Subquestion III: On the restitution owed for goods of which another has been hindered

JUSTICE is violated not only by taking away goods acquired, but also by impeding their being acquired; and this is the third head, from which the debt of restitution arises; concerning which the holy Doctor says something in the Speculum Animae, cap. 1. where he describes five ways of doing damage, and from the four first he places the obligation of restoring; for the goods of others, whether possessed or to be possessed, are impeded by doing, commanding, counseling, helping, and dissimulating; but of this last he says that a mortal sin is often not committed, unless hatred, or some other wicked disposition toward one's neighbor, arises; for commonly this dissimulation happens from fear and pusillanimity; while one fears that the wrath of wrongdoers be excited against him, and redound to his own loss; whence from this no one is held to restitution: Otherwise it would have to be said of him on whom the duty lay by his office to coerce such wrongdoers; since here he is bound by the bonds of Justice to guard the goods entrusted to him by office; but others are bound to it by charity, wherefore they can licitly even dissimulate, when they probabilistically believe that by reproving they will not profit; as D. Augustine has it, lib. 1. de civitate Dei, in the Seraphic Doctor, at the place cited: If anyone for this reason spares the wicked in rebuking and reproving them, lest they become worse, it does not seem to be an occasion of covetousness, but the counsel of Charity.

Of the other ways, by which one who impedes his neighbor's good is held to restitution, I shall speak in the following doubts.