deliberate movements works towards a definite
last end, whether absolutely and unreservedly or only rela-
tively such. God Himself is no exception to this rule of
finality; and in creation He must have purposed His own
glory, as nothing short of God is worthy of God, and God
can slave to no unworthy end. God's glory is, therefore,
the absolutely last end of all creatures; and, in the words
of our catechism, we are all here to praise, worship and serve
END AND DESTINY 9
God, and to save our souls. God's glory is creatures' ex-
ternal last end, because it is primarily for God, not for crea-
tures. Besides this external last end, we must recognize an
internal last end ; and in the course of our work we shall see
that it is for man complete happiness, the vision of God,
salvation. In the event of wishing to create, God simply
had to intend creatures for His glory, and we know from
man's natural craving for complete happiness that God
meant man to compass this surpassing good.
And all morality dates back to this single fact. Man must
respect his Maker's wishes, because it rests with the maker to
dispose of his work as an owner ; and God 's wishes are plain ;
man must glorify God by a life of virtue here, and by com-
plete happiness hereafter. Good and evil must, therefore, be
differentiated, law must be kept under penalty of punish-
ment, and duties must be fulfilled with scrupulous exactness.
Hence, we begin with end, show that while God's glory is
man's absolutely last extrinsic end, the possession of God is
man's absolutely last intrinsic end; that virtue is his rela-
tively last intrinsic end; that virtue can be differentiated
from vice; that the objective order of things is the standard
or measure enabling men to distinguish virtue from vice ;
that man is under strict law to avoid evil and do good, and
satisfy every relation in force between himself on the one
hand, and God, self and the neighbor on the other. Destiny
is end viewed as an obligation imposed by a superior; and
man's destiny, taking into account his present and future
life, is complete happiness or the intellectual possession of
God; man's destiny, restricting the question to this present
life alone, is virtue, or a closer and closer approach to God
by the introduction of moral rectitude into his conduct. And
the enemies of finality want to feel free from all restraint,
and escape responsibility for their misdeeds, on the plea of
total and complete independence.
Finality is the most obvious phenomenon in nature; and
yet, to escape the manifest responsibility resulting from final-
ity, some philosophers have denied its existence. Epicurus
and men of his stamp felt themselves hampered in their dreams
of pleasure by the unwelcome notion of a final cause, and in
their intellectual impotence strove to shake it off, by agreeing
10 GENERAL ETHICS
to regard it an empty fancy. They maintained that every-
thing happened by a sort of unavoidable chance, and claimed
that man trifled with himself in supposing that he had any
destiny to fulfil. Of course the doctrine would prove con-
venient to men set on living at haphazard, unwilling to bor-
row any worry from possible consequences of their rash con-
duct. Whatever obscurity may cloak the truth in the case
of inanimate and irrational agents, the thing is too plain in
the case of man to admit of the slightest doubt. Man knows
that he has a destiny to fulfil, and because of his power of
choice, coupled with the inevitable conviction, that in his
every act he is pursuing some definite purpose, he knows
that he will be rewarded or punished according to his deserts.
TERMS
Every Agent. Agents can be separated into three classes,
beings without any knowledge whatever, beings with sensible
knowledge or instinct, and beings with intellects and wills.
Agents of the first class work unto an end under direction;
minerals without any motion of their own, plants with self-
motion. Agents of the second class work unto an end appre-
hensively or with knowledge, and with motion of their own,
but by instinct which is a necessary cause. Agents of the
third class work apprehensively, with motion of their own,
and with the power to select and reject means. Examples of
all three are an arrow on its way to the target, a dog walk-
ing home, a man making money.
End. Finis est id propter quod aliquid fit, id cujus gratia
aliquid fit. The end is that on account of which, for the sake
of which something is done. It is what induces the agent to
work; that towards which the agent strives, to rest in it, to
quit the activity of seeking, not the activity of enjoyment.
Ends are classified thuswise: Last or farthest away; proxi-
mate or closest; and intermediate, between last and proxi-
mate. Last is sometimes absolutely and unreservedly last,
sometimes relatively last. An end is absolutely last, when it
cannot in reason be referred to any higher end, any end be-
yond or farther away; when the agent can in reason devote
himself and all his endeavors to its accomplishment; when
DIVISION OF ENDS 11
it is the possession of God, and only then. It is relatively
last, when it is in reality referred to no end heyond, like money
in the case of a miser, though it can he in reason, and in
conscience ought to he referred to some higher end, like
money in the case of a saint; when it cannot in reason claim
all a man's endeavors, hut only a certain corner of his ener-
gies and attention. A proximate end is virtually a means
to some last or intermediate end. An intermediate end is a
means lying between a proximate and last, the first interme-
diate being a means to the second, and so on to the finish.
In the present classification we distinguish two orders, that
of execution and that of intention ; and our division is in the
order of execution. The possession of God, or complete hap-
piness, is first thing in the order of intention, last in the
order of execution. Thought of reward starts effort, reward
stands to the winner after effort is over. Ends are likewise
divided into end which, end for which, and end in which.
They are, respectively, the good sought, the person advan-
taged, and possession. Examples are, learning, student and
education, in the matter of study. An end to he produced
is a good without physical existence prior to the agent 's activ-
ity; an end to he ohtained is a physical reality prior to the
agent's effort. Health in the case of a sick man, and gold
in the ease of a miser are instances. End of deed and end
of doer, in Latin, operis and operantis, are important. The
first is that to which the agent's work is by its very nature
suited and fitted ; the other is whatever good the agent selects
for purpose of his work. Ends of deed are, a house with a
builder, a song with a singer, time with a watchmaker. Ends
of doer are, worship, fame, money with all three.
Cause. Whatever produces another with influence on its
very heing, the influence issuing in dependence, is a cause.
There are four leading causes, two of them internal, material
and formal; two of them external, efficient and final. Each
of the four has its own proper and peculiar activity, each
producing the effect, each contributing in its own special
way to the production of the effect or new existence. An
efficient cause has direct bearing on the effect, without enter-
ing its intrinsic constitution, and contributes of its own to
the effect, whether its activity be physical or moral. A final
12 GENERAL ETHICS
cause directly affects the efficient cause, and through it in-
fluences the effect, contributing of its own to the effect by
moral activity alone. The influence of an efficient cause is
exerted first and foremost on the effect; the influence of a
final cause is exercised first and foremost on the mind and
will of the agent, and through them on the effect. The
difference between a physical efficient cause and a final cause
is too plain to be missed, but the same is not true of a moral
efficient cause and a final. Moral efficients are close images
of finals, and yet the two must not be confounded together.
A moral efficient has a more direct bearing on the effect than
a final. One man bribes another with money to commit
murder. The briber is moral efficient cause of the murder,
the money offered is final cause of the murder. The activity
of the briber bears on the murder, he uses the murderer as
an instrument, and the moral phase of the affair passes to
physical. The money bears on the mind and will of the mur-
derer, and all its activity remains moral. Neither is a final
cause a mere condition. Like all causes, it is a condition too ;
but to the notion of condition it adds the quality of a thing
more intimately connected with the work or effect. A condi-
tion as such enters into no part of the effect proper. All
its ultility ceases, when the effect proper begins. It makes
things ready, and then disappears. The final cause, on the
contrary, really sets the agent in motion by the influence it
exerts on his will, if the agent is rational, or by the influence
it exerts on the will of the First Cause, God, if the agent is
irrational. Besides, a condition is no sufficient reason for the
effect. In the process of burning compare the dryness of the
waste burnt, and its juxtaposition, with a fire that consumes
it. Some final cause must urge the builder to begin opera-
tions, and this final cause influences him all the way from
beginning to finish, from cellar to roof. The end is a cause
only in the order of intention ; in the order of execution it is
in proper language an effect.
The Will. A spiritual faculty^ proper and peculiar to
man, capable of seeking good hy acts elicited under the di-
rection of the intellect. Appetite is of three kinds; natural,
proper to minerals and plants; sensible, proper to brutes; and
intellectual or rational, proper to man. All three are in man,
HUMAN ACTS 13
natural and sensible alone are in brutes, natural alone is in
minerals and plants. The will is rational appetite, and meets
with full and complete treatment in Psychology.
Deliberate. Man is capable of two kinds of acts, deliberate
and indeliherate. Toying with the beard or aimlessly rub-
bing the chin, is the classical instance of an indeliberate act.
Deliberate acts are so familiar that an example would be
superfluous. The will aside, intellectual knowledge and a
degree of attention are really the distinguishing characteris-
tics of a deliberate act, as compared with an indeliberate act.
Will separates it not from indeliberate, but from spontaneous
acts. Perfect deliberation is itself defined to be an act of the
reason, by which, at the instigation of the will, the mind
compares together different ends, different means, with a view
to making a choice. In deliberation it will be noted that the
third operation of the mind, not merely the first or second,
has play. In other words, a comparison is instituted, and this
process necessitates the employment of argumentation. Phi-
losophers recognize a kind of imperfect deliberation, which
they attribute to brute animals. The knowledge requisite
is limited to sole perception of the end by means of the ex-
ternal senses, aided principally by sensile discrimination.
And men are as capable as brutes of this imperfect delibera-
tion, or real indeliberateness. It nowise reaches, like the
knowledge of perfect deliberation, to the nature of the end,
or to the connection between a certain act and a certain pur-
pose. In imperfect deliberation the motion of the agent is
ordinarily quick and sudden; in perfect deliberation it is
ordinarily slow and measured. Human acts, distinctively
such, have three elements, intellectual knowledge, desire and
freedom., activities of intellect and will, man's two specific
functions. Desire and freedom can be expressed together by
the one word, selection. Selection always presupposes knowl-
edge, in much the same way as operations of the mind have
operations of the senses for foundation. Hence the adage,
''Nil volitum, nisi praecognitum, " "Things unknown are not
matter for wishes." Freedom in the same way has for sup-
port the two faculties of intellect and will; and, in the ab-
sence of either, freedom is impossible. A voluntary or delib-
erate act is an act proceeding from the will accompanied by
14 GENERAL ETHICS
intellectual knowledge of the end sought. Deliberate, or vol-
untary acts in strict sense, are arranged in different classes.
Perfectly voluntary acts are accomplished with full knowl-
edge, and with fall consent of the will.
Imperfectly voluntary acts imply that either knowledge, or
consent, or both are imperfect.
Absolutely voluntary acts are accomplished with full delib-
eration, attention and bias.
Acts are relatively or after a manner voluntary, when con-
sent is present, but mingled with a certain aversion and lean-
ing of the will towards the opposite act. E.g., sailors throw-
ing cargo overboard in storm.
A directly voluntary act turns on some immediate object of
the will, intended in itself and for its own sake. E.g., theft,
murder.
Indirectly voluntary acts turn on some object necessarily
connected with immediate object. E.g., effect in cause, drunk-
enness in excessive drinking, death and a thrown stone.
In a positively voluntary act the will acts, as in a sin of
commission.
In a negatively voluntary act the will refuses to act, as in
a sin of omission.
Expressly voluntary acts are clear from words or signs.
Tacitly voluntary acts are gathered from facts.
An act is actually voluntary, when willed here and now,
without question of break or interruption.
An act is virtually voluntary, when voluntary by force of
an original actual voluntary, the actual wish being broken or
interrupted, without detriment to its moral continuity and
influence.
An act is habitually voluntary, when its original was actu-
ally willed once, and was never taken back; but the actual
wish was broken or interrupted to such an extent by sleep,
or delay, or something such that it no longer lasts or influ-
ences by way of an act, but only by way of a habit.
An act is interpret atively voluntary, when never actually
willed, but would be willed if thought were had of the thing,
e. g., desire of salvation combined with opposition to baptism.
PROOFS 15
Division
Three parts. I. End. II. Cause. III. Last end.
Proofs I, II, III
I. Every agent works unto some determined and well de-
fined effect. Otherwise all effects would be indifferent, or of
the same attractiveness; and there would be no reason why
one effect should be produced rather than another. Very pro-
duction is a sign that the effect produced was more attractive
to the agent than other effects. But such an effect has all the
constituents of an end, which is that on account of which the
agent works. Ergo, every agent works unto an end.
II. Whatever produces another with influence on its very
being, the influence issuing in dependence, is truly a cause.
But such is the end. Ergo, the end is truly a cause. With
regard to the Minor. The builder's purpose contributes even
more to the building of the house than his saw or hammer, be-
cause it starts things and stays with him to the finish. The
saw does its own work, the hammer its own; and that is all.
The end is responsible for their work and for the work of
everything else employed in the construction of the building.
In rational agents the end's influence is immediate; in min-
erals, plants and brutes it is mediate, directly influencing
God, their Maker and First Cause, to furnish them with such
and such natures, tendencies and faculties, or instincts, in
preference to others, because best suited and adapted to the
works He intends them to accomplish.
III. 1°. In every series of causes there ought to be a flrst
cause. But if the will had no definite last end, there would
be no first cause. Ergo.
With regard to the Major. The second cause, to be second,
would be an effect. But an effect without a cause is impos-
sible. Ergo.
With regard to the Minor. The last end is the first cause.
Ergo.
With regard to this Antecedent. The first cause is what
first excites the agent to activity. But this is the office of the
last end. Ergo.
With regard to this Minor. Axiom — The end is first thing
in a man's intention, last thing in the order of execution.
16 GENERAL ETHICS
2°. The last end, with regard to an act of the will, fills
the place of motion's first principle. But remove the first
principle of motion, and no motion exists. Ergo, in the
event of no definite last end, no act of the will ensues.
3°. When one thing in nature is the reason why another
thing receives such or such a denomination, the first of the
two is more deserving of the denomination than the second,
which actually receives it. But all intermediate ends owe
their whole being, and consequently their every denomination,
to some last end; and these intermediate ends, at least, are
purposes worked unto by every agent. An intermediate is
sought only with a view to some corresponding last end.
Otherwise it is not an intermediate end. Ergo, the last end
is all the more so such a purpose; that is, the will in all its
deliberate movements has some definite last end, whether
strictly or relatively such.
4°. Every particular or individual good tends of its nature
to some common or universal good, as to its proper end. But
God, the absolute good, is common or universal good, and
every created good is particular or individual good. Ergo,
every created good, or things in general tend of their nature
to one good, God, as to their last end.
With regard to the Major. Parts exist for the sake of the
whole.
With regard to the Minor. All good comes from, and de-
pends for its being on God.
N.B. This last argument proves that nature wants man in
all his deliberate movements to have God for definite last
end. Man's every wish is implicitly, if not explicitly, an ef-
fort towards complete happiness, and complete happiness is
the possession of God. Implicitly, therefore, this definite last
end is always the absolutely last or God ; and implicitly speak-
ing God is necessarily the last end of every deliberate act or
series of actions. What nature wants, God wants. We can-
not improve on God, and when we try to do so we fail.
PRINCIPLES
A. The single difference between a means and an end is
this, that the former is striven after merely for the sake of
PRIiNCIPLES 17
the end, while the latter is striven after for itself. In fact,
a means is an end before it is compassed ; it becomes a means
only after it ceases to be an end only after it is compassed.
Means in process of making, means in fieri, is an end; means
formally taken, means in facto esse is not an end. Before it
can be used, it has to be compassed or sought ; and what the
will seeks, is the man's end. Hence the absurdity of writers,
who claim that Jesuit philosophers and moralists advocate
the wicked theory, that a laudable end justifies any means
whatever, no matter how immoral and wrong. Jesuits would
be blind, indeed, if they failed to see at a glance that such a
theory, because of the unimportant difference between means
and end, would be a virtual advocacy of this evidently iniqui-
tous principle, that all ends, good, bad and indefferent, are
justified ; and that murder and forgiving charity, robbery and
alms-deeds are equally worthy of our aspirations and en-
deavors.
B. An intention is an a-ot by which the will embraces the
end as its peculiar good. Any reason urging the will to this
act is called a motive. Whatever helps to the possession of
the end is a means ; and such means as simply remove impedi-
ments from the path are remedies.
C. The motion the end communicates to the agent is not
physical, but of equivalent efficacy in another order, namely,
in the logical order, the order of thought. Its whole effi-
ciency lies in the love it stirs in the agent's will, after its
presentation by the intellect of the agent; and this love con-
tributes as much to the production of the effect as the physical
efficient cause.
D. Man in his indeliberate actions, works unto an end much
as brutes, apprehensively, with motion of his own, but by in-
stinct. Such acts are called acts of the man, not acts of man
or human acts.
E. The end, or final cause, considered in the order of exe-
cution, is no cause of the effect, since its place is behind that
of the effect, and causes precede their ffects. We maintain
only this, that the end is a true and real cause, when con-
sidered in the order of intention. Objectively speaking, end
in the order of execution is a built house, end in the order of
intention is a thought house.
THESIS II
Man of his very nature desires complete happiness. Com-
plete happiness is man's ah&olutely last end subjectively
taken. This natural desire must he possible of fulfilment.
No created good can secure to man complete happiness. The
possession of God is alone complete happiness, and God is
alone complete happiness, and God is man's absolutely last
end objectively taken. Jouin, 5-19 ; Rickaby, 6-26.
QUESTION
Here on the threshold of morality a multitude of questions
besets us. We know from Metaphysics that every agent, man
included, works unto some end. We know, further, that man
excels all other creatures in this, that he chooses his end and
selects means to its accomplishment. He is not an accumu-
lation of blind forces, working along lines mapped out for him
by another. He thinks for himself, he decides for himself,
he weighs, examines, approves, condemns. We have from
our previous acquaintance with philosophy a fair insight into
his faculties. From experience we have a fair knowledge of
the motives, that clamor for his attention in the routine of
everyday affairs. Some are money-makers, some are chiselling
for themselves a niche in the temple of fame, some are in
continual search for health or the means to preserve it, some
keep busy nursing an appetite for palatable dishes, and others
travel in pursuit of a good they can expect to come up with
only after death. We have to range ourselves in some class.
Nay, we are placed already. For the present we want to
look at things with the cold, calculating eyes of reason, to
profit by our own mistakes and the mistakes of others, and
stand just where common sense would have us stand in life's
struggles. We want to find out what craving is in reality at
the bottom of human d-esires, and what one object in the uni-
verse can sate the craving. Our thesis is the answer. Hap-
18
COMPLETE HAPPINESS 19
piness is last in the series of wish-factt)rs, and God is alone
large enough, when possessed, to leave no room for further
desire. We mean by wish-factors the reasons prompting our
wishes; and money, pleasure, honor are wished in last analy-
sis because they hold out promise of happiness. Man cannot
in reason want anything beyond God, man cannot in reason
rest in the enjoyment of anything this side of God.
TERMS
Happiness. This is the theme with which the Lord Christ
opened His sublime discourse on the Mount. The beatitudes
are eight steps in the ladder to God ; and, when the wisest of
men communicated the secret of success in life to the listen-
ing multitude. He knew best with what word to preface His
remarks. Beati, He said, blessed, happy are the poor in
spirit, and so on through the catalogue. His mission was in
part the instruction of mankind and the conquest of souls.
Redemption and merit aside, He aimed in all His movements
at spreading the kingdom of virtue in the hearts of men.
And the happiness born of virtue was the most tremendous
motive at His command. He thought no reward a more ap-
pealing incentive to virtue than happiness, and God's ideas
are right. He knew in His infinite wisdom that other re-
wards, while possibly exerting a temporary influence over
men's minds, would in the last resort fail of effect. He knew
that other rewards, from their very nature and the constitu-
tion of man, would prove only partial incentives, subject to
all the varying phases of human conduct. He knew that
wealth, for instance, with all its attractiveness for some, would
act as a deterrent on others ; that fame would appeal to the
instincts of a circle limited indeed in numbers. But happi-
ness is a universal good, it is at the root of all the world's
wishes, it holds its own against the ravages of time, against
all the vicissitudes with which humanity is acquainted.
Boethius thus defines complete happiness, ''A lasting condi-
tion blessed with everything good." ''The enduring posses-
sion of every good." These are no idle words, and their right
understanding will remove many difficulties. They vindi-
cate to complete happiness at least two characteristic ele-
20 GENERAL ETHICS
ments, a Jieaped-iip measure of good, and imending diiration.
These elements are thoroughly wanting in all the varied joys
this earth affords. Mundane or incomplete happiness has
inseparably linked with itself a twofold curse. While it fills
one comer of a man 's heart with pleasure, it fills another with
pain. Its near departure haunts its possessor like a spectre.
Partial pain and possible loss are ingredients of all the happi-
ness with which this earth is acquainted; and no amount of
reasoning, no amount of care can quite eradicate them. St.
Augustine, insisting on its fulness, thus describes complete
happiness, ^'That man is happy who has all that he wants,
and wants only what he can hav^ without sin." Complete
happiness is, therefore, an unending round of delights, in
which no legitimate craving goes unfulfilled, in which no ille-
gitimate craving has existence. This is perfect hliss. Philos-
ophers besides recognize an inferior sort of blessedness, which
for clearness' sake they call imperfect hliss. It is the only
sort of incomplete happiness, truly deserving the name, this
present life affords ; and it consists in a close union with our
last end by the establishment of moral rectitude in our ac-
tioTis. It is peace of conscience, it is holiness, it is the inher-
itance of the saints. It is the initial step in our progress to-
wards complete happiness, or perfect bliss ; and, while haunted
with the fear of loss and mingled with misery, wretchedness
and pain, it procures in the grand total of blessings and ills
a preponderance of blessings. Philosophers likewise distin-
guish between objective or material happiness, and subjective
or formal happiness. The first, or objective, is the object or
thing, whose presence fills out man's every desire, God. The
second, or subjective, is the actual possession of that object
or thing. The first is called the end which; the second, the
end in which. The definition quoted from Boethius tallies
exactly with subjective complete happiness.
Of His Very Nature. This longing for happiness is there-
fore a natural craving, and things may be natural to man in
either one of two ways. They may be born and live with him
in a manner entirely independent of his free will, or they
may be in strict accord with his nature, and yet entirely de-
pendent on his free choice for their existence within him.
The desire of which we at present speak is natural to man in
CREATED GOODS 21
the first way. It is a necessity of his nature, it cannot be
schooled out of his thoughts, it cannot be shaken off or gotten
rid of. It is as much a part of the man as upward motion is
part of fire 's essence. It is different from an acquired desire,
which may of course be natural to man in the second way.
Marriage is usually alleged by writers on the subject as an
instance of something natural to man, with full dependence
on his own free choice.
Desires. Many in their folly miss the proper means to
make good this desire. Many seek its accomplishment in very
dubious occupations, in pleasures decidedly illegitimate, and
are sadly disappointed in their expectations. But, as it is
possible of fulfilment, it must be within man's reach. There
must be a line of conduct unfailingly able to lead to its con-
summation. It can never happen that complete happiness
will fail him, who honestly does his utmost to win it, and
steadily keeps his record clean of fault and defect.
No Created Good. The assertion is sweeping, and excludes
from the dignity of man's last end everything but God. In
the history of philosophy not a few ancients went astray on
this point. Epicurus contended that pleasure was man's su-
premest desire, his highest good. He sometimes bestowed a
scant praise On virtue, only because opposite vices interfered
with the full enjoyment of physical pleasure. Zeno, a leader
among the stoics, reckoned wisdom combined with virtue the
summit of man's aspirations. Aristotle, the founder of the
Peripatetic school, contended for a union of virtue and pleas-
ure. It may be noticed that the dignity of last end, or high-
est good, is ascribed by no one to wealth. Misers alone love
wealth for wealth's sake, and misers are not numerous. Prac-
tical men of sense regard wealth as only a useful commodity,
a means to the acquirement of other blessings more eagerly
coveted. As a merely useful good, wealth must of course
yield precedence to virtue, pleasure, wisdom, and every good
catalogued as either becoming or pleasurable.
Possession of God. In purely ethical discussions theology
of course has no place, and statements advanced must be made
good without any reference to Holy Scripture, as a source of
argument. We Catholics know from our catechism that
Heaven is our last end, and we know that Heaven is the ac-
22 GENERAL ETHICS
cumulation of all good centered in the beatific vision, or
closest kind of union with God. Bliss in Heaven consists
entirely in seeing God face to face, and this intellectual pos-
session of God, supernaturally accomplished, constitutes man's
supremest happiness. Strip the beatific vision of its super-
natural qualities, and you have at once the doctrine of phi-
losophy concerning man's last end. Though able to make
surmises, philosophy teaches nothing positive regarding the
resurrection of the body; but in Psychology we saw how
clearly it makes good the immortality of the soul. There-
fore, the only possession of God, possible of conception to
unaided human thought, is intellectual possession, based on
an intimate union of intellect and will with Him.
Last End. This complete happiness, or possession of God,
is therefore the ultimate purpose of man's every movement.
His proximate and explicit purpose may be limited happi-
ness, but his ultimate and implicit purpose is always complete
happiness. Its influence is not always evident, because some-
what below the surface of things; but its influence is none
the less present. It has a twofold value, implicit and explicit.
Thus, when, for instance, knowledge because of its manifold
advantages urges the student to labor, the hiding principle is
that all-pervading desire of perfect happiness. Love of
knowledge merely seems to be the sole motive. Complete hap-
piness has in this case an implicit value, and its efficacy is
none the less real than when it explicitly asserts itself.
Proofs I, II, III, IV, V
I. 1st. Complete happiness is the satisfaction of man 's every
legitimate wish. But man of his very nature desires the sat-
isfaction of his every legitimate wish. Ergo, man of his very
nature desires complete happiness.
With regard to the Major. Perfect or finished good is the
all important and characteristic element of complete happi-
ness; and since good is subject-matter of the will's legitimate
wishes, complete happiness is the satisfaction of man's every
legitimate wish. N.B. Nature prompts no illegitimate wish.
Perverted passion, wrong prejudices, faulty education are
responsible for such wishes.
PROOFS 23
With regard to the Minor. Man's will would be otherwise
doomed to perpetual unrest, and would become an instrument
of unending torture.
2nd. Nature, impediments aside, exerts its utmost activity.
But human nature or man is capable of desiring complete
happiness, and no impediment is conceivable. Ergo, man of
his very nature desires complete happiness.
With regard to the Minor. Man's mind is able to grasp
the highest truth. His will, to keep equal pace with his mind,
must be able to desire the highest good, or complete happi-
ness.
II. Man 's last end must have these three qualities : It must
be the supremest good, fully equal to all the wants of all his
faculties, even vegetative and sensitive. Needless to say, it
must satisfy vegetative and sensitive wants eminently, not
formally. It must so contain within itself all the good resi-
dent in other conceivable ends, that these other ends be only
stages in man's progress toward its acquisition. In other
words, it must be of such sort, as to attract man's heart of
its own single self, and be at the same time the thing of in-
terest in every object of man's desires. It must be the de-
sire of every man's heart, whether formally and explicitly, or
materially and implicitly. But complete happiness is the
only good answering this description. Ergo, complete happi-
ness is man's last end.
III. A desire with nature for origin and author, cannot be
impossible of fulfilment. But man's desire for complete hap-
piness is a desire of this sort. Ergo, it is possible of fulfil-
ment.
With regard to the Major. Denial of this Major would be
an open denial of the axiom, that every effect demands a cor-
responding cause. For the effect, or natural desire, is admit-
tedly alive in every man's bosom, and its cause is assuredly
nothing short of at least possibility of fulfilment. Besides,
God, the Author of our nature and all its inborn longings,
would be, were complete happiness an empty dream, a most
consummate torturer and executioner, not the beneficent cre-
ator reason requires Him to be.
IV. The good things, proposed by adversaries for man's
last end, are signal failures. Thus,
24 GENERAL ETHICS
a, physical pleasure ministers to only senses of the body,
and neglects the soul 's interests ;
b, physical pleasure likewise involves pain for some member
or organ not actually participating in it, and nearly always
threatens harm to the soul;
c, physical pleasure is an utter stranger to that endless
duration, which is happiness' first requisite;
d, spiritual delight is at most an effect of the good we seek,
and as such inferior to the good productive of this delight;
and, therefore, an impossible last end;
e, spiritual delight would then be the motive for search
after becoming good; and the becoming and the agreeable
would be without distinctive characteristics ;
f, pleasure, whether physical or spiritual, is change or mo-
tion ; and man 's last end is complete rest ;
g, the wisdom and virtue of this life leave manj things yet
to be desired, health, wealth, beauty, strength, long years.
Certainly wisdom and virtue, accompanied by these several
blessings, are more an incentive to desire than wisdom and
virtue, considered apart from them;
h, pleasure, wisdom and virtue combined, or the joint pos-
session of all the blessings this earth affords, is so full of con-
flicting elements, as to be quite out of the question, and im-
possible of fulfilment ;
i, danger of change, fear of loss, actual loss, gnawing anx-
iety, toil and a thousand other evils poison all the good things
of this exile, and emphatically forbid man to look for satis-
faction or rest in their acquisition;
j, virtue alone excepted, every other good with which earth
is acquainted, even life itself, may without discredit he sacri-
ficed on the altar of patriotism.
V. 1st. Some good, created or uncreated, is man's last end,
or complete happiness. But no created good is equal to the
task, and God alone is uncreated good. Ergo, God is man's
complete happiness, his last end.
2nd. God, when creating man, necessarily appointed him
an end wholly worthy of Himself. But God alone is wholly
worthy of God. Ergo, God is the end appointed man, the
end established in man's creation. But the end assigned by
God to man is man's last end. Ergo, God is man's last end.
PRINCIPLES 25
3rd. Nothing short of the universal and supreme good can
be man's last end. But God alone is the universal and su-
preme good. Ergo, God, and nothing short of God, is man's
last end.
With regard to the Major. Man's last end, from the very-
nature of things, must be a good, whose possession leaves
nothing further to be desired ; and universal or supreme good
alone enjoys this prerogative.
With regard to the Miliar. Were there another universal
and supreme good, there would be two gods.
PRINCIPLES
A. Our every desire, if we follow the laws imposed upon us
by our Maker, will be abundantly satisfied in the next life.
Some of these desires will have their fulfilment formally, or
exactly as they are shaped. Others, on account of the pe-
culiar circumstances attaching to a future state, will be ac-
complished, as philosophers say, eminently, in a grander way,
or equivalently. The possession of God will be the sum of
our delights, and God is infinite in resources to make up for
whatever pleasures our future condition will render impos-
sible. Thus, there will be no eating, no drinking in Heaven;
but, apart from the fact that our lower nature will then make
no clamor for sweets it now so much covets, God will be able
to pour into our souls a measure of happiness, more than able
to atone for these paltry losses. Some philosophers think
they see, in the completeness of good things involved in this
natural desire of happiness, a proof of the future resurrec-
tion of the body. They contend that happiness would be
incomplete, unless the body somehow shared after death in
the joys accorded the soul. But the time-honored distinction
between intensity and extent is an answer to their difficulty.
Unless our Creator could in some way make up in intensity
for the loss extent, or number of parts affected by bliss, suf-
fers, the body would surely have to arise, and live forever
like the soul, to enjoy its proper reward. Reason throws no
light on the body's destiny after death, because, in the event
of its total disappearance, though man's happiness would be
26 GENERAL ETHICS
less in extent, its intensity could be so multiplied, that his
loss would become a gain.
B. God, because simple, and therefore without parts, must
be known wholly, if known at all. This circumstance is, how-
ever, far from rendering it necessary for the blessed in
Heaven to know Him totally or exhaustively, or in such a
way that nothing in His nature escapes their knowledge. God
is infinite, and to know Him totally is the work of an infinite,
not a finite intellect like man's. The familiar example of a
mountain seen in the distance may serve to elucidate the point.
The whole mountain is seen, without being wholly seen.
C. We must in our language guard against making God a
means to an end. He is not the instrument, through which
we attain to happiness. He is our happiness. He is not a
thing designed for our use or commodity, but we are things
designed for His glory; and, in furthering His glory, we
are filling out our destiny.
D. As a principle of activity, man's intellect is of course
finite and limited; but, when the objects, to which man's in-
tellect can reach, are taken into consideration, no finite or
limited number can represent them. Because of the limita-
tions inherent in its activity, man's intellect can know God
in only a limited way; because of the multitude of objects, to
which it can reach, man's intellect can be filled by nothing
created, and therefore by God alone. All being is the ade-
quate object of man's intellect, and created being is not all
being. Created and uncreated are that, and created is con-
tained in uncreated, or actual unproduced, or God.
E. Between the mind and its object some sort of propor-
tion must have place. But this proportion, or likeness, need
not necessarily be that of being, or nature. Proportion of fit-
ness, constituted by the circumstance, that God as a being can
fill a place in man's thoughts, is enough.
F. Pleasure is good sought on its own single account, and
in this particular resembles a last end. It is not, however, a
supreme good, able to satisfy every desire; and, in this par-
ticular, pleasure falls away from the requirements of an abso-
lutely last end.
G. Individual men tend towards a last end, not that ab-
straction called human nature. Pantheists, therefore, are
PRINCIPLES 27
wrong, when they admit the existence of a last end for human
nature, and deny last ends in connection with individuals.
H. Man's natural desire for happiness is a something he
cannot lose. Its accomplishment, because dependent on the
acts of his free will, can readily enough be frustrated.
I. God, pure and simple, is the material object of man's
thoughts. God, as He assumes shape in man's mind, is the
formal object of these thoughts. Since, therefore, God is in-
finite only in Himself, or as material object, man's mind, to
have knowledge of Him, need not be infinite. The formal
object of a faculty, not its material object, denominates it,
puts it in the class of infinites or finites.
J. As long as man obeys the dictates of reason, so long is
he tending towards God, if not formally, at least by inter-
pretation. He may not advert to the fact that he is tending
towards God, and that would be formal tendency; but in sub-
stance he is doing what he would do if he formally tended
towards God, and this is tendency by interpretation.
THESIS III
Man's destiny in this life, his supremest happiness on earth,
his relatively last end, consists in drawing closer and closer to
his absolutely last end, by the establishment of moral recti-
tude in his actions. Between good and bad in the moral
order, between right and wrong, an essential, intrinsic differ-
ence exists. The immediate measure of moral rectitude is the
objective order of things, as understood by the intellect; the
mediate measure is God's wisdom and goodness. Jouin, 5-19;
Bickaby, 109-126.
QUESTION
/Man's last end is eternal happiness in the possession of God
Life is but a stage in our progress towards God, it is a period
(of proof of trial./ We are from the outset vested with heads,
^and hearts, and hands; with all the needed light, and cour-
age, and strength, to pursue our appointed journey without
mishap. Our supremest happiness here below hinges en-
tirely on our present destiny, and our present destiny is of a
complexion with our destiny hereafter. Man's history ex-
tends beyond the grave, death is far from closing the record.
This present life forms, as it were, the first chapter, the years
without end to follow make up the rest of the story. But
this first chapter is a thing of the utmost concern, it is a
thing of the highest importance. All the succeeding chapters
borrow from it their light and shade, with it all succeeding
chapters must be fair or hideous. Union with God consti-
tutes complete happiness; and, unless a man's last moments
find him close by the ties of righteousness to his Maker, that
man can hope for nothing but most wretched misery. Unless
a man's every moment finds him struggling towards this
happy consummation, misery will not wait till the hour of
death to fasten its hold upon him. What for want of a bet-
ter term we call imperfect misery, is the perpetual lot of the
28
INCOMPLETE HAPPINESS 29
wicked here on earth. The graduated scale of happiness and
woe is the same. A life lived in preparation for supreme
felicity constitutes imperfect beatitude, the supremest pos-
sible on earth. A life lived in preparation for supreme woe
constitutes incomplete wretchedness, the most irksome pos-
sible on earth.
The comparison is between virtue and vice, and between
things inseparably connected with both. ^$4^eace of conscience
is the one thing inseparably connected with virtue, remorse is
the one thing inseparably connected with vicey/ Wealth, pleas-
ure and honor are inseparably connected wifii neither virtue
nor vice ; and must, therefore, be kept out of the comparison.
Virtue with these three concupiscences of life is, of course,
happier in point of extent or quantity than virtue without
them, though their presence fails to affect necessarily the in-
tensity or quality of virtue's happiness. Vice with these three
goods of life is less unhappy in point of extent or quantity than
vice without them, though their presence never diminishes the
annoyance of remorse itself in point of intensity or quality.
Poverty, pain and obscurity cannot destroy or diminish peace
of conscience ; money, pleasure and honor cannot cure or alle-
viate remorse. And again we are talking of normal minds,
wide awake to their condition, with a practical realization of
peace and remorse. In this whole business intensity or qual-
ity counts for more than extent or quantity. There is more
money from the viewpoint of extent or quantity in five one-
dollar bills than in a single hundred-dollar bill, and yet every-
body knows what way a sensible person would look, if invited
to choose. Intensity or quality is what makes the difference.
A bad life with all the other goods of earth except virtue is
more irksome in point of peace and remorse than a good life
without all the other goods of earth ; and this is sufficient for
our present purpose. Peace of conscience is the hundred-
dollar bill, wealth and the other goods of life without virtue
are five one-dollar bills. Even if experience failed to bear us
out in this statement, philosophy itself is witness that any
contrary event would imperil the fitness of things. /t*repara-
tion, then, for that absorbing union with God, at the root of
every human desire, is the limit set by common sense for well
directed act ivity//^ Virtue is as indispensable to happiness
30 GENERAL ETHICS
A
ere below as it is to happiness in the world to come; and
virtue is moral rectitude, the avoidance of evil, the accom-
plishment of good/
Unless we close our eyes to the light, and do to death the
instincts implanted within us, we cannot mistake vice for
virtue, we cannot confound evil with good. Between them
there is an impassable chasm. No merely accidental, but an
essential difference exists between one and the other. And
the standard marking this difference is plain. It is the ob-
jective order of things, things as they are, things as they
ought to seem to you and to me, things as they shall inev-
itably seem to you and to me, if we only follow the light
vouchsafed us, and cherish conscience for a "friend. This
standard never shifts place. Styles of dress change with
the season, the etiquette of to-day is other than that of our
forefathers; bu^/ne measure of moral rectitude is the same
to-day, yesterday and forever. It is founded on the good-
ness and wisdom of God/ and partakes of their immutability.
TERMS
Destiny. End, when viewed as a something imposed on an-
other by on'e in a position to exercise this prerogative, is
called destiny. Man's last end is an inheritance of his na-
ture, and as such proceeds from the author of nature, God.
Its fulfilment is a law of nature, and the initial step towards
the same, or the right ordering of his life, may with justice
be called his destiny.
Happiness on Earth. We speak at present of incomplete,
or imperfect happiness, which consists wholly in the fact that
the sum of blessings enjoyed outweighs the sum of evils en-
dured, considering only the blessings and evils inseparably
connected with virtue and vice, with intensity not extent for
standard.
Moral rectitude. Rectitude is straightness, and the figure
of speech at the root of the word fits the thought. Moral
rectitude is the shortest distance between two points, our
present condition and the felicity of bliss eternal. Its duties
lie along a path that never winds to right or left, but keeps
straight on. Measured by its requirements, a man's exact
OBJECTIVE MORALITY 31
position in the matter of living up to his destiny is easily and
readily discernible. Morality is the badge of human nature.
A moral act necessarily calls for an intellect and a will in the
agent. Intellect and will in an agent necessarily call for
moral acts. Acts are first said to he moral, and then good or
had in the moral order. They are moral from the mere cir-
cumstance that they have their origin in an enlightened rea-
son, and a will free in its activity. They are good or bad,
they derive their righteousness or their malice from their
agreement with or divergence from some set standard. This
standard is primarily for us the ohjective order of things.
When an act falls away from this standard, it is bad ; when it
covers the standard, as the rule covers a straight line, the act
is good. Men's minds of course differ, and allowance must
be made for differences of views sanctioned by Providence.
But no believer in God's wisdom, and power, and truthfulness,
can for a moment suspect that men's minds in normal condi-
tion can confound evil with good, vice with virtue. Had God
so constructed intellect. He would be inviting confusion into
the universe of morality. He would be cursing our race more
heavily than if He allowed the stars to drop from their places,
the sun to depart from its course, and baleful comets to run
hither and thither at random in the sky. Of course there are
intellects, dependent on diseased organs, capable of confound-
ing black with white; but these are beside the purpose.
Philosophy deals with what is the general rule, not with ex-
ceptions. She discusses men taken from the busy walks of
life, she does not go to madhouses for subjects. Neither does
she pretend to make models of conduct the lives of unfor-
tunates, who would be in strait-jackets, if the madhouse had
its due. There is, however, such a thing as subjective moral-
ity ; and we must recognize the part it plays in the affairs of
life. But, be it remarked and well understood that there is in
truth no such thing as suhjective morality, pure and simple.
My way of thinking, your way of thinking, when they fail
to square with the objective order of things, are what I mean
by subjective morality, pure and simple; and that kind of
morality is a contradiction in terms. Such morality is as
little deserving of the name as purely subjective adhesion to
a false statement is deserving of the name of certainty. Cer-
32 GENERAL ETHICS
tainty of that kind is perverse stubbornness, has no part with
the truth, and is more lamentable than thorough uncertainty
or ignorance. Even so, my way of thinking, your way of
thinking, if not what they ought to be, are indications of
either monstrous iniquity or ignorance. I can by repeated
assaults on conscience reduce it to comparative silence, I
can by repeated abuse of the light, set up within my bosom,
practically extinguish it, I can by constant contact with men
given over to a reprobate sense put on their ways, assume
their habits of thought, and sin almost without remorse.^^^ut
I cannot, no man can, make wrong right. No man can by
any process of thought make the crooked line of wickedness
identical with the straight line of virtue. ^
The man with a moral squint was either born that way,
and took no pains to cure the defect, or acquired the habit
later in life by repeated acts of disloyalty to conscience. If
he was born that way, and honestly tried without any success
to better himself, he is a moral imbecile, an idiot, and irre-
sponsible. If he acquired the habit, he is a monster of in-
iquity ; he has put himself into a hole from which he will
never, perhaps, rise; and he is clearly responsible, indirectly
or in cause, for every wrong he does the laws of morality.
This suhjective morality is a modification, extrinsic and super-
added to the action of which there is question. It depends
for all its force on the intention, and therefore the knowledge
of the agent. It differs entirely from objective morality,
which resides wholly in the deed done, which is a something
intrinsic and essential to that deed, and is entirely inde-
pendent of the agent's intention and knowledge. One is mo-
rality of the man, the other is morality of his acts; and, as a
man is not good unless his acts are good, subjective morality
of itself without objective morality is worth nothing.
And here new questions arise, those of responsibility and
merit. The man whose morality is purely subjective, who
does wrong without scruple, may be in one of three classes.
He may be an idiot, and is no more responsible for his acts
than brute animals. He deserves no reward for whatever is
virtuous in his conduct ; he deserves no blame for what would
be in another highly reprehensible. He may be the victim of
ignorance in no way imputable to him, of ignorance that can
SUMMARY 33
with no amount of reasonable endeavor be shaken off. In this
case, if any such exists, he is ag'ain irresponsible for his con-
dition, and for all the wrong it occasions. In neither of these
two cases do the acts elicited cease to be immoral or wicked
from an objective standpoint. Objective morality is some-
thing outside the agent's power, and no ignorance, no idiocy
can destroy or change it. Of course the insane and the grossly
ignorant are not responsible before the sovereign Judge for
their deeds; but responsibility, imputability and demerit are
not morality, and should not be confounded with it. Last of
all, a man may be the willing victim of ignorance, that he
could have easily remedied at some point in his downward
career, that he on the contrary fostered and encouraged by
every means at his disposal. Such ignorance is of course
inexcusable; and purely subjective morality, or immorality,
based on it is deserving of condign punishment.
By way of summary, therefore, we maintain that subjec-
tive morality of itself, without objective morality for foun-
dation, is nothing. Subjective morality, combined with in-
vincible ignorance, is of weight in moral questions ; but such
subjective morality is not subjective morality considered in
itself. Invincible ignorance makes a wrong conscience right,
it never makes an objectively evil act objectively good. The
man's intellect is inculpably wrong, his will is right. His
Jwill embraces what his intellect represents as right, and the
settlement of what is right and wrong, subjectively speaking,
is with the intellect, not with the will./ The cases in which
subjective morality, or the agent's intention, can justify or
condemn a course of conduct, are limited to such sort of acts
as are indifferent in themselves to the denominations good
and bad. Thus, walking is a healthful exercise for the legs,
and depends entirely on purpose and circumstances for its
morality. If a man uses his legs on an errand of robbery,
walking becomes for him morally culpable. If he uses them
on an errand of mercy, or for purposes of worship in the
church, walking becomes a virtue, .g^ilful murder of the in-
nocent will forever continue to be a crime, no matter what
view deluded men take of the tiling. Wilful murder of the
guilty by any man or body of men, not vested with the right
of life and death, resident in the State, will never be any-
34 GEJnERAL ethics
thing short of murder/ Lynching, for instance, is on the face
of the thing immoral. Circumstances may indeed render its
authors more or less responsible for their sin. Zeal for law
and order may palliate the crime, a spirit of indignation may
fan men's minds to a fury, and rob them for the time being
of common-sense; but their method of procediire is wrong,
and no amount of zeal, no degree of excitement, no influence
of early education can utterly transform the nature of things,
and invest crime with the properties of virtue, though in-
vincible ignorance or insanity can free the criminal from
blame.
An Essential Difference. This is opposed to an accidental
difference. Another name for the same thing is an intrinsic
difference, as opposed to extrinsic. The difference between
good and bad is essential, inasmuch as no power can remove
this quality from good and bad actions. It is intrinsic, inas-
much as the acts denominate themselves, independently of all
outside interference. This difference would be merely acci-
dental, if it were not wrapped up in the very being of the act ;
if it could, the act remaining to all intents and purposes
identically the same, be present to it to-day and absent from
it to-morrow. It would be merely extrinsic, if it owed its
whole force to something foreign to the act. Some philos-
ophers, whatever their motive, have seen fit to set up a merely
accidental and extrinsic difference betweeen good and evil.
Thus, Hohhes, Rousseau and Hegel contended- that civil law is
the standard of morality. Saint Lambert and Montaigne
thought public opinion and tradition the rule. Von H&rf-
mann ascribed everything to the stage of evolution compassed
by individual consciences. We are ready with good grace to
grant that these several standards are immense helps towards
detecting the difference between right and wrong. Civil
law, for instance, though not very universal in its applica-
tions, though it leaves untouched many emergencies liable to
occur in a man's daily conduct, is nevertheless uniformly fair
in its enactments, and draws a sharp line between good and
bad. Public opinion can generally be trusted, tradition is an
abundant source of correct moral notions, and conscience when
free from bias is unerring. But these measures are all open
to serious objection on more scores than one. They are too
ESSENTIAL DIFFERENCE 35
limited in extent. They are too much subject to change.
They are too liable to shift with the whims and fancies of
fickle and unstable men. They are entirely subjective, and
deliver over to the empire of man responsibilities, more dread-
ful than he can with justice be expected to acquit himself of,
vesting him with jGod^s prerogative as sole arbiter of right
and wrong^Morality, unless it rests on the very nature of
things, is settled on altogether too uncertain a foundation.
Immediate Measure. The measure nearest to hand for
practical use. The mediate measure is the more remote, more
difficult of access, the last reason and final support of the im-
mediate measure, the model according to which the immediate
measure is shaped. Room of Measures in the Tower of Lon-
don, and measures throughout the kingdom can serve for
illustration.
Objective Order of Things. Order is defined, ^^the arrange-
ment of two or more units according to certain definite rela-
tions.' ' The order spoken of in the thesis is moral order, not
physical; the units composing it are moral beings, with intel-
lect and free will, God and men. This moral order is two-
fold, objective and subjective. The first depends altogether
on things themselves, the second adds to the first the further
circumstance of reception into an intellect. The objective
order of things is something established by nature, or more
properly by the Author of nature. Subjective order is ob-
jective order grasped and recognized by the mind, or knowl-
edge of things based on the relations in force between the
multiplied moral units of creation. Thus, one element of
objective order is the place God occupies towards men in the
universe. This order, the very nature of things, requires
that men acknowledge and worship God. His prerogatives
as first cause and last end can be satisfied with nothing short
of that twofold homage. Parents are such by nature that
order is disturbed, unless children pay them the reverence,
obedience and deference due their station. An innocent man
has an inalienable right to his life, and only the rankest kind
of disorder would refuse to respect his right. But this objec-
tive order would be of little avail as a rule of conduct, unless
it became part and parcel of a man's intellectual wares by
entering his mind. Hence, the standard of morality in its
36 ge5teral ethics
completeness, is said to be the objective order of things as un-
derstood by the intellect.
Ood's Wisdom and Goodness. God's wisdom, as far as we
are at present concerned, is the mind of God made manifest
to us in creation. His goodness is His will made manifest to
us in the same mirror.
Proofs I, II, III
I. a, Man^s destiny in this life consists in drawing closer
and closer to his last end.
b, His destiny is made good by the establishment of moral
rectitude in his actions.
c, This moral rectitude constitutes man's supremest hap-
piness on earth.
a, This life and the future life are integral parts of man's
whole duration. Ergo, man's destiny in this life should be as
far as possible identical with that of his future life. But
man 's destiny in the life to come is complete happiness, or the
secure enjoyment of God forever; and the only condition re-
sembling this final state, and at present possible to man, is in-
complete happiness, or a closer and closer union with his last
end. Ergo, man's destiny in this life consists in drawing
closer and closer to his last end.
b, Near union with God, as man's last end or destiny in this
life, 1st, ought to imply man 's highest perfection ; 2nd, ought
to be something in man's power; 3rd, ought to contribute its
share towards the consummation of nature's universal end.
But such is the establishment of moral rectitude in man's
actions. Ergo, man's destiny in this life is the establishment
of moral rectitude in his actions.
With regard to the Major. 1st, Because every end implies
the agent 's good, the last end implies the agent 's highest good.
2nd, Because^an is free, and the working out of his destiny
must depend on his own efforts./ 3rd, Because man is a unit
in nature, and God's wisdom makes it necessary for the units
in nature to work together in harmony.
With regard to the Minor. 1st, Man's highest good affects
what is noblest in man, his reason; reason's most perfect work
is order; and moral rectitude or virtue is a life in harmony
PROOFS 37
with objective order. 2nd, Gifts of body like health, wealth,
beauty, are independent of our wishes ; but moral rectitude is
the man's own handiwork. 3rd, Creatures inferior to man
work unto their ends by nature, or instinct, and necessarily ;
man works unto his end by the use of free will, with full lib-
erty; and so completes the graded scale of being in the uni-
verse.
/^c, Man 's supremest happiness on earth consists in this, that
in the sum total of evil and good, good preponderates. But
moral rectitude in a man's life procures this result. Ergo,
moral rectitude constitutes man's supremest happiness on
earth.
With regard to the Minor. Apart from the fact that there
are higher joys than delights of the body, just men are always
the least unhappy. They own a peace the world knows not.
Their wills are developed in the right direction by constant
exercise in the pursuit of good. Their minds are sharpened
by intellectual employment. They escape all the penalties
of the law. They are strangers to the annoyance of remorse.
They are free from the pains, diseases and early death that
wickedness often engenders.
Confirmation. The happiness bom of moral rectitude, is a
figure and shadow of the happiness the blessed enjoy in
Heaven. Ergo.
II. 1st, Were there no essential and intrinsic difference be-
tween right and wrong, there would be no acts essentially
and intrinsically right and wrong. But many such acts in
reality exist. Ergo, between right and wrong an essential
and intrinsic difference exists.
With regard to the Minor. Love of God is an act essen-
tially and intrinsically right. It is right now, it was always
right, and will forever continue to be right, even if the whole
world entered into a conspiracy to call it wrong. Hatred of
God is in precisely the same way an act essentially and in-
trinsically wrong.
2nd, Right and wrong have characteristics essentially dif-
ferent. Ergo, between right and wrong an essential dif-
ference exists.
With regard to the Antecedent. From proof of next part
it will appear, that right is harmony with the objective order
38 GENERAL ETHICS
of things; and wrong, absence of this harmony. Harmony
and discord are essentially different.
III. a, immediate measure; h, mediate measure.
a, 1st, Acts are right, when in perfect agreement with the
dictates of reason ; acts are wrong, when beside these dictates.
But the dictates of reason are objective order, as understood
by the intellect. Ergo, the immediate measure of moral rec-
titude is the objective order of things, as understood by the
intellect.
With regard to the Major. Reason is the guide vouchsafed
to man by Grod for his safe conduct, and reason's dictates are
the rule of morality.
With regard ta the Minor. Not to be a purely subjective
standard, the dictates of reason must be founded on the ob-
jective order of things. Otherwise the dictates are vagaries
and hallucinations.
N.B. The dictates of reason are moral obligations an-
nounced by reason, the herald of the Natural Law, and they
get fuller consideration in our next thesis. They are practi-
cal judgments, not mere speculative statements, and always
involve moral necessity or strict obligation, denoted by the
word *'must" or ''ought." God must be worshipped, par-
ents must be obeyed. "Must" means moral obligation or
necessity, not physical. Free agents as such are incapable of
physical. Moral obligation means moral necessity of putting
or omitting a physically free act, absolutely required for the
procurement of a good absolutely necessary for the mun in
the moral order. This good is his last end. Moral obligation
arises from objective order and divine command together.
Kant derives it from objective order alone without God, and
this is what his categorical imperative in substance means.
Moral obligation arises in part from objective order, because
virtue is way to last end, and virtue is harmony with objective
order. Not every good act is necessary to last end, but only
such good acts as cannot be omitted without detriment to ob-
jective order, and reason acquaints us with them. Moral
obligation arises in part from divine command, because God
alone as Creator is empowered to set man a last end, tie him
with a perfect moral bond and give him by way of source and
origin virtue and every other perfection.
PROOFS 39
2nd, Right and wrong proceed from harmony and dis-
agreement with nature ; and the immediate measure of moral
rectitude is what primarily enables us to distinguish with
certainty between them. But to distinguish is to know, and
this harmony and disagreement with nature can reach our
knowledge only through the intellect, understanding things
just as they are, or the objective order of things. Ergo, the
immediate measure of moral rectitude is the objective order
of things, as understood by the intellect.
With regard to the Minor. Nature means things as God
made them, things just as they are, the objective order of
things.
3rd, Rejection of other standards. Not public opinion, be-
cause opinion is rather measured by our standard; opinion is
uncertain, changeable and unsafe. Not civil law, because law
is rather measured by our standard; law cannot make cer-
tain acts good, certain acts bad.
b, The mediate measure of morality is that on which the
immediate measure depends. But its immediate measure, the
objective order of things, depends on the wisdom and good-
ness of God. Ergo, the mediate measure of moral rectitude is
God's wisdom and goodness.
With regard to the Minor. All creation, signified by the
objective order of things, proceeds from the wisdom and
goodness of God.
PRINCIPLES
A. Man's supreme happiness is absence of pain, sickness,
sorrow. Answer. Man is made up of body and soul. His
body, or sense-appetite, seeks agreeable good, like animals, by
instinct ; his soul, or rational appetite or will, seeks becoming
good, desirable in itself, without heed to pain and sorrow,
when opposed to becoming good. Soul surpasses body, and
man's will is man's highest faculty in the order of morality.
B. Senses ought to be consulted in this life. A^iswer.
Complete happiness is impossible in this life. Man's highest
good appeals to what is spiritual within him, because intelli-
gence is his specific characteristic. When sense wars against
reason, it must be repressed. Deficiencies will be more toler-
40
GENERAL ETHICS
able, if in the domain of sense. Of course, the less pain, the
better; the more at ease the sense, the better; provided only
that reason, or the spiritual element in man, suffers thereby
no detriment. If pain of sense, want of bodily comfort, sor-
row of soul, contribute to progress in morality, they are to be
welcomed with the enthusiasm of fortitude.
C. Fear of loss is compatible with incomplete happiness,
not with complete.
THESIS IV
A natural law, unchangeable, universal, eternal, has place
in men; its complete and full sanction is reserved for the next
life; and eternal punishment is not opposed to God's good-
ness. This natural law is the foundation and corner-stone of
all positive laiv. Jouin, 36-48 ; Rickahy, 133-177.
QUESTION
We are now satisfied, that the promotion of morality's in-
terests in himself and others, is man's present destiny. For
the happiness, which righteousness alone can purchase for
him, is the nearest possible approach to complete bliss this
earth knows. It makes of life a veritable antechamber to a
blessed eternity; it leads a man right up to the threshold of
God's presence; and God's enduring presence is the ne plus
ultra of man 's hopes and desires. We are likewise the happy
possessors of a standard sound and true, which will infallibly
enable us to detect the ever present difference between right
and wrong. The objective order of things, as grasped by the
intellect, is our measure; and we feel secure in our posi-
tion. For, in trusting our lot to this rule or measure, we are
ultimately leaning on the wisdom and goodness of an all-wise
and beneficent God.
But here a difficulty arises. We know that a shadow and
image of complete happiness will result to us from steady
compliance with the exactions of morality. We know that
any falling away from rectitude will be visited with punish-
ment, such at least that our days will be more acquainted
with woes than with blessings. Incomplete happiness at-
taches to virtue ; incomplete misery, to vice. But beyond this
we are at sea. Unless we establish in this matter of morality
the living presence of law, framed and backed by a being of
high authority, rectitude becomes a thing of mere taste, choice
between incomplete happiness and incomplete misery, its obli-
41
42
GENERAL ETHICS
gations are trivial indeed, because self-imposed. Some phi-
losophers venture an answer to the difficulty by setting up
what they call the autonomy of reason. They follow Kant.
They wish wickedness, pure and simple, to be its own full
chastisement, and virtue its own reward. In other words,
they want no external influence whatever brought to bear on
man, in the problem of mapping out his conduct. They want
the disgust experienced in deeds of crime, the mind's ill-ease,
to be sole bar to the commission of wrong. They would rec-
ognize no sin but that superior airy sort of transgression
styled philosophic. Theological sin, and the unrest it occa-
sions by fear of some personal avenger, they cry down, and
declare creatures of superstitious imagination. But the au-
tonomy of reason is an afterthought of godlessness, and has
atheism for single excuse. As a system, if reduced to prac-
tice, it would in one generation involve the world in moral
ruin. If reason were its own law, and judge, and headsman,
our cities would soon teem with cutthroats, thieves and as-
sassins. They are not a polite crew, and the shock their
better instincts experience, when engaged in wrong-doing,
hardly restrains their hands. The noise made by mere con-
sciousness of being out of harmony with nature, makes them
lose no very appreciable amount of sleep. Such sanction
might possibly exert a check on high-strung, very correct dis-
positions ; but it would never reach the multitude in anything
like an effective way.
Law alone, with its tremendous sense of obligation, with
its terrifying dread of penalty, can hold our race to the ob-
servance of right and the avoidance of wrong. And God
would be doing mankind an incalculable injury, He would
be raining down evils upon our heads, did He not step into
the breach as a legislator, and confirm us in rectitude by law
and all the vast machinery of retributive sanction. Were
man responsible to himself only for his misdeeds, he would
escape with scant justice, and would deny himself in nothing.
It is our business to prove that mere knowledge of wrong
done, and the confusion springing from such knowledge, are
not morality's naked sanction. We have to establish the ex-
istence of a law, born with the man, imperatively ordering the
fulfilment of all justice, imperatively forbidding the accom-
DIVISION OF LAW 43
plishment of any evil. We intend to vindicate to this law
characteristics wholly its own, ranking it high above all the
enactments of human positive law. We intend, further, to
make good by positive argument the nature of its sanction,
and show that it is the root, foundation and support of all
positive law. Unless a man approaches the work of intro-
ducing rectitude into his conduct with the deepest respect
for natural law, and with a live consciousness of its obliga-
tions, he is not fully equipped for the task imposed upon him
by nature, and will inevitably miss his destiny. Hence the
importance, the necessity, of setting these notions on a firm
basis, of demonstrating their objective value, and placing it
beyond the reach of dispute and cavil.
TERMS
Natural Law. Law, taken in its widest sense, is a stand-
ard or rule of action, directive of the agent to its proper end.
The following table presents at a glance the various possible
kinds of law.
Law, 3^
In widest sense, ?
In less wide sense, ^
In strict and proper sense, ^
Divine, ^
Human, ^
Eternal, ^
Natural, ^
Positive, ^
Ecclesiastical, ^9
Civil, 11/
1? The word law is a derivative from the Latin ligare, to
bind ; and invariably suggests the idea of obligation.
^ Standard or rule of action, directive of agent to proper
end. E.g., laws of nutrition, &c., &c. Applicable not only to
man and beasts, but to dead matter as well.
N.B. Action, or motion, from without is not life.
5 Standard or rule, directive of artistic efforts. E.g., laws
44 GENERAL ETHICS
of painting, sculpture, poetry, oratory. Applicable to be-
ings endowed with intellect, and therefore to man alone.
^ An ordinance founded on right reason, drawn up and
promulgated for the common good by him who has charge of
the community affected. Applicable to moral acts alone, to
acts proceeding from an intellect and a free will. This defi-
nition is taken bodily from St. Thomas, Summa Theol. 1. 2;
Q. 90; a. 4., All four causes, material, formal, final and ef-
ficient, enter into its composition. It separates law from
every conceivable notion resembling the same. It observes
due bounds, and keeps law within its own limits. On ac-
count of these several qualities the definition is all that can
be desired, and commends itself to everybody. Thus, the
matter of law is derived from principles vouched for by
right reason. No other rule can be of binding force on men
possessed of intellects. This is so true that a clearly unrea-
sonable law is no law at all. It may be well, however, to
remark that, commonly speaking, the only safe position to
occupy in this matter is voiced in that saying of moralists,
^'In doubt acquiescence in the will of the superior is a duty.''
The care of a community is so complex a thing, affected by
circumstances so far above the understanding and apprecia-
tion of individuals governed, that the superior alone, with
multiplied advantages at his disposal, and a clear vision of
intricate details, can best judge what ruling the exigencies of
the case demand. He alone knows best the wants of his em-
pire. He alone knows best what good results, in the long
run, this or that enactment will, in spite of appearances to
the contrary, effect. His practised eye is accustomed to look
at things from a higher plane. Individuals in the state look
not beyond personal convenience and inconvenience, and
would, perhaps, in their selfishness little reck what fate be-
fell the government, if only they escaped unhurt from the
ruins. Hence, they are wide awake to detect in every new
ruling some semblance of injustice. Men are born rebels,
and are apt to be prejudiced judges, when passing on a law
that interferes with their privileges, or cuts down the measure
of their liberties. They easily lose sight of the circumstance,
that legislation is primarily for the community 's benefit ; that
the individual must on occasions retire into the background,
NATURAL LAW 45
and submit to the indignity of being trampled upon, just to
push the community's interests to the front. Hence, a law
is not to be set aside the very first moment a cry of injustice
is raised against it. It must be viewed on all sides, its prac-
tical workings must be followed down to their minutest de-
tails, and the common good, not private advantage, must be
the standard of measurement. If, however, it plainly offends
against the demands of right reason, it can be rated no law
at all, and neglected as such. A law is not a precept. The
former affects equally the whole community, the latter is re-
stricted to this or that individual. The distinction between
the two is brought out in the definition. Of course law is
binding, only when it proceeds from a legitimate source, from
the representative of authority, who alone enjoys legislative
rights, as means to the discharge of his duties. Due promul-
gation may be called a necessary property of law. Law is in-
tended for human beings; and, as knowledge is the main-
spring of all their deliberate acts, knowledge of the law must
precede its fulfilment. This necessary condition must not be
understood to run counter to that common saying in the
courts, ''Ignorance of the law is no excuse." A law may be
thoroughly well promulgated, and yet escape the notice of
stray members in the community. Promulgation means
simply advertisement sufficiently public and widespread to
catch the attention of citizens blessed with the ordinary
amount of prudence and care. It by no means ensures knowl-
edge of the law to such as are too ignorant or too indifferent
to help themselves. Sanction, too, capable of frightening off
violators, and creating in men a salutary respect for the law,
is considered a requisite for every enactment meant to be seri-
ously taken.
^ Divine law has God for author, and that too in an im-
mediate sense. All law proceeds from God as origin. It is
strictly divine, only when God is its framer, whether He ac-
complishes everything by Himself solely, or uses man as His
mouthpiece.
? Human law is framed by man without immediate in-
terference on the part of God.
"^ Eternal law. St. Augustine, contra Faustum, 122, c. 27.,
offers this definition, ^* God's reason or will commanding the
46 GENERAL ETHICS
preservation of natural order, forbidding its disturbance/'
God is the supreme Lord of nature. He is King, with the
universe for throne, and all the creatures of the universe for
subjects. He is, therefore, a legislator as well; and His
kingdom is under the sway of laws chosen and appointed by
Himself. But He is unchangeable, and what He is to-day,
He was and is from all eternity. This code of laws, therefore,
for the government of His creatures, had been in His thoughts
endless ages of ages before creation proceeded from the
strength of His hands. Every lawmaker first submits to his
mind for approval, whatever enactments he intends to later
on promulgate. He likewise lays before his will tentative
drafts of the same, for rejection or adoption. And, when the
work of inspection is over, he stands ready to acquaint the
world with his wishes. Barring whatever imperfection clings
to this method of procedure, God is no exception to the rule in
its fundamental points. The laws that now govern nature
were first passed upon by His wisdom, and constitute in that
stage of the process what we call eternal law.
5 Natural law, objectively taken, that is, viewed with ref-
erence to the source from which it proceeds, is eternal law in
its application to man, or become evident in rational nature ;
it is man's half of God's eternal law. Subjectively taken, that
is, viewed with reference to man, it is an inborn habit of
mind, enabling a man to detect the harmony or discord in
force between the notions that constitute morality's first prin-
ciples. By principles of morality we here mean statements
vouched for by reason, and indicative of right and wrong.
These principles are various, and are rated in importance
according to their different degi'ees of cogency. Thus, first or
pmmary principles are such as have in their favor the clearest
kind of evidence, and are so plain that even at first sight no
man of ordinary common sense can doubt their accuracy.
Instances are, ''Man must do good and avoid evil; Man must
lead an orderly life ; God must be loved. ' ' Principles of this
first class can under no conceivable supposition become void
of effect or untrue, and they admit of no ignorance, vincible or
invincible. And all this, simply because the above statements,
on account of relations intervening between subject and pred-
icate, contain necessary truths. Principles, immediately and
GLASSES OF PRECEPTS 47
with little effort derived from these first or primary prin-
ciples, constitute a second class. The ten commandments of
the Decalogue are said to be laws of this second class. Some
writers except the third, because it singles out the Sabbath.
These principles admit of vincible not invincible ignorance.
Finally, a third place is occupied hy principles, flowing indeed
from first or primary and secondary principles, hut in a some-
what hidden and obscure way. They become evident only
after mature consideration, and on this account, perhaps, are
thoroughly well grasped by only the learned. Polygamy and
divorce are examples, alleged by some authors, of laws con-
tained in this third class. These last principles admit of
even invincible ignorance.
Eternal law provides for physical and moral order alike;
natural law, because meant for men, provides for moral order
alone. Substitute moral order for natural order in St. Augus-
tine 's definition of eternal law, add promulgated or made
manifest in the light of reason, and you have at once natural
law objectively taken. Objectively, then, natural law is a
divine command issuing from God's reason or will, prescrib-
ing the preservation of moral order, forbidding its disturb-
ance. Natural law objectively taken is natural law as it
exists in God, its maker ; subjectively taken, it is natural law
as it exists in man, the person it affects or binds. Subjec-
tively taken, natural law is an inborn habit of mind, enabling
man to know what he must do and what he must avoid. Man
must do only what is in harmony with moral objective order,
he must avoid what is at discord with the same order ; and we
already proved that this objective order is the measure of
morality. He must, therefore, be able to detect this har-
mony and discord, and natural law is the means put at his
disposal by God. Natural law objectively taken is made up
of what we call morality's first principles, commands issuing
from the reason or will of God; each of the principles, like
all judgments, contains a subject and predicate, and the har-
mony or discord the natural law subjectively taken helps the
mind to detect is between these subjects and predicates in
morality's first principles. Instances are, God is a person
who must be worshipped by man. Parents are persons who
must be obeyed by their children. Worship is in harmony
48 GENERAL ETHICS
with God, the creator. Obedience is in harmony with parents,
makers and guides. Killing is at discord with innocent per-
sons. Taking is at discord with what belongs to another.
Untruth is at discord with the purpose of language.
These principles of morality are not mere speculative state-
ments, they are practical judgments, with a must or an ought.
The harmony or discord is between the subject and predicate,
the must or ought is from the divine command prescribing to
human nature the preservation of order, forbidding its dis-
turbance. This is right or this is wrong, is a mere speculative
'statement ; this ought to be done, or this ought to be avoided,
is a practical judgment. Mind is not the maker of the nat-
ural law, but its herald. God is its maker, man is its subject,
and his mind helps him to a knowledge of it, much as the
medium that advertises state legislation. In this sense the
natural law is said to be written or printed in the mind or
heart of man. Therefore principles of morality are practical
judgments vouched for by reason, and indicative of right and
wrong.
'^Do good and avoid evil/' is the one first principle by ex-
cellence of the natural law, because it implicitly contains the
whole law, and because from it all a man's duties are deriv-
able. Other principles are variously classified by various au-
thors as first, second and third principles; as primary, sec-
ondary and remote conclusions from both; as immediate, prox-
imate and remote. First, primary and immediate admit of no
ignorance, vincible or invincible ; second, secondary and prox-
imate admit of vincible ignorance ; third principles and re-
mote conclusions admit of even invincible ignorance. In every
principle of the natural law the predicate is somehow con-
tained in the subject. Otherwise some principles of the nat-
ural law would be false. In first or primary principles the
predicate is contained in the subject, and its presence cannot
be missed by normal minds; it can be seen at a glance. In
second or secondary principles the predicate can be discov-
ered in the subject with ease, with small or no study. In
third principles or remote conclusions the discovery is made
with difficulty and at the expense of considerable study.
Worship of God is a prescription of the natural law. Wor-
ship of God in general, without any qualifications, is a pri-
CLASSES OF PRECEPTS 49
mary principle; external worship is a secondary principle;
and worship on the Sabbath, as distinct from other days of
the week, can be called a remote conclusion from the other two
principles. No ignorance, vincible or invincible, regarding
the need of worship in general is possible. Ignorance regard-
ing the need of exterior worship is possible, but always vin-
cible and inexcusable. Invincible ignorance regarding wor-
ship on the Sabbath is easily conceivable. Lies are forbidden
by the natural law. The prohibition against lies in general,
without any qualifications, is a primary principle. '^Tliou
shalt not lie," is a secondary principle easily deduced from
the first; and it leaves room for vincible ignorance. Thou
shalt not lie, to save an important secret, to avert war, to
prevent murder, is a remote conclusion deducible with some
difficulty from primary and secondary, and it admits of even
invincible ignorance. Theft and murder are against the nat-
ural law. Avoid theft, avoid murder are primary principles.
Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill are secondary prin-
ciples. Thou shalt not steal from motives of kindness to the
poor, from motives of religion or piety, to get an education,
is a remote conclusion from primary and secondary. Thou
shalt not kill at the request of your victim, to do your victim
a favor, to benefit the race, to send your victim to Heaven, to
propagate the true religion, is a remote conclusion from pri-
mary and secondary.
The nature or substance of the act forbidden by natural law
suggests this other division. Some principles turn on acts had
in themselves, on their own account, absolutely, in a way in-
dependent of every outside consideration. Instances are,
hatred of God, blasphemy, idolatry, a lie. Others turn on acts
had in themselves, not on their own account, hut on account of
a violated right involved in the act itself; not ahsolutely, hut
conditionally; not independently, hut with dependence on the
right in question. Instances are, theft and murder. Others
again turn on acts had in themselves, not on their own account,
hut on account of moral risk or danger involved in the act.
Instances are, px)lygamy, divorce, heretical and impure read-
ing. Things wrong the first way admit no change of matter
and are always and everywhere wrong. Things wrong the
second and third waj^s admit change of matter; and, the
50 GENERAL ETHICS
change made, they cease to be wrong. God can take away
the right involved or the owner can lose it. God can remove
the risk and danger or a proportionate cause can justify the
risk or danger.
In their attempts to explain God's approval of polygamy
in the Old Law, writers experience trouble, and have recourse
to various interpretations of natural law. One school recog-
nizes three different types of precepts urged hy the natural
law. These types are much the same in nature as the precepts
just explained, and are called most universal, remote and more
remote; or, with Meyer, primary, secondary and more remote.
Examples are, *'Do good, and avoid evil." "Honor thy
father and mother." "Be a man of one wife." The Thom-
ists, who insist on this classification, teach that God can dis-
pense with the natural law in precepts of the third class.
Suarez objects to the statement, that God is at liberty to dis-
pense with the natural law in any of its enactments. Since
we have agreed to regard the natural law as a mere manifesta-
tion of the eternal law, his position is well taken ; and we hold
with him that God in sanctioning polygamy nowise inter-
fered with the operation of the natural law. He procured
such a change of circumstances and conditions, that polygamy
fell outside of matter under the ban of the natural law.
Another school, to meet the same difficulty, assigns three
ways in which things can run counter to the natural law. It
is agreed on all sides that natural law forbids whatever is in
itself and intrinsically wrong, not merely in its consequences,
not in virtue of some outside prohibition, like civil law or the
injunction of a parent. Then come the distinctions. A
thing, they say, can be in itself and intrinsically wrong in a
threefold way. First, it can he wrong in itself, and abso-
lutely; like blasphemy, idolatry and lying. The moral dis-
order in this case is something wrapped up in the physical
being of the act. Secondly, it can be wrong in itself, not on
its own account, and not absolutely; like theft and murder.
The moral disorder results not precisely from the physical
act, but from the presence of some right connected with it, and
violated. The self-same physical act can be entirely blame-
less, when exerted to come into one's own property, or to
kill a criminal condemned by the state to death. Thirdly, it
CLASSES OF PRECEPTS 51
can he wrong in itself, not on its own account, hut on account
of moral risk or danger it involves, like the perusal of un-
chaste or irreligious literature. The moral disorder results in
this case from the danger to faith and morals attendant on
such reading. With regard to these divisions, it must be
remarked that even natural law has no application, when the
matter of the act undergoes a certain change. Thus, the
forcible removal of what was another 's property will cease to
be theft, if the intruder is first invested with a sound claim
to it. The midwives of Israel committed no wrong, when
they carried off the vessels and ornaments of the Egyptians,
simply because God, who is the absolute Lord of everything,
transferred to them through Moses dominion or ownership.
The same remark holds good in the case of an executed crim-
inal. Students of theology and medicine are obliged by their
calling to read books, the mere curious perusal of which
would be highly sinful, and the need of such reading in their
case justifies the risk.
The first of the classes just enumerated includes only such
cases as admit no change of matter. God Himself cannot
render blasphemy, lying, idolatry commendable. With re-
gard to polygamy, all writers grant, and must maintain, that
it is not a crime against the natural law in the first way, and
in the same sense as blasphemy, idolatry and lying. Some
contend that it resembles theft, inasmuch as the woman's
rights are not respected. It must be evident that, were this
supposition true, God could have made polygamy in the Old
Law legitimate by depriving the woman of whatever rights
it would otherwise violate. The most approved writers, how-
ever, agree to regard polygamy a wrong against the natural
law, inasmuch as it menaces the well-being of marriage, and so
damages the race in its origin. It is fraught with danger to
the stability and happiness of wedlock, and exposes children
to heavy evils. Discontent, jealousy and attendant quarrels
are, naturally speaking, sure to reign where polygamy is a
recognized practice. God favored the patriarchs and their
wives with dispositions above petty grievances of this sort,
and in removing danger rendered the condition legitimate.
A third school professes to find all the sinfulness attaching
to polygamy in the single circumstance, that, God's prohihi-
52 GENERAL ETHICS
tion presupposed, the polygamist invades the rights of God,
and runs counter to His express wishes. A Catholic eating
meat on Friday, would in this supposition be no less an of-
fender against the natural law than the Mormon with a house
full of wives. A fourth school, finally, distinguishes between
enactments of the natural law strictly so called, and mere rec-
ommendations urged hy nature as highly becoming, though not
of binding necessity. They group under enactments of the
first class universal maxims, like, "Do good and avoid evil";
conclusions readily and plainly derivable from these maxims,
like the Ten Commandments; and precepts ordaining the
avoidance of things intrinsically and absolutely bad, like blas-
phemy. Under recommendations urging the proper they
group conclusions derivable after some study from univer-
sal maxims, like the statutes against polygamy and divorce;
precepts ordaining the avoidance of things bad in themselves,
not because of themselves, but because of danger attached, like
the perusal of immoral literature.
To choose, now, between the different schools, I venture to
think that the explanation offered by the second school is
clearest, best defined, and most to the point. Natural laWj
therefore, is a mandate of reason, ordering the performance of
whatever is good intrinsically and in itself, forbidding things
intrinsically and in themselves bad. Seeming exceptions made
in the Old Law in the cases of Isaac's intended slaughter, the
Hebrew midwives, and polygamy among the patriarchs were
simply no violations at all of the natural law. God worked
a change in the matter on which these acts turned. He in-
vested Abraham with full dominion over his son's life; He
transferred to the Hebrew women rights in property that
once belonged to the Egyptians; He removed from polygamy
all the dangerous abuses that naturally surround such a con-
dition, and so rendered it as salutary and secure as mo-
nogamy.
? Positive divine law is a decree, proceeding with full free-
dom from the mind of God, in the interests of common good.
The ceremonial prescribed in the Old Law was positive divine
law for the chosen people. The utterances in the gospels for-
bidding absolute divorce and polygamy, are positive divine
law in the new dispensation. Natural law is separated from
POSITIVE DIVINE LAW 53
positive divine law by the absence of freedom in the legisla-
tor, and by the nature of the promulgation it demands. God
is not free to make lying sinful or virtuous, and the same is
true of theft, murder, polygamy and divorce, when no change
of matter has taken place. While ordaining certain rites and
ceremonies for use in His service, He remained entirely free to
select some and reject others. The natural law is such that
its actual promulgation has place in the very fact of a hu-
man being's existence. Up to that hour it is still possessed
of what philosophy calls promulgation in aptitude. Knowl-
edge of the natural law escapes a man during the period of
infancy, but knowledge of the law must not be confounded
with its promulgation-. Positive divine law on the contrary
has all its effect, only when received by the subject bound to
its -observance, and necessarily supposes some such subject
actually existent, and capable at least of grasping its content.
Natural law is a means indispensably necessary to the end of
man. Positive divine law is, indeed, a means more or less
necessary to man's end, but nohow indispensably necessary.
This or that positive divine law need never have existed, and
man could still compass his end. This or that positive divine
law can at any time cease to ex:ist, without in the least jeopar-
dizing man 's final interests.
Natural law is the eternal law in its application to creatures^
endowed with reason, and as such cannot long remain hidden
from an enquiring mind. Its decrees are not inscribed on
tsfblets of stone, or wood, or written pages, but on a man's
heart. Its promptings are ever present, and defy forgetting.
The light vouchsafed by nature to all her sons is able to con-
vey notions of the natural law, and interpret its dictates. No
training in the schools is needed, no labor over long lists of ^^
rules and regulations. These features, peculiar to natural
law, constitute another vast difference between itself and posi-
tive law, whether human or divine. Positive law is of no
avail whatever, unless promulgated or brought to man's no-
tice by some such external sign as language, written or spoken.
Any body of positive laws can of course include obligations
and restrictions already imposed by the natural law. In fact,
owing to the weakness inherent in men's minds and wills, it
is eminently proper for legislators to insist in clearer terms
54 GENERAL ETHICS
on points already defined by the natural law. This method
has a twofold advantage. It makes ignorance less excusable,
and adds to the sanction, already awaiting in the next life
every violence done the natural law, the further punishment
of immediate fine, pain or imprisonment. Law is only then
purely and simply positive, when it decrees things not pre-
viously settled by natural law ; when it turns on acts, which,
in themselves indifferent, become right or wrong according to
the good pleasure or wishes of a superior. Positive divine
law has God for immediate author. Human positive law
has man for immediate author. This human law is either
ecclesiastical or civil.
19 Ecclesiastical law is law uttered hy the Church.
^^ Civil law is law uttered hy the state; or hy him in whose
person the authority of the state resides.
TJnchangeahle. The first or primary principles of natural
law are absolutely unchangeable. God Himself cannot re-
verse them. All its other principles, of an inferior order, are,
strictly speaking, as unchangeable as these first or primary
principles. God, however, as absolute Lord of the universe,
can introduce into the matter, with which these inferior prin-
ciples are concerned, changes that modify the whole face of
things, and leave no room for the law's application. E.g.,
Isaac, midwives, capital punishment.
Universal^ in a Twofold Sense. It hinds all without excep-
tion. It is within the reach of every one^s knowledge. There
can be no ignorance of primary principles. Whatever igno-
rance exists regarding secondary principles, is due entirely to
personal and private negligence. It is therefore voluntary,
can be readily overcome, and is utterly inexcusable. Invinc-
ible ignorance is conceivable in the case of remote conclusions.
The essence of human nature is the same in all mankind, and
this essence is the foundation of the natural law. We con-
tend merely that the natural law is within easy reach of every
man's knowledge. We by no means maintain that nations
made up of men, whom long centuries of crime have practi-
cally changed into beasts, necessarily retain a clear knowledge
of nature's requirements in the matter of morality. Neither
do we intend to prove that natural law is universally ob-
served, or that its principles in their application invariably
SANCTION 55
fare well. These first principles of morality may be firmly
fixed in the minds of a pjeopla, and thearetically respected,
without at all hindering that people from making serious mis-
takes in their application and practical emplojonent.
Eternal. It is of as long duration as its counterpart or
model, eternal law. It had of course no practical application,
until rational creatures appeared on the scene; but the law
itself had being from all eternity in the mind of God. No
enactment ceases to be a law, simply because actual subjects
are wanting to observe it. It is enough if it can later on have
such subjects; if, as a matter of fact, it is certainly going to
have such subjects at some future period. Eternal law and
natural law differ not in point of duration, but in point of
subjects. The distinction between the two laws is real and
inadequate. In point of subjects from eternity natural law
is no worse off than eternal.
Sanction Means Bernard or Punishment Fixed hy the Law-
maker for the Observance or Violation, of His Law. This
sanction can be of many kinds. It is internal, when the re-
ward or punishment is wholly within the man himself, not
due to outside influences. E.g., joy of a good conscience, and
remorse. It is external, when some outside agent rewards or
punishes. E.g., Heaven or hell. With regard to its effi-
ciency, a sanction may be sufficient or insufficient, and that too
either absolutely or relatively. It is absolutely sufficient, when
it is of itself motive enough to urge a man in every case to the
law's observance. It is relatively sufficient, when, of some-
what less force, it avails only to urge certain kinds of men
in certain kinds of cases to the law's observance. From this
description one can easily derive the notion of absolutely and
relatively insufficient sanction. Sanction is, besides, perfect
or imperfect. Perfect, when the due proportions of justice
are kept between a man's deserts and his reward or punish-
ment. When the contrary happens, when sanction falls short
of justice, it is called imperfect. All sanction has a twofold
end or object. It is designed on the one hand to promote
the reign of moral order, to keep men to their duty; on the
other, to reinstate justice when dethroned by wrong; to dis-
charge the debts of justice, when men deserve well of her by
the performance of right. Meyer derives the difference in
56 GENERAL ETHICS
force between penalties inflicted from the object this or that
sanction proposes to itself. All depends, he says, on the order
at stake. If punishment is meted out with reference pri-
marily and principally to procuring order in the moral af-
fairs of a private individual, the sanction will consist of pains
destined almost wholly to cure and correct. Sanction of this
sort is proper to boys receiving instruction at the hands of
a tutor, and is called medicinal. If punishment is meted
out primarily and principally to procure social or political
order in the state, the sanction will consist of penalties in-
flicted almost wholly with a view to avenging social wrongs,
and is called punitive. The amendment of the transgressor,
because the common good is in this case of paramount im-
portance, occupies only a secondary place. It can be entirely
neglected, if any attempt to secure it runs counter to the
common good. This observation of Father Meyer is emi-
nently correct, and can be of service later on, when the moral-
ity of capital punishment is in question.
Next Life. We are far from wishing to deny that viola-
tions of the natural law meet with heavy punishment in this
life, or that compliance with its precepts has a reward even
in this life. Seneca says, Epist. 22, ' ' AVickedness takes a big
swallow of its own poison." St. Augustine, Confess. I, ''It is
thy good pleasure, Lx)rd, and it is a fact, that every soul
out of harmony with right is its own greatest tormentor."
We merely hold that the sanction, as a matter of fact attend-
ant on the natural law here below, is wholly inadequate, and
far from satisfying the demands of justice. The immortal-
ity of the soul is warrant for the reality of a future exist-
ence; and reason, apart from revelation, even if solid proofs
are wanting, hints darkly at a place of eternal torments.
From revelation the prison-house of fire, denominated hell,
is an established fact. Philosophy can proceed no farther
than prove the need and the compatibility of such a place of
torment with God's attributes.
Positive Law. About the justice and binding force of God's
positive enactments there can be no controversy. He is in-
finitely wise, infinitely just, and cannot, in virtue of these two
attributes, impose on men obligations lacking any essential
or necessary characteristic. His true Church, strengthened
CIVIL LAW 57
by reiterated promises of guidance and assistance, can make
no mistake in the field of legislation. But that branch of
human positive law denominated civil, because subject to the
immediate influence of men, swayed by prejudice and pas-
sion, open to moments of forgetfulness and ignorance, can
readily enoug^h admit of blunders, and can carry on its rec-
ords rules and regulations decidedly wrong and opposed to
reason. Such laws, as we have already seen^ are laws only
in appearance, and have in reality no binding force what-
ever. It may be well, then, to discuss what qualities are
needed to render any positive law, notably civil, worthy of
consideration, respect and obedience. A law, to be worthy
of the name, must, along with due and sufficient promulga-
tion, fulfil certain conditions classified under three heads.
Some affect the lawmaker; others, the matter contained in the
law. The lawmaker must he possessed of genuine authority
over the persons, for whom he legislates, in points the law
touches. The vitality of all law has its origin in God, and
God can seal with His approval only such mandates as pro-
ceed from legitimately constituted superiors. In the matter
of its prescriptions the law must he just and possihle. It
must be just, because otherwise it would not have natural
law for foundation and support. It must be possible, in
accordance with that worn truth, ''Ad impossible nemo tene-
tur." "No man is bound to do the impossible." Justice
brands as worthless whatever law conflicts with a citizen's
higher duty, whatever law is neither necessary nor useful
for the common good. Natural law cries out against any-
thing like the sacrifice of a higher duty to lower offices, and
the very essence of law, as set forth in its definition, makes the
common good an indispensable requisite. The common good
must be sought, too, in a fair way. To secure this fairness,
the law must with an impartial hand distribute burdens over
the whole commonwealth. It must not enrich the wealthy
at the expense of the poor. It must not rob the rich, to
confirm the idle in their wicked ways. But everything must,
as far as possible, be so nicely adjusted that neither the rich,
nor the poor, nor the idle can with justice complain. Jus-
tice likewise brands as worthless whatever law imposes obli-
gations impossible of fulfilment. Impossibility is either phys-
58 GENERAL ETHICS
ical or moral. An obligation is physically impossible of ful-
filment, when it simply surpasses the physical strength at a
man's disposal, e.g., a law ordering subjects to push moun-
tains into the sea. It is morally impossible of fulfilment,
when its observance is beyond measure difficult. Liberty can
have no play, when a man 's physical force is unequal to some
task assigned; and law without liberty is a dead letter.
Suarez remarks that the difficulty involved in compliance with
voluntary poverty, chastity and obedience, induced God, per-
haps, to make these several virtues matter of counsel, not law,
in the new dispensation. Several maxims well worth re-
membering flow as corollaries from the doctrine just made
good. A human enactment at open variance with God's law
is no law at all, and entirely void of value. An enactment
favoring injustice is no law. Rulers have no right to impose
unjust laws on their subjects. Despotism and absolutism are
species of government opposed to these maxims; and some
philosophers, untrue to their calling, have upheld systems
favoring these crimes. MachiavelU, for instance (1469-1527),
allows the advantage of men in power to usurp the place of
justice. Hohhes (1588-1679) is of opinion that supreme au-
thority can make no mistake, incur no blame. Spinoza (1632-
1677), because of his pantheistic notions, is guilty of the same
folly. Rousseau (1712-1778) attributes to democracy the
prerogatives ascribed by Hobbes to monarchy. Hegel and
his followers make the state God, and pass by easy steps to
the absurdity of a public conscience, the standard and rule
of private morality. We who advocate the right are accused
of introducing into public affairs baneful subjectivism, deroga-
tory to the majesty of the law, and subversive of its efficacy.
But the accusation is a vile slander. Our enemies are, on
the contrary, subjectivism's most steadfast allies, they degrade
law to the level of conscienceless bullying, substitute might
for right, and, robbing law of all moral efficacy, arm it with
the force and violence of unprincipled coercion and tyranny.
Our platform rests on the eternal principles of justice, founded
on the eternal law of God, and manifest to man in his reason.
These principles are certainly a more objective reality than
the empty whims and selfish enactments of greedy rulers.
To clothe an unjust enactment with a majesty borrowed from
CIVIL LAW 59
so sacred a thing as law, is like blasphemy ; and to set might
over right is to step from civilization to savagery. To avoid
mistakes in practice, too much stress cannot be laid on that
principle advanced earlier in the course of these remarks,
'\In doubt y acquiescence in the will of a superior is a duty."
Duly constituted authority is always in possession, and its
rulings must be considered just and fair, until their injus-
tice and unfairness are solidly and incontrovertibly proved.
If, however, there can be no doubt about a law's injustice,
resistance to the law may become a duty or a privilege. If
it antagonises some divine good, if it stands up against some
law of God, we enjoy no liberty in the matter ; we are bound
to disregard the unjust law, and die martyrs rather than
observe it. ''We must obey God rather than men.'* A.A.4.
