Article III. On Unjust Damaging By Deeds In The Goods Of The Human Body

111. Preliminary Note. Since we have spoken of damaging in general, now one must deal in particular with some damagings in which a special difficulty is found. Following the footsteps of the Angelic Doctor,⁷⁴ we shall first treat of injuries committed by deeds, and then of injuries committed by words. By deeds injury can occur in three ways: 1. by directly injuring the very person of the neighbor; 2. by indirectly injuring the neighbor, namely in another person intimately joined to him; 3. by injuring the proper things of the neighbor. Enough has already been said above concerning this third injury, under damaging in general. Injury of the very person of the neighbor is prohibited by the fifth precept of the Decalogue: "You shall not kill"; by these words there is forbidden primarily every unjust homicide, that is, suicide and the unjust killing of the neighbor, and secondarily whatever injures one's own or another's body in an undue mode. But the neighbor is injured indirectly in a person intimately joined with him through adultery and deflowering. Therefore the order of things to be said is the following: 1. on injury against one's own body; 2. on injuries against the body of the neighbor; 3. on injury arisen from deflowering and adultery.

⁷⁴ Cf. S. theol. 2, 2, q. 64 sqq.