CHAPTER I: ON INJURY IN GENERAL

688. Definition. - Injury is the violation of strict right.

Division. - It is 1° formal or material, according as it is done knowingly and voluntarily, or without knowledge or consent.

2° Grave or light, according as from it damage absolutely or relatively grave, or altogether light, is caused.

3° Direct or indirect, according as it is intended in itself, or only foreseen and permitted in the cause (n. 6. 8).

689. Principles. - I. There is a natural precept promulgated and sanctioned by God, forbidding that the strict right of another be injured; hence every injury is opposed to natural right. For since someone has been made the legitimate owner of certain goods, necessarily he ought to have an inviolable right in them; otherwise his right would be illusory, or would not be a right, which involves a contradiction.

II. Injury, or the wounding of another's right, is a grave sin from its kind. The reason is that it is gravely opposed to right reason, to good order, and to the divine law.

III. No injury is done to one knowing and willing; because one who wills yields from his right, and therefore does not wish the right to be observed. Understand this, provided it is a question of a right from which one can yield; and hence:

Except those cases in which a man cannot yield his right, however willing he may be, either because it is of itself inalienable, or because it cannot be yielded without injury to others. Thus a married man cannot by his own consent prevent the violation of his wife from being adultery, because nature demands that conjugal right be altogether inalienable. Add, for Christians, the right of the Sacrament, which cannot be violated. Cf. prop. 50 among those condemned by Innocent XI, p. XVI.

690. Resolutions. - 1° Injury is done to one consenting because of fraud or fear unjustly struck into him, because in reality he either gives no consent, or does not give it freely, but only in order to redeem himself from an unjust vexation.

2° He likewise sins against justice who kills another asking it; the reason is that God has reserved to Himself dominion over human life. Man, however, is merely a usufructuary, who therefore cannot abdicate from himself the right to life; hence if not a man's right, certainly God's right is violated.

3° A usurer does injury to the borrower paying usury, just as a seller does to the buyer conceding a price above the highest for the merchandise; for neither of these is judged to wish to make a gift. Therefore there is lacking a title by which dominion either of the exacted usury or of the excess in the price is transferred.

4° The torturers did injury to the martyrs, even if the martyrs desired death and bore it gladly.

691. Questions. - Query 1° What matter is judged grave or light in injury?

Resp. That matter is judged grave which, from its own nature or from the estimation of men, is apt to cause in another a sadness difficult to settle, or to dissolve mutual charity. - Thus Lacroix,² and others. The reason is that, since the end of justice is to promote common peace, public tranquillity, and mutual love by the conservation of rights, that matter is deservedly judged grave which, from its own nature or from the estimation of men, can dissolve mutual love with loss of common peace, or can cause a sadness difficult to settle.

I said: from its own nature, etc.; because in establishing a general rule that must be attended to which commonly happens among men using a temperate judgment and affection, and not what the tumult and intemperance of the affections suggests in those circumstances; for justice follows the guidance of reason and the dictate of prudence.

Query 2° Can injury be inflicted effectively upon another by a merely internal act?

Resp. Affirmatively. Because sometimes by an internal act alone the strict right of another can be injured. - This is clear from the example of rash judgment, by which, according to the common opinion, justice toward one's neighbor is violated, since each one has a strict right to the good estimation of himself among individuals. - Recall what was said n. 537. - Moreover, in this case there is no special difficulty; since, when merely internal injury inflicts no external damage upon the injured party, no exterior reparation is to be made, but only the imprudent judgment of the mind must be rejected.

692. • Query 3° Can an internal act of itself effect that an external act become unjust?

Resp. 1° Negatively, if the external act of itself does not injure the strict right of another, notwithstanding a depraved intention of harming in the agent. The reason is that where no right is injured, there can be no injury. Hence one refusing through hatred to succor another does not sin against justice, unless he is bound by office. - Thus most commonly. - Lugo¹ against a few.

Resp. 2° Likewise negatively, when the agent has a right directly to place the external act which is harmful to another, even if he acts from the intention of harming. The reason is that a depraved intention cannot make unjust what of itself is just, since it cannot change the nature of the external act. Hence a judge condemning from hatred a murderer to the death merited does not sin by an external act against justice; nor a merchant selling his wares at the lowest price, in order to deprive other merchants of profits; nor one who dismisses a maidservant, the conditions of the agreement made with her being kept, although he acts with an unjust mind, for example in order to punish her because she did not wish to consent to his lust. Thus Lugo.

Resp. 3° Also negatively, if the external act is only an accidental or occasional cause, but not the per se cause of the neighbor's damage. Thus the intention of a murderer killing another for this reason, that his crime may be imputed to an innocent man, will not effect that his action is the cause of the innocent man's damage.² (n. 746. 2°.)

Resp. 4° Affirmatively, however, if the external work is indifferent to harming or not harming, the direct right of the agent being set aside; for then the intention of harming determines the external work, so that it becomes damaging. Therefore you do not indeed sin against justice by receiving a thing from the hands of a thief, so that you may restore it to the owner; otherwise, however, if you receive it in order to keep it. Resolve the same concerning a servant receiving the master's money: for he will not be unjust if he receives it in order to buy something for the use of the family; but he will be, if he steals it in order to spend it for his own uses. Nor do you do injury to a friend by taking his book in order to run through it in passing; otherwise, however, if in order to steal it. Nor will he be called a thief who takes another's money, without damage to that other, for his own uses, with a mind firmly determined to restore it as soon as possible; although that manner of acting, by which he exposes himself to danger of injustice and usurps the thing without the owner having been informed, must be disapproved.

From this head very many bankers have sinned, usurping money entrusted to them, even with the intention of returning it; which, nevertheless, being frustrated in hope, they were not able to accomplish.³

Resp. 5° Affirmatively also, if the intention comes forth into an unjust means by which someone is deprived of a good probably to be obtained (n. 757. q. 15°), as if someone intending to harm a creditor were to kill this creditor's debtor.⁴