If it plainly antagonises some human good, whether it tends
to promote private greed at the expense of the public wel-
fare, or oversteps the bounds of authority to work harm, or
fosters favoritism to the detriment of justice, disobedience be-
comes a privilege, of which subjects may avail themselves or
not, as they please. Such a law certainly has of itself no
claims on the conscience. Conscience, however, may exact
the personal inconvenience, arising from obedience, as a lesser
evil than the consequent scandal and disturbance. But in that
case the obligation arises not from the unjust law, but from
the natural duty men lie under of at times sacrificing their
own interests to further the interests of society.
Foundation and Corner-stone. This question has a more
important bearing on Ethics than might at first sight be sup-
posed. We are at present grounding ourselves in principles,
that will afterwards serve us in the solution of difficulties, aris-
ing from the post we occupy in affairs. As citizens, we shall
be amenable to the law ; and, unless we recognize God in the
law, we shall be possessed of only half the truth, and little able
to faithfully discharge our duties. Every enactment emanat-
ing from legitimate authority has God at its back, and phi-
losophy is witness to the fact. If, as we hope to prove, nat-
ural law is the foundation and corner-stone of all positive
law, and if natural law is God's own decree, men cannot do
violence to civil or ecclesiastical law without dishonor to
God. Law, therefore, has a double avenger, God and the
60 GENERAL ETHICS
State; and good citizenship becomes a matter of conscience.
Law owes only half its efficacy to the legislator's will, the
other half descends from Heaven. Fear of God 's wrath must
act along with dread of fine and imprisonment, to exercise
a salutary restraint on the passions of men.
In law, as in everything else, we can, with the Scholastics,
consider matter and form. Its matter is the substance of the
order it contains. Its form is that binding force it possesses,
that moral necessity it imposes. We cannot contend that the
body or substance of every positive law is contained in the
natural law. Many positive laws have for object the per-
formance of acts in themselves quite indifferent, about which
natural law has not a word to say. But no matter how in-
different in itself an act prescribed by positive law may be,
we hold that natural law, after human legislation has spoken,
vests the act with all the binding force any dictate of the
natural law owns. We further hold that, by a process of
reasoning, every ruling made by positive law is reducible to
a principle hidden somewhere in the natural law.
Pkoofs
I. A natural law has place in man.
II. This natural law is, ^ unchangeable, ^ universal, ° eter-
nal.
III. Its complete and full sanction is reserved for the next
life.
IV. Eternal punishment is not opposed to God's goodness.
V. Natural law is the foundation of all positive law.
I. 1st, Experience is witness, through the medium of con-
science, that certain rules of conduct, exacting obedience, wring
acknowledgment from the mind by their clearness. But laws
of the kind constitute what we call natural law. Ergo, nat-
ural law has place in man.
With Regard to the Major. Worship God, honor parents,
do unto others as you would have others do unto you.
With Regard to the Minor. These rules have their origin
in human nature, not in prejudice, education or ignorance.
They carry authority, and impress man with a sense of re-
sponsibility and obligation.
PROOFS FOR PROPERTIES 61
2nd, Every force in nature, to produce its own proper ef-
fect, must be furnished with a certain determinant suited to
itself, holding it to a fixed line of action. But natural law is
to the human will such a determinant. Ergo, natural law
has place in man.
With Regard to the Major. The most holy will of God
and His wisdom demand as much. God cannot be indifferent
to the promotion of order in the universe; and, in any hy-
pothesis but that set down in the Major, He would have been
at too small pains to promote order.
With Regard to the Minor. Natural law alone exercises
proper and becoming restraint over man. As a free agent no
chain but law can bind him. Other agents are limited to
this or that effect by a something implanted in their very na-
ture. Man, therefore, should be held in check by a law
bound up in his nature, born with him, and antecedent to all
the declarations of divine and human positive law.
3rd, The whole world is willing witness to the reality of a
natural law. The noblest among the minds of antiquity,
poets, philosophers and statesmen, have left us their senti-
ments, couched in the choicest and sublimest language, e.g.,
Oedipus Rex, line 863-871; Antigone, lines 446-460. Plato,
Apologia, par. 29, D. Ch. 17. Republic, Bk. 4, par. 427.
Gorgias, par. 483, E; par. 4^8, b; par. 491, E; Cicero, pro
Milone, Ch. 4, § 10. Philippics XI, C. 12, § 28. De Legibus,
I, c. 6 ; II, c. 4. Lactantius, Institut VI, 8.
II. a, b, c. That is unchangeable, universal and eternal,
which is necessarily connected with the essence of rational
creatures, which is contained in God's wisdom. But the nat-
ural law fulfils this twofold condition. Ergo.
With Regard to the Major. ^' Essences are unchangeable,
i.e., that by which a thing is what it is, cannot change, as
long as the thing remains what it is, for instance, a man.
^' Essences are universal, i.e., wherever a man exists, there
also a man's essence exists. N.B. The natural law is for
this reason, at least in point of being or reality, universal.
It is universally known, from the fact that no human being
can be unequal to the task of acquainting himself with his
own nature. Ignorance, therefore, of the natural law is the
result of accident, not a necessity. Besides, no one is ignorant
62 GENERAL ETHICS
of a certain few very evident principles. ^' Essences are
eternal metaphysically, not physically ; in the sense that they
have a being without beginning and without end in God's
thoughts. Law can exist before its actual subjects exist, as
happens when kings make laws with intent that they go into
effect a year after their promulgation.
With Regard to the Minor. Natural law is reason's inter-
pretation of the eternal law, and reason combined with ani-
mality is man's essence. The eternal law is God's wisdom,
and the natural law is a reflection of the eternal. Objectively,
natural law is eternal law, restricted to rational creatures, and
in this sense it is eternal. Subjectively, natural law is rea-
son's interpretation of eternal law, and in this sense it is tem-
poral.
III. N.B. That some sanction is necessary, must be evi-
dent from elementary notions of justice, holiness, wisdom and
providence. God could not consistently with His attributes
impose on mankind so serious an obligation as the natural
law, and then view with indifference its fulfilment and con-
tempt. He would be unjust to men, if He failed to reward
the doers of the law, and punish its violators. Men can merit
de condigno with God because of the implicit promise in God 's
gift of free will. This supposed indifference, resulting from
the absence of all sanction, would likewise be a blot on His
sanctity. He would be decidedly unholy, if He treated alike
sinner and saint, rebel and servant. His wisdom could be
called into question, and His providence would be empty as
a dream. Even human legislators are far-seeing enough, and
zealous enough for law and order, to visit with punishment
every infraction of their behests. When discussing Kant's
autonomy of reason, we agreed that mere consciousness of
duty done is not a sufficient reward for virtue, and that mere
consciousness of a quarrel with ourselves is not an effective
bar against crime. To prove, therefore, that complete and
full sanction is reserved for the next life, we argue thus.
^' Virtue's complete and full reward cannot be contained
in things, that must on occasions be sacrificed for virtue's
preservation. But all the good things of this life, yea, life
itself, must on occasions be sacrificed for virtue 's preservation.
Ergo, complete and full sanction is reserved for the next life.
HELL AND BOD'S GOODNESS 63
N.B. Reward must be more attractive than the sacrifice.
Cause cannot be inferior to effect. The sum of 499 dollars
could never be full and complete return for 500 dollars.
^' Punishment must be such, that within reason no greater
can be devised, because an infinite person is seriously offended.
But present punishment falls short of this. Ergo, sanction
is reserved for next life. N.B. The Major could read. Sanc-
tion, while not unduly severe, must be efficacious.
With Regard to the Minor. Defects of present punish-
ment.
The just in this life suffer grievous ills, the wicked flourish.
The pangs of conscience are trivial compared with the ad-
vantages reaped from crime. The good always enjoy a pre-
ponderance of blessings over ills. This preponderance ad-
mits of degrees. It would be greater than it now is, if the
prosperity of the wicked and the grievous ills of the just were
interchanged.
An eternal hell is weak at times to stay the arm of sin;
any threat of temporal punishment would on such occasions
prove empty and worthless.
The wicked, who die in their sins, would be able to boast
for all eternity of their superiority over God.
IV. 1st, From the Very Meaning of God's Goodness. In-
finite goodness consists in a willingness to so far share itself
with free beings as free beings desire union. But eternal
punishment is not opposed to this willingness. Ergo, eternal
punishment is not opposed to God's infinite goodness.
With Regard to the Minor. If free beings deliberately put
themselves out of condition for union with God, the fault lies
with themselves alone. God's goodness must not interfere
with man's freedom. God stands ever ready to lavish His
affections on the sons of men, and pour Himself out on them.
He is not otherwise minded even towards sons who have for-
feited their inheritance, and consort with the damned. But
these sons are now unfortunately capable of hatred only, and
utter strangers to emotions of love. They have rejected God,
the universal good. Outside of universal good nothing but
evil exists, and evil is the formal object of hatred. God's
readiness, therefore, meets with an insuperable impediment,
and is destined to remain forever void of effect. If the
64 GENERAL ETHICS
damned could love God, there would be no hell. Confirma-
fiQfi — God need not give to free creatures favors which they
deliberately refuse. God wishes all to be saved with antece-
dent will.
2nd, From the Absurdity Apparent in the Opposite Doc-
trine. The denial of eternal punishment involves an absurd-
ity. Ergo, eternal punishment is not opposed to God's good-
ness.
With Regard to the Antecedent. Union with God and per-
severance in hatred of God are conflicting notions; and,
were the punishment of sin anything short of eternal pain,
sinners would after death, at some point of time or other,
enjoy union with God and remain His enemies. Since man's
period of probation closes with death, no power can avail
him to change the relation he holds with God in his last mo-
ment. Any other view of probation would encourage crime
in this life by unduly exalting God's mercy at the expense of
His justice and holiness.
3rd, From the Very Meaning of Sanction. Complete and
full sanction necessarily calls for eternal punishment. Ergo,
eternal punishment is not opposed to God's goodness.
With Regard to Antecedent. Complete and full sanction
calls for penalties, severe enough to ensure observance of the
law. But, in the present order of things, nothing short of
eternal pains can effect this result. Even with hell open
before them, men daily commit crimes, and, driven by pas-
sion, take the dread risk.
4th, God's goodness suffers no loss, when He allows free
beings to choose what they will. But free beings, when they
spurn aside their true end, make deliberate choice of ever-
lasting pains. Ergo, eternal punishment is not opposed to
God's goodness.
With Regard to the Minor. They make choice of God's
eternal hatred, without any chance of remedy; and hell is
nothing more, nothing less, than God's eternal hatred.
V. Positive law derives from natural law its binding
force, it is void of all effect when opposed to natural law,
and is, in the main, only an application of natural law to
particular places, times and persons. Ergo, natural law is
the foundation and corner-stone of positive law.
PRINCIPLES 65
With Regard to the Antecedent, God alone is vested with
full and independent right to impose obligations on free-
born men; and, if natural law contained no injunction re-
garding the duty of subjects to their superiors, positive law
would be little better than an idle waste of words. The chief
reason why most sensible men submit to the requirements of
positive law, is found in the circumstance that they recog-
nize divinity at its back. They know themselves smart enough
to break the law without falling into the law's clutches, they
regard it a too easy matter to cheat the law of imprisonment
and chains ; but they fear with a wholesome dread that eternal
avenger of the law, whose eye never sleeps, whose prison-
house never yields up its dead.
All human positive law, from whatsoever source its matter
is derived, gets its form or binding force from natural law.
Some positive laws urge matter already prescribed by the
natural law, others urge matter in itself indifferent; and
even in the latter case some natural law counsels the law-
maker to legislate. We are talking in the main of positive
laws belonging to the first class, though what we say is in a
measure true of so-called purely positive laws. All author-
ity is immediately from God; and, the gift once made, nat-
ural law prescribes obedience. Without this authority from
God, no ruler has the right to make laws for free men against
their consent, that is a prerogative of God alone; and God's
connection with authority makes the presence of natural law
imperative. As a matter of right, positive law without nat-
ural law for support, is not worth the paper it is written
on. A king may have all the physical force needed to exe-
cute his rulings; but might is not right, and, unless natural
law sustains him, he has no right whatever to impose his wishes
on a free people. More men and better men are kept from
theft and murder by fear of God than by fear of fine and im-
prisonment ; and the few restrained by these lesser considera-
tions alone are beneath our notice. They are not good citi-
zens in the full sense of the word.
Principles I, II, III, IV, V
I. A. God depends not on eternal law, and yet He owes it
to His wisdom to work in harmony with order; and order is
*
66 GENERAL ETHICS
eternal law. Self-imposed dependence is no real dependence,
and, therefore, no imperfection. Dependence implies two, and
God is one. The lawmaker is superior to his law, but can
elect to observe it. God must choose to observe His law, be-
cause He enjoys no freedom of contrariety regarding virtue
and sin.
B. Reason is not the natural law. It makes the law
manifest to men. The New York Sun is not the law, though
it prints and publishes the law. Were reason the natural law,
each individual would be a law to himself; and law is an
obligation imposed by another.
C. The natural law leaves room for civil, because it
omits details; and two sanctions are better than one. Some
principles in the natural law are obscure, particularly in sec-
ond and third classes.
D. The natural law depends not on the free will of God,
but on His wisdom or essence.
E. First principles of the natural law are the same with
all men. Men differ, when they come to apply these first
principles. We instance the treatment some savages accord
their parents and wives.
F. Before creation there was no actual subject for nat-
ural law. Possible subjects destined to become actual were
enough. Distinguish between natural law objectively taken,
and subjectively taken.
G. Natural law is against man's nature, because it de-
stroys his freedom.
Answer: It destroys his moral freedom, not his physical
freedom; the licere, not the posse.
H. Natural law would be inseparable from man 's nature.
And yet it is separate from infants and madmen.
Answer: It is separable from them in nearest first act,
and in second act ; not in farthest first act. Second act means
actual judgment; nearest first act means readiness due to
habits; farthest first act means intellect.
I. God is free; and, therefore, natural law is not neces-
sary.
Answer: God is free to create, not free to impose law in
the hypothesis of creation. Absolutely speaking, God is free ;
PRINCIPLES 67
hypothetically speaking, He is not free. No outside force
compels Him, but His infinite perfection.
II. J. Principles of natural law. Three classes. First,
evident; second, easily deducible from first; third, deducible
froan fir^t and second with some difficulty. Examples are,
Do good and avoid evil; worship God, honor your parents;
fight no duel, tell no lie. Principles of first and second
classes are called more general, and cannot be invincibly
unknown to any man vested with the use of reason. Prin-
ciples of first class are known per se and with evidence. Their
matter is evident from study of terms ; their obligation, from
study of human nature, inasmuch as man is a being ab alio,
not a being a se.
K. Whole nations went astray regarding theft, suicide,
murder.
Answer: They knew the natural law, and went wrong in
its application to particular cases. They killed their parents,
to save them from greater evils. Parents asked children to
slay them, not to be old and decrepit in next life. Theft was
reputed skill; suicide, bravery; wives were sent ahead to
be company for husbands.
L. God can change physical laws. Ergo, natural law.
Answer: No parity. Not against the nature of a phys-
ical force to refuse it cooperation, or oppose impediments, or
use it for a contrary purpose, like fire for cooling. Physical
forces are mere means, and can be howsoever employed. Man
is more than a mere means. He is free, and has initiative of
his own. To put an act intrinsically wrong, is against his
nature, and God cannot hinder the thing. If God allowed it
approvingly, He would be running counter to His wisdom
and holiness.
M. In the cases of Abraham and Isaac, the midwives and
Egyptian property, the patriarchs and polygamy, God
changed the matter of the law. He did not dispense.
III. N. There would seem to be no sanction in this life,
because pleasure attaches to vice, injustice is profitable, and
virtue begets pain.
Answer: The pleasures of vice are not straight, but
blended with manifold evils, that the wicked are little able
68 GENERAL ETHICS
to bear. Profit attaches to injustice, not essentially, but
accidentally. Injustice on occasions proves most unprofitable.
The pain virtue begets is easily borne, with the help of a good
conscience and hope of future ble^edness. One reward is
essential to virtue, and can never be absent. It is a help
to honorable conduct. Three rewards are connatural, su-
premacy of reason, resulting peace, and health of body. Re-
wards of a third class morally speaking accrue to virtue ; and
they are wealth, honor, esteem, and the like. Such rewards
as naturally and morally speaking fall to the lot of virtue,
can by accident fail, though not regularly. Virtue, besides,
procures untold social advantages, touching family, state and
Church. God sometimes visits His friends with adversity in
the capacity of a Father, not a lawmaker. He sometimes re-
wards the wicked in this life, because the future life will
admit of no recompense for the little good they do.
IV. 0. Heaven and hell encourage men to work from an
imperfect motive. But God recommends these motives not
in an absolute way, but only in the supposition that other
motives fail of influence with human imperfection. The proc-
ess is negatively imperfect, or less perfect; not positively,
or altogether imperfect.
P. There would seem to be no proportion between a
momentary sin and an eternal hell.
Answer: No proportion of time, but of justice.
Q. The purpose of sanction is to correct the criminal,
or restrain him from wrong. Eternal punishment defeats
purpose.
Answer: Sanction can be viewed as a threat or an actual-
ity. Its purpose as a threat is secondary; its purpose as an
actuality is primary. Its complete or combined purpose is
the preservation of order. Before order takes harm, it threat-
ens; after order takes harm, it punishes, and so restores
things to primitive condition of equity. The pendulum
swings back. In this life sanction has for secondary purpose
the correction of the criminal and restraint of others. Here
we are in probation. In the next life probation is at an end,
and sanction strikes a balance. Sinners, who refused God
glory here, do unwilling homage to His holiness and justice
hereafter.
PRINCIPLES 69
R. Many atheists know nothing of hell. Ergo, no hell
for them.
Answer: They doubt regarding hell, and by their own
fault. They are not certain regarding its non-existence. It
is enough for the criminal to put an act deserving the pen-
alty. Murderers are hanged, whether they know the penalty
or not.
S. Hell itself is not sufficient sanction. Ergo.
Answer: It furnishes motive enough for the law's observ-
ance, though it fails to coerce free men.
V. T. Every offense against positive law is against nat-
ural law, mediately not immediately. A fault against positive
law is not necessarily against natural law, because natural
law is the remote, not the near cause of positive law. In
every such case no natural law would be broken, were it not
for the positive law.
THESIS V
VARIOUS MORAL NOTIONS
The five caUses of morality, final, material, formal, model
and efficient. Generic and specific morality. Objective and
subjective morality. Good, bad and indifferent acts. Moral-
ity's subjective measure is synderesis and conscience. Moral-
ity's efficient cause is intellect and will. Appetite, the pas-
sions, and will. Morality's root is freedom of will. Volun-
tary and involuntary acts. End and intention. Morality's
obstacles, ignorance and error affect the intellect; the pas-
sions, notably fear, affect the will; violence affects executive
not appetitive factdties, ordered not elicited acts. Jouin, 19-
28; 48-56; Bickaby, 27-64.
Ethics is the science of putting order in man's free acts,
with principles derived from reason for ultimate basis, the
principles themselves being of the rock-bottom variety, last,
farthest away, remotest from the student. Ethics is the study
of morality in its last causes, compassed in the light of rea-
son. Like everything else, morality has five causes, final, ma-
terial, formal, efficient and model. Its final cause, its pur-
pose, what the agent seeks in its prosecution, is happiness,
complete and incomplete; and this phase of morality was
discussed in our first three theses. Its end of deed is order
in man's free acts, its end of doer is resulting happiness.
Recall clock and clockmaker. Its material cause, its subject-
matter, its content, the determinable element of which moral-
ity is made, like the body in a man, the bricks and mortar
in a house, is distinctively human acts, acts proceeding from
a free will and an intellect, adverting to the moral good or
evil in a thing. And, though we gave these acts some notice
in our first thesis, we delayed their full discussion to this
present occasion, because persuaded that we can now under-
70
OBJECT, END, CIRCUMSTANCES 71
stand them better. Its formal cause is good and evil in the
moral order; and these notions await fuller development.
Good and evil in the moral order are regularly designated
right and wrong. The second and third paragraphs of our
third thesis deal with the formal cause of morality, inas-
much as they establish an essential, intrinsic difference be-
tween right and wrong acts, and supply us with a standard
of measurement, enabling us to detect this essential, intrinsic
difference. In other words, some acts are so right, that they
get their rightness from nothing outside themselves ; so right,
that viewed in themselves they cannot be made wrong by Al-
mighty God Himself ; so right, that rightness is of their very
essence and inamissible. Other acts are so wrong, that irreg-
ularity is in their very substance, irremovable therefrom by
God Himself, and beyond being changed by law, custom, con-
science or whatever else. Instances of the two classes are,
love of God, worship, obedience to parents; and hatred of
God, blasphemy, a lie. We distinguish between generic
morality, and specific. Generic merely denominates an act
moral; specific morality denominates it good or bad, virtue
or vice. The generic morality of an act, making it moral, is
settled by its origination in an intellect and a will. The spe-
cific morality of an act, making it good or bad, is gotten from
its harmony in whole, or discord in part, with the objective
order of things. The determinants of an act's morality,
specifically considered, are its object, its agent's end or in-
tention, its circumstances. If all three are in harmony with
the objective order, the act in question is morally good; if
any one of the three is at discord with the objective order,
the act is morally bad. This last statement remains to be
proved, and it will get our attention later. For the better
understanding of generic and specific morality, it may prove
a help to recall animal, man and brute, with their endless
varieties. Animal is the genus; man and brute, the species;
races of men and breeds of brutes are classes, not species.
In much the same way, moral acts are the genus; good and
bad acts, or virtues and vices, are the species; while virtues
and vices, grouped under particular names, are classes, not
species.
Moral acts, constituted by the fact that they proceed from
72 GENERAL ETHICS
intellect and will, are a genus capable of division into the
two species, good and bad acts. Harmony and discord with
the objective order are their specific differences. Ethics is
practical, and there is question always of an individual con-
crete act, and we want to know to what species it belongs.
We say that object, end and circumstances are its specific
determinants, and we are practically saying that the act is
morally good or bad inasmuch as the whole individual moral
act is in harmony, or part of it is at discord with the objec-
tive order. "Whole individual moral act means object, end
and circumstances. Ohject means act, end means moral, cir-
cumstances mean individual. Different virtues and different
vices are not species properly so called. They are classes
under species. Like man and brute in Porphyry's Tree vir-
tues and vices are infimae or lowest species. They admit of
different classes, but not of different species. An infima
species cannot be conceived as a genus containing different
species, but only as a species containing different individ-
uals, and these in turn constitute different classes. There
are no different species of men, though there are different
races or classes of men; and so there are no different species
of virtue or vice, but only different classes or kinds. Man
and brute are different species of animal, because they differ
in essence. Justice and charity are not different species of
virtue, because they do not differ in essence, inasmuch as they
are moral goods. Their essences, namely genus and specific
difference, are the same, moral acts in harmony with objective
order. Different species must have different essences, differ-
ent classes have the same essence and different accidents. No
one act can belong to two different species, but the same act
can belong to two different classes. One act cannot be at the
same time virtuous and vicious, though one act ordered by
the will can be at the same time justice and charity, as when
a man owes five dollars and gives ten. It is quite possible
for a charitable man to become a just man, without ceasing
to be charitable; it is quite impossible for a rational animal
or a man to become an irrational animal or a brute. And
what is true of man as a lowest species, is true of virtue as a
lowest species. Though we are not now specially concerned
with the classification of the different virtues and different
J
OBJECT, END, CIRCUMSTANCES 73
vices, but with the specification of generically moral acts,
it is quite true to say that object, end and circumstances
classify virtues and vices as well as specify moral acts. Ob-
ject, end and circumstances are not the specific differences
of good and bad acts, but the specific determinants limited
or determined by the specific differences, harmony and dis-
cord with the objective order. All three must be in har-
mony with the objective order to constitute a good act, dis-
cord in any one of the three with the objective order constitutes
a bad act. In conjunction with harmony and discord they
determine the specific morality of a generically moral act.
They contribute jointly with harmony and discord to the
whole essence of a morally good or a morally bad act. There
are no different species of moral good and moral evil, though
tliere are different species of morally good and morally evil
acts. Justice is a species of morally good acts, it is not a
species of moral good, because no moral good is contradic-
torily opposed to it. Man is a species of animal, because
brute is contradictorily opposed to him. Justice and injus-
tice are not species of virtue, because virtue is not common
to the two. Justice and charity are not species of virtue,
'because, though virtue is common to the two, their specific
differences are the same, and one is not contradictorily op-
posed to the other.
St. Thomas, S. T. 1, 2, q. 19, a. 1, contends that acts get their
specific morality from object alone, to later share the preroga-
tive with end and circumstances. Therefore object must
admit of several meanings. In one sense or Avide sense it
includes end and circumstances, in the other it excludes them.
In wide sense object of act means the whole term of the man's
wish, the whole good thing known to the intellect and sought
or chosen by the will, with every attendant circumstance.
Like every whole the whole term or whole good has parts,
and these parts are what we call the object in strict sense,
end and circumstances. Object, therefore, in strict sense, is
what the will on its own account and primarily wishes with
a bearing on morality. Circumstances are accidents morally
affecting the act, whether by way of object or by way of
agent; and they are what the will wishes, not on their own
account primarily, but on account of object or end and sec-
74 GENERAL ETHICS
ondarily. They are answers to the questions, quis, quid, ubi,
quibus auxiliis, cur, quomodo, quando; meaning who, what,
where, with what helps, why, how, when. Some circum-
stances physically affect the act, and we are not talking of
them. An instance would be to give an alms with the left
hand or the right hand. Person is a circumstance, quis, or
who, and it means here not the bare substance of a person, a
mere man, a mere woman, a mere child, but a person as af-
fected with modifications that base moral relations, like a
father, a mother, a son, a laymam, a priest. Some circum-
stances, like quantity, leave their acts in the same class of
virtues or vices, as &ve or ten dollars in the case of theft;
others, like place, put their acts in different classes, as theft
in a church becomes theft and sacrilege. End is itself a cir-
cumstance, cur or why, and the same is true of object, quid
or what; but just as quid or what, taken as a circumstance,
is made to mean quantum, how much, or quale, of what sort,
so cur or why taken as a circumstance is made to mean end
of deed or finis operis, reducible itself to object. End as dis-
tinguished from circumstance means end of doer, finis operan-
tis, an intrinsic accident of the agent, not an intrinsic acci-
dent of the deed; not the purpose nature attached to the
work, but the purpose actuating the agent to perform it.
Think of clock, time and money, with time for end of deed,
or thing made, and money for end of doer or person making.
To constitute an act good all the determinants must be
good, to constitute an act evil, only one of the three need be
evil; and St. Thomas sees in this circumstance another proof
of the difficulty attaching to virtue as compared with vice,
declaring that the surpassing value of virtue makes the trou-
ble worth while. This fact is gathered up in the terse say-
ing, ^'Bonum ex Integra causa, malum ex quocunque defectu.^'
Good results from a complete and total cause , evil from any
defect in the cause. What the agent chooses must be right, the
reason why he chooses it must be right, and the circum-
stances attaching to what and why must be right. If any
of the three happens to be wrong, the whole act is morally
wrong.
Object is finis operis, end of deed; end is finis operantis,
end of doer. The object of murder is the destruction of an
OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE MORALITY 75
innocent man's life, the object of theft is the seizure of an-
other's property against his rational wishes, the object of a
clock is the indication of time. The end of murder may be
revenge, or plunder, or removal of an unfriendly witness,
removal of a Church persecutor, kindness to a parent, and
the like. The end of theft may be the purchase of an auto,
alms to the poor, gift to a benefactor, payment of a debt and
the like. Circumstances affect both object and end. Murder
of a father by his son, in a church, to keep him from sin.
Object can likewise mean the term of the act, terminus ac-
tionis; the person or thing the act touches or affects, God,
self, the neighbor, creatures without reason. When God is
object, because He is good, without any admixture of evil,
no concrete act can be indifferent with regard to object, be-
cause turning towards complete good is necessarily good, turn-
ing away from complete good is necessarily evil. With self,
neighbor and irrational creatures it is different; they are
mixtures of good and evil, and turning towards them is not
necessarily good, turning away from them is not necessarily
evil. To turn towards the good in them, and to turn away
from the evil in them are good acts; to turn away from the
good in them, and to turn towards the evil in them are bad
acts. Therefore, acts bearing on creatures, even in the con-
crete, are of indifferent morality on the part of object of the
act. This is far from meaning that individual acts in the
concrete are ever indifferent. They are always definitely
good or evil, but they get their specific or definite morality
not from object of act, but from end of agent, and no indi-
vidual concrete act is without its definite and determined
purpose. Hatred is all right, when aversion from evil in-
volves tendency towards good; hate is all wrong, when aver-
sion from evil involves aversion from good. To walk, to
drink, to talk, are acts with self for object, and these acts
are never put without a purpose or motive different from and
prior to the acts themselves. Walking, drinking and talking
cannot be motives for the wish to walk, drink or talk, because
they do not exist before the wish is conceived, and cause must
precede effect. Therefore, some motive prior to the wish
inspires these several acts, and changes these morally indiffer-
ent acts on the part of object to specifically good or evil acts
76 GENERAL ETHICS
on the part of agent. Purposes like prayer, health, temper-
ance, kindness, make these acts morally good; purposes like
theft, gluttony, drunkenness, anger make these acts morally
evil. And what is true of acts with self for object, is true
of acts with the neighbor and irrational creatures for object.
Again, we distinguish between objective morality and sub-
jective morality, much as we distinguish between objective
certainty and subjective; and, just as purely subjective cer-
tainty, without objective for basis and foundation, is error
rather than truth, so purely subjective morality, or subjec-
tive goodness without objective goodness for basis and founda-
tion, is badness or vice rather than goodness or virtue. Hence,
a man can be good, though he puts a bad act, he can be bad
though he puts a good act, meaning always in the matter of
conscience, or subjectively. He can tell a lie and think it a
duty. His will is right, his mind is wrong. He can tell the
truth and think it a sin. His mind and will are both wrong.
One is morality of the man, conscience apart from act; the
other is morality of his act, act apart from conscience. Objec-
tive morality is in the whole deed or act itself, without any
reference whatever to the truth or falsehood of the doer's
knowledge ; and of this kind of morality there was question in
the second and third paragraphs of our third thesis. The only
kind of subjective morality, that regularly deserves notice, is
the kind based on objective ; and of this we speak when we say
that the specific determinants of morality are the act's object,
its doer's end or intention, and the circumstances affecting
both. Conscience is the measure of pure subjective morality,
and will get our attention later.
Certainty is entirely a matter of intellect, morality is a
matter of intellect and will together. Certainty turns on
truth, morality on conduct, and the will has more to do with
conduct than the intellect. The intellect is true, objectively
and subjectively certain, only when it grasps things as they
are, only when it sees murder as murder, theft as theft. It
is false, subjectively certain, objectively ignorant or wrong,
when it grasps things otherwise than as they are, when it views
murder as charity, theft as commendable skill. Intellect is
only one factor in morality, will is the other and more im-
portant.
MORAL ACTS 77
All three determinants, object, end and circumstances, have
their own objective and subjective morality. Their objective
morality is like a fact, and quite independent of the agent's
thinking ; their subjective morality is not a fact, but the view
the agent 's mind takes of them. Per se, and therefore regu-
larly, man's mind hits the truth; per accidens, and therefore
in rare and exceptional cases, the mind can miss the truth.
In such exceptional cases subjective morality is at variance
with objective, and ignorance is usually responsible for the
mistake. This ignorance is either vincible or invincible,
within the thinker's control or beyond it. Some degree of
carelessness attaches to vincible ignorance, and carelessness
is blameable and punishable. No such carelessness attaches
to invincible, and it is therefore without blame and unpun-
ishable.
Objective morality, as distinguished from subjective, is the
morality of the object of the act in strict sense, and end,
and circumstances, viewed as facts, as they are in themselves;
subjective morality is morality of the same three determinants,
as they are viewed by the mind of the agent. And this. is
what we mean when we say that subjective is the morality of
the man, objective is the morality of his act. A man is not
good, unless his purpose and its attendant circumstances are
good, as well as the object of his act. Neither is he good,
unless the object of his act is good, as well as his end and its
attendant circumstances. Every act implies two things, a
cause and an effect. A moral act implies a cause viewed
morally, and an effect viewed morally. A cause viewed mor-
ally involves intellectual knowledge and free will with a bear-
ing on moral right and wrong. An effect viewed morally is
what results from the activity of a cause viewed morally; it
is a physical act proceeding from a free agent, not consid-
ered merely in itself, but in its bearing on right and wrong.
In every moral act the effect or term of the act fixes its objec-
tive morality; the cause, a composite of intellectual knowl-
edge and free will, fixes its subjective morality.
Only free acts are matter for moral acts, choice is exercise
of freedom, and choice is impossible without prior intellectual
knowledge. Man's one free faculty is his will. His intellect,
senses, appetite, locomotion are all necessary faculties, and
78 GENERAL ETHICS
they borrow whatever freedom we attribute to them from the
will. Therefore, in strict sense only acts elicited by the will,
only wishes as such, only internal acts of the will, begun and
finished in the will, elicited and executed by the will, deserve
and get the appellation, moral. Every act external to the
will, whether it be a thought, or a sensation, or a passion,
murder, or theft, viewed as proceeding from intellect, sense,
appetite, or hands, is a necessary act, and therefore without
its own proper morality ; and every such act borrows morality
from intimate connection with the will, from dependence in
its first origin on the will, from the fact that, while it is fin-
ished or executed by another faculty, it is begun, elicited in
the shape of a wish, ordered, commanded, prescribed by the
will.
Hence our distinction between acts elicited by the will and
acts ordered by the will. Elicited acts are internal acts,
ordered acts are external. Both are moral acts, but after a
different manner. Internal acts have their own independent
morality, ordered acts have no morality of their own, but
a morality derived from and dependent on the influence of
the will, the part played by the will in their accomplishment.
Murder and theft are always done in the will before they are
done by the hands, and as outward or external acts their
morality is exactly the same as that of the wish or internal
act prompting them. In murder the outward act is in itself
necessary, free by participation; the inward act is free in
itself. The will makes the murderer kill, much as instinct
makes the bird fly, with this difference, that while the will
is free, instinct is a necessary agent.
In the concrete, and viewed as products of an individual
man, all acts are either good or bad. In real life there is no
such thing as an indifferent human act, a deliberate act
neither good nor bad, but between both. In the abstract, and
in the field of theory, walking, singing, and a thousand such
acts are indifferent in themselves; but in practical every-day
life all such acts are necessarily good or bad. Ethics has
nothing to do with indifferent acts, because they fall outside
its sphere. It is a practical, not a theoretical study. There
never was an animal, without its being a man or a brute ; and
there never was a moral or distinctively human act, without
SUMMARY 79
its being definitely good or bad, from a moral point of view.
Acts are morally good or bad, when they respectively help
or hinder a man in his progress towards his last end, the
possession of God in Heaven, the practice of virtue on earth.
Man's destiny is the fulfilment of God's wishes in his regard,
and we gather God's designs on man from a study of man's
nature. Complete happiness is last factor in man's wishes;
and, therefore his last end, because there is no good beyond.
Because it leads to God or complete happiness, virtue consti-
tutes incomplete happiness, the highest possible on earth.
Virtue in turn means order in man's free acts, it means the
performance of duty ; duty springs from man 's relations with
the other moral units in the universe, God and neighbor ; and
these relations are based on the objective order of things,
things as God made them, things as God views them.
And now to sum up, an act is first moral, then good or bad.
All distinctively human acts are moral. Some are good,
others bad; good, when they square with the objective order
of things, as grasped by the intellect ; bad, when they are at
angles with this order. Objective order is embodied in the
eternal law, made manifest to man in the natural law, and
pushed to the limit of clearness in positive law; and for this
reason, the natural law is morality's model cause. Eternal
law is God's reason or will, commanding the preservation of
natural order, forbidding its disturbance. Natural law is
eternal law, become evident in rational nature; or, an inborn
habit of mind enabling man to detect the harmony or discord
in force between notions constituting morality's first prin-
ciples. Positive law is an obligation founded on right rea-
son, drawn up and promulgated for the common good by him
who has charge of the community affected. Creatures in-
ferior to man, from minerals to brutes, always keep the eternal
law, the law set them by God, that aspect of eternal law
applicable to irrational nature. A stone miraculously sus-
pended in the air, is keeping the law of gravity as far as in
it lies. Man is the only rebel in the universe, because man
alone is free. Morality's efficient cause is man, viewed as an
intelligent, free being. Morality is restricted to man, intel-
lect and will are the two faculties in man directly concerned
with morality, and of the two will is the more vitally impor-
80 GENERAL ETHICS
tant. It is the work of the intellect to know right and wrong,
it is the work of the will to choose between them. In the -field
of knowing synderesis and conscience are man's mentors,
they are functions of the intellect in its bearing on morality,
they are reason restricted to the department of right and
wrong. Synderesis is the hahit of morality's first principles;
and we saw in our fourth thesis that synderesis is unerring.
The natural law is universally known, as well as universally
existent. Conscience is the application of synderesis to per-
sonal and concrete acts; and conscience can be false as well as
true, wrong as well as right. Synderesis is intellect as it
comes from the hand of God, conscience is intellect as modi-
fied hy man; and the whole truth is summed up in that state-
ment from Major Logic, the intellect is per se infallible, and
fallible per accidens. Synderesis elicits a speculative judg-
ment only, conscience elicits a speculative and a practieal judg-
ment. One is Major ; the other theoretically viewed is Minor
in the Moral Syllogism, practically viewed it is the conclu-
sion. One regulates our thinking, the other our doing. One
is truth, the other is morality ; and they are related like Logic
and Ethics, inasmuch as Logic lays down rules for right
thinking, Ethics lays down rules for right conduct. An ex-
ample may make things clearer. Murder is wrong and a
thing to be avoided. This particular killing I contemplate
would be murder. Therefore I must avoid this particular
killing.
Intellect, therefore, and will, or knowing and choosing, are
what give being and essence to our moral acts, and they
deserve most serious attention. They get full and complete
treatment in Psychology; but, for present purposes, we must
be pardoned introducing here certain truths, there proved
beyond dispute. We begin with the consideration of man,
as composed of body and soul. The two appetitive faculties
in man are appetite and will ; the passions are manifestations
of appetite, and are nine in number. The will's freedom,
the different classes of voluntary acts, the different kinds of
intentions need to be explained. The parts ignorance and
error, the passions and violence play in morality are questions
to be settled.
Composition of Man. Man is a mystery. He is the mi-
APPETITE AND WILL 81
crocosm; a mineral, a plant, a brute and an angel. He is a
body and soul, matter and spirit. He is one complete sub-
stance and nature, made up of two incomplete substances
and natures. Only live bodies are human bodies, and they
alone are one incomplete substance. A dead body is no hu-
man body, it is an aggregate of many different complete sub-
stances.
The incompleteness of the body, as a substance, is situate in
the circumstance, that it unites with the soul to form the
complete substance, man. Its incompleteness, as a nature, is
due to the fact that it derives its activity from the soul. The
whole man is a complete substance, because he stands by him-
self, and enters into no combination with another. He is a
complete nature, because he is the root and principle of all
his operations. Body and soul are incomplete after different
manners. The body is incomplete and non-subsistent. With-
out the soul it falls away and perishes. The soul is incom-
plete and subsistent. Without the body it goes on living
and acting. And yet the soul is no angel, because its sub-
sistence is incomplete; accompanied always by a connatural
capacity for union with the body, to constitute one complete
substance, man. An angel's subsistence is complete, and void
of every such connatural capacity. Only as a composite of
body and soul is man a complete substance and a complete
nature. As such he is not a body, nor yet a soul; but a
man. He is not a body-substance or nature, nor yet a soul-
substance or nature ; but a human substance and nature, with
activities partaking of the two kingdoms of matter and spirit.
Hence, he has sense as well as intellect; he has appetite as
well as will. In man's present condition his soul is root and
principle of his thoughts and wishes, but with extrinsic de-
pendence on his body, and this dependence is far from
interfering with the soul's spirituality. This extrinsic de-
pendence on the body, in a mediate way follows the soul to
the next life, because in even its separated condition it
thinks and wishes with the mediate help of species or images
it carries, and these owe their first origin to phantasms, them-
selves products of the composite man.
Appetite and Will. But we are now concerned with man
in this present life ; and, because our topic is Ethics, his will
82 GENERAL ETHICS
demands most immediate attention. In this business of
morality the will is the thing, and a man's will is his heart.
The will is best defined as a spiritual, inorganic faculty of the
soul, appetitive of good at the instigation of the intellect.
It is a blind faculty, and gets light from the intellect. It
can act with or against the light. Good is its object, and
that is the quality intellect calls to its notice. Greater and
lesser have weight of course with the will, but no determining
or absolute weight. It is free, and can reject the greater
good to select the lesser, and all this with an abiding
knowledge of their relative worth. Experience is proof, and
facts are more stubborn than wrong principles, doped out to
strengthen the weak limbs of a lame theory. As soon as the
smallest conceivable particle of good sails into the mind's
vision, the will is ready to exert its energy. The will is free,
we say, and the world agrees with us. We mean the world
of common sense. There are a few restless spirits, who stand
for determination of will. But they are off the right track,
they purposely go wide of common-sense, they are chasing
rainbows in a wild search for novelty, no sober study of the
truth. The truth of the thing is that the will is free, and
Determinists are well acquainted with the fact. They feel
free to reject as attractive a good as the truth, and actions
are louder than words. When a man says one thing and
does another, we claim the privilege of gathering his real
sentiments from his deeds; and these idle philosophers talk
Determinism to do freedom. The will then is free, and it is
too late in the day to endeavor to correct the notion.
Omitting for the present the soul's executive energies, we
attribute to the soul the power to know, and the power to
wish; and this twofold power we denominate its cognoscitive
and appetitive faculties. Man wishes as he knows, and his
knowledge covers two kingdoms, that of sense and that of
intellect. His soul is the root of all his activity. Sight and
hearing are just as much rooted in his soul as understanding
or thought. But here again there is a difference. In opera-
tions of sense the soul is intrinsically dependent on matter,
in thought its dependence is merely extrinsic. Had man no
higher faculty than sense, his soul would be just as material
as the brute's. But he has a higher faculty, that of thought;
THE PASSIONS 83
its operations are intrinsically independent of matter, spirit-
ual, inorganic ; and what is highest in a thing gives the thing
its name. For present purposes we can call thought the
soul's superior knowledge, sensation its inferior knowledge,
with intellect and sense for corresponding faculties. Becmise
man wishes as he knows, we must recognize a double capacity
for willing, a superior will and an inferior will, rational
appetite and sensile appetite, one intrinsically independent
of organs, the other intrinsically dependent on same. Both
are wills, both are appetites ; but for the sake of clearness we
call the first, will simply ; the second, appetite. The passions
are displays of the appetite, wishes are displays of the will.
The Passions. Our passions are as dependent on the body
as our senses; our wishes are as clear of the body as our
thoughts. The passions, like appetite their root, turn always
on some particular good or its opposite; and, like sensation
as compared with thought, are more manifest and closer
to hand than wishes or acts of the will proper. The will
has universal good for object, and it always embraces particu-
lar goods under the aspect of universals. Man wishes the
office of president, not inasmuch as it is the office of presi-
dent, but inasmuch as it is honor; he wishes the salary, not
inasmuch as it is a set sum of money, but inasmuch as it
is money. A hungry man wants food of any kind, food in
general. A hungry horse wants this or that particular food,
oats, or corn, or hay.
Passion, if we consult the word's origin, means suffering,
a modification induced by impact from another. In oratory
the passions are stimulations of pain or pleasure, meant to
shape or color a man's opinions. In ethics passions are move-
ments of the appetite, set on foot by the actual presence, or
vivid representation, of an object wearing the appearance
of good or evil. They are acts of the appetite, and have no
part in angels or separate souls. And yet these passions
have their counterparts in the thoughts and wishes of angels.
Love, hate, desire are as native to angels as they are to brutes ;
but in angels they exist without any admixture of appetite;
they are affairs of the soul, not affairs of the body. Man is
capable of the love peculiar to angels, and of the love peculiar
to brutes. His will is affected by the senses as well as by
84
GENERAL ETHICS
the intellect. Orators reach the hearts of their listeners by
the passions as well as by arguments. And in his own case
a man can be orator and audience. Passion always manifests
itself in body-change, ''the diffusive wave of emotion." All
passion is emotion, but not all emotion is passion. Surprise,
laughter, shame, are not passions, because they are impos-
sible without intellect. Passions turn on good and evil
affecting sense.
The ancients enumerated nine passions. They are all
species of the generic passions, love and hate. Love has good
for object; hate, evil. Hate is the negation of love, as evil
is the negation of good.
Desire has absent good for ob-
ject.
Delight has present good for
object.
Hope has hard, but possible
good for object.
Despair has hard and impos-
sible good for object.
Love; good is object, no limit
Abhorrence has absent evil
for object.
Displeasure has present evil
Hate; evil is object, no limit^ ^ ^^^ ^^J^^t-
Fear has hard and unavoid-
able evil for object.
Courage has hard, but avoid-
able evil for object.
Anger is a mixture of desire, displeasure, hope.
. Desires are physical and psychical. Both are from senses.
Imagination has wider play in latter. Physical craves for
quantity; psychical, for quality, e.g. A thirsty man crav-
ing water and champagne. Physical craves for limited ob-
jects ; psychical, for unlimited, not in sense of universal, but
in sense of colossal particulars, e. g. A thirsty man wants,
not ocean, but enough; a miser' wants all gold. Psychical
desires are not intellectual desires. These last contemplate
FREEDOM OF WILL 85
immaterial goods and material goods viewed in an immate-
rial way. Desire of perfect happiness is intellectual.
Delight, like desire, may be sensual or intellectual. The
passion is sensual delight. Like desire, delight may be phys-
ical or psychical. Play of imagination makes difference, e. g.
a wine-taster. Intellectual delights are superior to sensual,
where minds and hearts are cultivated. Regarding the mor-
ality of an act done for pleasure, there is a difference between
acting for pleasure and living for pleasure. The first is right.
Delight, like desire, may be sensual or intellectual. The
second is wrong.
Anger is a mixed passion; it is desire of open vengeance for
an open slight, attended with displeasure at slight. Hatred
is usually chronic, anger is frequently acute. Hatred wishes
evil as it is evil ; anger, as it is just. Anger regularly wishes
evil in sight of all ; hatred is not seldom content with hidden
evil. Anger stops, hatred continues.
The Will's Freedom. And now we leave the passions, these
affections of appetite, to return to the will. Again, the will
is a spiritual, inorganic faculty of the soul, appetitive of good
at the instigation of the intellect. A voluntary act is such
as proceeds from the will with a purpose in mind. Voluntary
acts may be necessary or free ; necessary, when the will is cut
off from all choice; free, when choice is in its power. In
Heaven love of God is a voluntary necessary act. In this life
all our deliberate voluntary acts are free. Every good in our
acquaintance is a mixture of good and evil, it falls short of
the summum bonum or God, who is alone unmixed good. The
good in the object stirs desire; the &vil in the object stirs
aversion. To desire is to select, to turn aside from is to
reject. Therefore, whatever created good falls under our
notice is, because of its mixed nature, capable material for
selection or rejection, for desire or aversion; and when the
will is able to wish or not wish, its act is free. Freedom is
an attribute of the will, enabling it, after equipment with
every needed prerequisite, to still wish or not wish, to choose
this or choose that. This attribute follows the will all the
way up to actual exertion of its energy. When it once
makes choice, its freedom regarding this particular act is
straightway at an end. It cannot wish a thing, and at the
86 GENERAL ETHICS
same time remain free to wish or not wish it. But up to
the precise moment wherein it wishes, it certainly remains
free to do one thing or the other. In perhaps plainer words,
it enjoys antecedent not consequent freedom. When freedom
turns on the power to will or not will, it is known as freedom
of contradiction. When it turns on the power to positively
wish or positively reject a certain thing, it is known as free-
dom of contrariety. When it turns on the power to wish
this or wish that, it is known as freedom of specification.
Thus, when I choose between reading and not reading, I am
exercising my freedom of contradiction; when between lov-
ing and hating a person, my freedom of contrariety; when
between reading and singing, my freedom of specification.
The most obvious meaning of freedom is separation or
immunity from something. Freedom of will is immunity
from determination, from necessary adhesion to some set
line of conduct. The determining force can be conceived
as intrinsic or extrinsic to the will. Immunity from a de-
termining force intrinsic to the will is called freedom from
necessity. The other is called freedom from violence. In our
present condition, the will in all its deliberate acts enjoys
freedom of the first sort. Things would be different, if we
saw God face to face. The will in its elicited acts, in acts it
begins and finishes, in acts the will itself executes, always
enjoys freedom of the second kind. In ordered acts, in acts
it begins, to leave to another to finish, in acts it commands
another agent to execute, freedom of the second sort may be
present or absent. When it is absent, the ordered act is not
free. A prisoner in his cell is free to wish as he likes, and
the law has no restraining influence over his will in the
matter of its elicted acts. It can, however, with chains pre-
vent him from walking, and so spoil him of freedom in
ordered acts, dependent on his legs for execution. No elic-
ited act of the will can be forced, because, in that case,
the will would object and not object, a contradiction in terms.
Freedom from necessity is the kind we vindicate to the
will, and it is called freedom of indifference^ freedom of
choice, free will, freedom simply. A spontaneous act is
opposed to a forced act, and force is extrinsic. All vital
or immanent acts are of such sort. Acts proceeding from
VOLUNTARY ACTS 87
appetite, whether natural in minerals and plants, sensitive
in brutes, or intellectual in man, are spontaneous. The high-
est spontaneity of man on earth is freedom, the highest spon-
taneity of inferior agents is necessity. Man's indeliberate
acts are spontaneous with necessity. A voluntary and fully
deliberate act proceeds from the will, with knowledge of end
as such, and may be either necessary or free. A free act is an
act of the will held to no set shape by anything in the
will's nature or constitution. In this life, elicited acts of
the will are free, not because they are elicited, but because
their every object is a mixture of good and evil. Love of
God in Heaven is an elicited act and necessary. Necessity is
compatible with elicited acts of the will, as is plain from the
case of the blessed in Heaven. Freedom of indifference or
choice, or free willy consists in passive and active capacity
to wish or not wish in the presence of every needed prerequis-
ite for wishing; or it is a power of choice, enabling us in
the event of several alternatives to freely choose one and
neglect or reject the others. Freedom belongs formally and
intrinsically to the will alone. The intellect is not free in
the presence of immediately evident truth. Acts of other
faculties are free in cause and extrinsically, inasmuch as the
will orders or commands them. The will is superior to
whatever preponderating influence or inclination urges, it
can choose what we here and now know to be worse in pref-
erence to what we here and now know to be better, in spite
of what Leibnitz says to the contrary.
Voluntary Acts. Whether free or necessary, all elicited
acts of the will are voluntary. No elicited acts of the will are
altogether involuntary. Ordered or commanded acts, viewed
in their execution, may be altogether involuntary, e. g. im-
prisonment or upright position with arm extended. Elicited
acts of the will begin and end in the will, ordered acts
begin in the will and end in another faculty. Hence, we
distinguish between acts altogether voluntary or involuntary,
and acts partly voluntary or involuntary. When the act
turns on an object desired in itself, and on its own account,
it is wholly voluntary. When it turns on an object desired
in no way whatever, it is wholly involuntary. When it turns
on an object desired indeed, not however on its own account,
88 GENERAL ETHICS
but on account of another closely connected object, it is
partly voluntary and partly involuntary. In a partly vol-
untary act the will embraces its object, but would never em-
brace it, if it could otherwise avoid some evil or compass
some good. Sailors, unloading their cargo into the sea dur-
ing a storm, are the classical example. We likewise dis-
tinguish between a directly voluntary and an indirectly
voluntary act. The first turns on an object wished imme-
diately and on its own account ; the other, on an object wished
not on its own account, but because it follows necessarily in
the wake of the wisher's purpose. An indirectly voluntary
act differs from a partially voluntary act in this, that the
former has for object a good consequent on the wisher's pur-
pose, while the latter has for object a good antecedent to the
wisher's purpose, a means to his end. Examples may serve
to make things clearer. Sailors in a storm lighten their
ship of its cargo as a means to securing their safety. Drunk-
enness is the indirect voluntary of excessive drinking. Indi-
rect voluntary and voluntary in cause are of a kind. The
omission of an act likewise constitutes an indirect voluntary.
Intentions. Whatever influences the will is called an end
or purpose. This end or purpose, viewed as energizing the
will, is called the man's intention; and it may be formal and
actual or virtual, explicit or implicit, habitual or interpreta-
tive. It is formal and actual, when actually known and
wished, in a distinct way. Ordinarily our intentions are of
this sort. It is virtual, when, ceasing to be actual, it goes on
shaping our conduct with force borrowed from its original
impulse as an actual intention. In the course of a journey
our intention insensibly passes from actual to virtual. A
priest baptizing with distractions is another example. It is
explicit, when it keeps in view some distinct object ; and our
intentions are regularly such at the first. It is implicit, when
it keeps in view some object not known with distinctness,
but involved in another. Thus, to explicitly purpose a jour-
ney is to implicitly purpose car-fare. It is habitual, when
once entertained it falls from memory, without being repu-
diated or knowingly withdrawn. The Morning Offering
influences after this manner all the day's acts. The inten-
tion perseveres not in act or in effect, but in habit; and it
IGNORANCE, ERROR, PASSIONS 89
influences subsequent acts. It is interpretative, when, of no
actual or virtual or explicit habitual force, it would influence
our conduct, if recognized with distinctness. Interpreta-
tive is same as implicit habitual, e.g., desire to be saved is
interpretative desire to be baptized. Such an intention suf-
fices for the valid reception of Baptism, when intention of a
superior kind is impossible. Virtual at least is always re-
quired in minister.
Ignorance and Error. Intellect and will combine to pro-
duce free acts. Choice pertains to the will, knowledge to the
intellect. Freedom, therefore, can be diminished by hind-
rance to choice and hindrance to knowledge. Ignorance and
error can affect our minds, passion and fear can affect
our wills. Ignorance is described as absence of knowledge.
It is that state of mind wherein no judgment or idea is had
of the thing unknown. If a man ought to have the knowl-
edge in question, his ignorance is positive. If no such obli-
gation exists, his ignorance is negative. Examples of neg-
ative are ignorance of medicine in a farmer and of philoso-
phy in a Freshman. Examples of positive are ignorance of
medicine in a physician and of philosophy in a Senior. Ig-
norance is vincible, if, with the amount of study, to which a
man is held, it can be set aside; if such a measure of study
is of no avail to set it aside, the man's ignorance is invin-
cible. Vincible ignorance is culpable; invincible, inculpable.
Antecedent ignorance has place before the man wakes up to
the duty of investigation, and it is invincible as well as in-
culpable. Consequent ignorance has place after the man
wakes up to the duty of investigation, and it may be vin-
cible as well as culpable. Vincible ignorance is of three
kinds ; simple^ when some study is employed, but not enough ;
stupid or lazy, when little or no study is employed; and.
affected, when one purposely avoids every source of infor-
mation to continue in his perverse ways. Acts are rendered
involuntary by invincible ignorance; not, of course, invol-
untary under every respect, but under such respect alone
as the ignorance affects or touches them; vincible ignorance
leaves them voluntary, but in a diminished degree. Invin-
cible ignorance is wished in no way; neither in itself nor in
cause. Vincible ignorance is wished in cause. To strike a
90 GENERAL ETHICS
priest, thinking him a layman, is no sacrilege. To eat meat
on Friday, without taking means to clear up a suspicion, is
sinful. When no such suspicion is present, no sin is com-
mitted. To studiously avoid enquiry about a fast-day, for
the purpose of enjoying a full meal, is to incur guilt. Error
is positive want of conformity between mind and object, it is
that state of mind wherein a false judgment is had of some-
thing. It is material and formal. Material turns on wrong
appearances of things. Formal confounds appearances with
facts. Formal error is the acceptance of the false for the
true, and admits of distinctions parallel with those of ignor-
ance.
Examples of material and formal are, men seem trees, and
men are trees.
Passion. Passion is sensile appetite, and we have already
enumerated its different kinds. With consent of the will for
point of departure, passion is antecedent or consequent.
When passion turns on moral good, it is altogether honorable.
When it turns on moral evil, antecedent passion is involun-
tary and without moral blame. Consent of the will changes
antecedent to consequent passion, and such passion is volun-
tary ; directly, when the will urges or commands it ; indirectly,
when disturbance ensues from will 's vehemence. Motus primo
primus is altogether antecedent passion. Motus secundo pri-
mus means incomplete consent ; it is passion adverted to, and
not resisted. Motus secundus means full consent and conse-
quent passion.
Fear and Violence. We single out fear, because it is less
a home-product than the other passions, and therefore more
compelling.
Fear can be serious or light, intrinsic or extrinsic. Fear
is dread of a threatening evil, apprehended as unavoidable.
Serious dreads a great evil, certain or very probable, e. g.
death, wounds, property, imprisonment.
Absolutely serious fear affects an ordinary person. Rela-
tively serious fear affects a person of a certain age, sex or
disposition. Absolutely light can be relatively serious.
Light dreads a lesser evil, or a great evil barely probable.
Reverential awe can become relatively serious fear, especially
in girls.
FEAR 91
Fear is intrinsic when its cause is a necessary agent whether
extrinsic or intrinsic to the person who fears, e. g. a con-
tracted disease, meditation on hell, earthquake.
Fear is extrinsic, when its cause is outside the man and a
free agent, e. g. enemy, highwayman, threats.
Free fear resembles extrinsic and is caused by the free act
of a human being, e. g. highwayman. Free fear is just if
the person causing it seeks to repel harm. Free fear is un-
just, if the person causing it seeks to inflict harm. Nec-
essary fear resembles intrinsic and is prompted by a neces-
sary cause, e. g. earthquake, volcano, lightning.
Solutions: In case reason is not dethroned, fear, no matter
how serious, leaves the act voluntary in a diminished degree,
e. g. martyrs and apostates. Serious fear excuses from posi-
tive law, especially human. Unjust fear makes law-instru-
ments invalid. Light fear is generally neglected before the
law; in conscience it can have some weight in questions of
compensation for loss. Violence cannot be done the will.
Under violence the man makes free choice of escape from pain.
An external act due entirely to violence is no crime in the
unwilling agent.
THESIS VI
A human act gets its specific morality from the object of
the act, from the agent's end or purpose, and from circum-
stances affecting both. — Jouin, 32-36; Rickaby, 31-41.
QUESTION
This present thesis fixes the specific determinants of moral-
ity. It ai '>vvcrs the question, What makes a moral act good
or bad, what makes a moral act the act of one particular vir-
tue or vice rather than the act of another?
TERMS
Specific Morality. Specific morality is opposed to generic.
Specific makes an act good or bad, an act 'of this or that
particular virtue or vice. All virtuous acts are specifically
the same in first sense, because harmony with objective order
is the specific difference. All virtuous acts of different par-
ticular virtues are specifically different in second sense, be-
cause each particular virtue has its own specific difference;
justice being specified by another's due; charity, by kindness
to another ; humility, by right esteem of self ; and so of all the
different virtues.
Object, End, Circumstances. All three, object, end and
circumstances are specific determinants, and in both senses,
fixing classes as well as species. In the briefest language
possible, objective morality arises from the object of the act,
subjective morality from the agent's purpose, and circum-
stances modify object and purpose. Circumstances are
summed up in the Latin verse, Quis, quid, ubi, quibus auxiliis,
cur, quomodo, quando ? The verse means. Who, what, where,
with what helps, why, how, when? Circumstances are ob-
jective, when they modify the matter or substance of the act ;
subjective when they modify the purpose of the agent. The
92
OBJECT 93
object contributes essential, intrinsic morality to the act; the
end contributes accidental, extrinsic morality; circumstances,
when limited to the object, contribute accidental, intrinsic
morality; when limited to the agent, accidental, extrinsic
morality. The end contributes essential intrinsic morality
to the agent, circumstances contribute essential intrinsic
morality to object and agent ; and therefore end and circum-
stances are as much specific determinants as object, because
a moral act is not object alone, but object, agent and circum-
stances taken together. To be a moral act, it must be an in-
dividual free act, voluntary and deliberate; and this quality
implies end and circumstances.
Acts indifferent in themselves, because neither good nor
bad from the viewpoint of object or matter, get all their
morality from the agent's purpose and from circumstances.
No deliberate act of the individual is indifferent. To walk
and to write are in themselves indifferent ; but no individual
can deliberately walk or write without a purpose and circum-
stances, that commend or vitiate the act.
Object. When discussing the natural law in fourth thesis,
we already described acts good or evil in themselves. They
are opposed to morally indifferent acts, which, having no
morality in themselves, get all their morality from purpose
and circumstances. Acts are good in themselves, their object
is good, when positive harmony with the objective order en-^
ters their constitution; they are bad in themselves, when
discord with same attaches to them. We distinguish between
inward acts and outward, or overt acts. The will is the moral
faculty in man, the intellect is only its helper; and all a man's
acts get their moral color from his will. Inward acts are
acts elicited and executed by the will, they begin and end in
that faculty; outward acts are acts elicited by the will and
executed by another faculty ; they begin in the will and finish
in some other faculty. Elicited or inward acts have their own
independent morality, gotten from object, end, and circum-
stances. Ordered or outward acts derive all their morality
from their corresponding elicited or inward acts. Murder
and theft are perpetrated in the heart, before they are ac-
complished by the hands. In every moral act three distinct
things are wished, the object of the act, the end or purpose
94 GENERAL ETHICS
selected^ and attendant circumstances, objective and sub-
jective. Briefly, all three things are wished, object, end and
circumstances. All the three things wished must be morally
good, to constitute the act a morally good act. An act is
bad, when any one of the three is bad. Hence the axiom,
**Bonum ex Integra causa, malum ex quocunque defectu.**
*'Good results from a full and complete cause, evil results
from a defective cause.'' In plain English, an act is good,
when all three constituents or determinants of morality are
good; it is bad, when any one of the three is bad. A moral
act is a chain made up of three links; it is good, when all
three links are good; it is bad, when any one of the three is
bad. A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and this
moral chain is no better than its worst link. Therefore, the
fact that a deed is good in object, is far from settling its
morality. A wrong intention can make the best thing in the
world wicked. The fact that a deed is bad in object, quite
settles its morality, no intention in the world can save it from
blame. When discussing the natural law in our fourth thesis,
we described acts good or bad in themselves; and we were
talking about object, as distinct from end and circumstances.
Whatever good act gets its morality solely from end and
circumstances, is in itself morally indifferent. It is not mor-
ally good in itself, because in that case object would contribute
to its morality. It is not bad in itself, because in that case
it could never become good. Whatever act is good or bad
prior to end and circumstances, is good or bad in itself, be-
cause end and circumstances are the only other sources, the
only moral coefficients other than the act itself. Acts, there-
fore, are good or bad in themselves, when, abstracting from
end and subjective circumstances, they are in harmony or at
discord with the objective order; when, morally speaking,
they are or are not what they ought to be. Physical good is
divided into becoming, agreeable and useful, and moral good
admits of the same division. All three physical goods can be
basis for moral good, and they eventuate in moral good, only
when reason's controlling influence vests them with the qual-
ity of becoming good.
Viewing man as a moral being, his one true and real good
is virtue, because it alone appeals to the morally specific por-
END AND CIRCUMSTANCES 95
tion of his being, the will as arbiter of good and evil. Even
study, in itself becoming and real physical good, can by abuse
readily become moral evil, and sink to the level of apparent
good. Pleasure and wealth, in themselves apparent good,
can, under the control of reason and an orderly will, rise to
the dignity of true and real goods. Acts can be morally good
or evil in themselves in a three-fold way. In themselves, on
their own account, and absolutely ; in themselves, on their own
account, but not absolutely; in themselves, not on their own
account, nor absolutely. Familiar examples of such goods
are worship, charity and pious reading. Familiar examples
of such evils are blasphemy, theft and dangerous reading.
Good and evil of the first kind admit no change of matter.
There is a something in the physical act of worship that
makes its acceptance by the will a moral good, and this some-
thing cannot possibly be separated from the act. There is a
something of the same kind in the physical act of blasphemy,
and this something makes blasphemy irremediably and neces-
sarily bad. Charity and pious reading become evil, when the
money given as alms is stolen, when pious reading interferes
with some higher duty. Theft and dangerous reading admit
change of matter ; and, this change supposed, they cease to be
bad. What belonged to another may become mine, and its
seizure by me is no theft. What would otherwise be danger-
ous reading and wrong, may become a necessary help to the
acquisition of medicine or theology and entirely right.
And now to explain what we mean by in themselves, on
their own account and absolutely. Blasphemy, theft and dan-
gerous reading are wrong in themselves, because of wrong-
ness involved in the three physical acts, because of native and
inborn discord with the objective order of things. Blasphemy
and theft are wrong on their own account, not on account of
an outside cause, like the prohibition of a superior. Danger-
ous reading is wrong not on its own account, but on account
of nature's decree against incurring danger without good and
sufficient reason. Absolutely, implies no possibility of change
in matter, and of the three blasphemy alone is absolutely
wrong. In no hypothesis can the physical act of blasphemy
fail of turpitude. The physical act of deliberately taking
something in theft is wrong, only in the hypothesis that it
96 GENERAL ETHICS
is concerned with property belonging to another. The pByS
ical act of deliberate dangerous reading is wrong, only in the
supposition that the risk is taken without due and sufficient
reason. In the case of a child, play on the street against a
parent's wishes, is not wrong in itself, or on its own account,
or absolutely. The wrongness is not in the play, but in dis-
obedience; the wrongness is due to the parent's prohibition,
and with the parent's permission it would be entirely right.
End. In question of ends we hold discourse primarily of
the end designated operantis, not operis; the end of doer, not
the end of deed. The finis operis is independent of the doer,
the finis operantis is wholly under his control. Recall the
example of clock and clockmaker. The finis operis of a clock
is to tell time, whether the clockmaker likes it or no. In fact,
the end of deed cannot be entirely absent from the end of doer.
The clockmaker can hardly make a clock without intending
it to measure the flight of time. These two ends are like a
combination of the object of the act and the agent's purpose,
if the act's goodness in itself or badness in itself is conceived
as the clock. The end of doer can be best called intention,
or end energizing the agent. It gives morality to an act in-
different in the abstract, making it a morally good or evil
act in the concrete. An evil intention vitiates an act morally
good in point of object or circumstances. A good intention
cannot change the evil nature of an act bad in point of object
or circumstances. And all this is true of good and evil cir-
cumstances, with regard to good and evil objects and inten-
tions. The agent's intention is his act inwardly taken, and
our outward acts get their morality from their corresponding
inward acts. Intention is an elicited act of the will, its exe-
cution is an ordered act of the will; and ordered acts of the
will get their morality from corresponding elicited acts.
Circumstances. They are modifications of the act and agent
due to person, quantity, place, helps, motives, manner and
time. That circumstances alter the morality of an act, is
evident from the following familiar examples. The execution
of a condemned criminal by some private citizen, and by the
proper public official. The circumstance of person makes the
execution in one case an act of legal justice ; in the other, an
act of murder. To steal five cents, and to steal five dollars.
SPECIFIC MORALITY 97
Quantity makes one sin venial ; the other, mortal. To eat and
drink in a hotel, and to eat and drink in a church. Place
makes the difference between a meal and a sacrilege. To lie,
and to confirm the lie with an oath. Manner adds perjury
to falsehood. To drink, and to drink to excess. Quantity
changes temperance to drunkenness or gluttony. Time makes
eating meat on Friday a sin, likewise the omission of com-
munion during the Paschal season. The circumstance, *'in
church,'* is as identical with ''meal in church," as meal it-
self, circumstance is as identical with individual act as object.
Specific Morality. A moral act is an act making its agent
good or bad, making its agent worthy of praise or of blame.
There are three elements in every moral act. It must be in
the power of the agent, subject to his ownership, to make him
worthy of praise or of blame. It must possess goodness or
badness, to communicate the quality good or bad to the agent.
It must be known for good or bad to the agent, to stir the
agent's mil. Because of the first element, the agent must be
able to do or not do the act, and the act itself must originate
in free will. The second element is required, because nothing
gives but what it first possesses, and the act must be in har-
mony or at discord with the objective order. The third ele-
ment is needed, to stir the will, which is blind, and wishes
only what the intellect first offers. A father's care of his
child is a moral act, because it is in his power ; a bird 's care
of its young is not a moral act, because it is a matter of in-
stinct and beyond the bird's control. The man is physically
free to care for or neglect his child; the bird is not free, it
is physically necessitated by instinct to care for its young,
or in certain contingencies to neglect its young. Instinct in
man is subject to the control of his will.
Generic morality is the feature common to good and bad
acts, like animality in man and horse; and origination in in-
tellect and will is the one thing common to good and bad acts.
Specific morality is one thing for good acts, another thing
for bad acts, like reason in man, and sense in horse ; harmony
and discord with the objective order being the two differences.
Higher species can be considered genera with regard to lower
species; and the one thing common to all the virtues is har-
mony with the objective order of things ; the one thing com-
98 GENERAL ETHICS
mon to all the vices is discord with the same order. Charity,
justice, humility are species of the genus, virtue; injury, in-
justice, pride are species of the genus, vice. Virtue and vice
are themselves species of the genus, moral acts.
Object in our thesis means object in strict sense, term of
the wish, finis operis. End means intention, and intention
means the agent 's apprehension and choice of the act in ques-
tion. Circumstances mean modifications, whether of object or
of end. These things premised, we are now ready to prove
that a human act gets its specific morality, that a moral act
gets its goodness or badness, that the act of a set virtue and
the act of a set vice get their denomination from the object of
the act, from the agent ^s end or purpose, and from circum-
stances affecting both.
PROOF
Acts are specified by their formal objects, and moral acts
are no exception to the rule. But the formal object of a
generically moral act is an object good or bad in substance,
with all its objective circumstances; apprehended as such by
the intellect, and chosen as such by the will, with all its sub-
jective circumstances; not the object simply, nor yet the
agent ^s apprehension or choice of it, but all three things to-
gether. Ergo, human acts get their specific morality from
object, end and circumstances.
With Regard to the Major. The truth is clear in physical
acts. Sight is sight because of color, hearing is hearing be-
cause of sound. To use the eyes on sweetness, or smoothness,
or sound is not to see ; to use the ears on color is not to hear.
In moral acts good and evil play the parts of color and sound
in vision and hearing. Freedom demands knowledge and
choice, or purpose; individuality of act demands circum-
stances.
With Regard to the Minor. The object is the subject-mat-
ter, substance of the act ; the agent 's apprehension and choice
of same are his end or intention; objective circumstances are
identified with the object; subjective circumstances, with the
agent 's end or intention. When the eye sees green, a particu-
lar and present green is its formal object, and the eye makes
I
PROOF 99
the green object its own by entering into knowledge-relations
with it. Its formal object is not red or an absent green, or
a green with which it has no intimate relations. In a parallel
way, when the will elicits a moral act, it chooses a particular
good or evil object, represented to it as such by the intellect.
Its formal object is not an object viewed as true, or one, or
beautiful, but an object viewed as good or evil; not a good
or evil object, that never through the intellect appealed to the
will; not a good or evil object, that, after word from the
intellect, the will never concerned itself with. When end
vitiates a good object, the will puts a good thing to bad use,
and the intellect is its accomplice. When circumstances
vitiate an object good in substance and good in purpose, some
accidental badness resided in object, or purpose, or both.
P.S. Examples Wherein One or Several Elements are Pres-
ent: To collect money from a debtor, for the purpose of get-
ting drunk ; and to steal money from a neighbor for the same
purpose. To deny self for the purpose of giving dinner to
a beggar. To walk to church for purposes of prayer. To give
alms to a poor man, with the design of making him an accom-
plice to murder. To give an alms, that a simple lie may be
told. Firm will, purposing the lie, vitiates; not inefficax
velleitas, mere advertence to wish, caring little whether the
lie be told or not, ready to give the alms anyhow. Alms from
pity and from vainglory; antecedent purpose vitiates, not
concomitant or consequent. A person moved by vainglory
to practise daily communion ; intention disappears at the altar ;
non est in executione, sed fuit. To give an alms when for-
bidden, or though forbidden, or because forbidden; against
poverty, against obedience.
N.B. No good end can justify a bad act ; good end never
justifies a bad means ; murder of a Church persecutor, to help
religion; defiance of Constitution, to promote Catholic educa-
tion. Every bad end vitiates a good act. A good or bad
end changes an indifferent act to a good or bad act respec-
tively; and this is the one case where end justifies means.
It is lawful at times to put a good act, though evil by accident
results. The times are, when the good surpasses the evil,
and the evil is neither directly nor indirectly intended. The
evil is not even indirectly intended, when the good is equally
100
GENERAL ETHICS
immediate with the evil, and not accomplished with the evil
for means. The good act is not lawful, if any of the above
conditions fail of verification. A general in time of war is
allowed to lay waste the enemy's territory to the harm of
innocent citizens. A drunken man is guilty of the curses he
utters, if he foresees them in some confused way when sober.
Cursing is in this case an indirect voluntary, a voluntary in
cause. A doctor is not allowed to kill the child to save the
mother. He may remove a certainly dead fetus, not a prob-
ably dead fetus. He must never expose the child to danger
of death without Baptism. He is allowed to administer medi-
cine, that may by accident result in the child's death. His
whole purpose must be to cure the mother, not to kill the
child.
THESIS VII
Prohabilism is a safe and correct system in matters of con-
science. Jouin, 51-56; Rickahy, 152-159.
QUESTION
Rigorism or Absolute Tutiorism, Moderate Tutiorism, Prob-
abiliorism, uEquiprobabilism, Probabilism and Laxism are
systems in Ethics meant to help a man choose the right line
of conduct, when doubt about right and wrong agitates his
mind. As long as the doubt remains, he must do nothing,
because it is highly immoral to even expose oneself to the
danger of doing wrong. It would be in any case to sin, to
act with this principle in mind, ^'I don't know, but I'll take
the risk." To act with a doubtful conscience is to sin, he-
cause it involves contempt of the law. The man acting with
a doubtful conscience cares not whether he keeps the law or
breaks it. Among all the above systems, Laxism excepted,
Probabilism apparently savors most of a risk ; but, as we shall
see, the Probabilist runs no risk, enters on no uncertainty,
though he neglects the so-called safer course. He is certain
that he is right, because a doubtful law certainly has no bind-
ing force. Rigorism and Laxism have been condemned by
the Church in the persons of Alexander VII, in 1656, and
Innocent XI, in 1679. Rigorism was taught by the Jansen-
ists, and held that the opinion favoring the law must be fol-
lowed as long as the opposing view is not certain. In doubt
about Friday, you must abstain from meat, till certain it is
not Friday. Laxism held that any opinion, with small or
no sound reason in its favor, may be followed. In doubt
about Friday, with no good reason for the doubt, you may eat
meat. Tenuiter probabile non est probabile pro prudenti.
In the case of a prudent man, what is only slightly probable
is not probable at all. Moderate Tutiorism and Prohahilior-
101
^''^'''^^<^' '^'(jiNBRAL ETHICS
ism have no advocates to-day, and can be neglected. The first
held that the opinion favoring the law must be followed, un-
less the opposing view is most probable ; the second prescribes
the same course, unless the opposite opinion is more probable.
Mquiprdbdbilism allows departure from the law, if reasons
for its non-existence are as strong, or nearly as strong, as rea-
sons for its existence. Things are reversed, if doubt turns
on the lapse or cessation of a law. Many Redemptorists pro-
fess to derive this last system from St. Alphonsus, though the
saint is Probabilism 's staunch defender. Prohdbilism teaches
that, in doubt whether an act is permissible or not, true and
real probability in favor of the act or its omission makes one
or other quite legitirmite, though greater probability attaches
to the contrary or so-called safer course. If you have good
and solid reasons for thinking that the day of the week is
not Friday, you may eat meat, even if you have better and
stronger reasons for thinking that it is Friday, provided
only that you are not really and truly certain that it is Fri-
day. If certain that it is Friday, of course you have no good
and solid reason for thinking that it is not Friday. Your
reasons must be good and solid, even if weaker than their
opposites, because slight reasons are reckoned no reasons by
the prudent, and Laxism is condemned by common sense as
well as by the Church.
TERMS
Probabilism. Probabilism is as old as Christianity, and was
in common use with the early Fathers and Doctors of the
Church. Years ago it was called into question by decisions
rendered against Laxism by Alexander VII and Innocent XI ;
but it always counted among its defenders the most cele-
brated theologians. More recently a wrong understanding
of St. Alphonsus gave rise to ^quiprobabilism, and the
Church has not directly settled the controversy between ^qui-
probabilism and Probabilism. In ^quiprobabilism, if one of
the two views is less probable than the other, it must not be
followed; if the two views are equally probable, either may
be chosen. In some few passages of St. Alphonsus, because
of his zeal against Laxism, the less probable view is rated
CONSCIENCE 103
slightly probable and negligible in itself; and, therefore, its
opposite becomes morally certain. Even with Probabilists,
when moral certainty arises, only one course of conduct is
open, because conscience is in that case certain and not doubt-
ful. Moral certainty is firm assent of mind without dread
of opposite, all based on laws governing human nature. Phys-
ical certainty is a parallel state of mind, based on laws gov-
erning physical nature. Metaphysical certainty is a parallel
state of mind based on connection of identity between ideas
in subject and predicate. Therefore, there are three kinds
of certainty, metaphysical, physical and moral; and all three
kinds imply firm assent of the mind, and exclude dread of
the opposite, possibility of the opposite. In the abstract,
physical and moral admit of the dread of possibility, due to
a miracle, or to a departure from the laws governing human
acts. In the concrete and in particular, even physical and
moral as completely exclude this dread and possibility as
metaphysical. Abstract possibility of the opposite is com-
patible with concrete impossibility of the same; and, unless
circumstances rule out the concrete possibility of a miracle
or of a departure from said laws, physical and moral certainty
are out of the question. Moral certainty is, therefore, just
as tight and solid as metaphysical, in point of excluding dread
of the opposite; and prohahility never rises to the dignity
of moral certainty. Probability always leaves the opposite
a concrete possibility. Moral certainty, in strict sense, ex-
cludes possibility of opposite ; in wide sense, it excludes posi-
tive probability of opposite, admitting its negative probabil-
ity, based on slender reasons, accounted none at all by the
prudent.
Conscience. Conscience is from cum and scientia, and
means knowledge with a bearing on the good or evil of a par-
ticular human act. It is the subjective element in law's
application, it is the immediate and proximate measure of a
man's moral conduct. It is the work of the intellect in what
we already established as the standard of morality, namely
the objective order of things as grasped by the intellect.
Consciousness is likewise from cum and scientia, and means
knowledge with a bearing on the operations of the soul's
other faculties. Conscience is not consciousness, nor is it
GENERAL ETHICS
synderesis, which is the habit of morality's first principles.
Conscience is rather the application of synderesis to concrete
and particular acts. Both are applications of law to moral
acts, both measure man's conduct with law for standard;
but, while synderesis in an academic way and out of court
decides that murder, for instance, is wrong and must be
avoided, conscience in a practical way and in court decides
that this particular act, because murder, must be avoided.
The object of the particular act, with end and circumstances,
and their harmony or discord with the objective order of
things embodied in the law, are the objective element in law's
application; and this objective element is quite independent
of morality's subjective element or conscience. When the
moral value of a man*s act is under consideration, objective
order measures conscience; when the moral value of the man
himself is under consideration, things are reversed, and con-
science measures objective order. Morally speaking, a man's
act has its matter and form from the act itself, without any
reference to conscience; a man's conduct has its matter from
his acts, its form from his conscience. A materially bad act
is likewise a formally bad act; but materially bad conduct
can easily be fonnally good conduct, and vice-versa. God can
reward a wicked deed and punish an act of virtue, when con-
science is invincibly false. He looks not to the act but to
the heart of the agent ; and material virtue, when accompanied
by formal wickedness, is unspeakably worse than material sin
accompanied by formal righteousness. Beyond doubt, the
lay-brother, who drowned Chinese babies, after baptizing them,
wafi rewarded for material and formal murder, and the igno-
rant fellow who lied, because invincibly persuaded that
charity demanded it, was rewarded for a material and formal
untruth. Their acts were wrong, their conduct was right.
They were false to objective order, but true to conscience,
and conscience measures objective order when a man's con-
duct is in question, not his acts. Conscience is antecedent,
when it turns on present or future acts, and discharges the
functions of a guide. It is consequent, when it turns on past
acts, and plays the part of a judge. Conscience in strict
sense is antecedent. Conscience is reason decreeing the law-
fulness or unlawfulness of a particular act. Its decree al-
CONSCIENCE 106
ways assumes the shape of a practical judgment, the conclu-
sion of a moral syllogism, therefore I must do this or avoid
that. Distinguish between conscience and its decree. Con-
science is the mind exercising a particular function. Its
decree is an act of the mind, a judgment. In strict sense,
conscience has to do with acts on the eve of being accom-
plished here and now. ThB Major in a moral syllogism rep-
resents synderesis, the Minor represents conscience theoret-
ically viewed, the conclusion represents conscience practically
viewed; and therefore the conclusion best deserves the title,
decree of conscience. The Major is remote principle or syn-
deresis, the Minor is conscience in actu primo proximo, the
conclusion is conscience in second act. With truth or har-
mony with objective order for viewpoint, conscience is true
or false, right or wrong. If the premisses are true, or if they
are invincibly false, conscience is right. If the premisses are
vincibly false, conscience is wrong. With degree of certainty,
or mind's acquiescence, for measure, conscience is certain,
probable or doubtful. Recall the states of mind discussed in
Logic, certainty, opinion^ doubt. Doubt may be positive or
negative. Positive has weighty reasons in its favor; nega-
tive has slight or no reasons in its favor. In matters of con-
science negative doubt is neglected, because it is of no weight
with the prudent. Doubt may be juris or facti. The first
turns on a law's existence; the second, on some particular
fact. Similar expressions are de jure and de facto in ques-
tions of property and authority ; owner de jure and owner de
facto ; king de jure and king de facto. A doubtful conscience
is in reality no conscience at all, because no actual decision
is made. Darkness is the absence of light. In question of
lawfulness or unlawfulness, not in question of validity or
invalidity, in question of law not of fact, Probabilism with
the help of a reflex principle changes a doubtful conscience
to a certain conscience, and opens the way to action. A per-
plexed conscience sees sin in both alternatives, tender is se-
vere with the slightest defects, lax unduly favors freedom.
Here is the whole truth about the bearing of conscience on
morality. To be right, a man must act with at least a morally
certain conscience in strict or wide sense, his final practical
judgment regarding the lawfulness of an act must be at least
lOe GENERAL ETHICS
morally certain. His final practical judgment must admit
no sound or positive doubt, because to act otherwise would be
to expose oneself deliberately to the danger of doing wrong;
and moral certainty in wide sense is the highest we regularly
reach in daily life. Without detriment to the moral certainty
of his final practical judgment, his remote practical judgment
can be even positively doubtful or probable, because his con-
duct is not based on his remote practical judgment, but on his
final practical judgment; and with the help of a reflex prin-
ciple he can transform his probable remote judgment into a
morally certain final practical judgment; and this in sub-
stance is Probabilism. By supposition, then, in Probabilism
a man^s remote practical judgment is positively doubtful or
probable, the doubt is based on good and sound reasons in
the eyes of the wise, the doubt cannot be removed by study
or investigation ; one or other course must be taken ; he must
not even doubtfully go against the law; with the help of a
reflex principle he changes his conscience from doubtful to
certain, and neglects the doubtful law. As long as the law
remains doubtful, he is of course at liberty to keep it. He
is likewise at liberty to neglect it without wrong.
PROOFS
When conscience returns a clear and positive answer, it
must be followed. When conscience is perplexed, a man's
first duty is to enquire and seek information. If doubt re-
mains after due enquiry, he is not held to the so-called safer
course, he is not held to suppose an obligation. Neither is he
allowed to act with a doubtful conscience. The Probabilist
runs no risk, enters on no uncertainty, though he neglects the
safer course so-called. Lacking available direct principles, he
calls a reflex principle to his aid. A direct principle lays
down the law, when conscience returns a clear and positive
answer. A direct principle is no help in this man's case.
He judges of his own act, taking into account his imperfect
knowledge and limited powers. He makes no attempt to
determine what another man with clear and positive knowl-
edge ought to do. He calls to his aid this reflex principle,
^*A doubtful law has no binding force/' This is a reflex or
PROOF AND PRINCIPLES 107
mind-principle, because objectively and outside of the mind
nothing is doubtful. The question is, not the law absolutely,
but the law as far as I can make it out. Liberty is prior to
the law. Liberty is in possession. The law, to bind, must
with certainty restrict liberty. Besides, no law binds, till
promulgated. Promulgation connotes certain knowledge, not
doubtful or probable merely; and, as long as doubt remains,
the law is not promulgated for me, and the fault is not on my
side. Authority is overwhelmingly on the side of Probabil-
ism, and it would be long to quote authors. St. Alphonsus
seems to favor ^quiprobabilism and Tutiorism, but he can
be explained aright. With St. Alphonsus the safer course is
alone morally certain; the safe course is not probable at all,
and he is talking against Laxism.
PRINCIPLES
A. My doubt must be serious, and hold out against argu-
ments for the existence of an obligation. No indulgence must
be shown laxity of conscience, which leans on slender doubt.
My doubt must persevere after due enquiry, and must be
based on positive reasons against the obligation. My doubt
must not be simple ignorance, it must be able to tell why.
Some minds doubt without being able to give their reasons
why. These minds must have recourse to others in moral
questions. My reason for doubt can be an intrinsic or extrinsic
argument. Hence another's opinion, when creative of solid
probability, can suffice. The probability must be compara-
tive, it must hold ground in face of opposing arguments.
After all has been said, it must be not unlikely. It need not
be more likely. That means more probable, not probable
simply. My doubt must be practical, not speculative, because
Ethics is a matter of conduct, not a matter of theorizing.
Theoretically speaking, a man can be saved with confession
once a year ; practically speaking, and when easy opportunity
offers, he must approach the sacrament oftener to be saved.
All the difficulty turns on the varying amount of diligence
necessary in enquiry to constitute it moral diligence. Deeper
investigation is needed when matter in question is of vital
interest, like confession, than when mere observance, like a
108 GENERAL ETHICS
fast-day. In question of rolling stones over a precipice, the
doubt must be about the act itself, not about its consequences.
It is certainly wrong to take any such risk, and Probabilism
has no play.
B. Frohahilism is availahle only in cases involving the law-
fulness or unlawfulness of an act, never in cases involving
validity or invalidity; in cases of law, never in cases of fact;
because, while doubtful laws are a reality on account of need-
ful knowledge and promulgation, facts are nothing unless
sure and certain. Lawfulness has an element of suhjectivityy
which is altogether absent from validity. The phase of mind
of the agent has no influence on the validity or invalidity of
an act, or on the reality of a fact ; it has a very perceptible
influence on the binding force of a law. A law binds only
when known, a fact is a fact whether it is known or not.
Examples of lawfulness are abstinence on Friday, Mass on
Sunday, the Lenten fast. Examples of validity are marriage,
ordination, baptism, real bread and real wine, wills, medi-
cine. Examples of facts are utterance of a vow, seven years
of age, baptism, priesthood, fast broken, debts paid. When
a certainly valid sacrament is impossible, a dubiously valid
sacrament is better than no sacrament at all, e.g., baptism with
perfume, especially when necessity urges, and the sacrament
can be afterwards repeated either conditionally or absolutely.
Sometimes doubt regarding the lawfulness of an act arises
from doubt regarding validity, and Probabilism is of no avail ;
because such conduct would betray contempt of virtue and
too small fear of sin. To be husband and wife, a man and
woman must be certainly married; and a doubtful marriage
never makes a man and woman husband and wife; it leaves
them single from the viewpoint of morality. Doubt regard-
ing facts must be settled some other way, usually by an appeal
to fixed principles, deriving their certainty from authority.
Some principles of the kind follow. ''Possession is nine-
tenths of the law," for money in hand. ''Apart from ques-
tions of justice, the probable fulfilment of a law is on a level
with its certain fulfilment," for sins told or omitted at con-
fession. "Facts must not be presumed, they must be
proved," for fast before communion and for utterance of a
PROOF AND PRINCIPLES 109
vow. ''In doubt stand to presumption," ''Doubts must be
settled with the help of what ordinarily happens," for a
priest at Communion afraid that he has omitted the Pater
Noster, for parts of Office.
THESIS VIII
VIRTUES AND VICES
Jouin, 56-70 ; Rickahy, 64^-109.
Virtue is a Jiahitus operativus bonus, vice is a habitus
operativus mains. To translate, virtue and vice are good
and had habits with a bearing on work. The expression, with
a bearing on work, serves to separate virtue from grace. Vir-
tue in simple and strict sense belongs exclusively to the will ;
in qualified and wide sense it is applicable to whatsoever fac-
ulty in the man. Though prudence resides in the mind, it is
directive of the will. A man is simply and in strict sense
good, when his will is right. He is good in qualified and wide
sense, when his legs are swift, when his eye and hand are
ready to art, when his wit is quick ; and we call him not good
without any qualification, but a good runner, a good painter,
a good scholar. Virtue is not said of irrational agents, be-
cause their conduct is fixed for them by instinct. Virtue
postulates free will, because it helps to choose between good
and evil. Silence is no virtue in a dumb person, temperance
in food and drink is no virtue in an angel, because the dumb
person and the angel are without any power to choose in
these particulars. Silence in a talkative person, and temper-
ance in a man are very decided virtues. Virtue, therefore,
is a habit; and Aristotle describes habit as a quality super-
added to a faculty, rendering it well or ill disposed towards
itself or something else. Virtue, whether in strict or wide
sense, dwells in some faculty of the soul, and favorably dis-
poses that faculty towards itself or towards another.
The soul is remote principle of all the man's activities;
faculties are proximate connatural principles, superadded by
nature to the soul; habits are proximate acquired principles,
superadded not by nature but by personal endeavor to the
faculties. Therefore, the soul helps the man, faculties help
110
VIRTUES AND VICES 111
the soul, and habits help the faculties. Suarez offers this defi-
nition of a faculty -habit, a quality hard to remove, super-
added to the faculty, and meant of itself and primarily to
assist the faculty. This definition separates a faculty-habit
from a soul-habit, from faculty, from act, from passing dis-
positions, and assigns its purpose and efficiency. Habits re-
side in faculties, that are vital and somehow intellectual.
Infused or supernatural habits are communicated to the fac-
ulty by God, and procure, not readiness in supernatural
activity, but the very activity itself. Faith as a natural
habit, and faith as a supernatural habit can serve for ex-
planation. Natural or acquired habits result from reiterated
acts of some one kind; they confer not the power to act, but
the power to act with ease and readiness. The faculty with-
out the habit is simple power to act, the faculty with the habit
is power to act with ease and facility. Custom, because par-
ent to habit, gets the name second nature. Faculty is first
nature, habit is second nature. Habits of sense and habits
of appetite explain themselves, likewise habits of mind and
habits of will. Habits of will are moral habits, and are good
or bad, virtues or vices. Physical habits are of indifferent
moral worth, like study, talk, walk, thought. To include
virtue in qualified and wide sense, as well as virtue in simple
and strict sense, virtue is in general defined a habit perfect-
ing, improving, rounding out a rational faculty and bend-
ing it towards good. Good here means physical as well as
moral good for the faculty, and good in the sense of con-
duct ; good for any faculty, and good for the will exclusively.
Virtue in simple and strict sense perfects the will, and in-
clines it to moral good. Virtue in qualified and wide sense
perfects any other faculty, and inclines it to its own improve-
ment. A habit that never betrays itself in acts is no virtue,
because it falls away from its purpose. It is for facility, and
facility without acts is impossible. Prudence, recta ratio
agibilium, right order in conduct, is a practical, intellectual
virtue ; and for that reason, a moral virtue. It has a directive
bearing on the will, and virtues concerned with the will are
moral virtues. Here are four definitions of virtue, taken in
simple and strict sense. St. Thomas defines virtue as,
''habitus operativus bonus," a good faculty-habit, a good
112 GENERAL ETHICS
habit bearing on activity; and good means moral good, not
physical. Aristotle defines virtue as a habit, that makes its
owner and his work good. Aristotle again defines virtue as
a habit, that chooses the middle course with respect to our-
selves, said middle course being fixed by reason, as a man
of prudence would determine it; a habit of avoiding what
would be excess or defect in the esteem of a prudent man.
St. Augustine defines virtue as a good quality of will, a help
to right living, and no help to wrong. When St. Augustine
adds, ''produced in us by God without our assistance," he
is talking of infused virtue. Like freedom, virtue resides in
the will as in subject, and in other faculties only inasmuch
as they work in connection with, under motion from, or under
control of the will. Prudence directs the will. Virtue is a
moral habit, moral habits result from moral acts, and moral
acts are one way or another acts of the will. Scattered acts
of virtue, no result of habit, never make a man simply and un-
qualifiedly good. They make him good with a qualification
and circumstances. The regularity and constancy secured by
habit, alone constitute a man simply and unqualifiedly good.
As St. Thomas says, regularity and constancy in good demand
that good acts be elicited with readiness, with unbroken uni-
formity, and with delight; and these requisites are verified
only when virtuous deeds become a habit, a species of second
nature.
The moral virtues are divided into the four cardinal vir-
tues, prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. St. Thomas
offers these two reasons for the division. Objective order is
the standard of morality, reason must discover this order and
propose its commands to the will; the will in turn must exe-
cute these commands in its own field and in the field of the
passions, whether they tend towards good or away from evil,
whether concupiscible or irascible, desire or aversion. Pru-
dence, the habit of doing the right thing at the right time, is
reason 's helper ; justice, the habit of giving everybody his due,
is helper to the will in its own operations; temperance helps
the will in its management of appetite's desires; fortitude
helps to manage appetite's aversions. Four faculties con-
tribute to man's moral acts, intellect, will, appetite of desire
VIRTUES AND VICES 113
and appetite of aversion; and the four cardinal virtues in
order keep these faculties right. Circumspice, age, ahstine,
sustine. Be sure you're right, then go ahead. These virtues
are called cardinal, because they are to all the other virtues
what the hinges are to the door; their support, basis of their
utility, and surpassing them all in point of worth and neces-
sity. All the other virtues can be referred to these four as
parts to a whole. It is easy to see that no moral virtue is
complete and perfect without these others. Obedience, for
instance, is hard because of pride, sensuality, laziness, dread ;
and complete obedience is next to impossible without humility,
temperance, diligence, courage. Want of temperance and
avarice are often responsible for injustice, and there is no
justice where these vices are in control.
Vice is virtue's contrary. It is habitus operativus malus,
a habit helping a faculty to moral evil. We must distinguish
in an evil habit or vice, as we distinguish in an evil act, a
positive entity and a negative. The negative entity is its
malice, and lies in its lack of moral goodness, its lack of har-
mony with the objective order. The formal object of a vice
is some aspect of inferior good, at odds with the objective
order, and inseparably connected with malice. Every virtue
can count at least two opposite vices, one by way of excess,
the other by way of defect. The seven capital or cardinal
sins are rooted in the seven good things most calculated to
excite the will to rebellion against reason or the objective
order. They are vainglory, gluttony, lust, avarice, sloth,
envy and anger. The first four seek good in a disorderly
way, the other three shun good because of some evil connected
with it. Goods of soul, like praise and honor, excite vain-
glory; goods of body with a bearing on the race's preserva-
tion, like unholy pleasure, are matter for lust ; goods of body
with a bearing on the individual's preservation, like food
and drink, excite gluttony ; outside goods like wealth provoke
avarice. The good shunned may bo one's own or another's.
Sloth shuns one's own good to avoid labor; envy shuns an-
other's good without thought of revenge, it is sadness at an-
other's good because rated an obstacle to one's own. Anger
shuns another's good with thought of revenge. Pride is
114 GENERAL ETHICS
queen of all the vices. In the order of intention pride is
first of all the vices, in the order of execution avarice enjoys
the prerogative.
Prudence. Aristotle defines prudence as recta ratio agi-
bilium, right decision in things to do, habit of practical not
speculative reason, helping to right decisions in question of
moral conduct. Art is different, it is recta ratio factihilium,
right decision in things to make. Art tends to make some
outside work right in physical sense, prudence tends to make
some act of the man morally good. Lessius defines prudence
as a habit of intellect helping us to know in every emergency
what is right and^ what is wrong. There are two kinds of pru-
dence, personal and political or state prudence. The chief
functions of prudence are euboulia, synesis, gnome, which
mean habit of taking advice, habit of giving advice, habit
of interpretation. The integral parts of prudence are mem-
ory, intellect, foresight, argumentation, skill, openness to in-
struction, caution, and wide range of vision.
Christ in the mystery of His loss in the temple is teaching
a profound lesson in prudence. St. Luke tells the story in
the ten last verses of his second chapter. ''Did you not know
that I must be about my Father's business?" Prudence in
practice is the art of doing the right thing at the right time.
Wisdom is her handmaid, her counsellor. She guides pru-
dence in her choice of conduct. Wisdom is in the mind, pru-
dence directs the will ; and both together hath a perfect work.
In the realm of conduct the will knows nothing, wishes every-
thing; the mind knows everything, wishes nothing. The will
stings the mind to industry and borrows in turn from its
servant the light it needs. Prudence, then, with the help of
wisdom, enables its owner to choose aright, when two lines of
conduct are submitted to him for selection. Generally it
manifests itself in a fixed phase of mind and will, perpetually
ready to abandon the less for the greater. In the case under
consideration Jesus had to choose between His Heavenly Fa-
ther's business and His Mother's pleasure. His infinite pru-
dence saw only one way open; and He tarried three days in
the temple, in spite of the pang His stay inflicted on Mary's
heart and Joseph's. A mere man, abandoned in the same
predicament by prudence, would go terribly wrong and jour-
JUSTICE 115
ney down to Nazareth with his parents. All our mistakes are
due to want of prudence. Every duty we neglect betokens
absence of the quality. Every law we break is a departure
from its salutary promptings. We are abandoning the greater
for the less ; we are sacrificing the service of God for sloth,
for selfishness, for personal comfort. It must have cost the
Child Christ a heavy pang to inflict this pain on His Mother
and St. Joseph. He was as desirous of their holy company
as they were of His, His sorrow was an answering echo to
theirs. But His Father's business beckoned Him from afar,
and He had to follow. Everything must yield before God's
service. Next to virtue, life is man's supremest good on
earth, and the martyrs surrendered that. In the catalogue
of present goods, parents, home and friends rank next to life ;
and religious surrender them, making every vocation to the
monastery or convent a re-enactment of the sacred mystery
we study.
Justice. Justice is a constant and lasting readiness to ren-
der to everybody his due, it is a habit of will prompt and
ready to render to everybody his due. Constant and lasting
are implied in the word, habit. One act of justice never makes
a just man, because justice is a habit. Justice is divided into
commutative, distributive and legal. St. Thomas calls legal
justice general; he calls commutative and distributive, par-
ticular justice. St. Thomas treats this virtue of justice in
his Summa 2.2. between Questions 57 and 122. Legal justice,
he says, makes a good citizen, commutative and distributive
make a good man. 2.2. Q.58. a.6. Justice is directive of a
man's conduct towards others, under the aspect of what is
due these others. Man can be taken as an individual or as
a unit in the state. He has relations with the state as a whole,
and legal justice helps him fulfil them. The state as a whole
has relations with him, and distributive justice manages
them. He has relations with individuals in the state as men,
and not as citizens, and commutative justice is the virtue
concerned. Legal justice is in the ruler effectively, in the
subject executively. The ruler makes the laws, the subject
keeps them. The ruler is rendering the state its due, when
he makes laws; the subject, when he keeps them; both con-
tributing to the common good. Distributive justice is di-
116 GENERAL ETHICS
rective of the state or its head in the distribution of priv-
ileges and duties, dignities and burdens, rewards and pen-
alties, influencing citizens to accept one and the other with
satisfied content. Commutative justice is directive of the
individual in transactions with his neighbor, involving sale
and purchase and kindred processes, designated in a general
way as exchange. Commutare means to exchange, as dis-
tribuere means to distribute.
Justice makes equality between two. In commutative the
transaction is between two individuals, buyer and seller, or
thief and his victim, as the case may be. One gives money
and gets wares, the other gives wares and gets money, and
there is equality or justice. One gets wares and gives noth-
ing, the other gives wares and gets nothing; and there is in-
equality or injustice. The equality and inequality are
arithmetical, like 5 and 5, because such equality and inequal-
ity are possible in commutative. In distributive the trans-
action is between state and citizens. The citizens give serv-
ice and get office, the state gets service and gives office. Dis-
tributive is less concerned with rewarding citizens than with
rewarding them in a proportionate way. If the state with-
holds reward, it is offending against legal and commutative
rather than against distributive justice. Distributive is hurt,
only when some citizen, as compared with another citizen,
gets a reward out of all proportion with his deserts. In dis-
tributive two citizens deserve well of the whole community
or state in different degrees. John is worth 4 degrees to the
state in point of meritorious service, and gets in return 8
degrees of reward in the shape of honor, dignity or office.
If James deserves well of the state to the extent of 2 degrees,
distributive justice demands that he get in return 4 degrees
of reward, not 6. John gets 4 more degrees than he gave,
James gets only 2 more than he gave. The citizens give of
their persons and get things, the state gets of their persons
and gives things; and, as between persons and things, the
only equality possible is geometrical or proportional, in this
case, 4:8::2:4. Arithmetical equality is possible between
things and things, and commutative justice is concerned ex-
clusively with things. In legal justice the transaction is be-
tween citizen and state. The state gives law securing com-
JUSTICE 117
mon good, and gets obedience. The citizen gives obedience,
and gets common good. Here there is question of things;
and, because of arithmetical equality, if the ruler makes 4
laws, every citizen has to keep all 4. The ruler as seat and
centre of authority is the state formally taken, citizens are
the state materially taken, and the ruler in his capacity of
citizen is part of it. In distributive the debt is owed the
citizen, and the state pays it. In legal the debt is due the
ruler or state, and the citizen pays it. Law is a debt the
ruler owes the community, obedience is a debt the community
owes the ruler. The ruler gets obedience, and gives common
good; the citizen gets common good, and gives obedience.
Of the three kinds of justice, distributive and legal are the
least definite; and, because restitution is practically impos-
sible, they are of less importance than commutative in the
event of infringement. They are in the main observed, when
the ruler does his utmost to distribute favors and burdens
with a fair and even hand, when citizens abide by the law
in all its details. If worthy citizens fail of their due reward,
the ruler cannot make amends without doing injustice to
others already in possession of dignities; and to make resti-
tution out of his own pocket would not be distributive justice,
which is concerned with the state's property, offices and
such, not with the ruler's private property. Favoritism and
nepotism are offenses against distributive, and they meet with
full treatment in the Summa, 2.2. Q.63. God plays no fa-
vorites, He is not a respecter of persons, A.A.IO, 34. Pen-
alties are restitution in the case of offended legal justice, and
the law never expects a criminal to bear witness against him-
self. Offenses against commutative justice are clear-cut and
well defined, the amount of restitution is a matter of arith-
metic, and the obligation stands till the last penny is paid.
Commutative justice is a process of exchange, and all ex-
changes are voluntary or involuntary. Voluntary exchanges
constitute business, and base the virtue of justice; involun-
tary exchanges base the vice of injustice. With this twofold
fact in mind, St. Thomas in his Summa, 2.2. Q.61, a.3, fur-
nishes us with a list of ordinary business transactions with a
bearing on justice, and a list of ordinary offenses against jus-
tice. Voluntary exchanges are involved in buying and sell-
118 GENERAL ETHICS
ing, usufruct, lending and borrowing, renting and hiring,
pawning, bailing. Involuntary exchanges are theft, robbery,
murder, assault, imprisonment, blows, wounds, lies, detrac-
tion, false witness, insult, adultery with wife, seduction of
slave. The whole of Question 62 deals with restitution in 8
articles. Between Questions 64 and 77, involuntary ex-
changes, or species of injustice, are discussed and explained.
Between Questions 77 and 79, voluntary exchanges are treated,
with special attention to buying, and selling, and interest.
Question 79 deals with the integral parts of justice, do good
and avoid evil, give everybody his due, and refuse nobody
his due. From Question 80 to Question 123, virtues closely
connected with justice are discussed, and they are nine in
number; religion, filial piety, esteem, truthfulness, gratitude,
defense, all enumerated by Cicero in his De Inventione, Book
2, along with friendship, generosity and equity. Connected
virtues in part differ from, and in part resemble justice. Jus-
tice gives everybody his due according to equality. Equality
is absent from religion, filial piety and esteem; due is want-
ing in the other six. Religion or duties to God cover QQ.
81-101; filial piety, 101; esteem, 101-106; gratitude, 106-
108; defense, 108; truthfulness, 109-114; friendship or af-
fability, 114-117 ; generosity, 117-120 ; equity, 120. He closes
with a brief discussion of the Ten Commandments, or pre-
cepts of justice, 122. Equity or epikeia, supra justum, is a
superior kind of legal justice, because it interprets law not
according to words, but according to the mind of the law-
maker. No lawmaker can formulate a law able to touch
every single occurrence. He legislates for ordinary contin-
gencies, for what commonly happens ; and circumstances can
quite change cases.
Fortitude. Cicero defines fortitude as a judicious encoun-
ter with danger, and sufferance of trouble, or endurance of
effort. It regulates the irascible passions embodying diffi-
culty, just as temperance has to do with the concupiscible
passions. Fear and courage are the two passions with which
fortitude is especially concerned, keeping them both within
the bounds of reason. Fear is dread of an evil conceived as
unavoidable, courage is dread of an evil avoidable only at
the expense of great effort. Fortitude is conspicuous in mar-
FORTITUDE AND TEMPERANCE 119
tyrdom, and naturally speaking fear of death is the greatest
of all fears. Fortitude is more prominent in repressing fear
than in exciting courage. It is harder to bear trouble than
to attack it ; because, in bearing trouble, the victim is weaker
than trouble; in attacking trouble, the threatened victim is
stronger than trouble. Besides, trouble in the case of fear is
nearer being present, in courage trouble is future and farther
in the distance. Fear is long, courage is short. Fear is a
sin, when against order; when it flees evils that ought to be
met in the performance of duty. Fear is no sin, when it flees
evils that ought to be avoided, evils that can be avoided with-
out detriment to duty. Timidity is excessive fear, rashness
is excessive courage.
The four virtues connected with fortitude are spirited-
nesSy grandeur, patience and perseverance. Inasmuch as it
is a judicious encounter with danger, fortitude displays it-
self as spiritedness by way of preparation, and as grandeur
by way of execution. Inasmuch as it is a judicious endur-
ance of effort, fortitude displays itself as patience when trou-
ble is short, and as perseverance when trouble is long. Mag-
nanimity is grandeur in general, magnificence is grandeur in
the department of expense. The latter moves men to make
large outlays of money to ensure some grand project. Con-
fidence and security are parts of spiritedness. Presumption
is an excess of spiritedness. So is ambition, or inordinate
greed of honor. Vainglory is likewise an excess of spirited-
ness. Desire of glory is not in itself wrong, when the glory
sought is solid and true, when the seeker's purpose is right,
and the means he uses are legitimate. Desire of vain or empty
glory is wrong ; and glory is vain or empty, when based on a
thing that deserves no praise, when tribute from a man whose
judgment is little worth, when turned to wrong account, not
directed to the glory of God or the neighbor's salvation.
Vainglory is one of the capital sins, and counts for daughters*
disobedience, boastfulness, hypocrisy, novelty, stubbornness of
opinion, contrariness of will, and disputatiousness. Want of
spirit is opposed to spiritedness by way of defect ; presump-
tion, by way of excess. One attempts less than it ought to
attempt; the other, more; while spiritedness attempts what
it ought to attempt. Stinginess is opposed to magnificence.
120 GENERAL ETHICS
One rates the cost and neglects results; the other rates re-
sults and neglects the cost. Extravagance is the opposite
of stinginess. One makes man a spendthrift, the other makes
him a miser. Patience is a remedy against sadness. All the
moral virtues are helps to prevent the passions, in the pres-
ence of good or evil, from dragging reason to wrong. Pa-
tience, therefore, enables us to bear ills with an even mind,
and not desert the right in an attempt to escape them. It is
a virtue inferior to prudence, justice, fortitude and temper-
ance, as well as to the theological virtues. Perseverance is
part of fortitude, because it weakens fear and strengthens
courage, always with a view to length of duration. Forti-
tude can be the work of a minute, perseverance is the work
of years. Softness and stubbornness are opposed to perse-
verance by way of defect and excess respectively. St. Thomas
deals with fortitude in his Summa, 2.2. QQ. 123-141.
Temperance. Fortitude controls the irascible passions in
their retreat from evil, temperance controls the concupiscible
passions in their pursuit of good. Pleasure is the one great
good appealing to the concupiscible passions; and God, as a
reward and incentive, attaches pleasure to conservation of
the race and conservation of the individual. Pleasures of
touch contribute to the conservation of the race, pleasures of
taste to that of the individual. Therefore, temperance is most
conspicuous in control of pleasures of the flesh, and pleasures
of the table. Temperance restrains impurity and gluttony.
Temperance is not abstinence. One uses pleasure within the
bounds prescribed by reason, the other refrains from pleas-
ure altogether. Naturally speaking, abstinence from all food
and drink would be wrong, because use of some food and
drink is a law of nature imposed on the individual. Absti-
nence from some certain food or drink would not be wrong,
because no set food or drink is necessary to conservation of
the individual. Abstinence from all the pleasures of the
flesh would not be wrong in any individual, because conserva-
tion of the race is a law imposed on no individuals in par-
ticular, but on the race in general. If scattered individuals
refuse to propagate, the race can still continue; if any in-
dividual refuses to eat, he will die. Others can propagate the
race in our stead, nobody can eat for us. Therefore, while
FORTITUDE AND TEMPERANCE 121
total abstinence from wine is quite right and highly com-
mendable in any individual, the moderate use of wine is far
from wrong. Total abstinence from pleasures of the flesh
is the only line of conduct open to individuals outside the
condition of marriage, because these pleasures of the flesh are
for the conservation of the race, and marriage is the one
process appointed by God and nature for the propagation
of the race. Moderate use of these pleasures with a view to
reproduction is temperance, and peculiarly a virtue of the
married. No use of these pleasures, whether moderate or
excessive, is alone legitimate with the unmarried. Temper-
ance is abstinence from illegitimate pleasure, it is the mod-
erate and sensible use of legitimate pleasure. Fasting in
food, sobriety in drink, chastity in pleasures of the flesh are
forms of temperance. Shame is a kind of chastity. Purity
and decency are parts of temperance. Continence, humility,
modesty, mildness, mercy, moderation, politeness have family-
resemblances with temperance. St. Thomas treats temper-
ance in his Summa, 2.2. QQ. 141-171.
THESIS IX
CHAKACTER AND HABITS
Morally speaking, character is the man; every man's
character is his own work; and our destiny for weal or woe
is in our own hands. Character is no very profound mys-
tery, it is the plainest of problems. All has been said, when
we remark that character is compounded of temperament and
habits. Our temperaments are common with other hereditary
qualities we get from our parents ; and, whether they are helps
or hindrances to virtue and honesty, we must be content to
employ them with thankfulness when they are helps, and
supplement them with an abundant measure of good will when
they are hindrances. No mortal can shift on temperament
the blame for mediocrity. Parents are indeed responsible
for tendencies and traits their children inherit, they are not
responsible for their children's crimes. No man can allow
temperament to bind him hand and foot and drag him to
ruin, without proclaiming himself an abject slave, without
trailing his dignity in the mire, without surrendering his
birthright of liberty. Free will holds the key to the situa-
tion. Temperament is not omnipotent. It is a mighty factor
for good or evil, but it is far from settling the question. Free
will is mightier than temperament; the man born for con-
spiracy, treason and murder, can by dint of assiduous care
become conspicuous for honorable valor, a red-hot patriot, a
martyr in the cause of charity. The temperament of a de-
generate, when free will is not yet submerged, is as much an
instrument for good as the temperament of a saint. The de-
generate has a harder road to travel; he has to walk with
more care, more circumspection and more courage; but his
feet are mercifully fitted for rough as well as smoother roads,
and the precautions enumerated are within his power. Tend-
encies and traits he inherited from his progenitors can bend,
122
CHARACTER AND HABITS 123
without being able to break, his will; and with the iron in
his nature he can stiffen his courage to meet whatever strain.
Temperament is, therefore, no insuperable hindrance to the
cultivation of character; and of the two elements making up
character, temperament is less within our power than habit.
Our temperament we never make, we receive it ; but free will
is its mistress, and, when the heart is alert, temperament never
slips control.
Our habits we make for ourselves, they are the growth of
scattered acts ; and we form habits with our eyes wide open to
the process and its consequences. Habits are even less a
mystery than temperament. They are facilities along certain
lines due to the frequent repetition of separate and distinct
acts. Nobody knows with certainty the exact number of times
an act has to be repeated to form a habit ; but everybody is
agreed that a habit of music, for instance, is out of the ques-
tion without days, and weeks, and years of practice. And
what is true of music is true of painting, oratory, honesty,
veracity, all the arts and all the virtues, our moral as well as
our physical activities. Even walking is a habit ; and, though
men and women pass from point to point in space with small
reflection and less endeavor, it would pay the philosopher to
know what mental exertion it costs baby to master this simple
habit.
But what we would most of all insist on, is the circum-
stance that our habits are distinctively home-products. We
make them, we never receive them ; and we are entirely and
utterly responsible for the part they play in our lives. Even
when habits are once formed, our wills are free, and quite
able to resist them; and, before they are formed, our wills
are absolute, and supreme, and omnipotent lords of the sep-
arate and distinct acts that originate them. Hence, nobody
can hide behind habit for excuse. The criminal who is such
from habit, is even more blameworthy than the criminal such
by surprise. Habitual crime is the growth of misspent years,
and betokens an accumulation of shame. Wrong not rooted
in habit may result from defective vigilance, want of experi-
ence, overwhelming temptation; and the law is more lenient
with first offenders than with veterans in vice.
Though not omnipotent, habit is a mighty factor in the
124 GENEEAL ETHICS
formation of character and consequent conduct; and, there-
fore, our habits call for supremest care. Education is little
worth, unless it contributes to the formation of mental and
moral habits bej^ond reproach. Family is a wasted blessing,
unless boys and girls come out of it better prepared for the
battle of life. Government is a curse, unless its representa-
tives are a perpetual incentive to the mental and moral uplift
of its citizens. Church itself and religion are of little use,
unless their professing members are bettered by contact with
their aspirations and ideals. An ideal father and an ideal
mother are mortals, whose behavior uniformly provokes chil-
dren to the cultivation of every virtue, domestic, civic and
religious. The education that ministers merely to the mind,
with little or no concern for the heart, is as empty as a game
of hazard, and bound to work equal harm to familj^, state
and Church. Our years at school are the critical period in
our lives. Men and women are made and unmade during
this all-important season^ and, if we leave school with wrong
habits, we are in imminent danger of ultimate loss, and
strenuous endeavor becomes the price of salvation.
Therefore, we ought to be supremely solicitous about the
quality of our habits, and we ought to take serious thought
of our equipment in habits. Measures must be taken to
break with undesirable habits, and precautions must be em-
ployed to strengthen and multiply right tendencies in our
character. We must encourage the good in us, keep down the
evil; and the whole process is summed up in the one word,
control. Nothing so develops character as self-control. Good
habits result from repeated acts of virtue, bad habits are
broken by repeated victories over temptation to wrong; and
control is fully equal to the double task. It is a two-edged
sword, it cuts both ways. Man, as now constituted, is in-
clined to evil from his youth; he leans towards vice and
away from virtue; he is swift to one, slow to the other; and
self-control, while it keeps him from slaving to base instincts,
urges him to develop the better side of his character. With-
out an abiding habit of self-control, success in life is abso-
lutely out of the question. Without it, you cannot hope for
Heaven; without it, you cannot reasonably expect to escape
hell. Self-control is what makes men temperate, pure and
SELF-CONTROL 125
honest ; want of this quality is responsible for the drunkards,
the libertines and the thieves that infest our large and small
cities. No one agency that I know is more conducive to the
cultivation of self-restraint than family-discipline, school-
discipline and the discipline of government or society. Every
time a boy obeys his parents at home, he is adding a new
asset to his worth as a man. Every time he breaks off play
at the sound of the bell, he is laying deep and strong the
broad foundation for the towering edifice of a splendid career.
These instances of self-control are but the small and humble
beginnings of future greatness ; and, if the habit accompanies
the boy into the world of industry, politics and business, he
will as a rule be soon discovered, he will prove a winner, and
the world will love him, the world will load him with the
highest honors at its disposal.
Self-control, then, is the readiest measure of a man's char-
acter, and this sober truth deserves a large place in your
thoughts. It is the one bit of advice I would impress on your
hearts. "Whatever books you read or study in after-life, read
and study them with a view to growth in self-control. Cul-
tivate a close acquaintance with the sturdy heroes of ancient
and modern times, men of stout character, able to encounter
and overcome hardships in their campaign for the right.
Have nothing but contempt for the mean specimens of hu-
manity, glorified in the modern novel and the morning news-
paper, men and women that weak they cannot withstand
temptation, men and women at the mercy of every vile de-
sire that stirs in their bosoms. Have high ideals, live always
a little superior to your environment, and never strike your
colors to degraded public opinion. Know the right, and do
it. Choose your friends with care, be citizens in the republic
of saints, and keep company with heroes. To achieve great-
ness, is an arduous task, we need every little help; and the
example of the illustrious is a tonic for activity in the up-
ward process. Scorn to borrow your religion or morality
from the world. The Church is their appointed teacher, and
to look elsewhere for guidance is like drawing water in a
sieve, or planting pumpkins for a harvest of roses. Be men
of principle. Be the hero described by Horace. If the world
falls in ruins at your feet, present a bold front to the crash.
126
GENERAL ETHICS
Map out your lives along a line of conduct approved of by-
faith and reason, and then, whatever happens, keep your
course undaunted. You may fail of success, as the term
goes; you cannot fail of honor; and to go down to defeat
with right, is better than to be crowned a winner with wrong.
THESIS X
RIGHTS AND DUTIES
Jouin, 71-75; Bickahy, 244-253.
Rights are meant by nature to shield men from harm in
their intercourse with others, and they accomplish this pur-
pose by creating duties in others. They procure the same
advantage for God, and prevent men from wronging their
Creator. Right equips its owner with the moral power to
do or exact something, duty compels its subject to render
another his due. Right has at least three meanings, justice,
law, moral power. Because right is opposed to wrong or in-
justice, right itself is justice or the just thing ; and, because
justice is a man's due, discharge of duty is the consumma-
tion of justice. Right is a man's due, duty is respect for
another's rights; and, therefore, any refusal to fulfil a duty
is an injustice or wrong. Because the essential purpose of
all law is the establishment of justice, law itself has a claim
to the title, right. In fact law, when couched in language,
is but the concrete expression of a right; and this is true of
every single law, of every collection of laws, and of whatever
law borrows part of its compelling force from sources ex-
traneous to the subject affected by the law. Civil law is
largely a collection of rights the state undertakes to safe-
guard; canon law discharges the same function in matters
ecclesiastical ; and a law against burglary, with imprisonment
for penalty, is concerned with a man's right to his property.
Last of all, and in strict sense, right, viewed in its owner or
possessor, is the moral and legitimate power to do something
oneself, or exact its doing from another; the moral power to
demand something, to hold something, or to use something
as one's own. We have thus far taken three views of right.
Viewed as justice or the right thing, it is a something to be
127
128 GENERAL ETHICS
rendered by another. Viewed as law, it is a something out-
side the owner and compelling others. Viewed as a moral
power, it is a something in the owner ; and from this circum-
stance right has all its practical value and worth.
Right primarily means justice. Law is called right, be-
cause it is an expression of justice. The moral power to do
or exact something is called right, because justice vindicates
to everybody his due. Suarez calls law preceptive right; the
moral-power, dominion-right. A right, therefore, is man's
moral power over what is due him. Duty is not a power, but
an obligation. Right means, I can ; duty means, I ought. A
right is called a moral power to distinguish it from might,
which is physical power. Right touches only what is due
the man, because justice is its foundation, and justice gives
to everybody only his due, only what belongs to him. A thing
is said to belong to a person, when the objective order of
things makes it his, when between him and it a necessary re-
lationship of connection ensues. This connection is physical
and substantial in the case of a man and his life, a man and
parts of his body; it is physical and accidental in the case
of health, knowledge and the like ; it is moral, when between
the man and things external to him, like money, land, repu-
tation, esteem, glory or fame.
A right would be little worth unless it created a duty in
others. A right is, therefore, a relation, with its subject, title
and term. The subject is owner, the title is whatever fact
creates connection between the owner and the thing he owns,
and the term is the subject-matter of the right, as well as the
person in whom the corresponding duty resides. Holland
distinguishes in every right a person of inherence, a person
of incidence, a thing and a fact. He omits title, and makes
fact mean the peculiar use of the thing or matter conferred
on the owner by the right. God has no duties strictly so
called, because duty taken that way, connotes a superior.
Therefore, as between right and duty, right comes first. In
the case of men, right in the person of inherence causes duty
in the person of incidence; and, therefore, right precedes
duty in the order of nature, though as regards the order of
time both are simultaneous. Duty in the person of inherence
always causes right in the same; and, therefore, restricting
3
RIGHT AND MIGHT 129
the question to the person of inherence, duty always pre-
cedes right in the order of nature.
Right is reducible to justice ; and, because justice is three-
fold, commutative, legal, distributive, rights are of three
kinds with distinctively peculiar purposes. In commutative
justice, the purpose of right is liberty and independence in
the disposal of one's goods. In legal justice, the purpose of
right is the common welfare. In distributive justice, it is to
safeguard the citizen against state-wrongs. A right in com-
mutative justice can be surrendered, because no law forbids
a man to submit to private wrong. Hence the axioms, "No
harm is done a willing victim," and ''Nobody is obliged to
use his rights." In legal justice the ruler cannot legitimately
cede his right, because laws are made and executed not for
the ruler's advantage, but for the welfare of citizens. Hence
the ruler is obliged to use his right.
Right connotes the moral power to employ physical force
in its realization, because order demands that the inferior,
or physical force be always at the call of the superior, or
moral power. In society, to guard against abuses, the ap-
plication of this physical force is reserved to the state, and
is not left to the caprice of individuals. Physical compulsion,
in potency or in act, is not of the essence of a right, it is a
complementary property. Rights persevere in the absence
of physical compulsion. No citizen is allowed to urge his
rights against the state with the help of physical force, though
the state enjoys this prerogative as against a citizen. Right
order demands as much. In commutative justice, where help
from the state is beyond reach, one citizen is allowed to use
force against another, when his rights are endangered. Other-
wise wrong would be without remedy.
When talking about good and bad acts, we contended and
proved that some acts are intrinsically and essentially good
or bad ; that they get their goodness or badness from nothing
outside of themselves, like law, or custom, or opinion; and
that they are good or bad always, everywhere and in what-
ever circumstances. Moral Positivism is opposed to our doc-
trine, and maintains that nothing is good or bad in itself and
unchangeably, but that good and bad acts are made such by
something outside of, and extraneous to the acts themselves.
130
GENEKAL ETHICS
Hohhes ascribes all the difference to civil law; Lambert, to
custom and public opinion; Mandeville, to the research of
eminent scholars; Nietzsche, to pity for the weak; Descartes
and Puffendorf, to the will of God ; Darwinists and Positivists
in general, to evolution.
Because rights are but prescriptions of justice, naturally
enough they get the same treatment as good and bad acts, at
the hands of these enemies to morality. Their sytsem is
called Juridical Positivism; and, in a very few words, while
refusing independent validity to natural rights, it vindicates
validity to only whatever rights are declared such by vested
authority. All Moral Positivists belong to this school, along
with men like Hobbes, Bentley, Lasson, Hartmann, who make
the state sole and single cause of all rights. Rousseau and
his followers ascribe right to tacit or expressed agreement
among men. Savigny, the founder of the historical school,
refers everything to history, public law, and a people's cus-
toms. According to him natural rights are no rights at all,
but only rules and standards for the establishment of rights.
With him rights begin and grow in much the same way as a
people's language.
Against all such false philosophers we contend for a defi-
nite collection of natural rights, vested with a validity inde-
pendent of all positive law. Life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness are three such rights, enumerated and acknowledged
by our Constitution. These rights and a multitude of others
descend to man from his Creator, and positive law has noth-
ing to do with their creation or production. Its whole busi-
ness is to safeguard these rights, by hemming them round
with the physical force at its abundant disposal. Bight is
reducible to justice, justice gives everybody his due, gives
everybody what belongs to him ; and life is ours not by favor
of the state, but by the free gift of God. The state has its
right to make laws and insist on their observance, not from
consent, or agreement, or history; but from God, who gave
being to the state, and equipped it with all the means it needs
to fulfil its purpose. God never imposed a duty on anybody,
without investing him with a right to all needed means. He
has imposed a multitude of duties on men ; and, just as these
duties bind men without reference to positive law, so the
JURIDICAL POSITIVISM 131
rights attaching to them are quite independent of human
legislation and authority. Positive law, without prior nat-
ural law, is a house without a foundation. Kings could make
laws till doomsday without any appreciable effect, beyond
physical force, unless natural law held subjects to reverence
for authority, and obedience to legitimate rulers. Agreements
and compacts would be empty scraps of paper, if fidelity to
promises were not a prescription of the natural law. No in-
ternational law would be possible, because there would be no
competent legislator. Every civil law and every custom would
be by the very fact just, law could make murder right, cus-
tom could make impurity a virtue.
And just as every positive law borrows all its efficacy from
prior natural law, even so every positive right borrows all
its strength and force from prior natural right. Positive law
is an application of natural law, it makes natural law clearer,
it adds to the moral sense of obligation and future sanction,
attaching to natural law,, the physical sense of present pen-
alty in the shape of fine or imprisonment, attaching to every
positive law enacted. When Kant distinguishes between ju-
ridical rights and ethical rights, when he separates the jurid-
ical order from the ethical order, he forgets that ethical rights,
as compared with juridical rights, are the same as natural
law, as compared with positive law. When he attributes
greater efficacy and sacredness to juridical rights than he at-
tributes to ethical rights, he is virtually declaring positive law
superior to natural law, man superior to God; he is putting
tlie cart before the horse, subordinating cause to effect, attach-
ing more importance to the roof than to the foundation. Na-
ture confers ethical, or natural rights; law confers juridical
rights. Ethical or natural rights are unchangeable at the
hands of men, they do allegiance to God alone, and God is
their single executive. Juridical rights are open to change
with change of legislators, and are in force only as long as the
laws creating them remain on the statute-books. Law is law,
only when based on justice ; and juridical rights, opposed to
ethical rights, are no rights at all. Juridical order is, there-
fore, only an integral part of moral or ethical order, and
no more separable from the same than the head is from the
man. The head cannot be separated from the man, without
132 GENERAL ETHICS
changing its entire complexion and substance. Juridical or-
der, separated from ethical order, ceases altogether to be moral
order; and rights conferred by law, in opposition to rights
conferred by nature, are no rights at all.
God the author of nature seems destined to get small notice
and smaller reverence from present-day writers on Ethics,
thanks to the atheistic and irreligious trend of our times.
And natural law, which has God for its maker, meets with the
same full measure of contempt. One writer on Jurisprudence,
Holland by name, wants law in strict sense limited to human
positive or civil law; barring from the title natural law, di-
vine positive law in Scripture, and Church law. He bars
natural law, because it is formulated by an indeterminate
authority; Scriptural law, because it is formulated by a su-
perhuman authority ; Church law, because it is formulated by
a politically subordinate authority. All this is purely arbi-
trary, and betrays the man's atheistic tendencies. We grant
that law in strict sense cannot be formulated by an indetermi-
nate authority, but God in nature, God in Scripture, and
Church, are no indeterminate authority, unless we want to
turn atheists and infidels. Natural law and Scriptural law
are divine law, divine law is as much law as civil law, God
is its formulating authority, God is no indeterminate being,
and only atheists and infidels can think the thing. Church
law is as much law as civil law, the true Church is no inde-
terminate authority; and, whatever may be said of other
churches, the true or Catholic Church is in its own sphere
quite independent of the state, and it never presumes to legis-
late outside its own sphere. True, God is a superhuman au-
thority; but even civil law, without superhuman authority
at its back, is a dead letter and nothing worth. No mere man
has a right to legislate for other men. All men are born free
and equal, nobody is born a king; and the authority he gets
immediately from God is what makes the ruler's pronounce-
ments law. Without this authority, his pronouncements are
empty words, and of no more worth than mine or yours.
Therefore, God must not be denied the quality of lawmaker,
simply because He is a superhuman authority. Therefore
God's law, whether natural or Scriptural, is more law than
civil law.
HOLLAND, KANT AND POSITIVISM 133
What Mr. Holland, perhaps, means is that God and the
Church are less visible and less tangible than the state. But
that is his own view of the thing. To the religious mind, and
the man of faith, God and the Church are more solemn reali-
ties than the state. With Thomasius, Holland wants us to
keep our sickles out of theology, forgetting that natural theol-
ogy is as much philosophy as logic or psychology or Ethics,
and that no part of philosophy, which is knowledge of things
in their last cause, can be rightly understood without a fair
knowledge of God, the first and last cause of all things. To
doubt the propriety of conceiving God as a lawmaker, as Mr.
Holland ventures to do, is not to keep one's sickle out of
theology, but to assail all theology and all religion with an
axe. God is more than a mere information-bureau, equally
well satisfied whether His children accept His doctrine or not.
He teaches with authority, and He wants His lessons learned ;
He is eminently a lawmaker, and sanctions His legislation with
hell. He is a Father of too wise a kind to allow His sons to
go what way they will. He wants their full obedience ; and,
if they refuse it, they know what to expect. And all this is
clear from Natural Theology, without any appeal whatever to
Supernatural Theology or revelation. Law in strict sense is
an obligation or ruling founded on right reason, drawn up
and promulgated for the common good by him who has charge
of the community affected ; and this definition is as fully veri-
fied in natural. Scriptural and Church law as it is in civil
law. Natural law is from eternity; positive law, whether di-
vine or human, is made or placed in time.
Holland is imitating Kant when he makes a difference be-
tween Ethics and Nomology. Ethics, he says, touches the will,
the interior act, and it is a matter of conscience; Nomology
touches the outward act, exterior conduct. Civil law belongs
to Nomology, and it cannot fathom a man's thoughts or in-
tentions with any degree of certainty, and very sensibly leaves
them alone. It agrees to interpret them with the help of
external acts. Divine law has God for author, and men's
thoughts as well as their intentions are no mystery to God.
Juridical legality is a different thing from Ethical morality.
An act can be all right in the eyes of the law, and all wrong
in the eyes of conscience. Civil law makes only indifferent
134 GENERAL ETHICS
acts good or bad, it leaves other acts where it finds them, and
makes them merely legal. Ethics makes an act morally good
or bad, prior to and independent of all civil law ; and this is
the big difference between natural law and positive law.
The ethical order must not be separated from the juridical
order, because the latter is an integral part of the former.
Ethical order is like the whole man, juridical order is like
his head. Natural law prescribes civil law as a necessary
requisite for the welfare of the state, and therefore all civil
or positive law is but an emanation from natural law. The
juridical order is right, taken as positive law; and all posi-
tive law is a derivation from natural law, which in turn is
right in the ethical order. When Kant separates the jurid-
ical order from the ethical or moral order, when he ascribes
all the force and efficacy of juridical rights to positive law,
without any reference whatever to natural law, he virtually
reduces all right to preceptive, and rejects dominion-right.
Preceptive right is a prescription of positive law ; and, without
the support of natural law, positive law has no binding force.
Dominion-right is a prescription of the natural law, and nat-
ural law binds, whether positive law supports it or not.
Kant denies all ethical or moral right, to admit only jurid-
ical right; and, therefore, he denies dominion-right to admit
only preceptive right. It is wrong to say that laws urged by
civil authority are not in themselves binding on conscience.
Civil law looks to the external act, without a care for the
motive; natural law looks to external act and motive both.
No matter what his motive, civil law certainly binds the man
in conscience to put the prescribed external act. Penal laws
exert no strain on conscience beyond the acceptance of the
penalty incurred; but that is due to the mercy of the law-
maker, and a matter of common understanding between ruler
and subjects. Obligation to the law is no product of the
man himself, it is imposed on him by another, and proceeds
from the natural law and its author, God. Therefore, every
illegal act is wrong; and yet not every legal act is right, be-
cause the juridical order is only a part of the ethical or moral
order, and not the whole of it. A man's head can be sound,
while the rest of his body is unhealthy.
Right as law is preceptive right, right as a moral power
DIVISION OF RIGHTS ' 135
is dominion-right; and the two admit of many divisions.
Law is private, public, international. Law is private, when
the two parties to the action are citizens, and the state is
arbiter; public, when the state has action against the citizen
or the citizen against the state, the state in both cases being
arbiter ; international, when the parties to the action are two
independent states, and the world is arbiter. Private law is
substantive and adjective, normal and abnormal, antecedent
and remedial, in rem and in personam. Private law is be-
tween citizen and citizen. Substantive law defines the rights
of individuals, adjective law indicates the process of their en-
forcement. Normal law is for persons of ordinary type, ab-
normal is for deviations from ordinary type. Antecedent law
is for cases before wrong has been committed, remedial is for
cases after wrong has been committed. Law in rem is against
the world, law in personam is against some definite individual.
The six normal antecedent rights in rem are, 1, right to per-
sonal safety and liberty; 2, right to society and control of
family; 3, right to good name; 4, right to advantages of life
in community and free exercise of profession; 5, right to
property; 6, right against fraud and deceit. The first of the
six secures owner against threats, assault, wounds, imprison-
ment, dangerous things and dangerous places. The second
secures owner marital rights of husband over wife, parental
rights of father over child, tutelary rights of guardian over
ward, dominical rights of master over servant. The third
secures owner against libel and such like injury. The fourth
secures owner a livelihood, use of harbors and rivers, free-
dom from malicious prosecution. The fifth secures owner in
his possessions. The sixth secures owner against damage
accruing from fraud and deceit. The two normal antecedent
rights in personam are quasi-contract and contract. Quasi-
contract embraces these four headings, domestic, fiduciary,
meritorious, officious. Domestic means one member of the
family against another member. Fiduciary means trusts,
matters of confidence, executors. Meritorious means right to
indemnity for services rendered. Officious means use of pub-
lic officials like postmen. Contracts are principal and acces-
sory. Principal contracts imply no ulterior object, accessory
imply security for another contract. Principal contracts are
136
GENERAL ETHICS
six, alienation, permissive use, marriage, service, negative
service, aleatory gain. Accessory contracts are seven in num-
ber, suretyship, indemnity, pledge, warranty, ratification, ac-
count stated, for further assurance. Remedial law deals with
offenses against rights in rem and in personam. Abnormal
law is for deviations from ordinary type. Adjective law is
opposed to substantive. Substantive creates rights, adjective
enforces them. Adjective law is procedure.
THESIS XI
CONTRACTS
Jouin, 140-154; Eickdhy, 253-255.
The jurisprudence of contracts is a large question, and
cannot obviously be treated here in detail. We are studying
ethics, not law ; and we necessarily restrict ourselves to what
natural law has to say on the subject, leaving the question
of positive or civil law in its bearing on contracts to the
school of law. A contract is an agreement and consent be-
tween several persons regarding some set object. A one-sided
or unilateral contract is in itself a mere promise ; and, because
of its nature it obliges or binds only one of the two parties
to the transaction, hardly deserves the name. Its fulfilment
is regularly a matter of fidelity to one's word, not a matter
of justice. When, however, it raises the hopes of the prom-
isee, and induces him to incur expense, it assumes the pro-
portions of a two-sided contract, and involves strict justice.
Justice likewise intervenes when the promiser means to bind
himself in justice. Contract in strict sense creates a mutual
obligation between two or more; and, therefore, only two-
sided or bilateral contracts deserve the name in its completest
significance. A contract creates rights and duties in both
parties to the transaction. Take, for example, the common-
est form of contract, that of buying and selling. The buyer
assumes the duty of paying the price, and is invested with the
right to receive the goods purchased. The seller assumes the
duty of delivering the purchase, and is vested with the right
to receive the price. The two persons are the efficient cause
of the contract, the set object is its material cause, consent
and agreement are its formal cause ; and all three causes must
fulfil certain conditions. The persons must be fit agents,
they must enjoy the use of reason, and they must have full
and free dominion over what they dispose of in the contract.
137
138 GENERAL ETHICS
Natural law is sponsor for these two conditions. A contract
means free consent, and that demands the use of reason. A
contract is a function of ownership, and nobody gives but
what he first possesses.
Civil law can for the common good prescribe other condi-
tions, and their discussion belongs to the school of law. The
matter of the contract must be possible, morally as well as
physically; and, for obvious reasons, it must be legitimate.
The consent given must be of such a nature that it really and
truly creates an obligation. In other words, it must be true
internal consent as well as external, and it must be entirely
free. Natural law stands for the invalidity of feigned con-
tracts, empty ceremonies without any intention to form a con-
tract or assume an obligation, because natural law's avenger,
or God, sees the heart as well as external facts. Civil law,
because its maker's vision is restricted to external facts, counts
valid every such feigned contract. It argues that the deceiver
has violated another's rights, and must indemnify him even
to the extent of putting true internal consent. Besides, the
party deceived is never obliged to believe the deceiver, when
he says that he made no true contract. A contract made with
a full sense of obligation, and a determination to never fulfil
it, is valid even in natural law.
Freedom is interfered with by want of knowledge or mis-
take, by fear and by violence. Substantial mistake invalidates
a contract, e.g., wine and vinegar in a purchase. Accidental
mistake, when responsible for the transaction, renders gratui-
tous contracts invalid, -onerous contracts repudiable. Ex-
ternal violence invalidates contracts. Internal fear, as long
as it leaves freedom unimpaired, never invalidates. External
fear, induced unjustly to effect contract, invalidates gratui-
tous, makes onerous repudiable.
Quasi-contracts get their validity from law, rather than
from self-imposed obligation. Law imposes the obligation,
not parties to the contract. No contract is made, law sup-
plies, and deals with case in much the same way as if a con-
tract had been made. Law casts duty on person of incidence
without his agreement. Its four kinds are, family, trust,
meritorious, officious.
Savigny defines a contract, as the union of several in ac-
DIVISION OF CONTRACTS 139
cordant expression of will, to create an obligation between
them. Hence his analysis of a contract into these four ele-
ments, several parties, agreement of wills, mutual communi-
cation of agreement, intention to create legal relations. About
expression of agreement. Pollock says, ''Courts hold men to
fulfilment of intention, only when expressed in a manner that
would convey to an indifferent person, reasonable and rea-
sonably competent in the matter in hand, the sense in which
the expression is relied on by the parties claiming satisfac-
tion." Justice Blackburn, 1871, says, "Whatever a man's
real intention, if he so conducts himself that a reasonable
man would believe he was assenting to another's terms, and
that the other party agrees, the man would be equally bound
as if he had intended to agree." Therefore, not what the
man intended, not what the other party supposed him to
intend, hut what a reasonable man, i.e., judge or jury, would
put upon such acts. This is the objective theory of contracts.
Holland sees these six elements in a contract, 1, several par-
ties; 2, two-sided act expressing agreement; 3, matter agreed
upon both possible and legal; 4, agreement of a nature to
produce a legally binding result; 5, such a result as affects
the relations of the parties to one another; 6, very generally
a solemn form, or some fact affording a motive for the agree-
ment. A formal contract observes formalities prescribed by
law, usually writing. An informal contract is without pre-
scribed formalities, but is based on some fact or considera-
tion. The result of a contract is obligation between parties,
conferring rights on one, imposing duties on other, partly
stipulated in agreement, partly implied by law.
Holland divides contracts into principal and accessory, and
we already enumerated them. Under permissive use he
groups loan for consumption, loan for use, and loan for hire.
In olden times loan of money ranked as loan of food, and it
was a species of permissive use, the kind called loan for con-
sumption, as opposed to the kind called loan for use. Inter-
est then fell under the contract denominated permissive use
for consumption. Such a contract calls for mere return of
the food or money borrowed, or their equivalent ; it is of its
nature gratuitous, and the right to interest depends on special
agreement. Hence the Church's condemnation of interest in
140 GENERAL ETHICS
olden times. All interest was considered usury or excessive
interest, because increment, to which the lender was not en-
titled.
Cathrein divides contracts into gratuitous and onerous.
Gratuitous are made in the interest of one party; onerous,
in the interest of both. In gratuitous all the burden is on
one party, in onerous both parties assume burdens. Gratui-
tous contracts are promise, gift, loan, deposit. Onerous con-
tracts are buying and selling, letting for hire, partnership,
interest. In a contract of buying and selling two mutually
agree on merchandise to be received or given for a set price,
and price usually means money. Between value received and
price given there must be some equality, because people are
not supposd to be making presents, when assuming onerous
contracts. A thing's value is fixed in great measure by its
perfection or usefulness in the eyes of men. We distinguish
between use-value and exchange-value. Use-value is abso-
lute, and depends on the thing's substantial usefulness. Ex-
change-value is relative, and depends on the thing's worth, as
compared with other salable articles. Air, water, light have
great use-value, small exchange-value. Price is exchange-
value expressed in terms of money. To be fair and just, a
thing's price and its value ought to be equal. Prices go into
legal, natural and conventional. Law fixes the legal price,
many circumstances fix the natural price, mutual agreement
fixes the conventional price. Natural price, because depend-
ent on circumstances, admits of a certain latitude; and can
be high, medium or low. These circumstances are, the use-
fulness of an article, its scarcity, multitude of buyers, abun-
dance of money. It is quite fair and proper to charge a
price rated just by common opinion. Where law and opin-
ion fail to fix prices, agreement must settle things.
Among other applications, the contract of letting for hire
has place between employer and employee. This species of
the contract is peculiar, inasmuch as the energies of a hu-
man being are involved in the transaction. Besides the pay-
ment of just and fair wages, the employer must impose on his
workman no condition or burden derogatory to his dignity
as a human being. The workman has no right to dispose of
his energies in a way unsuited to his dignity as a man, and
EMPLOYER AND WORKMAN 141
whatever employer compels him to do so is guilty of injus-
tice. A just wage is a living wage, and that means money
enough to enable the workman to live, and to live comfort-
ably; to procure not only the necessaries of life, but a mod-
erate share of its luxuries. The workman has no right to a
fixed percentage of his employer's profits, because he is not
precisely a partner; and yet, other things equal, the more
an employer derives from a workman's labor, the higher are
the wages due the workman, if price is to be regulated by the
usefulness of the commodity purchased. It is extortion pure
and simple, to coerce a workman into selling his labor at a
price, altogether out of proportion with its value to the pur-
chaser. And the immense fortunes, amassed by employers
in short intervals of time, quite satisfy me that, whether
awake to the fact or not, most employers are enriching them-
selves at the expense of their workmen, and actually stealing
from the poor.
Law, public opinion, agreement, unaided by religion, will
never be able to establish . justice, as between employer and
workman; because money can buy labor-leaders as well as
lawmakers, capital can afford to laugh at public opinion, and
free agreement is out of the question, when labor has to
choose between low wages and starvation. The chiefest rem-
edy for injustice is religion and dread of a future punish-
ment. ''All things obey money." Eccles. 10.19. God is
the only judge industrial thieves need to be absolutely afraid
of, because they can on occasions switch human judges with
money, nearly everybody having his price; and the one way
to escape fear of God and fear of hell, is to shake off all
allegiance to religion. This labor-problem, because of its bear-
ing on morality, is as much an affair of the Church as it is
of the state. Till this problem is satisfactorily settled, it
must remain a menace to the salvation of menu's souls; and it
is the Church's business to fight every such menace to a fin-
ish. All the world is her kingdom, workmen and employers
alike belong to her jurisdiction; they are children in her
house, and like a good mother she must keep down quarrels
in the family.
And here is the plan our Church proposes. She counsels
employers to cultivate with enthusiasm the two virtues of
142 GENERAL ETHICS
justice and charity; she counsels workmen to cultivate with
no smaller enthusiasm the two virtues of honest content and
conscientious industry. In the matter of pay, justice means
a living wage for all, defectives out of the question, and for
workmen of superior ability a corresponding increase. A
living wage means money enough to decently support the
workman and his family, without extraordinary labor on the
part of his wife and young children. His wife must care for
his home, his young children must get an education, and
strengthen their weak bodies by play and exercise for the
years ahead.
The employer, who holds his workman to starvation wages,
is guilty of injustice; and the workman's consent to the
unholy transaction relieves the employer of no moral re-
sponsibilitiy. To take advantage of a poor man's needs, is
to rob him ; and to force a hungry man to choose a half loaf,
when a whole loaf is his due, differs only a little from holding
up a traveler with a pistol. The traveler yields up his purse,
to escape with his life ; and the oppressed workman yields up
his whole loaf, to escape from starvation. In the one case
it is the surrender of the purse or death; in the other it is
surrender of the whole loaf or no bread at all.
And charity is an altogether different virtue from justice.
Justice is close and tight, charity is a stranger to narrow
notions; it is as wide as the sea. Charity is more than mere
justice; to coin a word, it is super justice. Justice gives
everybody his due, no more no less; and, if it leans at all, it
leans toward severity. Charity leans towards leniency, and
its donor glories in his dishonesty towards himself. It gives
to everybody more than his due, in the matter of wages as
well as of praise ; less than his due, in the matter of penalties
as well as of blame. Charity, therefore, is a species of divine
superjustice, mercifully meant to correct the shortsighted jus-
tice of men.
The employer is not absolute owner of his wealth, when God
is taken into account. No man can, in the name of justice
or of charity, appropriate to himself a dollar of the employ-
er's legitimate wealth; but God is first owner, God has prior
rights, and God can stipulate to what uses the employer must
put his wealth. The rich are God's almoners to the poor.
EMPLOYER AND WORKMAN 143
It is their sacred and solemn duty to relieve the wants of the
needy with their superfluous wealth, and to give their work-
men sometimes, not in the name of justice, but in the name
of charity, a little more than they earn. When employers
heed the demands of justice and charity, workmen will have
no cause to complain, honest content and conscientious in-
dustry will be as easy as they are natural, differences between
employers and workmen will disappear, and strife will be
at an end.
THESIS XII
INTEREST
Jouin, 154-160; Bickahy, 255-263.
Loan is regularly a gratuitous contract, whether loan for
consumption or loan for use. Thus, when a person borrows
a loaf of bread to eat it, he is obliged to return to the lender
only another loaf of bread of the same quantity and quality.
When a person borrows a book to read it, he is obliged to
return only the book. In olden times, because money was
borrowed only for the purpose of purchasing food and the
like, things consumed in their use, without producing new
wealth, money-lending was a purely gratuitous contract, and
all interest ii^as rightly considered usury or extortion from
the poor. Hence, St. Thomas and all Church writers up to
his time are violently opposed to the interest, considered per-
fectly legitimate in present economic circumstances.
All the difference is due to the different uses of money in
their times and ours. With them money was reckoned a good
consumed in its use, a good productive of no new wealth.
With us, money is a good not consumed in its use, a good
decidedly productive of new and greater wealth, when com-
bined with human endeavor. Capital was of no practical use
in olden times, to-day it is one of the chief factors in business
of whatever sort. Money-lending has passed from loan to
letting-for-hire in the catalogue of contracts, from gratuitous
to onerous, and all because of different economic conditions.
People now rent money to another, as they rent a house ; and
they have a perfect right to any just rate of interest they
demand. And yet the frauds and thefts, perpetrated in mod-
ern times under cover of interest, almost persuade one to
think that the world was certainly more honest, even if worse
off materially, when all interest was condemned as usury, and
144
INTEREST AND CHURCH 145
injustice and extortion ; and, in the esteem of religious minds,
growth in material prosperity is small recompense for moral
degeneracy.
To make interest universally legitimate, there must be a
something in money, that makes use of it by lender or bor-
rower profitable, or productive of ulterior wealth. In other
words, money must be fruitful, not barren ; it must resemble
a field ready for planting, not a loaf of bread ready for a
hungry man. The money-lender must have a title to the
interest he claims, and that title must somehow or other be
intrinsic to the money itself. A title extrinsic to the money,
might suffice to justify interest in the event of some agree-
ment between lender and borrower; but nothing short of a
title intrinsic in some way to the money, can justify interest
in the event of no agreement whatever ; and we contend that
money loaned demands interest to-day of its very nature.
Four extrinsic titles justified interest, even when the Church
was loudest in its condemnation of the practice ; and they were,
1, loss of opportunity to make money incurred by the loan,
or interruption of profit, lucrum cessans; 2, damnum emerg-
ens; unusual risk; 3, penalty for delay in payment; 4, legal
reward meant for incentive to business. The Church always
recognized the legitimacy of these several titles. Besides, peo-
ple of great wealth could buy the right to farm revenues, and
they could enter partnership, wherein without personal labor
their money could earn an increment. It must be remarked
that these several titles are extrinsic to the money loaned, and
never created a right to compensation without prior agree-
ment.
Hence, the Church regularly and consistently considered
interest wrong, and branded all interest usury. It defined
usury as any attempt to draw profit and increment without
labor, without cost, and without risk, out of the use of a thing
that does not fructify. It forbade a man to lend his horse
to a neighbor as a gratuitous gift, and then without any warn-
ing charge him for the use of it, changing a purely gratuitous
contract into an onerous contract. Men of early times saw
only one value in money, its substantial value; and interest
was something in excess of that value. They saw no fruitful-
ness in money, it was Shakespeare's "barren breed of metal" ;
146 GENERAL ETHICS
and to charge extra for fruitfulness, it was on all sides con-
ceded not to have, was robbery, injustice, extortion.
To-day all is changed. Commerce is so easy and extensive,
remote regions are so close together because of steam and
electricity, communication is so rapid because of telegraph
and telephone, that for purposes of business the whole world
is no larger than a single trading block in any city; and
money has uses it never before enjoyed. Money is become a
species of seed, a dollar judiciously planted can grow a thou-
sand; and the seed-dealer is justified in charging one price
and another for different varieties of seed, not precisely be-
cause of their substance, but because of the flowers or fruits
they produce. And whereas in olden times the only legiti-
mate titles to interest were extrinsic to the money itself, the
four enumerated and explained awhile ago, to-day the title
to interest is intrinsic to the money itself; not, indeed, simply
and without any qualification intrinsic, hut after a manner
and with a qualification, accruing to money from modern
methods of business. This kind of intrinsic title partakes of
the nature of extrinsic and intrinsic titles. It is extrinsic,
inasmuch as it is not rooted in the nature of money itself,
independent of all circumstances. It is intrinsic, inasmuch
as it attaches to money in fixed economic conditions like our
own.
Therefore, the right to interest is not dependent on any
civil law, but on the nature of things. For the common good,
law can regulate rates of interest, it has no jurisdiction over
the legitimacy or the illegitimacy of interest. Laws regulat-
ing interest may be just or unjust, and the state framing such
laws must consult the objective order of things. In general,
a fair rate of interest would be that portion of the profit,
made by the borrower, left after deducting a fair recompense
for his skill, labor and industry ; and, in the main, that is the
ratio just laws everywhere try to determine. Law cannot
make wrong right, and plainly exorbitant rates, though sanc-
tioned by law, continue offenses against justice. And yet,
because, in the matter of justice, the presumption is always
in favor of law, nobody need as a rule be disturbed, when he
keeps within the limits of the law.
Money itself is only a medium of exchange, a standard or
INTEREST AND CHURCH 147
measure of value. When business was small, all trade was
simply an exchange of one article for another, and the trans-
action was called barter. As business grew, some set article
was chosen as a general medium; and it became a standard,
a unit for the measurement of value resident in other articles.
A sheep could be made the standard ; and horses, cows, houses,
everything could be valued in terms of sheep. After cen-
turies of experience the world seems to have settled on the
precious metals, gold and silver, as money or media of ex-
change. Animals, shells, skins, wheat, tobacco, and a multi-
tude of other objects have been employed in history as money;
but all have yielded place to silver and gold, or to paper,
entitling its owner to a definite quantity of silver and gold,
when presented to proper authorities. Gold and silver were
chosen because of becoming qualities they possess. They are
durable, and wear well ; their scarcity adds to their intrinsic
value, and gives greater worth to small portions ; they can be
carried with ease from place to place ; they are readily di-
vided, measured and shaped ; they are homogeneous through-
out, and the Same the world over. Coinage, reserved to the
ruler, secures citizens, regarding the genuine quality of the
realm's money.
Money, therefore, has a twofold value, material and formal,
or moral. Its material value is its use in the arts and the
trades. Gold and silver dollars can be turned into jewelery
and the like. Its formal or moral value is its use as a me-
dium of exchange, its purchasing power. In olden times
money's purchasing power was restricted to things consumed
in their use ; when loaned, it was lent to purchase things of
the kind; and so money never rose to the dignity of a fruit-
ful good, productive of new wealth in its use. To-day money
purchases things not consumed in their use, things productive
of new wealth; and money, assuming the quality of what it
can purchase, becomes by the very fact a fruitful good. In
consequence, whoever lends money to another, has a right to
the profit he might have earned with his money, while it
remained with the borrower; and all this, not by virtue of
any agreement, but in virtue of the change made in money
by modern conditions. In other words, money is now an
instrument of business and trade, and it demands a price,
148 GENERAL ETHICS
mucli as the store you rent to another, or the machine hired
to manufacture some product. Money, therefore, is a fruit-
ful good, because it stands for all purchasable commodities;
and the loan of a fruitful good, in strict justice demands more
than the mere return of the good, it demands a return of
the fruit as well. Ballerini thinks that custom made interest
illicit in olden times, because he reckoned it impossible to
prove that anything in the nature of money forbids such
recompense for its use. But St. Thomas and the others regu-
larly appeal to the very nature of money, viewed as a thing
consumed in its use. Others favor leaving everything to the
intention of the borrower. They would consider interest
wrong, in case the borrower meant to purchase food and the
like; right, in case he meant to trade with it for purposes
of profit. Charity might recognize a difference between the
two cases, not justice. The two are onerous contracts.
THESIS XIII
MERIT AND DEMERIT
Jcmin, 21-23; Bickahy, 152.
Merit and demerit are fruits of morality. A man can
merit with God and with other men. He can so behave to-
wards God and men as to deserve in justice reward at their
hands. Merit and demerit result from imputability, that
quality which makes man the cause and proprietor of his acts.
Only rational beings are capable of merit and demerit, be-
cause freedom is a requisite. Imputability implies ownership,
and freedom alone vests man with ownership in his acts.
Necessary agents are not owners. Merit means right to pay-
ment for favor done another, it means reward. Demerit
means right or liahility to payment for harm done another,
it means punishment or penalty. Justice is the measure of
merit and demerit. They even up justice, when the balance
swings one side. Justice is the virtue that renders to every-
body his due. It is of three kinds, commutative, man to
man ; distributive, state to citizen ; legal, citizen to state, cor-
porately and individually. Commutative demands strict or
arithmetical equality between favor and reward. Distribu-
tive demands geometrical equality between favor and reward.
Ordinarily a fair distribution of emoluments and burdens
satisfies its claims. Legal regularly demands arithmetical
equality, and is secured by law. Equity is a merciful provi-
sion meant to he corrective of justice. It has application,
tvhere reward is due, not in strict justice, hut from a view-
point of fairness and honor. It ministers to the incomplete-
ness of legal justice. Commutative gets its name from the
process of exchange, at the basis of business transactions, like
trading, and buying, and selling. In this species of justice
arithmetical equality, or that of 5 to 5, is possible, because
149
150 GENERAL ETHICS
both favor and reward are things, money, for instance, and a
horse. Distributive gets its name from the distribution in
play, when offices in a government are parcelled out to de-
serving citizens. In this species, geometrical equality, or
that of 6 and 4 to 3 and 2, is alone possible; because, while
the favor is, as it were, a person, the reward is a thing. If
a citizen doing 6 points of service gets an office worth 4, a
citizen doing 3 points of service ought to get and office worth
2. Legal justice in point of equality resembles commutative,
differing merely in origin. Physical violence does away with
merit and demerit, because it destroys freedom of execution;
but the moral violence duty or obligation exerts, because it
leaves even the ordered act voluntary, has no destroying in-
fluence on merit or demerit. Duty or obligation removes the
element of supererogation.
God can be said to owe things to Himself and creatures.
He owes it to Himself to see to the fulfilment of His wisdom,
will, and goodness in creatures. He owes creatures equip-
ment with requisites to their nature. This second debt is
rooted in the first, and so God is under obligation to nobody
but Himself. God is just to the wicked, when He punishes
the wicked, because it is what the wicked deserve. He is just
to Himself, when He spares the wicked, because mercy is
what He owes His own goodness.
Merit is of two kinds, de condigno and de congruo. One is
based on strict justice, the other on equity. Harmony or dis-
cord with the objective order of things makes an act good or
bad. Imputability has its origin in freedom of will, and
makes an act blamable or praiseworthy. Justice measures an
act's merit or demerit. To merit with men, the favor done
must not be payment for antecedent debt, and it must be -a
favor asked or desired, or reasonably supposed such.
Man can merit with God and other men, because he can
freely do them a favor. The favor changes the prior condi-
tion of justice, and calls for recompense to reestablish justice.
Man's merit with God is not absolute, but conditional; and
God has put the condition. Man owes everything to God,
without right to any return. And yet, in making man free,
God changes the aspect of things, and agrees to consider a
favor, what is in reality a debt. This gift of free will is a
MERIT AND DEMERIT 151
virtual promise on the part of God to reward its right use,
and punish its abuse,
God is incapable of intrinsic addition; but man can do God
a kindness, by adding to His extrinsic glory; and virtue se-
cures this addition. Man is at the same time a servant and
a son of God. He merits with God as a son, and as a serv-
ant ; supernatural reward as a son, natural reward as a serv-
ant. God is first cause of a man's free will, as He is first
cause of every effect in the universe. But man is second
cause of His free acts, in such manner that he contributes of
his own to their reality, and exerts his own independent activ-
ity. Man in God's hands is no mere passive instrument, but
active as well. God's promise, makes man's merit de con-
digno. In the supernatural order this promise is writ in
revelation ; in the natural order, on the open page of creation.
The discrepancy between man's acts and a supernatural re-
ward, is atoned for by the addition of sanctifying grace.
That quality renders them supernatural, and enables them to
merit de condigno supernatural recompense, or Heaven.
THESIS XIV
Utilitarianism is wrong, dangerous and absurd. Jouin, 31 j
Rickahy, 177-191.
QUESTION
Utilitarianism is a standard of morality, set up by men
who want to keep God and a future life out of the question.
They ignore immortality, and with it the spiritual side of
man's nature. They ?ire not everywhere consistent in their
views ; and, when trapped by their own words into some dam-
aging admission, never hesitate to seek a refuge in self-contra-
diction. William Paley, 1743-1805 ; Jeremy Bentham, 1748-
1832 ; James Mill, 1773-1836 ; John Stuart Mill, his son, 1806-
1873; John Austin, 1790-1859; and George Grote belong to
this school.
TERMS
Utilitarianism. Its creed is formulated in two principles
and a law. First Principle : Man 's last end lies in this world,
and is the greatest happiness of the greatest number, mean-
ing pleasure as well of the senses as of the understanding.
N.B. Cudworth, Butler, Paley, and others, notably older
Utilitarians, mention God and a future life with respect.
John Stuart Mill and moderns in general resent all reference
to God and a future life.
Second Principle: Useful acts are right, hurtful acts are
wrong. Acts are useful, when they result in pleasure; hurt-
ful, when they result in pain. Law: General results must
be taken into account, not particular; not the immediate re-
sult of this particular act, but what would result to society,
if this sort of act were generally allowed.
This last is what Paley calls the Law of General Conse-
152
UTILITARIANISM 158
quences. It hits near our standard of morality, the objective
order of things; and we have no quarrel with it. But we
have a very serious quarrel with the Principle of Greatest
Happiness, and the Principle of Utility. We have already
proved that man 's absolutely last end, his greatest happiness,
lies outside of this world, and is God, intuitively possessed.
We have besides proved that his greatest happiness on earth,
his relatively last end, is the introduction of moral rectitude
into his acts ; and that moral right and wrong are constituted
by harmony or discord with the objective order of things.
Our three theses are a direct refutation of Utilitarianism.
If somebody wants to believe in the reality of a future life,
the Utilitarians assure him that their doctrine menaces no
harm to his aspirations. They are quite accommodating.
* ' Take care of the things of earth, ' ' they say, ' ' and the things
of Heaven will take care of themselves." Christ taught the
contrary, when He called the cares, and riches, and pleasures
of life thorns that choke the seed and hinder it of fruit. Our
friends meet this difficulty with a new distinction between
Hedonism, pleasure for me, and Altruism, pleasure for the
other fellow. These thorns of the gospel are the pleasures of
Hedonism, not the pleasures of Altruism. Altruism then is
their last end. To meet Utilitarianism on common ground,
we must for the time being neglect the future life, and dis-
cuss with them man's highest good in this present life. We
maintain that man's highest good in this life is the establish-
ment of moral rectitude in his acts, calling the condition in-
complete happiness, because, in life's sum of good and evil,
moral rectitude procures the preponderance of good over
evil. They maintain that man's highest good in life consists
in the greatest happiness of the greatest number of mankind,
and they seem to mean by happiness pleasure as well of the
senses as of the understanding, physical as well as intellectual.
It must be evident that we both agree in making happiness
of some kind man's supremest good; and, if we contend for
exactly the same kind of happiness, we are fools to quarrel.
Our happiness is virtue, it is compatible with pain; it rates
one unit of intellectual pleasure superior to many units of
physical pleasure; it counts the intensest physical pain man
can suffer, death amid the cruellest torments, martyrdom at
154 GENERAL ETHICS
the hands of Nero, less an evil than the slightest departure
from the straight line of morality.
Of course, an ideal conception of incomplete happiness even
in our theory would be a blessed aggregate of unvarying vir-
tue, pleasure of body, and pleasure of soul, without the small-
est trace of pain anywhere in the mixture. It would mean
holiness fit for the altars, along with the money of a million-
aire ; the wisdom of the most consummate sage history knows ;
a mind free from business cares, a heart free from the aches
of love; a body without the ills of disease, a soul without a
sorrow ; nights of refreshing sleep, days of uninterrupted ease,
luxury and exhilarating enjoyment. But we are not the
fools to think any such ideal condition possible since the fall.
Apart even from the teachings of faith, we know that, ages
before the parable of the seed and the sower, pagans like
Diogenes and Zeno, Socrates and Plato, in the full light of
reason, regarded the riches and pleasures of this life thorns
in the field of virtue. Before the ominous words, ''Go sell
what thou hast, and give it to the poor," sounded on human
ears, mere philosophers had buried their wealth in the sea, as
a preliminary to the acquisition of virtue and wisdom. We
must be content with the world as it is, we must be practical
even in our Ethics, and write down man's highest good a
species of happiness possible of attainment. This happiness
is necessarily limited, it is incomplete, and we have reason to
be thankful for the circumstance. It whets desire for the
beyond, holds us to duty, and makes us stronger than un-
avoidable pain, that might otherwise overwhelm us with dread.
Happiness with Utilitarians would seem to be sometimes
Hedonism, sometimes Altruism; pleasure for me, and pleas-
ure for the other fellow. We repeat again, that if we mis-
interpret their writings, we honestly mean no wrong, and
stand ready to make them due reparation for our mistake.
If their greatest possible happiness of the greatest possible
number is virtue, or moral rectitude in man's acts, the fight
is over, and we are everlasting friends. If, on the contrary,
it is either the Hedonism of Epicurus or the Altruism of mod-
ern atheists and materialists, the fight is on, and we are
deadly enemies. Mill would seem to make it Hedonism, when
he says that acts are right in proportion as they tend to pro-
HAPPINESS 155
mote happiness, meaning by happiness pleasure and the ab-
sence of pain. This doctrine makes good and pleasure iden-
tical, accounting the most pleasant pleasure the best pleasure.
Paley very logically accepts this view of the thing, and main-
tains that pleasures ^differ only in duration or intensity, not
in kind. With him pleasure of sense can surpass pleasure
of mind. We maintain, on the contrary, that pleasures differ
in quality as well as in quantity; that pleasure is not iden-
tical with good, but one of its three kinds or species; and
that intellectual delight is a better pleasure than sensual, not
because it is the more pleasant or lasting, but because it is
nobler.
Good IS of three sorts, becoming, agreeable and useful;
honestum, dulce et utile. Becoming good appeals to what
is specific in man's nature, his intellect; the agreeable is
oftener than not a loud cry to what is generic in man, his
animality; the useful is a mere help to the other two. The
becoming is loved for itself singly; the agreeable, for the
pleasure it creates; the useful, for an ulterior advantage
altogether distinct from itself. Good itself is an analogical
term; and, arguing from the word perfect, it means, in root,
finish, completeness. That is man's good, which finishes,
rounds out, completes his being. Primarily, therefore, good
signifies the becoming; secondarily, and by analogy of attri-
bution, the agreeable; secondarily still, but by analogy of
proportion, the useful. Becoming good is loved on its own
single account, not because of some third reality its posses-
sion secures. Agreeable good is not loved on its own single
account, but on account of a third reality its possession se-
cures, the satisfied feeling it induces. Useful good would
never be missed, if only the advantage it helps to procure
could be obtained without its assistance. Examples are knowl-
edge, a banquet, and money. Real good is suited to the de-
sires most in harmony with the nature that seeks it. What-
ever good is opposed to real good is called apparent good.
Man's real good is intellectual and spiritual, and, therefore,
the becoming. When the agreeable and useful are directly
opposed to the becoming, they are only apparent goods.
Whatever real goodness they possess, is derived from the
becoming, and dependent on the degree in which they meas-
156 GENERAL ETHICS
ure up to the same. An apparent good is a real evil. Nearly
every good in nature is a mixture of the three, and it is one
or other according to the light in which it is viewed. Thus,
knowledge is in itself a becoming good. And yet, because of
the pleasure it ministers, and because of the opportunities it
affords for honor and wealth, it can readily enough descend
to the level of an agreeable or useful good. A banquet is a
becoming good, inasmuch as it is quite in harmony with
man's rational nature; it is an agreeable good, inasmuch as
it procures bodily pleasure; it is a useful good, inasmuch as
it wins for the host the favor of his guests. Between agree-
able and useful good the distinction is clear and marked.
It is not so easy to discern between the becoming and the
agreeable. Pain can never be reckoned agreeable good ; it can
be reckoned becoming good.
Pleasure and Pain. Therefore, these few words about
.pleasure may help us to better understand things. Feeling
cuts so important a figure in modern Psychology that writers
assign it a faculty of its own, distinct from the faculties of
knowledge and desire, denominated cognoscitive and appeti-
tive. Our English word feeling is fruitful in meaning.
Maher notes these four, outer sensations, pain or pleasure,
excitement, certainty without motives. Examples are, smooth
feeling of velvet, to feel hot or cold ; to feel hurt, sad, joyful ;
I have a feeling for you ; to feel that it will rain. Emotion
occurs often in second and third senses. Passion is intense
excitement; affection turns on likes and dislikes with persons
for objects; sentiment is emotion in abstract and highly
wrought characters, as opposed to practical men. On this
question of pleasure and pain rare old Aristotle wrote the
final word centuries ago. St. Thomas in this particular makes
the Stagirite his model, and voices his sentiments with hardly
' a word of correction. Modern writers are true, only when
they keep close to these master-minds; and the measure of
their departure from Aristotle is the measure of their folly.
Plato is responsible for the opinion that all pleasure is nega-
tive and relative. It is negative, inasmuch as it is mere ab-
sence of pain. It is relative, inasmuch as it is transition from
state of pain to opposite condition. And some pleasures of
sense lend color to his theory. Thus, the joy of eating and
PLEASURE AND PAIN 157
drinking would seem to be dependent on antecedent hunger
and thirst. Aristotle, however, calls attention to the fact
that pleasures without number betray no such dependence on
previous pain. He alleges for examples the delight attaching
to mathematics, agreeable sounds and smells, the pleasures
of memory, and hope, and imagination. He makes all the
reality of pleasure dependent on activity, calling it activity's
efflorescence or hloom, — ''nil sine magno Vita labore dedit
mortalibus. ' ' Each faculty in man has its own pleasure, de-
rivable from judicious exercise. Count the antecedent exer-
cise pain, and you have Plato's opinion of relativity. St.
Thomas remarks that nobody enjoys uninterrupted pleasure,
simply because the quality follows work. The faculty em-
ployed, and the object stimulating the faculty, gauge the in-
tensity of a pleasure ; and in point of duration it lasts as long
as faculty and stimulus are in harmonious relations, one fresh
and vigorous, the other fit and suitable. During early pe-
riods in the process, pleasure reacts to stimulate energy; but
by degrees fatigue results, to first lessen the feeling and
eventually close in pain. Hence the need of variety in this
business of pleasure. The faculty is dulled by use, and a
new stimulus must supplant the old, when fatigue ensues.
As faculties are specifically different, pleasures of intellect and
sense differ as much as the faculties themselves. Conflicting
pleasures neutralize each other, and the faculty in question
determines the moral rank of the pleasure. The nobler the
faculty, the nobler the pleasure. Pain is pleasure's oppo-
site, and eadem est ratio oppositorum. The nature of pain is
manifest from our description of pleasure. It can have its
origin in faculty or object. It accompanies excess or defect
of energy or exercise, and is regularly due to pressure of an
unfit or unsuited stimulus. These different characteristics
of pleasure and pain have been gathered by Maher into two
laws, — 1, Pleasure is healthy exercise or activity, pain is
excess or defect of same. 2, Pleasure grows up to a certain
limit, then it diminishes and becomes pain. Variety con-
tributes to pleasure, because the interval of change is a period
of rest, and gives the dulled activity an opportunity to recover
its sharpness. Accommodation can explain factitious pleas-
ures as well as insensibility to pain. From long use the fac-
158 GENERAL ETHICS
iilty of taste, for instance, loses its edge, and tobacco passes
from disagreeable to pleasant. Constant pain in much the
same way operates to diminish or quite destroy the discom-
fort.
We maintain against modern writers that pleasure and pain
call for no third faculty ^ distinct from man's cognoscitive and
appetitive powers. They are hut different aspects of cogni-
tion and desire. Touch and taste call for new faculties, dis-
tinct and different among themselves; not feeling. Feeling
is best described as the tone of a function. The function is
exercise of a cognoscitive or appetitive faculty ; the tone in case
of pleasure is spontaneous, healthy, harmonious exercise; in
case of pain, restrained, unhealthy, excessive exercise. The
theories about pleasure and pain are numerous, most of them
substantially the same as Aristotle 's ; and, as before remarked
regarding wrong theories, the measure of their departure from
Aristotle is the measure of their folly. Spinoza leans to
Plato 's notion of transition from pain. Kant makes pleasure
the promotion of life-processes; pain, the hindrance of life-
processes. Schopenhauer and the pessimists view pleasure
as escape from pain by filling a want. Descartes and Leib-
nitz make it consciousness of perfection possessed. Hamilton
calls pleasure the reflex of conscious activity; pain, the reflex
of overstrained or repressed exertion. Bain describes them as
increase and abatement of vital functions. Physiologists in
general view pleasure and pain as integration or disintegra-
tion of neural elements. Grant Allen makes pain a destruc-
tive act, or insufficient nutrition in sentient tissue. Spen-
cer calls pleasure organic equilibrium, or harmonious func-
tioning, or struggle for life.
PROOFS
I. Principle of Greatest Happiness.
To return now to Utilitarianism. In its selection of man's
highest good, as already seen, it veers between Hedonism and
Altruism, pleasure for me, and pleasure for the other fellow.
Indeed some defenders of the theory try to combine the two.
But that is impossible. They are opposite poles. Hedonism
is gross selfishness, Altruism rates selfishness the unforgiven
PROOFS 159
sin. Hedonifsm certainly cannot be man's highest good, be-
cause it is pleasure ; pleasure in turn is the effect, activity the
cause; and the cause is always superior to the effect. Activ-
ity, therefore, is a higher good than the pleasure it pro-
duces; and no pleasure, whatever its kind, can be man's high-
est good. Becoming good is sought for itself, and for noth-
ing beyond. Even knowledge, when sought for pleasure or
gain, becomes an agreeable or useful good. Man's highest
good, therefore, cannot he pleasure of whatever sort, whether
intellectual or sensual, because pleasure is at most an agree-
able good, and magi's highest good ought to he a becoming
good. Besides, pleasure is always an effect, and effects are
inferior to their causes.
PRINCIPLE
A. The end is superior to the means. Pleasure is the end,
activity is the means. Answer: This is in the order of inten-
tion, not in the order of being or reality. Redemption of
mankind is the end; the tears and the blood of God are the
means. Operis and operantis. Priority in order of being
or reality settles dignity. Reversed in two orders of inten-
tion and being. End first in intention, last in being. Means
last in intention, first in being. Ergo, activity is superior to
pleasure, as cause is superior to effect.
Therefore, knowledge, clear of the pleasure it occasions,
can alone be man's highest good. The pleasure may be in-
separable from the knowledge, but this is far from consti-
tuting the pleasure knowledge itself. God known is man's
absolutely highest good, and virtue is his relatively highest
good, his highest good in this life. Altruism cannot be man's
highest good, because, as understood by the Utilitarians, it
neglects two important factors in the makeup of virtue, self
and God. Again, if their Altruism means virtue, if it means
measuring up to the objective order of things, the exact pay-
ment of all our debts to the neighbor, self and God, we have
no quarrel with Utilitarianism, and we are Altruists as well
as they. But, whatever their real sentiments, the writings of
Utilitarians are proof conclusive that they ignore the interior
life of the soul, the inner man of the heart, and give human
160 GENERAL ETHICS
society, the neighbor, the place that belongs to God. They
mistake the political for the ethical end of life. They provide
for a good citizen, a good husband, a good father; but not
for a good man. They exaggerate a secondary concern, to
minimize or altogether nullify what ought to be man's pri-
mary concern and first consideration. Therefore, the Al-
truism of the Utilitarians is no more man 's highest good than
the Hedonism of Epicureans. It wears a more decent ap-
pearance, but there is more logic or common sense in Hedon-
ism than in Altruism. Both are vile errors, one from the
viewpoint of gentility, the other from the viewpoint of phi-
losophy; and only in the eyes of shallow thinkers are of-
fenses against gentility viler than offenses against philosophy.
Hedonism banishes God and the neighbor from morality, to
set up self for idol. Altruism does the same unkindness to
God and self, to fall down and worship the neighbor. And
there you are.
II. Principle of Utility.
The Principle of Utility, which makes acts right or wrong,
according as they are useful or hurtful to the greatest num-
ber, stands condemned on these four counts: 1, It makes no
difference between acts good and had in themselves, confound-
ing intrinsic value with extrinsic results; 2, affirms that the
motive has nothing to do with the morality of the action;
3, levels all distinction between injury and harm; 4, a7id
favors the theory confuted by Plato in his Republic, personal
indulgence at expense of neighbor. We already proved in
Thesis III, that an essential, intrinsic difference exists be-
tween right and wrong in the moral order. We argued from
example, alleging love and hatred of God as instances; and,
for every believer in God, the argument is conclusive. Un-
fortunately for them, the Utilitarians prefer to keep God out
of the question, and might logically take exception to our
method. Love of parents and a lie might, perhaps, prove
more acceptable examples; and they are equally well suited
to our purpose. Therefore, according to us a lie is essentially
and intrinsically bad, because of its very nature it is at odds
with the objective order of things, imperatively demanding
conformity of language with thought. A lie is radically
PROOFS IW
wrong, because it is an abuse of language. It is wrong now,
it was always wrong, and will forever continue to be wrong,
even if God could wish otherwise, even if the whole world
entered into a conspiracy to call it right. Love of parents is
in precisely the same way an act intrinsically and essentially
right. With Utilitarians a lie would be wrong, simply be-
cause of its consequences or effects; love of parents would be
right for the same reason; and the Law of General Conse-
quences, they think, makes their position impregnable. They
would contend that lying and hatred of parents, if universally
allowed, would work harm to society; and they are not far
wrong in their contention. A bad act always breeds bad
consequences, and in most cases this secondary norm of util-
ity coincides with our own. As a rule. Utilitarians would
scruple calling right whatever acts we call wrong, and theo-
retically their standard is not blameworthy. But in practice
it is open to flagrant abuse, and it is responsible for much of
the evil now prevalent in society. Its advocates easily lose
sight of the Law of General Consequences, and measure the
quality of their acts hy the advantage or disadvantage accru-
ing to themselves personally. If he is a Hedonist, the Utili-
tarian can see nothing but advantage in a lie, that procures
him thousands of dollars to purchase the luxuries of life. If
he is an Altruist and a diplomat, the Utilitarian can see noth-
ing but advantage in a lie, that would save an entire com-
munity from the disasters of war. The temptation, then, is
to think a lie right on occasions, and account so-called pru-
dential departures from the truth no breach of morality.
How often men yield to the temptation, every-day history is
witness. Individualism is the rich man's creed, Utilitarian-
ism is the hasis of his ethics; and the had philosophyy taught in
our present day universities strengthens him in his position
of greed and injustice. Less conscientious Utilitarians teach,
and avaricious misers among their followers ardently hold,
that acts are morally right, when they tend to the doer's
profit ; and virtue comes to mean the accumulation of wealth
by fair means and foul. If Utilitarianism were not wrong
in itself, abuse of its principles is easy, and this abuse is most
damaging in its consequences.
2. We have alsewhere shown motive to be one of morality's
162 GENERAL ETHICS
determinants. Motive is the act in its subjective aspect, and
its morality is quite as important as that of the object itself.
We are agreed that no individual human act is indifferent,
though in the abstract many such acts occur to mind, like
walking, singing, study. Acts of the kind derive all their
morality from the motive prompting their execution. To walk
to the church for purposes of prayer, is right; to make the
same journey for purposes of theft, is wrong; and all the
difference is constituted by the walker's motive. Motive
makes one man a worshipper, the other a thief. And we are
not talking about the act of prayer or the theft ; we are talk-
ing of the journey itself. The journey made by the pros-
pective thief is as morally wrong as the theft he afterwards
commits. This truth is even more evident in the case of a
good act, done with an evil design. To give alms for the
express purpose of making the beggar accomplice to a mur-
der, is out and out bad. No matter how useful the gift may
prove to the beggar, the act of the giver is thoroughl}'- wicked ;
and what would be otherwise virtuous charity, is changed by
mere motive to downright murder. This example slightly
changed proves Utilitarianism immoral. Suppose the alms
given without any wrong intention ; later on, the beggar finds
his benefactor engaged in murder, and out of gratitude goes
to his assistance. The alms would have bad results and
would therefore be wicked, an opinion altogether against
common-sense. Our kindness would, then, depend on how
people used it. I am aware that a man's motive, when once
conceived and embraced, becomes part and parcel of his act,
because the motive is the man. I am aware that honest Utili-
tarians' would never reckon right, alms bestowed for so un-
holy a purpose; and all because conduct of the sort, if uni-
versally tolerated, would prove damaging in the extreme.
And yet they are highly unphilosophical, when they brand
such alms wrong, simply because of consequences or inde-
pendently of motive. The fact of the matter is that the act
in question is damaging in its consequences, because it is
morally wrong, and not vice-versa. Causes never follow their
effects; and the act is not, first damaging in its consequences,
and then morally wrong; but it is first morally wrong, and
then damaging in its consequences. The horse pulls the
PROOFS 163
wagon; not the wagon, the horse. Scripture is of small
weight with the average Utilitarian ; and yet he may, in com-
mon with respectable unbelievers, have a measure of reverence
for Christ's wisdom. Motive in His divine eyes makes a su-
preme difference between acts; and the first half of St. Mat-
thew's sixth chapter contains His doctrine on the subject.
We commend His words to the careful and reverent perusal
of searchers for the truth. The acts discussed are alms,
prayer and fasting.
3. If use and harm are the measures of morality, all differ-
ence between mere harm and injury disappears ; and balanced
minds are not ready to accept this view of things. Injury
adds wilfulness and malice to mere harm, which oftener than
not is wholly without the stigma of moral hlame. The pedes-
trian, who tramples your watch to pieces on the dark street,
works you a lot of harm, but no injury. The enemy, who
deliberately and knowingly smashes the same with an axe,
over and above the harm he works, does you a downright in-
jury. In both cases the harm is practically the same; while
injury is absent from one case, present to the other. Even
if all men without a single exception were allowed to repeat
the act of the innocent pedestrian, it could never become
morally wrong, in spite of the harm consequent on its occur-
rence. And yet the harm done would prove as much a hard-
ship to the watch's owner as the injury done him by his
enemy. The effects of the harm and the injury are the same,
the moral difference between the two is due to the agent's
purpose, motive, intention.
4. Plato in his Republic confutes a theory of morals, that
would seem to coincide in all respects with Utilitarianism.
Briefly, it stands for the contention that a man's highest good
in this life is his own personal indulgence, at the expense
of his neighbors. Society, to keep down fighting and save
the race from suicide, hampers this inclination, and blocks
each individual citizen's aspirations for his own highest
good. It forces him to forego the natural right he has to
prosecute his own happiness, at the expense of his neighbors.
In this way the interest of society is opposed to the interests
of the individual, and life in a state is a real curse and only
a makeshift blessing. Tyrants alone, in this theory, compass
164 GENERAL ETHICS
highest good; their subjects, through no fault of their own,
are hopelessly unable to realize their destinj^ in this life, that
natural desire all men have to enjoy incomplete happiness, the
preponderance of good things over evil things. And all be-
cause these shortsighted mortals, in common with the Utili-
tarians, establish man's highest good in pleasure or advan-
tage, his supremest evil in pain or hurt.
Our theory makes moral rectitude or virtue man's highest
good, and no tyrant can effectively keep his subjects from
the attainment of this result in their lives. Again, it would
be foully wrong to suppose that Christ or the early martyrs
failed of man's highest good; and their entire lives were
empty of what a Utilitarian world calls happiness or pleas-
ure, and were crowded full of misery and pain. They com-
passed supremest good or incomplete happiness, simply be-
cause what the world calls happiness or pleasure cuts no
figure whatever in the thing, and one unit of virtue out-
weighs units without number of mere physical pain or men-
tal distress. Virtue is no artificial happiness, it is happiness
of the solidest sort; and the pain endured for virtue's sake
never loses its quality of bitterness. Saints never come to
directly like self-denial, they like it only in an indirect way,
inasmuch as it secures to them that virtue or holiness, which
is the basis and foundation of man's supremest good on
earth.
PRINCIPLES
A. Stoic Formalism. Stoic Formalism is from Kant, and
Kant's system of Ethics is a profound mistake. The whole
trouble with Kant would seem to be that he has hazy no-
tions about God, and denies Him the quality of lawgiver.
And all this in spite of an utterance on page 322, to this
effect, ''Conscience must be conceived as the subjective prin-
ciple of a responsibility for one's deeds before God." Abbott.
He recognizes only two lawmakers, self and the state. Self
is responsible for ethical law; the state, for juridical law.
Hence his autonomy of reason in matter of ethical law. Rea-
son is self, reason makes law, defines and imposes duty, sits
in judgment, rewards virtue, punishes offenders in the domain
of Ethics or internal morality. The state performs exactly
KANT AND ETHICAL DUTY 165
the same functions in the domain of Nomology, Jurisprudence
or external morality. God occurs nowhere, no doubt because
He is a noumenon. Natural law with Kant is not divine law
at all, it is as much human law as civil law itself, the only
difference between the two being that the man makes natural
law for himself, the state sets him civil law. In the field of
internal morality, in the matter of acts not prescribed by
positive law, in question of commands issued by what we
persist in calling the natural law, man, according to Kant,
is subject to no outside constraint ; he has no Heaven to hope
for, no hell to fear. In the field of external morality, in mat-
ters provided for by the statutes, in question of murder, eft
and other penal offenses enumerated in the code, man is sub-
ject to constraint of the state, and enjoys the favor of pos-
sible fine or imprisonment as a deterrent from crime.
With Kant, natural law ought to fare worse at men^s hands
than positive law. When a man makes a law for himself, he
can as easily neglect it ; when a man is judge and jury in his
own case, he is seldom convicted; when he executes law on
himself, he gets off with a light sentence. When the state
exercises these several prerogatives, the culprit is more likely
to get his deserts ; and this single thought would make positive
law surer of fulfilment than natural law. God would neglect
in the enforcement of His law a most efficacious help, em-
ployed by men in the enforcement of their laws. Ethical
duty with Kant is self-imposed constraint; juridical duty is
constraint imposed by positive law and its author, the state.
Self-imposed constraint is no constraint at all; and ethical
duty, to have any force, must be constraint imposed by the
natural law and its author, God. Therefore, to act from a
sense of ethical duty, is to act with an eye to God's attitude
towards right and wrong, as well as with an eye to our own
attitude towards the same; and Kant's autonomy of reason,
and his principle about duty for duty's sake, are only half
the truth; and, what is still worse, they are that half of the
truth, which apppeals to only a select few in the republic of
refined minds and critically exact moral tastes. The sanction
of the natural law embodied in an eternal hell, is a much
more appealing incentive to virtue than Stoic Formalism or
subjective feelings of shame. Remorse of conscience means
166 GENERAL ETHICS
more than shame, it means dread of hell; and the sinner is
wide awake to the fact, that he has offended somebody dis-
tinct from and greater than himself.
Utilitarians contend that happiness, or pleasure of mind
and body, is man's destiny on earth, his supreme good, his
last end; and many contend that it is folly to look higher.
We already proved with irrefutable arguments that pleasure,
whether of mind or of body, cannot be man's last end, either
in this life or in the next. Stoic Formalism, a product of
Kant 's philosophy, is the opposite pole to Utilitarianism ; and
it contends that duty is man's destiny on earth, to such an
extent that it is the single motive able to make his acts moral ;
and that pleasure, or whatsoever other motive, renders them
unmoral. Duty for duty's sake, is its slogan, and it accounts
acts morally good, only when done from a sense of duty;
unmoral, when done for pleasure or from any motive save
sense of duty. Kant is responsible for the system, and it is
in line with his autonomy of reason, to be explained and re-
futed in our next thesis.
Against Utilitarianism and Stoic Formalism we contend
that man's absolutely last end, his destiny in the next life,
is complete happiness, the possession of God in the beatific
vision; that his relatively last end, his destiny on earth, is
incomplete happiness or virtue and resulting peace of con-
science. The happiness we contend for is not the pleasure of
Utilitarianism, nor is it the sense of duty advocated by Stoic
Formalism. Happiness, whether complete or incomplete, is
not pleasure of mind or body. Complete happiness is a heaped
up measure of good with unending duration, a measure of
good from which no particle of good is absent, altogether in-
compatible with pain and discomfort. Complete happiness
is a natural desire, the one necessary wish of every man's
heart, the hiding principle of every wish we conceive; and,
therefore, our happiness in this sense cannot be excluded ;
and, if Kant were right, all our acts would necessarily be un-
moral. Virtue is our destiny on earth, and therefore our
duty; and the peace of conscience resulting from virtue can-
not be excluded from our motive, and again all our acts would
be unmoral. The consciousness of duty done is only another
STOIC FORMALISM 167
pleasure; and, before we do our duty, this pleasure in the
order of intention can move us to act, without any detriment
to morality. Whatever motive is compatible with virtue, be
it pleasure, or wealth, or honor, health, wisdom or charity,
can originate a morally good act; and there are virtuous as
well as vicious pleasures.
Arguments against Stoic Formalism 'by Father Cronin, pp.
245-263.
1. It demands too much of human nature.
2. It is not contained in the idea of moral good.
3. It is disproved by works of supererogation.
4. All moral acts would be equally moral.
5. Eadem est ratio oppositorum. If acts were good solely
on account of respect for law, acts would be bad solely on
account of disrespect for the law. No criminal ever acts from
disrespect for the law ; but from motives of gain, revenge and
the like. Ergo, no bad act.
6. There would be no room for merit. Every good act
would be owed.
7. Happiness is inseparable from moral acts ; and acts would
be unmoral, when done from motives of happiness.
8. Motive would be respect for law as such. Bad legisla-
tion is law as such, and bad legislation never bases moral act.
9. Law is meant for common good, as means to end. To
act not for common good, but for law, would be to make means
superior to end.
Arguments in Favor of Stoic Formalism are Fallacious.
1. It is the creed of the crowd. Morality is in the will, not
in the external act.
Answer: True, but the will gets its morality from object,
end, and circumstances ; pure selfishness does not of itself
vitiate act ; pleasure is good or bad according to object ; duty
is only one object of pleasure ; love of duty is as much a moral
principle as duty.
2. AH outer objects are mere means to pleasure. Ergo, no
proper motive.
Answer: The summum bonum is not a mere means to
pleasure, it is happiness itself. It is man's end, not a means
168 GENERAL ETHICS
to his end. It is an affair of the intellect, not of the will.
Law varies with the individual, the summum bonum or last
principle of morality is the same for all.
B. Hedonism.. Father Cronin discusses Hedonism between
pages 264 and 304.
Hedonism of whatever kind is wrong, when it makes pleas-
ure man 's last end. Egoistic Hedonism is Hedonism proper ;
Universal Hedonism is Altruism or Utilitarianism. Pleasure
for me, and pleasure for the other fellow. Some Hedonists:
Hohhes says that any object of desire is man's last end, and
this is Hedonism's most degraded type. Aristippus makes
mental pleasure man's last end. Mill makes higher pleas-
ures of mind man's last end; and this is a more refined
type. Cudworth makes pleasures of virtue man's last end;
and this is higher still. Butler makes pleasures awaiting men
in Heaven man 's last end ; and this is the highest of all.
Answer: Pleasure is not our sole natural end, because it
can be spurned aside. Happiness is our sole natural end, be-
cause it cannot be spurned aside. Pleasure is not man's last
end, because it resides in the will, as the passion of delight
resides in the appetite; and no act of the will can be man's
last end.
Five Arguments from St. Thomas, C.G.3. 26.
1. Happiness is man's last end, and happiness is not de-
light or r pleasure. Pleasure is an act of the will, object is
prior to act, and will's object is prior to will's pleasure. Ob-
ject is mover, pleasure is movement. Ergo, happiness cannot
be an act of the will, it cannot be pleasure.
2. Happiness is no act of the will, it is not pleasure. It
would he either a, desire; h, love; or c, delight, a, Not desire,
which tends towards something not yet gotten, b. Not love,
because love turns on absent as well as present good, c, Not
delight, because delight is the effect ; possession is the cause.
3. Happiness is not in act of the will, not in pleasure; be-
cause pleasure can be true or false, and ever the same with
respect to rest or quiescence on part of the will, e.g., a
drunken man and a philosopher. Real man and painted man
differ by constituents of substance, and intellect makes pleas-
ure true or false, not act of the will.
4. Delight is not desirable of itself, and, therefore, not
STOIC FORMALISM 169
man's last end. Otherwise all delight would be desirable.
Pleasure is of indifferent ethical value, sometimes good, some-
times bad; some delight is desirable, other delight is to be
shunned.
5. Nature uses pleasure as means only. Ergo, not man's
last end. Right order coincides with order of nature, nature
orders things without mistake. Nature orders man as well
as animals. Delight is for activity, not the other way about,
e.g., use of food for preservation of individual. We eat to
live; we do not live to eat. Without delight animals would
not eat. Delight is the means, preservation the end. Pleas-
ures of marriage are for preservation of race.
P.S. Title of last end is assigned to activity, whereby ex-
terior thing is gained, e.g., act of getting the money is last
end, not desire or love of money. God is last end, activity
getting God is understanding. We cannot wish what we do
not understand. Ergo, happiness is act of the intellect, not
act of the will, not pleasure of whatever kind.
THESIS XV
Ecmt's autonomy of reason is wrong. Russo, pp. 67-70.
The greatest of all goods in the moral order, because true
and absolute, is a good will. All other faculties are good in
the moral order, because of something they borrow from the
will. Morality is like freedom. It belongs primarily to the
will, and is passed along by the will to mind, senses, and all
else in the man. Mind in itself is a physical, not a moral
good. It is often an apparent good, and always a relative
good. It makes a good writer, a good philosopher, but not
a good man. Nobody deserves Heaven for proficiency in
mathematics pure and simple. Some of the greatest minds
history knows are buried in hell. No good will is buried
there, because good will means virtue, and virtue is passport
to the kingdom of God. Will is choice, and the best will, or
the best good, is the best chooser. In morality choice lies be-
tween obedience to law and disobedience; and the motive
prompting the choice has a decided bearing on its dignity and
worth. Respect for the law would seem to be the highest
conceivable motive; and therefore two factors conspire to
make a perfect will, obedience to law, with respect for the
law for single motive or reason why. Obedience and respect
are paid to persons, not to things; and, therefore, we might
better say, obedience to the lawmaker, and respect for the
same. Fear and hope are negatively imperfect motives as
compared with love.
Up to this point we are a unit with Kant. All the differ-
ence between us starts here, and it is rooted in the man's
stupid conception of the law in question, and of the relative
worth of motives urging to its observance. With him, the
law to be obeyed is his categorical imperative, "So act that,
if you had your way, your conduct would have to be made
universal standard for the race.'' His categorical imperative
170
AUTONOMY AND HETBRONOMY 171
emanates from his own reason, his practical reason, his will,
without God or man at its back to urge its observance. It is
his own private affair, a matter of business between himself
and himself. If he follows orders, he does himself a kindness ;
if he breaks orders, he does himself an unkindness ; and that is
all. No created thing is capable of uttering a categorical im-
perative, an absolute and necessary imperative, because no
created thing is the absolute and necessary, and no effect can
surpass its cause. From relative and contingent beings like
creatures, and practical reason is a creature, no higher than
a relative and contingent imperative can issue.
And this is what we call Kant's autonomy or autocracy of
reason, the enthronement of self as supreme arbiter of every
man's destiny, the impudent usurpation by man of rights
vested in the Creator, a virtual declaration of man's inde-
pendence of everybody, God included, subservient to nobody
but himself, subject to only such laws as he makes for him-
self, accountable for his conduct to nobody but himself, his
own judge, his own jury, his own executioner. He gathers
the purely subjective nature of his categorical imperative, the
fact that all obligation in the man is due to a command he,
and he alone, imposes on himself, from the circumstance that
no other absolute and necessary command is conceivable.
Everything falling under the experience of our senses is rela-
tive and contingent, the categorical imperative, as an abso-
lute and necessary something, must have its origin in the
practical reason, considered in action, the one phenomenon
apart and distinct from sensile occurrences. He sees the
absurdity of attributing the qualities, absolute and necessary,
to any product of the practical reason; and, therefore, ac-
knovjledging his inability to prove the absolute and necessary
nature of his categorical imperative, he contends that these
two qualities of his categorical imperative are a postulate of
his system, and must be accepted without proof.
He could have easily avoided all trouble by introducing
God, the one absolute and necessary being in the universe,
and ascribing his categorical imperative not to practical rea-
son but to the natural law imposed on man by God, and
brought to man's notice by reason. But the poor man is
hounded everywhere by that ghost of his own making, nou-
172 GENERAL ETHICS
menaj spirits, thirigs in themselves, too far removed from the
senses to base certain knowledge, matter for empty conjecture,
sure in the event to propagate ignorance and superstition.
God is a noumenon, a pure spirit, beyond the reach of eye,
and ear, and all the senses, but quite within the reach of
reason, arguing from the reality of patent effects in the uni-
verse to the reality of their cause. Man's reason is for nou-
mena, as his senses are for phenomena; and if our knowledge
is restricted to phenomena, if we have no certain knowledge
of noumena, we are little better than brutes, and in many
respects their inferiors.
With practical reason for single origin of the categorical
imperative, reason is oMtonomous, its own lawmaker, and
every man is his own standard of morality. More than this,
every man manufactures his own moral obligations, imposes
on himself whatever duties he sees fit to impose, selecting some,
rejecting others, always with the proviso that he can reject
to-morrow what he selects to-day. In other words, he is
morally bound to the performance of this or that particular
act, simply because he holds himself to its performance, not
because any outside superior issues a command to that effect.
Kant stands for autonomy of will, as opposed to heteronomy.
We stand for heteronomy of the will, maintaining that God is
single author of moral obligation, that reason is the herald
God employs to make His wishes known, that the true cate-
gorical imperative is the natural law, which is divine legisla-
tion, not human, which is found indeed in man 's reason, with-
out being derived from it. We can all be found in the Wool-
worth Building Friday evening, but the Woolworth is no ex-
planation of our origin. The laws of New York can be found
in certain printed books, but the printer never made them.
Kant wants us to think that we impose obligations on our-
selves, simply because we wake up to the fact that we are
under obligations. The objective order of things, as set forth
in the natural law, arouses us to a sense of obligation, and
this objective order of things is the handiwork of God, as
well as the natural law embodying it. If man himself is
altogether responsible for Kant's categorical imperative, man
imposes this obligation on himself either with full freedom
or with strict necessity. If with full freedom, it ceases to
AUTONOMY AND HETERONOMY 173
be real and true obligation ; if with strict necessity, something
distinct from the will forces its wishes on the will, and God
alone, as maker of the will, enjoys this prerogative. Kant's
imperative is a self-imposed command, one and the same per-
son is ruler and subject ; and a self-imposed command, because
open always to revocation at the will of the subject, carries
no binding authority. To save himself from open folly, Kant
makes the reason ruler, the will subject ; but reason and will
belong to the same man, and no two persons are present.
When a man binds himself hy agreement, or vow, the obliga-
tion arises not from the man himself, but from a precept of
the natural law, an ordinance of God holding rational crea-
tures to their promises. The obligation is independent of
man's will. He is free to make the agreement or not; but,
once the agreement is made, he is not free to assume the obli-
gation or not. He is free to put the condition or not; but,
with the condition once placed, the obligation follows, no
matter what he wishes.
Besides missing the true nature of the only categorical im-
perative worthy of the name, the natural law issuing as a
command from God to do good and avoid evil, Kant beauti-
fully mixes things in his discussion of motives and their
relative dignity. The motive of obedience is the reason why
the will obeys, and three possible motives for observance of
the natural law at once suggest themselves, respect for the
lawmaker, fear of penalty and hope of reward. All three mo-
tives are equally relative and contingent. The most perfect
motive of the three is respect for the lawmaker; but this is
far from rendering the other two positively imperfect or bad.
They are at most negatively imperfect, or less good. They
possess their own worth, they have their own goodness, though
it happens to be inferior to the goodness attaching to respect
for the lawmaker. The whole thing is like saying that im-
perfect love for God is inferior to perfect love for God, with-
out ever becoming hatred. Only a bad motive is a positively
imperfect motive. Negatively imperfect motives are good mo-
tives of varying degrees. A five-dollar-bill is always money,
though it is worth less than a hundred-dollar-bill. Only a
counterfeit is no money at all. And all three motives are com-
patible, not mutually destructive of one another. Nothing
174 GENERAL ETHICS
prevents a man from keeping the law out of respect for the
lawmaker, from dread of penalty, and from hope of reward.
In fact, three motives are better than one, especially when
the one chosen is the weakest of the three; and man^s innate
selfishness will always make penalty and reward more effective
for good thari respect for the lawmaker.
PART II
SPECIAL ETHICS
INTRODUCTION
We have thus far dealt in speculation of a general nature,
without adverting much to individual emergencies in an indi-
vidual life. We have rather laid down rules, sure to find
application in every step taken with a bearing on morality.
Now we proceed to examine the obligations arising from rela-
tions involved in certain conditions and contingencies of life.
Man has dealings with God, with himself, and with his fellow-
men. He occupies a well defined position in the universe, and
his moral worth stands or falls with the attitude he adopts
in his every day acts towards God, towards himself, and to-
wards his neighbor. This threefold source of duty is common
to every man born into the world, and independent of every
later arrangement or added condition. It aifects the indi-
vidual as such. Nature, however, has besides constituted man
a social being. It has ordained that at his very birth he
belong to a family, and has made it quite impossible for him
to continue in existence without entering into certain amicable
relations with his fellows. Hence he finds himself by a very
necessity of nature constituted at once a member of civil so-
ciety or the state, as well as of domestic society or the family.
Besides, God the author of nature has in the person of Jesus
Christ established a third society, the Church, and has made
membership in it an inevitable duty. These three societies,
differing in scope and machinery, secure advantages and im-
pose in return corresponding burdens. Fathers, mothers,
brothers, sisters, children, rulers and subjects have set func-
tions to discharge, and rectitude consists in strict compliance
with their several duties. It therefore belongs to this part
of Moral Philosophy to put in as clear a light as possible
175
176 SPECIAL ETHICS
man^s obligations as an individual to God, himself and his
neighbor, and man 's obligations as a social being to his family,
to his government and its citizens, und to the Church ap-
pointed of God.
Religion is the one word expressive of man's duty towards
God, and this religion includes worship of mind and body,
and steadfast belief in revelation, or the utterances of God.
Man is loyal to himself, when he makes good all the claims
urged by reason in behalf of his own proper soul and body.
Suicide, self-defense and duelling are topics of vital interest
in this subject. Truthfulness in speech and the right to prop-
erty are points particularly offended against in man 's conduct
towards his fellows. In the field of the family, or domestic
society, marriage itself, celibacy, polygamy, divorce, education
of child and the mutual relations between family and state,
are questions of weighty importance. Man's natural instinct
for political or civil society, society's end, its constituents,
forms of government, state prerogatives, and sedition will
occur for discussion in our consideration of civil society.
SECTION I. MAN AS AN INDIVIDUAL
THESIS I
Religion is man*s first duty, a matter of essential necessity
to the individual and the state. Worship, interior and ex-
terior, private and public, is God^s due. Man's duty towards
revelation is to accept it, when. known as such; to diligently
seek and find it, when hidden, and when he has reason to sup-
pose that it exists. Toleration in matter of dogma is absurd.
Jouin, 71-96 ; Bickaby, 191-202.
QUESTION
We are by supposition dealing with men honest enough to
admit God's existence and the fact of creation. We likewise
take for granted the possibility and the fact of creation. For
proofs of these several points we refer to Natural Theology
and forward parts of Metaphysics. Man's duties towards
others are based on relations in force between himself and
these others; and the first condition that confronts him is,
from the very fact of creation, that of utter dependence on
God. Man is God 's handiwork, and belongs to Him body and
soul. In virtue of His supreme dominion God has an in-
alienable right to the completest service of His creature; and
must, from the very nature of things, stand vested with a
master's control over man's every faculty and energy. Wor-
ship, interior and exterior, submission of intellect and will,
are the highest conceivable tributes of superiority one ra-
tional being can pay another, and religion embodies both.
Faith and trust in God's messages, or the acceptance of reve-
lation, is an element of religion on which champions of God's
cause cannot with too much force insist in these days of irre-
ligion and unbelief. Revelation is the channel through which
men are advertised of the sort of service God wants, and ex-
177
178 SPECIAL ETHICS
perience is witness that worship weakens and falls dead, when
the truths of revelation are once called into question and
doubted.
TERMS
Religion. The word is of Latin origin, and authors are
divided between three possible derivations. Lactantius, an
eminent scholar and Church-writer, favors religare for root-
word. Religion with him means a second bond or moral obli-
gation, added to man's first or physical dependence on God
for being, preservation, activity and care. Cicero, with whom
Lactantius finds fault, ventures relegere, meaning to dwell on
in thought, or meditate. His derivation gives large prom-
inence to the theoretical side of religion. St. Augustine, see-
ing in the Redemption a second choice of God made by fallen
man, traces the word to religere, to choose again. In classical
Latinity religion is regularly identified with the feeling of
respect and veneration entertained towards parents, relatives
and friends.
But whatever may be said of ancient usage, it is quite cer-
tain that religion to-day, taken in a strict and technical sense,
denotes a something referred to God alone. It is a duty, a
moral attitude, or condition, or relation, based on man 's phys-
ical dependence on God for existence, preservation, activity
and control. It has for foundation the circumstance that
God is man's first cause and last end. Hence religion is gen-
erally defined, the duty to acknowledge and worship God as
first cause and last end. Acknowledgment denotes the free
acceptance of a truth, and of whatever responsibilities attach
to it. It supposes knowledge, and adds thereto an act of the
will. Worship is testimony rendered to divine excellence,
coupled with due submission. It is honor combined with sub-
mission.
Religion may be considered objectively or subjectively.
Objectively taken, it is a collection of truths expressive of the
relations in force between God and man, and a catalogue of
the duties hinging on these relations. Subjectively taken, it
is the actual or habitual acknowledgment of these truths and
performance of these duties. Religion is a branch of justice,
because it is God 's due. It includes, among others, truths like
RIGHTS AND DUTIES 179
the following, God created man, preserves him, exercises over
him the controlling influence of a ruler and helper, rewards
and punishes him in the next life as a most just judge. It
includes the duties of adoration, sacrifice, prayer and faith
in God's word. Religion is a branch of justice under the
formality of God's due, not under other formalities. Reli-
gion is something more than mere good conduct and respect-
able behavior. Pagans and modern heretics in reducing the
notion to limits so narrow forget that the will, the mainspring
of conduct, depends for all its vigor on the mind or intellect.
Luther's rule was, faith without good works; now the rule
reads, good works without faith.
Viewed as a body of truths, religion is said to be theoretical,
dogmatic, speculative. Viewed as a body of duties, it is said
to be practical. Religion in both senses is essential. Theo-
retical religion without practical religion is imperfect. Prac-
tical religion without theoretical religion is often no better,
no more sincere ; and is always subject to decay and death. A
religion may be false and wrong in one of two ways, either by
paying homage to a false god, or by worshipping the true God
in a way opposed to His wishes. Natural religion would be
a thing no higher than human reason, with precepts possible
of fulfilment to man's unaided resources. But we live in the
blessed light of revelation, and the only religion now in vogue,
and in vogue from the beginning, is revealed or supernatural.
God has in His goodness deigned to stamp with the seal of
His own word even such truths and such plain obligations as
reason of itself can fathom.
Duty. Right and duty are correlative terms and insep-
arable. Right is one of the terms in our language, conveying
notions at first sight whole seas different. Thus, the right is
confounded with rectitude and conveys the notion of exact
agreement with that straight line of conduct morality bids
us walk. A right is something altogether other, and can be
best perhaps described as, the moral and inviolable power or
strength to do or exact something. The Romans had two
words for our one. Right in the first sense, they expressed
by rectum; right in the second sense, they expressed by jus.
This jus is clearly connected with jubere, to order or legis-
late; and since all law is founded on rectitude, the choice
180 SPECIAL ETHICS
of the word was happy. A jus or right is an emphatic com-
mand, forbidding anybody to interfere with its enforcement.
It is creative of a duty in outside agencies, restraining them
from opposition to its peaceful fulfilment. Four elements of
a right are person of inherence, person of incidence, object,
and act.
Take for example ownership in a house and lot or parcel
of ground. The person of inherence is owner, the person of
incidence is the rest of the world, the object is the building
and piece of ground, the act is use for purposes of residence,
sale, changes, repairs, and against trespass. Right, therefore,
is an order issuing from the person of inherence or owner,
backed by the omnipotence of nature or God, and command-
ing the person of incidence, whether a set and definite indi-
vidual or the world at large, to reverence the wishes of its
owner in at least one respect. God is the avenger of broken
rights, and nobody violates a right without disputing the
authority of God, and running counter to His wishes. Na-
ture, and nature here means God, vests the owner of a right
with the authority of a king, and word from him in the mat-
ter of his right is word from God. Men on occasions lack
the physical strength needed to enforce their rights ; but God
is their champion, strength never fails Him, and, whether in
this life or the next, God ultimately makes right prevail, by
actual accomplishment or, in event of its failure, by penalty.
Right and duty are therefore closely related, and a knowl-
edge of one helps much to a knowledge of the other. A right
is a moral force, and depends by no means for its validity on
physical superiority. Rights are on this account often tram-
pled and violated by might in a world of iniquity and wrong ;
but nobody ever maintained that a right lapsed when borne
down by might. For the simple reason that they have no
intellect or will, and are therefore outside the category of
moral beings, animals have no rights. We owe it to ourselves
to treat them humanely; but, as far as they are themselves
concerned, cruelty to animals is no violation of a right. The
obligation engendered in others by the existence of a right is
sometimes negative, sometimes positive. There are in other
words rights of such a nature that they merely forbid outside
interference, without obliging others to help positively to their
MIGHT AND RIGHT ISl
realization. There are others, on the contrary, of such a
nature that they lay on others the responsibility of contrib-
uting by positive acts to their issue. Finally, right is founded
on law ; and since law without God is a dead letter, any recog-
nition of right is silent and sure testimony to the existence
Of God.
Rights are personal or real. A personal right immediately
affects the person of the possessor; a real right affects him
only through the medium of some second thing. Instances
are, the right to life and the right to a piece of property.
Rights are likewise natural and inborn, or acquired. They
are natural, if derived to man from his very nature. They
are acquired, if due to some free act, of which he acquits him-
self. Thus, the rights to improve the mind, to defend life
when unjustly attacked, to acquire land, are all natural ; and,
as such, beyond all possibility of loss or forfeiture. The right,
on the other hand, to ownership in this or that particular
strip of land, because largely dependent on some special ac-
tivity freely exerted, is an acquired right, and admits, of loss
or change. Might can with justice and propriety be employed
to effect the enforcement of a right. Right, resident as it is
in the mind and the will, has claims on man's inferior facul-
ties, and can call these forces that constitute physical strength
to its assistance. Neither is injustice done the party against
whom violence is used. If right primarily binds his mind
and will, small wonder if its influence extends to the mem-
bers of his body.
A conflict or collision of rights is quite possible in certain
contingencies. In such an emergency only one of the two
rights is real. The other is no right at all, but only a shadow.
Right cannot in the nature of things be opposed to right.
When a clash of the kind occurs, the relative merit of the
two claims must be weighed, and the worthier must prevail.
Nature again furnishes us with the standard of measurement,
and the question must be decided in strict accordance with the
demands of nature's order. Thus, when some human enact-
ment is in open contradiction with God's law, the human law
is no law at all. It must yield, and its framers are vested
with no prerogative of authority, as against the source and
author of all authority. In every well organized community
182 SPECIAL ETHIQS;
courts are established, and their word is supreme in the set-
tlement of disputes turning on civil rights. No private citi-
zen has the power to take the law into his own hands, and
decide quarrels with his neighbor. In this plan, justice may
on some rare occasions be defeated ; but the order maintained,
and the bloodshed avoided, more than compensate for these
scattered wrongs. Eights have limits, beyond which they can-
not be pushed. No right however valid can sanction the com-
mission of sin. When pursuing a right, we must proceed
with caution, and avoid offending against the duties of others
and our own plain duty. Rights in many cases assume the
nature of privileges, and there is no law compelling a man
to everywhere make use of his privileges.
Duty is the source of that inner consciousness of moral re-
straint which accompanies every dictate of the natural law.
It invariably presents itself in the shape of a command,
ordering man to do or avoid something. It is a strict obliga-
tion, and man knows that, if he wants to remain true to him-
self and his nature, he must satisfy its demands. A duty, in
concrete terms, is this or that act urged or forbidden by law
and order. God 's rights are the origin of men 's duties ; and
God, independent as He is of every superior, is a stranger
to duties properly so called. In figurative language we some-
times speak of God's duties to Himself and even to men.
But in strict usage duty always connotes a superior, a being
with full authority to impose the duty. Absolutely speaking,
then, right is first of the two in order of time. Confining
the question to man, duty always precedes right. All man's
rights are founded on the duty binding him to the accom-
plishment of the end designed for him by nature's Creator.
Whatever conduces to that end, without disturbing the reign
of justice, constitutes matter for a right. He is armed with
a right to repel whatever seriously and unjustly interferes
with his destiny's consummation.
N.B. Duty manifests the claims of moral rectitude, and
rectitude is the observance of relations, or conduct in har-
mony with the objective order of things. The order of excel-
lence and importance prevalent in duties is, God, self, and the
neighbor. Compare Hedonism and Altruism. Ahrens and
Damiron would recognize rights in animals, because they are
RELIGION A NECESSITY 183
called in Holy Writ sons of God, and because we are forbidden
to do them injury or cause them pain. We answer, Holy
Writ is on occasions poetic, and these scattered passages are
to be so interpreted. The Church is judge, not our op-
ponents or ourselves. We slay animals for purposes of sus-
tenance, comfort and ornament. We must not be wanton in
our treatment of animals, because all such conduct is hostile
to the growth of mildness and meekness.
First Duty. In point of time and in point of excellence.
This duty of religion, to ensure good results in after life, ought
to be impressed on the child 's thoughts from the earliest dawn
of reason, and all other duties, even towards his parents,
should be unfolded to his growing mind as corollaries flowing
from the first. He should be taught that parents, country
and friends, high as they stand in his esteem and love, occupy
only second place to God, and that at God's call all these and
much else besides must be abandoned.
Essential Necessity. Philosophy recognizes two kinds of
necessity, accidental and essential. The former hardly de-
serves the name. It represents a thing necessary only after
such a fashion that the effect can in certain circumstances
have place in its absence, and its functions can always be
discharged by some other object. Thus, for instance, brown
bread is said to be an accidental necessity of life. Essential
necessity truly deserves the name. It represents a thing so
necessary that in the event of its absence the effect is simply
out of the question. Thus, food of some sort is an essential
necessity for continuance in life. This essential necessity,
however, admits of degrees. It may be physical, or quasi-
physical, or moral. A physical essential necessity forms part
of a thing's very being, body in man. A quasi-physical es-
sential necessity contributes to a thing's well-being. Want
of a necessity of this kind makes itself felt in a wholly differ-
ent way from want of an accidental necessity. Sound health,
for instance, is a quasi-physical essential necessity for the
enjoyment of life. It cannot, like bread, be replaced by some
other commodity. A moral essential necessity is an object,
thoroughly requisite for the rounding out of a man's moral
being. It is an imperative call of conscience, a heavy and
unavoidable obligation. Failure to comply with its demands
184 SPECIAL ETHICS
disturbs that harmony with the objective order which con-
stitutes man's last end or destiny in this life. We contend
that religion, objective and subjective, dogmatic and prac-
tical, while not a physical essential necessity for individual
and state, is for one and the other a quasi-physical and a
moral essential necessity. We contend, in other words, that
without religion man's physical life is beset with trials, trou-
bles and dangers, that the state's welfare is seriously harmed,
and that individual and state are out of harmony with recti-
tude.
Individual and State. Religion's bearing on the lives of
individual citizens presents no difficulty whatever. Its bear-
ing on the state becomes as clear, when we regard the state
a moral person, affected with rights it can enforce, with duties
it must discharge. With this view of the state we are ac-
quainted from common every day experience. Our President
and our Governors pay religious tribute to God, by proclaim-
ing once a year the advent of Thanksgiving Day, by coun-
tenancing religious observance throughout the land, by prayer
in our legislative assemblies, and at other functions of state.
In distinctively Catholic countries the duty is accomplished
with more solemn ceremony.
Worship. Testimony to divine excellence coupled with due
submission. It is honor of a peculiar sort combined with
submission. When the acts of homage are internal and
unseen of men, the worship is interior. When these acts are
external, and plain to the senses, the worship is exterior.
Public worship, or social, is homage done God by the state
in its representatives, not in private individuals. The ob-
servance paid God by citizens in their private capacity con-
stitutes private worship. Only the godless deny the necessity
of interior worship. But scores of writers endeavor to do
away with the need of exterior worship, and public or social
worship of whatever sort. Many are urged to take this step
by hostility to the Catholic Church, so insistent on exterior
worship. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of men
to-day outside of the true faith, regard attendance at Sunday
service a thing of minor importance, wholly beneath their
notice, and no matter of conscience at all. Some, with a fam-
ily resemblance to the traitor Judas, prate about the useless
WORSHIP 185
expenditure of money, wasted in the erection of edifices for
purposes of worship. These proclaim with loud mouths that
the green fields are God's temple, and that the birds of the
air are His choristers. They declare external observances and
ceremonies a hollow mockery, superstition ; and never lose an
opportunity to inveigh against them. But their own conduct
is the weightiest argument against their words. They are
monuments of decayed religious spirit, the unfailing growth
of negligence in matters external.
Of the two kinds of worship, interior is, of course, the
higher and more precious ; but, constituted as he is, man de-
pends for inner emotions on his outward behavior and deport-
ment of body. When minded to pray, he needs to be sur-
rounded with all the holy images, and with that atmosphere
of quiet resident in our churches. He needs to go down on
his knees, and fold his hands, and shut his eyes against the
thousand distracting objects clamoring for his attention.
Even with all the varied helps present in our houses of prayer,
it is no easy task to check our senses, and address God with
the profound respect, which is His due. Then too, the
Creator made our hands, arms, eyes and the other members
of the body, as well as the soul; and mind-worship to the
exclusion of body-worship is paying only half our debt.
Thomasius, Dunzi and Kemmerichius concede a measure of
usefulness to exterior worship, but deny reason's ability to
prove its necessity. Ahrens, infected with modem rational-
ism, frames up a definition of religion, from which he en-
tirely excludes the necessity of exterior worship. ''Reli-
gion," he says, "is a union of mind and heart with the su-
preme being." ''Worship, therefore," with him, "is an
intellectual and spiritual work only, which ought to refrain
from representing God and His attributes by sensible signs."
' ' One may, ' ' he continues, ' ' call to his assistance some of the
fine arts, such for instance as music and song, because these
serve to more vividly express our notions of the infinite. ' '
He allows the sense of hearing to play a part in divine wor-
ship, he has no place for the eyes, and scents from afar
Catholicity's veneration of images
Eevelation. The word is a Latin derivative from re, back,
and velum, a veil. It means therefore the removal of a veil.
186
SPECIAL ETHICS
the lifting of some hidden truth into the light. In theology,
revelation is defined as, '' A communication from God in lan-
guage strictly so called, hy which, on the authority of His
testimony. He makes known to men truths in the order of
salvation.' ' All creation is said to be a book, which sets forth
with a great wealth of detail God's guiding presence, His
attributes, and His wishes in our regard. But it conveys
lessons through a medium different from language properly
so called, and therefore falls short of being revelation. Reve-
lation is the word of God, something once uttered by God
for men 's spiritual advantage. Its channels are direct speech,
the written word, and tradition. He held immediate converse
with Moses and the prophets, who afterwards at His express
command committed His wishes to writing for the benefit of
future ages. This body of revelation is contained in the Old
Testament. Later on. He appeared among men, and in the
person of Jesus Christ changed much of the old dispensation,
and instituted the New Law, destined to govern His people
without change or alteration till the end of time. He bade
His apostles preach and teach His doctrine throughout the
world. St. Matthew and St. John, with the disciples St. Mark
and St. Luke, compiled the four Gospels, or narratives of
Christ's life. St. Paul and others, under the influence of
divine inspiration, wrote a series of letters or documents
abounding with rules for the right ordering of Christian life.
God ordained that these writings should always remain in
the custody of a living Church, which He solemnly founded
and placed under the control of St. Peter and his successors
forever. This Church is to be the arbiter of all religious
disputes, and this Church is to decide beyond all appeal the
amplitude of revelation. There is no higher court, empowered
to review or reverse its decisions; and God has promised it
immunity from error in matters of dogma. It is the guardian
and authoritative interpreter of God's word, as contained in
the Old and New Testaments; the witness to and the dis-
penser of tradition. For revelation is of wider extent than
the mere written word, and embraces all the points of* belief
insisted on and taught by the Catholic and true Church of
Christ, though not explicitly set forth in the pages of Holy
Scripture.
REVELATION 187
Scripture itself bears us out in all these statements, but
their further discussion belongs to the domain of theology.
"We have said enough to convince any honest mind that revela-
tion is no empty dream. Scripture and tradition are its
abundant sources, and he who diligently searches can easily
recognize the contents of the Bible and the doctrines of the
Catholic Church for the word of God. Miracles and proph-
ecies are the most obvious of the seals divinity has stamped
upon them; and the miracles and the prophecies we appeal
to for the heavenly character of our religion, are beyond
denial, and beyond serious dispute or doubt. God alone is
equal to the infinite task of working real miracles, and utter-
ing real prophecies; and when He invests a messenger with
these dread prerogatives for credentials of his mission, that
messenger is God 's mouthpiece, and the tidings he brings are
fresh from the lips of God.
Faith is the virtue called into play by revelation, and faith
is not knowing, but believing. The truths of faith are not
blessed with all the light, thrown round the axioms of algebra
and geometry. They are obscure, hard to understand, and
in some cases absolutely beyond human comprehension. More
than any other act of the mind, faith makes large demands
on free will ; and this circumstance, constituting faith 's merit,
is responsible for faith's small influence with the ill-disposed.
As an act of supremest homage, it is only just that it carry
along with itself submission of will, the faculty whose sur-
render is a most pleasing sacrifice in God's sight.
Faith of the right kind, faith with the authority of God's
word for root and motive, leaves a man no room for choice
between dogmas that flatter and dogmas that pinch self.
Everj^ statement, whether it pictures forth the ravishing joys
of Heaven, or the terrifying flames of hell, must be accepted
with the same readiness and good-will. Of course, some of
Scripture's utterances have a more important bearing on
morality, a more intimate connection with eternal salvation
than others; but all, all without a single exception, rest for
credence on the self-same support, the knowledge and the
truthfulness of God. If God could stoop to the meanness of
deceiving man in the most trivial particular, man's trust and
confidence in God would be at an end. Faith in any utter-
18d SPECIAL ETHICS
ance of God, no matter how solemn and weighty, would then
degenerate to stupidity. People outside our Church, people
whose faith is measured by the canons of convenience, set
apart certain far-reaching, general and palatable dogmas, and
label them fundamental articles. They preach that these
alone are to be believed under pain of eternal loss. Other
articles of minor importance deserve no attention, though
out of respect for God's word they ought not to be wantonly
denied. With them, individuals are judge and jury in the
selection; and confusion reigns supreme.
"We too recognize a difference in importance between various
parts of Holy Scripture; but no one sentence is so unimpor-
tant as not to demand our full faith and belief. We feel at
liberty to deny nothing, we feel bound to believe at least
implicitly the whole of Scripture's contents, and explicitly
believe every dogma duly proposed to our consideration. And
since every clause in the Bible descends to us from the same
God who teaches the more important articles, our position is
alone logical, our position alone approves itself to reason. To
accept revelation as such means, therefore, a vast deal more
than half-hearted and insincere believers to-day make it mean.
To diligently seek and find revelation when hidden, implies
a larger amount of labor than most strangers to the truth
devote to this undeniable duty. Doubts daily cross their
minds, and suspicions concerning the dangerous risks they are
taking constantly arise within them. And yet these improv-
ident philosophers, because the consequences of their mistake
will become fully apparent only in the next life, prefer the
ease of uncertainty, and the license their pretended ignorance
lends to their low instincts.
Toleration. Nobody need be informed that the world is
sadly full of different religious sects. A walk through our
own city, with now and then a glance at the sign-boards con-
spicuously displayed at temple entrances, must effectually
cure any doubt on the subject. Indifferentism is a rampant
sin among us, so rampant that the early signers felt con-
strained to introduce into our Constitution a clause ensuring
to every citizen immunity from persecution on the score of
religion. Be it noted, however, that the toleration sanctioned
by our government is merely political ; and therefore not to be
TOLERATION 189
branded in virtue of our thesis absurd. Dogmatic toleration
is as eminently absurd a notion as can well be conceived.
Only a disordered mind could seriously entertain it. Political
toleration is mere permission, without the declaration of any
absolute right, to practise false as well as true religions. Dog-
matic toleration is permission along with the assertion of an
absolute right to practise false as well as true religions.
Political tolerance tolerates not mistakes, but people who
make the mistakes. It can at heart abominate all false wor-
ship, and yet have a word of kindness for the victims of error.
It takes men as it finds them, and merely permits all without
distinction to practise whatever system of public worship
they choose. It seals with its sanction no form of worship
at all, but in the interests of peace allows the false and the
true to grow up together till the harvest. And God allows
that, in a permissive, though not in an approving way. Ar-
dent lovers of the truth at first sight revolt against any such
proceeding; but after calm consideration they settle down to
the conviction, that in the present lamentable state of affairs
it is the only feasible method. Christ once rebuked indigna-
tion of the kind in St. James and St. John. The Samaritans
had shut their gates against His coming and these disciples
said, "Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down
from heaven and consume them? And turning He rebuked
them, saying. You know not of what spirit you are. The Son
of man came, not to destroy souls, but to save." St. Luke
9.54.
When authority permits a practice as abominable in the
sight of God as heresy, it can still be justified on the double
plea of inability to remedy the abuse, and refraining from the
crime of formal cooperation. Were there no such escape from
the difficulty, our rulers would be obliged in conscience to do
one of two things. They would have either to expel all sec-
taries from the country, or whip them into submission to the
true faith. But the one alternative is quite as impracticable
and impossible as the other. Adherents to the true religion
are not in the majority, and truth's victory would be uncer-
tain. It is criminal to undertake any kind of a war without
reasonable hope of winning. Catholics outnumber every single
sect taken separately; but, in the event of force, error would
190 SPECIAL ETHICS
unite against the truth, as against a common foe. Then, too,
even were the triumph of truth an assured possibility, the
land would have to be deluged with blood, and life would
perish from the state. Submission procured by force is simply
out of the question. Religion subjectively taken is largely
a matter of free will. Liberty enters religion as an essen-
tial element, and religion embraced under stress of physical
violence is hypocrisy.
Besides, the state by supposition lends no peculiar support
or encouragement to false creeds, and in this particular es-
capes censure. Dogmatic toleration would be in effect, if
our Constitution anywhere committed itself to the stupidity
of declaring all forms of worship equally good. But you will
look in vain throughout its pages for any such assertion.
Well-meaning Catholics, to conciliate the esteem and friend-
ship of separated brethren, sometimes stoop to the meanness
of giving expression to sentiments of the kind. But their
excuse lies in the fact that they are over-zealous for peace,
and speak without due reflection. Rome recognises no com-
promise with error. She teaches her children to put on the
feelings of charity and forbearance towards error's deluded
victims, but denounces error as an unpardonable sin, and
commends its slaves to the mercy and justice of God.
Absurd. The full force of this term implies something more
than mere falsehood. It further conveys the notion of silli-
ness and open war with reason's most evident dictates. A
statement can well be false without being absurd. We are
acquainted with many such statements. The falsehood they
contain, lies deep beneath the surface, mixed with much that
is true, and only diligent search can detect it. But dogmatic
tolerance is so repugnant to common sense that we hesitate
not to brand it absurd.
DIVISION
Four Parts— I, II, III, IV
I. Religion is (a) man's first duty, of essential necessity
to (b) individual and (c) State.
II. Worship, interior and exterior, private and public is
God's due.
PROOFS 191
III. Man's duty towards revelation is (a) to accept, or
(b) seek it.
IV. Toleration in matter of dogma is absurd.
PROOFS
I. (a) The position and standing of relations fix the po-
sition and standing of duties. But of all man's relations
those with God are first in time and first in excellence. Ergo,
man's duty towards God, or religion, is man's first duty.
With Regard to the Major. Duties are the growth of rela-
tions in force between a man and God, himself and his neigh-
bors. They are, as it were, an effect, with these several rela-
tions for cause ; and effects partake of the nobility inherent in
necessary causes.
With Regard to the Minor. Existence and reality derived
from God and Creator are first requisites for whatever events
crowd into a man's after-life. To none therefore are we
more under obligation than to God. Nobody has more sacred
rights to our homage and service. No conceivable object is
worthier of our energies.
(b) A duty based on a relation arising from man's very
nature is a thing of moral essential necessity to the indi-
vidual. But religion is a duty arising from just such a rela-
tion. Ergo, religion is a thing of moral essential necessity
to the individual.
With Regard to the Major. Duties are strict moral neces-
sities. Duties arising from man's nature are as close and
present to man as his very nature. They can no more be
absent from him, they can no more loosen their hold on his
allegiance than nature can abandon him, or reside somewhere
apart from him. That religion is a quasi-physical essential
necessity to the individual, favorable to his happiness, peace
and well-being must be evident from the line of reasoning
followed in proof of next clause.
(c) 1°. A moral person immediately dependent on God for
maker, helper, guide and rewarder lies under moral essential
necessity to acknowledge and worship God. But the state is
such a moral person, and religion is this acknowledgment and
192 SPECIAL ETHICS
worship. Ergo, religion is a moral essential necessity to the
state.
2°. That without which duties of justice, honesty, and mu-
tual harmony can in no wise stand is a quasi-physical essential
necessity to the state as such. But religion is a thing of the
kind. Ergo.
With Regard to the Major. Nobody will deny that the du-
ties enumerated are of vital importance and large factors in
the state's well being.
With Regard to the Minor. Remove God from the universe,
destroy religion, and all moral obligation falls, sanction is
idle, and states go down in ruin.
II. N.B. Worship offered to God, divine excellence itself,
is called, latria. Worship offered the Blessed Virgin Mary,
who borrows all her excellence from God, is called, hyperdulia.
Worship offered the saints is called dulia.
The worship belonging to God is at least interior. In the
case of individuals it must likewise be exterior or bodily, since
man's dependence on God, extending as it does to body and
soul, must be shown whole and entire. The worship rendered
by the state must be social, and therefore visible or exterior.
Public worship is worship rendered by the individuals com-
posing a state, not in their private capacity, but as welded
together by authority into one body politic.
III. Man's duty towards revelation is to (a) accept it, or
(b) seek it.
(a) 1°. It is a rational creature's duty to accept for true
every statement made by the God of truth and known for such.
But man is a rational creature, and revelation is a body of
statements made by the God of truth. Ergo, man's duty
towards revelation is to accept it when known as such.
With Regard to the Major. Duties are the result of rela-
tions, and the relations in force between the Creator and His
rational creatures make faith in the Creator's word an im-
perative necessity. God therefore has a right to man's men-
tal submission when He speaks. That He invariably insists
on this right, is evident from the circumstance that He is all-
wise and all-true. He cannot, like limited and finite mortals,
give expression to utterances, that owing to dearth of knowl-
edge are tainted with falsehood. He cannot like fools talk
PROOFS 198
for the mere sake of talking, without caring whether His
listeners heed His words or not. Men can be guilty of folly
of the sort; but God has too much reverence for language's
end and purpose to so abuse it. When a man of ordinary
common sense, blessed with a fair measure of seriousness,
vouches for the truth of some fact, he can with reason feel
offended at a refusal to abide by his declaration. God's at-
tributes would make such a refusal a monstrous crime, and
God's attributes make faith in His word an absolute duty.
With Regard to the Minor. That Scripture and tradition,
or revelation, are a body of statements made by the God of
truth is proved at great length in works on Theology. Phi-
losophy left to itself can proceed no farther than demonstrate
the necessity of accepting revelation in the event of its being
made. It cannot, alone and single handed, conclusively prove
that this or that set of truths constitutes revelation. History
furnishes us with well attested facts, and philosophy can dis-
cover in these facts traces of God's presence.
Thus, the records of history are witness to the reality of
Moses and the prophets, and to certain wonderful or miracu-
lous events in their lives. They claimed for themselves the
dignity of messengers from God to men, and left in writing
to posterity facts, principles, and maxims, that God commis-
sioned them to communicate. For credentials they appealed
to miracles and prophecies, worked and uttered by them in
the name of God. Philosophy is within its own province,
when it undertakes to show that the writings of Moses and the
prophets derive from these miracles and prophecies a divinity
peculiarly their own. These two species of effects are be-
yond the reach of power inferior to God's, and God could
never sanction lies by the performance of prodigies. When,
therefore. He stamped with these seals of His omnipotence
and wisdom the claims of Moses and the prophets, He signi-
fied as plainly as possible how He wished their statements to
be regarded. He signified as plainly as possible that the
words they committed to writing were His own words and
had Him for author.
2°. From analogy. To God as the supreme being adora-
tion is due ; to God as the supreme good love is due. Ergo,
to God as the highest truth faith is due.
IM SPECIAL ETHICS
(b) Contempt of revelation is contempt of God, and in-
difference to eternal salvation. But avoidance of contempt
for God, and of indifference to salvation, is man's plain duty.
Ergo, avoidance of contempt for revelation, diligent search
for the truth, is man's duty.
With Regard to the Major. God wastes no words, and
means His every message to be seriously taken. He is like-
wise anxious that all His children, without any exception, take
full advantage of the instruction He proffers. He occupies
the position of Lord and Father, and resents negligent atten-
tion on the part of such as He deigns to address. Revelation
teems with documents designed for helps to attain to the King-
dom of Heaven, and the loss of these necessary helps through
sloth is attended with damage and serious responsibility. It
is quite impossible for me to think, that to-day's scoffers at
religion and revelation are absolutely free from suspicion and
anxiety, concerning the doubtful and preposterous position
they occupy. And to let one single doubt in this matter of
revelation remain unsettled, is to take sides with God's
enemies, and to confide to chance eternal destiny for weal or
woe. Plungers at a race-track, when placing money on horses,
display more skill and prudence than the wiseacres, who, be-
cause of trivial difficulties, gamble in risks, and leave Heaven
to a game of chance.
With Regard to the Minor. God has well founded claims on
our reverence; and, apart from other considerations, we owe
it to our souls and bodies to procure for them an abode of
comfort, and happiness, and security against the endless ages
of ages in store for them beyond the grave.
IV. 1°. Toleration in matter of dogma supposes that a
system of religion false in itself, yea, immoral and unclean in
its tendencies, can be an instrument in God's worship. But
this supposition is eminently absurd. Ergo.
With Regard to the Minor. God is truth, God is purity;
and falsehood, immorality, and uncleanness can have no part
in His service. Any other notion would be unworthy of God 's
infinite majesty and degrading in the extreme.
2°. Toleration in matter of dogma supposes that religion
can be manifold in such sort that a duty prescribed by one
system can be neglected by another system, or totally con-
PEINCIPLES 195
demned as dishonest by a third system. But this supposition
is eminently absurd. Ergo.
With Regard to the Minor. The collection of truths and
duties embraced in a religion, truly deserving of the name,
ought to be one and the same for all mankind. Religion is the
outcome of man's dependence on God; and, since the two
terms of the relation, human nature and an unchangeable
God, are the same the world over and for all time, religion
the result of the relation ought to be the same, without
shadow or suspicion of change or difference. Artificial
changes, wrought in men's minds by education, prejudice,
and other external agencies, are no excuse and no ground
whatever for declaring that human nature in me is different
from human nature in my neighbor.
PRINCIPLES
A. In every free act of the will, whether it be prayer or
murder, man necessarily keeps his relations with God, mani-
festing and acknowledging his quality of dependence on God.
Ergo, no religion needed.
Answer: Materially, I grant; formally, I deny. The de-
pendence must not be in the free act, but in the very free-
dom of the act. The dependence manifest in the free act it-
self never bases religion. Otherwise brutes, plants and min-
erals would be capable of religion, and there would be no dis-
tinction between the service of brutes and the service of men.
The difference would be merely on the part of the servant,
not on the part of the service. Other creatures serve God,
no matter what they do. Man in his free acts serves God
only when he uses his will aright. The service God exacts
from men is different from the service He exacts from brutes ;
and free will is index of His wishes.
B. God cannot be acted on. Ergo, He cannot be wor-
shipped.
Answer: He cannot be acted on physically, I grant;
morally, as in case of wrong or honor, I deny. Worship in-
duces no intrinsic change in God. All the change is outside
God. Worship changes us.
196 SPECIAL ETHICS
C. God is infinitely perfect. Ergo, He has no need of wor-
ship.
Answer: He has no need of worship, as of a perfection
antecedently absent from His being, I grant. He has no need
of worship, as of homage which is His due, I deny. The mil-
lionaire may have no need of the five dollars you owe him,
but the circumstance never excuses you from payment.
D. Reason would be the basis of moral obligation and the
single origin of good and evil.
Answer: Reason manifests moral obligation, I grant.
Reason makes or constitutes it, I deny.
E. Society owes worship. Ergo the family, and literary,
scientific, athletic societies.
Answer: Complete society, I grant; incomplete, I deny.
The family because complete and independent is a moral per-
son and held to worship. Private societies of the kind men-
tioned, because incomplete and dependent on the state, are
no moral persons, and under no such obligation.
F. The state has a temporal end or purpose. Ergo, no re-
ligion.
Answer: Its first and chief purpose is the temporal pros-
perity of its citizens. This purpose it must accomplish in a
way befitting its nature, and by nature it is a moral person,
under obligations to God. Ergo, while pursuing temporal
good, it must not neglect the knowledge and worship of God.
G. Society is immediately dependent on the free will of
man. Ergo, independent of God.
Answer: In its making, when not yet a person, I grant;
when constituted and now a person, I deny.
H. In spirit and in truth, John 4.23. Ergo, no external
worship needed.
Answer: The true meaning of the passage is a contrast be-
tween the Old Law and the New, between the letter or figure,
and spirit or truth. Besides, insistence on internal worship
is far from condemning external. Christ on no few occasions
employed external worship.
I. The State can get along without religion. Ergo. Schiff,
p. 511, n. 510.
Answer: We could transmit the antecedent and deny the
PRINCIPLES ^ 197
conclusion as inconsequent. Worship is a need to the state,
not precisely because of advantage, but because of the nature
of things. The state can get along somehow and imperfectly,
I grant ; as nature intended and perfectly, I deny.
J. Other incentives would hold men to honesty; a sense of
honor, for instance. Ergo.
Answer: We could again transmit. Our argument is not
based on advantage, but on the nature of things. These other
incentives would be sufficient and efficacious, I deny; insuffi-
cient and inefficacious, I grant.
K. State and religion have two different ends, temporal
good and spiritual. Ergo.
Answer: Different, when incompletely viewed, I grant;
w^hen viewed in their completeness, I deny. When viewed in
their completeness, the ends of the two are one and the same,
the glory of God. God is the absolutely last end of every-
thing.
L. Church and state are distinct. Ergo.
Answer: Distinct and separate, I deny; distinct and not
separate ; I again distinguish. In the present order of things,
with revelation, I grant; in the order of pure nature, with-
out revelation, I again distinguish, completely distinct, I deny,
incompletely distinct, I grant. In the order of pure nature,
the state as supreme authority would determine religion; in
the present order, revelation appoints the Church to that
office.
M. *'It would be easier, I think, to build a city without
ground, than to establish or preserve a state without God
and religion. ' ' Plutarch. ' ' Time destroys extravagant opin-
ions, it solidifies the judgments of nature." Cicero, de Nat.
Deorum, 2.
N. No need to pray, because God knows everything. Kant.
Answer: S. Th. 2.2. q. 83, a. 2. ''Men ought to do things,
not for the purpose of changing the arrangements of Provi-
dence, but to accomplish results in accordance with these
arrangements." We pray to change God's decrees, I deny;
we pray to fulfil them, I grant. His decrees are conditioned.
Gifts are made us, if we pray ; withheld, if we neglect to do
so. He knows from eternity whether He will relieve men
198 SPECIAL ETHICS
or not; but this knowledge is terminatively speaking conse-
quent on our use of free will, on our choice or rejection of
prayer.
O. Truths above understanding would be a contradiction.
Ergo, no revelation.
Answer: Above all understanding both divine and human,
I grant ; above merely human understanding, I deny.
P. No truth above human understanding, because its object
is all being. Ergo.
Answer: Its proportionate object is all being, I deny; all
material being is that ; its adequate object is all being, I again
distinguish ; inasmuch as the human intellect can understand
whatever being is duly presented or brought to its notice, I
grant ; inasmuch as all being is as a matter of fact thus duly
presented or brought to its notice, I deny. There are more
things in Heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our phi-
losophy.
Q. A truth above reason would be against reason, because
out of harmony with reason.
Answer: Out of harmony in a contradictory way, I grant ;
in a contrary way, I deny. There is a difference between not
being a mjin's friend, not loving him; and being his enemy,
hating him. In much the same way to be on no terms of
intimacy with reason is not the same as to be opposed to
reason.
R. God has a right not only to worship, but to worship of
the kind He wants.
S. Religion is truth and justice. Truth is one, error is
manifold. Justice is one.
T. Christianity and Judaism are two opposite religions.
Ergo, if one was ever right, the other must always be wrong.
Ansiver: Opposite essentially, with regard to Christ, I
deny; opposite accidentally, with regard to circumstances of
time and form, with regard to Christ already come and Christ
yet to come, I grant. Christianity worships Christ already
come, Judaism worships Christ yet to come, the Messiah.
U. If an opponent admits Scripture. Christ wants one
Church, one fold, one Baptism. Christ wants His people to
guard against false prophets, and in the event of dogmatic
toleration false prophets must grow and multiply. Christ
PRINCIPLES 199
wants His Church to endure forever. St. Luke, 11.17.
* ' Every kingdom divided against itself shall fall. " * ' Now I
beseech you, brethren, to mark them who make dissensions
and offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learnt,
and to avoid them." Rom. 16.17. ''But though we, or an
angel from Heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which
we have preached to you, let him be anathema." Gal. 1.8.
V. Indifferentism and Liberalism are two theories based on
toleration.
Indifferentism f Absolute = No religion is necessary = Altogether wrong
is of two J ^"^ against whole thesis,
kinds 2 1 Relative = Some religion necessary, no one form before
t another, f Universal = All forms equally good.
-I Particular == All Christianity equally
L good.
Philosophy refutes universal; theology, particular, because
revelation enters question.
Toleration f l^ogmatic = All religions equally good = Toleration of
is of two -l error == Indifferentism.
kinds 1 Political = All public worship is allowed = Toleration of
I the erring = Liberalism.
Dogmatic is freedom of conscience, meaning immunity from
all restraint, moral as well as physical ; from all law of nature
and all law of God. Political is freedom of worship, im-
munity from the moral restraint imposed by law of state and
Church, not from law of nature or of God. In a Catholic
country, Indifferentism of whatever kind and Liberalism are
regularly wrong, circumstances may condone Liberalism. In
a mixed country, absolute and relative universal Indifferent-
isms are wrong, and the aid of theology must be invoked to
prove relative particular Indifferentism wrong. In a mixed
country, that Liberalism is right, which for grave reasons
tolerates whatever false religions threaten no harm to the first
principles of morality; and every other species of Liberalism
is wrong. When a false religion threatens the first princi-
ples of morality, it must not be tolerated, because it is a
menace to not only the welfare but the very life of the state.
In the event of legitimate toleration, some grave reason, like
the violent disturbance of social order, must be present ; be-
200 SPECIAL ETHICS
cause every false religion is an obstacle to the public good,
and no risk of the kind can be legitimately taken without a
serious and proportionate reason. The religion of the state
ought to be one and true; but facts, over which we have no
control, make this condition impossible in certain countries
called mixed, and a sane Liberalism is the only alternative for
them. By a Catholic country we mean a country, wherein
morally speaking all the inhabitants profess the true reli-
gion. By a mixed country we mean a country, wherein men
in sufficiently large numbers to destroy this moral unanimity
profess false religions.
W. A Catholic country has no right to insist on the Cath-
olic religion, (1) because God leaves men free; (2) because
human reason is open to mistake in the matter of religion;
(3) because the state has temporal good for end or purpose;
(4) because a Protestant country would have the same right;
(5) because the Catholic religion will prevail anyhow, as
truth is stronger than falsehood; (6) because peace would be
disturbed; (7) because such interference is everywhere re-
garded a species of tyranny.
Answers: (1) God leaves men free physically, I grant;
morally, I deny; (2) Reason is fallible with regard to moral-
ity's first principles and immediate deductions from same, I
deny ; with regard to remoter conclusions, I again distinguish ;
if revelation lends reason no support, I grant; if revelation
supplements reason, I deny. (3) The state has temporal
good for immediate and incomplete end, I grant; for remote
and complete end, I deny; that is the glory of God. (4) Ob-
jectively, I deny; subjectively, I again distinguish; if error
has any right against the truth, I grant ; if error has no such
right, I deny. (5) Truth is stronger than falsehood objec-
tively and intrinsically, I grant ; subjectively and extrinsically,
I deny. Men's passions commonly favor falsehood. (6)
Peace would be disturbed in the very nature of things, I
deny ; by accident, I again distinguish ; and for this very rea-
son toleration is to be conditionally permitted, I grant ; tolera-
tion is to be absolutely permitted, I deny. (7) Such inter-
ference is erroneously accounted tyranny, I grant; rightly
accounted tyranny, I deny.
THESIS II
Suicide is a sin against nature. Death inflicted in self-
defense is under certain conditions justifiable. Private duels
are highly absurd, and contrary to the law of nature. Jouin,
96-118 ; Rickaby, 202-224.
QUESTION
Religion is the one word expressive of our duties towards
God. It is a word of wide significance, and we were able in
our first thesis to discuss only its most salient features. From
among its varied contents we selected for study worship,
revelation, and its concomitant question of religious tolera-
tion. Religion, of course, imposes on us the obligation of
cultivating whatever virtues have a direct bearing on God.
These virtues are in especial, faith, hope and charity; and
they are for this reason called the theological virtues. There
must, however, be a limit to our treatise, and we prefer to
leave the fuller examination of these several topics to cate-
chism and the Sunday-school.
These theological virtues as such would have no place in
the natural order, because they have God as known from
revelation for material and formal object. And yet corre-
sponding virtues in the shape of love, hope, obedience, grati-
tude and fidelity would be serious obligations in even the
natural order, and God as known by reason would be their
object. Man is certainly bound to seek his end or purpose in
life. "We described it as proximately the introduction of
moral order into his conduct, and ultimately the intellectual
possession of God. Viewed one way or the other, this end
is an arduous or difficult good, and tendency towards every
such good is hope. Man is likewise bound to love God above
everything, because right order demands that we make the
dignity of love's object the measure of love's quality. God
201
202 SPECIAL ETHICS
is infinite good, the source and origin of all created good, and
as such deserves to be loved above everything. Our duty of
obedience flows from our relation of creature. We are the
work of God's hands, and the artificer is absolute owner of
the thing he makes. Gratitude and fidelity are obligations
in view of the multitudinous favors conferred on us.
And now we pass from God to self. Man has duties towards
his soul, he has duties towards his body. Obviously we can-
not enter into all the questions suggested by these two com-
ponent parts of man's being. We choose to busy ourselves
in the main with his body, dismissing the soul with these few
remarks. Man was created to the image and likeness of
God, and this resemblance with the Creator is principally
resident in the soul. His intellect and will must be there-
fore developed and made grow more and more like their
divine prototype by steady improvement. With the Child
Jesus he must grow in wisdom, age and grace. His mind
must be stored with knowledge, human and divine; his will
must strengthen itself in good. All the virtues with a bear-
ing on the mind, all the virtues with a bearing on the will,
must be sedulously cultivated; and passions, ready helps to
wrong conduct, must be subdued and kept in tight check.
Intellect and will must be shaped by diligent care into instru-
ments calculated to procure their owner's welfare here and
hereafter. Mind and heart must be trained along right lines ;
and this means education in its fullest and completest sense.
This topic of education will get fuller attention when we come
to discuss the duties of parents in particular. Suicide, with
everything suggestive of suicide, is the chiefest offense man
can do his own body ; but this question is so closely connected
with self-defense and duelling, that we choose to gather all
three topics into one thesis. Suicide is destruction of life,
self-defense is its preservation, and duelling partakes of the
double malice of murder and suicide. We say nothing of
murder, because it is too evident a violation of natural law
to need notice.
Some philosophers, like Thomasius and Schopenhauer, ob-
ject to the expression, man's duties towards himself. Regu-
larly duties are between two different persons, and even in
this case the relations establishing man's duty towards his
SUICIDE 203
own proper person are fundamentally between himself and
God. His duties towards his neighbor rest ultimately on the
same foundation; and merely to keep one set of duties apart
from the other, we denominate them duties towards self and
duties towards the neighbor. The whole man can be said to
differ from his parts or faculties, and this circumstance would
be basis enough for the expression, duty towards self.
TERMS
Suicide. Suicide is direct killing of self on one's own initio^
tive. Life, because the root of all succeeding favors, is Heav-
en 's first and highest gift ; and, no matter how crowded with
misfortunes, it never loses this quality of a gift. All things
considered, its chief good lies in the circumstance that it is
the one road leading to a happy eternity. Any other view
of life's utility is a mistake, and sure to work sad havoc.
Some enjoy a gilt-edged existence from the cradle to the
grave. Others drag out a short or long period of disease,
and want, and disappointment. But all, without a single
exception, the poor as well as the rich, the unfortunate as well
as the fortunate, can still count life a priceless jewel. When
turned to good and proper uses, it can purchase a seat in the
kingdom, a title to that supreme happiness, which constitutes
man's last end.
And yet life is something more than a mere gift. It is a
responsibility, and its giver attaches to it obligations, that
its recipient is not free to abide by or shirk at will. When
bom into the world, a man, without being at all consulted
beforehand, is set down in the midst of a multitude of rela-
tions, which produce unavoidable and stem duties. No man
can escape them, no man can afford to trifle with them, with-
out diminishing his dignity and suffering irreparable loss.
Life is not given to mortals to be squandered on every chance
attraction that happens along. It is not a toy meant by its
gracious author to be used till it loses the power to please,
and then be cast aside.
Everything in nature points to the fact that God created
men as well as other beings to add their little measure to His
glory. Everything in nature proclaims Him the author of life
204
SPECIAL ETHICS
and death, and He is jealous of His prerogatives. Men,
whether they will or not, have to procure the spread of His
kingdom, and proclaim His sovereignty. In His all-wise
plans every creature has its allotted time for life, and woe
to the man who attempts to interfere with the plan. Men
cannot call life out of nothing; men usurp a right belonging
to God Himself, when without His sanction they put an end
to their existence. They deny God service, they rob them-
selves of eternal glory, they plunge their families and friends
into the depths of disgrace, they bequeath to their descendants
a name of ignominy and shame, they curse their country with
an example of craven-hearted cowardice and sottish impiety.
The crime of suicide is thoroughly wicked, and has noth-
ing whatever to recommend it to the esteem of men born with
high instincts. It is the mad act of a coward, and bravery
is dishonored by being mentioned in the same breath with
suicide. Fortitude impels the courageous to bear up under
troubles that crush men of weaker mould. Fortitude is
blessed with long vision, and in the very excess of pain looks
forward to the hour when pain will be no more. It knows
the weakness inherent in all the ills of this life, and is satis-
fied from experience that sufferance is their infallible remedy.
With time they wear themselves out, and joy succeeds to sor-
row. But the suicide, whose vision is as short as his patience,
madly rushes through the first avenue open to escape. In-
stead of meeting an enemy to his happiness with a bold front,
he turns his back and flees. The pit of hell-fire into which
he falls has been robbed by his irreligion of all its dread
reality. In the minds of the unfortunates, who trifle with
thoughts of suicide, hell and Heaven are dreams, and never
awaken serious consideration. They play the coward; and,
choosing between a present and a distant evil, between a cer-
tain and an uncertain calamity, they avoid the one and fall
headlong into the other.
Climate, heredity, racial characteristics, are not responsible
for suicide. They may be occasions, but they are not causes.
They may pave the way to self-destruction, but freedom of
will always holds the balance of power ; and, if freedom of will
has been instructed along right lines of morality, virtue will
always assert itself, and suicide will be hated with all the hate
SUICIDE 205
it deserves. Apart from their piety and religion, the people
of Ireland, because of the misery attendant on hundreds of
years of oppression, have small incentive indeed to continue
a tiresome and from a worldly point of view hopeless exist-
ence. And yet consulting tables prepared for the World
Almanac by Barker in 1894, Ireland and Spain contribute
fewest to the army of suicides. Protestantism, with its im-
pious^ principle of private interpretation, is the parent of
unbelief, and countries cursed with its blight are rich in un-
natural crimes of the sort. Here are a few interesting and
instructive statistics culled from the table referred to.
Rate per
Rate per
Catholic
100,000
Protestant
100,000
Saxony,
31.1
Austria,
21.2
Denmark,
25.8
France,
16.7
Prussia,
13.3
Bavaria,
9.1
Sweden,
8.1
Ireland,
1.7
England,
6.9
Spain,
1.4
Common sense would lead us to expect no other result. Un-
belief unsettles all the convictions implanted by faith, and
faith is busiest with the reality of life beyond the grave.
Faith is our soundest argument for the existence of Heaven
and hell ; and, when Heaven and hell become dim realities in
men's minds, small wonder if they take all risks to avoid
impending evils like disease, disgrace, poverty and disap-
pointment.
Some ancient philosophers, like Seneca, Plato, Socrates and
others, defended suicide, but on grounds far different from
the silly pretenses set up by their modem imitators. It may
be well to remark that the ancients never regarded suicide
justifiable, when used as an exit from ills for which the suicide
was himself responsible. Socrates thought self-murder eth-
ically correct, only because he knew that after condemnation
by the state authorities he had to die anyhow. Seneca and
the rest thought it a laudable subterfuge only when cornered
by adverse circumstances, over which they had no control.
The old Romans considered these seven, justifiable causes for
suicide. A disgust for life. The wish to be rid of a dis-
tressing disease. Regret for the decease of some dear com-
panion. Shame at being an insolvent debtor. Ambition to
206 SPECIAL ETHICS
be spoken of after death, when there had been no honor in
this life. Dementia or insanity. Outrage to a woman's
chastity. But modern advocates of the revolting theory
preach its adaptability to every occasion. They draw no fine
distinctions between evils for which the victim of poison, pis-
tol or the knife is himself responsible, and evils brought to his
door by friends or strangers. When life from whatever cause
grows disagreeably heavy, life, they say, should be pushed
aside. We have no excuse to offer for the mistakes made by
the wise of old, when defending the theory and practice of
suicide. It is explanation enough for us to know that faith
in God never had a tight or loose hold on their minds and
hearts, that their natural knowledge of God and a future life
was dim, obscure and imperfect, and that selfishness, with an
inborn tendency to comfort and ease, is as native to the sa-
pient philosopher as it is to the ignorant clod. But it is at
the same time worth noting, that the higher they climbed in
the scale of true wisdom, the less they conceded to this basest
of sins. See Cicero, De Senectute, c. 20; Somnium Scipionis,
c. 3 ; Virgil, ^neid, VI, 434.
No well balanced mind can for a moment doubt of the guilt
resident in suicide. In every well organized community any
attempt at self-murder is a crime punishable with short or
long terms of imprisonment. By measures of the sort the
state loudly proclaims its belief that suicide is not only a sin
against God and reason, but also a crime against a govern-
ment 's very existence. In general the state has small concern
for sins against God .and reason. It rouses itself to persistent
activity against transgressors, mostly when its own life is
threatened. With the aid of a little reflection, we can read-
ily understand that the encouragement of suicide in a re-
public would lead to annihilation. The godless among its
citizens, and they always constitute a large number, would
be apt at any moment to disappear from its ranks, and leave
to survivors an inheritance of untold shame and misery.
Suicide is so shocking a crime, an act so far beside the
promptings of nature, that men usually reckon its perpetrators
insane. Intense grief and overwhelmingly sharp pain can, of
course, unbalance the mind of a sufferer; and our Church,
with this fact in view, and because of the mystery that al-
SUICIDE 207
ways attaches to a man's last moments, is extremely lenient
in the application of its laws against suicide. The circum-
stance should not, however, lead us to conclude that every
single act of self-murder is the freak of a lunatic. The care-
ful preparations, the secrecy of proceeding, the efficacy of
the means chosen, the schemes employed, often point to the
criminal's full possession of his wits up to the latest breath.
Besides, it is ill-directed charity to invariably excuse the folly
of the dead by fastening on their posterity the hereditary
taint of a reputation for insanity.
Thoughts of suicide cannot, of course, be seriously enter-
tained by minds alive to religious instincts, to the true mean-
ing of life and its attendant woes and joys. Minds dead to
faith can easily fall a prey to the temptation, when their cup
of sorrow overflows, and the future holds out no promise of
respite. Incurable disease, disappointment in love or busi-
ness, loss of motive, or purpose, or ambition, these several
causes will operate to drag down to a suicide's grave the fool,
who has cut loose from religion, and entertains only hazy and
uncertain opinions concerning Heaven and hell. To the well
instructed Christian these several misfortunes present no in-
superable difficulty. He knows that disappointment here was
the lot God's Son chose for Himself, when He condescended
to put on our nature. He knows that every motive or pur-
pose, his soul's salvation excepted, is beneath his contempt,
unequal to the full dignity of his sublime calling, and worthy
of only his waste energies. He reckons it a sin to allow any
lesser aim to completely absorb his attention.
The Christian, therefore, goaded by despair, and urged in
weaker moments to the crime of self-murder, must be com-
pelled to refresh his memory of the lessons learned from a
pious mother in childhood; and, if reason is at his call, he
can pass through the temptation with safety. To the irreli-
gious we can give no solid advice till they mend their ways,
and get into the trend of mind God wants them to follow in
His service. We might perhaps endeavor to convince them
that no disease is absolutely incurable, that every cloud has
a silver lining, that disappointment in love or business has
often paved the way to life-long happiness and unprecedented
prosperity, and that there is plenty of work in the world for
208
SPECIAL ETHICS
the energetic and industrious. But they will find it possible
to answer somehow every argument of the sort we have to
offer, and we shall find ourselves reduced to silence, or driven
in the end to the only true method, the only trustworthy
source of encouragement and comfort, religion and faith in
its principles. A sovereign remedy for suicide is Shake-
speare's ''dread of something after death, that undiscovered
country," that pit of fire, a sterner and more substantial
reality to men blessed with the instincts of faith than the
very ground they tread. Nor ever yet did man or woman
take the sad and unholy step of self-murder, until hell by
repeated insults to conscience had worn in his or her mind
to a thin shadow of itself.
Against Nature. We intend to prove our verdict against
suicide without once appealing to Scripture or the teachings
of the Church. And we emphatically condemn the conduct
of whatever sages, modern or ancient, from motives of moral
cowardice and selfishness ran counter in this respect to the
canons of right reason. No man is so wise but that free will,
influenced by mean and ungodly motives, can lead him into
the commission of horrible crimes. Socrates, Plato and others
were lying to their own hearts, when they endeavored to find
in philosophy an excuse for turpitude, into which want of
courage forced them.
Self-defense. This term is commonly used to denote the
act of opposing force to violence when unjustly attacked.
When it results in the death of the offender, no moral wrong
attaches to the slayer, if certain conditions have place. One
is at liberty to use this prerogative of self-defense, not only
when his life is in danger, but also when threatened with the
loss of some other great good, like wealth, virtue, bodily in-
tegrity. It likewise enables a friend to rescue a friend from
death or other heavy loss at the hands of an assassin or
thief. Self-defense is no legitimate plea for excuse, when
harm is threatened by one in a position to inflict just punish-
ment. For instance, the criminal condemned to death by the
state has no right whatever to defend himself against the
executioner of the law's sentence. A child has no right to
SELF-DEFENSE 209
resist a parent when chastised ; a pupil has no right to quarrel
with a punishment.
Philosophy further recognises these four conditions as neces-
sary of fulfilment. First, the violence done the aggressor
must be exerted only while the danger actually exists, not
before, not after the attack. Besides, no other method of
escape than a return of violence for violence must be in the
innocent party's power. If flight is possible, flight must be
had recourse to. No amount of dread concerning a reputa-
tion for cowardice will justify the killing of another. Sec-
ondly, no severer measures must be taken than are absolutely
necessary. If a blow in the face will prove sufficient safe-
guard, a severe wound with a weapon is not justifiable. If
a severe wound will serve to stay the aggressor, the party
attacked must rest satisfied with inflicting the wound, and
must not proceed to slay his assailant. Thirdly, there must
exist between the good defended and the harm done the
wrong-doer a well defined proportion. This provision is of
special importance, when the protection of wealth or property
is in question. Thus, a small sum of money is so little worth
in comparison with a human life, that reason cries out against
murdering a petty thief to save the contents of a pocketbook.
Fourthly, revenge must have no part in the proceeding. No
motive but that of self-defense pure and simple will justify
an act so serious in its consequences as the destruction of a
fellow-being. These four conditions combine to rid an act
done in self defense of the moral wrong under other cir-
cumstances resident in it. They operate to bring about the
state of things expressed by that phrase consecrated in the
Latin tongue. ''Servato moderamine inculpatae tutelae,"
** Observing always the due measure or moderation that frees
self-defense from blame. ' '
Of course, these precautions approve themselves to reason.
It is, however, one thing to see their force and fairness, when
coolly studying the subject; another, to apply them in the
heat of action, when pressed into a tight corner, where a
second's delay may mean death for the irresolute. Many a
crime of murder, we are aware, is committed under the cloak
of self-defense, and the Universal Reckoner alone can dis-
210 SPECIAL ETHICS
tinguish genuine from spurious cases. Civil law can hardly
enter into men's motives. It decides, and generally has to
decide, with the help of whatever light facts lend. It must
of necessity exercise leniency towards the accused, who enters
a plea of self-defense ; and must give him the benefit of every
little circumstance that favors his cause. We are ourselves
disposed to be easy with the man brought face to face with
death through no fault of his own, and forced by a mad
adversary to make up his mind without much time for re-
flection. Theologians introduce into this question topics, that,
without affecting the irreligious, have a practical bearing on
the lives of religious people. They ask, for instance, if it is
lawful to kill a drunken or mad assailant; if it is lawful to
kill in defense of a neighbor ; if it is lawful to kill when limbs
are endangered, when chastity is assailed, or honor. They
discuss what manner of threat constitutes an assault, and
the relative weight of a blow in the face, when aimed at a
man of dignity and an ordinary person.
Duels. Some regard the duel a species of self-defense. It
is a means to which so-called gentlemen resort when their
honor, not their life or material wealth, is in danger. The
barbarous practice is now well nigh dead; but less than a
hundred years ago it was conspicuously alive in our own
country. Public opinion has finally succeeded in frowning
it down, and, though preliminaries are even now arranged
in the newspapers, the hostile meeting seldom or never has
place. The custom has a long history. Traces of it are found
in the earliest writings. It is, however, safe to say that the
private duel is an invention of comparatively modern times.
David and Goliath, the heroes of Homer, Livy's triplets, the
Horatii and Curiatii, fought duels of a harmless and legiti-
mate kind. The combatants in these several cases engaged
in what for distinction's sake we style a public duel. They
were representatives chosen by the leaders of two contending
armies to defend by their prowess the fortunes of their re-
spective sides, and no moral blame whatever attached to their
act or its promoters. If reason sanctions war and allows
whole armies of men to perish for the reestablishment of
equity and peace, it is difficult to see how reason can enter
a disclaimer against a species of combat, which settles the
DUEL 211
question of supremacy at the expense of one or a half dozen
lives. Public duelling would on the contrary appear to be a
humane substitute for the horrors of war. If the late rebellion
or the recent World-Conflict could have been settled in some
such way, a world of loss would have been saved the coun-
try.
Barbarians first gave to single combat a color of religion.
They counted it an appeal to the God of right; and, when
other testimony was wanting, called on Heaven in this crude
way for a decision. The Trial by Ordeal had its origin in
the same mistaken notion of Providence. Legislators of the
Middle Ages had to consult these superstitions of their people,
and enacted stringent measures to regulate loss of life. The
Truce of God, established in 1041, forbidding duels, out of
respect for the Saviour's Passion, between Wednesday and
Monday, served as a check to frequency of duels. Every na-
tion in history had its troubles with this abuse. As long
as parties to a dispute agreed to submit their differences to
the court of single combat, with the approval and under the
direction of judicial authority, the evil was somewhat re-
stricted, and wore a less repugnant appearance. But, when
individuals, without any permission from the state, took jus-
tice into their own hands, and made skill in the use of weapons
the sole arbiter of right and wrong, duelling lost its religious
aspect, and degenerated to wholesale butchery. It was in
any event a sad spectacle, and a growth of ignorance; but
under these new conditions it was revolting in the extreme
and attended with dreadful consequences.
Frenchmen have always kept well to the front in this par-
ticular branch of barbarity. Richelieu opposed the practice
with all the strength of his legislative genius; and, to strike
terror into its patrons, stopped not at beheading in 1627 one
of the nobility. Count Francois de Montmorency. In Ger-
many duelling is much in use at the universities; but, as
swords are the weapons, and the bodies of the contestants are
well protected, these encounters usually result in a few face-
scratches, and seldom prove fatal. Among Irishmen Daniel
'Council killed at least one adversary on the field of honor,
D'Esterre, and his conduct in this particular filled the later
years of his life with regret and sorrow. In America Hamil-
212
SPECIAL ETHICS
ton and Burr fought a historic duel in 1804. Hamilton, the
first treasurer of the United States, was killed, and Burr
passed into obscurity and oblivion. Barron and Decatur, a
man universally loved and one of our most celebrated commo-
dores, fought soon after the War of 1812 at Bladensburg, a
village about seven miles outside of Washington. Decatur
was killed, Barron was severely wounded. The near neigh-
borhood of Bladensburg to Washington, a rendezvous for all
the political worthies of the country, made it a desirable loca-
tion for battle-ground, and many a duel was negotiated there
in the early days of the last century. Clay and Randolph
fought in 1826. Andrew Jackson killed a Charles Dickinson,
and participated in other affairs. Benton of Missouri killed
a Mr. Lucas. Two members of Congress, Cilley of Maine and
Graves of Kentucky, fought near Washington in 1838. Cilley
was killed. Richard Somers had a record of three duels in
one day. Debates on the floor of Congress often precipitated
disputes, a challenge followed, and one or both of two fools
died in the gray of the morning.
The custom may fairly be said to have taken its rise from the
false notion that chance would favor the party in the right,
and so manage matters that the wrong-doer would fall. But
chance has no real existence, and God, who disposes of things
in creation, has nowhere promised to turn the tide of victory
this way or that. He has put at men's disposal other and
more efficient remedies for wrongs done their honor, and these
remedies are to be sought at the bar of duly constituted
tribunals. If survival means vindication, that principal in a
duel generally won it, who had the steadier arm, the truer
aim, and the better education in the use of weapons. Duel-
ling, therefore, defeats the very purpose for which it was
instituted. Of course, a certain amount of bull-dog courage
is displayed in the acceptance of a challenge, and this circum-
stance may help to commend the practice to some. They
feel, no doubt, that, whether victor or victim, they have at
least proved to the world that they are no cowards, and that
friends will applaud their heroism in spite of the insult or
insinuation that provoked the combat.
But common sense has at last begun to assert itself, and the
civilization of to-day reserves its applause for valor of a
PROOFS 213
sterner sort than the recklessness common to duellists and in-
furiated bulls. Public opinion' frowns down exhibitions of
the kind, and >the makers of our literature have done much
to bring about this happy result. Sheridan in his play, ' ' The
Rivals," mercilessly ridicules the custom. Writers poke fun
at the abominable practice, and take advantage of every op-
portunity to show it up in its true colors. The consequence
is that lucky rascals, who escaped the death they richly de-
served, are no longer reckoned heroes. They are banished
from good society, they are approached with horror, and their
company is always productive of unease and discomfort.
They are rated for what they in reality are, genteel murder-
ers, with the blood of fellow-men on their guilty heads, and
crying out to Heaven for vengeance. A prize fight would not
Seem to be a duel, with this for definition: ^'A combat with
deadly weapons, fought in a private cause, without the sanc-
tion of public authority, with prior agreement concerning
weapons, seconds, place and time.''
DIVISION
Three Parts— I, II, III
I. Suicide.
II. Self-defense.
III. Duelling.
PROOFS •
I. 1°. An act subversive of man's duty to God is a sin
against nature. But suicide is an act of the sort. Ergo.
With Regard to the Major. Reason or nature insists on
the observance of relations in force between God and rational
creatures. These relations constitute duties, and violence
done them is denominated a sin against nature.
With Regard to the Minor. We know from experience,
from man's inability to produce life, that God alone is the
author and preserver of life. We know, further, that God
bestows life with a definite end in view. It is to be scrupu-
lously used as a means towards establishing in ourselves and
others moral order, and compassing eternal happiness. He
214
SPECIAL ETHICS
gives man no absolute dominion over his life, but only what
philosophers term use-ownership. Man is therefore obliged
to apply life to the uses for which it is plainly intended, and
keep to his post just as long as God sees fit to continue his
existence. The fact that man is vested with the physical
power to put a period to his life, is no sign that God has con-
ferred on him absolute dominion over it. The same argument
would hold good in the case of a thief unjustly possessed of
another's property, or a murderer sending some weaker victim
to death. Man's ability to inflict death on himself is only
another effect of God's determination to leave His creature
absolute freedom of will, and another proof that willingness
or refusal to serve is a matter entirely within the domain of
man's unrestrained choice.
2°. An act subversive of man's duty to himself is a sin
against nature. But suicide is an act of the kind. Ergo.
With Regard to the Major. Man has duties towards his
soul and body, and by deliberately cutting short his days he
works irreparable injury to both.
With Regard to the Minor. Life, because of the chance to
hope, is always and under whatever circumstances better even
for the body than death. As far as the mind is concerned,
no ills of life can rob it of opportunities to improve and
enjoy itself. No matter what misfortunes overtake a man,
no matter what pains and diseases distress him, he has it
always in his power to compass his supremely last end, which
we long ago agreed to call eternal happiness. He has it
always in his power to add by repeated acts of virtue to the
degree of glory awaiting him after death. Fortitude, pa-
tience, resignation to the Creator's will, all these meritorious
acts put on new splendor, when exercised in the midst of
trials and difficulties. Pagan poets and philosophers pause
in their writings to contemplate and praise the heroism of
suffering undergone in the cause of conscience; the sub-
limity of manly virtue struggling against odds that would
overwhelm natures of a weaker sort. Seneca thinks no spec-
tacle so worthy of Jove as that presented by a just man, en-
gaged in a battle with adversity. Horace has these lines,
**Justum et tenacem propositi virum — Si fractus illabatur
orbis — Impavidum ferient ruinae." ''If the world fell in
PROOFS 215
ruins at his feet, the just and resolute man of principle would
present a bold front to the crash."
3°. An act subversive of man's duty to society is a sin
against nature. But suicide is an act of the kind. Ergo.
With Regard to the Major. Man's birth into society gives
rise to a kind of contract. Neighbors, banded together with
him for the common good, tacitly agree to procure for him
blessings absolutely out of reach in other contingencies. He,
on his part, promises in effect to make due return to society
for the advantages procured, and in cutting short his life he
ignominiously falls away from his promise.
With Regard to the Minor. Every member of society is in
justice bound to contribute his share towards advancing the
interests of the community of which he forms part. He
proves recreant to this solemn obligation when from shame,
cowardice, or impatience he sneaks from the ranks and lays
new burdens on other men's shoulders. I say nothing of the
infinite harm a suicide does his family and intimate friends.
It may happen that he leaves a wife and children to starve,
or eke out a miserable existence on the charity of others. Cer-
tainly, he leaves as an inheritance to connections a blot of
shame and a measure of disgrace, that no time or endeavor
can wholly eradicate. Society has a right to expect from him
an example of constancy, courage and magnanimity, and he
slinks away conspicuous for weakness, cowardice, and a mean-
ness of spirit without parallel.
II. A legitimate means to the effective preservation of a
well founded right is justifiable. But death inflicted in self-
defense is a legitimate means to the effective preservation of
a well founded right. Ergo.
With Regard to the Major. A right vests its owner with
the moral prerogative to enforce in others respect for its
sacredness. It privileges the owner to use even physical
violence, when men deaf to moral instincts attempt to assail
it. A right would in any other supposition lose much of its
efficacy, and would be of small practical utility. The world
would be reduced to chaos, and injustice would everywhere
prevail.
With Regard to the Minor. Life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness are in the words of our Constitution inalienable
216 SPECIAL ETHICS
rights, and all three may be seriously interfered with by at-
tempts from without. The death of the offender is at times
the only effective bar against loss of life or property, and,
as a consequence, desirable and morally correct. In such an
event the transgressor, by deliberately putting himself in
the wrong, forfeits his right to live, and, if killed, is done no
injustice. Nobody can hesitate to regard the assailant 's death
an effective means to the preservation of rights involved.
That it is a legitimate means, is evident from the circumstance
that the innocent party would have to otherwise yield up
his own life, or some possession a little less valuable, merely
out of kindness to the offender. But kindness or charity of
that sort is prescribed by no law of God or man. Love of
neighbor sins by excess, when it moves a man to love his
neighbor more than himself. To sacrifice one's life for a
neighbor's salvation is not to love the neighbor more than
self. That would be to sacrifice one's salvation for a neigh-
bor's. The killing of an aggressor is not always obligatory.
III. A means founded on false principles, unsuited to the
purpose intended, and wrong in itself, is highly absurd and
contrary to the law of nature. But private duels are such
a means. Ergo.
With Regard to the Major. Ethics can borrow no princi-
ples from falsehood, and wickedness shields itself behind ex-
cuses full of error, and easily detected. It is the mark of a
fool to employ in the prosecution of some work agencies cal-
culated to operate against and not in favor of the agent's aim.
Foolishness degenerates to heinous crime, when the methods
adopted, besides being unequal to the end proposed, are at-
tended by consequences as serious as those that accompany
private duels. A lavish waste of life is a direct insult to
Almighty God, and as such deserves the severest condemna-
tion on the score of morality.
With Regard to the Minor. The private duel had its origin
among barbarians. The Lombards, with whom might always
prevailed over right, introduced it throughout Europe. The
Greeks and Romans, though acquainted with public duels,
were strangers to the other custom. In its origin, therefore,
this brutal practice rested on a notion subversive of all moral-
ity and truth, the sacredness of physical as compared with
PROOFS 217
moral force. It was in a manner a necessary growth of early-
times, when law and order were subject to great upheavals,
and tribunals of justice were little respected. The supersti-
tious belief that God would interfere in an extraordinary way
to save the innocent and destroy the guilty, was a new and
grievous mistake added to the first blunder. In later times
revenge was the element uppermost in the minds of com-
batants, and duels were tolerated on the plea that individuals
have a right to seek on their own private account satisfaction
for injury done their honor. But no principle can be falser.
No community, no society or state could long subsist, if such
a mode of procedure were once sanctioned and came into
general use. For the settlement of disputes and reparation
of assailed honor we have courts by law established, and death
would result to authority, were any other process introduced.
Were duels not prohibited by conscience, by reason proclaim-
ing the truth, enemies in private life would fall to butchering
one another, and the State would become a wilderness.
The absurdity of duelling is manifest from the fact that it
shockingly fails to serve the purpose for which it was insti-
tuted. Whether it be viewed as a means of repairing the
wrong done a man's honor and reputation, or considered a
possible means of revenge, it has no one -feature to recommend
it. It is not an apt instrument for satisfaction, because the
innocent party is just as likely to forfeit his life as the guilty.
The event of the combat proves simply that the survivor man-
aged his sword or pistol with more skill and dexterity than his
victim. It certainly leaves the guilt or innocence of the sur-
vivor as much an open question as it was before the meeting.
If the innocent party falls, where is the revenge? Certainly
the man guilty of the wrong done by the injury or insult had
no claims to revenge, and entered not into the struggle to
vindicate himself. Honor is not man's highest good. And
true honor is not praise in the mouths of men, but inward
consciousness of right conduct and a virtuous life.
But the characteristic that emphatically condemns duelling
is its own objective immorality. It involves a two-fold mal-
ice. The duellist commits a double crime with all the malice
of attempted murder and attempted suicide; and on no few
occasions the two attempts become accomplished realities.
218 SPECIAL ETHICS
The duellist, therefore, incurs whatever blame attaches to
murder and suicide. In morality, because will is the pre-
dominating factor, the difference between the attempt to do
evil and the actual accomplishment of evil is accidental, and
therefore negligible.
PEINCIPLES— SUICIDE
A. Distinguish between direct and indirect killing of self.
Direct is suicide. Indirect is death foreseen in some act put
for a legitimate purpose. Instances are, a fatal operation,
jump from a high window in time of fire, nurse to plague-
stricken.
B. Destruction is supreme act of ownership. Man is vested
with no such ownership in life, because its primary purpose
is not man's advantage, but the greater glory of God.
C. Instinct of self-preservation is index of God's will in
the matter, and of His disapproval of suicide.
D. God's permission can be presumed when serious spirit-
ual dangers threaten, or life becomes oppressive.
Answer: Life's chief purpose, the greater glory of God,
never becomes impossible; and only in this case can He be
supposed to give permission. With His grace, whatsoever
spiritual danger can be met and overcome ; and patience is a
virtue.
E. Direct mutilation partakes of the malice of suicide. And
yet man is the steward of his life, if not its absolute owner.
He is allowed to preserve his life at the expense of a limb.
The part ranks lower than the whole.
P. Saints, who rushed to death, acted under inspiration,
or through invincible ignorance, or committed indirect self-
killing.
G. Our second and third arguments against suicide pre-
suppose the first. Thus, the drunkard committing suicide
after a mission and a good confession would perhaps be con-
sulting his own interests, but at the expense of God's rights
as owner. With St. Paul we can long to be dissolved and be
with Christ, but always in a spirit of resignation to God's
will.
H. We can reject a gift. Life is a gift. Ergo.
PRINCIPLES 219
Answer: A gift meant primarily for our advantage and
subject to absolute ownership, I grant ; a gift meant primarily
for the giver's advantage, and subject to only use-ownership,
I deny.
N.B. Suicide is more than rejection, it is destruction of
life.
I. Hume argues thuswise. If we cannot interfere with the
course of nature to shorten life, we cannot interfere with the
course of nature to prolong it. Eadem est contrariorum
ratio. Ergo, it would be wrong to push aside a falling stone
that threatened destruction.
Answer: Use-ownership empowers and obliges us to pre-
serve or prolong our life. It vests us with no right to destroy
same. That is the exclusive prerogative of absolute owner-
ship. We are stewards, not proprietors.
J. It is lawful to choose a lesser evil for the purpose of
escaping a greater.
Answer: The saying has some force in question of phys-
ical evil, none in question of moral evil. In the case of self,
it can never become necessary to commit one sin to avoid
others. It is always quite possible to avoid all sin. In the
case of others, it would be highly wrong to commit one sin to
prevent them from committing a thousand. Moral evil is
never justified by good. The end never 'justifies the means.
Suicide would be the lesser evil only in the supposition that
it is not sinful. The smallest sin is a greater evil than phys-
ical evil of whatever magnitude.
K. Suicide is wrong because the man does himself an in-
justice. Nobody can do himself an injustice. Volenti nulla
fit injuria.
Answer: Suicide is an injustice to God as well as to its
perpetrator. Man has duties towards himself, and to fall
away from them is injustice. The saying admits of excep-
tions, e.g., fraud in law.
L. Hunters dispose of birds and beasts without ownership
in them. Ergo, a pari, a man ought to be able to dispose of
his life without ownership in it.
Answer: Hunters have no particular or private owner-
ship empowering them to exclude others. I grant. Hunters
have no universal or general ownership as in things belong-
S30 SPECIAL ETHICS
ing to nobody in particulai*, I deny. Birds, beasts and all
lower creation are by nature man's property to use them and
destroy them as he sees fit.
M. A criminal condemned to death may lawfully execute
himself at the bidding of authority. Ergo.
Answer: In suicide there is question not of public, but of
private authority. Besides, some authors deny the legitimacy
of every such proceeding, and they assign two reasons. The
state is allowed to kill only as a measure of justice, and no-
body can be expected to execute justice on himself. Nobody
is a good judge in his own case, and therefore nobody is a
fit executioner of himself. Every such arrangement is directly
opposed to nature's instinct for self-preservation. Law must
be possible.
N. One must take means to preserve his life and health;
generally speaking he need not take extraordinary means,
such as occasion serious inconvenience. Serious inconvenience
excuses from affirmative law, and God is a prudent law-maker.
The penances and fasts of the saints are opposed to no law of
nature, even though they weaken the body and shorten life.
Spiritual good is of a higher order than life and health. The
harm done the body and life is indirect, not direct.
0. It is often lawful to expose oneself to death, when death
is not directly intended, and a proportionate cause justifies the
proceeding. Soldiers taken prisoners are not allowed to kill
themselves to escape doing service to their captors. Sailors
are allowed to jump from a burning vessel into the sea to es-
cape death by fire. A soldier in time of war is allowed to set
fire to a ship or tower, though it means instant death for him-
self, if the act causes heavy damage to the enemy.
PRINCIPLES— SELF-DEFENSE
A. This privilege of self-defense extends farther than life
or property. A woman has a right to kill an assailant in de-
fense of her chastity. Nobody has the right to kill another in
defense of his honor or reputation.
B. An insane or drunken person is an unjust assailant, not
formally but materially. The child in a mother's womb is
in no sense of the word an unjust assailant. The mother
PRINCIPLES 221
causes the collision of rights, and must yield to the child.
When violence is done her, neither she nor the child is to
blame; and yet she comes closer to blame than the child for
the condition of affairs, and must suffer accordingly.
C. Self-defense procures damnation of the assailant. Ergo,
wrong. Self-defense sacrifices greater good to lesser. Ergo,
wrong.
Answer: Essentially and of itself, I deny ; accidentally and
by way of occasion, I grant. Charity forbids us to procure
another's damnation the first way, not the second way, unless
the thing can be avoided without great inconvenience, and the
neighbor is in extreme need. The thing can be avoided only
at the expense of the innocent party's life, and that would be
a rather serious inconvenience. The assailant is not in ex-
treme need, because he can refrain from attack. Besides, the
common good must be taken into account. Without this priv-
ilege life would be insecure.
D. In the case of a drunken or mad assailant damnation
would be sure. Ergo, wrong.
Answer: No moral certainty on these three points, the ex-
act spiritual condition of innocent party and assailant, and
future salvation of party in the wrong, if spared for con-
version.
E. It is wrong to kill another in defense of reputation or
honor, not because reputation is a smaller good than life,
property is that, but because the moderamen inculpatae tu-
telae is seldom or never verified. It is next to impossible to
be sure of the serious harm attaching to slander, calumny and
detraction before the harm is actually done, and then it is too
late for defense ; defense is out of the question, revenge alone
is in order. Besides, escape from the harm is within easy
reach of less radical measures. Opposite doctrine would be
open to great abuse, and, though no doctrine is to be con-
demned because of extrinsic and accidental abuses, every doc-
trine, accompanied like this by intrinsic and essential abuses,
deserves condemnation.
F. Reputation is a more precious possession than life.
Ergo.
Answer: Fundamentally taken, inner virtue and honesty,
I grant; formally taken, outer esteem and credit, I deny.
222 SPECIAL ETHICS
Reputation is the judgment passed by others on our conduct
and affairs. Honor is outward manifestation of the good
esteem we have of others. Fama from fando, to talk, the way
men talk about us.
G. The end never justifies the means. Ergo.
Answer: Homicide is the means, and homicide is not in-
trinsically evil. Otherwise capital punishment would be
wrong. It is a physical evil and in itself morally indifferent.
While the end never justifies an intrinsically evil means, it
often justifies a physically evil and a morally indifferent
means.
H. God's right as Master of life and death is violated by
the assailant, not by the innocent party.
I. We must love our enemies, but not more than we love
ourselves. In all honesty we could account ourselves worthy
of no better fate, were we the unjust assailant.
J. In this case, we should be in duty bound to kill our
assailant.
Answer: Homicide is an extraordinary means, and we are
held to only ordinary means. Circumstances like the support
of a family can render self-defense a serious obligation.
K. Self-defense is not a morally bad act put to compass a
good end. It is a morally good act, the preservation of one's
life, and from this good act a physical evil follows, loss of
life on the part of the unjust assailant. This death is not to
be imputed to the innocent slayer, but to the unjust assailant.
PRINCIPLES— DUELLING
A. The duel is a species of defense against loss of prop-
erty. To refuse a duel means dismissal from the army, re-
duction in rank, and consequent loss of livelihood. Ergo.
Answer: One must lose his livelihood rather than per-
petrate an intrinsically evil deed. A duel contracts the mal-
ice of attempted murder and attempted suicide, and both
deeds are intrinsically evil. A duel is no defense against an
unjust assailant; and, therefore, the attempt on a rival's life
has all the malice of murder. It is no mere exposure of life
to a risk justified by a proportionate cause ; and, therefore, it
has all the malice of suicide. We are allowed to undergo dan-
PRINCIPLES 223
ger to life with a proportionate reason. We are never al-
lowed to seek danger to life with or without a proportionate
reason. The duellist more than undergoes danger, he seeks
it; because by the very seeking of danger he vindicates his
reputation for bravery. A nurse in time of the plague merely
exposes himself to danger, because his whole purpose is to
minister to the sick, and danger contributes nothing to this
purpose. In other words, the duellist makes risk to life a
means to his end; the nurse employs other means like medi-
cine, food, care and attention, and to these means danger is,
much against his wishes, inseparably attached.
B. The state has no right to authorize a duel for the set-
tlement of justice between two disputants. It is the state's
duty to settle such disputes on their merits, punishing the
guilty and freeing the innocent. If unable to arrive at a de-
cision, it must give the benefit of the doubt to the accused.
The state is not allowed to arbitrarily treat guilty and inno-
cent alike by exposing them to the same risk. The state ought
to put down duelling, and not encourage it. The Trial by
Ordeal was all wrong and the Church consistently opposed
it. God has nowhere promised to favor the innocent in tests
of the kind.
C. Duels between students are sometimes against the law
of nature, because they lead to serious wounds and mutilation.
D. Though a prize-fight is not a duel properly so called,
on occasions it would seem to be against the law of nature.
E. It is lawful to use the one and fit means for defending
honor. But the duel is such. Ergo.
Answer: If the one and fit means is at the same time legi-
timate, I grant ; otherwise, I deny. A duel is the one and fit
means not of itself and by nature, but by accident and the
wrong views of men.
F. The duel is said to be wrong, because the good it effects
is out of proportion with the evil. But the preservation of
honor, rank and wealth is not out of proportion with risk to
life. Ergo.
Answer: Because the immediate effect is out of propor-
tion, I grant; because the remote effect is out of proportion,
I deny. The immediate effect is to show courage, and that is
out of proportion. Honor, rank, property are but the remote
224 SPECIAL ETHICS
effects and even they are out of proportion. Honor is two-
fold, honor in root, virtue and other good qualities provoking
the esteem of others; and formal honor, the good esteem of
others. Honor in first sense is intrinsic to the man and su-
perior to life. Honor in the second sense is extrinsic to the
man and far inferior to life. Honor in root is the man's own
affair and cannot be touched by the neighbor. Formal honor,
the kind duels mend, is beyond a man 's own control and alto-
gether dependent on the neighbor's whim and fancy.
G. A duel in no way resembles self-defense, because prior
agreement is of its essence. This circumstance separates the
duel from an ordinary fight or shooting-match.
H. The man who refuses to honor a challenge is a coward
in the eyes of fools alone, and their opinion is no safe stand-
ard of morality. Moral courage is of a higher order than
physical.
I. A woman is allowed to defend her honor to the extent of
killing an assailant. Ergo.
Answer: Honor in this case means more than mere es-
teem ; it means bodily integrity or chastity.
THESIS III
A lie is always and of its very nature wrong. To safeguard
a proportionate right, the use of a broad mental reservation is
allowed. Jouin, 106-109 ; Rickahy, 224-237.
QUESTION
In this matter of man 's duty towards his neighbor, we single
out the obligation of truthfulness and respect for the right of
property in others. We treat these questions in separate
theses, giving our first attention to the moral aspect of lying.
Because truth is due the neighbor, and because men have an
inviolable right to whatever they legitimately make their own,
these two duties are branches or departments of the compre-
hensive virtue called justice, that habit of mind and will
eternally ready to give to everybody his due. We shall see
later that the lie is formally a sin against truth, not against
justice.
DIVISION
Thesis has two parts —
I. The lie.
II. The reservation.
PART I. LIE— TERMS
I. A Lie. The Latin verb mentiri, meaning to lie, fur-
nishes us with a true definition of the thing. It is supposed
to be a shortened form of the expression, contra mentem ire,
or menti ire, and signifies to go against the mind. Hence,
a lie is best described as locutio contra mentem, speech or
language conveying the opposite of what we have in our mind.
It is want of harmony between what we say and what we
think. It is opposed to moral truth. Truth is threefold:
logical, ontological and moral; and harmony with something
is the generic notion common to all three. Logical is har-
225
226 SPECIAL ETHICS
mony of mind with outside things, and affects our knowledge; ;
ontological is harmony of things outside with the mind of
their fashioner, and is said with reference to creatures and
God; moral is harmony of language with thought, and is pe-
culiar to intercourse of man with man. As we shall imme-
diately see from St. Thomas, deception and intention to de-
ceive play no part in the essential constitution of a lie. A
material lie can be formal truth, and a formal lie can be ma-
terial truth. No moral guilt, of course, attaches to a mere
material lie, because moral blame attaches to the will alone,
and in a material lie the will is right, the intellect is at fault.
St. Thomas is a safe guide in philosophy, as well as in
theology, and it may, therefore, be useful to here note down
what he has to say on the subject. I quote, therefore, at some
length from his Summary of Theology. In the 2nd of the
2nd part, quest. 110, art. I, he has what follows :
*' Truth and falsehood are the proper objects of speech. A
disordered will can in this matter have one of two intentions
or both, either to communicate a falsehood or, as an effect of
the communication, to deceive some one. If therefore these
three elements are present, viz. : falsehood of communication,
a wish to communicate falseness and the desire to deceive,
then is the lie a material one, because a falsehood is communi-
cated ; a formal one, because it is wilfully and knowingly com-
municated; and effective, because deception is wilfully and
knowingly intended. Nevertheless, the lie derives its essence
from the second element, i.e., the wish to communicate false-
ness, or a falsehood wilfully and knowingly communicated.
Wherefore a lie receives its name in Latin from the fact that
it is something said contrary to the mind's conviction. The
circumstance that one designs to affect another 's opinion with
falseness belongs not to the nature or essence of a lie, but
to a further perfection of the same. Even so with things in
nature, an object, when once it assumes the form, attains to
its allotted place in the universe of existences, even though
the effect generally accompanying the form is for the time
being absent, as is evident for instance, in a thing of weight
when forcibly held aloft. ' '
In the same part and question art. Ill in answer to the 4th
difficulty he says:
LIE AND DECEPTION 227
**The sinfulness of a lie is derived not from the damage
alone which it does our neighbor, but from its want of har-
mony with the order of reason."
The learned Doctor 's words are quite plain. His idea seems
to be this — A moral falsehood or a lie consists, as far as mat-
ter goes, in want of harmony between what is in the mind
and the language used to express it. It, therefore, differs
from logical falsehood, which means a want of harmony be-
tween some object in nature and the mind's conception of it.
Hence a logical falsehood can readily enough be foundation
for a moral truth ; and a logical truth, foundation for a moral
falsehood. Yet, such a factor is the will in all questions of
morality, that the material moral falsehood is blameless until
the intention of communicating as true matter known and
understood to be false accrues to it and by union completes,
perfects and finishes the lie properly so called. He insists
very much on this point because the introduction of a third
element, viz., the deception of our neighbor, is made too much
account of by some authors.
The third element is a merely accidental circumstance, and
contributes nothing to the naked essence of a lie. It is quite
true that every lie will be accompanied by this third element
or characteristic. For, it is difficult to conceive of a false
communication known to be such, which will not at the same
time procure, at least in intention, a neighbor's deception.
But the lie is in full consummated, though this element be
entirely wanting. As soon as the speaker attempts in his
language to convey an untruth known to be such, so soon does
he lie, whether he intends to deceive, or to amuse, or to help,
or to injure his neighbor. The injury done his neighbor may
be inseparably connected with the lie, and may have been
uppermost in the liar's mind; but the injury derives its mal-
ice not from the circumstance that it is a lie, but from the fact
that it is a wounding of charity, something quite distinct
from the virtue of truth.
PROOF
I. The lie has its intrinsic malice from this, that it is a
falling away from our duty, not precisely to our neighbor,
228 SPECIAL ETHICS
but to God and to ourselves. He has wisely ordained, for the
good of society, that words should communicate ideas, which
would otherwise be so much dead lumber, for purposes of use
to the neighbor. He has imbedded within us an instinct, as
present as the nose on our face, influencing us to cherish
truthfulness in our dealings one with another. The liar reck-
lessly tramples this ordinance of God, and stifles within him-
self an instinct, which is among Heaven's purest and best
gifts. Hence it is that God, who is avenger of broken ordi-
nances and a jealous watcher of His gifts to man, punishes
in a way known only to His victims the deliberate and down-
right liar. I should call for no more potent proof of God's
interference in this matter than that furnished by the blush
of shame and the self-condemning perturbation, visible all
over the countenance of a liar in the beginning of his career,
or of the ingenuous youth whose poorly ordered self-love has
ensnared him into a cowardly untruth.
PRINCIPLES— LYING
A. Hugo Grote, a Hollander, for the seeming purpose of de-
ducing principles subversive of society, though flattering the
self-love of a dangerous few, offers this wrong definition of a
lie: ''A lie,'' he says, '4s language or a manifestation in
conflict with a right, which exists and belongs to him to whom
the language or manifestation is addressed or directed."
Were this the proper notion of a lie, to say nothing of other
absurdities painfully apparent in it, the liar's sin would in-
herit its essence from the injury done his neighbor. The con-
clusion, of course, would be that lies told by way of joke,
helpful lies, and lies told by men in responsible positions to
save a secret, are truths. We have already met this difficulty
and shown conclusively enough that the idea of the injury
done our neighbor by no means enters into the essential con-
struction of a lie, and that it is an after and accidental effect,
which may with the same influence on the act denominated a
lie be present or absent. Besides, let the two latter species
of a lie, countenanced by such false philosophers as Grote,
become prevalent, and the intercourse of man with man will
soon grow a scourge and a gift for which we should have
PROOF AND PRINCIPLES 229
small occasion to thank Heaven. Remember, however, that
our decided and clearly expressed conviction with regard to
the intrinsic evil of lying is based not on the injury done the
neighbor, but on this one circumstance that it is an abuse of
language, that God and nature intended to be used as a
vehicle of thought. The inconvenience done the neighbor is
a weighty argument to deter men from lying, and perhaps
exerts a more universally dissuasive influence than our meta-
physical argument. Still it is an extrinsic element and may
lead to false, unfounded notions.
B. Milton, to prove that lying is at times admissible, asks
this empty question: ''If all killing be not murder; nor all
taking from another, theft; why must all untruths be lies?"
The answer at once suggests itself. Man must not kill an-
other when innocent, he must not take from another unless
necessity is extremely urgent ; because in the one case and the
other man has a right to his life and his property which he
has nowise forfeited. It is not his nature to live forever but
only as long as the body continues a fit tenement for the soul.
Universal ownership is of nature and inamissible ; but particu-
lar ownership is based on the man's own individual activity,
open to loss, accidental in itself, and natural only inasmuch
as it is rooted in the universal ownership which forever re-
mains. But the sheriff commits no murder ; the wretch dying
of hunger, no theft; because the capital offender against so-
ciety loses all prior claims to life, the former owner of the
property is, in case of another's dire necessity, divested of
his rights, nature depriving the property of any particular
and specific owner. The obligation a man owes his rational
nature in point of telling the truth can never change. In
other words man's claims to life and property do not turn
directly and wholly on his rational nature. His bounden
duty to tell the truth flows directly from his rational nature.
C. One author insists very much on what he styles his meta-
physical and absolute definition of a lie, viz., the privation
of truth that is or ought to be due. The definition goes to
greater lengths than is necessary, but its length does not
lessen its correctness. It is emphatically correct. His ex-
planation, however, of the word "due" is as emphatically
incorrect, and evidently introduced to remove difficulties that
230 SPECIAL ETHICS
were better removed otherwise. Of course, lying is the priva-
tion of truth that is due ; but does it hence necessarily follow
that lying is the privation of such truth only as is due the
neighbor? Decidedly no! The truth in question may not
perhaps be due my neighbor, but I owe it to the God who
made me and to myself to use on all occasions language in
exact accordance with the ideas in my mind.
D. If deceit entered into the essential constitution of a lie,
the above author's remarks about primary and secondary
intentions, or secrecy and deceit, would be to the point. St.
Thomas a short while ago made it clear that the lie exists in a
finished state before deception enters upon the scene at all.
Deception may or may not be present. Its influence on the
lie as such is the same. Like all accidents it can, indeed,
modify the evil done. It can make it greater by adding a
sin of unkindness to that of cheating God's intent, but it
cannot make a bit of language truth or falsehood. Like all
things intrinsically or of their very nature evil, no conceiv-
able intention can make a lie good and praiseworthy. Who
can blaspheme without sinning, who can hate God without
sinning? But this impossibility arises from the mere cir-
cumstance that blasphemy and hatred of God are intrinsically
evil. In the same way the second, third, fourth and all the
intentions possible in a lie are swallowed up in the first, viz.,
the wilful and deliberate communication of falseness as truth.
This intention comes first, this intention is the life and being
of a lie, and not even the gaining of Heaven can justify it.
E. A lie is wrong because it is an abuse of speech. But
other abuses are not wrong. Ergo, neither is a lie for this
single reason wrong. To walk on the hands is an abuse of
the hands, but not therefore wrong.
Answer: To walk on the hands is abuse of the hands in
strict sense, I deny; in wide sense, I grant. Abuse in strict
sense is use that destroys or hinders the purpose intended by
nature. Walking on the hands leaves them wholly capable
of the functions for which nature intended them. But a lie
aims at the destruction of speech's natural purpose, the com-
munication of our ideas or of truth.
F. The purpose of speech is the good of society and the
lie far from being a hindrance or a damage to society, is on
PRINCIPLES 231
no few occasions a positive help and advantage to same.
Ergo. A lie can at times happen to be the readiest means to
avert a war or a murder.
Answer: Material advantage is not the criterion of moral-
ity, but the objective order of things. A lie is not primarily
wrong because it works evil to society, nor is the truth pri-
marily good because it is of advantage to society. Harmony
with the purpose of speech and discord with same constitute
the goodness of truth and the^ malice of lying respectively.
Even material advantage can never in the long run result
from an intrinsic evil like lying, and this is evident from the
Law of General Consequences discussed in the matter of Utili-
tarianism. But this is not the root-reason for the immorality
of lying. If a lie were allowed, to avert some particular evil
like war, or procure some particular good like a livelihood,
its approbation would work to the complete destruction of
credit among men, and that evil would be worse than a hun-
dred wars.
G. A lie might be permitted for very grave reasons, and
within these limits all danger would be removed. Ergo.
Answer: The danger would still stand, because in that
case every individual would be absolute judge of the weight
of his reasons; and credit would be universally shaken. Be-
sides, the lie is intrinsically and of its very nature wrong,
deriving its malice from no such accidental and extrinsic cir-
cumstances as harm and advantage.
H. Homicide in self-defense is right. Ergo, a pari, a lie
in self-defense is right.
Answer: Homicide is not an intrinsic evil, as is evident
from war, hanging and self-defense. Homicide is changed to
murder by the injustice done the person slain, and by the
usurpation of God's rights as the Lord and Master of life
and death. A lie is intrinsically wrong, and God Himself
cannot make it right. God cannot bestow on others a right,
in which He is not Himself vested.
I. To lie is to talk otherwise than as you think. But the
objector on a circle talks otherwise than as he thinks. Ergo.
Answer: The objector talks as he thinks, but he is at the
same time playing the part of another. Actor on stage.
J. Communication of thought to another, whether by speech
232 SPECIAL ETHICS
or other arbitrary signs, is of the essence of a lie. It takes
two to converse, and in strict language nobody ever talks
to or addresses himself. Therefore, a false statement shouted
to vacancy or the wind is not in strict sense a lie.
K. Lies are usually divided into jocose, officious, official
and injurious. Not all jokes are jocose lies. Equivocation
and mental reservation save many jokes from the malice of
sin. Others, while plain misstatements, are so openly absurd
that they can be rated mere material falsehoods, free from the
guilt of a formal lie. Instances are, Washington is not dead.
Miss Liberty is walking the harbor. And yet many jokes are
lies, and their perpetrators incur all the blame of sin. Offi-
cious lies are meant to be helpful, injurious are meant to harm.
Outside of injurious lies, which wound charity as well as
truth, the sin is never more than venial. Official lies are sin-
ful subterfuges employed by men in authority to keep state
secrets, and are no less blameworthy than the rest.
L. The mouth that lies kills the soul. Wisdom 1-11. Ergo.
Answer: Formally, I deny; preparatively, I grant.
PART II— RESERVATION
II. We now take up a few difficulties, which to some ap-
peared so formidable, that only a wide departure from phi-
losophy's common notion regarding a lie seemed capable of
solving them.
TERMS
Reservation. Everybody grants that there are secrets with-
out end, which must under no consideration be delivered over
to unauthorized enquirers. Philosophers are a unit on this
point. But how to perform this nice and difficult duty with-
out at the same time wounding truth, is a task nowise easy.
Deep silence will not, it is quite certain, always extricate the
honest man from his straits. His secret may be natural, or
a secret of promise, or a secret of trust. We may suppose,
too, that matters are come to such a head that a direct answer
alone will satisfy the questioner. An innocent mental reser-
MENTAL RESERVATION 233
vation seems to be on such an occasion the only means of
escape. It can be reconciled, too, with our rigorous doctrine
on lying, and needs no such laxity of principle as is advocated
by some authors. In mental reservation several very impor-
tant items must be carefully attended to, not precisely because
a lie is told, but because even though the truth is told, such
manner of telling the truth is full of danger to mutual con-
verse, to the union of families, and to the well-being of the
state. Observe, therefore, that the notion uppermost with us
in thus hedging about mental reservation with cautious con-
ditions is not at all to make lies less frequent, for on no occa-
sion do we consider a lie lawful, but only to shield man in
his dealings with his fellows.
There are, then, two sorts of mental reservation, one always
to be abominated, the other to be sometimes commended.
They are the pure and the broad. He uses a mental reserva-
tion, who, when conveying information, so manipulates his
words, that the listener will in all probability derive from
them only false notions. The pure mental reservation fur-
nishes the listener with no external clew to the truth, and
renders it absolutely impossible for him to escape the mis-
take ; and is in simple language a lie, under no circumstance
excusable.
Pure means language of itself, and from present circum-
stances, restricted to one meaning, out of harynony with mind
of speaker, in harmony with same when something retained in
the mind is added, e.g., ' ' Have you eaten anything ? ' ' "Noth-
ing at all," understanding meat.
Broad means language externally conveying the speaker ^s
true mind, intelligible from circumstances, in spite of a cer-
tain ambiguity and obscurity. Listener is cause per se of
deception, not talker. Proximate end is to convey mind.
Remote is to hide truth. Remote end must be legitimate.
Hence no broad in contracts, questions of justice, courts of
law. Only proportionate cause justifies.
Protestants are fond of reproaching us with the laxity of
our moral theologians in this matter of mental reservations.
But, whereas our moralists utterly condemn the pure, to ad-
mit the broad mental reservation only for the safeguarding
of a proportionate right, Cranmer, Henry VIII 's archbishop
234 SPECIAL ETHICS
of London, when taking his oath of fealty to the Pope, con-
trived a pure mental reservation, a lie, and so stained his im-
mortal soul with a perjury unexampled.
PROOF
The broad mental reservation, available only when great
interests are at stake, not in every trifling affair, leaves it pos-
sible though difficult for the listener to still detect, if he
proceeds with prudence, the speaker's meaning. In other
words, the speaker returns to the questioner a double answer,
a jumble of what is in his mind and what is outside of it.
That part of his answer, which is language in harmony with
his mind, he considers, and every fair-minded man must con-
sider, a sufficiently truthful answer to the question; that
which is wide of the mark may be considered something super-
added, not intended indeed to form part of the answer to the
enquiry made, but to some enquiry that might have been made.
If the imprudent listener confounds one part with the other,
he has himself to blame ; and no great unkindness is done him.
But the lie is absent, not because no injury is directly done
the neighbor, but because the group of words can be con-
strued into a meaning in perfect harmony with the speaker's
mind.
This I recognize as the limit to which mental reservation
can be pushed, when it is borne in mind that only motives as
serious and grave as the saving of an innocent life, the reten-
tion of a close secret, liable if revealed to undo somebody, the
life of a state, can counterbalance, the baneful effects not of a
lie ; for, I repeat it, no lie is told ; but of the apparent unkind-
ness contained in the very act of giving to the person ad-
dressed an opportunity to go astray, and fervently wishing
that he may do so. The preservation of a cigarette is not
motive enough for a broad mental reservation. For a pure
mental reservation, between which and a lie I can see no
difference, even the preservation of the innocent is not mo-
tive enough. Remark, however, that, when an innocent life
is at stake, common charity obliges you to take all legitimate
means to its defense; and, therefore, common charity im-
peratively demands a broad mental reservation, that namely
PROOF AND PRINCIPLES 235
which through the agency of some external sign leaves it pos-
sible for the person deceived to avoid deception.
PRINCIPLES— RESERVATION
A. About the prisoner at the bar in the civil court of jus-
tice, this solution appears most praiseworthy and is wholly
satisfactory. Words are but arbitrary signs. When, there-
fore, the expression, ''Not guilty," has come by the common
consent of mankind to mean, "Not proved guilty," a man,
though actually guilty, says nothing contrary to what he has
in his mind when he answers, ''Not guilty." For, even in
his own mind he is not proved guilty, and according to com-
mon usage or agreement, which alone imparts meaning to
words, he has made no other statement.
B. The priest is bound by his duty to an authority far
higher than that attached to any civil court of justice to pre-
serve inviolate a confessional secret. No sane, unprejudiced
judge will require at his hands the communication of such
a secret. But there are on record instances of bigoted and
unscrupulous ministers of the law, who endeavored to wrest
from the priest's bosom truths more sacred than fall to the
lot of physicians, lawyers or friends. In such cases it is a
sacred duty imposed upon the priest to maintain even unto
death his seal of secrecy. He is not, however, in any sense
of the word permitted to lie. He is at liberty to profess that
he knows nothing whatever of the matter in question, but
must contrive to give his hearers an opportunity to under-
stand, if they will, that he represents a twofold character, that
of the priest or representative of Christ, and that of the
citizen or subject of the law. He must, without at all com-
promising his penitent or endangering the seal of the confes-
sional, advertise the questioner of his determination and right
to answer all enquiries put to him as a citizen or witness in
his capacity of man or of individual of the community, not
in his capacity of representative and vice-gerent of God. His
answer, therefore, which intimates entire ignorance of the
subject under discussion, is not language out of harmony with
what he has in his mind, and therefore not a lie. As citizen,
he has no knowledge whatever of the point in question ; and
23t SPBGEAL ETHIGS
ht ImalgBifted Ikis detcnunatkia and lif^ to ipeik in that
tmpmaltj on^. As fv as in liim Ucb, Iub language ahould
also QoiiTqr to tibe minds of liis bearers an exact represents-
of vbat ke widMS to eoHununieate. If tliey foolishly
that his denial extends also to knowledge acq[iiired
in tibe eonfesBbaal, they ha^e to Uame aaij thenselYes for
their ignorances In faet» if. after takinf^ the ground that
he is hff ri^ divine entitled to aesuBe these two charaeters
of ■an or citiaen and T i c e - gerc nt of CSnist, he should affirm
as a wifcnesB on the stand aeqinaintanee with the secrets of
Gonfiecsion, he would be guilty of apeecb oat of harmony with
what he has in Ins mind, Le^ of a lie.
C In point of li nt idninii the seercts of lawyos, j^ysiciaiis
next to those of the priest. ProfeBsionsl
idiose futh is ^i^ited to £riends» have dotieB
in this regard to wbidi tbcy mnst nowise prove ddinquent.
Xcw eitl i el cag, socb men, tboof^ tb^ be lawyers, mnst cherish
tnith in their ereryday dealings with themselves and others ;
thar rfo te, tb^ are not allowed to save a secret at the
of truth. But no sodi nnlawfol proceeding is neces-
The secret can be saved without any baim to troth.
For, apart from profesaonal knowledge which he is by no
means sspposed to rereal to an unauthoritative enquirer, the
ndnd of the lawyer, physician or friend is a perfect Uank
the infocmation desired. An imprudent man may
and may so miseonstrue the rei^y made by the
lawyer or friend as to &ncy that, when be pr«>
€i4y partial ignorance or ign<Hance under one capaory,
he e onffJBM to ignunmee under every capacity. But even in
this case the deeeptian, which in itsriif would not make the
a lie, is the fruit of unprudenee on the part of the
can with justice be imputed to the witness
only, not a cause or at most a cause by aeei-
rers that simply stand c& the qnes-
betokcn by the c o n unun icatiom of irrele-
vant knowledge an unwiDingnem to satisfy morbid curiosity
aicv of course^ at all times and on all oeearions licit in tbem-
advcs. Tlwy need never be united with falsdiood. though
tihi^ cni readily enon^ become fsnlts against cononoii charity.
FJUNdPLBS fSi
pxvtty rnoek ai tke wjlhlwilding font a
in itadf bandcM and canbr parted vitk bj tlK
£. EqaiYioeatianB are not
Uie ipeakier s aundiy w t auir, as w^ itaetc gnrat to
of this itamp a amitipiifd fani u g, the ^ifakrr ii^ of eoonfu
at liberty to attadi to tfaoB arhatevcr one off lAe aeful Bcaa-
ihitif ■ Oaritf impomm apoo lam tlie dntf off ffnr-
the pcmB addrened with hiirts tufliririn to pot hiat
on his guard agaiart deception- Contimial and mnvanantcd
cqiDYQeatifln woold be a sin; not, indeed, agamnt troth, hat
agaimt the kire off nrighbor whieh natnre
a jnrt eauK is prcaent, certain sorts o
are not sinfoL The presence off anj eanse whatever esertts
no soeh potent jwflnmrr as will dtange a lie to a 0Dod deed.
this verbal ■ideading is a denial off strai^tfforward charity,
which a £dlow-aMn can off ri^kt esaet at oar hands, onl^ in
certain nailing enaea.
To d^nve him, therefore, of this ri^t, it moat fint haie
wamt into T**"M»**f with sone r^kt off a
in Tirtae off a solid cthieal princi^e, lose fw the
ffoiee and cffieaej. In other woed^ sane hi^er
d c aiit i in g off it, maj be lawfiiDy aiaied at, not 1^ a lie, hat
by a legitiaytfe verbal ■ Ml ca diu g. Alie
bat it is altogether iHecitiMrtr,
itselff or Ac convcraion off the whole world to be had £or a
lie, the liar would not be justified. It would, howeicr, be an
of an praise to coaqiaaB l&e
soul hf the use of
or a Itroad SMntal rcaervation, hedeed about by all tha
238 SPECIAL ETHICS
been found worthy of censure. ' ' This by no means prevents
you or me from adopting opinions at variance with his, or to
quote again, "This is said, however, without on that account
judging that they are reprehended who follow opinions
handed down by other approved authors."
G. To sum up, and so bring our remarks to a close, this is
in short our view of the matter. A lie or a wilful and de-
liberate speaking against what is in the mind has a decidedly
twofold malice: one, primary, specific and all important; the
other, secondary, accidental and of less importance. The
primary malice of a lie is bound up in the fact that it is an
abuse of the Heaven-sent faculty of speech. Its secondary
malice is derived from the circumstance that every lie is an
injury done the neighbor. The lie, therefore, can never be
justified. Silence, evasions, equivocations, broad mental reser-
vations are not lies; and can, therefore, be tolerated when
some just cause, some good of more vital concern than the
kindness of straightforward truth is the motive that prompts
the speaker. Instances — not guilty — not at home ; priest, law-
yer, friend ; state officials, * ' What news, my lord ? " ' ' I don 't
know; I haven't read the papers." ''Do Christians believe
in a Trinity?" ''They believe in only one God."
H. Mental reservation and lie have the same evil results.
Ergo.
Answer: A lie is wholly misleading; a reservation is par-
tially misleading. A lie deceives per se, a reservation deceives
per aecidens. This accidental deception makes the indiscrim-
inate and universal use of reservation wrong. The legiti-
mate use is restricted to safeguarding a proportionate right.
A lie is the cause of deception ; a reservation is mere occasion
of the same.
I. Mental reservation is flagrant abuse of language. Ergo.
Answer: A reservation fills a double function. It conveys
our thought and conceals our thought. Inasmuch as it con-
veys our thought, it is the truth; inasmuch as it conceals
our thought, it is at times a species of unkindness. The deed
itself is morally right, our purpose would in other circum-
stances be unkind ; but the charity due an imprudent, meddle-
some and unauthorized questioner yields in importance to
the right we safeguard. Manifestation of our mind is the
ETHICS OF SECRETS 239
finis operis or proximate end in reservation; concealment is
the finis operantis, or remote end. Manifestation comes first
in order of execution; concealment comes first in order of
intention.
J. A pure mental reservation is a lie, because the words, as
they stand, convey the opposite of what the speaker has in
his mind, and no accompanying circumstance helps the lis-
tener to a knowledge of what the speaker has in his mind.
Here is an instance: '^Have you eaten anything?" ''Not a
thing." The party interrogated has eaten a Friday dinner,
and he means that he has eaten nothing in the line of meat.
A broad mental reservation conveys what the speaker has in
his mind in so concealed a way that the listener, if at all im-
prudent, will gather the opposite of what the speaker has in
his mind, in spite of helps against deception derivable from
such attendant circumstances as tone of voice, common usage,
gesture, official capacity and the like. Usage after all fixes
the value and meaning of words, and usage can alone deter-
mine whether any given expression is a pure mental reserva-
tion or a broad mental reservation.
K. Ethics of Secrets: There are three kinds of secrets:
1. Natural. 2. Secret of promise. 3. Secret of contract.
A secret is natural, if the obligation to keep it hidden has
its origin in nature. Whatever private knowledge we have
of others able, if revealed, to work them harm in point of repu-
tation, property and such, constitutes a natural secret. A
natural secret becomes a secret of promise, when, after com-
ing into possession of the secret, we promise the party in
question not to reveal the same. If such promise is exacted
from us before we come to knowledge of the secret ; in other
words, if the secret is confided to us only after a promise
on our part to keep it hidden, the secret of promise becomes
a secret of contract. All three kinds impose the obligation of
secrecy, but the binding force of the obligation varies with
the kind of secret. The order of importance in ascending
scale is : Natural, Secret of Promise, and Secret of Contract.
To reveal any secret, to whatever class it belongs, some pro-
portionate reason must be present. A weightier reason is
needed when a secret of contract is in question than when
there is question of the other two. Nature forbids us to harm
240 SPECIAL ETHICS
another without good and sufficient reason. A promise bind-
ing by way of a man's word or by way of justice, according
to the intent of the person making the promise, calls for even
a better and a weightier reason. The contract involved in a
secret of the third kind renders its violation a more serious
matter, and only the gravest of reasons can justify the vio-
lation of such a secret. The contract in question may be
either express or tacit, and it regularly accompanies profes-
sional secrets. If serious harm threatens the state, or an in-
nocent person, or either of the two parties to the contract,
even a secret of contract can without wrong be revealed. If
there is question of harm already done, a natural secret, or
a secret of promise must be revealed to a judge or superior
making lawful enquiry. In this last case a secret of contract
is privileged, and must not be revealed even to a judge or
superior. In no emergency must the secrecy of the confes-
sional be violated.
L. St. Alphonsus Liguori — Second Commandment. Du-
bium 4; 151-172.
151. Not wrong to swear to equivocal statement, when one
has good reason, and the equivocation itself is lawful; to do
so without good reason, not perjury, but mortal sin against
religion ;■ oath abused.
Three kinds of equivocation:
1. Word has two meanings, e.g., volo, from velle and volare.
2. Word has two senses equally common, e.g., Peter's book
whether owner or author.
3. Word has two senses, common and unusual, e.g., literal
and spiritual.
The Baptist is Elias. St. Matt. 2-14; I am not Elias. St.
John 1-21.
I say no, whether affirmation or negation.
152. A pure mental reservation is never lawful; a broad is
right when good reason is present, e.g., I go not up to this
festival day. St. John 7-8 ; He also went up, not openly 7-8 ;
openly, from context.
Of that day and hour no one knoweth, meaning end of
world. St. Matt. 24-36. No one knows to tell, from context.
Reason for broad, the one legitimate way to hide a secret.
153. If asked to testify as God's minister, priest can deny.
THESIS lY
Man's right to ownership, whether temporary or lasting, ^
is derived to him, not from any formal compact, nor from any /
civil law, hut from nature. Jouin, 118-140; Bickaby, 278- •
297.
QUESTION
Socialism is the economic error we combat in this thesis.
Man's right to property in capital is the precise point at-
tacked by Socialism, and we meet the enemy by setting this
right to property in whatever good on a basis that cannot be
shaken or overthrown If nature equips man with equal right
to exclusive ownership in the capital he invests and in the
food he eats, no legislation can in ordinary contingencies with
justice separate him against his will from his capital or his
food. That ownership in capital is a natural right, inde-
pendent of compact and civil law, is with us a basic prin-
ciple ; and, once this point is settled, Socialism and its philan-
thropic but wild contentions in behalf of oppressed labor, fall
to the ground. There are other arguments against Socialism,
and we mean to call attention to them in due process of time.
But in basing man's right to ownership on nature, our pres-
ent thesis is a sweeping condemnation of Socialism and kin-
dred theories. Socialism and Communism are systems at first
sight identical, but very distinct when more closely studied.
As long as men possess minds and use them for purposes of
study, the two systems stand about equal chances for uni-
versal sway. As long as man 's wickedness remains what it is,
to encourage oppression of labor and contempt of the poor,
so long shall their advocates harangue crowds of listeners in-
tellectually too feeble to see beyond appearances, or reason
to remote conclusions.
Socialism assumes the hue of whatever mind falls under its
sway, and is therefore as varied in its outlines as the physiog-
241
242 SPECIAL ETHICS
nomies of men. But there are some broad features, and oi
these we now insist. He therefore would seem to be a Social{^
ist, who holds it proper and exclusively proper for man to'
turn over to the Socialistic commonwealth whatever property-
can in good faith be styled capital. He prescribes under
pain of sin community of goods not strictly necessary for the
consumer's use. He would allow the railroad magnate to
earn his annual salary as president of a corporation, but
would forbid him to lock up in his private safe more of that
salary than would furnish himself and his family with the
necessaries or even the luxuries of life. In fact he would
make the railroad magnate a paid servant of the common-
wealth after confiscating or buying his railroad, and would
strip him of his capital and all chance to accumulate capital,
reducing him to a level with the operatives he now robs of
the fruit of their labors. Millionaires would become extinct
specimens, and the state treasury would distribute to the
poor a surplus, in comparison with which any prior surplus
would be mere pocket-money. The condition of God's poor
would be so far bettered that Heaven would become a reward
out of all proportion with the small price paid for it. Lei-
sure, and ease, and retirement on a competency, would be
worn out notions. The whole world would put on the busy
appearance of a beehive. After one year all the drones would
die, and this gap in nature would remain forever empty.
With no fund for a rainy day, work would be eagerly sought
and as zealously performed. Industry would be life, idleness
would be death. What a picture ! Nobody can immoderately
chide the generous but shallow-brained enthusiasts, who see
in this wonderful transformation the dawn of millennium.
But it costs no great effort to set aside poetry, and view this
theory, as all philosophical theories must be viewed, in the
even and full light of reason. Socialism, whatever may be
said of its possibilities as a system for men with other hearts
and other passions than ours, is certainly doomed to remain
idle as long as time lasts. Its refutation is clearly and satis-
factorily set forth in the arguments to be advanced in sup-
port of our thesis.
The Communist, recognizing no difference between capital
and other possessions, cries out for a share in every man's
SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM 243
goods; and in return lays open, as well he may, to every
chance-comer his own meagre store. Communism is insanity
or gross depravity. Communism has no redeeming feature.
We are bad enough, when at our best, but make us Com-
munists, and we should in a twinkling degenerate to cut-
throats, thieves, devils incarnate. There would be no security
at home or abroad. Our very friends would mix our cup with
poison. Our lot would be incomparably less endurable than
that of lions and tigers roaming the jungle. No doubt a
chosen few can so discipline their greed, and so develop their
esteem of eternal riches, as to work even more strenuously
than otherwise without any pecuniary reward in view. But
to assert that the whole race is morally capable of such per-
fection, and that the whole race is ready and eager to put off
selfishness, and sap its strength to feed and clothe the worth-
less and idle, is the empty vaunt of ignorance, and worthy of
only the man who knows neither himself nor other men. Com-
munism maintains that everybody is to own everything, and
that the common vagrant and the man who tries to do his
duty, the outcast of society and the man high in his neigh-
bors' esteem, are in some unexplained way to have an equal
share in the enjoyment of this world's goods.
Our thesis, we flatter ourselves, strikes at the very root of
Socialism and Communism. We are far from contending
that the natural law imposes on individuals the duty of own-
ing goods in severalty, nor yet that natural law absolutely
forbids and discountenances community of possessions in any
and every possible combination of circumstances. But we do
maintain that natural law unequivocally and unmistakably
imposes on mankind the duty of refraining from all undue
meddling with the neighbour's private property. We do
maintain that a man's right to his field and to his capital has
all its strength, not from formal compact or civil agreement,
with which indeed man can so far tamper as to change or
even repeal them; but from nature, which lies outside of
man's dominion, and acknowledges obedience to God alone.
We do maintain that neither Communism nor Socialism is
prescribed by the law of nature or by the obligations of man
to man; that they are not expressly, immediately and uni-
versally forbidden by the law of nature. We do maintain
244 SPECIAL ETHICS
nevertheless that they are implicitly, mediately and in par-
ticular circumstances, which now obtain throughout the uni-
verse, absolutely condemned by the voice of nature, with in-
tent that the condemnation endure until this world of ours is
peopled with a race strangers to the passions that agitate our
bosoms. We are ready to grant that no peculiar offense is
committed, if a body of men come together in harmony and
agree among themselves to convey to some common treasury
all their wealth, with the understanding that it is to belong
to no individual precisely, but to be used by all in common
as events fall out. We are ready to further grant that he
would be a benefactor of the race, who could so work on the
minds and wills of capitalists and landowners as to induce
them of their own free-will to divest themselves of their
superfluous moneys, and confide the same to the state or to
some equally responsible corporation for distribution among
the poor. But we reprobate as firebrands to the republic the
hot-headed fanatics, who open wide their mouths and cry
out that capital is sin, and that ownership of land is a crime
against nature. We are not afraid to give utterance to the
opinion that all such intemperate zealots should be deprived
of the power they wield for harm among the desperate mob
and placed with convenient despatch between the four walls
of the city-jail. The millionaire may legally be induced to
part with his money-bags for the weal of the populace. He
is, however, undeniably free to close his ears to all such ex-
travagant pleadings of misapplied humanity, and in ordinary
contingencies law cannot forcibly extort from him a penny
in the name of justice. What has once fairly slipped into
his coffers is his in spite of the universe, and this one circum-
stance imposes on the world at large the solemn duty of re-
specting that right, and allowing him to possess his own in
peace. His acquisition of the wealth is no necessity of na-
ture, neither is his close retention of the same; but, once
acquired, his will about the disposition of his dollars is law,
and with all the grim necessity of nature's ordinances debars
others from approach, and imperatively demands non-inter-
ference. Of course, I speak of wealth legitimately come by,
and nowise forfeited by debts afterwards contracted, or at the
competent command of higher rights.
OWNERSHIP 245
TERMS
Bight. The moral power or force, in itself inviolate, to do
or exact something.
Ownership. The right to claim some external and ma-
terial thing as one's own, subject always to restrictions im-
posed by higher rights.
Ownership is one species of dominion or lordship, juris-
diction is the other. Dominion or lordship is the right to
claim a thing as one's own. Ownership is lordship turning
on external and material things like money, land and kindred
articles. Jurisdiction is lordship turning on spiritual objects
like the minds and wills of men, and it is a prerogative of
rulers. The clearest title to lordship is production, and God
alone is true Lord, true owner, true ruler, because God alone
in true and strict sense makes or produces things. Men
make nothing, they merely change things. Men, therefore,
are owners and rulers not by essence, not in an independent
way, but only by participation, and with utter dependence
on God,'s good pleasure. Ownership enables them to dispose
of external and material things that really and truly belong
to God. Jurisdiction enables them to control minds and wills
that really and truly owe allegiance to God alone.
Ownership, then, is the right to keep and to use external
material things as one's own, subject always to restrictions
imposed by rights of a higher order. Three elements deserv^e
notice. To keep and to use, imply a bond of union between
property and owner. As one's own, excludes others from
possession and use. Restrictions, remove all danger of Exag-
gerated Individualism, which would make individual owner-
ship in man entirely independent of God and law. The bond
of union is commonly called the title, and is whatever fact
stamps and seals the material good in question as property
belonging to the owner. In origin it is not civil law, it is
not compact, it is not labor alone or work on the ot)ject of
ownership. It is what we call occupancy, and occupancy is
best described as the actual appropriation of a thing along
with the avowed intention of holding on to it ; or more fully,
as seizure of material goods belonging to nobody in partic-
SPECIAL ETHICS
vlsr, WI& the int e nt i o i i of rrtainmg tiKn as one's own,
witk tlie k^ of dear and manifest sasi>s»
■oraL nese signs are difiBsrcnt in dif >
foent cases. Gn^s are li ai f ChUd , antaials are killed or eap-
tared, fields are feneed, voncx and deeds are passed, ^eitial
are made^ This is effeedre oeenpancj, otlier
are legal and politied, txmtL ciWI law and intcmationaL
cslnctions ire bnpose are fruitfal in eonseqiMiieeB. In-
dhridoal owneisiiip ean eoDide widi ligjits in CSod, and nghts
in Ae state; and in ewy soA coHision individiial ownersiiip
miBl jidd. Ciod alone is absolute tmmet c^ eveiytliing. He
owns the man as wtH as the man's fxwpcrfjy and ean dispose
of hotiiaoeordii^toHiseoodpIeBBQre. God nevo* abdicates
Hs dominion in men or things^ and He makes men gifts witli-
to be tiicir owner. The landlord remains owner
he rents his boose to the tenant. As against God, man
timn rdati¥e or me^ywnadi^ and he
gifts God makes him witk a iriew to the
of God's greater i^oiy. Hcnee, the ri^t to indi-
Tidaal i wHwiA ip in the rkk never ezenses them foom the
ohiigatinM of Parity towards the poor; and denial of diarity
on their part is a spedes of robbeiy against God. As against
the state and indrFidaals eomposiiig it, man's li^ to indi-
Tidoal own»ship is riianhiteL Neither state nor indiTiduals
give the li^it, and, Hicnfore, neither state war indrndoals
ean take it awaj. And jet in Witoe of the adage that the
part is serrant to the whole, the rtate has lig^ds in this mat-
ter of own»sh^ that the indiridDal owner most adnowkdge
and respect. Tlie state eannot take away the ri^t to individ-
nal ownenfcqp, but it ean in e me tgenci es dhrcxt private prop-
erty to paWe OSes. It ean call citizens to SHiiee in time of
war. and TrrtoaDr deprive them of ownersiiip in thdr own
lives, it can impose taxes and cw slnmK , it ean institute ecm-
dcmnation i^oeeedings, and c g ereiae all the varioos fdnetians
implied in Eminent Domain.
bunent Domain is no proof that indiridual ownership
originates in the state or dTil law. Quite the eontraiy, it is
open acknowledgment that the state and law haTe no sach
efficacy. In cond emnati on eases the state when possible makes
rnmpfWfiStinn to tihe owner, and the prerogatire is exereised
OWNBBSHIP AXD KINDS 247
only in serious public need. If individual ownership had
its origin in state or law, compensation would be no requi-
site, and the will of the state in whatever trivial emergency
would justify the proceeding. When courts of law settle cases
in property, they virtually acknowledge that the right of
ownership has a validity all its own, independent of their
rulings. They never create or confer ownership, they deter-
mine where it exists. They hear testimony, examine docu-
ments, and take every means to discover in what party the
right resides and decide accordingly, all which would be need-
less waste of time, if the court could of itself vest either party
to the suit with the disputed right.
This ownership is of many different kinds, absolute and
relative; perfect and imperfect; direct and indirect; transient
and permanent; public and private; collective and individual;
abstract and concrete. Absolute ownership is independent
ownership, and in strict sense accrues to God alone. It
means the right to dispose of and use a thing at pleasure,
without restrictions imposed by another. Relative ownership
IS dependent ownership, and strictly speaking all human
ownership is such. It means the right to dispose of and use
thing^s, not at pleasure, but within limits prescribed by God
or nature. Men have the physical power or freedom to abuse
things, but they are without the moral power or right to do
so; and aU their ownership is by very nature subservient to
the good pleasure of GJod. As between individuals human
ownership can be said to be absolute as well as relative. As
between state and citizen Eminent Domain is only a seeming
denial of absolute ownership. The ri^t to ownership is not
taken away by the state, it ceases because of collision with a
higher right. Perfect ownership extends to substance and
use of a thing, while imperfect extends to only one or other
of the two. Imperfect ownership is direct, when it touches
the thing's substance; indirect, when it touches the thing's
use. Landlord and tenant are examples.
Ownership is transient or temporary, when it turns on
goods consumed or destroyed in their use, on goods that can-
not of their very nature successively belong to two or more
owners. Food is an example. Ownership is permanent,
stable, lasting, when it turns on goods practically inde-
248 SPECIAL ETHICS
struetible, and open to successive possession by several.
Money, a field, a house, capital are examples. Capital is prac-
tically indestructible property, that tends to the production
of new wealth, and is opposed to what constitutes transient
ownership. Money inve,sted in a business or deposited in a
bank can be called capital. The same object can be basis for
both transient and permanent ownership. Wine and bread,
for instance, can be regarded as food or as articles of trade
and commerce. We maintain against Socialism that man,
when he acquires dominion over property of either denomi-
nation, transient or permanent, food or capital, is only ap-
plying a right, with which nature at his birth vested him.
We maintain that his right to land and capital is just as
sacred as his right to the food he eats, and that he can, there-
fore, be no more deprived of one than of the other. Food
is a more immediate need to existence than land or capital;
but transient ownership without permanent is precarious, in-
secure, well nigh impossible; and the owner's title or occu-
pancy is equally valid in the two cases.
Public ownership is ownership vested in a perfect society,
like the Church or the state; private ownership is ownership
vested in an individual or in an imperfect society, like a
business partnership, or the whole human race. Private own-
ership, therefore, can be individual or collective. Individual
attaches to a definite physical person, and it implies exclu-
sion of other owners; collective attaches to a moral person,
or to several physical persons taken collectively not distribu-
tively. This collective ownership is common ownership, and
it can be positivel}^ common or negatively common ownership.
In collective ownership goods are common to several in such
a way that none of the several can exclude the others from
their possession or use. Obviously, such collective ownership
is barren and of no practical utility to individuals. Collec-
tive ownership is an advantage, only when reducible to indi-
vidual ownership. Individual ownership is part and parcel
of the very word, property or proprium.
Collective ownership of this practical kind is positively com-
mon ownership and negatively common ownership. Posi-
tively common ownership is reducible to individual owner-
ship only by favor of all the individuals in the community.
INDIVIDUAL AND COMMON 249
or by favor of a head or person in authority substituting for
all the individuals, never by virtue of independent activity
on the part of an ordinary individual in the community. As
far as individuals in the community are concerned, positively
common ownership remains forever common in potency as
well as actually. All power to change positively common
ownership to individual ownership resides in the members of
the community as a whole, or in a head substituting for these
members. Negatively common ownership is reducible to in-
dividual ownership, not by favor of community's members
or a head, but by virtue of independent activity like occu-
pancy on the part of any single member, without reference
to the other members or their representative. Negatively
common ownership is in itself actually common, but poten-
tially individual, reducible to individual by virtue of inde-
pendent activity on the part of any single member in the
community. This example from Costa-Rossetti, page 363, may
serve to elucidate things. Some forest is government prop-
erty either in such a way that no citizen is able to cut down
and appropriate trees in the forest without permission from
all the other citizens or from the head of the government, or
in such a way that any citizen is at liberty to cut down and
appropriate trees, not already appropriated by others, with-
out any permission whatever from his fellow-citizens or the
government's head. In the first case individual citizens enjoy
positively common ownership in the forest, in the other case
citizens enjoy negatively common ownership.
Of their very nature, and apart from every other consid-
eration, the material goods of earth belong to nobody by way
of actual individual ownership ; they belong to everybody,
not by way of positively common ownership, but by way of
negatively common ownership. In other words, actual indi-
vidual ownership is not from nature, potential individual
ownership is from nature. Positively common ownership is
neither actual nor potential individual ownership ; negatively
common ownership, though not actual individual ownership,
is potential individual ownership. Actual individual owner-
ship is not natural, in the sense of inborn, because otherwise
everybody at his birth would have a definite supply of ma-
terial goods set apart for his own exclusive use. Positively
250 SPECIAL ETHICS
common ownership is not natural in the same sense, because
otherwise persons born into the world could never on their
own initiative become individual owners, but only by favor
of every single individual of the race, or by favor of some
person in authority substituting for every individual. Nega-
tively common ownership of everything is natural in the sense
of inborn, because it is the only species of common ownership
able to eventuate, with the help of occupancy or personal
endeavor, in actual individual ownership, the one kind of
ownership universally prescribed or counselled by nature in
present circumstances.
If God wants individual ownership, no right of jurisdic-
tion in a ruler can impose collective ownership, because juris-
diction in a ruler is subservient to the will of God; and no
sane ruler, as a matter of fact, ever attempted the usurpation.
That God in present circumstances wants individual owner-
ship, is clear from the constitution of man, and from evils
inseparably attaching to collective ownership. Had man
continued in primitive innocence, or had the race never
amounted to more than a few families, collective ownership
would have in its favor arguments now altogether wanting.
The passions of men and the numerical vastness of the race
plainly declare against universal collective ownership. In
the present system of individual ownership disputes are all
too common, in collective ownership quarrels would be mul-
tiplied a millionfold. Therefore, individual ownership is not
from nature in such a way that collective ownership is in
every conceivable case against nature. Positively common
ownership is not from nature at all, but from agreement sanc-
tioned by nature in particular instances, as in religious com-
munities or associations. Negatively common ownership is
from nature in such a way that denial of it in any particular
instance is against nature.
Nobody is bom an actual individual owner by virtue of
very birth, nobody is bom neither an actual nor a potential
individual owner. Everybody is born a potential individual
owner by virtue of very birth. Therefore actual individual
ownership is a prescription of nature in much the same way
as marriage; and, though Church and state may make laws
regulating marriage, they must not absolutely forbid mem-
COMMON AND INDIVIDUAL 251
bers or citizens to marry. Positively common ownership is
no more a prescription of nature than membership in a busi-
ness firm; negatively common ownership is a prescription
of nature in much the same way as desire of complete happi-
ness. Negatively common ownership is everybody's natural
right, absolutely inamissible, inalienable and beyond the reach
of human legislation, whether ecclesiastical or civil. Nega-
tively common ownership is practical potential individual
ownership, every practical potency involves future reduction
to actuality, and to unduly interfere with actual individual
ownership is to violate and attack nature.
Abstract ownership is another term for negatively com-
mon ownership, concrete ownership is another term for indi-
vidual ownership. Abstract ownership, then, is that natural
right inherent in all new-bom babes, whether they be of noble
or plebeian origin, to get and to hold as their own whatever
material goods of the earth they may in after-life legitimately
acquire. This abstract ownership becomes concrete at what-
ever particular moment the child or the man assumes towards
a material object some relation which justifies his claim to
its exclusive possession. It is a fact readily granted by all
that God presented to our race in the person of Adam the
territory of the universe with all its splendid blessings. The
earth with all its contents was made for Adam and his de-
scendants to the end of time. This gift was made to Adam
as to an individual, it was made to the rest of the race as it
then existed, viz., as to an abstraction, or to some actual non-
being. Adam was created not an individual or exclusive
owner of the earth and all its goods, but only a negatively
common owner. This abstract ownership he converted into
concrete ownership with the help of occupancy, and by his
own personal endeavor he became individual and exclusive
owner of such portions of the earth and its goods as he made
exclusively his own. Adam certainly began as an individual
owner, because there was nobody to share ownership with
him. God never settled unconditionally and unexceptionally
whether the descendants of Adam should be positively com-
mon or individual owners. He vested them with negatively
common ownership, left the future to natural reason, and
virtually decreed individual or exclusive ownership as the
252 SPECIAL ETHICS
system best suited to ordinary mortals after the fall and a
sufficiently widespread growth of the race.
Eve and her children by virtue of negatively common
ownership, their natural right, had full power to become in
the nature of things individual owners; but the union be-
tween husband, wife and children demanded by the family
persuaded them to be content with positively common owner-
ship, dependent on Adam's good pleasure. Even nowadays
nature counsels collective ownership in the family. When
husband and wife keep separate purses, peace in the family is
menaced, and mutual union is not what it ought to be. Even
nowadays nature counsels positively common ownership in
religious communities, in comparatively small gatherings of
spiritually minded men, banded together for purposes of
perfection along the lines of the gospel. And yet collective
ownership is not their natural inheritance in the same sense
as negatively common ownership ; and, while surrendering the
use of the right, they cannot 9,lienate or surrender the right
itself to become individual and exclusive owners. Adam,
Eve and their children were, therefore, to all intents and
purposes religious in the matter of ownership, with Adam
for superior or substitute for the others.
Had primitive innocence continued, had man's passion or
appetite for worldly goods remained forever subservient to
reason, the system might have persevered without change
and threatened small or no harm to moral order. But the
fall of man and consequent loss of primitive innocence made
individual ownership the one safe form of ownership for the
bulk of mankind. Adam, therefore, and all his descendants
began as negatively common owners. Adam changed this
negatively common to individual ownership with the help
of occupancy. Eve and her children changed it to positively
common ownership. When men grew numerous enough to
make individual ownership advisable, men changed negatively
common ownership to individual with the help of occupancy
and kindred titles, like accession or increment, contracts and
inheritance. Abraham and Lot possessed land in common
till a quarrel between their shepherds urged them to divide
their common holdings and live as individual owners or pro-
prietors. Abraham on at least two occasions purchased land
COMPACT AND LAW 253
from the Egyptians, showing that he respected the right to
individual ownership in his neighbors. History everywhere
bears witness to this ruling of nature in favor of individual
ownership, and at the present time no considerable body of
men, outside of religious orders, lives according to the tenets
of Communism or Socialism. Men like Fourier, 1772-1837,
Owen, 1771-1858, and Cabet, 1788-1856, have tried the thing,
and egregiously failed. Owen's New Harmony colony in In-
diana lasted two years ; Cabet 's Icaria Community in Illinois,
after repeated reverses between 1849 and 1895, entirely dis-
appeared in the latter year. Nature enters no protest against
collective ownership in the family, it enters no protest against
collective ow^nership in religion; but it very decidedly pro-
tests against collective ownership for the bulk of mankind
as constituted since the fall.
Formal Compact. Civil Law. Nature. The Socialists and
Communists, who despair of ever being able to prove that
their systems would be more replete with blessings for man-
kind than the system of individual ownership, now so uni-
versal, attack the justice of man's plea for the right to indi-
vidual ownership. For, be it remembered, we maintain that
no man can divest himself of his natural right to individual
ownership any more than he can divest himself of rational-
ity. He can so abuse his faculties as to lose the use of his
reason, but the use of reason and rationality or reason itself
are two things quite as distinct among themselves as the
builder and the house he builds, or the mind and the thought
it thinks. Even so, the religious who binds himself by sol-
emn vow to poverty, or to life without individual ownership
of anything, forever retains that right to individual owner-
ship. He goes down to the grave without ever enforcing the
right, but the right itself is as present and live in him as it
is in the richest landlord or capitalist. He cannot surrender
his right to individual ownership. He can and does sur-
render all desire to enforce that right. Man's right to indi-
vidual ownership is, therefore, so just that he cannot even
himself legitimately or otherwise deprive himself of it. It
is therefore an indispensable requisite of his nature and our
all-wise Maker did not so constitute vis that an element of
injustice should be absolutely and unavoidably inseparable
254
SPECIAL ETHICS
from our nature. If man's right to individual ownership
could fall back for foundation on only a formal compact, as
Heyne and Grote opine; or on civil laws, as Montesquieu,
Bentham and Hobbes groundlessly imagine, then indeed Henry
George and men of his stamp could question the justice or
injustice of that right, could examine the terms, and the
legality, and the reasonableness of that compact and those
civil laws. But, as we mean to show in our proofs, no such
supposition is tenable.
DIVISION
Three Parts — I, II, III. Not Compact, Not Law, But Nature
PROOFS
I. Whatever is asserted without proof, can likewise be de-
nied without proof. But this first theory advances no proof
of the fact that an agreement or covenant respecting indi-
vidual ownership was once entered into. Therefore, this first
theory is simply denied.
With Regard to the Minor: 1°. History, that is most an?
cient and authoritative, bears witness to the contrary fact,
viz., that, before any agreement was ever entered into, man
recognized within himself and applied the right to individual
ownership with which he was bom. History, both ancient
and modem, is authority for the fact that bodies of men and
women, like the primitive Christians and the religious orders,
have by a formal compact agreed to relinquish the use of
this right, without of course being in the least degree capable
of shaking off the right itself. Unlike the propounders of
the false theory here refuted, we have ancient historical re-
mains, such as monuments and tablets, to which we can refer.
The book of Genesis, written by Moses, the most ancient and
best authenticated history written, no matter what scoffers
say to the contrary, carries the question back twenty cen-
turies before Christ and plainly indicates that in the time of
Abraham the right to individual ownership was enforced and
respected. On two separate occasions at least Abraham buys
pieces of land: once for a family burial-plot, again for a
camping ground. Gen. 23-6, 8, 9, 11, 14, 18, 20; 33-19.
PROOFS 255
With the Egyptians, whose history is among the earliest re-
corded, Joseph is said to have purchased in time of famine
all the land of the people. Monuments have been discovered
and are now visible in the museums of Europe, on which are
traced distinct and unequivocal records of business transac-
tions in property, which would be wholly meaningless if in-
dividual ownership were not recognized. One of these monu-
ments, that of King Senefra, dates its origin from a period
ten or twelve centuries in advance of that of Abraham.
2°. Another argument might be drawn from the fact that
community of goods, as our opponents themselves confess,
would never have been necessary if men had not been bom
with the same dispositions for virtue and innocence, and that
exclusive individual ownership necessarily resulted from dif-
ferences of disposition in this matter. But it is a fact wit-
nessed to by the wise and the ignorant alike that man was
created on a plan of perfectibility, and that, even if Adam
had prolonged to his descendants the reign of primitive inno-
cence, there would still have prevailed among them degrees
of virtue and perfection. 3°. Besides, if community of
goods were natural, and exclusive ownership unnatural, the
savages roaming the plains and living from hand to mouth
would be men more according to God's mind than the in-
habitants of cities with all their wisdom and knowledge.
4°. The philosophers opposed to us would deplore com-
munism as a machine of the devil. But communism is the
legitimate outcome of any system that makes man's right to
individual ownership depend on human agreement or civil
law. For human agreement and civil law admit of change,
even when the change is actually from better to worse.
II. No effect can be ascribed to any cause of a perfection
inferior to its own. But individual ownership is a universal
custom of universal duration among men. It cannot, there-
fore, be referred, as to a cause, to so inconstant .and so re-
stricted a factor as civil law. Besides, individuals in society,
to create exclusive ownership by civil law, must have had
before such a proceeding exclusive rights to the goods and
parcels of land deeded over. Otherwise, the whole proceed-
ing was illegal and unjust, as the parties engaged in it dis-
posed of that which did not belong to them. Right of juris-
256 SPECIAL ETHICS
diction could never create the right, because jurisdiction
touches the obedience of subjects, not their property. Even
nowadays when through some legal scheming a rightful owner
is ousted from his property, do fair-minded people for a mo-
ment imagine that the schemer assumes or puts on a right to
the ill-gotten goods? Does the schemer himself fancy that
before God and conscience the theft is justified? By no
means. But were civil law the cause of man's right to ex-
clusive ownership, the opinions of the fair-minded in the
supposed instance would be empty imaginings without any
foundation in fact, the stings of conscience would be unneces-
sary pain, self-inflicted, without any assignable cause or rea-
son. If law could once change positive common to exclusive
ownership, law can now change exclusive ownership to posi-
tive common.
III. Man is bom to live an allotted time and work out an
allotted destiny, and his Maker has furnished him with nat-
ural rights to whatever is needful for that existence and for
the attainment of that destiny. But individual ownership
is a means necessary to that existence. Therefore man's
Maker has furnished him with a natural right to individual
ownership, and this individual ownership extends itself to
temporary and lasting objects.
With Regard to the Major: E very-day experience is proof
of the first member, conclusive enough to convince the most
sceptical. The absurdity of conceiving man alone, creation's
noblest work, placed here to no intended purpose, while
everything around him works unto an end, is indeed over-
whelming. The prudence and justice of his Maker would
render it absolutely impossible to fancy man bereft of means
necessary to the attainment of his end.
With Regard to the Minor: To foster existence, it is a
requisite that man be solicitous about procuring what beseems
life. But by very nature man's solicitude is but feebly or
not at all aroused save in the search for things that belong
to himself alone, that cannot be claimed or appropriated by
others. Life without peace would be without joy and would
be even impossible. But deprive men of the right to indi-
vidual ownership, and life would be a warfare, a struggle for
existence in the truest and strictest sense of the word, peace
INDIVIDUAL AND NATURE 257
would flee the earth. There are innumerable other arguments
applicable here, but all will suggest themselves to the enquir-
ing mind. I would only note the following. Use or tran-
sient dominion is certainly a natural right. It must be plain
to all that this right is little worth, unless, for instance, the
farmer can raise his crop without fear that a stranger may
come in the harvest-time and appropriate his sowing. The
sculptor will be little tempted to ply his art, unless secure
in the possession of the block of marble on which he works.
Laziness, and hunger, and death, are in sure prospect when
any chance-comer may with impunity lay hands on the prod-
ucts of the industrious. There will be nothing in store to
tide the laborer over the darksome days of sickness and old
age. His young family will perish before it reaches ma-
turity. Charity and bigness of heart in the dispensation of
goods will be utter strangers to earth. Add to all this the
fact that the lie would be given to the sentiments and opin-
ions of our fathers and forefathers, who all strenuously main-
tained that the right to exclusive ownership of property is
inherent in man, and as much a part of man as his nature.
PRINCIPLES
A. In case of extreme need the baker loses his right to
individual ownership of part of the bread in his shop. This
circumstance is due to a phenomenon in question of rights,
which has its parallel in that of physical forces. In the mat-
ter of physical forces the weaker by a kind of inherent neces-
sity yields to a stronger force. Even so, in rights, which are
moral forces, the stronger always takes precedence of the
weaker right. But one sort of force never intrenches on the
domain of the other. Thus, the strongest imaginable phys-
ical force can never obtain legal mastery over the weakest
imaginable moral force or right. Necessity or indispensable-
ness of the means involved is always the measure of dignity
attached to a right. Four kinds of necessity are recognized
in the order following: absolute, extreme, serious, common-
place. A divine right demands the sacrifice of a human right.
The right of a natural society or state, when all the condi-
258 SPECIAL ETHICS
tions are the same, demands the sacrifice of a right belonging
to an individual of that natural society or state.
B. The acknowledgment of right to individual ownership
is the innocent and accidental occasion of many quarrels and
disputes. But such quarrels or disputes are rather the out-
come of perverse natures, and with a small amount of com-
mon sense can be avoided. But in community of goods
quarrels and disputes would constitute the essential and un-
avoidable order of the day.
C. The community of goods in use with the apostles, primi-
tive Christians, and religious orders is no denial of the right
to individual ownership, but a voluntary and meritorious
cession of the practical advantages ordinarily attendant on
the application of that right.
D. Civil law surrounds with all possible safeguards the
citizen's privileges accruing to him from the natural right
to individual ownership, and takes all possible means to
ensure harmony and order among claimants; but civil law
by no means creates the right to individual ownership. In
all its enactments it supposes the right itself already pos-
E. Absolutely speaking, it would of course be quite pos-
sible for an individual to come into the possession of a whole
continent; but relatively speaking, i.e., taking all circum-
stances into account, such possession would be utterly im-
possible. In Moral Philosophy, as elsewhere remarked, be-
cause it is an eminently practical science, circumstances can-
not in justice be neglected. Therefore, it is enough to re-
mark, as answer to this seemingly formidable objection, that
individual ownership of a whole continent is entirely out of
the question. God's ownership forbids that the race be
pushed into the sea.
F. Abstract ownership is a natural right emanating from
God, and independent of all civil law. Concrete ownership
is natural in foundation, strictly human because of occu-
pancy, and dependent on civil law in its application. Law
cannot in general forbid concrete ownership; but it can pre-
scribe methods and limits, to safeguard the common good.
Occupancy is more than a mere condition in question of con-
crete ownership; it is proximate cause or title. The expres-
PRINCIPLES 259
sion, this is mine because I made it my own, is proof of
occupancy's causality. No danger from Socialism attaches
to this concession, because the natural right, or abstract right
of ownership, always stands; and this bases concrete owner-
ship. Law will enforce right when formalities are observed,
not otherwise. Right may be present, State will refuse to
recognize ; and all that to further the interests of peace and
prosperity. Law never creates or causes the right unless
the state is prior owner; it safeguards right already present.
It assists the obedient, refuses to assist the disobedient; and
these latter must prosecute their right without help from the
law.
G. In spite of individual ownership the use of things re-
mains always in a measure common. Concrete ownership is
a human right. Divine law ordains that the goods of earth
contribute to the support of all mankind. In extreme need
human right must yield to divine law, and in this emergency
all goods become common, to rescue the needy from destruc-
tion. In the same way the rich are obliged in charity, though
not in justice, to relieve the needy poor with their superfluous
wealth. The poor cannot appeal to this principle as to an
excuse for lawlessly plundering the rich. The duty of the
rich has its origin in charity, not in justice. Rights and
duties in question of justice turn on determined persons and
definite matter, not in question of charity. All the needy
cannot be relieved; and, therefore, the rich are at liberty to
make a judicious selection. Besides, superfluous goods can-
not be determined by any hard and fast rule, and everjrthing
is left to the prudent charity of the wealthy owner.
H. Religious never divest themselves of the right to owner-
ship, but of its exercise.
I. The right to use is basis of the right to own, and yet
individual ownership seems to destroy the right to use. It
destroys in others the right to use, and that is no contradic-
tion.
J. By nature all things are common in negative, not in
positive sense.
THESIS V
Socialism is false in its principles^ morally impossible in
itself, and quite absurd. Cathrein, 283-303.
QUESTION
Karl Marx (1818-1883), is the acknowledged founder of
present-day Socialism, the species called democratic; and his
work on Capital can be taken for a fair exposition of its
tenets. It condemns the present condition of society as de-
plorable and unjust. It is deplorable, because in business
everybody does as he likes, trusts capture the wealth of the
world, capital practically destroys competition, and mankind
goes into two armies, the classes and the masses, captains of
industry and the proletariat, or capitalists and slaves to cap-
italists. It is unjust, because capital enriches itself by taking
unfair advantage of labor, monopolizing such channels of
wealth as land, factories, mines, railways, and seizing every
opportunity to rob the masses of the fruit of their labor.
Marx sees in every product of labor a twofold value: its
use value, and its exchange value. A coat's use value is
fixed by its physical and chemical properties, which deter-
mine its usefulness as an article of wearing apparel. Its
exchange value depends on the amount of money it is worth
in the market, and is always in excess of its use value. This
excess it gets from the workman's labor, which is represented
by the difference between the cost of raw material and the
selling price. In much the same way, the tailor's labor has a
twofold value ; one, use value ; the other, exchange value. Its
exchange value is the wages he gets from his employer, its
use value is its exchange value along with the profit accruing
from such labor to his employer. Suppose a tailor makes
a suit of clothes a day. Suppose the suit worth twenty dol-
lars, the raw material five, and the tailor's wages five. The
cloth's use value will be five. In this way the use value of
260
SOCIALISM 261
the tailor's labor, added to the use value of the cloth, gives
the market price of the suit, and the excess of use value over
exchange value in the tailor's labor represents the employer's
profit. This excess of ten dollars the Socialist styles capital,
and in his eyes the whole process of commercial profit is a
species of robbery. But he is blind to the fact that the em-
ployer has a sacred right to wages as well as the tailor, and
it is not at all exorbitant to rate what he contributes to the
suit of clothes in the way of skill, management, rent and
what not, twice as valuable as what the tailor contributes.
And this continues true, if the employer be an out and out
capitalist, contributing nothing to the industry but his money.
For great mental effort was expended somewhere in the
accumulation of this money, and such effort deserves a re-
ward or wages. The capital invested stands for the work
expended in its accumulation. Certainly the employer ought
not be allowed to oppress his workmen, or keep their pay
down to starvation limits. But that is an affair labor itself
must regulate by organization and by appeals to the state
when necessary. And all appearance of dishonesty must be
avoided, no crime against the natural right of property must
be committed in the process, and the wrongs of the poor must
be righted without despoiling the rich of that capital, which
is as much theirs as the dinner the workman eats is his.
In spite of what Socialists preach to the contrary, society
is not going to right itself by the commission of another
colossal wrong. Religion is the God-appointed remedy for
this evil, and for whatever other evils afflict mankind. The
evolution to which Socialism looks for relief is progress back-
wards, and would, if realized, land labor in infinitely worse
conditions than it now knows. Socialists see in the gradual
diminution of conspicuous capitalists a hasty advance towards
the time when the poor, far outnumbering the rich, will in
sheer disgust confiscate the goods of the wealthy, and in-
augurate a new era of universal prosperity. The world, they
think, will undergo a complete revolution in the matter of
morality, religion and civil government. God will be de-
throned in the universe, religion will be beaten down, indi-
viduals will be kings, every man will be his own law, passion
will usurp the place of reason, and the world will go its
262 SPECIAL ETHICS
own way to perdition. By a most pernicious and offensive
propaganda they are getting men's minds and hearts ready
for the change. They are preaching atheism everywhere.
Fear of God is a check to their iniquitous progress, and this
fear must be proved a fiction. The old doctrine of Heaven
and hell teaches patience, and impatience with their lot can
alone goad the poor to excesses. Conscience, with its an-
tiquated standard of morality, bars spoliation of the wealthy ;
and conscience must be taught that self-advantage is the first
law of nature. The Church is in league with capital to
enslave the masses, it is the paid agent of capital, advocating
for a pecuniary reward the need of obedience to authority,
and encouraging laziness in its ministers, fattening on the
credulity of the poor. The State, as at present constituted,
is a foe to labor, and capital's most steadfast ally. Govern-
ment, therefore, must be overthrown, and on its ruins the
socialistic commonwealth of pure democracy must arise. Free
love, community of wives, and all their attendant abomina-
tions must not only be tolerated, but encouraged ; family life
must be forever obliterated; children must be reared by the
state, much as ranchmen raise their cattle on the plains.
These are some of the flattering inducements they hold out
to their followers, and the wonder is that their ranks are
not more crowded than they are.
Socialists regularly and persistently deny that their sys-
tem contends for any of the degenerate practices just enumer-
ated; but the writings of their leaders give the lie to every
such protestation of innocence. They are shrewd dissem-
blers; and, where the truth about their theory would hurt
the cause, policy urges them to hide its base consequences,
and clamor aloud that their one holy purpose is to raise up
prostrate labor, and better the condition of the working
classes. But accurate quotations from recognized authori-
ties on socialism bear honest witness to their true purpose;
and we mean, before we finish, to gather a short but startling
array of such quotations. Fortunately for the truth, social-
ism is its own worst accuser, and its own propagators voice
its severest condemnation. These are necessary, logical con-
sequences. Fanatics among them are alone logical. Moderate
socialists are not true socialists.
EVOLUTION AND PROPAGANDA 263
The central feature of the whole system is the abolition of
individual ownership in capital. Collective ownership vested
in the Socialistic Commonwealth will constitute the new order
of things. This commonwealth will be radically democratic,
a return to the days of Demosthenes, when Athens met in the
agora to frame laws, elect officials, and settle weighty affairs
of state. It will assume complete control and ownership of
such sources of revenue as land, houses, machinery, manufac-
tures, mines and railways. Municipal ownership is only a
step towards the realization of their plans, and advanced
socialists are far from satisfied with this settlement of the
question. They complain that municipal ownership merely
shifts the trouble without removing it root and branch, be-
cause government in this event turns capitalist ; and it makes
small difference to labor whether public officials or private
citizens prey upon its profits. In this commonwealth all
magistrates, without a single exception, will be immediately
elected by the people, directly responsible to the people, and
subject to the sharpest kind of scrutiny at the hands of the
people. They will be labor's paid servants, not its lords and
masters. Privileges will be dead, all will be on a level, every
citizen will be on an equal footing with his neighbor. Suf-
frage will be universal, officials will be closely watched, the
common people will frame laws, sentence offenders, and exe-
cute judgment; and government will resolve itself into a
vast trading concern, with every individual citizen an active
partner in the business. Men of special parts will be selected
to regulate the manufacture and distribution of products.
The proceeds of labor down to the last penny will find their
way into the laborer's pocket, and overproduction as well as
scarcity will be a thing of the past. Officials will assign to
each member of the commonwealth his own proper share and
his own fixed kind of labor. Nobody will be allowed to cul-
tivate idleness or enjoy superfluous ease. Eights and duties
will be distributed with an even hand. There will be no
merchants, no buyers and sellers. Goods will be stored in
public depots to be distributed among the people in shares
determined by individual industry. In lieu of money, pay-
checks will be issued, entitling holders to fixed portions of the
common products. Transient ownership will stand inviolate,
264 SPECIAL ETHICS
and nobody will have a right to interfere with the neighboPs
use and management of whatever articles of consumption he
justly makes his own. Then follow in funereal order a long
line of logical and fatal consequences.
There will be no God, no religion, no Church, no priests.
There will be no family. Instead of marrying, men and
women will mate for a short or long season, like the beasts of
the field and birds of the air. Children will not know their
fathers, and soon after their birth will be handed over to the
commonwealth by their mothers, to be reared and educated
at the government's expense. Divorce will disappear from
the statute-books, when free love is made the uniform prac-
tice. Women will be on a footing with men, and work side
by side with them in every department of industry. The
time mothers hitherto wasted raising a family will be merci-
fully saved to labor by the establishment of state-farms for
the upbringing of the young.
DIVISION
Two Parts — I, II
I. False in principles.
II. Impossible and absurd.
PROOFS
Its three chief principles are, *' the theory of values; ^' the
equality of men; ^' materialistic evolution.
a. Socialists contend that labor gives whatever article of
trade its true worth. In other words, they exaggerate labor's
exchange value at the expense of the article's use value. In
other words, the higher the price of a thing, the higher the
wages for making it. But it can readily be shown that mer-
chandise is quite as dependent for worth on its use value as
on labor's exchange value. A thing's physical and chemical
properties have quite as much to do with its price as the
labor expended in its manufacture. The labor being the
same, wine from one vineyard can be worth a hundred times
as much as wine from another vineyard. Labor need have
THEORY OF VALUES 265
nothing to do with the difference of value in two fields.
Wood, wheat, precious stones, in many cases derive their value
from natural causes, antecedent to all human endeavor. La-
bor, of course, contributes to a thing's worth ; but oftener than
not its use value, its substance, is the weightier factor in de-
termining price. The exchange value of a workman's labor
is not measured by what it takes to support him, but by his
strength, skill, energy and experience as well. The operative
and the manager can equally well live on five dollars a day,
but while the operative ought to be in justice content with
five, the manager has a perfect right to demand ten. And
in the adjustment of wages, the world of sensible labor will
never be led astray by the senseless theories of socialists.
b. All this socialistic talk about man's equality with man
is noxious nonsense; and to nobody is the folly of the thing
better known than to socialist orators themselves. As a mat-
ter of fact, they reckon themselves leaders, and are not slow
to insist on their superiority. They are prophets among the
people, and dumb compliance with their wishes is first requi-
site for initiation into their company. Men are equal in the
abstract, in the possession of human nature with its con-
stituent elements; in the concrete, in accidental accomplish-
ments, men are as far removed from equality as the remotest
star from our earth. Fathers and mothers are above their
children, rulers are above their subjects, where money counts
the rich are vastly superior to the poor, and in the realms
of art a consummate painter or sculptor is hardly on a level
with a practical farmer or a man of toil. And socialism can
try till doomsday, it will never succeed in eliminating these
accidental differences among men. They would persevere in
the impossible event of Socialism's establishment, because God
wants them, and God 's wishes cannot be frustrated.
c. The materialistic evolution of socialism is but a con-
ceited aping of what is going on in the scientific world, and
what one must expect when ill-trained minds of Shakespeare 's
mechanicals dabble in philosophy and theology. The pan-
theism of Hegel, the materialism of Darwin, now occupy the
middle of the stage, and the attention they are getting is a
necessary evil. They will die eventually, as all previous
errors died; but in the process of their killing they cannot
266 SPECIAL ETHICS
but be prominent. On the day of his hanging the condemned
criminal gets a whole page in the newspaper, while an hon-
ored President meets with the scantest notice. Socialism,
to be abreast of the times, casts its lot with modern thinkers,
and sees in its establishment the consummation of evolution.
Unable to see in man anything higher than mere matter, so-
cialists profess to think him hopelessly subject to material
forces and economic environment. To know the political
economy of an age in history, is to know its religion, its trend
of thought, and its civilization. Christianity was accordingly
due to the economic notions prevalent in Christ's time;
Protestantism started up in obedience to economic changes
in human affairs; and Socialism, without any effort on its
part, is bound to be the reigning style in the immediate fu-
ture. Everything points to its swift inauguration. Religion
is fast losing its hold on the minds of men, morality is mak-
ing unto itself other standards, trusts are crushing competi-
tion, absorbing the wealth of the world, centralizing resources,
and cutting down the number of enormously rich men to won-
derfully small limits. Machinery is crowding labor out of
the market, obliterating the middle class of thrifty workmen,
and making wider the line of division between the rich and
the poor. Discontent is growing among the masses, and the
hour is not far distant when this discontent will make itself
felt, when the people will rise in revolt, and the common-
wealth will complete the work of centralization begun by the
trusts, and vest all ownership of capital in the people.
But man is not the weather, to be determined by physical
and material forces. He has an intelligent mind and a free
will, both spiritual, immortal, and in last analysis quite inde-
pendent of matter. He is his own master, maps out his own
conduct; and, though subject to temporary aberrations from
mental and moral straightness, he generally hits the truth,
and at least approves of what is right. He is the creature of
his environment, but never its unwilling slave. The preju-
dices current in this or that age of the world deeply affected
successive generations of men, but there were always enough
honest men in the world to keep the heritage of truth safe
from lasting harm, and help it to ultimate victory. Man's
mind was made for the truth, and, though its native imperf ec-
MATERIALISTIC EVOLUTION 267
tion lays it open to the danger of going wrong at scattered
intervals, in the main it steers a straight course, and, acci-
dents aside, it invariably finishes where God would have it
finish in moral knowledge. If all rivers ran upward, if stones
in the air continued to ascend instead of falling to the ground,
it would be less a miracle than the altogether unnatural en-
slavement of any large collection of minds to moral error.
What is in a measure true of even scientific judgments, where
passion, prejudice and education play so conspicuous a part,
becomes absolutely true in question of ethical judgments,
based as they are on human nature, and making mute appeal
to the God of nature for a share in His own infallibility.
Mind is spiritual energy, it does only partial allegiance to
matter, and under ordinary circumstances its testimony is
unerring in religion, morality and topics with a bearing on
these momentous questions. Political economy had little or
nothing to do with the growth of Christianity. Christianity
swept the world because its principles are true and stand for
the right. It grows, and it must grow till the end of time,
because its tenets are as indestructible as the truth, on which
they are based. Protestantism is wrong; and, not political
economy, but the perverseness of men's hearts is its explana-
tion. Its baneful influence was most severely felt in sections
of the world where morality was lowest and men's aspirations
were grossest. Its first recruits were degenerate priests and
nuns, men and women impatient of virtue's restraint; and
while its gospel of self-indulgence attracts meaner characters
of the sort, its inborn wickedness urges honest and heroic
souls to supreme disgust. It is gradually disappearing from
the face of the earth, and it is to-day but a mocking
shadow of what it was in its origin. In this twentieth cen-
tury the line of division between Protestantism and paganism
is hardly discernible, and it threatens before the century is
over to altogether vanish. Individual ownership, rooted in
nature, is championed by Christianity, and stands or falls
with its supremacy in the world. Collective ownership is as
false as Protestantism, and must share its fate. It may hold
men's attention for a long or short period of time, it may
make conquests in this or that corner of the world; but it
can never hope to prove lasting or compass universality. To
268 SPECIAL ETHICS
become socialistic, the world must repudiate nature, Grod,
religion, morality; and that catastrophe can never befall the
race.
II. False in principles, socialism is morally impossible in
itself and quite absurd. Bare mention of the insoluble prob-
lems attaching to the scheme, must satisfy the most incredu-
lous about socialism's impossibility as a system. Hard and
fast lines would have to be drawn between articles of consump-
tion and articles of production; and the wisdom of Solomon
would scarcely suffice for the task. To avoid waste, the
quantity and quality of needed products would have to be
fixed with some degree of exactness; and the world would
hardly contain paper enough for lists. To make wise ap-
pointments, the commonwealth would have to get into the
closest kind of touch with the inclinations and abilities of its
citizens. Change of residence or employment would be out
of the question, and men would be as much permanent fix-
tures as houses or fences. And yet men are not going to lose
their love for travel. Some climates, some situations, some
skies will always be more appealing than others. Home will
be without meaning when house and land are property of the
state. Distribution of duties will be a ridiculously wide field
for discontent. If everything is left to the free choice of
the citizens, there will be a rush for easy and pleasant places.
Nobody will want employment of a hard, humble, unhealthy
nature. If citizens have no choice in the matter, no more
degraded form of slavery can well be conceived. In any
event it will be a colossal undertaking to single out the milk-
men and miners, factory-hands and farmers, cooks and street-
sweepers, nurses and doctors, lawyers and policemen. In-
centive to industry will be wanting. Inventive genius will
not be cultivated, when the profit accruing from new ma-
chinery goes, not to the inventor, but to the people at large.
There will be no equality of rights, if some certain men pur-
sue the professions like law, medicine, education; and there
will be no professions, unless some certain men pursue them.
Professions and trades call for years of training, study and
patient exercise; and, if no corresponding reward attaches to
this excess of labor, men devoting themselves to the trades
and professions will be models of unselfishness. If such re-
IMPOSSIBLE SYSTEM 269
wards are meted out, class distinctions will be inevitable, and
the commonwealth will be divided into rich and poor, edu-
cated and uneducated, gentle and plebeian, men of brains
and men of toil. According to whatever standard products
are distributed, innumerable difficulties will arise. If num-
ber of heads is the standard, it will be unfair to make no
difference between the industrious and lazy, skilled and un-
skilled, the strong and the weak. If hours of work are the
standard, an active workman will produce in a given time
twice as much as a lazy workman, and can well be dissatis-
fied if his reward is the same. If excellence of work is the
standard, it will be practically impossible to measure the
different degrees in occupations like medicine, law, education,
agriculture. If activity is the standard, every workman will
have to be under the constant supervision of a dozen or more
watchers and measurers. If need is the standard, a whole
army of judges will scarcely suffice to determine the peculiar
needs of each individual in the commonwealth. With no
motive for energetic endeavor, men would discharge their du-
ties in the most perfunctory manner. There would be no
family to care for, no provision to make for rainy days.
While young and strong, the necessaries of life would be
men's daily wages. When old and infirm, their existence
would be, to say the least, precarious. Socialists must, be-
sides, have unlimited faith in human nature, when they sup-
pose that officials will measure up to requirements in the
matter of prudence, wisdom and honesty; that they will be
immune from selfishness, satisfied with their pay, wholly in-
tent on the common good. They credit the common people
with no smaller virtue, when they suppose that subjects will
dutifully hang on the nod of superiors, experience no pang
of greed, and contentedly pass their lives in hard and humble
avocations with a view to furthering common prosperity. In
Christian communities, where such virtue is promised a sur-
passing reward, where the opposite vices are threatened with
dire disaster, saints of the sort are few and far between, rare
enough spectacles to excite comment and wonder.
Absurd, because unworkable — To be a system, it must be
workable. Ergo workable and unworkable.
Scholion — Agrarian or Land Socialism.
270 SPECIAL ETHICS
Henry George, who died in 1897, advocated a modified
form of socialism. He wants the state to become owner of
such immovable property as land, fields, forests, mines and
houses. His followers are styled Land Socialists or Single
Taxers. The arguments they employ are nothing worth. In
the main they rest their case on these six.
1. History is witness that collective ownership of land orig-
inally prevailed everywhere, till violence and fraud substi-
tuted the present system of individual ownership.
2. Labor is the single title to individual ownership, and
labor cannot produce land.
3. Without collective ownership of land nobody can appro-
priate to his own use the produce of his labor.
4. Equal right to live postulates equal right to land.
5. The first to enter a theatre has no right to debar later
arrivals from sittings.
6. Land owners absorb an undue proportion of the world's
wealth — ^unearned increment.
Answers: 1. History bears opposite witness; and we can
appeal to the Hebrews, Assyrians, Egyptians and Chinese, in
whose early records no trace of collective ownership in land
can be found. Whatever may be the truth regarding early
ages, it is certain that civilization stands for individual own-
ership.
2. This second argument proves too much, and applies as
well to movable as to immovable goods. The labor being the
same, statues of gold, marble and wood, are of different val-
ues. The sculptor's trade would be worthless, unless he
owned the material, in which he worked.
3. A man has no right to the produce of a farm, unless the
farm belongs to him; but he has a right to wages for the
labor exerted in cultivating another's farm.
4. Ownership of land is no requisite for support. Mer-
chants traffic in crops, and make a comfortable living without
owning a square inch of ground.
5. The first to enter has a right to debar others from his
seat, without preventing others from taking such seats as are
empty.
6. These are the equations he uses to prove the undue in-
HENRY GEORGE 271
crease of rent, the unearned increment: Crop = rent plus
wages plus interest. Ergo, crop minus rent = wages plus in-
terest. The higher the rent goes, the lower wages and interest
fall ; and the lower the interest, the smaller becomes the crop 's
value. He seems to forget that if the crop grows in value
as the rent rises, the wages and interest will remain the same,
and that a lower rate of interest on a larger principal is
equivalent to a high rate of interest on a smaller principal.
Five loaves distributed among five men are better than ten
loaves distributed among twenty. Similarly, five per cent,
of five hundred is greater than ten per cent, of one hundred.
Finally, Land Socialism is morally impossible. All land
cannot become the state's exclusive property. Three possible
methods of public ownership in land suggest themselves.
1. The state can hold all land as proprietor, and hire men
to work it.
2. The state can hold all land, and rent it to tenants.
3. The state can leave individual owners in possession, and
exact the equivalent of rent as taxes.
Answer: 1. The first method is condemned by George him-
self. It would destroy agriculture, encourage idleness in
workmen, spoil the land and do away with the whole class of
honest farmers, who cling to homesteads and their clustering
traditions.
2. The second method would prove no less destructive. No-
body would improve the land on account of uncertain tenure,
the soil would be worked to death for large profits within lim-
ited periods. No ditches would be dug, no marshes would be
drained, rotation of crops would be neglected, no foresight
would be used, no expense with an eye to the future would be
undergone, and in short order the land would become a
barren waste.
3. The third method commends itself to George. He would
leave the farmers in possession, and exact from them as taxes
that portion of the crop equivalent to rent, making some small
allowance from same as incentive to make improvements, bet-
ter the condition of the land and erect necessary buildings.
He thinks that this one source of revenue would meet all the
necessary expenses of the government, and would impose no
other tribute. Hence his system gets the name of Single
272 SPECIAL ETHICS
Tax. First of all, it would be difficult to say what propor-
tion of the crop would equal rent; what, wages; and what,
interest. If a small bonus were offered farmers, they would
grow lazy ; if a large bonus were offered, it is hard to see how
other taxes could be dispensed with. What has been said of
farms can with some unimportant changes be said of real
estate in the shape of city sites and residences.
PRINCIPLES
A. Some Quotations: ''Archbishop Corrigan and Bishop
Qtiigley alike charge Socialism with hostility to religion.
These charges are unqualifiedly false, and we challenge their
authors to quote one phrase from our party platform, that
would in any way tend to support their accusations. They
cannot do it, for Socialism has no concern with religion."
—The Worker, Mar. 16, 1902.
Answer: Socialism is not to be gotten from the platform
of a party in New York; but from the writings of its recog-
nized leaders and exponents. Socialism is international and
was never meant to be sectional. Therefore it ought to be
the same all over the world ; and, if the New Yorkers above
quoted want to be considered good Socialists, they must change
their manner of talk.
* * There is no such thing as European Socialism or American
Socialism. There is only one kind of Socialism the world
over, International Socialism."
— Haverhill, Social Democrat, July 20, 1901.
Now let us hear how Socialists the world over talk about
religion :
"The possession of the means of livelihood gives to the
capitalists the control of the government, the press, the pul-
pit, and the schools, and enables them to reduce the working-
men to a state of intellectual, physical and social inferiority,
political subservience and virtual slavery." — Socialist Plat-
form.
'* Christianity to-day stands for what is lowest and basest
in life. Official religion and militarism are the two guardians
of capitalism, and the subtle methods of the church in de-
stroying the manhood of the soul and keeping it servile are
QUOTATIONS 273
infinitely more to be dreaded by the socialist movement than
the world *8 standing armies." George D. Herron, in Ad-
vance.
''How has the ruling class established this control over
its members and its slaves ? In three ways, through religion,
through public opinion, and through the law, with its judges
and soldiers. Religion is perhaps the most powerful of these
means of maintaining class society, by inducing the members
of the subject class to act contrary to their interests and in
accordance with that of their masters. Christianity is the
most effective of all. It has operated primarily by the offer
of rewards in Heaven and the threat of punishment in hell.''
—The People, New York, Feb. 18, 1900.
** Christianity is a huge and ghastly parasite, consuming
billions of treasure out of the labor and the patience of the
people, and is supremely interested in keeping the people in
economic and spiritual subjection to capitalism. The spir-
itual deliverance of the race depends on its escape from this
parasite. The world must be saved from its salvations." —
George D. Herron, in Worker, New York, Nov. 10, 1901.
''The truth is, as all thinking men are aware, we have no
such thing as intellectual honesty in the sphere of religion.
The deity men pray to and exhibit in theology is not a moral
being. If ever in the history of the world any human in-
stitution was completely and finally discredited, it is the reli-
gious institution, whose putrid and decaying carcass here at
the beginning of the twentieth century menaces the life of
men." — William Thurston Brown of Rochester, in Socialistic
Spirit, June, 1902.
"The Church is one of the pillars of capitalism, and the
true function of the clergy is to chloroform the workers, to
make docile wage-slaves of them, patient and contented with
their lot in this world while expecting a glorious reward in
the next. — Henry Quelch, in the Social Democrat, March 15,
1903.
"Christianity is an enemy of liberty and of civilization.
It has kept mankind in slavery and oppression. The Church
and State have always fraternally united to exploit the peo-
ple. Christianity and Socialism are like fire and water." —
Bebel, 1901,
274 SPECIAL ETHICS
No Christianity:
**One word on that singular hybrid, the Christian Social-
ist. The association of Christianity with any form of So-
cialism is a mystery, rivaling the mysterious combination of
ethical and other contradictions in the Christian divinity Him-
self/'— Bax, in ''Ethics of Socialism."
* ' The terrible condition of our poor is due to the two curses
of our country and time. These two curses are Capitalism
and Christianity." — Dr. Averling, in To-day. Free-love hus-
band of Karl Marx's daughter. Suicide.
''That familiar fallacy, the ethics of Christianity and So-
cialism are identical. It is not true; we do not ourselves
in most cases believe it. We repeat it, because it appeals to
the slave-mind of the world. There is no wrong, however ter-
rible, which has not been justified by Christianity, no move-
ment for human liberty which has not been opposed by it. —
The Comrade, N. Y., May, 1903.
Atheism :
"And while all of us are thus indifferent to the Church,
many of us are frankly hostile to her. Marx, Lassalle and
Engels, among earlier socialists; Morris, Bax, Hyndman,
Guesde, and Bebel, among present-day Socialists, all are more
or less avowed atheists ; and what is true of the more notable
men of the party is almost equally true of the rank and file
the world over." — James Leatham, in "Socialism and Char-
acter. ' '
"Marx was an avowed atheist." — Dr. Averling, in "Charles
Darwin and Karl Marx."
"Religion is a fantastic degradation of human nature." —
Karl Marx.
"In politics, the republic; in economy socialism; in reli-
gion, atheism. ' ' — Bebel.
"As the religion of slave industry was Paganism; as the
religion of serfage was Catholic Christianity or Sacerdotal-
ism; as the religion of Capitalism is Protestant Christianity
or Biblical Dogma; so the religion of collective and coopera-
tive industry is Humanism, which is only another name for
Socialism." — Bax, in the "Modem Revolution," p. 81.
' ' The idea of God is the keystone of perverted civilization ;
the true root of civilization, the true root of liberty, of equal-
QUOTATIONS 275
ity, of culture, is atheism.'' — Karl Marx, in ''Secret Society
in Switzerland."
No divinity of Christ :
''Can we keep a picture of Christ in our Socialist head-
quarters? It can stay, but the picture should be without a
halo, and should have the words beneath it : To Christ, who
was a man and a martyr to the principle of brotherhood
among men." — Oddino Morgari, Turin.
Science and Religion:
' ' Science and religion are in inverse ratio to each other ; the
one diminishes and grows weaker in the same proportion that
the other increases and grows stronger in its struggle against
the unknown." "Under the influence of scientific culture re-
ligious convictions will perish by atrophy. ' ' — Enrico Ferri.
Free-will and Determinism:
"It is not the conscious mind of man that determines the
form of his being, but, vice versa, the social form of his being
determines the conscious actions of his mind." — Karl Marx,
in "Critique of Political Economy."
Morality without religion:
"We bring back ethics from the clouds. Morals being
purely secular in origin and purpose should be kept free from
all contact with religion." — Spargo, in "Where we Stand,"
p. 19.
"Morality and ethics have nothing to do with religion.
Fools or hypocrites assert the contrary. They regulate the
actions of men towards each other; religion regulates the ac-
tions of men towards supernatural beings." — Bebel, in
"Woman Past, Present and Future," p. 147.
Free-love :
"Three great obstacles block the path of Social reform:
private property, religion, and the present form of marriage. ' *
— Frederick Engels.
' ' Thanks to the wrong conditions of society and the state,
woman is to-day without rights and in countless cases is con-
demned to wedded or unwedded prostitution. The inter-
course of the sexes is unnatural and immoral, — socialism will
bring the emancipation of woman as well as of man. It will
destroy prostitution, w^hether it walk ashamed under the man-
tle of marriage for wealth or convenience, or whether it run
278 SPECIAL ETHICS
shameless painted and naked upon the street/' — LiebneSl
''Socialism, What it is." Chicago, Aug. 1, 1901.
''Legalized monogamic marriage and prostitution are based
essentially on commercial considerations. The one is pur-
chase, the other is hire.'' — Bax, in "Outlooks from a New
Standpoint. ' '
' ' The reverence of the bourgeoisie for the monogamic prin-
ciple now rests almost entirely on the fact, that he objects
to being exposed to the danger of having to put his hand in
his pocket for the maintenance of his neighbor's children." —
Bax, in "Outlooks," p. 151.
P.S. Herron was deposed from the ministry for abandon-
ing his wife and taking a soul-mate. Dr. Averling, already
married, lived as a husband with Eleanor Marx, Karl's daugh-
ter. When his love grew cold, she drank poison. Averling
sex-crazed soon after died.
B. Encyclical of Pope Lea XIII . ''The Condition of La-
bor.'' May 15, 1891.
Exordium — Elements of conflict between capital and labor
are:
1. Growth of industry
2. Discoveries of science
3. Changed relations of masters and workmen
4. Millionaires and paupers
5. Trusts and labor-unions
6. Irreligion.
Hard to find a remedy because :
1. Guilds are gone
2. Religion is repudiated
3. Usury-sharks are common
4. Monopoly prevails in trade
5. Consolidation of interests fosters giant corporations
6. Contract-labor.
A. Wrong Remedy — Socialism — collective ownership of
capital in land and money.
1. Socialism hurts labor, because capital is as much a need
to workman as it is to his employer. He ought to invest his
savings in land and business. Capital is his wages in another
shape.
POPE LEO XIII 277
2. Socialism is unjust, because man has natural right to
exclusive ownership on account of reason and knowledge of
future. Man differs from brute in this that he sees beyond
the present, and makes provision for the future.
3. The state has no right to interfere with exclusive owner-
ship, because the individual and his natural right are prior
to state.
4. Man has a natural right to whatever he honestly makes
his own. By work of body and work of mind he makes land
and capital his own. By care and improvements the farmer
as truly makes the land as the crop he raises.
5. Mankind approves and has always approved of exclusive
ownership, the civil law recognizes and safeguards the right.
6. God in the seventh and tenth commandments forbids
interference with the same.
7. Man is free to marry, and exclusive ownership of land
and capital is more a need when children put in an appear-
ance.
8. The state must respect family rights because of their
precedence in point of time and importance.
9. Socialism cannot legitimately do parents the injustice of
robbing them of their children.
10. In short, socialism would prove a heavy curse. It
would introduce disturbance, slavery, envy, evil speech, quar-
rels, poverty, neglect of talent, misery and dishonesty, to say
nothing of atheism, anarchy and free-love.
B. Right Remedy — Religion — I, Church, aided by II, State.
I. a. The Church is equal to the task.
1. It can do all that its founder accomplished.
2. To attempt to do away with classes in society, would
be to quarrel with God and court defeat.
3. To suffer is the lot of humanity, and the poor will be
always with us.
4. Hostility between the classes is not a necessity of nature,
b. The Church has efficacious means to destroy hostility, if
rich and poor heed her advice.
1. She counsels duty and justice to each class.
2. The workman must scrupulously keep agreements; do
no injury to the employer or his property; earn his wages;
resort to no violence, riot or disorder ; and avoid evil men.
278 SPECIAL ETHICS
3. The employer must not count his workmen slaves; he
must respect them as men and Christians; he must bear in
mind that labor is no shame, that it is inhuman to treat men
like mere chattels for purposes of gain.
4. Workmen must be allotted time for duties of piety, safe-
guarded from dangerous occasions. They must not be taxed
beyond their strength, and due regard must be had for age
and sex in the allotment of tasks. They must not be de-
frauded of adequate wages, no advantage must be taken of
their helplessness. No fraud, or force, or usurious dealings,
must be practised by the employer against his workmen.
5. She reminds both classes of the future life awaiting them
and of its paramount importance.
6. The rich must use their money with a view to salvation.
They are almoners to the poor, and exclusive ownership never
excuses them from the duty of sharing their goods with the
needy in the name of charity.
7. The poor must be content with the lot of Jesus, Mary
and Joseph. They are walking in God's footsteps. Finally,
rich and poor alike are sons of God, and in this respect equal.
c. The Church applies the remedies at her disposal with an
unerring hand.
1. She educates the world with all the authority of her
founder; and while most intent on men's spiritual good, she
neglects not their temporal welfare.
2. Deacons were appointed in the early Church to serve
at table.
3. The patrimony of the Church was a mammoth poor-
fund.
4. Her religious congregations have charity in every form
for purpose.
II. The State must cooperate with the Church.
1. Law must consult the moral well-being of subjects, and
must be just to all classes. It must safeguard the whole
community and its individual parts, rich and poor alike.
2. Law must not unduly interfere with liberty, and under-
take only what is required for remedy or removal of danger.
3. Though the rights of all must be religiously respected,
the poor are entitled to special consideration. The rich are
more able to protect themselves.
POPE LEO XIII 279
4. In behalf of capital, private property must be guaran-
teed; strikes must on occasions be taken in hand by the law.
5. With regard to workmen, their spiritual and mental in-
terests must be ensured. Man cannot give up his soul to
servitude. The law must insist on Sunday as a day of rest,
and protect the poor from grasping speculators. Hours,
child-labor, woman-labor, are within the province of the law.
It must take into account that in all contracts rest for soul
and body is a condition expressed or understood.
6. Though wages are largely a matter of free agreement,
the law must not allow greedy employers to impose on the
poor. Personally, the workman is free to accept or reject
terms, but poverty at times reduces him to a state of neces-
sity in the matter of agreement, and the law must keep the
employer from forcing unreasonable terms on his workmen.
The victim of low wages is oftener than not forced and far
from free.
7. The law must encourage economy and ownership among
the poor by inculcating thrift. Ownership among the poor
has these five excellent results. It brings rich and poor to-
gether, it weakens monopoly, it procures abundance and pros-
perity in state, it fosters love of country and lowers taxation.
8. To cooperate with the State, employers and their work-
men must get together. Labor must organize for mutual help.
Scripture is warrant for organization. The state must recog-
nize lesser societies, and encourage rather than hamper them.
It should interfere only when such societies threaten the com-
mon good. It has no rights regarding societies responsible
to the Church.
9. Unfortunately for labor, workmen's societies are in the
hands of the wicked, and spirited Catholic champions ought
to take a strong hand in their affairs.
10. In labor unions piety should not be neglected, officers
ought to be prudent and honest. One great need is a com-
mittee to settle grievances between workmen and employers.
Peroration:
Early Christians can be incentive to courage. They were
poor, but winners. Prejudice and money are in the way of
success. Workmen, formerly cowards, will be reclaimed to
religion and labor. Religion and her ministers must help.
THESIS VI
The right remedy for labor troubles is union between em-
ployers and workmen, based on inequality; consulting the in-
terests of both in such a way, that they enjoy life and its
comforts along with freedom and peace. Bicsso, 178-191.
QUESTION
The labor-question is the social question of the hour. This
labor problem, because of its bearing on morality, is as much
an affair of the Church as it is of the state. Till this prob-
lem is satisfactorily settled, it must remain a menace to the
salvation of men's souls; and it is the Church's business to
fight every such menace to a finish. All the world is her
kingdom, workmen and employers alike belong to her juris-
diction, they are children in her house; and, like a good
mother, she must keep down quarrels in the family. Hence
her prayer that workmen and employers may come to a swift
understanding, settle their mutual differences, and work to-
gether in harmony towards salvation. The Church herself
cannot settle the problem, the state itself cannot settle the
problem. The Church can help, the state can help ; but, un-
less honest cooperation on the part of workmen and employ-
ers seconds their efforts, Church and state are practically
powerless. The Church can preach, the state can legislate;
but their subjects have free wills, and free will is too strong
an agency to be overpowered by either a sermon or an army.
The man himself holds the single key to the situation. Only
the owner of a free will can reduce it to terms, and make it
walk right ways with content. When the owner's mind is
right, when his will is strong for the good, mistake is a re-
mote possibility; and the grace of God is the one lamp to
flood the mind with unerring light, the grace of God is vested
with some of God's own omnipotence. This grace can be
purchased by prayer. When once workmen do their whole
280
LABOR PROBLEM 881
duty by employers, when employers do their whole duty by
workmen, there will be no labor-problem ; the industrial world
will be at peace ; the time, energy and brains hitherto wasted
in quarrels, wrangles and disputes, will be saved and made
subserve the interests of virtue.
TERMS
Union. The labor-trouble manifests itself in moral unrest,
in mutual hostility between workmen and employers and in
wide fluctuations of wealth. Relations between workmen and
employers constitute a separate branch of rights and duties,
and therefore a distinct branch of Ethics. The workman has
a right to wages from his employer, the employer has a right
to his workman's labor. It is the workman's duty to give
his employer stipulated labor, it is the employer's duty to
give his workman stipulated wages. The relations between
workman and employer have their origin in an onerous or
bilateral contract, creating obligations in the two parties to
the contract.
This contract is the root of all the trouble in lahor-ques-
tions, and modern notio7is regarding it are at times absurd
and opposed to the natural law. They restrict the contract
to the workman singly, without taking into account his wife
and children. They reduce the whole question to an effort on
the part of the employer to get the greatest amount of labor
for the smallest possible wages ; on the part of the workman,
to get the greatest possible wages for the smallest amount of
labor. They forbid every other consideration to workman
and employer. Every such view of the wage-contract is
wrong on these several counts. It oppresses the poor, and
against all justice forces them to the acceptance of iniquitous
conditions and starvation wages. It promotes strife and
hatred, goading the poor to desperate measures against the
rich. It encourages violence and disorder, inciting the poor
to steal, to wantonly destroy property and to defy the law.
It hurts wife and children. They must work, to supplement
the husband's low wages. No woman can work abroad, and
at the same time properly care for her children. The right
to an education is sacred in boy and girl, and education calls
282 SPECIAL ETHICS
for years of constant and absorbing toil. It tends to utterly
destroy the family, keeping its members far enough apart to
kill love, and trust, and deep esteem; provoking carelessness
and want of interest in domestic concerns, and leading to
illicit attachments and unnumbered abuses. The Egoism it
encourages threatens the state with disaster, responsible as it
is for the luxury, hardness of heart, absence of charity, wide-
spread corruption, waste of wealth and consequent dishon-
esty, conspicuous in the rich; and in the poor, hate, desire
of revenge and plunder, ending in theft, robbery and murder.
Other Reasons for Lahor-T roubles, Because Provocative of
Disunion. Disappearance of guilds, for which labor-unions,
because of irreligion, are no suitable substitute. Every man
for himself, on the pretext of liberty and equality. Wide-
spread use of machinery takes workmen from their homes to
the factory. Speculation, stocks, get-rich-quick concerns, for-
tunes made and lost in a day. Civil laws dictated by Liberal-
ism; no duties; might over right; opinion of the majority.
Laws of succession, and small holdings. Militarism makes
young men lazy and morally corrupt.
Wrong Remedies
Socialists clamor for equal distribution of profits; work-
men and employers on an equality ; proportional shares ; fixed
wages along with part of profits, cooperative plan; state con-
trol, set wages, hours, work for all, right to employment.
Conservative Liberals want books open to state for settle-
ment of wages and share in profits; officials to regulate rela-
tions between workmen and employers; alms to the poor out
of taxes, hence progressive taxes. Scientific Liberals or Mal-
thusians advocate limiting number of children in family.
Socialists and Malthusians need no refutation. Conserva-
tive Liberals are wrong, their remedies are useless and harm-
ful, because opposed to peace of mind, love and mutual trust,
common prosperity and secure possession of property. The
poor resent favors from the law ; favors would be legal obliga-
tion, not displays of kindness ; distribution would be uniform,
and blind to concrete circumstances ; officials would seek their
own advantage; inspectors without number to guard against
graft. Ergo, useless agencies for the promotion of peace and
CONTRACT IN LABOR 283
good will. Harmful because of tendency to Socialism and
baneful centralization.
Bight Remedy
In the words of our thesis, union between workmen and
employers, based on inequality; consulting the interests of
both in such a way that they enjoy life and its comforts along
with freedom and peace. The remedy we advocate is a res-
toration of the guilds of the Middle Ages, with what changes
present conditions demand. In this union the employer must
be superior; the workman, inferior. The workman, however,
must in no sense of the word be a mere machine in the hands
of his employer for the accumulation of wealth. The em-
ployer must in kindness provide for the workingman's needs,
and help him in various ways to meet his wants and discharge
his different duties. He must not be wholly intent on his
own advantage, but consult also the good of his workmen.
Workmen must be content with their lot, harboring no desire
to better their condition by unfair methods or by taking what
belongs to others, all intent on using their own rights, caring
for their families, and giving the best in them to their em-
ployers.
PROOF
Along with contract regarding labor and wages, by very
force of natural law, workmen and employers have respective
rights and duties, looking to their mutual peace and advan-
tage. But the union we advocate would secure these rights
and duties. Ergo.
With Regard to the Major: Exaggerated individualism is
WTong in employers. They are not absolute lords of their
own property. God alone enjoys absolute ownership in
things. Man's ownership is limited by moral obligations,
with a bearing on less fortunate neighbors. One of the means
God employs to procure the advantage and comfort of all, is
the unequal distribution of wealth prevalent in the world,
enabling the wealthy to cooperate with Providence in alleviat-
ing the distresses of the poor. Nobody has the right to turn
all his wealth to his own exclusive advantage and comfort.
Charity never loses its claims on the wealthy, and whatever
284 SPECIAL ETHICS
contracts are made always presuppose in the makers a willing-
ness to discharge their duties and respect the rights of others.
Workmen must avoid whatever savors of socialism, com-
munism or injustice. They have families to support and
children to educate. Their wives must not neglect domestic
concerns or the duties of motherhood. Their children cannot,
before they are sufficiently grown, be subjected to long hours
of labor without detriment to their health and education.
Workmen must be given abundant opportunity to save their
souls by prayer and other practices of piety; and time must
be allowed them to discharge this duty. They must be en-
abled to put by a penny for a rainy day, and so escape starva-
tion when disabled by disease, weakness, or old age. What-
ever contract the workman makes presupposes in him the wish
to comply with his duties, and means to their fulfilment ; and
nothing short of force or violence can hinder or impede him
in this important matter.
With Regard to the Minor. The union we advocate be-
tween workman and employer, far from promoting unfriendli-
ness, would contribute much to peace and prosperity. It
would, of course, militate against the accumulation of ab-
normal fortunes, and so rid the world of whatever sudden
reverses and financial upheavals minister to men's sorrow and
foment hatred. Employers, therefore, must not unduly tax
their workmen's strength, or impose long hours. They must
employ women in lighter work, as far as possible in their
own homes. They must allow children to work in their fac-
tories only when sufficiently grown and sufficiently educated.
They must give their workmen a living wage, enabling fathers
to support their families without need of hard work on the
part of their wives and children. They must keep their hands
at work even in business crises and periods of depression, to
free them from dread and anxiety when times are busy. They
must devise some way of insuring their workmen against acci-
dents like sickness, broken health and old age.
PRINCIPLES
A. Wages. Workmen have a right to fair wages, employ-
ers must not be plundered. In this labor-question two ex-
WAGES 285
tremes must be avoided. Socialism exaggerates the work-
man's rights; wrong political economy, the employer's. Sal-
ary is wages agreed upon by contract. This contract between
workman and employer is onerous and bilateral, creating in
both parties definite rights and obligations. Like all con-
tracts, to be valid, it must be free from deceit, mistake and
violence. The employer purchases not only the workman's
labor, but all its fruits. Proudhon distinguishes between the
workman 's labor individually taken, and in gross ; giving the
employer the first, refusing him the last. Proudhon is wrong
for two reasons, 1°. The employer is responsible for hia
workmen's labor in gross, because he assembles them, he por-
tions out their work, he equips the factory, selects the ma-
terial, buys machinery, chooses efficient hands, sells the prod-
uct in season. 2°. The workman's efficiency is limited to his
labor individually taken; his labor in gross is due to the
employer's industry, and therefore belongs to him. Besides,
in time of business depression the loss falls on the employer,
not on the workmen. Contraries call for kindred treatment ;
and, if the loss due to business depression is the employer's
burden, the profit due to business prosperity ought to be the
employer's reward.
Socialists like to view the contract between workman and
employer in the light of a partnership. It is nothing of the
kind. It is a pure and simple contract of buying and selling.
In partnership profit and loss are shared, in buying and sell-
ing no such division has place. In this matter of wages, the
mere fact that workman and employer agree on a definite
sum of money, is far from settling the whole question. Of
course, the workman owns his labor, and can dispose of it as
he chooses. Law perhaps never looks beyond, but conscience
may still take offense ; and conscience has claims on employer
and workman alike. Fraud, mistake, violence may influence
the terms, and so vitiate the whole transaction. A traveller
freely yields up his purse to the highwayman, but he sur-
renders his money to save his life. In much the same way, the
workman may freely contract with his employer for starva-
tion-wages ; but, in the event of refusal, death from want may
stare himself and his family in the face. He chooses a lesser
evil to escape a greater ; and employers, who, to strike unfair
286 SPECIAL ETHICS
bargains, take undue advantage of their workmen's helpless-
ness, are nothing short of highwaymen. The law protects
them, but God has a heavy punishment in store for oppressors
of the poor, and for such scoundrels as defraud the laborer
of his just wages. In the eyes of the law, if a man wishes
to submit to injustice, he may do so. The contract is not void,
but voidable. But in the eyes of God the employer, who
forces his workman to submit to starvation-wages, is a crim-
inal and deserves to be punished.
This other view may help to a clearer understanding of
things. In contracts of buying and selling equality, as far as
possible, between the thing purchased and its price must be
kept. The employer buys his workman's labor, monopolizes
his time and strength, cuts him off from other revenues of sup-
port, and reduces him to the condition of wearing out his life
in his service. In all fairness the workman must get from
his employer in return the means needed to sustain his
strength, to minister to his declining years, to repair the
waste of his own life by the upbringing of children. And
this is practically what we mean by a living wage, a minimum
wage, a salary enabling the workman, no matter what the
nature of his labor, to comfortably support and educate him-
self, his wife and several children. Causes without number
operate to raise and lower wages, but no reason can per se
justify wages less than this minimum or living wage. Jus-
tice is hurt by every departure from this rule, and the em-
ployer is ordinarily a thief, because he is enriching himself
with the goods of others. If workmen and employers could
be once gotten to heed these demands of justice, labor trou-
bles would be at an end; and, since no outside agency, like
the state or law, seems able to bring about this happy con-
summation, the solution lies with the workmen and employers
themselves; and union between the two for mutual help and
support, a deeper reverence for justice and charity in their
mutual dealings, are necessary steps in the process.
B. Unions and Trusts. Sometimes the workman is to blame
for strained relations; at other times, the employer; and in-
stead of getting together to settle their differences, they stand
farther apart with the help of labor-unions on the one hand,
and trusts or monopolies in trade on the other. Labor-unions
UNIONS, TRUSTS, STRIKES 287
are meant to save workmen from the rapacity of employers,
and they accomplish their purpose by regulating wages and
the hours of work a day. Their members are enjoined from
giving their services to such employers as refuse to abide by
the laws of the union ; and thus they hope to put employers
of the kind out of business. Employers hit back by a counter
combination, refusing to hire union-labor, or maintaining what
is called the open shop, where union and non-union labor are
indiscriminately employed; and thus they hope to subject
the workmen to their own wishes, and nullify the hampering
influence of labor-unions. Labor-unions, when no violence or
injustice intervenes, are quite legitimate, and ought to be
countenanced by the state. What is true of labor-unions is
true of trusts and monopolies in trade. "What is allowed one
workman or one employer is allowed a multitude of either.
But certainly one workman is allowed to refuse his services
to whatsoever employer, and one employer is allowed to refuse
employment to whatsoever workman. Ergo, unions and trusts
are quite legitimate. The whole process is the common exer-
cise of a common right. Neither combination hurts the rights
of individuals in the other. The purpose of the two is praise-
worthy, disposal of their property to best advantage. Be-
sides, men have an inborn leaning towards organization and
consolidation of interests. It belongs to the state to safe-
guard the rights of its citizens, and control of these unions
is within the province of government. Labor is the weaker
party, as compared with capital, and deserves fuller protec-
tion at the hands of the state. Capital has few opponents
among writers on political economy. Opponents to labor
complain that the methods it employs are inefficacious and
productive of evils. Individual workmen, they think, ought
to yield to the good of the community at large. Hence, with
them, labor-unions ought to be abolished. They ought per-
haps to be restrained, but not abolished. Facts prove the
efficacy of labor's methods. Times without number employ-
ers have yielded to the just demands of their workmen, when
threatened by the loss attendant on a walk-out. It is no argu-
ment to say that with higher wages prices will be raised to
offset the advantage. The raising of prices is no necessary
consequence. The employers will simply have to be satisfied
288 SPECIAL ETHICS
with smaller profits, and enough dealers will always be found
to maintain lower prices.
C. Strikes. The loss sustained by workmen in course of a
strike is their own private affair, and no concern of the state.
The state must not unduly meddle with the private affairs of
its citizens, the common good is its whole purpose. Strikes,
no doubt, work harm to employers and others besides the
workmen ; but they are not on this account necessarily wrong.
When harm accrues to another from a neighbor's act, no
blame attaches to the neighbor, when he has a perfect right
to put the act in question. The injured party must have a
clear right to restrain the neighbor from said act. A mer-
chant is certainly allowed to divert trade from his rival in
business, so long as he restricts himself to honorable methods.
The workman is clearly within his right, when he refuses to
barter his labor for unsatisfactory wages; and a strike in it-
self means nothing more. It makes small difference from a
moral point of view whether one man strikes or a whole
union.
"When strikers resort to wrong methods, the whole face of
the question is changed; and they ought to be restrained,
without being robbed of their plain right. Their demands
must not be unjust, they must not induce others by force or
violence to quit work, they must have recourse to no lawless
procedure, they must not with violence prevent others from
taking their places. These evils are not of the essence of a
strike, which is mere refusal to work. Strikes must not be
forbidden because they are sometimes attended with evil con-
sequences. That would be poor logic. Abuses in the prose-
cution of a right must be checked by the state, but the right
itself must be respected. Boards of arbitration appointed by
the state might prove a great help to the solution of this
question. But the one effective remedy for things is a wider
and wider diffusion of religion, and the enthusiastic cultiva-
tion of virtue.
SECTION II— DOMESTIC SOCIETY OR THE FAMILY
THESIS VII
Marriage is honorable and in harmony with man*s dignity.
Jouin, 160-172; Eickaby, 263-270.
QUESTION
Society in General. We pass now from man as an individ-
ual in his private capacity to man as an individual unit in
society. We recognize three kinds of complete societies.
They are domestic, civil and ecclesiastical, known as family,
state and Church. Society itself in the general acceptation
of the word means a union of two or more persons with a
common aim or purpose. Such a union necessarily supposes
in parties to it an intellect capable of grasping a general
good, and a free will able to direct the agent's energies. So-
ciety is, therefore, a something proper and limited to ra-
tional creatures. Instinct guides brute creation in the per-
formance of works that imitate the unity of design apparent
in human societj^ The characteristic difference between man
and brute is thus tersely and beautifully hit off by Lytton in
''My Novel" — ''The herd of deer shuns the stag that is
marked by the gunner, the flock heedeth not the sheep that
creeps into the shade to die ; but man has joy and sorrow not
in himself alone, but in the joy and sorrow of those around
him."
Society is made up of two elements. Multitude constitutes
only its material or less important factor; its formal being
arises from that unity of purpose or harmony of action de-
rived to it from authority. Another item of consequence in
the nature of a society is its completeness or incompleteness.
The only valid excuse for any society's existence is the defi-
nite end or scope it proposes to itself to compass; and this
289
290 SPECIAL ETHICS
end, whatever it may be, furnishes us with a clew to the rank
it can with justice claim in the order of societies. Much, too,
depends on the solution of the question of a society's com-
pleteness or incompleteness. If complete, it can vindicate to
itself a species of independence in its own sphere of activity,
and can warn off all intruders. If incomplete, it is essen-
tially dependent on the complete society of which it forms a
branch, and cannot with any show of right object to outside
interference. A society is complete, if the end it aims at
bears a universal aspect, or at least claims some influence over
every single energy exerted by members of the society, or is of
such a nature that it cannot be classified under any of the
purposes for which other complete societies exist. It is in-
complete, if the good aimed at is restricted to certain lines,
appeals not to all a man 's energies but only to one or several,
and readily ranges itself under the comprehensive object of
some known and complete society. Instances of incomplete
societies are a Literary Club, a Reading Circle, a Lyceum, a
Business Partnership, Knights of Labor. These several bod-
ies are all intended solely to promote the intellectual, financial
and social interests of their members; and, as such, fall un-
der the jurisdiction of that complete society denominated the
State.
Only three societies are recognized as complete, the Family,
the State and the Church. All three are man's natural guard-
ians from the cradle to the grave in different spheres of ac-
tivity. The State is a centre, and procures for a man goods
pertaining to this life, and apt to suffer loss in his intercourse
with his fellows. The family is the doorway to the state, it
is the state in germ, and secures to a man the splendid gifts
of existence and an education, enabling him to cope with
neighbors in the state. The Church, besides promoting peace
and civilization in the state, busies itself with concerns of
vaster importance, the business of souls with God, the con-
summation of a happy eternity. The family can be best de-
scribed as a union of husband, wife and children for mutual
assistance, the procreation and education of offspring. It is
an institution designed first and foremost for the perpetuation
of the species and for the bestowal of that home-training,
which rounds out a man's development, without which in
MARRIAGE 291
spite of State and Church future citizens will necessarily be
unfinished and imperfect. Its second scope is the mutual
help, assistance and comfort afforded the man and woman thus
united ; a help, assistance and comfort they cannot legitimately
enjoy in any other condition of life. The State is a complete
collection of men banded together for the purpose of safe-
guarding their rights and securing their common good. It
secures to men material advantages they could never hope to
enjoy in their individual capacities, advantages altogether dis-
tinct from such as Church and family confer. The Church
is a collection of men banded together for purposes of eternal
salvation by profession of one and the same faith, and by
participation in the same sacraments, under the rule of duly
accredited superiors, especially the Pope of Rome. This is
an exact description of the Roman Catholic, the only true
Church, as propounded by Cardinal Bellarmine. We strenu-
ously maintain that no other body of men is truly deserving
of the name, Church, and regard all the sects as associations
far from divine, human institutions subject to the jurisdic-
tion of the several states that countenance their establishment.
Every society is, morally speaking and in the eyes of the
law, a moral person. Community or singleness of aim makes
one the minds and the wills of the individuals, and in the
language of philosophy a person is a being possessed of mind
and will. Every society is, therefore, from this point of view
really and truly vested with rights and amenable* to definite
duties. The whole difference between an individual and a
society is expressed when we say that the individual is a phys-
ical person, the society is a moral person.
TERMS
Marriage. The family is compounded of at least two ele-
ments, conjugal society and paternal. The first results from
union of man and wife, and takes its rise from marriage. The
second supposes the advent of children, and regulates the
relations between parents and offspring. Marriage may be
considered as an act or a state. Taken as an act, marriage
is a contract by which a man and woman mutually surrender
each to the other the use of their bodies for generative pur-
292
SPECIAL ETHICS
poses, and bind themselves to live together in unity. Taken
as a state, marriage is a union between man and wife with
aU the characteristics of a life-partnership, a condition of
affairs in which two minds have but a single thought, two
hearts do beat as one.
Marriage is the plan divine wisdom hit upon for the propa-
gation of the human race, and the traits of the human species
are so admirably adapted to the- plan that extinction is a
very remote possibility. The Creator has fitted the two sexes
with physical and moral qualities such that one sex is the
complement of the other, one fills the other's needs, and the
two united in matrimony come near the perfection of an ideal
human being. To secure the preservation of the race, God
has implanted in men and women a passionate leaning to-
wards wedlock. He has at the same time denied man char-
acteristic virtues that can be borrowed only from woman. A
woman in the same way is something incomplete, unless a
man's companionship contributes new perfections to her life.
Man has arms and limbs stored with strength, woman is of
a more delicate mould. Man's physical force makes him
impetuous and brave even to rashness. A woman's bodily
weakness renders her slow to violence and timid. Woman's
influence curbs man 's fiery spirit, man 's influence raises wom-
an 's courage and allays her fears. Man is quick to think,
and rushes to conclusions; woman is slower, and by her de-
liberateness checks man's mistakes. Man is rough and un-
gentle, woman is smooth and mild-mannered ; and the blend-
ing of these opposite qualities results in commendable hardi-
hood and strength of character. ]\Ian is impatient in the
face of obstacles and difficulties, and if left to himself would
dash out his life against them ; but woman is patient and long-
suffering, and her example is a perpetual incentive to that
perseverance, which, combined with energy, is sure to win.
Man is something of a stranger to pity and only extreme
misery appeals to his attention; woman is all sympathy and
awake to every cry of pain or wretchedness. Man is easily de-
jected and cast down by adversity, woman never parts com-
pany with hope, and is a past grand master in the art of
comforting and encouraging. We might thus go on indefi-
nitely marking off the traits peculiar to one sex and the
MAN AND WOMAN 293
other ; but from the few hints set down it must be evident that
man and woman were meant by Heaven for mutual help and
assistance. When they combine forces, they make of what
would be two imperfect lives one single power for happiness,
good and blessedness. Of course, this desirable turn of events
is had only when man and woman in marriage honestly co-
operate with God's designs. If His plans are disregarded,
marriage can become a positive curse and a heavy misfortune.
The worst evil this earth knows is the abuse of a good thing ;
and marriage is so good a thing that Christ Himself went
out of His way to grace a wedding with His presence, and
bless it with His first miracle.
Intellectual acumen of very ordinary quality can readily
understand what a hell on earth married life can become when
accursed of God. The indissolubility of the marriage-tie
makes escape impossible. Enforced singleness is the only
alternative; and, if offspring has blessed the union, this lone
remedy is almost out of the question. A hundred causes are
at work after marriage to steal away the allurements, that
before the event seemed destined to last forever. Its joys be-
come humdrum and tiresome. The monotony of one person's
perpetual company is killing. The partners to the contract,
like all mortals, have their faults ; and these faults show head
with amazing rapidity. Unforeseen difficulties arise, and
nothing short of God's grace can keep man and wife to their
duties of love, affection and mutual support. If religious
need grace to persevere in their heroic purpose, their brothers
and sisters in the world need it none the less to live up to
th6ir obligations without blame and without reproach.
Marriage is said to be a lottery. Of course, the risks deter
very few from choosing the state, and to be unduly influenced
by the dangers inseparably connected with it, would be rank
cowardice. To adopt the profession of bachelor from baser
motives, would be a crime. About celibacy we shall have
more to say later. With God's blessing and a fair measure
of good will these dangers can be reduced to mere shadows,
and everyday experience is standing proof that they need
frighten no man of trust and courage.
Neglecting for the present details that belong rather to the
province of spiritual advice, common sense vouches for the
294 SPECIAL ETHICS
supreme need of friendliness and love in the man and woman
contemplating marriage. Friendliness is the entrance court
to love's shrine, and without love marriage must prove a
wretched failure. Kindred tastes, kindred studies, kindred
pursuits, may indeed produce friendship and agreeable com-
panionship; but without genuine love they cannot serve as
solid supports for marriage. The reason is evident. Tastes,
studies, pursuits are concerns of the head and hands, they
never reach the heart. It is a union that must endure in
spite of the senses, in spite of crooked reason, in spite of
every conceivable adversary. It is an amalgamation of wills,
and a man's will is under control of his heart largely, and
love is only another term for the heart 's activity.
This love is an elusive thing and hard to analyze. That
love lives of beauty seems certain, and beauty is of all degrees
and phases. To begin with, there is beauty of body and
beauty of soul, and the two are independent possessions.
Very few of God's creatures own the combination. Beauty
of body most frequently turns the head of its possessor, and
makes the soul hideous with pride, unkindness and a host of
other vices. Lack of bodily charms concentrates the unfor-
tunate's attention on the cultivation of inner good qualities,
with a view to coyering outward deficiencies. Since, there-
fore, this twofold beauty is of rare occurrence in one and the
same person, men and women who rush into love must fasten
their hearts on one or the other. In choice of an anchor,
endurance and strength are deciding characteristics; and as
between beauty of body and beauty of soul there can be no
quarrel. Growth in years is a condition of our existence,
and age develops wrinkles, prime destroyers of fair features.
Age bends the body and works sad havoc in its shape. The
soul is beyond the reach of time 's ravages, and improves like
wine with age. Its beauty lasts forever, and hopes tied to
it will never slip their moorings. Of course facial attractions
are seldom altogether wanting, and lovers have a knack of
discovering lines and curves that escape the untutored and
uninterested eye.
It is no mistake to look for some attractiveness of form and
figure in a future partner. The blunder consists in being
blind to everything else, and foolishly expecting love to last
LOVE AND MARRIAGE 295
after its sole motive has disappeared with the progress of
years. Lacordaire has some very striking language on the
topic. ''Love," he says, ''has but one cause, and that cause
is beauty. Whenever man is in presence of a nature in which
that terrible gift shines, if he be not sheltered by a divine
shield, he will feel its power. However stubborn, however
proud he may be, he will come like a child to bend at the
feet of that something which he has seen and which has sub-
dued him by a look, by a hair of its neck — 'in uno crine
colli sui' — according to the admirable language of Scripture.
Beauty which is the source of love is also the source of the
greatest desolation here below, as if Providence and nature
repented of having endowed some of us with so rich and rare
a gift." Later on, adverting to the beauty rooted in virtue
and holiness of life, he says, "Man is invested with a beauty
he had not before. But what beauty? If I look upon you,
I see no change. Your face is the face I knew yesterday, and
you have even lost something in the correctness of the lines
of your physiognomy. "What new beauty have you then re-
ceived? Ah, a beauty which leaves you man and is never-
theless divine. Jesus Christ has put upon you His own image ;
He has touched your soul with His own ; He has made of you
and Himself one single moral being. It is no longer you;
it is He who lives in you. That beauty which the world sees
not, we Christians perceive. It pierces through dishonored
humanity. We feel it, we seek it. It attracts us, not for a
day, like human beauty; but with the indelible charm of
eternity. One day, and perhaps soon, that speech which an-
nounces doctrine to you will grow dull. Decline draws near
to man with rapidity, and brings with itself solitude and
oblivion. When that time comes, there will remain to me
in your souls only the recollection of an echo. But to me,
as to you, in life as in death, the beauty which comes from
Christ will remain ; His visage which is upon us and the love
which springs from it, to gladden us while living and to
embalm us in the tomb." Conf. 25.
Honorable means in harmony with man's dignity. Because
it is an article of faith with us, and, therefore, a truth con-
tained in revelation, that virginity and celibacy are prefer-
able to wedlock, and that single blessedness is better and hap-
296 SPECIAL ETHICS
pier than marriage, we Catholics are accused by our enemies
of belittling matrimony, a great sacrament in God's Church.
But the charge is wholly unfounded. In fact, matrimony is
nowhere done so much reverence as in our Church. True,
our priests, in virtue of their calling, are debarred from all
the comforts and solaces of the wedded state. But they make
free choice of the sacrifice with their eyes wide open, and are
by no means forced into the difficulty. Long before ordina-
tion they are made acquainted with the sternness of their
vocation, and before they take the final step are unrestrain-
edly free to follow any easier path of duty. Far from dis-
countenancing marriage, priests are the first to urge its ad-
vantages on young men and young women so inclined. They
certainly maintain with the Council of Trent that celibacy
or virginity is a more desirable state; but prudently warn
away from these higher fields of virtue souls not manifestly
invited by Heaven. They can appeal to the following facts,
when challenged for proof that Catholicity entertains a higher
and more sacred esteem for matrimony than sects outside of
the true Church. First of all. Catholicity ranks matrimony
one of the seven sacraments. It counts entrance into this
holy state without confession and a clean heart a sacrilege.
It so vindicates matrimony from everything profane, that it
forbids the civil power to touch it. It employs the magnifi-
cence of its ritual to deck with all possible grandeur the sol-
emn ceremony. It sets apart a special Mass, special prayers,
special blessings for the occasion. It abominates and anathe-
matizes that plague-sore of modern civilization, that foul
wrong to Christ and His Church, that menace to peace of
families and the life of the state, absolute divorce. The
Church has fought many a battle in history to defend mar-
riage against the attacks of mad fanatics and rebellious here-
tics. The Manichees were among the first to attack its sacred-
ness. They condemned it as the immediate means of propa-
gating and multiplying original sin. They appealed to pas-
sages in St. Paul like the following :
" It is good for a man not to touch a woman. ' ' 1 Cor. 7. 1.
' ' That they also who have wives be as if they had none. ' ' 1
Cor. 7. 29. ''And they who are in the flesh cannot please
God." Rom. 8. 8.
MARRIAGE HONORABLE 297
But the Church for the insults thus offered Christ's doc-
trine branded them heretics, and the Church's Doctors rid
the faithful of uneasiness and doubt by interpreting aright
the texts called into question. In reference to the above ar-
guments we say that, regarding the first, God permits the
propagation of original sin to avoid extinction of the human
race. Regarding the second argument, St. Paul refers to
women who are not the wives of the men in question. In
reference to the third, St. Paul refers to the married state
as being short, and that the end of the world for each indi-
vidual man is when he dies. Regarding the last, St. Paul
is talking about the spirit and the flesh.
PROOFS
1. That is honorable and in harmony with man's dignity,
which tallies with the divine decrees and with an inborn in-
clination rooted in the senses and in reason. But marriage
is such. Ergo.
With Regard to the Major. Man's true honor and man's
true dignity consist in perfect harmony with his Creator's
wishes, and in obedience to legitimate instincts implanted in
his bosom. These wishes of the Creator are distinctly legible
in His works, these legitimate instincts are keen, and always
commend themselves to conscience.
With Regard to the Minor. We gather God's wishes and
designs on human nature from arrangements made by His
wisdom and plain to the senses. Difference of sex, the whole
physiological structure of man and woman, the moral char-
acteristics of the one and the other, are evident signs that
God wants them to marry. Man's instinctive inclination to
wedlock, approved and encouraged by reason, is another over-
whelming motive. The desire is not confined to the lower
or sensile faculties of man's nature. Marriage with men is
a higher and more ennobling act than intercourse between
beasts, than union for mere purposes of pleasure. It is a
want which, left unfilled, affects a whole life, and makes that
nice balance of qualities already referred to either an abso-
lute impossibility or a tremendous difficulty. Young men and
young women, who with the approval of God and religion
298
SPECIAL ETHICS
do violence to the inclination, and sacrifice on the altar of
God's love the joys, and the comforts, and the hopes, resident
in marriage, are nothing short of heroes and deserve monu-
ments. They have at the hands of Catholics, able to appre-
ciate the motive and the measure of unselfishness displayed, a
reverence, a respect and an affection denied every other ac-
quaintance. His vow of chastity is the secret of the priest's
success with men. The nun's influence on the street, in our
homes, on the battle-field, everywhere, is due to the same
cause. And the day of judgment will reveal the mag-
nanimity of many a man and woman outside of religion, who
from regard for parents or equally high incentives underwent
the martyrdom of distasteful singleness. Many an old maid
would challenge our admiration, if only the secrets of her
heart were laid bare.
2°. Whatever is necessary to the right increase and preser-
vation of the human race, is honorable and in harmony with
man's dignity.
But marriage is such. Ergo.
With Regard to the Major: Man is the pinnacle of crea-
tion and the end or wherefore of the whole visible universe.
God, therefore, wishes His most perfect work to prosper and
continue till the consummation of time.
With Regard to the Minor. Marriage is the method by
divine law appointed for the propagation and continuance of
the human species. Man's offspring, because of peculiar con-
ditions, needs during the first period of existence and child-
hood the fostering care of a mother and the directive energy
of a father. If deprived of this twofold help, children would
grow up too weak and too unable to perform the functions
of moral and physical life. The race would go to ruin and
disappear in a single generation. God has so ordained that
the young of other animals either have no need at all of
parents after birth, or need their assistance for only a lim-
ited period. But the child's helplessness makes the presence
of a father and a mother imperatively necessary for years.
It is a remarkable fact, too, that the progeny of the nobler
animals in brute creation imitate more or less in this par-
ticular the offspring of men.
Other proofs for believers :
PROOFS 299
Hebr. 13.4. Marriage honorable in all.
Gen. 2.24. Mark 10.7. A divine institution.
John 2. Christ at Cana.
Eph. 5.25. Dignity of sacrament.
Multiplication of souls for Heaven.
Rickaby, p. 264. If one refuses to eat, nobody can eat for
him. If one refuses to propagate race, others can supply.
Remote obligation, proximate obligation. If race threatened
to become extinct, law against bachelors. Some excused ; en-
tirely free ; unable to find or to win. Foregoing marriage for
purposes of travel, study or devotion can be a good thing.
Self-preservation ; old without young ; winter without spring.
The two ways of propagating the race are, marriage and
promiscuity of love.
Promiscuity of love is rejected because eventually it would
be suicidal, and would lead to infertility, disease ; it has been
pronounced physiologically impossible because of resulting
barrenness.
Furthermore, promiscuity of love is against the two ends
of marriage — fides, rational; proles, animal.
The mother imparts love. The father imparts wisdom and
firmness. Both manifest interest in the child. There is mu-
tual faith. Plato and Aristotle insist on both, on account of
opposite characteristics already noted.
THESIS vm
Celibacy, when love of virtue is its motive, is more excellent
than matrimony. Jouin, 172-174.
TERMS
Celibacy . Word-meaning: Coelibatus or coelebs is from
KOLrq, XctTTw) ; or from (coelum, jSatvw) ; or from kolXiI3o's =
orbatus = orphaned. The two first derivations mean respec-
tively to forego marriage and to journey towards Heaven.
Celibacy and virginity compared. Virginity means integ-
rity, or immunity from pleasures of the flesh. It is twofold,
physical and moral.
Moral, or integrity of mind, is purity, chastity, continency,
or a habitual state of opposition to thoughts, desires and deeds
connected with suggestions of the flesh. Physical virginity is
a corresponding condition of body. Celibacy is life outside
of the married state, and its patrons are commonly entitled
bachelors and maids. God's law and nature's express pro-
hibition against the indulgence of pleasures connected with
wedlock, when perpetrated outside of the holy state of mar-
riage, make virginity the only approved course compatible
with celibacy. Any departure from this stern law constitutes
sin, and any other view of celibacy would be wicked. Hence,
though celibacy and virginity are distinct ideas, and of very
different objective value, they practically coincide, if men
and women want to lead upright lives, in strict conformity
with God's wishes and the laws of morality.
Outside of the priesthood and religion, or dedication to
God's service by vows, celibacy is always unstable, and re-
mains a matter of choice up to the latest breath of the man
or woman preferring the condition. But aspirants to the
priesthood, or to the perfection of the religious state, must
make up their minds once for all, and abide forever after by
the decision. Hope of relief, after the step has been once
300
CELIBACY 301
taken, would rob the sacrifice of half its heroism. The ir-
revocable nature of the obligations assumed by priests and
persons consecrated to God renders their conduct to people
outside of the Church, and unacquainted with the workings
of God's grace, a mystery offering to their shallow ignorance
one only solution, that of broken vows and damnable hy-
pocrisy. Indeed, without supernatural assistance, without
the strictest kind of compliance with the rigorous precautions
prescribed by the Church, there would in many instances be
no other avenue of escape from the difficulties encountered.
Celibacy in the Church of Christ is an assured institution.
Since that memorable day the Master said to His puzzled
apostles, ''He that can take, let him take it," St. Matt. 19.12,
multitudes of men and women have heeded the hard counsel,
and persevered till death in a life more befitting angelic
spirits than bodies of flesh. St. Peter is the only one of the
twelve mentioned in the Gospel as married, and tradition is
witness that after his call to the ministry he lived apart from
his wife. Certainly the custom of clerical celibacy, now and
for the past 1500 years universal in the Western Church,
dates its origin back to the times of the apostles. The only
legislation on this point, explicitly laid down in St. Paul's
letters, is a rule to the effect that bishops be men of one wife,
i.e., men who never married a second time. But hints about
the discipline in use are manifest in Christ's exhortation,
]\ratt. 19.12, in St. Paul's letter, 1 Cor. 7.32, in the Apocalypse,
14.4, "There are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs
for the kingdom of God." ''He that is without a wife is
solicitous for the things that belong to the Lord." "These
are they who were not defiled with women, for they are vir-
gins. ' '
The primitive Church knew well the secret of strength
hidden in the celibacy of the clergy. It appreciated the value
of that apostolic freedom, which cannot be hampered by the
cares of a family, and took it for granted that God expects
from His ambassadors and representatives the service of an
undivided heart. The early Christians, with the words of
Christ still ringing in their ears, must have regarded con-
tinence a diviner gift than marriage, and would not be in-
sensible to the desirableness of this ornament in their priests.
302 SPECIAL ETHICS
Writers teU us that a marked difference on the score of
celibacy existed in the Eastern and Western Churches from
the beginning. The Latins always betrayed a decided lean-
ing towards strict celibacy as a profession. We have records
to prove that in the fourth century celibacy was of obliga-
tion for clerics in the three highest orders of subdeacon, dea-
con and priest. In the year 305 a council of Spanish and
African bishops held at Elvira insisted on the rule, and em-
phasized its enforcement by new enactments. About the
same time, 325, in a council at Nice an attempt to introduce
the same law into the Eastern Church was defeated by the
efforts of a holy abbot named Paphnucius. There always,
however, existed in the East a tradition to the effect that no
cleric should marry after admission to orders, and this law
is in force with the Greeks to-day. Pope Siricius in the 4th
century under pain of excommunication forbade priests of
the Latin communion to have intercourse with their wives, and
declared the children of such intercourse illegitimate. At
Tours in 567 married monks and nuns were visited with ex-
communication, and their marriages were declared null and
void. Among the Greeks the ordinary or secular clergy are
not by rule celibates. They must, however, marry before
elevation to the priesthood, and on the death of his wife the
priest must become a monk. Their bishops are chosen, not
from the ranks of the secular clergy, but from among the
monks or religious. To obviate the difficulty, students in
Greek seminaries leave the house of studies before taking
deacon's orders, and return married. They are then ready
for ordination to the priesthood, and are free to live with
their wives after the ceremony.
Celibacy, as is evident from this circumstance, is a matter
of Church discipline, not a restriction imposed on the min-
isters of the altar by Christ or the Gospel. As such, the law
of celibacy could for sufficient reasons be revoked by the Pope
to-morrow. But no such calamity is in near prospect. The
so-called reformers in 1520 agreed among themselves to preach
down celibacy by word and example, as a thing contrary to
the natural law; and, like all advocates of theories grateful
to human nature and luxury of sense, soon attracted a crowd
to their standard. Level headed students of the impious
CHURCH AND CELIBACY 303
movement, set on foot by these rebels against Church author-
ity, are of opinion that Luther's sensuality had more to do
with the revolt than his ambition. It would be sacrilegious
and contrary to common sense to imagine that zeal for God's
glory had anything to do with the scheme. Monks, and nuns,
and priests, who fretted under the discipline of their vows,
were only too glad to find an excuse for passion in reform's
convenient doctrine. They were only too eager to enroll them-
selves with these slaves to passion. Why, even in old Greece
and old Rome, the priests of the nation were exempt from the
penalties inflicted on celibates in every other walk of life.
Vestal virgins, recreant to their vow, were burnt to death.
No sacrifice, no act of religious worship was considered com-
plete, unless supplemented with a virgin 's prayers. Celibacy
with Greeks and Romans was invariably accounted the priv-
ilege and the duty of the priesthood. The consecration of
this condition to persons immediately connected with the serv-
ice of the gods, is a living index of the sacredness of celibacy,
and of its superiority from a religious and moral standpoint
over matrimony. It is likewise a tribute from antiquity to
the good sense displayed by the Church, in imposing the obli-
gation on her clergy, a sweeping denial of Protestantism's
pretensions to piety, and an emphatic proof that the reform-
ers of the sixteenth century were sunk lower in the depths
of sensual degradation than the very pagans.
Virtuo'us Motives. Celibacy, in the words of our thesis, is
more excellent than matrimony, only when adopted from vir-
tuous motives. When adopted from sinister designs, to enjoy
luxury and dissipation with more freedom, to wallow in un-
clean pleasure without the care attendant on the raising of a
family, it is a crime in the eyes of God and men, deserving
of eternal chastisement and the scorn of time. This reflec-
tion, no doubt, induced the ancients to enforce against celi-
bacy, outside of the priesthood, the severe penalties in evi-
dence on their statute-books. In Sparta bachelors were reck-
oned infamous. The law permitted women to seize and tor-
ture them in the temple. In Rome they were denied the
rights of witnesses, their last wills and testaments were not
respected, and they were threatened with horrible torments
in the future life. Plato saw fit to insert in the code of law,
304 SPECIAL ETHICS
framed to regulate his imaginary republic, a clause to the
effect that citizens not married before 35 years of age should
ever after remain ineligible to offices of whatever sort. Writ-
ers remark, however, that, with progress in Greece and Rome,
celibacy became daily more common. Athletes, scholars and
men of various professions were accorded the privilege of en-
joying single blessedness unmolested, and were put on a foot-
ing with the priesthood in this particular. Philosophers, like
the disciples of Pythagoras and Diogenes, always claimed the
right to forego marriage for purposes of study, and had their
claim allowed.
And now a word about modern celibacy, which threatens to
become so serious an evil that some legislators have debated
the advisability of imposing a yearly tax on bachelors. With-
out wishing to range ourselves with Horace's "laudatores
temporis acti,'' we feel prone to acknowledge that marriage
has lost on the affections of men and women that hold it
had a hundred years ago. In the higher walks of life it is
infrequent and oftener unhappy than of yore. In the lower
levels of society, barring the setbacks consequent on extreme
poverty, marriage holds its own ; and, because of the strength
locked up in union, will forever retain its charms and attrac-
tiveness for the poor. But marriage 's losses are perhaps most
noticeable in the middle ranks. Men and women comfortably
well off and able with ease to live on the products of their
own labor, are daily becoming more and more content with
themselves, more and more loath to enter into relations of
close affinity with others.
The ''new woman" is much to blame for the sorry pass to
which things are come. She aspires to be in some respects
a man. She joins the army of workers, invades the profes-
sions, and intrudes herself into employment once considered
her brother's peculiar property. Timid man shudders at
her energy, and is conscious of a lurking suspicion that mar-
riage would mean for him enthrallment. He knows, and
knows instinctively, that God mercifully meant him to be
head of the family and his partner's superior in matters do-
mestic. In the good old times women found it pleasant and
easy to acknowledge the supremacy of men, and trusted to
their native art and sweetness to cajole husbands into a
MODERN CELIBACY 305
slavery, blissful, because gilded with ignorance. But now the
women ambition and fill with more or less success the parts
of men, and even if they never resort in matrimony to open
handed revolt, are always in a position to unfurl the stand-
ard.
One writer contends that solicitude for the support of a
family makes marriage particularly injurious to the profes-
sions. Lawyers, ministers, judges, statesmen, will be in con-
tinual search for the dollar. They will in a mercenary spirit
pursue methods, preach sermons, hand down decisions and
frame laws, all with a view to coin. They will on occasions
yield to the temptation to work along dishonest lines, to do
violence to the gospel in reducing Christianity to a minimum
of hardship, to accept bribes, and open the palm for lobby-
ists' money. Their work will certainly not be disinterested;
and, when a spirit of self-interest dominates, true work and
good results are next to impossible. Domestic felicity is nec-
essarily selfish, celibacy is in the nature of things more open
to generous impulses. Men wedded to their profession solely,
are capable of larger and better work than men wedded to
their profession and a wife. Married men must, if true to
their obligations, devote no inconsiderable part of their time
and attention to the mistresses of their homes. These sug-
gest themselves as a few of the motives calculated to nowa-
days frighten men away from matrimony.
Women on their part can afford to be more exacting than
formerly in their choice. The new movement in their favor,
this modern emancipation of the sex, has thrown open to
them many and various avenues for a livelihood. They are
in consequence more independent, and less liable to be dis-
appointed, when trusting to their own resources. A woman
is, besides, never at a loss to make her habitation put on all
the appearance of a home. She is easily man's superior in
this respect. A bachelor's apartments never wear anything
but the semblance of a den. The newspapers, too, make the
proceedings of the divorce court public property; and in
nearly every case the woman's wrongs fill a large part of the
story. From the sad experience of her sisters every woman
knows pretty thoroughly the risks she takes when sealing her-
self over for better or worse to the amiable tyrant, man.
306 SPECIAL ETHICS
Thus, the two parties to the contract are thoroughly well
advertised of the evils attendant on matrimony, and their
dread of the relation rises. The thought robs of some of its
humor that title of an old book, "How to be Happy, though
Married, ' ^ and vindicates to Fenelon 's description of marriage
more common sense than was first granted it, **un etat de
tribulation tres penible, auquel il faut se preparer en esprit
de penitence, quand on s'y croit appele." **A state of trib-
ulation, painful in the extreme, for which he who thinks
himself called to it must prepare himself in a spirit of pen-
ance. ^ ' But marriage, after all, is an institution of God ; and
religion can throw round it a halo able to make it a thing
of surpassing beauty. All the evils hitherto mentioned are
but accidents. They are not inseparably interwoven with
marriage. They all take their rise from a mistaken notion
of things, and first put in an appearance when the grace of
God has abandoned the hearts of man and wife. The sacra-
ment, when worthily received and approached with the proper
dispositions, can store two souls with a measure of heavenly
strength abundantly able to tide them over all the troubles
and trials attached to their station in life. The husband, if
docile to the inspirations of grace, will continue to his latest
breath what God wants him to be; the wife will prove for-
ever a real helpmate, not a stumbling block; and marriage
will assume all the proportions of a magnificent blessing.
There are two kinds of celibacy, virtuous and vicious. Mo-
tives make difference. Virtuous has for motive the honor of
God, salvation of souls, prayer, study, charity, chastity. Vi-
cious has for motive opportunity to sin with freedom; no
watchful eye of wife, wrong company possible, excessive ease
and leisure.
More Excellent. The excellence of celibacy is a settled ques-
tion with Catholics. The Council of Trent defined it against
the reformers, and our thesis is a dogma of faith. Here are
the exact words of the definition: **If any one presumes to
say that the state of marriage is to be preferred before the
state of celibacy and virginity, and that to remain in celibacy
or virginity is not better and happier than to be joined in
wedlock, let him be anathema." Sess. 24. Can. 10.
Theologians remark that the goodness and happiness here
TRENT AND CELIBACY 307
vindicated to celibacy are spiritual, not material, not the re-
sult of sensual pleasure. They describe this sort of goodness
as union of the soul with God in love, this sort of happiness
as the joy resulting to the soul from this union.
The reformers of the sixteenth century were not the first
heretics to attack celibacy. One Jovinian, a writer of St.
Jerome 's time, and condemned by Pope Siricius in 363, waged
incessant war against the holy custom. Strange to say, he
never himself led a wife to the altar, and lived in open con-
tradiction with his theories. St. Jerome was so vehement in
fighting down the influence of Jovinian 's pernicious doctrine
that his zeal sometimes got the better of his prudence, and
he seems to inveigh against matrimony. Luther was pleased
to denominate virginity, * * unholy superstition, because a man-
ner of worship nowhere countenanced by God." He like-
wise called it * 'folly," imagining, no doubt, that every man
was as incontinent as himself. The rationalists style virgin-
ity, ''A horrid monster, destructive of nature."
We must as mere philosophers endeavor to make good our
position without reference to the Scriptures as inspired writ-
ings. Passages will, however, be cited from their pages, be-
cause we must never forget that we are merely assuming the
role of philosophers, without ever ceasing to be in reality
children of Christ's Church and Catholics. The perfection
and the blessedness of union with God are not notions beyond
the reach of any mind acquainted with our earlier statements
concerning man's last end.
PROOFS
1°. In comparison with matrimony, that state is more ex-
cellent which has fewer hindrances to union with God and
fewer disquieting desires. But celibacy, when love of virtue
is its motive, is just such a state. Ergo.
With Regard to the Major: The excellence we vindicate to
celibacy in this present proof is made up of moral rectitude
and resulting happiness. Union with God is the acme of
morality; and desire is the root of unrighteousness, as it is
the destruction of union.
' With Regard to the Minor: St. Paul urges this advan-
308 SPECIAL ETHICS
tage — "He that is without a wife is solicitous for the things
that belong to the Lord, how he may please God. But he
that is with a wife is solicitous for the things of the world,
how he may please his wife, and he is divided.'' 1 Cor. 7.32.
Another writer, the author of ''Natural Law in the Spir-
itual World,'' beautifully shows how attachments of what-
ever sort are obstacles to the soul's progress towards God.
Taking a tree or plant for instance, he derives lessons from
the advantages of an environment free from neighboring trees
and plants. He finds that the sole excuse for pruning is the
circumstance that profitable growth is developed by lopping
off superfluous branches, and confining energy to as few cen-
tres as possible. Centralization and unity of endeavor are
the secret of success in every department of the universe.
Attachments are hindrances in the matter of spiritual de-
velopment. Even harmless friendships are a drain on the
soul's vitality, and great saints succeeded where others failed,
only because their days knew many a sweet hour hidden with
God alone.
2°. A good in the order of virtue is more excellent than a
good in the order of nature. But celibacy is a good in the
order of virtue; marriage is a good in the order of nature.
Ergo.
With Regard to the Major: Virtue is, after all, the only
true standard of man's excellence. Exercise of mind and will
puts him on a plane outside of and above brute creation, to
which he is half-brother.
With Regard to the Minor: Even naturally speaking,
celibacy, when prompted by virtue, is heroic ; and heroism is
the badge of manhood. It is the crowning effort of a mind
carried to the highest degree of cultivation, of a will schooled
to the limit in mastery of self. The ancients in honoring the
Yestals, and setting so much store by the prayer of virgin-
maidens, paid homage to the excellence resident in celibacy.
Celibacy is altogether an affair of the soul, marriage is largely
an affair of the body.
3°. Marriage is largely a process common in effect to man
and brute, it is prompted by the animal within us. Celibacy
is life in harmony with what is highest and best in us. It is
a reminder of the angels. In the words of our Lord, ' ' in the
PROOFS 309
resurrectiojii they shall neither many, nor be married; but
shall be as the angels of God in Heaven." Mt. 22.30.
4°. Pleasures and cares detract from higher interests. Con-
stant endeavor to please one another. Worry and hustle to
maintain rank. Education of children. Eagerness for fat
inheritances.
PRINCIPLES
A. St. Thomas. C.G.
1. Matrimony for good of race, celibacy for good of indi-
vidual. Ergo.
Answer: What is for good of race need not be executed by
each individual. Race will be preserved, even if some re-
frain from marriage and adopt celibacy, to better pursue
other purposes that make for the good of mankind.
2. Organs fashioned, inclinations implanted by God. Ergo.
Answer: This provision was made for the race in gen-
eral. All have likewise the power to become carpenters and
soldiers. Only a certain few follow these employments.
Enough will always get married. Self-denial quite as im-
portant as enjoyment. Abstine et sustine.
3. Good for one, better for many, best for all. Ergo.
Answer: The eye is better than the foot and yet man is
not perfect without the foot. Some must marry, some must
remain single.
4. Virtue in moderation, celibacy an extreme. Ergo.
Answer: Extreme all right when it accords with reason.
Celibacy accords with reason, though angelic, and above the
common measure of men.
5. Concupiscence inflamed, perpetual struggle. Ergo.
Answer: Struggle not so perpetual as family cares.
Temptation comes and goes. Every victory weakens passion.
Self-denial and practice deaden desire. Marriage encour-
ages the animal and unfits the mind for contemplation. Mar-
riage may be better for this or that individual. Hence, ''he
that can take, let him take it."
6. ''Increase and multiply." Gen. 1.28. Ergo.
Answer: Obligation for race in general, I grant. Obliga-
tion for individuals, I deny.
N.B. Christ and St. John with many a saint would have
310
SPECIAL ETHICS
broken the law. The saying can mean a benediction, not
order. Marriage more necessary at the beginning. Hence
virginity reserved for Christians. St. Jerome: Matrimony
instituted to people the earth ; virginity, to people Heaven.
B. 1. Tim. 4.2. Doctrine of devils, forbidding to marry.
Answer: Church never forbids to marry. Men make free
choice of celibacy. Church encourages to marry. Men must
abide by condition of society they enter.
1 Cor. 7.2. Let every man have his own wife.
Answer: Habeat not ducat, keep not take. Question about
men already married ; 27. Seek not a wife, no contradiction.
1. Cor. 7.26. For the present necessity, virginity good.
Answer: Necessity means family cares, not end of world.
St. Paul is an inspired writer.
1 Cor. 9.5. Power to carry about a woman {aheXKfyqv ywaiKd
TrepuiyeLv) .
Answer: St. Paul carried none. Not a wife, but a Chris-
tian woman. Holy women in Christ's company. All right
among Jews, scandal among Gentiles. Hence St. Paul omitted
it. Douay = a woman, a sister ; like viri f ratres.
THESIS IS
Polygamy, though not against strict natural law, little ac-
cords with the same. Jouin, 174-177 ; Bickaby, 270-274.
QUESTION
The wickedness of an act or state is measured by its de-
parture from right reason. When marriage defeats the pur-
pose for which God instituted the condition, marriage becomes
harmful and morally wrong. In the light of our knowledge,
God could have had but two chief ends in view in the insti-
tution of marriage, the propagation of the race, and the mu-
tual advantage of husband and wife. The first of these mo-
tives, far and away the more important, constitutes the pri-
mary end of marriage ; the other, quite important too, consti-
tutes its secondary motive. Were polygamy opposed to the
proper increase of the human family, we should not hesitate
to brand the practice a crime against strict natural law. It
would seem, however, to fall short of heinousness so grievous,
inasmuch as it nowise operates against the due begetting of
offspring. The children of such a union have no uncertain
father, and the responsibility of support in polygamy, as well
as the responsibility of education, attaches to some definite
individual. The absence of this feature in polyandry, or life
led in common by a woman with several men, renders it pe-
culiarly iniquitous, an open violation of strict natural law.
Another particularly obnoxious circumstance inseparable
from polyandry, is the consequent barrenness of the woman.
Such a state of affairs is nothing short of prostitution; and,
while it would be the inevitable outcome, if polygamy once
became universal, it would be the logical consequence of that
equality, supposed to be in force between man and wife.
The sexes are so evenly divided, that in the case of universal
polygamy there would not be enough women, and sin would
be the only recourse for men strangers to restraint. Besides,
311
312 SPECIAL ETHICS
women in this matter of marriage ought to be on an equal
footing with men. If the husband in virtue of marriage has
exclusive rights over the body of the woman, the wife must
be understood to have no less exclusive rights over the body
of the man. Polygamy, however, is an open declaration of
the contrary. It concedes to woman no right of the kind,
and at the same time positively forbids her the measure of
liberty granted the man. She is bound to give him her un-
divided affection. He is free to parcel out his love as he
sees fit. Only women lost to all sense of decency and self-
respect could for a moment contemplate such degradation;
and polygamy, as a matter of fact, recruits its ranks by
yearly inportations of fallen women from large centres. But
we are anticipating our proofs. We said, when discussing
the natural law, that polygamy was one of the vexed ques-
tions in that department of ethics. We then chose that ex-
planation of the natural law, which distinguishes three classes
of sins against the natural law. To refresh the memory, re-
call what was then said.
TERMS
Polygamy. It is a pretty well settled fact in theology that
monogamy was matrimony 's primitive form. An explicit law
restricting a man to one wife occurs nowhere in the early
pages of Holy Scripture. Pope Innocent III, and all Cath-
olics with him, find an implicit declaration of such a law in
Gen. 2.24. Adam is addressing Eve, and he says, '^Where-
fore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to
his wife; and they shall be two in one flesh." Pope Inno-
cent sees in this passage a condemnation of polygamy, saying,
**Adam did not say three or more, but two. He did not say,
'shall cleave to his wives, but to his wife,' nor was it ever
lawful for a man to have more than one wife at a time, un-
less God by express revelation allowed him the privilege.'*
Many are of opinion that polygamy before the deluge was
neither practised nor lawful. The almost fabulous ages
reached by men of that period rendered the practice quite
unnecessary. God withheld the permission, because fearful
that men would easily come to regard polygamy thfe natural,
POLYGAMY 313
not the exceptional form of marriage. Besides, any wide-
spread increase of the human race would have been to little
purpose, as nearly all mankind was to perish in the deluge.
Against Calvin, who agreed to regard the patriarchs of the
Old Law common sinners, all Catholics maintain that after
the deluge, in virtue of a private revelation communicated to
Noah and his sons, polygamy became legitimate, and flour-
ished among the chosen people with God's full sanction. The
reason assigned by St. Chrysostom and St. Augustine for
God's departure from the old rule, was a wish to have the
race multiply more rapidly. Some find an objection to Cath-
olic doctrine on this score, in the circumstance that with the
patriarchs one woman was called wife, the others were called
concubines. But our answer is, that the woman styled wife
was singled out from the others for the care and government
of the house. Her children were the father's heirs. The
others were employed altogether for purposes of generation.
Their children were never regarded heirs. This distinction
is evident from Gen. 25.6, where Abraham gives all his pos-
sessions to Isaac ; and to the children of the concubines, gifts.
Another objection arises from the rebuke administered to"
Solomon in 3 Kings 11. for surrounding himself with a mul-
titude of wives. But he sinned by excess in having a thou-
sand. He likewise allowed them to call away his heart from
God, and had intercourse with strangers and idolaters, against
God's express command to the contrary. About the legiti-
macy of polygamy among the gentiles, or nations outside of
the Hebrew people, writers are divided. Some are of opinion
that the practice in their regard never had God 's sanction be-
fore or after the deluge. Others incline to the theory that
God's wishes were communicated to them through the Jews,
and polygamy became their privilege after the deluge.
Children of the Catholic Church need not be told that
Christ instituted a thorough reform in the marriage laws of
the Old Dispensation. Whatever may have been the view en-
tertained of polygamy before His coming. He not only de-
clared sinful, but likewise stamped all unions of the sort null
and of no force as marriage-contracts. In the New Law
women added to the first and lawful wife deserve only one
name, and submit to a life of shame, condemned by the Gos-
314 SPECIAL ETHICS
pel and common decency. The Anabaptists in the time of
Luther openly defended polygamy as a divine institution.
Luther himself encouraged Philip of Hesse, one of his spir-
itual children, to keep a second wife in his house for the
fuller satisfaction of his passions. Indeed, Protestantism of
whatever brand, in sanctioning divorce, lends support to a
species of polygamy infinitely more damnable and revolting
than Mormonism or the beastly rites of Zululand. Mormo,
the mythical founder of Mormonism, during his lifetime
strenuously forbade polygamy. One Joseph Smith, a suc-
cessor and real founder, introduced the doctrine after a
dream, which he dignified with the title of a revelation.
There are in our statute-books laws against polygamy; but
they are defeated in Utah by the difficulty of procuring un-
prejudiced juries, and by the unwillingness of witnesses to
testify against offenders. In countries like Turkey, where
polygamy is the rule and monogamy supposed to be the excep-
tion, men with more wives than one are far from numerous.
Only the very rich are able to support a multitude of women ;
and poverty, mercifully coming to the assistance of morality,
checks the growth of this shocking crime.
It may be well to pause here for a moment, and set down
some of the reasons usually alleged in favor of the statement,
that monogamy was marriage's primitive form. God fur-
nished Adam with only one Eve ; He employed only one rib,
not several. Gen. 2.21. Adam himself, as remarked by Pope
Innocent, voiced God's wishes in the rule, ''He shall cleave
to his wife — they shall be two in one flesh. ' ' Gen. 2.24. The
Jews themselves always reckoned polygamy a thing out of
harmony, not in accordance, with the law. Noah and his sons
had each a single wife when entering the ark. Job was a
man of one wife. St. Peter, to follow Jesus, left his wife,
not his wives. Nature declares for monogamy, inasmuch as
the ratio of the sexes universally and invariably keeps close
to equality. The small excess of male births observable pre-
serves a balance against the dangers of death by war and
accident, to which men are almost exclusively exposed. Car-
dinal Bellarmine finds an argument in favor of monogamy
in the Scripture-narrative of Eve's production from the side
of Adam. She had her origin not in his head, to denote her
SCRIPTURE AND POLYGAMY 315
subjection; not in his feet, to free her from the suspicion of
servitude; but in his side, to constitute her man's peer and
companion.
The two leading texts of Scripture advanced by the Cath-
olic Church to prove polygamy not only a sin, but also a vain
pretense of marriage, a species of adultery, are contained in
St. Luke 16.18, and St. Mark, 10.11. The passages are as
follows, ''Every one that putteth away his wife and marries
another committeth adultery against her." The condition
of the man who retains his wife and marries another should
be no better than that of the man Scripture declares guilty
of adultery ; because in the one case and the other the founda-
tion for the crime is the same. The first wife, whether put
away or retained, remains his lawful wife; and adultery is
unchastity between one married and a person not his or her
lawful spouse. If, therefore, Christ is authority for the
statement that absolute divorce is adultery. He none the less
positively declares that polygamy is adultery. He calls things
by their right names. He emphatically condemns the one abuse
and the other, and He robs of all veneer the revolting crime
peculiar to modern fanatics, who seek an excuse for their
beastliness in the pages of Holy Writ, and the equally re-
volting crime of to-day 's society, countenanced by the corrupt
civil law, encouraged by greedy and unprincipled lawyers,
and winked at by creatures of money and fashion, who like
to look forward to the time when their own turn to apply for
a divorce will come.
PROOFS
That little accords with natural law, which violates the
secondary ends of marriage. But polygamy is a thing of the
sort. Ergo.
With Regard to the Major: Natural law is the manifesta-
tion of God's eternal law, reason is its herald. Nature, or
reason, the voice of God, wants us to apply things to their
appointed purposes ; and marriage is no exception to the rule.
Marriage, therefore, when used at all, must be a help to the
accomplishment of whatever designs God had in instituting
the condition. Reason acquaints us with these designs, and
316 SPECIAL ETHICS
draws marked lines between their relative importance. It
recognizes two distinct intrinsic and inborn purposes insep-
arable from marriage, because essential to its existence. They
are the contract and the resulting bond or obligation. It
recognizes two other intrinsic or inborn purposes, separable,
however, from marriage, because accidental additions to the
contract and the resulting bond, marriage's constituent ele-
ments. These latter purposes are children and mutual com-
panionship. The extrinsic, accidental purposes of marriage
are too numerous to mention. A few of the most important
are the help, the comfort, the pleasure derivable from an-
other's labors, consolation, and willingness. These extrinsic
purposes are generally entitled the secondary ends of mar-
riage, and it must be plain that any wrong done marriage
on their score is little in harmony with natural law. For
natural law intends agencies or institutions not only to pro-
mote the primary and principal purposes for which they are
designed, but also to refrain from putting hindrances in the
way of their secondary or less necessary purposes.
With Regard to the Minor: Polygamy certainly offends
against these two secondary ends of marriage, the mutual
comfort and assistance of husband and wife, and the sensual
gratifications, that act as a remedy for the stings of concupis-
cence. Friendship and love must serve as the foundation for
whatever offices of kindness have place between the man and
woman, and a friendship embracing equally all the wives
is an utter impossibility. In the nature of things, one woman
will always be conspicuous in the eyes of the husband, she
will be more loved than the others, her children will be more
petted than those of the others. The first will surely grow
old; and, when ugly and cross, will be transplanted by an-
other. The patriarchs, no doubt, were able to avoid this mis-
take. But nature in them was helped by the abundant grace
of God. They were saints, and stood constant guard against
surprises by nature. Their love for their wives leaned on
supernatural motives for support, and, as these motives un-
derwent no change with growth in years and loss of physical
beauty, their love persevered till death. Besides, God to
prosper His own institution was after a manner obliged to
see to it that polygamy among the patriarchs worked no such
SECONDARY PURPOSES OF MARRIAGE 317
evil results. Now, however, things are different. Polygamy,
far from inheriting the blessing of God, rests under the
shadow of God's most solemn curse. Small wonder, if it is
attended with a thousand inconveniences; small wonder, if
corrupt nature wreaks its utmost power for harm on the men
and women who 'embrace the condition in defiance of Heaven.
Who will attempt to picture forth the quarrels, hates and
complaints sure to occur among the women in polygamy?
Why, envy and jealousy at the present time, under the sav-
ing rule of monogamy, are the root and cause of family dis-
orders without number. Peace and quiet can hardly take
up a permanent abode under a roof that shelters even two
jealous women. Durandus urges against our argument the
old objection derived from use and abuse. Polygamy, he
says, is nowise to blame for the evils, because they are no
necessary result of the system, but only an accident. Bellar-
mine makes apt answer when he says that the non-occurrence
of these annoyances in polygamy would be a most miraculous
accident. Polygamy, besides, reduces woman to the level of
a servant or slave. The inferiority it of necessity imposes
upon her contributes largely to the disappearance of true
love. When a man is blessed with but one wife, he is em-
inently careful to keep in her good graces. His wife is as
independent as himself, and she can threaten him with pun-
ishment, if he persistently misbehaves or refuses point blank
to conduct himself properly.
THESIS X
Incomplete divorce, or separation without any attempt to
contract a new marriage is sometimes allowable. Complete
divorce, or separation affecting the marriage tie, though not
evidently opposed to strict natural law in every conceivable
case, is nevertheless out of harmony with that secondary law
of nature which counsels the proper. Jouin, 177-185; Bick-
aby, 274r-278.
QUESTION
When we deny that absolute divorce is evidently and in
every case opposed to strict natural law, we are far from lend-
ing favor to this abomination of modern crime and godless-
ness. We merely acknowledge that emergencies can occur,
in which reason, unaided by special light from Heaven, can
discover in absolute divorce no open and destructive war with
marriage's primary purpose, the due propagation of the
species. When we supplement that statement with the other,
that it is out of harmony with a secondary law of nature,
we at the same time vindicate to God sufficient cause for Gos-
pel legislation against it, and prove human lawmakers, who
dare spread its sanction on their statute-books, enemies to the
human race and defiant destroyers of morality. For it is
God's business, and the business of human lawmakers, to
elucidate points just like the present, not evidently contained
in strict natural law, but clearly enough prescribed by reason
to rob of all excuse legislators who neglect its warnings. Any
attempt on the part of civil authority to run counter to such
counsels of nature, is open rebellion against God and con-
science, and is sure to have for result the anger of morality's
avenger and political ruin; disaster here, and hell hereafter.
Human law cannot make a wrong of this sort right, and
statesmen may legislate till doomsday, courts may forever
continue rendering decisions in accordance with empty stat-
318
DIVORCE 319
utes, without ridding of responsibility before God the sly-
scoundrels, who take advantage of corrupt and vile laws to
escape marital obligations ; without removing from the hearts
of these slaves to passion a lingering dread of future punish-
ment for violation of God's most sacred, most holy institu-
tion. Laws conniving at thievery and murder would be
hardly more hostile to reason, more ruinous to morality, than
the divorce laws at present in use everywhere. These iniqui-
tous devices for the encouragement of evil countenance a
polygamy more horrid and revolting than the system in favor
with Mormonism. They foster the commission of crimes un-
fit even for chaste ears, and promote the reign of injustice,
cruelty and hardness of heart among men and women alike.
Their very existence is a convincing proof, that the sacred
condition of marriage will never enjoy the security it ought
to possess, until placed entirely and utterly under control of
Church jurisdiction. God meant it to be subject only to
the couch of His Church, and society is now reaping the har-
vest of ills sown, when misguided zealots first taught that
marriage was a department into which the state could in-
trude itself. The sons of these fathers may cry out as loud as
they will against the dire lengths to which civil authority
seems willing to go in the destruction of the marriage bond.
But their cries will prove of little avail. The only true rem-
edy for the disorder lies in the full restoration of the rights
of the Church over all the details of this great sacrament.
Politicians and lawyers are not yet grown the honest and God-
fearing men, privileged to handle and regulate so holy a con-
cern as this great sacrament; and their sacrilegious interfer-
ence leaves spots like the smudge of hell-brands.
TERMS
Divorce. Divortium, the derivative of our English word,
is plainly from divertere or divortere, to turn aside; and
means journey in a different direction. Divorce is therefore
a parting of the ways. The husband and wife break com-
pany. He goes to the right, she to the left ; and there is an
end. Divorce is of two kinds : incomplete and complete. The
former, oftener called in Church and law language separation
320 SPECIAL ETHICS
or divorce a mensa et toro, from bed and board, is freedom'
from the obligation of support and cohabitation. The party,
favored with such a decree, while not at liberty to contract
a new marriage, is relieved from the burden of expense and
disagreeable company. Such a condition has, of course, its
drawbacks. It condemns husband and wife to all the un-
pleasantness of enforced singleness ; and often influences them
to patch up their differences, and agree to forget the past.
It is, when cause is sufficient, entirely legitimate, and the only
species of divorce sanctioned by the Gospel and the true
Church of Christ. Complete divorce pretends to declare
null and void, what God himself by the mouth of Jesus Christ
declared forever inviolate. It pretends to loosen a bond or
knot that God Himself declared forever in force. It pre-
tends to vest a man or woman, in virtue of a decree made by
an irresponsible judge, a usurper, in whom no proper juris-
diction resides, with leave and license to marry two, three,
four, twenty times, every single marriage bond remaining in-
tact. It pretends to entrench polygamy, successive if not
simultaneous, behind the law; and would make of society, if
the instincts of decency were not on occasions stronger than
temptation, a veritable pest-house of moral lepers. Briefly,
the law of divorce authorizes husband, or wife, or both, for
causes listed with a mock gravity in the code, some serious,
others trivial, all different in different countries and states,
to take new partners, when old grow tiresome, or offensive,
or injurious.
History's earliest reference to divorce is contained in Deu-
teronomy 24.1. Moses enumerates among the laws appointed
to govern God's people the following: "If a man take a
wife and have her, and she find not favor in his eyes for some
uncleanness: he shall write a bill of divorce and shall give
it in her hand, and send her out of his house. And when she
is departed and marrieth another husband," etc. This law
admits of two interpretations, and the doctors of Israel at the
time of our Lord's coming were divided into two camps.
Some, identifying themselves with the school of Schamai con-
tended that adultery was the only valid excuse for a divorce.
Others, belonging to the school of Hillel, maintained that
trivial difficulties and disagreements operated to justify a
DIVORCE IN HISTORY 321
wife's dismissal. If a woman let the broth burn, if the hus-
band found a woman fairer or more to his liking, he was at
liberty to send away his first wife, and make room for the
second. But the world was 2500 years old when Moses, by
reason of their hardness of heart, permitted the Hebrews to
put away their wives ; and Christ in St. Matthew 19.8 is au-
thority for the statement, that ''from the beginning it was
not so." We have already seen that God sanctioned poly-
gamy among the patriarchs without at all doing violence to
the natural law. He surrounded the exceptional condition
with safeguards that effectively hindered the abuses other-
wise inseparable from it. God was certainly at liberty to
grant the further privilege of divorce to His chosen people,
and He was certainly powerful enough, and had enough expe-
dients at His service to render the favor innocuous. In fact,
divorce is not far removed from polygamy, and it would be
quite natural to expect one permission to follow fast on the
heels of the other.
An old historian, Valentinian, dates the first decree of di-
vorce in Roman annals 520 years after the foundation of the
city. All through the time of the Empire the abuse steadily
grew with the decline of morals, that eventually hastened the
downfall of imperial Rome. Caesar and Pompey availed them-
selves twice of the right conferred by law. Cicero put aside
his first wife, to marry a woman of great wealth, and speed-
ily got rid of her also. The advent of Christianity changed
the whole face of things. The Mosaic Law was abolished,
and with it polygamy and divorce disappeared from among
the people of God. Christ condemned the two practices in
no uncertain terms. Christian princes naturally experienced
great difficulty in rooting out of the minds of their people
prejudices in favor of the old order. They had necessarily
to proceed with slow caution, and gradually introduce into
the laws of their kingdoms laws subversive of paganism and
in full harmony with Gospel morality. But, whatever the
nature of their enactments, no argument can be borrowed
from them against the assertion, that absolute divorce from
the very foundation of the Church became a matter of an-
cient history and fell into disuse. Certainly, no one could
for any cause whatever, in the face of Christ's declaration
322 SPECIAL ETHICS
against divorce, appeal to its protection and retain the name
of Christian.
And so, down to our own times Catholicity has unflinch-
ingly kept its arm raised against this relic of Judaism's per-
verseness, this taint on the escutcheon of pagan Rome's gran-
deur. One of her Popes could have saved an empire to the
faith by weak concession in the matter; but, like Horace's
hero, he preferred rather to have the world at his feet in
ruins than join hands with iniquity. Surely, the grace of
God, and that grand promise made him in the person of St.
Peter, could alone carry Pope Clement VII safe through the
temptation. The difficulty between Napoleon and Pius VII
might also be here discussed. Luther, the head and front of
the so-called Reformation, had no such support, and no won-
der attaches to his indorsement of the abuse. He had to
appeal, in common with the other Reformers, to the Gospels
for arguments that gave dubious color to his theories; and,
like all false philosophers in a similar position, was not long
finding them. He condoned polygamy in Philip of Hesse,
*'to provide for the welfare of this monster's body and soul,
and to bring greater glory to God. ' ' He quieted the scruples
of priests, monks and nuns, who tired of their vows and
sought in matrimony release from their self-imposed bond-
age. Small wonder, then, if he granted the ordinary faith-
ful, who clamored for recognition in the general distribu-
tion of favors, the freedom and license native to absolute
divorce.
Protestantism, because without a supreme spiritual head,
logically handed over the management of marriage to the
tender mercies of the state. Kings, and statesmen, and poli-
ticians of every degree of depravity conspired to rob this
divine institution of its sacredness; and in Protestant coun-
tries marriage is a mockery of the beautiful thing God made
it. It is become with them a bare business contract, removed
from the jurisdiction of God's visible representative on earth,
and subject, like other commercial transactions, to the pas-
sions and prejudices of the uninitiated and the profane. The
result is that marriage is become an affair of no stability
whatever, a companionship, altogether dependent on the
shifting whims of men and women. In Prussia, for instance.
DIVORCE-LAWS 323
as late as 1870, drunkenness, extravagance, and, where no
children blessed the union, mutual consent, were some among
the trivial causes justifying absolute divorce. Till 1857 Eng-
land acknowledged no absolute divorce. In that year adultery
and certain other crimes of great enormity were decreed
lawful grounds for action. The Civil Code of France exacted
no more serious condition than mutual consent of husband
and wife. The legislation was changed in May, 1815, and
up to 1870 no absolute divorce was recognized in France.
America is a veritable paradise for discontented couples.
Each State has its own catalogue of excuses for the sin of
divorce, and the Federal government allows each to go its
own chosen way. As matters stand, we are the laughing
stock of the nations. Some enthusiasts are of opinion that
improvement would result from limiting divorce-legislation
to Congress at Washington. Of course, such a procedure
would procure uniformity in our marriage-laws; but if this
uniformity were based, for instance, on the loose morality that
now obtains in Maine, Connecticut, Montana and Illinois, it
would prove more of a curse than a blessing. Besides, the
individual States are too jealous of their rights to yield with-
out reluctance the advantages pecuniary and otherwise, ac-
cruing to them from this traffic in sin. In Maine a divorce
may be granted, ''when the judge deems it reasonable, and
proper, and consistent with peace and morality." In Con-
necticut, from 1849 to 1878, divorce-law included ''general
misconduct." In the latter year the rather vague and un-
certain term was removed from the list of causes. In Mon-
tana divorce may be granted, if the party "leaves the peti-
tioner and the Territory without intention of returning."
Utah grants divorce, "when it is proved that parties cannot
live together amicably and separation is desired. ' ' In Illinois
the whole question is left to the discretion of the Court.
Indiana follows in her footsteps. New Hampshire decrees
divorce, when petitioner proves three years' absence, not
heard from. New Jersey, adultery and desertion for three
years. New York, adultery alone. South Carolina is the
only State in the Union that recognizes no absolute divorce.
A law to this effect was enacted in 1878. After a glance at
divorce legislation in the different States, one is impressed
324 SPECIAL ETHICS
with the fact that New England and the Northern States are
most lax in this regard, while the South leans towards se-
verity. But in virtue of the principle, generally adopted in
courts throughout the country, that divorces decreed in one
State hold good in every other State, the strictness displayed
by this or that State is of very little effect as a hindrance
to the spread of divorce and its attendant evils. A bona-fide
residence in any State empowers a person to sue for divorce
in the name of its particular laws, no matter where the crime
charged was committed, no matter where the party against
whom proceedings are taken chances to be. The majority
of States, New York among others, insist on a residence of
one year before filing petition. Some few prescribe two
years. Others, like New Jersey in the case of desertion, re-
quire three. In other cases New Jersey is satisfied with resi-
dence at the time of application. Six months suffice in Ari-
zona, California, Idaho, Nebraska and Wyoming. When
other notification of defendant is impossible, publication in
the newspapers is, as a rule, valid in law.
The blighting influence of the system on our families and
society is bound to grow under the fostering care of greedy
lawyers and unprincipled politicians. It is already become
a veritable scourge, and honest -minded men of every shade
of belief recognize that a halt must soon be called. A writer
in the Princeton Review 10.39 brands the practice as New
England polygamy ; and, much to the disadvantage of divorce,
draws a striking contrast between it and the polygamy of
Utah. Divorce is, in sooth, nothing short, of a species of
polygamy. The polygamy of Utah is continuous or simul-
taneous, that of New England is successive or interrupted.
But the one as well eis the other is nothing short of sinful
intercourse with a plurality of wives. In Utah the mode of
life is banned by law, and men convicted of adopting it are
liable to fine and imprisonment. In New England it is not
only lawful, but courts of law devote much of their time to
rendering decisions in its favor. Citizens of Utah contract
alliances of the kind in secret, behind doors locked and barred
against officials and unfriendly witnesses. Divorced men and
women wed. in the public eye, with a solemnity surpassing
in grandeur that which surrounds the weddings of common
NEW ENGLAND POLYGAMY 325
folk. Church and State lend their august presence to the
mock ceremony. The minister is there in robes of office to
bless what God. in the same instant curses. The court, the
highest judicial authority in the land, lends its seal and sig-
nature to grace the occasion, and arms the principals with a
lengthy document setting forth their emancipation from mari-
tal disabilities. In Utah the polygamist considers himself
bound in conscience to display some little affection towards
deposed rivals for his love, to keep them under his roof, care
for their children, and decently inter them when dead. But
polygamy in New England imposes no such burdens. It
vests the man with full prerogative to heartily hate the
spumed and abandoned wife, to cast her into the street, and
make what disposition he likes, or is able to make, of the
children. Of course, the women in Utah are constant suffer-
ers from the pangs of jealousy; but their pain is lessened,
because spread out over a long stretch of time. New Eng-
land would seem to behave in a tenderer and more merciful
way towards the poor victims. The blow is inflicted in a
moment, and all is over. If despair and • dejection succeed
to the hope and prospective cheerfulness that never abandon
the Mormon woman, New England is not to blame. That
misfortune lies with the deluded fool, who ought to sprinkle
her woes with patience and cultivate stoutness of heart. She
can, besides, derive comfort from the thought that New Eng-
land is far more impartial than Utah. The Mormons con-
cede to men alone the right to marry often. Their women
are as much bound to rest satisfied with one marriage venture
as women in monogamy. Mormonism advocates polygamy;
it tolerates no polyandry. But the Puritans distribute their
favors with a more even and more open hand. Their sense
of fairness and justice, no doubt, influences them to include
woman in the general amnesty. Women, therefore, are in
New England as free to exchange husbands as men are to
exchange wives; and polyandry is the crumbling foundation
of tottering Puritanism. Polygamy is, besides, a cheap mar-
ket-commodity in New England. In Turkey the privilege is
so much a luxury that very few are able to avail themselves
of it. In Utah it is surrounded with almost the same dis-
advantages. No inconsiderable sum of money is needed to
ITHICS
defray the expenses of a large household of wives and chil-
dren. But in New England ten dollars or even fewer will
tide a man over each new matrimonial venture. A license,
a ring and the auspicious presence of a minister or magis-
trate can be procured for even five dollars.
Another very objectionable feature of divorce-law is the
encouragement it offers to crime. Where adultery is the only
admissible plea for separation, the man or woman is not long
committing the crime. After the necessary sin is committed,
he or she rises in open court and unblushingly acknowledges
the deed. Witnesses are summoned to narrate all the revolt-
ing details of shame, and the court, instead of throwing the
self-confessed criminal into jail, makes out for him or her a
bill of divorce. Where cruelty must be proved to have the
bonds loosed, the dissatisfied party straightway proceeds to
make things hot for the other; and, instead of being pun-
ished according to deserts, is rewarded with a release. Thus,
by a strange perversion, law becomes the aider and abettor
of crime, adultery and cruelty go unpunished in courts of
justice, and a reward is put on things sinful in the eyes of
God and in the eyes of men.
The children of divorced parents start on the journey
through life, equipped with grand ideas of human nature.
The two beings by God appointed to introduce them into life,
and store their minds by maxim and example with principles
calculated to guide their future years, teach them from the
very outset the doctrine of devils and iniquity. From them
these tender and confiding children learn that quarrels, strife
and bitterness are the normal condition of human nature.
They learn that marriage is a contract of convenience, of
binding force only as long as it subserves the ends of luxury
and sensuality. The result oftentimes is, that these children,
following in the footsteps of their parents, rush into hasty
marriages, satisfied that matters can be mended when the
emergency arises. And so the evil is propagated; and so the
foundations of the family and of society are being gradually
loosened. Parental affection is losing its hold on the youth
of the land. Mothers are inculcating as a first duty on their
daughters hatred of their father. Fathers are impressing
their sons with the supreme importance of despising their
IMPEDIMENTS 327
mother. Parental authority is fast becoming a by-word.
Children can hardly learn obedience from masters, whose
example is a continual incentive to unease and rebellious-
ness.
The Catholic Church, the pillar and ground of truth, recog-
nizes no ground for absolute divorce. Its authorities have
sometimes decreed the dissolution of apparent marriages, and
allowed the parties to the false contract to enter new alli-
ances. But its decisions are always based on reasons ante-
cedent to the marriage in question, not consequent on the
same. With God for guide and with the immediate assist-
ance of the Holy Spirit, it counts no marriage at all a union
vitiated by any one of the fifteen impediments reckoned in-
validating. They are :
1 M' i Tc /substantial — person \
* L accidental — qualities i
natural law.
2. Condition — slave and free — ecclesiastical law.
3. OrcZers— priest, deacon, subdeacon — ecclesiastical law.
Natural — same blood — direct line, in-
definitely — collateral line, to 4th de-
gree.
Spiritual — Baptism and Confirmation
— minister and sponsors with child.
Legal — perfect adoption.
Adultery only — real, formal, consummated —
promise — during* life of both.
Homicide only — conspiracy, intention, death.
^ Both together.
6. Different worship — baptized and unbaptized. Mixed
marriage, hindering, not invalidating.
7. Violence — serious, not light — external and free — un-
just, intention.
8. Bond — no mere rumor — moral certainty.
9. Decency — betrothed to 1st deg. — ratified marriage to
4th.
10. Age— 12 and 14.
11. Affinity — sexual relation with relative. Licit to 4th;
illicit to 2nd.
4. Relationship.
5. Crime.
328
SPECIAL ETHICS
12. Clandestinity-
13. Impotence.
14. Abduction.
15. Vow — solemn.
-Trent — priest and two witnesses.
1. Church law:
Four lesser impediments, hindering, not invalidating:
particular — priest or bishop — betrothed
with another — suspicion — quarrels.
general — consent of parents — banns —
mixed.
2. Time — open and closed — solemnities — Advent to Christ-
mas — ^Ash Wednesday to Easter.
3. Betrothal.
4. Vow — simple, not solemn — vow of no marriage, chastity,
entering religion, priesthood.
Dispensations :
Pour of fifteen from natural law and divine prohibition —
no dispensation.
They are:
Relationship, 1st degree in direct line, father, mother,
brother, sister; marriage-bond; impotence; mis-
take.
Other eleven admit of dispensation — difficulties of procur-
ing innumerable.
Many Protestants, lost to all sense of shame, consider mar-
riage an affair of the State exclusively, and pretend to re-
gard divorce granted on whatever plea a legitimate proceed-
ing, that frees the two married persons in the sight of God
from all mutual obligations, and empowers them to form new
alliances. Dean Mansel, p. 102, says: **The Church of Eng-
land has never authoritatively sanctioned any other separa-
tion than that a mensa et toro; and this with an express
prohibition of remarriage (Canon 107)." "In practice this
legislation is neglected." Knabenbauer, in Matthaeum, 229.
Others among them recognize only one legitimate excuse for
divorce, and that is adultery. They profess to found their
doctrine on words contained in St. Matthew 5.32 and 19.9.
"Whosoever shall put away his wife, excepting the cause of
fornication, maketh her to commit adultery." "Whosoever
SCRIPTURE AND DIVORCE 329
shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall
marry another, committeth adultery." Before discussing
these two passages, it may be well to set down St. Mark 's and
St. Luke's renderings of the same doctrine and St. Paul's
references to the same. ''Whosoever shall put away his wife
and marry another, committeth adultery against her." St.
Mark 10.11. "Every one that putteth away his wife and
marrieth another, committeth adultery; and he that marrieth
her that is put away from her husband, committeth adultery. ' '
St. Luke 16.18. ''Therefore, while her husband liveth she
shall be called an adulteress, if she be with another man."
Rom. 7.3. "Not I, but the Lord commandeth that the wife
depart not from her husband. And if she depart, that she
remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband." 1 Cor.
7.10. The words of St. Mark and St. Luke certainly make
no allusion to adultery or anything else as motive for abso-
lute divorce. They are nevertheless as reliable witnesses to the
truth as St. Matthew ; and could not possibly have omitted so
important a point in Christ's doctrine. St. Paul is likewise
no authority for absolute divorce. He is plainly for the per-
petual indissolubility of marriage, and hints at only one spe-
cies of lawful separation, imperfect, or partial divorce, with-
out any attempt to contract new alliances. Whatever diffi-
culty, therefore, attaches to the words of St. Matthew ought
to be settled without injury to the expressions contained in
the other Evangelists and in St. Paul's Epistles. A recon-
ciliation of the various texts is quite possible, and that recon-
ciliation is had in the doctrine propounded by the Catholic
Church. According to this doctrine, St. Matthew introduces
adultery as a seeming exception to the indissolubility of mar-
riage, but only as a legitimate plea for partial divorce, or
separation a mensa et toro. In this sense, the man who
lives apart from his wife for any reason save that of adultery
or its equivalent, is responsible before God for the sins she
will almost surely commit because of the violent temptations
to which in consequence of past habits she will necessarily
be exposed. He will be the indirect cause of her crimes, and
will, therefore, be guilty of her adultery in cause or indi-
rectly. Whoever attempts to marry a wife thus put away
commits adultery formally. Whoever after dismissing his
SPECIAL ETHICS
wife, even for adultery, attempts to marry another, commits
adultery formally.
All tradition is with Catholicity in this interpretation of
the text, and absolute divorce properly so called was an abuse
introduced into the Scriptures by the so-called reformers.
The different stands taken by Catholicity and Protestantism
in this matter of divorce, due entirely to the sense laid on a
sentence in St. Matthew's Gospel, are only another proof of
how necessary a requisite for religion is the establishment of
a final court, beyond which in the settlement of Scriptural
disputes there can be no appeal. The large part that tradi-
tion must likewise play in the formation of belief is also
brought into conspicuous notice. The text in question, be-
sides the interpretation forced upon it by Protestanism, ad-
mits of at least seven others, all decidedly opposed to the
theory of absolute divorce. Of these, the first four can be
with difficulty defended. We prefer to reject them. Two
others we admit, without adopting. The last or seventh we
prefer, as most in accordance with the context, and the sur-
roundings in which Christ gave utterance to the words.
The first opinion maintains that Christ busied Himself
on this occasion in explaining the Old Law for the benefit
of the Jews present. The New Law was not yet in full force,
and He availed Himself of chances to explain it in private.
According to the Old Law, when adultery intervened, no
difficulty presented itself, because the woman was sentenced
to immediate death by stoning, and death of course dissolves
the marriage bond.
The second opinion holds that Christ wished the old per-
mission concerning absolute divorce to continue during the
short period of transition from Judaism to Christianity.
Dix and Dollinger are authority for the third opinion, that
Christ called attention to an impediment, considered invali-
dating among the Jews, viz., sins of impurity committed be-
fore marriage.
The fourth opinion, adopted by no less learned a person
than Pope Innocent III, has more weight in its favor. It
makes Christ's declaration a withdrawal of the ancient priv-
ilege enjoyed by the Jews, that, namely, of issuing to their
adulterous wives a bill of divorce. This opinion, therefore.
INTERPRETATIONS OF ST. MATTHEW 331
makes the words of Christ as recorded by St. Matthew read
as follows, "Whosoever shall put away his wife, excepting
even the cause of fornication, and shall marry another, com-
mitteth adultery," etc.
The fifth opinion is ascribed to a pupil of Cardinal Pa-
trizi, himself an eminent exponent of Holy Scripture. This
pupil communicated his lights to the cardinal, who at once
adopted the explanation offered, and made it his own. It
makes the seeming exception introduced by Christ turn on
the concubinage of Herod and Herodias. This Herod had
taken to wife Herodias, the spouse of his brother; and St.
John the Baptist, the Lord's precursor, had met his death
for upbraiding the prince with his incestuous marriage.
Christ was at the time of the discourse in Herod's dominion,
and took advantage, according to the opinion, to administer
another rebuke to his sinfulness. He says, therefore, in as
many words, *'I except the case of Herod and Herodias.
They ought to be separated, because they are living in open
concubinage. ' '
St. Augustine (de adult, conj. lib. 1, cc. 9.11) adopts and
strenuously advocates the sixth opinion, and his authority is
of the utmost weight in matters Scriptural. He takes the
exceptional clause for an intimation that Christ wishes to
altogether prescind from the question of an adulterous wom-
an's dismissal. He knew the Jewish prejudices in favor of
the Mosaic bill of divorce. He knew the determination of His
questioners, the Pharisees, to entrap Him, if possible, in a
statement at open variance with the Mosaic Law, and to avoid
danger He answers that divorce is nowise permissible out-
side of adultery. The case of adultery, for reasons of pru-
dence. He declines to discuss. In this opinion. He was asked
if divorce was at all permissible. He makes direct answer
with regard to every conceivable plea, adultery alone ex-
cepted. About adultery He preserves silence. Protestantism
can derive no comfort from this interpretation. It would be
highly wrong to argue thus, ''Outside of adultery divorce is
unlawful. Ergo in case of adultery divorce is lawful."
Our interpretation, in most general use nowadays, sup-
poses Christ to distinguish between perfect and imperfect
divorce, and to lay down the whole Catholic law concerning
332 SPECIAL ETHICS
each species. With regard to imperfect divorce, He allows
separation from bed and board only in the event of adultery
or its equivalent, and burdens with the woman's consequent
sin the conscience of whatever man sends his wife away for
any lesser cause. With regard to perfect divorce, or abso-
lute dissolution of the marriage tie, He denies its existence,
and proclaims every union founded on such divorce sheer
adultery. The words contained in St. Matthew 5.32, hardly
admit of doubt, "Whosoever shall put away his wife, except-
ing the cause of fornication, maketh her to commit adultery,
and he that shall marry her that is put away committeth
adultery." The words contained in St. Matthew 19.9 are a
little less obvious, and the dispute generally centres round
them. ''Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for
fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery;
and he that shall marry her that is put away committeth
adultery." Protestants want the exceptive clause to be re-
peated, so that the text may read thuswise, ''Whosoever shall
put away his wife, except it be for fornication, committeth
adultery; and whoever shall marry another, unless she has
been put away for fornication, committeth adultery." Prot-
estants have for this arbitrary repetition of the exceptive
clause no conceivable authority in grammar, or logic, or con-
text. In a proposition of the kind, when a double subject
enters, the exception does not necessarily affect the second
of the two members. Instances without number could be
cited in proof of the exact contrary. "Whoever kills an-
other, except in case of self-defense, and whoever robs his
victim is guilty of sin." "Whoever strikes another, unless
unjustly attacked, and whoever blasphemes his assailant is
guilty of sin." "The executioners of Jesus, unless excused
by ignorance, and His blasphemers were guilty of sin. ' ' The
whole context bearing on the passage under consideration,
the circumstances of time and place and the characteristics
of the listeners, are emphatically in favor of our interpreta-
tion. Christ expressly revokes the Mosaic privilege, con-
ferred on the woman by the bill of divorce. The bill of di-
vorce was granted solely vnth a view to rendering her
eligible for future marriage. In declaring that the man
who marries a woman put away commits adultery. He clearly
RIGHT INTERPRETATION 333
maintains that she still remains the lawful wife of her first
husband. Adultery can have no other meaning. If the mar-
riage were dissolved by her sin of adultery, and Christ wished
to deprive her, by way of punishment, of the freedom granted
her wronged husband, He would call her second attempt at
marriage by some other name than that of adultery. Adul-
tery means impurity in married persons.
Returning again to theology's views on the indissolubility
of marriage, we can enunciate everything in this short thesis,
*'By divine law matrimony, whether between believers or un-
believers, whether consummated or not, is in every case in-
trinsically indissoluble, i.e., dissolution or divorce is abso-
lutely outside the power of the contracting parties. Matri-
mony between believers, if consummated, and between un-
believers as long as neither husband nor wife receives Bap-
tism, is besides extrinsically indissoluble, i.e., dissolution or
divorce is outside the power of any being or authority under
Heaven, and adultery makes no change in the law." Matri-
mony's intrinsic indissolubility is evident from St. Mark
10.11— St. Luke 16.18— Rom. 7.3—1 Cor. 7.11. St. Matthew
is likewise a witness to the same truth in 5.32 and 19.9 ; but
his testimony is somewhat obscure. Church writers say that
he introduced the exceptive clause, permitting partial or in-
complete separation, i.e., from bed and board, out of defer-
ence to the Hebrews for whom he composed his Gospel.
These Hebrews, accustomed as they were to the bill of divorce,
naturally looked for some loophole of escape from matrimony's
iron-bound indissolubility in the New Law. St. Matthew
with Christ's sanction offered them the alleviation of partial
or incomplete divorce. The other two Evangelists, St. Mark
and St. Luke, writing for the Gentiles, men without Jewish
prejudices, thought the concession of too small moment to
mention it. If Christ had in mind absolute divorce, St.
Mark and St. Luke would have done the Gentiles a heavy
wrong in hiding from them so sweeping and so all important
a permission.
From the passages cited it must be plain that matrimony
is so indissoluble that new nuptials cannot be contracted
without adultery, and union with -a second partner during
the lifetime of the first is adultery, only in the supposition
334 SPECIAL ETHICS
that the first partner forever remains husband or wife, as the
case may be. Nothing short of the clearest evidence, gathered
from the context or some different Scripture, or the nature
of things, will justify the establishment of an exception to
this universal law. The entire context of the three Evangel-
ists is plainly against any such exception. Christ in every
neighboring line is talking of the unity of marriage, its obli-
gation of inseparability, e.g., St. Mark 10.9—10.8—10.6—10.7
— 10.5. The murmur of discontent or disapproval is a re-
markable indication in St. Matthew 19.10. It is a well known
fact that there were two schools among the Hebrews, each
entertaining its own views with regard to reasons justifying
the issuance of a bill of divorce. One school, that of Schamai,
rated adultery alone or its equivalent justifiable excuse. The
other, that of Hillel, rated any trivial cause of discontent
ground sufficient. It is more than probable that the apostles
belonged to the school of strict rigidity, and would have had
little fault to find with Christ's new legislation, unless it de-
creed adultery itself no valid pretext for divorce.
In the opinion current among Protestants Christ left the
indissolubility of marriage just where He found it, and did
nothing to provoke a murmur among the followers of Schamai.
About different Scriptures, it would be absurd to think that
St. Mark and St. Luke composed their Gospels in such a way
that their readers to understand would have to consult St.
Matthew. In matters less important they might of course
have omitted here and there points that seemed to them su-
perfluous ; but this privilege of absolute divorce could hardly
appear to them too insignificant a thing to be neglected. Be-
sides, all the verses preceding and following the disputed
verse in St. Matthew leave no room for the exception in favor
of adultery read into Scripture by Protestantism. Such an
exception is justifiable only when the passage in question ad-
mits of no other possible meaning. We have already seen
seven different meanings, each of which admirably fits th,e
words and admits of defense. Last of all, everybody admits
that St. Matthew in these particular passages is obscure and
hard to understand. St. Mark and St. Luke are on the con-
trary clear as crystal, and impress the mind with their sim-
plicity. It is against all rules of interpretation to endeavor
RIGHT INTERPRETATION 335
to fix the meaning of simple and straightforward statements
by reference to statements that are intricate and involved.
St. Matthew should, therefore, be elucidated with light bor-
rowed from St. Mark and St. Luke ; and any contrary method
merits the contempt of scholars.
In the nature of things, or viewing the matter in the light
of common sense, the weight of argument is with Catholicity
and overwhelmingly against Protestantism's flimsy pretext
for divorce. Reason rebels against any enactment liable to
promote the spread of adultery. And Christ would be pro-
mulgating just such an enactment, if He sanctioned absolute
divorce in the case of even so detestable an evil as marital
unfaithfulness. The divorced woman, often the guilty part-
ner, would be free to marry again, and would thus enjoy a
privilege denied some pious sister, deserted by a worthless
husband. The result of such legislation could inevitably be
nothing short of the multiplication of unlawful attachments
and sinful intercourse. Divorce would be a reward reserved
exclusively for adulterous women. Dissatisfied mates would,
and dissatisfied mates do, commit adultery with the openly
avowed purpose of rendering the law of divorce operative.
The law of Christ would be more favorable to the growth of
adultery than the Mosaic Law. Moses visited the adulteress
with death by choking or stoning. Were Christ's law what
Protestantism makes it, sho would be at liberty after her
crime to seek comfort in new nuptials.
St. Paul, in 1 Cor. 7, treats in detail and explicitly the
subject of marriage, and therefore, we can trust, • delivers
himself of the whole truth. In verse 10 he says, ''the Lord
commandeth that the wife depart not from her husband.
And if she depart, that she remain unmarried or be recon-
ciled to her husband." Plainly, there is question here of
separation founded on a solid title, on the adultery of the
husband. Were the woman's departure justified by no such
reason, St. Paul would be the first to urge her immediate
return. When, therefore, he counsels her to remain unmar-
ried, and solemnly declares that singleness or reconciliation
is the only course sanctioned by God's law, he necessarily un-
derstood adultery to be no ground at all for absolute divorce.
If the husband's adultery destroyed the marriage bond, the
336 SPECIAL ETHICS
wife could with perfect freedom contract a new alliance.
Again, in Rom. 7.3, St. Paul gives advice wholly incompatible
with modem notions of divorce. "Whilst her husband liv-
eth, she shall be called an adulteress, if she be with another
man." This rule is absolute, hedged round about with no
conditions or exceptions; and is only another index of how
Christ wants the exceptive clause in St. Matthew to be in-
terpreted. Death, and death alone, can invest the surviving
partner with the right to enter a second marriage.
The Catholic Church, therefore, can never recognize the
validity of an absolute divorce, decreed by the civil court.
It forever considers divorced men and women as truly mar-
ried, as much husband and wife as they were before the State
interfered; and never reckons them capable of receiving this
sacrament anew. The customs and laws of our country make
it more or less necessary for Catholic judges and Catholic
lawyers to conduct business on lines opposed to the spirit and
principles of their Church.
About judges, obliged by their office to decree absolute di-
vorce, there can be no great difficulty. They are chosen or
appointed to decide according to evidence and the law of the
land, and if unfaithful to their duty would have to relinquish
their position. They can without scruple of conscience issue
such decrees, though they inwardly know that before God
their decision is far from annulling the marriage contract.
All this is true, even if the judge knows to a certainty that
the parties concerned are determined to avail themselves of
all the privileges allowed by the law. Such a judge lends no
formal cooperation to the sinful acts liable to result from
his judicial action. He brings no influence to bear on the
iniquitous intentions of the divorced parties. On the con-
trary, he deprecates their conduct, and sincerely hopes that
they will consider the divorce mere separation from bed and
board, and act acc^ordingly. Even Catholics are at liberty to
take advantage of whatever temporal benefits may accrue
from what the State calls an absolute bill of divorce a vinculo ;
but this must be done always with the understanding that be-
fore God the marriage remains intact till death, and precludes
all possibility of wedding another during the lifetime of
either.
CATHOLIC JUDGES AND LAWYERS 337
Catholic lawyers are more open to blame in this matter of
divorce than Catholic judges. The lawyer enters more ac-
tively into the designs of his client than the judge; and is,
therefore, permitted only what the client himself can with a
safe conscience attempt. He can without sin push a divorce
case, when aware that the marriage attacked was never, on
account of some invalidity, a marriage at all, or when the
person he aids intends to seek only the temporal redress
derivable from incomplete divorce. If he knows for certain
that his client is set on marrying anew, after the decree is
secured, he cannot with a safe conscience handle the case.
Only certain and sure knowledge of the client's unholy in-
tention can create in the lawyer this serious obligation of non-
interference. Mere rumors, guesses, suspicions are of no
weight.
No one can, of course, deny that our Church's refusal to
acknowledge absolute divorce is attended with many evils for
unhappy couples. It is a law opposed apparently to human
liberty, to the principal end of marriage, and to the happi-
ness of many a man and many a woman. And yet all laws
are framed with a view to that principle held holy and sacred
in legislation, ''Law has for primary object the good of the
whole community or multitude, not the particular good of
this or that individual." Whilst peremptory denial of the
legality of absolute divorce hurts few or many individuals, it
nevertheless operates as a salutary check on evils innumer-
able in the community. Husbands and wives are bound to
swallow their griefs in silence and make little of ordinary
difficulties, when they know that they are hopelessly de-
barred from relief, offered by the State's loose enactments
concerning divorce. Besides, law of its very nature restricts
human liberty, and keeps it within the bounds that separate
it from license. Whatever injury Church legislation does
marriage's principal end, the propagation of children or hu-
man happiness, is merely accidental, indirect and confined
to a small number of individuals. Its beneficial effects, on
the contrary, are inestimable, and far in excess of the incon-
veniences it occasions; and in the field of legislation general
or public good is the thing of importance.
338 SPECIAL ETHICS
DIVISION
Three Parts— I, II, III
I. Incomplete divorce, allowable.
II. Complete divorce, not evidently and in every conceiv-
able case against strict natural law.
III. Complete divorce, always against secondary law of na-
ture.
PROOFS
I. In marriage that is allowable, which, resulting in no
permanent or undeserved evil, procures peace for the inno-
cent, punishes the guilty, and promotes contentment. But
incomplete divorce, or temporary separation, is sometimes a
thing of the sort. Ergo.
With Regard to the Major: A lasting and unbroken union
is of course very desirable in marriage ; but disagreements are
likely to arise in married life, and render such a union quite
out of the question. One party to the contract may behave
so scandalously that the severest sort of punishment must be
employed against him. In such circumstances every legiti-
mate channel of relief must be available, and every penalty
short of dissolution must be put at the disposal of the inno-
cent. Dissolution itself, were it not for higher reasons con-
demned by God Himself, would not be too severe a measure
in certain emergencies.
With Regard to the Minor: Love may grow cold and fall
to intensest hate. Husband and wife cannot in this sad turn
of events safely live together under the same roof. Tem-
porary separation may work a change in their dispositions,
and, when out of one another's sight for a while, the old love
may be renewed and former relations may be resumed with
pleasure and content. Reconciliations and lifelong happiness
are often the consequences of temporary separation. Adul-
tery, continued abandonment and persecution are grievous
crimes against the innocent partner, and no penalty short of
temporary separation is commensurable with the wrong done.
PROOFS S39
II. Complete divorce, not evidently against strict natural
law.
Evils forbidden by strict natural law are threefold :
(a) things wrong in themselves, and on their own account.
(b) things wrong in themselves, not on their own account,
but on account of some violated right.
(c) things wrong in themselves, not on their own account,
but on account of danger connected with them.
But complete divorce is not evidently and in every con-
ceivable case evil in any of these three ways. Ergo.
(a) No one contends that divorce is as much an evil as
blasphemy. We have historical evidence of the fact that God
once sanctioned absolute divorce. His approval of blasphemy,
if such a thing were possible, would not relieve the act of its
inherent sinfulness.
(b) The right violated by divorce would belong to God,
or husband and wife, or children of the marriage, or society.
God's right in the premises would be made manifest by
revelation, and natural philosophy is a stranger to revela-
tion. Husband and wife could agree to forego whatever
rights divorce would jeopardize. Some unions are never
blessed with children, and divorce would not act against
children already grown up and freed from parental authority.
Society could likewise surrender all rights endangered by
the practice, and to-day society practically surrenders these
rights. Therefore, the wickedness of divorce is not evidently
and in every case derivable from a violated right.
(c) Dangers, likely to arise from abuse of the privilege,
could be reduced to mere shadows, by restricting its use to
such exceptionally rare accidents as, for instance, barren-
ness, leprosy, impotence. Danger, then, is not an element
everywhere and evidently apparent in the institution of di-
vorce.
III. Complete divorce is out of harmony with that second-
ary law of nature, which counsels the proper. Everything
opposed to the best interests of marriage and a hindrance to
the easy accomplishment of marriage's purpose is out of har-
mony with that secondary law of nature which counsels the
proper. But absolute divorce is a thing of the sort. Ergo.
With Regard to the Major: Nature is a jealous guardian
SPECIAL ETHICS
of the right ; and reason, her herald, is loud against not only
open violations of her plainest laws, but also those lesser evils
that threaten harm to her beneficent plans. Absolute divorce
hurts marriage in four very vital particulars, and, apart even
from the heavy condemnation of God, has nothing to recom-
mend it to the mind of the philosopher.
With Regard to the Minor: These four vital particulars
are:
a. Mutual friendliness between husband and wife.
b. Education of their offspring.
c. Woman's happiness.
d. The good of society.
a. The mere possibility, the remote danger of one day dis-
solving partnership, weakens and robs of its chief charm, the
friendship peculiarly characteristic of wedded life. Friend-
ship is measured by its lasting qualities, and divorce is an
enemy to conjugal steadfastness. Distrust is sure to poison
every marriage contracted with the understanding that di-
vorce is feasible. The woman will labor under a continual
suspicion that the man is casting glances in another direction,
and that freedom of confidence so essential to the happiness
of married life will be entirely wanting. Some wives have
been known to accumulate hidden wealth in preparation for
emergencies created by the iniquitous law of divorce. Faith-
fulness which should be above suspicion is endangered.
Wicked companionship with loose friends is rendered easy
and possible. Unholy liberties are encouraged, and forbidden
loves spring up in the hearts of the dissatisfied. Kent, a man
of world-wide reputation in the domain of law, is authority
for the statement, that adultery is full often committed to
secure a decree of divorce. Mutual forbearance and patience
with one another's faults have small or no ground for exer-
cise. Absolute divorce provides the quarrelsome with a read-
ier and more sweeping remedy. That prudence and caution,
absolutely necessary for guidance in so serious and solemn a
step, are utterly neglected. Young men and young women
rush into marriage, satisfied that they can call the bargain
off, if unforeseen difficulties arise.
b. The education of children bom to divorced couples must
be sadly defective. To be complete, this education must be at
COMPLETE DIVORCE HURTS MARRIAGE 341
the same time intellectual, moral, and physical. To be well
balanced, it must be managed by father and mother alike.
When this education is finished, the woman is so far on in
years that divorce must prove for her injurious in the extreme
and peculiarly aggravating. Children should, besides, learn
from their parents that love and respect for father and
mother, which are the crowning glory of childhood. Divorced
fathers and mothers can hardly inspire their children with
any such feelings of love and reverence. The child will neces-
sarily side with either father or mother, and entertain a deadly
hatred for one of the two or both.
c. In divorce woman is the sufferer. Dread of the untoward
event can haunt her like a gaunt spectre. And when the
step is taken, she is more at the mercy of fortune than the
man. He is hale, hearty and accustomed to work. He can,
besides, find new admirers with much more facility than the
abandoned woman. A divorced woman, as some writer says,
has far fewer attractions than a widow. Marriage on this
account ceases to be a fair and equal contract. The woman,
when divorce ensues, necessarily starts on an inferior footing.
She has lost her virginity, her youth, her beauty, her reputa-
tion and good esteem. Men are slower to lose their attractive
qualities than women. This unfair advantage procured by
divorce to men, moved another writer, no doubt, to say that
marriage is a partnership entered into for the exclusive
utility of one of the partners.
d. One of the happy consequences, resulting to society from
marriage, is the union and harmony promoted among families
and their different members. St. Augustine is of opinion
that nature forbids marriage between relatives primarily to
tighten the bonds of friendship between individuals of the
race, not otherwise united. Relatives are already close
enough together without the addition of any further ties of
union. Divorce breaks up families. It nourishes lasting
hatred between the principals and all connected with them.
It disgraces men and women of good reputation, who happen
to bear the names of the divorced persons, and always spreads
the reign of enmity and discord.
THESIS XI
Education of children belongs to parents first; to state, last.
Jouin, 1S5-19S; 314-321.
QUESTION
Parents are in strict duty bound to procure the physical
and moral education of their children. As between state and
parents, the parents have prior rights to the child. They,
not the state, are its makers, and to the maker belongs what
he makes. Education means development, and a child's edu-
cation means development of the whole child, body and soul.
It means, therefore, development of body, food, raiment and
preservation of health; it means instruction, or training of
mind; it means morality, or training of will. The state's
duty to train the child's mind and to train the child's will,
to administer schools and inculcate virtue, is of a kind with
the state's duty to supply the child with proper food and rai-
ment, and safeguard its health. Its obligation in these sev-
eral respects is to keep the parents to their duty, and sup-
plement their weakness, when means or good will fail them.
When parents are willing and able to proffer their children
by themselves or others a measure of instruction suited to
their rank in life, when they equip their children with a brand
of morality above suspicion, the state's duty is at an end
with respect to knowledge and virtue; and it has no more
right to interfere with parents in the education of their chil-
dren than it has to prescribe the cut of clothes they shall
wear, the food they shall eat, or the rules of hygiene they
shall follow.
TERMS
Education. Marriage bases a triple society, conjugal,
parental and servant. Marriage is primarily between hus-
342
INSTRUCTION AND OBEDIENCE 343
band and wife. Viewed this way, it constitutes conjugal
society. Children are the natural outcome of marriage, and
at their advent the family becomes parental society. Serv-
ants are needed helps to domestic management, and, when in-
serted as members in the family, constitute it servant-society.
Education presupposes children, and becomes a duty only
when the family grows to the proportions of parental society.
Education is impossible without obedience; and this is true,
whether there is question of developing the body, or the mind,
or the will. It is a kindness their elders do the young, sup-
posedly unable to care for their bodies and distinguish be-
tween true and false, good and evil. Apropos of this it is
well worth remarking that father and mother in their rela-
tions with children are called parents, not parients. They are
people to obey, not people who beget or produce; and usage
itself lays more stress on the fact of obedience than on the
fact of origin.
Instruction is, of course, a branch of education ; but, when
applied to children, instruction must not be confounded with
mere information. And this would seem to be the difference
between the two. Instruction in the case of children always
connotes in the pupil obedience or submission of mind to the
teacher's superior mind. Mere information carries no such
obligation, it is altogether a transaction between equals, and
no disorder results from its rejection. Between man and man
information is the regular process, and it rests entirely with
the person informed to accept or spurn aside his informant's
views. No mere man, without some accompanying preroga-
tive, is allowed to impose his views on others; and nobody
can feel hurt, when the world refuses to adopt a theory or
statement he is unable to prove to evidence. A teacher, with-
out the authority needed to ratify his lesson, is no more a
teacher than the morning-paper or a theatrical bill-board;
and to endeavor to teach children after this manner, is to
put them on an equality with grown men and grown women.
Education of the kind would be a denial of education suited
to children, and would make education the child's exclusive
duty, and nobody else's.
Obedience, therefore, is an essential feature of education,
and to say that the state, as compared with the parents, has
344 SPECIAL ETHICS
prior rights in the child 's education, is to assert that a child 's
obedience is first due the state and then his parents. States
themselves take no such view of the thing. They deal with
adults, not with children. They reach children through their
parents. They hold parents responsible for their children,
and by the very fact proclaim parents their children's imme-
diate superiors, entitled first and foremost to their obedience.
Citizens are the state's proper subjects, and children are only
incipient citizens. They are on the way to full and complete
citizenship, a fact accruing to them only when in large meas-
ure emancipated from the authority of their parents, and
done with the process called education.
Of course, parents and children alike owe the state a meas-
ure of obedience in virtue of authority, without which govern-
ment is an impossibility. But it would be folly to contend
that the obedience owed the state is as sweeping as the obedi-
ence a child owes his parents. State authority is just as
sacred as parental authority, but it is necessarily more limited.
In both cases it is a means to an end ; and its extent must be
gathered from the purpose it is meant to secure. The state's
solemn purpose is to promote the common good of its citizens ;
and it sins by excess, when by superfluous and harassing en-
actments it aspires to undue control of individual liberty and
private rights. This is especially the case when it invades
the domain of education or religion, because they are dis-
tinctively the concern of family and Church.
PROOFS
Education of children belongs to parents first; to state,
last. Rights are based on duties; and priority of duty fixes
priority of right. Viewed as a duty, the education of chil-
dren touches parents first, the state afterwards. Therefore,
in the education of children a parent's rights are prior to
those of the state.
With Regard to the Minor: Parents were meant by nature
to educate as well as produce children.
1°. For a long stretch of years after birth children are
absolutely helpless with regard to the development of their
bodies, their minds and their wills. This being the case, God
I
PROOFS AND PRINCIPLES 345
must have appointed fixed and definite persons capable of
carrying on the work of their education.
2°. Care of children involves hardship of the sternest sort,
and men are not minded to embrace hardships except from a
sense of duty. If the duty to educate children fell to the lot
of no God-appointed person, everybody would shirk the re-
sponsibility, children would go without an education, and
God's negligence would contribute to the destruction of the
race.
3°. God has appointed either parents or the state to edu-
cate children, and we know from unmistakable signs that par-
ents, not the state, are His choice. These signs are the nat-
ural love of parents for their children, the title of ownership
vested in their very birth, and the child's tendency to look
to his parents for help and support.
4°. The experience of ages and parallel conduct in the no-
bler specimens of brute creation strengthen our argument.
5°. It is preposterous to think that God exempts parents
from the duty of education to impose it on a collection of
strangers denominated the state. It would be far easier to
believe that God wanted farmers to sit in idleness, while neigh-
bors with fatuous generosity worked their fields and handed
them the profits.
PRINCIPLES
A. The arguments alleged for state control of education are
chiefly these.
1°. Children are born members of the state; and, therefore,
subject to its control.
2°. The common good is involved in the education of future
citizens.
3°. A good education in the case of every child is a neces-
sary requisite for society.
4°. Parents get the right to educate their children from the
state.
A7iswer: 1°. Members of the state are not subject in every
particular to the control of the state. As individuals, they
have prior and independent rights ; and these rights must be
respected, not absorbed by the state. Children are citizens
346 SPECIAL ETHICS
not immediately, but mediately, in virtue of membership in
a family, and care of children devolves first on parents, then
on state.
2°. In the state many particulars are conducive to the com-
mon good ; and yet, because of personal and antecedent rights,
they must be left to private initiative. Instances are, eugenic
marriages, clothing, food, residence.
3°. This good education can be secured without delivering
up education to the state. In this matter the state enjoys
only an indirect right ; it can help parents by the erection of
schools, by rewards and penalties; but it must not take from
the parent what belongs to the parent.
4°. It is wholly wrong to think that parents get the right
to educate their children from the state. The family is prior
to the state, and enjoys prior rights, that the state must safe-
guard, but never absorb or usurp.
B. The State and Education. The word education, ex-
pressive of a parent's duty to his children, is a comprehen-
sive term. It means support of body, food, raiment, and
sanitary precautions. It means wise provision for his chil-
dren's future. It means the bestowal of opportunities to
acquire all the human knowledge necessary for success in life.
It means incentives to morality in the shape of good example,
rewards and punishments. It means early acquaintance with
God and the things of God. Rousseau wants no mention of
God till the child is twelve, and sufficiently grown to select
his own religion; but that is only another tribute to the man's
godlessness, and to his desire to make the world atheistic.
Regularly, then, and in the natural order, the right to di-
rectly and immediately educate their children belongs to
parents alone. They have the right to say what branches
their children shall learn, what teachers their children shall
follow, what books they shall use, how many years they shall
spend at school, and whatever minor details are connected with
their education. If they object to state-schools on any of
these several heads, they are at perfect liberty to withdraw
their children and send them elsewhere.
Parents have duties towards their children in this matter
of education; and, if they notably fall away from them, the
state has a right to interfere to the extent of safeguarding the
I
COMPULSORY AND MONOPOLY 347
common good. It is of prime importance to the state to have
educated citizens, and its own welfare is menaced when par-
ents grossly abuse their prerogative, and deny their children
all opportunity for intellectual improvement. In self-defense
the state is obliged on such occasions to interfere, and by wise
enactments arouse unnatural parents of the kind to a sense
of their duty. Besides, it is the state's duty to safeguard
individual rights; the child has rights in education against
his parents, and the state is held to assist the child in the
prosecution of his rights. These, however, are exceptional
cases, scattered instances, and rare enough to leave unchal-
lenged our statement, that regularly the right to educate
their children belongs to parents alone.
Moreover, the state's rights in the matter remain always
indirect and mediate. Its power is over the parent, not over
the child's education. It has no right to educate the child,
it has the right to hold the child's parents to their duty. It
is to the state's own interest to help parents acquit them-
selves of their duty, to build schools everywhere, to equip
them with capable teachers, to encourage study among the
young by rewards in the shape of degrees, diplomas, certifi-
cates and political honors. But in last resort it rests with
parents to use these state-schools or not, as they like. They
have no duty towards state-schools, save payment of taxes;
and the state has no power over the family's internal con-
cerns. Their single duty is to educate their children, with
the help of the state or without it. If the brand of educa-
tion offered by the state is a serious menace to religion and
morality, the parents enjoy no freedom. They are bound in
conscience to reject all such instruction, and no law of God
or man can compel them to subject their growing children to
danger of eternal damnation.
C. Compulsory Education and State Monopoly. Hence we
Catholics are uncompromisingly opposed to anjrthing like
government monopoly of education, reserving to the State the
exclusive right to open schools, as to a thing against the nat-
ural law; and the sin is all the more grievous, when parents
are compelled by law to send their children to these state-
schools for a fixed period. More than this, we contend that
the State has no right to compel parents to send their chil-
348 SPECIAL ETHICS
dren a certain number of years to any school whatever, even
if the school frequented be left to their own choice.
Monopoly in education is wrong on these several counts.
It robs parents of their natural right to educate their chil-
dren, and transfers it to the State; especially when parents,
unequal themselves to the task, must perforce send them to
some school. Instruction and education cannot possibly be
kept apart. Instruction has to do with the training of the
mind; and moral education is bound to be imperfect, if the
mind from the beginning is developed along wrong lines, if
a teacher's crooked notions regarding religion and morality
are authoritatively impressed on the minds of the young.
Moral education means more than the mere inculcation of
right principles, it means the reduction of these principles to
act; and pupils must be helped in this particular by the ad-
vice and example of their teachers.
Monopoly is an uncalled for restriction of the right to im-
part and receive instruction, viewed as mere information, im-
plied in the gift of a tongue and ears, made every member
of the race. In the natural order, the propagation of false-
hood is the one limit to this freedom of instruction. In the
supernatural order, the Church is of course supreme; and a
profession of faith can with justice be exacted by the Church
from the teachers of even profane sciences. Pius IX and
Pius X insist with much vehemence on this right of the
Church. The gtate has a right to only such measures as make
for the common good, and the arbitrary exclusion of private
instruction in the field of education is no such measure. On
the contrary, it is the most deleterious of measures, because
it kills all progress in letters.
Monopoly would make education dependent on some fac-
tion in government. Nobody could teach, unless approved
of and educated by this particular faction; and all competi-
tion between teachers, so helpful to improvement, would be
no more. Certainly, the Church would have no voice in the
department of education, and supernatural truth would suffer.
Compulsory education is of two kinds; one with, the other
without monopoly. Compulsory with monopoly is wrong,
because it is the usurpation of parental rights, assuming di-
rect and immediate control of the child's education, already
CHURCH AND EDUCATION ^9
proved the exclusive privilege of the parents. Besides, every
such system savors of socialism. If the state is once allowed
control of the child's education, nothing can prevent it from
assuming control of family, property, and of the whole in-
ternal administration of the home.
Compulsory without monopoly is beside the power of the
state, unless we maintain that a school education of a fixed
kind belongs as a necessary right to the child, or that the
common good demands such a course, inasmuch as defective
education would contribute harm to the republic, or would
prevent children from enjoying political and civic advan-
tages. A school education is useful, not necessary. Even if
necessary, children as such have no right in the name of rigor-
ous or commutative justice against parents. Even if they had
such right, reading, writing and arithmetic would be enough
for the poor, without robbing parents of their children's help
during long years.
D. The Church and Education. Religion and morality are
not an affair of the state in direct sense, but of the Church;
and the Church must manage for children, with help from
the state. The Church has paramount rights in this business
of education. It was established by Christ, to teach religion
to the nations, and its authority bears equally on children,
parents and state. According to the will of Christ, nobody
in the world is exempt from its jurisdiction. In the super-
natural order, in the order of faith and morality, it is regu-
larly the direct and immediate teacher of all mankind, the
one teacher vested with active and passive infallibility, em-
powered to control parents in the education of their children,
and dictate terms to the state whenever and wherever the
profane sciences, like history, physics, chemistry border on
its domain.
Up to the time of the Reformation, it was educator to the
world. That revolution substituted the state for the Church ;
and ever since history has been one long attempt to exaggerate
state prerogatives at the expense of parental and ecclesiastical
rights. Our public schools are but a baneful substitute for
the cathedral and monastic institutions, established for chil-
dren centuries before the appearance of Luther and the spread
of his pernicious and destructive doctrines. Over these ca-
350 SPECIAL ETHICS
thedral and monastic schools the Church exercised full and
complete control. It was supreme arbiter in the field of
education, sacred and profane. In sacred matters, with a
direct bearing on faith and morality, it recognised no su-
perior or rival. Whatever religion parents or state taught
children, they had to take from the Church. In profane
matters, considered apart from religion and morality, it viewed
parents and state in the light of agents or helpers, attribut-
ing a fuller right to parents than to state. And all this,
because profane matters are subservient to sacred interests.
Parents were always reckoned agents born such and irremov-
able. It rested with them to choose teachers for their chil-
dren, the branches of knowledge they were to pursue, the
years they were to spend at school; and, as long as the child's
eternal interests were not jeopardized, the Church confided
everything to the prudence of parents.
It recognised no such sweeping power in the state, forbid-
ding it to unduly interfere with parents in the conduct and
management of their children. It welcomed with gladness
every move made by the state in favor of right education, but
consistently opposed every attempt on the part of the state to
usurp prerogatives belonging to Church and parents. The
Church can oblige parents to send their children to schools
where religion is taught, can forbid them schools where reli-
gion is separated from instruction, because the Church's su-
pernatural right weighs against the natural right of parents.
The Church can likewise empower the state to insist on at-
tendance at religious schools, and in this emergency the voice
of the state is the voice of the Church, and the state as vested
with the power of the Church is superior to parents. But
without such authorization from the Church the state always
ranks lower than parents in the education of children.
Hence the state is guilty of tyrannical usurpation against
the Church, when it compels parents to send their children
to neutral or mixed schools, condemned by the Church as hurt-
ful to faith and morals. With certain restrictions Catholic
parents are allowed to avail themselves of such schools, though
they are solemnly exhorted to everywhere build and maintain
parochial schools, where knowledge of religion and knowledge
of letters keep equal pace together. Certainly, no Catholic
BOUQUILLON AND HOLAIND 351
can with a safe conscience help to the enactment of a law
making the attendance of Catholic children at mixed or neu-
tral schools obligatory. In countries, where Catholics must
choose between compulsory education in godless schools and
unlimited freedom in education, the latter alternative is the
lesser evil and the more commendable course. It is another
case of choosing between dogmatic toleration and political
toleration.
Before the Reformation, state-schools were always under
the direct supervision and control of the Church. After the
Reformation, denominational schools came into use, and the
Church had to be satisfied with the conduct and management
of such schools as Catholic children frequented. Then came
non-sectarian or mixed schools, in which religion was sup-
posedly taught in such a way as to give no just offense to
any pupil of whatsoever creed; and this would seem to be
the complexion of our public schools. State-schools are rap-
idly becoming entirely lay or irreligious, with no concern for
religion, teaching at most the broadest kind of humanitarian-
ism, and the lay or independent morality introduced into
philosophy by Kant.
E. Controversy between Bouquillon and Eolaind, S.J.
Education — To whom does it belong?
Bouquillon gives it to state first, to parents last.
Holaind, S.J., gives it to parents first, to state last.
Holaind, S.J. It is wrong to leave the Church out of the
comparison. Its supernatural end ranks it above state and
parents. Morality is an integral part of education, revela-
tion is exclusively under Church control, and the moral im-
possibility of morality without revelation puts all education,
in full and complete sense, at the mercy of the Church; makes
state and parents subject to her jurisdiction in matters educa-
tional. The Church is empowered to teach human as well as
divine science, at least in an indirect way, inasmuch as the
human sciences are useful or necessary to religion and moral-
ity. Faith cannot hurt science, because its exponent, the
Church, is infallible; the sciences can hurt faith, because
their exponents, mere men, are not infallible.
The Church can share her prerogative as educator with
state and parents; and, when they work under her control.
352
they are her agents, and they enjoy rights that are far from
belonging to them in their own private capacity. The Church
counts state and parents her agents after a different man-
ner. A father in virtue of paternity has rights over his
child, that cannot be disputed by any claimant with a lesser
title than paternity; and the Church, taking this fact into
account, reckons parents her agents, born such and irre-
movable. The state's control of the child is based on no such
intimate relation as paternity, and whatever educational pre-
rogatives it enjoys, it gets by favor of the Church. The
Church cannot be supposed to do favors to her enemies, to
reckon agents her deadliest foes; and non-Catholic states, be-
cause they work outside her control, are usurpers when they
attempt to educate children.
With these few needed remarks, we leave the Church. Our
question is between parents and state. We maintain that
education belongs to parents first, to state last. Our op-
ponents are of opinion that it belongs to state first, to parents
last. They recognize the right to educate in individuals, in
the family, in the state, and in the Church; and the order
they follow would lead one to think that they subordinate
family to state in the matter of educational rights. It is sim-
ple nonsense to talk about the individual's right to educate.
All individuals have the power to teach, to give useful infor-
mation to others; but the others are free to accept or reject
the information. The power to teach gives rise to no posi-
tive duty of a kindred color in the listener; and a power in
me, that creates no such duty in others, can hardly be called
a right. Education means more than mere teaching ; it means
teaching with authority. It embraces all those functions,
which promote not only the preservation and development
of the body, but also the perfection of the mind, and the
evolution of intellectual and moral powers. To educate is to
exercise jurisdiction, it supposes authority in the educator,
submission in the pupil. Nobody has the right to educate the
children of anybody else, unless their parents give him that
power. Paternity is the foundation of jurisdiction in parents,
and paternity can be found nowhere outside of parents. The
Church can educate, because divine command is a higher title
than paternity.
BOUQUILLON AND HOLAIND 353
And this is the mistake Bouquillon makes in all the quo-
tations from Catholic philosophers and theologians he urges
to prove the right of the state to educate the young. They
have in mind a state with the Church at its back; the state,
whose claims he advocates, has no such support. The king
they talk about is no mere king, he is a Charlemagne, with
the unction of the Church on his forehead; a most dutiful
son, actuated in all his conduct by childlike obedience to the
Church's wishes. The king Bouquillon talks about is a non-
Catholic, and therefore a non-Christian state, whose rulers
would count it profanation to be touched by the Church's
unction, with whom word from a Mexican rebel weighs about
the same as, or even more than, word from a Pope. The
truth may as well be told, our country is no truly Christian
Country in the full and complete sense of the word, because
it is not a Catholic country. ''Extra Catholicism um non da-
tur verus Christianismus. " There can be no true Christian-
ity without Christ, the Son of the living God. True Chris-
tianity means the profession of Christ's doctrine in its en-
tirety, not in parts ; it means membership in the Church Christ
established, not mere toleration of its members.
F. Holalnd, SJ., on Family, State, Church and Education.
Family. Duty and right of the parent. Education be-
longs to the parents first, to the state last. It belongs to the
parents regularly, directly, and immediately; it belongs to
the state in exceptional cases, indirectly, and mediately.
Blackstone makes the duty of parents threefold, support, pro-
tection and education. Four reasons to prove that this three-
fold duty flows directly from natural law.
1°. Children result from free act of parents, and every
moral agent is responsible for consequences of his free acts.
Life would be a curse, and no blessing, without support, pro-
tection and education. Ergo, parents are held to this three-
fold duty, and the obligation is independent of all positive
law.
2°. Nature's chief purpose in marriage is the continuance
and perfection of the race. This purpose would be defeated,
if parents neglected this threefold duty. Ergo, the obliga-
tion is imposed by nature itself.
3°. A universal impulse, rational, human, reproduced in
354 SPECIAL ETHICS
instinct of animals, is unmistakable token of natural law.
But the accomplishment of this threefold duty is such an
impulse. Ergo, it is imposed by natural law.
4°. A special and natural fitness indicates a special and
natural duty. Parents have a special and natural fitness to
educate their children. Ergo, it is their special and natural
duty. Nothing can replace the love of a mother, the mild
firmness of a father. Sparta never produced a single poet,
orator or statesman of superior ability. Rome gave even too
much authority to fathers, and had a long line of great men.
State. In parents this duty of education is a perfect duty,
demanded by rigorous or commutative justice; not merely
an imperfect duty, based on mere fitness and unenforcible by
children. Government takes this latter view, because it wants
to absorb individual and family. The state has right to keep
education clear of moral poisoning; but it has no right to
invade privacy of the home. Sphere of state's activity is
fixed by its end or purpose, to maintain peace, protect rights,
supply insufficiency of individuals. Its direct object is not
individual, but social good. Wrong must be exterior and
must visibly attack society, before state can invade the home.
Seven points to be kept well in mind.
1°. The family is a true and complete society.
2°. The family is exterior to the state, with rights and du-
ties prior to those of the state, and closer in their origin to
nature.
3°. Education is one of these rights, inalienable, suffering
no abridgement or destruction.
4°. The state cannot at will invade the home.
5°. The state must help the family in case of extreme need.
6°. The state must ensure rights in family, when great dis-
turbance arises.
7°. The state must do all this without absorbing rights of
the family. It must oblige parents to educate their children,
it must not itself educate them.
Church. Docete omnes gentes, fixes the Church's mission
as a teacher. Its jurisdiction extends to human sciences, at
least indirectly. Certainly, it has direct control of such
natural moral truths as are morally impossible to unaided in-
telligence.
BOUQUILLON 355
G. Bouquillon^s Argument. Bouquillon seems to claim di-
rect control of education for the state. Here is his argument,
his apodictic syllogism. Major — ''Civil authority has the
right to use all legitimate temporal means it judges necessary
for the attainment of the temporal common welfare, which
is the end of civil society. Minor — Now, among the most
necessary means for the attainment of the temporal welfare
of the commonwealth, is the diffusion of human knowledge.
Conclusion — Therefore civil authority has the right to use
the means necessary for the diffusion of such knowledge, that
is to say, to teach it, or rather to have it taught by capable
agents," p. 12.
About the Major — If the parents refuse to agree, the means
are not legitimate, because the rights of the family are in-
vaded. If the parents agree, state education is not compul-
sory and the state's right to education is indirect, not direct,
getting all its validity from the consent of parents.
About the Minor — The diffusion of human knowledge to
such as are willing to receive it, is not education in strict sense.
Jurisdiction is wanting. To teach or instruct the willing, is
not to educate, excepting perhaps in part, because independ-
ent of revelation, without which morality is impossible.
Revelation cannot be received or rejected at will.
About the Conclusion. To teach or instruct children against
the will of their parents, is an illegitimate means to the diffu-
sion of knowledge, because it is an invasion of family rights.
The state's one legitimate way to diffuse human knowledge,
is to build schools, employ capable teachers, furnish suitable
text-books, all at the discretion and with the consent of par-
ents; to help parents perform their duty, without robbing
parents of their sacred right; and all this makes the state's
power over education indirect, not direct. The Church is
educator by divine command, parents are educators by nature,
the state is educator by favor of Church and parents.
H. Bcniquillon and History. Bouquillon 's arguments from
history prove nothing, because princes in question got their
morality from Church, acknowledged right of inspection in
bishops, and obeyed the Pope. The state has no more right to
found mixed or neutral schools than agnostic schools. Such
a state ignores revelation, and is incapable of education.
356 SPECIAL ETHICS
Pope Leo condemns all such schools, as well as Syllabus, 48.
Our rulers have on their hands a bad bargain, and they try to
meet conditions without hurting anybody. We condemn, not
our rulers, but the Catholics who send their their children
to such schools without need and without precautions.
The state has no authority to set aside parents in educa-
tion. Injustice is not compatible with authority. The state's
rights are therefore limited to the repression of immoral
or treasonable teachers, and to the promotion of learning by
supplementing private enterprise, and encouraging letters ; to
substituting for parents, when they are dead or notoriously
vicious, and when nobody is bound to the child by closer
ties of relationship. This control is, of course, indirect.
Church control is higher and more complete than even
parental. Her mission is supernatural, the mission of par-
ents is natural. The state, in union with the Church, has
completer rights than when alone.
Education is not in state control, simply because the growth
of learning is conducive to the common good. Every such
argument proves too much, common ownership of property,
supervision of the kitchen, and the like. The state must
promote the common welfare by social means, without short-
ening individual activity or invading the home. Education
is an individual good, and the state has only indirect influ-
ence over it. Power over cases of neglect implies no power
to fix a minimum of education, except, perhaps, for neglected
children. Power to punish parents who starve their children,
implies no power to settle the number of ounces a child must
get. These matters are undefinable a priori, and must be
settled in each particular case by a competent judge.
I. Bouquillon and Authority. Authors Bouquillon quotes
are opposed to his theory, Costa-Rossetti ; Jansen; Hammer-
stein.
Costa-Rossetti has this thesis, '* Considering natural law
only, parents cannot be compelled by civil authority to send
their children to an elementary school, but they may be
obliged to do so in particular cases. ' '
Three Theses of Jansen. (1) Parents alone have right;
(2) Lawful for nobody to instruct without authority from
parents; (3) Parents not subject to state-control.
BOUQUILLON 357
Hammerstein says, Parents are before Church and state
in concept and in fact, and without either, parents would
have to educate. State has indirect right, namely to sup-
ply what is wanting in family, to found and endow schools
where needed, to compel negligent parents, to take place of
parents for orphans and abandoned children. State has no
direct right, and therefore no compulsory, no monopoly, no
minimum. Some wrongly hold that children belong to state
before parents; and this is worse than Eminent Domain and
conscription; it is Socialism. State can insist on necessary
education some way; and this is not compulsory education.
Church has direct power over religion; indirect power over
natural knowledge.
SECTION III— CIVIL SOCIETY, OR THE STATE
THESIS XII
Man is hy very nature a social heing. Jouin, 204r-212;
Bickahy, 297-310.
QUESTION
Family, or domestic society, is not equal to man's full evo-
lution. State or civil society is a further need.
State, or civil society, means a complete multitude of men,
banded together to safeguard their rights and promote their
common good.
It means new relations, a new bond, new duties, new rights.
Origin, scope and structure of State are our topics.
TERMS
By Very Nature. Protestants in general derive origin of
civil society from compact. They contend that there was no
civil society in the primitive state of nature. Hobbes and
Rousseau are their standard-bearers.
Hohhes (1588-1679), instructor to Charles II.
Man's highest faculty, sensation. Its object, pleasure;
opposed to society, and favorable to egoism or selfishness.
Hence, solitude, not society in strictest accord with primitive
state of nature. Might, the only claim to possession; war
and quarrels, natural condition. Interminable disputes, be-
cause strength was met by trickery, fraud. Theory proved
by conduct of two boys on first acquaintance. Fear, there-
fore, led to establishment of civil society; and passage from
state of nature to political society had fear for motive. Au-
thority needed, to repress turbulent. This authority without
bounds or limit ; the more sweeping, the better.
358
HOBBES AND ROUSSEAU ON STATE 359
Multitude transfers individual rights and forces to rep-
resentative.
Authority absolute and beyond law; unimpeachable, irre-
sponsible, superior to justice itself; disobedience, invariably
a crime ; became Church and revelation for subjects.
With Rousseau (1712-1778), man's natural state is a wan-
dering and solitary life, like that of wild beasts. Strength
and ferocity from encounters with beasts. Imitate instinct
of brute creation for herding together. No higher knowledge
than that of sense. No worship, no notions of duty. Free
will and intelligence acquired only after the lapse of many
ages. Solitary life more in accord with human nature, be-
cause more favorable to freedom. Social contract fixed every-
thing. Therefore, society accidental, no improvement, a mis-
take, a curse.
Absurdities of Hobbes and Rousseau:
Hohhes:
Man inferior to brutes; lions fight with other animals, not
among themselves.
Example of small boy proves the contrary.
Nature and man's inclination counsel peace, not war; order
is nature's first law, and peace is order.
Wars are fought to establish peace, and settle disturbed
relations.
Hobbes' entire system is death to morality; petrified,
adamantine tyranny.
Rousseau :
Some refuse to take Rousseau seriously, and regard his
theory an elegiac poem in memory of his times' abuses.
Man has no reason and is limited to sensation.
Man enjoys freedom without intellect,, freedom's founda-
tion.
All mankind departed from man's natural and proper
condition.
Absolutely no foundation, able to render the theory likely.
PROOFS
1. From facts.
2. From man's natural needs.
360 SPECIAL ETHICS
3. From speech.
4. From inborn kindness.
5. From notion of perfectibility.
6. From dictate of reason.
1. The oldest history at our disposal, monuments and kin-
dred remains, testify that man always lived in society. Na-
ture alone is motive for a fact so universal, so enduring, so
constant.
2. The young of animals are bom equipped for life 's strug-
gles, and little dependent for support on parents or others;
the children of men are bom absolutely helpless. St. Thomas
compares. Food ready for animals; garments, teeth, horns,
claws, wings, for defense or flight. Man has reason instead,
to direct work of equipment ; a man is not sufficient unto him-
self in the work of equipment ; he needs others. Instinct helps
animals to choose things beneficial, and avoid things danger-
ous or harmful ; young sheep and wolf. Man knows in only a
general way; many heads are required to reduce general
knowledge to practical utility.
3. Man enjoys the gift of speech, an accomplishment denied
the rest of animal creation. Dogs bark, to express passions
in a general sort of way. Man alone is able to express him-
self with distinctness and precision. Speech is the bond of
society, and can have for design nothing short of communi-
cation between man and man. This communication of ideas
can have for result nothing short of the formation of families
and societies.
4. Man is by nature prone to spend himself on others, and
let them into his joys and griefs. The learned like to share
their knowledge with friends. The fortunate add to their
store by manifesting to others their success. The wretched
derive comfort from the company and commiseration of their
neighbors. In a word, man wants others to rejoice and be
sad with him; and nothing more provokes uneasiness and
dissatisfaction than distressing solitude and the privation of
mutual intercourse.
5. Man is essentially perfectible. He is always on the road
with progress, employing his energies to add to whatever
wealth preceding ages have bequeathed. His sense of a want
PROOFS 361
of finish prevents him from ever resting or accumulating
moss or rust. Condemned to the task of working out his
plans alone and unaided, his lot would be a sorry one, in-
viting disappointment and despair. He must face a world
of difficulties ; and, to win in the end, must necessarily apply
that age-old principle of successful generals, ''Divide and
conquer." No one man can hope to advance far into the
secrets of a multitude of arts or occupations. Human weak-
ness and limitations force us to devote our energies to some
particular line of work, and trust to the activities of others
for the rest. Progress would be practically impossible, unless
the sons took up the task where the fathers left off; unless
succeeding generations held fast to and improved on the re-
sults achieved by the men of old. Harmony of effort is a
prime requisite for anything like remarkable success in hu-
man industry. And society is the most powerful engine of
war put at man's disposal by nature.
6. Eeason clamors for order in the various activities of
men. And order without society is impossible in the matter
of duties, rights, propagation of knowledge and the arts, and
the exercise of all the virtues peculiar to humanity.
P.S. All six arguments indisputably prove man's mem-
bership in family, state and Church natural in strict sense,
whether immediately or mediately; and we note in passing
that this present thesis has a very important bearing on
Thesis XIII and Thesis XIV, where authority is the topic
discussed. Membership in society makes man a social being,
and society is threefold, domestic, civil, ecclesiastical, or fam-
ily, state and Church. Man is by very nature a social being,
if these three societies are natural to man in strict sense.
Recall what we said in General Ethics, Thesis II, about desire
of complete happiness and desire of marriage. Natural in
strict sense means inborn, prompted and imposed by nature,
independent of man's choice and consent, unavoidable. Nat-
ural in wide sense means not inborn, not imposed by nature,
not independent of man's choice and consent, not unavoid-
able; but in harmony with man's dignity as a human being.
All three societies are strictly natural to man, but in differ-
ent ways. Costa-Rossetti, page 409, distinguishes three ways,
immediately natural, mediately natural and remotely natural.
362 SPECIAL ETHICS
A society immediately or mediately natural is naturalin
strict sense, a society remotely natural is natural in wide
sense. A society is immediately natural when its purpose and
character flow immediately from man 's nature ; and the fam-
ily is an instance. Every man is bom into a family, he is
always a son of some parents, nature wants parents to be mar-
ried, marriage constitutes family, children born out of mar-
riage are against nature, branded by the world as things
of shame, no free will about entering family. A society is
mediately natural, when immediately natural societies are its
constituent parts, when its purpose and character flow from
man's nature in such a way that the man's free choice has
something to do with its organization; and the state and
Church are instances. Man is bom into a state, he is always
a member of some family, family^ is always a unit in some
state. Church is as natural a society as state, because as
needful for spiritual prosperity as state is for temporal ;
men are born into it, nature wants all men to belong to the
true Church, nature wants all men to be Catholic ; it is against
nature to be anything else, wrong churches are from compact
and civil law, not true Church; God and nature settle that,
no moral freedom is left, physical stands; too important to
leave to men's choice, eternal salvation is at stake. A so-
ciety is remotely natural, when not at variance with man's
nature, though its purpose and character are fixed not by
man's nature but by his free choice, not imposed by nature,
not unavoidable; and a business-partnership is an instance.
A society is unnatural when its purpose and character are
wicked, when it is without moral union based on duties, when
it is in reality no society and ought to be dissolved ; and the
Freemasons are an instance.
Nature definitely settles the family to which a man must
belong, no man ever ceases to be the son of his parents. In
definitely settling his family, nature definitely settles the
state, into which he is born, without definitely settling the
state, in which he must live. Though born into a fixed state,
a man can change his allegiance from one country to another ;
though he cannot change his nationality, he can change his
citizenship, but always in such a way that nature wants him
PRINCIPLES 363
to be always a citizen of some state, leaving the determination
of the particular state to his own free choice.
PRINCIPLES
A. Bousseau says: a. To get down to man's natural con-
dition, we must strip him of whatever ornaments and advan-
tages the civilization of centuries added to his original per-
fections. Stripped of these ornaments, man is nothing more
noble than what Rousseau paints him, a wandering beast,
without reason, and without social aspirations.
b. Universal ideas are the immediate effects of language,
and language is not at all natural to man, but the result of
art and study. It would, therefore, seem that in the state of
nature man was wholly destitute of universal ideas.
c. America and Africa are inhabited by tribes of human
beings more like beasts than men, with no religion, no laws,
no customs.
Answer: a. Man must not be stripped of his essence; and,
as long as he remains in possession of that, he is the owner of
a higher faculty than sense, viz., reason. He is by nature a
rational animal, a species of being entirely and utterly dis-
tinct from brute creation.
b. In the supposition of the Nominalists Rousseau's theory
about universals would be true ; but that supposition is long
since exploded. Universal ideas are independent of words,
and owe their being to a process of abstraction founded on
the reality of things. Language is no work of art, it is the
product of nature, which fits men with organs nicely ar-
ranged and admirably intended for the production of articu-
late sounds. This language or that language in particular
is, of course, a work of art ; but nature evidently had in view
the use of some language or other, subject to the choice of
different peoples.
c. No barbarous nation is so poor as not to possess and
employ reason in the ordinary affairs of life. Rousseau may
endeavor to deceive his readers into believing that rude rea-
soning and dense ignorance are no higher essays at knowl-
edge than sensation; but the man capable of such folly is,
364 SPECIAL ETHICS
either unacquainted with the first rudiments of philosophy^
or dishonest enough to impose on the credulity of others by
downright lying. Neither is any nation so barbarous as not
to acknowledge a deity and worship him in some way suited
to its false and imperfect notions. The mistakes of barbar-
ism in the matter of religion and laws are not a gift of nature,
but an addition made to nature by the depravity and ^vicked-
ness of free agents. Nature even in barbarians rebels against
the wrong done her, but she is kept in check by the species of
omnipotence resident in liberty's tyranny.
B. Hohhes says: In state of nature everything common,
no private property. Therefore wrongs and universal quar-
reling. The arrogant and strong always adding to their
stores by oppression and robbery; the mild and gentle in con-
tinual strife, to protect themselves and their goods. Differ-
ences of disposition beget hatred and contempt. Men travel
laden with weapons, citizens lock their doors, the state sup-
ports policemen, sheriffs, troops.
Answer: Hobbes' whole mistake consists in foolishly sup-
posing that human nature proceeds from the hands of the
Creator with all the imperfections resulting to it from man 's
perverseness. Man's power for harm is immense, and the
wicked are no true exponents of human nature. To form a
fair estimate of what man would be in a state of nature, we
must take the virtuous for standard; and surely their dispo-
sitions and methods of behavior tally exactly with the require-
ments of society. Individual defects ought not to be laid to
the account of human nature, and saddled on the back of all
mankind. Nature is not to blame for the precautions taken
by citizens against danger to life and property, but the pas-
sions of men, greed of gain, anger, quarrelsomeness and qual-
ities loudly condemned by nature. Even the wicked cannot
shake off this inclination towards society, precisely because it
is from nature.
C. If society is a dictate of reason, monks and solitaries
are out of harmony with nature, and guilty of a grievous
wrong.
Answer: Society is a dictate of reason meant for mankind
as a collection, and as a help to the race's betterment. It is
not a dictate meant for each and every individual, as an end
PRINCIPLES 365
of absolute and supreme importance. For higher purposes
and motives a man can with praise abandon society and live
apart from his fellows. Naturally speaking, however, and
apart from the supernatural advantages accruing to the her-
mit, it must be said that normally life in solitude is far in-
ferior to life in society.
D. Differences between Hobbes and Rousseau:
Hobbes, natural state opposed to society ; Rousseau, natural
state outside of society.
Hobbes, society bettered man's condition; Rousseau, so-
ciety, a downright injury to mankind.
Hobbes, natural state, universal warfare ; Rousseau, natural
state, good, peaceful, happy.
Hobbes, society founded on egoism and fear. From egoism,
universal war, because everything in common; fear of death
and want of security, desire of society. Each transferred his
will to one man or body of men ; hence, Regal Absolutism.
Rousseau, man in natural state happy with the happiness
of brutes, oaks, rivulets, trees. No need of society, but by de-
grees compacts were made at the expense of liberty. Hence,
"Social Contract.''
THESIS xm
A multitude and authority, or subjects and a ruler, are ele-
ments essential to civil society, or the State. Jouin, 212-214.
QUESTION
The Staters Pxtrpose. The State has for object external
order, actuated by internal righteousness, and all for com-
mon good of the citizens. Kant has another theory about
the guiding purpose of political society. He assumes that
man's freedom is nothing worth, unless it implies absolute
independence of all restraint, moral as well as physical, de-
pending solely on itself and on whatever reason, unbiassed
by any outside recommendations or impressions, decrees.
These impressions serving to destroy freedom are twofold in
his hypothesis, inner and outer. The former have their
origin in the mind's appetites and desires. The latter are
due to outside forces at work against an agent's free choice.
The first class of impressions are subject matter for what he
styles moral law; the second class, subject matter for what
he chooses to designate juridical or judicial law. Moral law
is therefore a restraint on nature and inborn factors of dis-
order. Juridical law holds in check what enemies threaten
an attack on freedom from without. To bring order out of
the chaos liable to result from the conflict between will and
will in the field of outward agencies, reason and nature made
the establishment of the State, or political society, impera-
tively necessary. In establishing the State it imposed on the
same the obligation of seeing to it that each man's freedom
be confined within such limits as not to interfere with the
freedom of others. The principle, therefore, of coexistence
of individual liberties lies at the root of civil society, and
constitutes civil society's sole purpose and aim. This theory
of Kant is built from turret to foundation-stone on false prin-
366
ELEMENTS AND PURPOSE OF STATE 367
ciples. We call attention to these three statements in par-
ticular :
a. Man is absolutely independent, responsible to no one
save himself.
b. Morality is an affair of abstractions, outside the sphere
of concrete realities.
c. Human liberty, viewed externally, is illimitable and un-
confined.
We beg leave to think that all three statements are un-
founded and untrue.
a. Man is God's creature, and essentially dependent on his
Creator, essentially responsible before God for his every act.
b. Morality's principles, though abstract in themselves, are
founded on concrete relations, existent not in the mind solely,
but alive and at work in the beings that surround us. Kant,
it may be remarked, would blasphemously rate love of God
unmoral, because, forsooth, God its object is outside the agent
eliciting the act, and because love is accomplished not by rea-
son, but by the will.
c. In the abstract, human liberty may be considered a
thing without bound or limit; but in the concrete, in the
everyday affairs of men, liberty is decidedly restricted. The
object matter on which it exercises itself, the duties incumbent
on the free agent in the use of his liberty, certainly operate
to render human liberty anything but illimitable and unre-
strained.
In Kant's system society would procure to mankind noth-
ing higher than a negative good, the curbing of wicked vio-
lence and cessation of quarrels between man and man. If it
once set about accomplishing any positive effect, it would at
once degenerate to either individualism, or selfishness and
despotism. It would either oblige every man to work for him-
self solely, or, relieving the State of all moral responsibility
in its arbitrary enactments, would rob subjects of the protec-
tion now afforded by the salutary restraints morality exer-
cises over even the State. The abuses arising from Kant's
system are manifold:
a. All public morality would perish from the earth. The
State would be able to prohibit only what actions of mine
interfere with the full liberty of my neighbor. Suicide, bias-
368 SPECIAL ETHICS
phemy, sacrilege, unholy contracts, public scandals, if done
with the full consent of parties concerned, would be no crimes
at all.
b. Religious indifference, political atheism would be men's
rights; and the Church would have no voice whatever in the
affairs of men.
c. Finally, government, when closest to its end's fulfilment,
would lose its usefulness, its very reason for existence. The
State would slowly work out its own destruction, and would
ever tend towards self-annihilation. Harmony once secured,
men would have no further need of the State's directive and
saving influence. In our theory, even with this harmony se-
cured, the State would still be a need. Righteousness and
common good demand state. State has indirect control of our
thoughts and wishes.
Right System. The State has for object external order,
actuated by internal righteousness, and all for the common
good of the citizens. The end or object of a thing is that
for which it exists, that towards which its energies must tend.
We have already described the various classes of ends. To
now apply. God's glory is the absolutely last end of society,
as it is of everything else in the universe of existences. The
relatively last end of society is external order, procured with
a view to the common welfare of its members, and actuated
by morality or rectitude. Society accomplishes this end, when
it secures to citizens means to fully exercise their rights.
The means themselves are said to be society's proximate or
nearest end. Actual possession by the citizens of these means,
or prosperity in first act, is society's remote or more distant
end. The actual evolution of faculties and exercise of rights
constitute civic prosperity in second act, or in its complete-
ness. Order is taken in its philosophic sense, and means a
becoming disposition of things, such as allots to each its own
proper place. Righteousness is harmony with reason or ob-
jective order. If external order were not actuated with
righteousness, society would be ethically wrong, and would
be in direct opposition with man's natural tendencies. That
society has no other purpose than the purpose we assign, is
evident from the fact that men enter society with no other
end in view. They regard it as an institution designed for
PROOFS AND PRINCIPLES 369
the relief of individual deficiencies, an aid to the full and
peaceful enjoyment of their rights; and, therefore, intended
to establish external order, actuated by internal righteousness,
for the common good of the citizens.
The scope of society determined, we can now proceed to
discuss its elements or structure. By multitude we under-
stand any large or small collection of individuals. Authority
in the State is a moral right independent of every other right
in its own order, to direct or guide the actions of citizens
towards the common good. Scholastics, applying their theory
of matter and form, regard the multitude its matter, the au-
thority its form. Society is therefore a compound reality,
and these two parts are indispensably necessary to its being.
PROOFS
Society, or the state, is an individual body, not physically,
but morally speaking. It is likewise a peaceable and well
ordered assembly of many. But we must recognize in every
individual body parts blended together, and a principle ef-
fecting the union sufficient to constitute the body one. In
the same way every peaceable and well ordered assembly
necessarily involves the idea of individuals making up the
assembly, and some principle capable of maintaining peace,
and holding the different wills to harmony. Multitude
means the persons forming the state. Authority means prin-
ciple procuring unity and preserving order. Ergo.
PRINCIPLES
A. Subjects are the concrete expressions of multitude ; rul-
ers, the concrete expression of authority.
B. Difference between authority and dominion, or prop-
erty : Dominion turns on things ; authority, on persons. Use
of dominion is a free act ; exercise of authority, a duty. Do-
minion has for object the owner's private profit; authority
is for good of community.
Difference between a subject and a slave: A slave as such
is more like a thing or chattel than a person, in point of serv-
ice; a subject as such has all the qualifications of a person.
370
SPECIAL ETHICS
and enjoys a person's free rights and privileges. A slave is
a person and a chattel, a subject is a person and no chattel.
A slave is absolutely dependent on the wishes of his master,
in point of service ; a subject is moved to act not by the su-
perior's will precisely, but by the authority it represents and
by the appointment of reason. A slave works unto his mas-
ter's gain; a subject aims at the advancement of the whole
community.
C. It is a duty incumbent on the State to procure the pros-
perity of every single citizen, whether rich or poor, learned
or ignorant, noble or plebeian. Any legislation aiming at
the aggrandizement of a certain few to the injury of certain
others, is against the first elements of political morality, and
grievously wrong. To procure signifies to furnish means, the
citizen himself must apply them.
D. Only admissible form of society, that in which liberty
and equality are guaranteed, meaning equality of opportuni-
ties.
I
THESIS XIV
Authority proceeds immediately from God. In the nature
of things, and ordinarily, authority is not conferred on the
people. Ordinarily, and in the nature of things, the consent
of the people fixes or determines the person in whom author-
ity resides. This consent may he implied or expressed, im-
mediate or gradual, and cannot always he withheld. Jonin,
214^226; Bickahy, 310-338.
QUESTION
Two questions:
A. Whence comes authority?
B. How is authority conferred?
One deals with the origin of authority; the other, with its
recipient.
A. All Catholics are agreed about the origin of authority.
Catholics are not a unit on the second question. Rousseau
and Hobbes, on account of the theories already alluded to,
are logically obliged to invent a false theory about authority's
origin.
The word, immediately, needs explanation. Two ways:
Cause immediate, when no other cause intervenes. Election,
never a cause. It is a condition. The two ways are posi-
tive enactment and law of nature. Moses and Aaron in Holy
Scripture received their authority from God in first way,
because chosen and appointed by God without any free act
on part of people. Positive enactment is likewise the method
in force in case of the Sovereign Pontiff. God in revelation
instituted the office in such sort that men are forbidden the
liberty of changing, limiting or lessening the Pope's author-
ity, though they are allowed the privilege of electing or choos-
ing an individual for the office. Authority can spring from
a law of nature, and, therefore, from God as its immediate
cause, in a threefold manner.
371
372
•ECIAL ETHICS
a. It can belong to a subject by very force of creation, and
in virtue of the natural order of things. A father's author-
ity in the family is an instance.
b. It can be bestowed by God on a person determined by
some such accidental fact as acquiescence or inheritance. The
accidental fact is by no means a cause of the acquired au-
thority, but at most an indispensable condition.
c. Finally, it can result from the free choice of a people,
expressed by suffrage. Nature in this case advises and coun-
sels the act, it gives the act, all its force. It renders the act
such a medium that in the event of its absence no authority
would accrue to any individual. And yet, because of the in-
fluence nature exerts in the performance of the act, and be-
cause of the circumstance that the act operates merely to
designate the person, on whom God afterwards bestows au-
thority, God remains the immediate cause of political su-
premacy in even a republic.
B. The second question about the recipient of authority is
more delicate and harder to settle. Apart from certain
openly false opinions, the Scholastics themselves are divided
on this topic, and proffer apparently different solutions.
Everybody is agreed that a multitude, or the people as such,
cannot exercise authority. It would be quite out of the
question, and simply impossible, for each person to issue
orders to his neighbor, and be in turn ordered by the neigh-
bor. It would be impossible in the tumult of opinions to
decide what person was invested with the prerogatives en-
titling him to the obedience of others. A multitude of the
kind would be matter without form; and, therefore, no so-
ciety at all. Everyone would have to know everything, and
everyone would have to pass sentence on every measure and
detail of government. Therefore, even if authority were first
bestowed by God on the multitude or whole people, an indi-
vidual ruler, in whom this authority would be centred, would
be a necessity of nature, and as such indispensably necessary.
By ruler we mean any person or body of persons legitimately
constituted to exercise full dominion of jurisdiction. A mul-
titude is a collection of individuals. A people is a multitude
of citizens living under the same government. State au-
thority is social power existent in particular and determined
AUTHORITY AND ITS RECIPIENT 373
individuals. There can be no difficulty in understanding that
no mere multitude, no people separated from its ruler, is a
fit subject for authority. In fact, a multitude as such can
never become the actual exponent and agent of authority.
All the difficulty lies in determining whether a people can in
first act, as they say, retain authority, immediately bestowed
on the people by God and wielded by the sovereign in the
State. To compare, state is the whole man, body and soul.
Authority in ruler is the soul, multitude is the body.
Philosophy discusses four different systems, advocating
each its own theory about the manner of authority's bestowal
by God. Their authors are: ^' James I, ^' Taparelli, ^' the
Scholastic in general, *• Hohhes and Rousseau.
1. James I, supported for a long time in his opinion by
the University of Oxford, contended that kings and Popes
were on a level. Men, therefore, as he thinks, are as unable
to tamper with the authority of secular princes as they are
to tamper with that of the Sovereign Pontiff. They cannot
in justice lessen or change the prerogatives of kings. They
cannot frame laws setting bounds to royal wishes, nor can
they with any show of right object when their rulers override
the limitations of law. James appeals to the instances of
Saul and David ; but his appeal is vain, since revelation made
their claims good. No modern king has revelation on his
side. The divine right of kings is authority's only defense,
in the opinion of James, against factions and rebellious sub-
jects. Against James we maintain that apart even from
the divine right of kings, a people is not at liberty to limit
at will power once transferred to the ruler. It is far less able
to abolish such power, unless the ruler, abusing his trust,
descends to the meanness and injustice of open tyranny.
This, too, is the case, in Bellarmine's opinion, though he fa-
vors the supremacy of the people to something of an excess.
He thinks that a people never completely hands over its au-
thority to a king ; but, always retaining it in habit or potency,
can in certain cases actually recover it and administer things.
2. The second system, that of Taparelli and many modern
writers among Catholics, advocates God's immediate bestowal
of authority on the ruler, and denies to consent of the people
everything higher than accidental necessity or importance.
374
SPECIAL ETHICS
The ruler, according to these writers, is determined either
by some antecedent concrete fact or by the free consent of the
people. Hence they count consent of the people necessary
only by accident, when the antecedent concrete fact is want-
ing. Ordinarily this fact settles succession, and dissent on
the part of the subjects is out of the question. The all im-
portant fact is described as superiority from the standpoint of
domestic headship. The state is in its first origin an out-
growth of the family. The father, from ruler in household
eoncerns, grew by degrees to exercise political sovereignty
over his own immediate family, and families connected with
it. As he holds from nature the authority to govern his wife
and children, so from nature he holds his right to manage
the State. These authors, therefore, consider God's gift of
authority immediate, inasmuch as it proceeds from a law of
nature. They contend that, in the ordinary course of events,
a people's consent is not absolutely necessary; admitting at
the same time that contingencies can happen in which this
consent becomes a reason why God vests some set person with
authority. Different from doctrine of James I, who derives
authority from positive divine enactment. Kings, therefore,
are on a level with the Pope. People cannot establish, can-
not change authority, because it is a divine institution.
3. The system proposed hy Scholastic philosophy is compli-
cated, and offers among others these characteristic points:
1. Authority universally considered comes immediately from
God.
2. This authority rests immediately in the whole multi-
tude.
(N.B. To at once refute this theory, we answer the three
reasons alleged in its support.
X. Because it is of divine right and granted by God to no
one in particular.
Answer: Impossible, because multitude unfit to govern.
It is granted to ruler chosen by people.
y. Because no one is born a king. All are bom equal.
Answer: True in the abstract, but circumstances sur-
rounding birth make some infants kings. In this Scholastic
sense no man could own property by law of nature. The
ruler selected by the people is not bom selected.
SCHOLASTIC SYSTEM 375
z. Because Society ought to be a perfect government, with
prerogatives enabling it to protect itself and punish disturb-
ers of its tranquillity.
Answer: This is true enough of a perfect society, consist-
ing of ruler and people ; not true of a half -society, consisting
solely of subjects without a ruler. It is the ruler's business,
not the business of separate individual citizens to protect the
state and punish its disturbers).
3. The multitude can and must make over its authority to
some king or governing body, with no vestige of a right to
retain it.
4. The law of nations rules men's choice of form of govern-
ment, because prior to government they are without other
law.
5. Political power is from God, but through human counsel
as a medium, not through multitude as medium, in which
authority first resides.
(N.B. Difference between civil and ecclesiastical power.
In general, civil power is from God by divine law; in par-
ticular, from God through the law of nations. Ecclesiastical
power is always and in every case God's immediate gift, and
positive divine law is its foundation. Political power is vested
in the multitude ; ecclesiastical power belongs to one man. In
political, multitude controls prerogatives; in ecclesiastical,
multitude is without control.)
6. Men dispose the material for the reception of the form
infused by God, i.e., men designate the ruler, God vests him
with authority. Suarez says as much in De Legibus, Bk. 3,
c. 3, n. 2.
7. A people never makes complete surrender of its authority
to the king. It always retains the authority by way of a
habit, or capacity, or in quiet. After the appointment of a
king, no two authorities remain capable to pass into act.
Nevertheless, it is safe to say that two remain, one in the king,
the other in his people; understanding always that the au-
thority, resident in the people, is merely habitual, debarred
from activity, as long as the king's authority endures. When
the king's authority falls, then that of the multitude asserts
itself. The people resumes its right to designate a ruler.
8. Suarez on the authority of Ulpian and St. Augustine in-
376 SPECIAL ETHICS
troduces the ''Royal Compact," in virtue of which subjects
are considered to transfer all their rights to the king, the
king at the same time, or in return for the favor, assuming
all the responsibility attaching to government.
9. A Dominican, Father Victoria, thus sums up the doctrine
of the Scholastics: "By divine decree the government holds
its power. This power resides by divine and natural right
in the government itself, since it devolves on the government
to rule and manage itself, and direct all its energies to the
common good. Nature makes no difference between individ-
uals in a community, before the assignment of a head. When
the king is once established on his throne, he must be said
to have his authority immediately from God alone, not from
the people at all." These statements sound like a contradic-
tion in terms; but a distinction may serve to reconcile the
two Catholic schools of thought represented by Suarez and
Victoria respectively. Victoria contends that the people cre-
ate their king, not his royal authority ; Suarez maintains that
the people make some person ready and fit for authority.
Molina admits that the king is above his people, even col-
lectively taken.
To reconcile apparent contradictions in Suarez and others,
we must only suppose that they view authority and society
at one time in the abstract ; at another, in the concrete. Ab-
stractly considered, like that vague ownership denominated
common and everybody's title before occupancy, authority
exists in every member composing a society or state. Con-
cretely speaking, and taking the state for an established in-
stitution made up of a king and subjects, authority exists
again in every member comprised in the society or state, but
only after such a manner that the people dispose or make
ready the matter, choose a ruler, and God in turn impresses
on the object of their choice the form of authority.
Resemblances :
a. Civil power comes immediately from God through nature,
and what comes through nature comes from God.
b. Certain human acts are necessary to invest one man
rather than another with authority.
c. When no prior right exists, when no right is endangered
by such action, a people has from very nature the right, it is
HOBBES AND ROUSSEAU ON AUTHORITY 377
in fact bound, to specify its own form of government and
appoint its own ruler.
Differences :
a'. Authority passes immediately from God to the people =
abstract.
Authority passes immediately from God to the state = con-
crete.
b'. Ordinarily, and of itself, authority is the result of
"Royal Compact"; of a variety of causes by accident = no
ruler fixed, choose ruler.
Ordinarily, and of itself authority has its origin in family
authority or a preceding right ; by accident, in agreement =
ruler fixed, no choice.
c'. No authority can accrue to a king without some sort of
consent on the part of his people. Such consent may be im-
mediate or gradual, implied or expressed. When a prior
right is the foundation of the king's claim, no consent of the
people is needed ; but the people can in some cases be obliged
to give consent.
4. A fourth system is that introduced hy Rousseau and
Hohhes.
Rousseau conceives authority as the result of a surrender
of free will and rights, made by every member of the state
or society. By this surrender every individual deeds over
to the whole community his person, and puts under the di-
rection and control of a general or universal will all his pow-
ers and faculties. Public or social authority is, therefore,
with him a sum total of individual wills and liberties, and
this sum total constitutes a general or universal will, which
is authority, the state. The very act of alliance immediately
produces, in place of the single persons closing and sealing
this contract, a moral body, a collective group, composed of
as many parts as the suffrages or votes represented at the
meeting. This moral body assumes at the same time, and by
the self-same act, its proper oneness, its personality, its life,
its will.
, Hohhes establishes a like compact, made out of fear and
from sense of danger. He then vindicates to the state a
power that puts it above conscience and all law, human and
divine.
378
SPECIAL ETHICS
Against Rousseau and Hohhes:
1.. Contradiction. 2. Liberty inalienable. 3. Leaves no
liberty in individual. 4. Transfer in favor of individuals;
no society yet; same would command and obey. 5. Man
would obey man — real slavery. 6. Authority would vary
with sum of votes — arithmetical progression.
DIVISION
Four Parts— I, II, III, lY
I. Authority from God.
II. Not conferred on people.
III. . People fix ruler.
IV. Consents.
PROOFS
I. Authority immediately from God.
1°. God makes to society immediate gift of that without
which society cannot be even conceived of in thought, of that
which belongs to the very essence of social order. But au-
thority is a thing of the kind. Ergo.
With Regard to the Major: The essences of things moral,
as natural to man as society, are supplied immediately by
God.
Wilh Regard to the Minor: A thing's essence is made up
of its matter and form; and, of these two elements, form is
always considered the superior and more important. Au-
thority, we have seen, is the form; multitude, the matter of
society. Man is made up of body and soul; state, of multi-
tude and authority.
2°. The state receives authority either immediately from
God or from the individuals composing the state. But the
second member of this dilemma is absurd. Ergo.
With Regard to the Minor: St. Thomas says, and the
world agrees with him, that nobody is bom by very nature
a king, because otherwise everybody would be born a king,
since nature is the same in all men. Some men are bom
kings by accident of birth from royal parents. By birth or
nature they are mere human beings, and no better than com-
AUTHORITY AND MULTITUDE 379
mon children. By royal birth they are kings, and royal is
an accident or quality superadded to birth or nature. It is
no escape from this argument to say that men transfer to the
king not authority properly so-called, but dominion over their
own acts. The transaction is nowhere recorded. Besides, it
would bind only parties to the contract, not their descendants.
Apart from the man himself, God alone is master of a man's
dominion over his own acts. The men of 1776 could never
transfer to Wilson dominion over the acts of men living in
1918. And they never attempted the thing. They could
transfer dominion over their own acts to Washington, and the
obligation of obedience would bind only such men of 1776 as
actually made the transfer, and Washington would have no
authority over recalcitrants in the country.
Obedience to Washington like obedience to Wilson, is not
rooted in any authority given them by the people, but in
authority given them immediately by God. Authority is do-
minion over the conduct or free acts of others. No man of
himself enjoys this dominion over others, God enjoys it over
all. And God shares this dominion of His with the ruler,
to make the state an established fact. Just as Washington
in virtue of the dominion or authority immediately conferred
on him by God, ruled all the men in America during his presi-
dency, recalcitrants as well as friends, so Wilson rules all the
men in America in 1918, dissatisfied republicans as well as
satisfied democrats. Men of themselves have no right to im-
pose obedience on others against their wishes. God has the
right to impose obedience on all, whether they are willing or
unwilling. In itself a majority has no more right in this
matter than an individual. The thing is plain in the case of
a king and his successors. The makers of a king could never
transfer dominion over the free acts of their descendants to
the king's successors. God alone has that power, and there-
fore God alone gave the king's successors authority.
Besides, God never gives authority to a ruler for his own
personal advantage, but for the advantage of the state. The
gift therefore endures as long as the state endures, and au-
thority belongs as much to successors as to the original king.
The state as such never transfers authority to the ruler, be-
cause no state exists till after the ruler is invested with au-
S80
SPECIAL ETHICS
thority by God. When members of a firm give its president
certain powers, they give him what they first possessed.
When individuals attempt to give authority to a ruler, they
attempt to give what they never possessed, namely, dominion
over wills different and distinct from their own.
S°. Positive divine law can be alleged to strengthen the
position we take. ''There is no power but from God, and
those that are ordained of God. Therefore, he that resisteth
the power, resisteth the ordinance of God." Rom. 13.1. If
authority came from the people, disobedience would be direct
resistance to an ordinance of the people, not to an ordinance
of God.
II. Authority is not conferred on the people.
1°. Because such bestowal is not evident from nature. The
only bestowal evident from nature is bestowal on the complete
state, multitude and ruler together ; and this bestowal is veri-
fied, whether immediate gift is made to ruler or people. Im-
mediate bestowal on the ruler is not evident from the nature
of the state, but it is evident from the nature of authority.
From its very definition, authority cannot be exercised by
the people as such, it can be exercised by the ruler.
When Bellarmine says that authority as a divine and posi-
tive right is bestowed on no man in particular, and there-
fore on the multitude, he means that no man in particular
has a natural right to authority, that no man is born by very
nature a king, that by the nature of the state authority is in
the multitude, meaning multitude and ruler together, not
separately ; and with Bellarmine we stand for the same state-
ment. We deny, however, that authority is in the multitude
apart from the ruler, and contend that the very nature of
authority demands that it be in the ruler. Intellect is in
the man without being in his body, it is in his soul.
2°. It is absurd to consider the recipient of authority an
agent wholly unfitted and unable to exercise it.
But the people are such an agent. Ergo.
With Regard to the Minor: Adversaries admit the people's
incapability to exercise authority ; and, to meet the argument,
distinguish between ability in first act or radically, and abil-
ity in second act. But ability in first act always implies the
remote possibility of passing from a present state of inac-
AUTHORITY AND MULTITUDE 381
tivity to a future state of full activity. No such possibility
can be recognized in the multitude. If the distinction, ' ' rad-
ically," means ability to choose the king, or determine the
form of government, we readily grant to the people posses-
sion of such a power. The people^ therefore, and this is our
doctrine, have a full right to create the ruler. They have
no right to create or transfer the authority lodged in the ruler
selected.
A power in a person that the person himself cannot exer-
cise is a contradiction in terms = power and not power. Au-
thority in a multitude that the multitude itself cannot exer-
cise is the same. If the king exercises authority only as the
agent or instrument of the multitude, he is completely at the
mercy of his subjects, and has no real authority at all.
3°. According to adversaries, e.g., Suarez, De Legibus,
Bk. 3, c. 3, n. 2 — men make ready the material, they furnish
a subject for the reception of authority. God adds the form,
confers authority on this subject. But he that merely pre-
pares the material, cannot be said of himself to possess the
form. Ergo, authority is not of itself and immediately in
men or the multitude.
With Regard to the Major: This argument may be of little
force to any but Scholastics, who are familiar with the theory
of matter and form, current in the Schools. We introduce it,
however, because of its peculiar strength and cogency, when
used against such as admit the theory and accept the phrase-
ology.
With Regard to the Minor: Form is always absent, until
the matter is fully equipped and ready for its advent. As
soon as it approaches the matter, complete substance results.
If the supposition of our adversaries were correct, society
or the state would exist long before they conceive it to be-
gin. For the two elements would be a long while present
together, and no obstacle would stand in the way of their
union.
4°. Catholics all admit that the republic is not the essen-
tial and only natural form of government.
But whoso lodges authority in the multitude, and then in
the ruler, must necessarily adopt this attitude. Ergo.
With Regard to the Major: Many writers, influenced by
382
SPECIAL ETHICS
Aristotle's opinion, hesitate not to affirm with him that re-
publics are in some respects inferior to other forms of govern-
ment. In point of stability history is emphatically in favor
of monarchy. Witness the following table.
Monarchies:
Assyria,
1449
years
Constantinople,
1121 years
Egypt,
1675
England,
1071 "
Persia and Media,
417
France,
1373 «
China,
2000
Germany,
1000 «
Roman Empire,
344
Spain,
1426 "
Rome,
853
Rome,
525 "
Republics:
Carthage,
647
years
United States,
125 years
Venice,
1346
u
Athens,
397 "
Genoa
855
((
Rome,
290 "
With Regard to the Minor: A republic is, in a few words,
a state conceding to the people or multitude the largest pos-
sible measure of influence in political affairs. If authority
is first vested in the people, to be afterwards transferred by
them to the ruler, a republic, or better still a democracy pure
and simple, is the only form of government certain to com-
mend itself to the mind of the philosopher. No man can
fairly give what is not his own, and the principle holds good
when applied to a people. The people, therefore, must be
considered rightful owners of all the authority resident in
the ruler, before its transmission and acceptance. Absolute
democracy, or pure republicanism, is that manner of govern-
ment which vindicates all authority to the people in joint
assembly. Whatever different forms of government may now
be in use, it is quite certain, according to our adversaries'
way of thinking, that absolute democracy ought to have been
the original form, because the form most in accord with the
dictates of reason.
It is difficult, besides, for us to see why, if the people were
so minded, they could not retain authority and lend it to no
individual in particular. For, if in the moment preceding
the loan, they were really capable of possession, nothing
could possibly occur afterwards to divest them of that right.
An attempt to wield power by the whole multitude in com-
mon might certainly be attended b}^ innumerable and dis-
agreeable inconveniences; but right would nevertheless be
AUTHORITY AND MULTITUDE 383
on their side, and reason is loud against any spoliation of
rights. If the people were incapable of authority in the mo-
ment preceding the loan, then they attempted to give what
was not their own, and were little better than thieves or rob-
bers. It was easy for primitive peoples to see the need of
submitting to the patriarch, because nature taught them that
the ruler got his authority immediately from God, not from
the people.
To reconcile the two seemingly opposite schools of Catholic
thought, it is necessary to merely examine these two state-
ments made by Victoria, one of our principal opponents, and
see how well they can be made fit with our own doctrine:
''Monarchy is not only just and legitimate rule, but kings
have their authority in virtue of a divine decree, and by a
natural right. They are not dependent for it on the govern-
ment taken collectively, they are not dependent for it on
men at all." (No. 8.) In No. 7 he has the following : ''A
government, therefore, has power by divine appointment.
The material cause, or subject in which this power dwells,
is by law of God and law of nature the government itself,
because it belongs to the government to administer and man-
age itself and turn all its forces to the common good. ' ' Vic-
toria certainly never intended to contradict himself. When,
therefore, in his second statement he maintains that authority
is vested in the government, he cannot mean the people sep-
arated from the ruler. When writers of his opinion come
to explain themselves, they contend merely that authority
resides in the people in root, and consists entirely in their
being able, speaking philosophically, to prepare the matter
and get ready the subject. They, that with us deny author-
ity to the people, readily grant the people all the privileges
contended for by the opposite side. We willingly recognize
in the people the right to even determine, and appoint, and
choose by election, the person on whom God will afterwards
bestow the authority. But we emphatically deny that the
people are on this account the immediate recipients of au-
thority, we deny that authority properly so called rests in
the multitude. The motive uppermost with writers of the
school opposed to our view, is the fact that God never passes
authority to the ruler without the intervention in some way
3^4
SPECIAL ETHICS
of popular will, human consent, or some other equally just
cause. We certainly pay due deference to the fact, denying
at the same time to such intervention the causalty claimed
for it by these others, and allowing it only the influence proper
to the designation or appointment of the candidate for au-
thority. We follow Suarez, Victoria rightly understood fol-
lows Suarez ; and we are all one.
To settle disputes about the title to authority in a state, and
decide between the rival claims of a lawful sovereign and a
usurper, these various opinions are advanced. Suarez insists
on his Royal Compact or Contract. Zigliara leaves everything
to election or choice, direct or indirect. Taparelli notes a
difference between three several classes of societies. Some
he calls natural, others free, others obligatory. In societies
of the first class, and the family is an instance, nature itself
appoints the ruler or head. In those of the second class,
consent is the all important factor. In those of the third
class, everything depends on preexisting rights. It must be
at first sight evident that consent of some sort or other is a
characteristic common to all three classes. In obligatory so-
cieties, such, for instance, as result from the subjugation of a
people by just process of war, this consent is an obligation
freely assumed by the conquered people at the beginning of
hostilities. They took up arms with the undestanding that
ultimate victor^^ was to decide supremacy, and in agreeing
to preliminaries they agreed to the result. In like manner,
consent is an element entering into the family. Consent,
however, is here, as in the former case, obligatory and exacted
by a law of nature.
Morally necessary consent is as physically free as morally
free consent; and one kind is as much consent as the other.
Consent, therefore, has place in natural and obligatory so-
cieties as well as in free societies. In all three societies con-
sent of the governed is title. In natural and obligatory so-
cieties this consent is physically free, morally necessary; in
free societies it is physically free and morally free.
Our position then is that taken by Zigliara. We simply
change the word, ** choice direct or indirect" to ''consent of
the people, whether implied or expressed, immediate or grad-
ual." And first, a word about these consents. They are
CONSENT OF GOVERNED 385
implied and expressed, immediate and gradual, direct and
indirect.
Implied, manifest not from words, but from acts, that suflfir
ciently declare the will of parties to the consent.
Expressed, manifest from words whether spoken or writ-
ten.
Immediate, accomplished at once, without delay or inter-
ruption.
Gradual, given in parts, by some members of the community
to-day, by others to-morrow.
Direct, willed in itself, not through the agency of a second
event.
Indirect, not willed in itself, but in a cause freely assumed
and working out the event as a consequence.
Thus a murderer, though at first sight far from consent-
ing to or wishing his execution on the gallows, really makes
deliberate choice of that manner of death, when he slays an-
other. In the same way, a nation rushes into unjust war
with a hatred for defeat and subjugation. But to wish the
cause is to wish at the same time the effect. And, if the event
of the war is defeat, the nation in the wrong must be said
to have accepted defeat or consented to it, when it made
ready to march against the enemy. At the dawn of history,
children of the patriarchs, by the very fact of residence in
territory occupied by their fathers, yielded implied and in-
direct consent to be politically controlled by them. These
children after attaining their majority were by the law of
nature constituted free to move off, settle elsewhere, and
establish their own distinct government. Hence, even in pa-
triarchal times, though the family or domestic society was in
reality the origin of the state or civil society, that very free-
dom to withdraw from the patriarch's political influence ren-
dered consent necessary to the constitution of individual au-
thority. Families, intent on remaining within, the bounds of
a patriarch's kingdom, had their origin, of course, at different
intervals of time, and paid him the homage of what we call
gradual consent.
III. Consent of people determines person in whom authority
resides.
1°. Moral obligations of obedience to another arise either
386
SPECIAL ETHICS
from nature or from free choice. We omit contingent facts,
because they are reducible to nature or free choice. But
man's moral obligations towards authority, vested in some
set person, arise not from nature. Ergo.
With Regard to the Minor: Were the Minor false, some
individuals, apart from accidental circumstances of heredity
or election, would be born princes, and no such statement is
borne out by sound philosophy. St. John Chrysostom on
the text, ''All power is from God," Romans, 13.1, says,
''Not the king, but his power." He means that authority is
from God, king is from people, by act of selection and free
consent.
2°. A people has the natural right to organize itself into
a society. But this right would mean nothing, unless the
people's consent were necessary. Ergo.
With Regard to the Major: Some see an answer to this
argument in the distinction between a free people and a peo-
ple already held to preexistent obligations. But the distinc-
tion is vain. For the people surrendered their liberty by
free consent. If they were unjustly and unwillingly deprived
of their liberty, no rights of authority accrued to the despoil-
ers.
3°. Taparelli's division of societies into natural, free and
obligatory is complete and in harmony with Logic. But con-
sent is a necessary element in each class. Ergo.
With Regard to the Minor: Natural society is that which
arises from the family by the ordinary process of evolution.
Without at least implied and gradual consent, no family, no
number of families, can ever coalesce into a perfect and com-
plete civil society. Without such consent, the children after
attaining their majority are certainly free to migrate from
the domains of their fathers, and cut entirely loose from an-
cestral authority. The fact that they remain at home, neces-
sarily betokens an act of free consent. Free societies of their
very nature suppose consent of the people, and offer no spe-
cial difficulty. Obligatory societies arise, either like natural
societies from the evolution of families, or from the vicissi-
tudes of war; and in each case consent is essential.
4°. Were consent unnecessary, every family would by the
very fact form a state or civil society.
CONSENT OF GOVERNED 387
But this is absurd. Ergo consent is necessary.
With Regard to the Major: All the needed elements are
present, multitude and authority, at least parental authority.
If civil authority is independent of consent, the members of
a family owe its head due and full obedience. Civil author-
ity is absent from family precisely because consent is needed.
Children never consent to father's authority as civil ruler,
and nature imposes no such obligation on them.
With Regard to the Minor: Domestic society is specifically
different from civil or political. Their scopes, constitutions
and methods are quite distinct, and it would be a fatal mis-
take to endeavor to apply to the two the same rules for gov-
ernment. Civil society, for instance, is endowed with the
right to inflict capital punishment, wage war, raise taxes,
privileges never even imagined in domestic society. The
difference between the two conditions is more than that of
mere degree, it is specific.
IV. Consent may be implied or expressed, immediate or
gradual, and cannot always be withheld.
1°. The people are obliged by nature to adopt government,
without which order in the State is an impossibility.
But it sometimes happens that one certain ruler and one
certain form of government are alone feasible. Ergo.
2°. The people are not allowed to use their freedom to the
detriment of preexisting rights. But to refuse consent, is
often to make such a use of their freedom. Ergo.
With Regard to the Minor: The lawful heir has antecedent
rights to the throne, and any violation of them is injustice.
3°. To wage unjust war with a neighbor, is to assume a
lower position in the moral scale, and disturb the balance of
morality.
But it can often happen that morality is impossible of ad-
justment, unless the wrong-doer accepts the rule of the in-
jured party.
Ergo, consent is of obligation and morally necessary.
With Regard to the Major: The unjust aggressor indi-
rectly chooses the punishment meted out to him, and the
nation in the wrong worsted in a conflict of the kind has
no ground for complaint, if subjected to the winner's juris-
diction.
THESIS XV
Woman suffrage^ though legitimate in exceptional cases, is
fraught with dangers. Jouin, 209-212; Cathrein, 415-419.
QUESTION
Family, State and Church are the only complete societies in
the world. Society is a moral and lasting union of two or
more persons pledged to promote a common aim or purpose.
Multitude is matter; moral union or authority, the bond se-
curing union, is form. Nature is efficient cause, and this is
plain in family, from which nobody can escape. The same
is true of state and Church, though the question calls for
profounder study. Whatever multitude tallies with the above
description is a true society. To be a complete or perfect
society, the common aim or purpose must be peculiar and
proper to the society in question, outside the domain of other
societies, and requisite means must be within the society's
reach. Family, state and Church are commonly regarded as
complete and perfect, though the family of its very nature
grows towards the state, and though state and Church must
work together in mutual harmony. Their distinctive domains
make them free and independent. They are mutual assist-
ance of man and wife, the procreation and education of off-
spring; temporal prosperity of people; and spiritual welfare
of faithful. This whole question of woman suffrage has to
do with the woman's place in the state, and it can be most
expeditiously settled by determining her place in the family.
Again we pause to define things.
TERMS
Family is a moral and lasting union of husband, wife and
children for mutual assistance, the procreation and educa-
388
WOMAN SUFFRAGE 389
tion of offspring. Its main purpose is domestic order and
the education of children.
State is a moral and lasting union primarily of families,
secondarily of individuals, banded together for the purpose
of safeguarding their rights and securing temporal pros-
perity. Its main purpose is the suppression of injustice by
law, and the procurement of opportunities for mental, moral
and bodily improvement, hard or impossible in family and
Church.
Church is a moral and lasting union of men banded together
for purposes of eternal salvation by profession of the same
faith, and by participation in the same sacraments, under the
rule of duly accredited superiors, especially the Pope of
Kome.
Like everything else, the state has four causes, efficient,
final, material and formal. Though the State's material
cause, multitude or citizens, is the thing of vital importance
in this question of woman suffrage, it will be no waste of
time to glance at the other three causes. They furnish
Ethics with all the topics discussed in its treatment of civil
society or the state. We give only the briefest summary of
things.
Efficient cause is nature, not agreement among men. Op-
ponents are Hobbes and Rousseau. Hobbes makes war man's
natural condition, men surrendered all to king, absolutism
of monarchy. Rousseau makes peace and individualism man's
natural condition; people cheated into State, absolutism of
democracy.
Final cause is public prosperity, security in rights, oppor-
tunity to improve mind and body beyond private activity.
Opponents: Some minimize, coexistence of individual liber-
ties; Kant, Fichte, Darwinists. Some exaggerate, public
good in itself; Pantheists, Schelling, Hegel. Plato, State a
superior man; Leibnitz, Hartmann, Ahrens, culture and civ-
ilization.
Kant's autonomy, despotism, atheistic state; consequences.
Material cause is people and implicitly territory; not in-
dividuals, but families compose state; state supposes family
and ministers to its needs; only heads are citizens, men.
Others are citizens mediately through head, women and chil-
390
SPECIAL ETHICS
dren. Only heads can have part in legislative, executive and
judicial functions. Church follows nature. State is organ-
ism like plant, made up of heterogeneous, not homogeneous
parts. Hence woman suffrage is unnatural and wrong;
women are not citizens in immediate sense. Fixed territory
is not of essence, but complementary and contributes to per-
fection of state.
Formal cause is authority. Questions: Origin, extent,
titles, kinds, functions.
Extent: morals, religion, Church and state; education, eco-
nomic and social matters; Liberalism.
Titles: inheritance, election, war or conquest, purchase; loss
of title.
Kinds: monarchy, aristocracy, democracy.
Functions: legislative, executive, judicial.
Returning now to the state's material cause, or multitude,
the family is the seed of the republic. From history it is
plain that the first state had its origin in a group of families
acknowledging the authority of Adam. His sons settled in
his neighborhood, and nature prompted them to do their
father this honor. The first state was, therefore, a species of
patriarchal government; and can be best described as a per-
fect union of several families banded together for the pur-
pose of safeguarding their rights and securing their common
good. In process of time these families became a village, a
town, a city, and country; and the various other titles to
authority successively came into play, inheritance, election,
conquest and purchase. But all through history states never
lost sight of their primary origin. Nature prevented that.
They were made up of men, women and children ; but each
class had its own fixed function in government. Because
the state had its rise in families, not in individuals, the func-
tions of man, woman and child in government were settled
by the role they played in the family. Children have as
much right to claim the suffrage as women, and the average
boy is a better politician than his mother.
Woman's place in the family settles her place in the re-
public, and nature is clear about woman's place in the fam-
ily. Nature vests parents with power over their children.
This power is a necessary consequence from marriage's pur-
STATE FROM FAMILIES 391
pose, the education of children ; and from the fact that fam-
ily is impossible without authority, an essential element of
every society. Besides, children get their being and support
from their parents, and the circumstance bases a relation
of dependence. This power resides in father and mother.
One, however, must be first, husband or wife. As a general
rule the husband has qualities of mind and body entitling
him to the dignity. As compared with the wife, he is less
dependent on others, he is more prudent, braver, stronger
and firmer. Occasionally a wife surpasses her husband in
these respects, but such wives and husbands are exceptions,
and in questions of natural ordinances exceptions are neg-
lected. The husband chooses the wife, and so starts the fam-
ily. The wife is a man's companion, not his slave, nor yet
his equal, excepting in her possession of a human nature.
Husband and wife ought to work together in mutual har-
mony. Home is the wife's proper sphere, her kingdom. The
father's power is limited to family's twofold purpose, educa-
tion of children and the preservation of domestic order. He
is empowered to use the rod, not to mutilate or kill his chil-
dren. Education and order can be secured without recourse
to the extreme measures legitimately employed by the state.
In this matter of paternal authority, nature recognizes three
distinct periods in a child 's life :
Children of unripe and imperfect judgment owe their fa-
thers full and entire obedience in every respect, save sin.
Children of ripe and perfect judgment^ as long as they stay
at home, owe their fathers full and entire obedience in matters
touching domestic order.
Children of ripe and perfect judgment, emancipated or
married, owe their fathers no obedience, though bound to
love, reverence, respect and support them. Man's supremacy
in the family is clear from these passages in St. Paul and St.
Peter:
The head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman
is the man. 1 Cor. 11.3.
Let women be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord.
Eph. 5.22.
Wives, be subject to your husbands as it behooveth in the
Lord. Coloss. 3, 18.
392
SPECIAL ETHICS
Let wives be subject to their husbands. 1 Peter 3.1.
And as Catholics we must not disdain borrowing wisdom
from the Scriptures. Scripture is word from God, the au-
thor of nature; and Scripture is, therefore, a safe source of
information regarding natural and unnatural practices. In
this sense the law of faith is the law of nature.
And now to resume, for the purpose of fixing woman's
place in the state. The material cause of the state is com-
posed not of individuals as such, but of families. Citizens,
therefore, are not individuals as such, but heads of families,
actually such or such in capacity, men. Women and chil-
dren are citizens mediately through husband, and must vote
and govern through husband. The State was meant from the
start to minister to the needs of the family, not to the needs
of the individual as such. Like the human body the state
is an organic whole, not made up of individuals on the same
footing but of families, and families in turn are made up of
husband, wife and children. State supposes the family al-
ready constituted and mends its needs. Ergo, not all indi-
viduals in the state are citizens, but only family heads, and
they alone have capacity to govern, the very essence of citi-
zenship according to Aristotle. The state is as much an
organism as the human body, and consists of heterogeneous,
not homogeneous parts, men, and women and children. The
man is the head, the woman is the heart; and the heart must
never govern the head.
This whole question of woman suffrage is only one branch
of a larger question, the emancipation of women. The slav-
ery of women current with pagans and Turks was long ago
abolished by Christianity, and that kind of emancipation is
an accomplished fact, though Socialism purposes restoring
the old order, and suffragettes are Socialism's helpers. The
emancipation, that would make woman man's equal in fam-
ily or state, is an utter impossibility, ruled against by nature
and destined to forever remain an empty dream, unless the
whole world turns monster, and men forget to think. Work
away from home for a living is a species of emancipation now
on trial, and with certain restrictions it is quite natural and
right. Not all women can be wives, because adult women in
the world are more numerous than adult men. Some women
POLITICAL EQUALITY 393
must therefore support themselves. Modem machinery less-
ens the value of work at home, and the one remedy is work
abroad. As things stand at present, even married women
must leave home to help support the family, and the new
woman is much to blame for this sad condition of affairs.
Restrictions: Woman's virtue must not be endangered;
time and place can be menaces. Woman's weak strength
must not be overtaxed. With the married, care of home must
be first consideration. Studies and the professions are a new
field open to the activity of women. Medicine is not without
its own peculiar dangers for women. Women entering the
professions ought to submit to the same tests as men. Co-
education is wrong in principle and regularly productive of
harm. When woman enters the professions to compete with
men, she steps down from her high pedestal. Our thesis,
omitting the other phases of emancipation, declares emanci-
pation in a political sense unnatural and wrong. Suffrage
or the right to vote is the heart of the question. The right to
hold office, to act as lawmaker, executive and judge is a
logical consequence of the right to suffrage. In a man the
right to vote is natural, in virtue of his capacity for headship
in the family. In woman the same right is wholly unnat-
ural. An unnatural right can be acquired with the conniv-
ance of wrong-headed law, and the exercise of every such
right is bound to have disastrous consequences. Such conse-
quences may be a long or short while working themselves out,
but they must eventually show head.
Liberalism favors woman suffrage ; but, with our knowledge
of Liberalism's other wild notions, its advocacy of the cause
produces no worry, and strengthens us in our position. The
strongest conceivable argument against a theory, is its accept-
ance and championship by wrong pholosophy. John Stuart
Mill is on the side of woman suffrage, and we know from Utili-
tarianism what importance attaches to his opinion. Now and
then a Catholic priest or layman raises his voice in its favor.
Catholics are, of course, free to take one side or other in the
controversy. Our Church has made no doctrinal decision
in the matter, even though the spirit of Catholicity revolts at
the idea, and all our history is opposed to the practice. The
Blessed Virgin Mary is our ideal woman, and nothing in her
394 SPECIAL ETHICS
sublime life countenances conduct of the sort. Some of these
CathoUcs live in corners of the world where woman suffrage
is hy law established, and in these circumstances common
wisdom advises Catholic authorities to urge Catholic women
to avadl themselves of the unnatural prerogative, and so neu-
tralize the harm. It would be decidedly wrong for Catholic
women in countries of the kind to allow their wrong-headed
sisters to control affairs, and turn the government topsy-turvy.
Other Catholic advocates of woman suffrage among clergy
and laity are few in number, and, while truth on rare occa-
sions fails the majority, it seldom or never rests with the
minority.
PROOFS
We divide women into (a) married, and (b) single. Our
thesis is clear with regard to the married, and only a little
less clear with regard to the single.
(a) (b) We argue from custom. There ought to be no
departure from universal custom of long standing without
good reason. Woman suffrage is such a departure. Ergo.
With Regard to the Minor: The reasons alleged assume
the shape of objections, and we meet them in our Principles.
Reasons against woman suffrage: Women, whether married
or single, are not citizens immediately, but through family;
and man is head of the family. Wife would be exempt from
husband's jurisdiction, quarrels would be multiplied, rights
would collide, man's authority would go, and peace would
disappear.
(a) Family would be hurt. Woman's place is home, care
of household and children her special charge. Devotion to
politics would be as much a duty with women as with men.
(a) (b) Woman's native modesty would suffer, and pro-
priety would be offended. Witness suffragette meetings,
parades, campaigns, polls, journeys from home, absence from
family. Woman has no head for business of the sort. State
affairs are weighty, and call for deep thought and far reaching
foresight. Women are proverbially changeable, more open
to sentiment than to reason.
Suffrage is not an inborn right, but a means of govern-
ment. Natural has two senses, inborn and becoming. In-
PROOF AND PRINCIPLES 395
bom in neither man nor woman ; becoming in man, unbecom-
ing in woman. It is an acquired right even in man. It is
a question of expediency, of the proper. Not that woman is
inferior to man, but different from man. Men adapted by
nature to some functions, women to others. Hurts woman,
politics is modified war, strife, contention, bitterness. Duty
and right of protection rest with the male. True government
in family.- Woman's true functions superior to man's, to
form conscience of child, influence will, control impulses.
Cardinal Gibbons says: ''Mary model of women, not Ama-
zon, not Spartan, not Venus, not Juno. ' ' Spiritually, woman
is same as man. Equal rights, not similar rights. Suffrage
alienates from home. To debar woman from vote is not to
degrade, to restrict her to home is not to fetter her aspira-
tions to higher and better things. Home is more a factor in
republic than court or congress. Mothers mould presidents,
legislators and judges; woman's noblest work is to care for
children.
PRINCIPLES
A. "Women have same right as men to good government.
Ergo, right to suffrage and office.
Answer: Argument proves too much. Infants have same
right. Pure democracy would be only legitimate rule. Right
to be well governed is different from right to govern. Woman
suffrage would be worst government in world, because un-
natural and wrong.
B. Women are burdened with taxes and other obligations
same as men. Ergo.
Answer: Equality of burdens is different from equality
of rights. Women are not soldiers, sailors. Women are in-
dependent and sui juris by accident. They ought to be mem-
bers of a family and subject to its head. Exceptions never
count in ethics.
C. Women have been queens. Ergo.
Ansiver: Cases are rare and exceptional, and happen
without harm to family. Women queens for common good,
to keep succession in family and smother ambition. Queens
govern through men.
396
SPECIAL ETHICS
D. No argument against voting for candidate sel(
men. Ergo, suffrage at least.
Answer: Suffrage means universal rights of citizenship.
With suffrage women could extend privilege to selection of
candidates and every other function of government.
E. Women make good doctors, lawyers, managers. Ergo,
they can vote.
Answers Nothing follows. Professions are different from
suffrage. In the professions men make contracts with them,
and are content to use their services. Universal suffrage is
different and open to blame ; it is unnatural and wrong.
F. Unclean houses, impure food, risk of disease, immorality
on street, bad plumbing, fire escapes.
Answer: Woman must leave something for the man to do.
If she is much away from home, the house must take care of
itself, or the man must turn housekeeper. In her eyes the
man, with no care of home to distract him, is unable to regu-
late outside conditions. Will she be able to manage things
inside and outside? Division of labor. Let her urge the
husband to manage neighbors, grocers, plumbers, inspectors,
policemen. Men are responsible for outside abuses, only when
women stay at home and mind their own concerns. Every
woman has her own house to care for. No woman is house-
keeper to the city. Men are the city's housekeepers, its citi-
zens.
G. Women are eitizens, mediately, not immediately; and
they ought to do their civic duty mediately through men. In
civic matters women must be protected by the men. Men
have the interests of their mothers, sisters, wives and daugh-
ters at heart. Men must regulate the city's sanitary condi-
tions, not women. Men are as much opposed to unsanitary
conditions as women. Men are as fond of their children as
women. Other and better ways than woman suffrage to
remedy abuses, more natural, less damaging. Independent
women are exceptional; no father, no brother, no husband,
no son.
H. No taxation without representation.
Answer: Representation is possible without vote. Heads
of families represent women. Representation is not personal
and immediate management. The colonists never wanted to
PRINCIPLES 397
enter parliament and vote. They wanted an agent on the
ground to present their views. Women have such agents in
men. Nature, not election, fixes their agents. Men who im-
posed taxes on colonies did not have to pay them. Men who
impose taxes on women have to pay them.
The above principle is per se wrong. In case of law or
custom it can happen to be right; and this is true of Eng-
land.
I. Woman must help man in civic matters by her advice,
not by ballot. Suffrage is none of her civic duties.
THESIS XVI
The State enjoys full Legislative, Executive and Judicial
rights, the prerogative of Eminent Domain and the War
Power. Jouin, 265-284; 351-362; Bickahy, 338-355.
DIVISION
Three Parts. I, Legislative, Executive, Jud/icial; II, Do-
main; III, War Power.
I. Legislative, Executive, Judicial.
TERMS
Legislative rights are the power to make laws and fix penal-
ties in general.
Executive rights are the power to enforce laws, to punish
and pardon.
Judicial rights are the power to decide between right and
wrong, and fix penalties in particular.
Judicial rights are civil and criminal.
Civil, to render decision in civil suits, determine to which
of two parties a right belongs.
Criminal, to render decision in criminal cases, determine
the nature of a fact at variance with law, and settle the pen-
alty.
Penalty is the pain or privation inflicted on the criminal
to avenge the wrong done law, and establish anew the dis-
turbed reign of justice. In wrong might does violence to
right; in punishment right asserts its supremacy, and brings
might to grief.
Punishment ought to be, as far as possible, reparative, me-
dicinal, corrective.
Reparative is calculated to mend disturbed relations and
reestablish order.
Medicinal is calculated to cure men and reform them.
Corrective is calcuJated to act as a deterrent from evD.
398
LEGISLATIVE, JUDICIAL, EXECUTIVE 399
PROOF
All three rights are necessary means to state's end or pur-
pose. Confusion would reign in state without Legislative.
Legislative would be a dead letter without Executive and
Judicial.
PRINCIPLES
A. For three reasons Aristotle thinks it better to rule by
written laws than by judge merely.
1°. Fewer wise men are needed. A few lawmakers would
be enough, many judges would be needed.
2°. Lawmakers have plenty of time to study and reflect;
judges must decide in a hurry.
3°. Lawmakers deal with future and universal contingen-
cies; judges, with present facts and particular cases. No
chance for greed, hatred, anger, revenge with lawmaker;
judges, open to all these emotions.
B. Rules for lawmakers: 1°. Let your laws be as few in
number as possible. 2°. An unjust law is no law. 3°. An
impossible law is no law.
C. Capital punishment is just :
1°. Right to amputate limb that threatens harm to whole
body. S.T.2.2.q.64.a.2. State is the body, a bad citizen, like
a murderer, is such a limb. Ergo.
2°. Right to inflict penalty in proportion with harm done
or attempted, e.g., treason, arson, murder.
3°. All civilized peoples, God Himself in laws of Hebrews,
sanction capital punishment, e.g., Exodus 22.18. Wizards
thou shalt not suffer to live. Ps. 100.8, In the morning I put
to death all the wicked of the land. David.
4°. It is lawful to kill animals for man's use. By abuse
of free will, the criminal virtually though not formally loses
the dignity of a man, descends to the low level of an animal,
and ceases to be sui juris.
5°. God takes life when state takes life, because God arms
state with the prerogative.
SPECIAL ETHICS
II. Eminent Domain.
TERMS
Eminent Domain means power to make whatever use of
citizens' property the existence and welfare of the govern-
ment demand. Hobbes vests in the state thorough ownership
of its citizens' goods. He makes citizens, viewed as pro-
prietors, like sons with regard to their father. Sons have no
ownership against father, citizens have none against state.
Hobbes is wrong, ^' because state can claim only what is neces-
sary, and mere use without full ownership is sufficient ; ^' be-
cause state-ownership of everything would create indiffer-
ence, and hurt prosperity and progress ; ^' because the state
is altogether different from the family; citizens get only
well-being from the state; sons get being from their father;
citizens are less dependent on the state than sons are on their
father.
PROOF
State enjoys Eminent Domain, because it is a means neces-
sary to the state's end and a means not otherwise available.
PRINCIPLES
A. Taxes are contributions made the state by citizens or
subjects to advance common interests and defray public ex-
penses. Instances are property tax, customs, revenues, per-
sonal tax and the like.
B. State is vested with the right to impose taxes, 1°, be-
cause they are necessary means to state's end; without taxes
revenue would be uncertain and precarious, while debts would
be fixed, certain and steady; 2°, because citizens ought to pay
for advantages the state secures to them.
C. Only the supreme power in the state can lawfully im-
pose taxes, 1°, because means belong to him alone, who pro-
cures end; 2°, because private citizens would otherwise enjoy
others' goods.
D. This power is limited to strict necessity, because other-
wise a perversion and abuse of means.
WAR AND SEDITION 401
E. No taxation without representation. Per se, this saying
is wrong. Per aecidens, in case of law or custom it can be
right. Charles I and Parliament. American Colonies and
England.
III. War Power. Four parts, a, 1), c, d.
a. War Power vested in state extends to offensive as well as
defensive war.
b. Right to declare war is prerogative of supreme power.
e. Sedition is intrinsically wrong.
d. Precautions before, during and after war.
TERMS
War Power is power to protect the commonwealth against
enemies.
War is state or condition of nations forcibly contending for
right.
Defensive war is war waged to keep off an enemy. Offen-
sive war is war waged to avenge wrong and establish security.
N.B. War without any real or apparent right is murder.
Sedition is a rising in arms as between people and ruler, or
as between factions among the people.
N.B. The belligerency of rebels is recognised only after
they have by certain signs proved themselves capable of au-
tonomy. International law is obscure and unsettled on this
point.
Sedition is offensive warfare of people against legitimate
ruler. Two kinds of tyranny are of rule and of title.
Tyranny of rule is abuse of power, title intact ; and it is no
legitimate excuse for offensive warfare, which would be sedi-
tion.
N.B. It is legitimate excuse for defensive, if ruler attacks,
because citizens have same rights as individuals.
Tyranny of title or right means no title, no legitimate ruler ;
and it is legitimate excuse for offensive warfare, which is
then no sedition. Tyranny of rule leads to loss of title, with-
out being actual forfeiture.
402 SPECIAL ETHICS
PROOFS
a. Defensive war:
1°. Nations enjoy rights of individuals and self-defense is
a personal right.
2°. Often it is the only means of securing safety to the re-
public.
Offensive War:
1°. Justice among nations is necessary. Otherwise natural
law as between nations would be without sanction ; no future
life for nations; international law of no force, because na-
tions are sovereign. Often war is only available means; or-
der must be reestablished by its violators or by the wronged.
2°. Safety insecure, if defensive war is alone legitimate;
wrongs could never be repaired; wicked would prosper and
grow in power after each attack.
3°. Enemy must often be attacked in midst of preparations ;
otherwise defeat is certain.
b. War is prerogative of supreme power. Order demands
as much.
1°. If private citizens exercised war prerogative, nations
would be kept busy settling feuds and personal quarrels.
2°. Individuals are prone to exaggerate their petty griev-
ances.
3°. Jurisdiction over people belongs to ruler, not to indi-
viduals ; call for volunteers belongs to supreme power.
c. Sedition is intrinsically wrong.
1°. Against common good; it attacks the very form of so-
ciety, authority.
2°. Done without right; war prerogative belongs to ruler.
N.B. Same arguments hold for factions. Defensive war
is not wrong — because subjects have same rights as individ-
uals.
d. Precautions before, during and after war.
Before war, three things, 1°. Grave and just cause. 2°.
Just motive. 3°. Probable success.
1°. Some grave and just causes:
Puff endorf mentions :
WAR AND PRECAUTIONS 403
1. Protection of self and property against attempts at in-
jury and destruction;
2. Insistence on clear rights denied by others ;
3. Recompense for wrongs suffered at the hands of an
enemy ;
4. Demand of pledges against future insult and injury.
Suarez mentions:
1. A nation 's refusal to observe the common law of nations.
N.B. Refusal to promote commerce is no good excuse.
2. Serious wrong done a nation 's reputation and good name.
N.B. Indignity done an ambassador.
3. Danger threatening an allied nation, when that nation
has a right to wage war and intends to do so.
Some iveak and insufficient reasons:
1. Suspicions founded on no external facts, and wholly des-
titute of moral certainty.
2. Violations of natural law perpetrated at home, with citi-
zens for victims.
3. Monarch's religion, if without oppression and tyranny.
4. Zeal for true religion and progress of civilization.
5. Desire to seat a certain family on throne, even to the
advantage of other nations.
2°. Motive must he right — Suarez assigns two. a, to maJ^e
good injuries done by another, and b, to punish offenders.
If offender stands ready to make satisfaction, war is out of
the question.
N.B. The ruler of the wronged republic fixes the penalty.
3°. Hope of success — Necessary for offensive war, of less
moment for defensive. Reason is evident. Otherwise nation
would be exposed to certain danger.
Precautions during war:
1. Plots are legitimate; lies and violations of treaties are
not legitimate. Plots involving lies are wrong. Deception
is quite possible without a lie.
2. International law must be respected.
3. The innocent must never suffer direct injury, indirect
injury can be legitimate.
4. Evils not calculated to help along the cause must be
avoided.
404
SPECIAL ETHICS
5. Poisoning of water, death by treachery and the like are
forbidden by international law.
Precautions after war:
By strict right the winner can inflict on the loser whatever
punishment is necessary to repair his losses, secure himself
against the recurrence of difficulties, and establish himself in
peace. The instinct of Christianity has done much to moder-
ate the cruelties formerly practised in the name of strict
right. Certainly the victor is not now allowed to slay the
defenseless or sell captives. The law of nations sets salutary
limits to the right of conquest.
THE END
INDEX
Abhorrence, 84.
Abraham, and Isaac, and murder,
52.
Abraham, and Lot, and ownership,
252.
Absence of pain and sorrow, 39.
Absolute ownership, 247.
Absolutism, 58.
Abstract ownership, 251, 258.
Acquired desire, 21.
Acts good and bad in themselves,
160, 161.
Adam and Eve and ownership, 251,
252.
Aequiprobabilism, 102.
Agents, three classes, 10.
Ahrens, on worship, 185.
Allen, on pleasure, 158.
Alphonsus, St., on probabilism,
102, 107; on reservation, 237,
240
Altruism, 154, 155; and ethical
end of life, 159.
American duels, 212.
Appetite, sensitive and rational,
81, 82.
Aristippus and Hedonism, 168.
Aristotle and happiness, 21, 23,
24; on virtues, 112; on habits,
110; on prudence, 114; on art,
114; on pleasure, 157.
Augustine, St., on happiness, 20;
on religion, 178.
Austin, 152.
Authority, 371-388; two questions,
origin and recipient, 371; imme-
diate by positive divine law and
by law of nature, 372; Scholas-
tics on recipient, 372; four sys-
tems on recipient, 374; Moses,
Aaron and Pope, 371; parents
and rulers, 372; multitude not
recipient, 372, 380; James I,
373; Taparelli, 374, 384, 386;
Scholastics in general, 374, 375,
376; Hobbes and Rousseau, 377;
in multitude in root, 383; mul-
405
titude unfitted to exercise, 380.
Autonomy of Reason, 170-175;
Kant's categorical imperative is
subjective, 171, 172; autonomy
of will as opposed to heteron-
omy, 172.
Averling, Dr., 274, 276.
Bain on pleasure, 158.
Ballerini, on interest, 148.
Barter, 147.
Basic truths, 5, 6.
Bax, 274, 276.
Beatific vision, 21.
Bebel, 274, 275.
Becoming, agreeable, useful good,
155.
Bellarmine, on authority, 380.
Bentham, 152; on ownership, 254.
Blackburn, on contracts, 139.
Blamelessness and blessedness, 3.
Boethius, on happiness, 19, 20.
Bonum ex Integra causa, 74, 94.
Bouquillon, Dr., on education, 351;
his argument, 355; and history,
356; and authority, 357.
Brown, W. T., 273.
Butler, 152; 168.
Buying and selling, 137, 140.
Cabet, and colony, 253.
Capital Sins, Seven, 113.
Capital, a natural right, 241 ;|
permanent ownership, 248; with
Socialism, 261; in olden times,
144.
Categorical imperative, 38; of
Kant, 170; subjective, 171;
natural law, the one true, 172.
Catholic Church, and celibacy, 301,
302; recognizes no complete di-
vorce, 336.
Catholic country and mixed, 200;
and Protestant, 200.
406
INDEX
Catholicity, more rational than
Rationalism, 4.
Cathrein, on contracts, 140.
Cause, definition and division of,
11; eflficient and final, 12.
Celibacy, 300-311; definition, 300;
and virginity, 300; more excel-
lent than marriage, Trent, 306,
307, 308; clerical, 301; in East
and West, 302, 303; Elvira,
Nice, Paphnutius, Pope Sirieius,
and Tours, 302 ; and Luther, 303,
307; and St. Thomas, 309; and
St. Paul, 308, 310; increase and
multiply, 310; Jovinian and St.
Jerome, 307; good in order of
virtue, 308 ; virtuous and wicked,
303, 306; heroism and influence,
298; with Greeks and Romans,
303; Vestals, 303, 308; Trent,
on, 306; apostolic labors, 301;
modern, 304.
Certainty, objective and subjective,
76; kinds, 103.
Chance, and Epicurus, 9.
Character and Habits, 122-127.
Character, 122; temperament and
habits, 122; and parents, 122;
and free will, 122.
Cicero, on religion, 178, 197; on
suicide, 206.
Circumstances, 73, 74, 75, 96.
Citizen, man immediately, woman
and child mediately, 389, 394;
Aristotle on, 392.
Civil law, and natural rights, 130;
without natural law, 131, 132;
division of, 135; definition of,
44, 54; requisite conditions of,
57, 58.
Clement VII, Pope, and Henry
VIII, 322.
Conmiunism, 241, 243; restricted,
243; Fourier, Owen, Cabet, and
colonies, 253.
Commutative, distributive, legal
justice, 115, 116, 117, 149.
Complete happiness, definition, 19 ;
a natural desire, 20, 22; pos-
sible of fulfilment, 21, 23; pos-
session of God, 20, 21, 22, 24;
last in series of wish-factors,
18; implicit and explicit influ-
ence of, 22; objectively and sub-
jectively taken, 20; no created
good, 21, 23, 24.
Compulsory education, 347, 348,
350.
Condition is no cause, 12.
Conscience, and subjective moral-
ity, 76; and kinds, 104, 105,
106; and objective order, 104.
Consent of governed, 374, 377; no
authority without, 386; deter-
mines ruler, 386; in monarchy,
in conquest, 385; morally neces-
sary, is physically free, 384;
kinds of consent, 385, 387; in
patriarchal state, 385; St. Chry-
sostom on, 386.
Contracts, and quasi-contracts, 137,
138.
Contracts, 137-144; unilateral and
bilateral, 137; gratuitous and
onerous, 140; buying and sell-
ing, 140, 137 ; causes and condi-
tions in, 140; consent, mistake,
violence, fear, 138; quasi-con-
tracts, 138; Savigny, Pollock,
Blackburn, Holland on, 139;
Cathrein on division of, 140.
Control, and character, 124; and
family discipline, 125; and high
ideals, 125; Horace on, 125.
Costa-Rossetti, on common owner-
ship, 249; on strictly natural
society, 362.
Courts and duel, 223.
Cranmer and lie, 233.
Cronin, on Stoic Formalism and
Hedonism, 167, 168.
Cudworth, 152, 168.
D
Deliberate and intentional, 7.
Deliberate acts, 13.
Delight, 84.
Dependence, extrinsic and intrinsic,
81.
Descartes, on pleasure, 158.
Desire, 84; psychical, 84; knowl-
edge measures, 22; not accom-
plishment, 21; natural, two
kinds, 20.
Despair, 84.
Despotism and law, 58.
Destiny in this life, 28-33 ; 36, 37 ;
INDEX
407
incomplete happiness, virtue, 28 ;
definition, 30; three qualities,
36.
Determinism, 82.
Dictates of reason, 38.
Diogenes, 154; and celibacy, 304.
Displeasure, 84.
Divorce, 318-342; definition, 319;
complete, a vinculo; incomplete,
a mensa et toro, 320 ; in history,
320, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325;
Catholic Church, against com-
plete, 322, 327; grounds for law
against, 318; Deuteronomy, 320;
schools of Schamai and Hillel,
320, 334; Old Law and New,
321; with Protestants Christ
never changed Old Law, 334 ; St.
Paul condemns complete, 335;
Catholic judges and lawyers,
336; unhappy couples, 337;
strict natural law, and second-
ary law of nature, 339, 340, 341 ;
and Scripture, 328, 329,, 330,
331, 332, 333, 334, 335; New
England polygamy, 324, 325;
Caesar, Pompey, Cicero, 321;
adultery, no cause for complete,
justifies incomplete, 329; St.
Mark and St. Luke clearly
against, 329 ; wrote for Gentiles,
333; in Scripture clear passages
explain obscure, not vice-versa,
334.
Divorce-laws, wrong, encourage
crime, 319, 326; in different
States, 323, 324.
Doubt, and its qualities, 107, 108.
Doubtful law has no binding force,
lOG.
Duel, 210-214; 216-218; 222-225;
in history, 210; barbarians, 211;
in France, in America, 211, 212;
false notions, 212; in modern
times, 213; prize-fight, 213;
wrong means, 216, 217; Lom-
bards, Greeks, Romans, 216; su-
perstition, revenge, courts, 217;
innocent and guilty equal, 217;
murder and suicide, 217; de-
fense of property, 222 ; challenge
and cowardice, 213; honor, 224.
Dunzi, on worship, 185.
Duty, 127, 128; definition, 182; to
God, 201; to self, 202; religion,
firsi: and essential, 183, 184, 191,
192; to accept revelation, 192,
193; to seek revelation, 194; rea-
son manifests, never makes, 196 ;
of prayer, 197; one religion for
all, 188, 189, 194, 198; results
from relation, 175; for duty's
sake, 166, 167.
E
Education of Child, 342-358; duty
and right of parents prior to
state's; duty and right of state,
when parents fail, 342; parents,
not parients, 343; instruction,
not mere information, it con-
notes obedience, 343; obedience
to parents first, 344 ; family prior
to state, 344; signs that God
appointed parents educators,
345 ; God never exempts parents,
345; state must safeguard, not
absorb independent rights, 346;
state's right to educate, indirect,
346, 347 ; functions of education,
346 ; Rousseau, and young child,
and God, 346; monopoly of, and
compulsory, 347, 348, 349;
Church and, 349, 350, 351, 354;
state and, 350, 351; state with
and without Church, 351, 352,
353; state and common good,
355; Bouquillon and Holaind,
on, 351-358; Costa-Rossetti,
Jansen, Hammerstein, on, 356;
without consent of parents, il-
legitimate, 355.
Eight Beatitudes and happiness,
19.
Elicited and ordered acts, 78.
Emancipation of mankind, 1.
Eminent Domain, 400.
Employer and Workman, 280-289;
labor-problem and Church, its
solution, 280; rights and duties
of, 281, 283, 284; contract, root
of trouble, 141, 281; reasons for
troubles, 282; wrong remedies,
socialism, liberalism, malthusi-
anism, 282; right remedy, union
between both, 283; exaggerated
•40«
INDEX
individualism, 283; wives and
children, 284.
End, definition and division of, 10,
11; a cause, 7, 11, 15; last end
and deliberate act, 7, 13, 14, 15;
and intention, 7 ; and destiny,
9; absolutely and relatively last,
10, 15, 16; proximate and inter-
mediate, 1 1 ; which, for which,
in which, 11; of doer and of
deed, operis and operantis, 11,
74, 75, 76 ; every effect is agent's
end, 15; end contributes more
than saw or hammer to house,
15; mediate and immediate in-
fluence of, 15 ; never justifies
bad means, 17, 99; efficacy,
moral, not physical, 17; an ef-
fect, in order of execution, 17; a
determinant of morality, 162; in
Scripture, 163.
Engels, F., 275.
Epicurus, and finality, 9; and
chance, 9; and happiness, 21,
23, 154.
Epikeia, or equity, 118, 149.
Equality of men, 265; of man and
woman, natural, domestic, in-
dustrial, political, 392.
Essential difference, and accidental,
34, 35, 37.
Ethics, definition of, 1 ; important,
1; practical, 2; division of, 3,
4; novelties in, 2.
Ethical Duty, self-imposed, 164,
165.
Ethic and Nomology of Kant, 133,
134, 165.
Evolution, materialistic, 265, 266,
267.
Extrinsic glory of God, 151.
Faith, and pagans, 179.
Family, woman's place in state set-
tled by woman's place in, 390;
parents and children in, 391;
Scripture on, 391.
Fear, and kinds, 90.
Ferri, 275.
Finality, 8, 9; Epicurus, and, 9.
Finis operis and operantis, 75, 96.
Formally, eminently, virtually, 25.
Fortitude, 118; Cicero, on, 118.
Fourier and colony, 253.
Freedom of will, 85, 86, 87; from
necessity and from violence, 86.
Free will, 6.
Freemasons, unnatural society,
362.
George, Henry on ownership, 254;
on Land-Socialism, 270, 271, 272.
Gibbons, Cardinal; Mary, model
of women, 395.
God; existence, dominion, 6; im-
plicitly last end of every wish,
16; laiown whole, not wholly,
26; not a means, 26, 167; alone
able to fill mind, 25; as material
and formal object of mind, 27;
wisdom and goodness of, 36;
a noumenon, ruled out by Kant,
172.
Good and evil, distinguishable, 30;
difference between. 34, 35, 36,
37; good and kinds, 155, 156.
Greatest Happiness; virtue, not
pleasure, 153, 154, 168; knowl-
edge clear of pleasure, 159; not
Altruism, 159, 169; Christ and
martyrs, 164.
Greeks Vnd duel, 210, 216.
Grote, 152.
Grotius, on lie, 228; on ownership,
254.
Habit, with Aristotle, 110; with
Suarez, 111.
Hamilton, on pleasure, 158.
Hammerstein, on education, 357.
Happiness, man's search, 3.
Harm and injury, different, 163.
Harmony and discord with ob-
jective order, 37, 38.
flartmann, on standard, 34.
Hate, 84.
Head, servant to heart, 2.
Hedonism, 153, 154, 155, Cronin
on, 168; St. Thomas, on, 168;
Hobbes and Aristippus on, 168.
Hegel, on standard, 34; on law, 58.
Hell, compatible with God's good-
INDEX
409
ness, 63, 64; no imperfect mo-
tive, 68; proportion with sin,
68; and natural law, 166.
Herron, G. D., 273, 276.
Heyne, on ownership, 254.
Hobbes, on standard, 34; on law,
58; on Hedonism, 168; on state,
359, 364, 365; on authority, 377;
on ownership, 254.
Holaind, on education, 351, 352,
353, 354.
Holland, on right, 128; on natural
law, 132, on theology, 133; on
contracts, 139.
Hope, 84.
Human acts and their elements,
13.
Ignorance, and kinds, 89; vincible,
invincible, 32.
Incomplete Happiness, virtue, 20,
28, 29.
Inditi'erentism, 199.
Individual ownership, 248; God
and nature want, 250, 256, 257;
potential and actual, 250; for-
mal compact and law, 253; not
from law, 254, 255 ; from nature,
256, 257; and Christianity, 267.
Individualism and Utilitarianism,
161.
Intensity and extent, 25, 28.
Intention, kinds, 17, 88.
Intentional and deliberate, 7.
Interest, 144-149; a loan, 144; St.
Thomas on, 144, 148; titles to,
extrinsic, 145; intrinsic, 146;
law regulates rates, nature gives
right, 146; Ballerini on, 148;
and Church, 140.
Intrinsic diflFerence and extrinsic,
34, 37.
James I, on authority, 373.
Jansen, on education, 356.
Jerome, St., on celibacy, 307.
Jovinian, and celibacy, 307.
Judaism and Christianity, 198.
Juridical Positivism, 130, 131, 132.
Juridical rights and ethical, 131.
Justice, 115; St. Thomas, on, 115,
116, 117, 118; commutative, 116,
117, 118; distributive 116, 117,
118; legal, 116, 117, 118; Cicero
on, 118; and kinds, 149.
K
Kant, and categorical imperative,
38; and autonomy of reason,
170-175, 62; and Stoic Formal-
ism, 164, 165, 166; and coexist-
ence of individual liberties, 366,
367; on moral obligation, 38;
reason, its own law, 42; sanc-
tion of natural law, 42; philo-
sophic sin, 42; on juridical
rights and ethical, 131; on
Ethic and homology, 133, 134;
on preceptive rights and do-
minion rights, 134, on pleasure,
158; on prayer, 197.
Kemmerichius, on worship, 185.
Knabenbauer, on divorce, 328.
Labor-problem, and Church-plan,
140, 141; charity and justice in,
142.
Labor-unions, 286, 287.
Lactantius, on religion, 178.
Lambert, on standard, 34.
Last end, first cause, 15.
Last extrinsic and intrinsic end, 9.
Law, diagram and definitions, 43,
44, strict and wide sense, 43, 44 ;
its causes, 44; in doubt, 44, 45;
not precept, 45; promulgation,
45; ignorance no excuse, 45;
divine, 45 ; human, 45 ; eternal,
45 ; natural, 46-53 ; positive
divine, 53, 54 ; ecclesiastical, 54 ;
civil, 54; differences between
positive divine and natural, 53,
54; matter and form, 57; re-
sistance to unjust law, 59; Des-
potism and Absolutism, 58; law-
maker, 45 ; necessity of, 42 ; law
and conscience, 43, 59; natural
and positive. 64, 65.
Law of General Consequences, 152,
IGl.
Laxism, 101.
410
INDEX
Leatham, J., 274.
Leo XIII, Pope, Encyclical on La-
bor, synopsis, 276-280.
Legislative, judicial, executive, 398.
Leibnitz, on pleasure, 158.
Liberalism, 199.
Lie, 225-233; definition, 225; St.
Thomas on deception in, 226,
227; material and formal, 226;
abuse of speech, and malice of,
228, 238; Grotius on, 228: Mil-
ton on, 229 ; privation of truth
due, 229; procuring good, 231;
for few grave reasons, 231 ;
homicide and lie, 231 ; no mortal
sin, 232.
Liebnecht, 275.
Life, present and future, 36; a
responsibility, 203, 219; for
God's glory,^203.
Living wage, 142, 143.
Loan, and kinds, 144.
Lombards and duel, 216.
Love, 84; love and beauty, Lacor-
daire on, 294, 295.
Luther and good works, 179; and
celibacy, 303, 307.
Lynching, wrong, 34.
M
Machiavelli, on law, 58.
Maher, on feeling, 156; on pleasure
and pain, 157.
Man, the microcosm, 81.
Mansel, and divorce, 328.
Marriage, 289-300; act and state,
291; plan of Creator, 292, 297;
man and woman, 292, 297; right
increase of race, 298; friendli-
ness and love, 294; with Catho-
lics, 296; honorable, 296, 297,
298; not preferable to celibacy,
Trent, 296; Scripture for, 299;
Rickaby, 299; Manichees and,
296; St. Paul on, 297; and
woman, 304, 305; and the pro-
fessions, 305; Fenelon on, 306;
evils are but accidents, 306 ; im-
pediments invalidating and hin-
dering, 327, 328; dispensations,
328; Church must manage, not
politicians and lawyers, 318;
hurt by divorce in four particu-
lars, 340, 341.
Marx, Karl, 260 ; values, 260, 264 ;
atheist, 274.
Matthew, St., seven interpreta-
tions of, 19, 9; 329, 330, 331,
332; wrote for Hebrews, 333.
Means, 17.
Mental Reservation, 233-241 ; se-
crets to keep, 233, 239 ; pure and
broad, 232, 233, 238, 239; not
guilty, not at home, 235, 238 ;
Cranmer, 233; priest, lawj-er,
doctor, 235, 236; evasions,
equivocations, 236, 237; unkind-
ness of, 234; St. Alphonsus on,
237, 240; effect of, 238; no abuse
of language, 238.
Merit and Demerit, 149-152; im-
putability and freedom, 150;
with God, with men, de con-
digno, 150, 151; subjective
morality and, 32.
Meyer, on natural law, 50; on
sanction, 56.
Midwives of Israel, and theft, 51.
Might and right, 129, 181.
Mill, J. S., 152, 154, 168; on suf-
frage, 393.
Milton, on lie, 229.
Molina, on authority, 376.
Money, fruitful, 144; a species of
seed, 146; medium of exchange,
metals, coinage, 147.
Monopoly in education, 347, 348,
349.
Montesquieu, on ownership, 254.
Moral notions, 70-92.
Moral acts and good acts, 31.
Morality, its causes, final, 70; ma-
terial .and formal, 71; model,
79; efficient, 79; generic and
specific, 71, 92, 97, 98; specific
determinants, 71 ; objective and
subjective, 76, 77, 78, 31; sub-
jective and conscience, 76; ig-
norance and, 76, 77 ; internal and
external acts, 78, 96; indifferent
acts, 78; of man and his acta,
32.
Moral obligation, and Kant, 38;
from objective order and divine
command, 38.
Moral Positivism, 129, 130.
INDEX
411
Motives of men, 18, 19; for obedi-
ence, with Kant, 173.
Murder, 49, 50.
N
Natural Law, 41-70; definition,
46; division, 47; objectively
and subjectively, 46, 47; and
Decalogue, 47; and polygamy,
47, 50, 52; three classes of prin-
ciples, 46; principles are prac-
tical judgments, 48, 49; ignor-
ance of, 49 ; three classes of acts
forbidden, 50; change of matter,
50, 51; four schools of inter-
preters, 50, 51, 52; Meyer's
classification, 50; Thomists and
Suarez on dispensations, 50; in-
trinsically wrong acts, and their
three classes, midwives of Israel,
51; dangerous reading, 51;
strict enactments, and recom-
mendations, 52; choice between
diff'erent schools, 52; knowledge
of, 54; unchangeable, universal,
eternal, 54, 55 ; sanction of, in
this life and in next, 55, 56;
foundation of civil law, 59; ex-
istence proved, 60, 61; qualities
proved, 61 ; sanction proved, 62,
63; sanction and Kant's auton-
omy, 42, 62; foundation of civil
law proved, 65, 66; not reason,
66; application of, 67; subjects
before creation, 66; infants and
insane, 66; principles, 67; na-
tions astray, 67; physical law
and exceptions, 67; Abraham
and Isaac, 67.
Necessity, and four kinds, 257.
Negatively common ownership,
249 ; a natural right, 250.
Neutral schools, and mixed, 351.
No taxation without representa-
tion, 396, 401.
Noumena, phenomena, and natural
law, 165.
O
Object, 72, 93; end of deed, 75,
76, 96, 97.
Object, end and circumstances, 72-
78; 93-101.
Objective morality, 32.
Objective order, and subjective, 35,
72.
Order of execution and of inten-
tion, 7.
Owen and colony, 253.
Ownership, 241-260; in capital,
with socialism, 241, 242; and
communism, 243, 245; and so-
cialistic commonwealth, 242 ; and
natural law, 243; and civil law,
258; and jurisdiction, 245; and
production, 245; elements of,
245; exaggerated individualism,
245; and occupancy, 246, 259;
God and charity, 246; State and
Eminent Domain, 247; kinds of,
247, 248 ; Costa-Rossetti on com-
mon, 249; Adam and Eve, 251,
252; primitive innocence and,
252 ; Abraham and Lot, 252 ; re-
ligious, 253, 258.
Paley, 152, 155.
Paphnutius, on celibacy, 302.
Paradox, end and beginning, 7.
Particular good tends to universal,
16.
Passions, 83, 84; diagram and
definitions, 84.
Paul, St., on celibacy, 308, 310.
Penal laws, and conscience, 134.
Perfect ownership, 247.
Personal indulgence at expense of
neighbor, 163.
Pius VII, Pope, and Napoleon, 322,
Plato, 63; on suicide, 205; on
bachelors, 303.
Pleasure and pain, 156; Aristotle,
St. Thomas, Plato, on, 156, 157 ;
Spinoza, Kant, Schopenhauer,
Descartes, Hamilton, Bain, Al-
len, Spencer on, 158; faculty
for, 158; feeling, 156; laws of,
157; processes, 157.
Plutarch, on religion, 197.
Pollock, on contracts, 139.
Polygamy, 311-318; monogamy
primitive form of marriage.
Pope Innocent III on Adam,
412
INDEX
312, 314; patriarchal and Cal-
vin, St. Chrysostom and St.
Augustine, 313; Solomon, Abra-
ham and concubines, 313; and
gentiles, 313; and Church in
New Law, 313, 315; Anabaptists
and Luther, 314; compared with
divorce, 314, 315; in Utah and
Turkey, 314; Noah, Job, and St.
Peter, 314; modern, 316; woman
in, 317; Durandus on, 317;
hurts secondary purposes of mar-
riage, 315; in Old Law and New,
47, 50, 52, 53.
Positivism, moral and juridical,
129, 130, 131.
Positively common ownership, 249 ;
from compact, 254; use of
things, 259.
Price, 140.
Pride and wickedness, 5.
Principle of utilitv refuted, 160,
161, 162, 163, 164.
Probabilism, 101, 102, 103; law-
fulness not validity, 108.
Probabiliorism, 102.
Proudhon, on wages, 285.
Prudence, 111, 112, 114, 115; func-
tions of, 114; and wisdom, 114;
Christ in the temple, 114, 115.
Public ownership, 248.
Pythagoras, and celibacy, 304.
Q
Quelch, H., 273.
Quotations from Socialists, 272,
273, 274, 275.
Cicero on, 197; Scripture for
one, 198; remedy for suicide,
207.
Remorse implies hell, 166.
Republic and monarchy compared,
382.
Responsibility, 33.
Resurrection of body, 25.
Revelation, definition, 186; chan-
nels of, 186; Bible and Tradi-
tion, 186; Church, custodian and
interpreter of, 186; miracles and
prophecies, seals of, 187; funda-
mentals and non-fundamentals,
more important and less im-
portant, 187, 188; must accept,
192, 103; must seek, 194; mys-
teries in, 198.
Rights and Duties, 127-137, 179,
180; animals have none, 180;
personal and real, 181; collision
of, 181; courts to settle, 182.
Right, and its three meanings,
127; Suarez on, 128; of owner-
ship, 128; Holland on, 128;
precedence in right and duty,
128, 182; surrender of, 129; and
might, 129.
Rigorism, 101.
Rolling stones over a precipice,
108.
Romans and duel, 210.
Rousseau, on standard, 34; on law,
58; on child and God, 346; on
state, 359. 363, 364, 365; on au-
thority, 377; social contract,
377.
S
Rationalists defy reason, 4, 5.
Reading, dangerous, 51.
Real good and apparent, 155.
Reason, weak without revelation,
4, 5.
Religion, definition, 178, 179; ob-
jective and subjective, 178, 179;
dogmatic and practical, 179;
natural and supernatural, 179;
man's first duty, 183, 191; essen-
tial necessity, 183, 191; and
state, 184; Schiff on, 196; end
of religion, 197; Plutarch and
Sanction and kinds, 55.
Savigny on contracts, 139.
Scepticism, 6.
SchifT, on religion, 196.
Scholastics, on authority, 374, 375,
376; resemblances and differ-
ences, 377.
Schopenhauer on pleasure, 158; on
duty, 202.
Secrets, natural, of promise, of
contract, 239, 240.
Sedition, 401, 402.
Self-defense, 208-210, 215, 221,
222; conditions for lawful, 209,
INDEX
413
210; means to preserve right,
215; chastity and, 220; unjust
assailants, 221 ; drunken assail-
ant, 221; honor, 221; end and
means, 222; duty to kill, 222;
love of enemy, 222.
Self and state sole lawmakers, 164.
Seneca on sanction, 56 ; on suicide,
205.
Senses and supreme good, 39.
Senses of words, 240.
Shakespeare on money, 145; on
suicide, 208.
Siricius, Pope, on celibacy, 302,
Socialism, 260-280; and Marx,
260; and millionaires, 242; and
Heaven, 242 ; and industry, 242 ;
restricted Socialism, 244 ; danger
to republic, 244; wages of em-
ployers, 261; religion, remedy,
261 ; evolution and propaganda,
262; from leaders and their
writings, 262, 272, 273; and
municipal ownership, 263; and
atheism, 262, 264; consumer,
263; Church and, 202, 264;
clergy and, 262, 264; state, free
love, family, children, 262, 264;
commonwealth, 263, 264; un-
natural, 266; morally impos-
sible, 268, 269.
Socialistic commonwealth fea-
tures, 263, 264.
Society, complete and incomplete,
289, 290; family, state, Church,
290, 291; brutes, 289; matter
and form of, 289; origin is na-
ture, 358-366; family leads to
state, 358; Hobbes and Rousseau
on, 359, 363, 364, 365; origin
from nature proved, 360, 361;
monks and nuns, 364; Free-
masons, 362; St. Thomas on,
360.
Socrates, 154; on suicide, 205.
Soul, immortal, 6.
Spargo, 275.
Sparta, on bachelors, 303.
Special Ethics, 175-404; division
of, 175; Individual, 177-289;
Family, 289-358; State, 358-
404.
Species in moral acts, 72, 73.
Spencer on pleasure, 158.
Spinoza on law, 58; on pleasure,
158.
Spontaneous acts, 86.
Standard of morality, immediate
and mediate, 35, 36, 39, 38; not
law, not public opinion, 34, 35,
39; objective order grasped by
intellect, 35, 36, 38, 39.
State, its structure, 366-371; its
purpose, Kant, and right system,
366, 367, 368; its inatter and
form, 369, 381; subject and
slave, 369; causes of, 389; ef-
ficient, formal, final, 389; ma-
terial, 389, 390; heterogeneous,
392; and prerogatives, 398-404;
legislative, judicial, executive,
398; Aristotle on rule by law
and by judge, 399; St. Thomas
on capital punishment, 399 ; Em-
inent Domain and Hobbes, 400;
War-Power, 401, 402, 403; taxes,
400 ; end, material and spiritual,
196, 197.
Stoic Formalism, 164-168; Cronin
on, 167, 168.
Strikes, 288.
Suarez, natural law, 50; on coun-
sel and law, 58; on right, 128;
on authority, 375; and Royal
Compact, 376, 377 ; and Victoria,
376, 383, 384; matter and form,
381.
Subjective morality, 31, 32.
Substance, complete and incom-
plete, 81.
Suff'rage, inborn right in nobody;
natural in man, unnatural in
woman, 395.
Suicide, self-defense and duel, 201-
225.
Suicide, 203-209; 213-216; 218-
221; crime and cowardice of,
204, statistics, 205 ; Seneca, Pla-
to, Socrates, Cicero, Virgil, on
205, 206; state and lunacy, 206 j
religion, one remedy, 207;
Shakespeare, 208; against God,
213; against self, 214; against
society, 215; indirect killing,
218; instinct, 218; no permis-
sion of God, 218; mutilation,
218; saints rushing to death,
218; drimkard after confession.
414
INDEX
218; rejecting a gift, 219; Hume
and, 219; escape from greater
evil, 219; volenti nulla injuria,
219; hunters kill birds, 219;
criminal killing himself, 220 ; op-
erations, 220 ; exposure of self to
death, 220.
Synderesis and conscience, 80.
Taparelli, on consent of people,
374, 384, 386, 387.
Temperance, 120, 112; and absti-
nence, 120, 121.
Tenuiter probabile, 101.
Thanksgiving Day, 184.
Theft, 49.
Thomas, St., on law's causes, 44;
on specific morality, 73, 74; on
society, 360; on virtues. 111; on
cardinal virtues, 112; on in-
terest, 148, 144; on lie, 226, 227;
celibacy, 309; nobody born a
king, 378; on prayer, 197.
Thomasius and Holland on theol-
ogy, 133; on duty, 202; on wor-
ship, 185.
Toleration, Constitution and, 188;
political and dogmatic, 189, 190;
Samaritans and, 189; political,
by accident lawful, 189; dog-
matic, absurd, 190, 194; Indif-
ferentism. Liberalism and, 199,
200.
Tongiorgi division of Ethics, 4.
Transient ownership, 248.
Trial by Ordeal, 211.
Truce of God, 211.
Trusts, 287.
Truth and its kinds, 226.
Tutiorism, 101.
U
Vice and formal object, 113.
Virgil and suicide, 206.
Violence and kinds, 91.
Virtues and Vices, 110-122; in
general, 110; with St. Thomas,
112; with St. Augustine, 112;
with Aristotle, 112.
Virtue and preponderance of bless-
ings, 37.
Volitum and praecognitum, 13.
Voluntary acts, and kinds, 14, 87,
88.
Vow, obligation from natural law,
not from man, 173.
W
Wages, Proudhon on, 285; no
partnership, buying and selling,
285, 286; law and conscience on,
286. .
Wage-trouble and religion, 141.
War, definition and kinds, 401;
legitimate, 402; precautions be-
fore, during, after, 402, 403.
Will and appetite, 13, 82.
Woman suffrage, 388-398; argu-
ments against, 394; arguments
for, 395, 396; unnatural, 393;
Catholics and, 393; J. S. Mill
and, 393.
Worship and natural law, 48 ;
definition of, 184; division of,
184; external and internal, pub-
lic and private, 184, 185; Thom-
asius, Dunzi, Kemmerichius,
Ahrens on external, 185; latria,
hyperdulia, dulia, 192; God's
due, 192; acts morally on God,
195; needed by God, 196; so-
ciety owes, 196; in spirit and
truth, 196; freedom of, 199, 200.
Usury and Church, 145.
Utilitarianism, 152-170.
Value, 140.
Zeno and happiness, 21, 23, 24;
and wealth, 154.
Zigliara, on consent of people, 384,
385.
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