Article III. On the General Principles of Right and Justice

I. God alone is truly and absolutely Lord of all things. The reason is that, since he alone is the supreme creator and conserver of all things, all things have absolute dependence upon him alone. - Hence it follows 1st. that no created being can possess with respect to God, that is, use some thing as absolutely his own; and 2nd. that the right of property cannot be in a created being unless God wills it.

II. A man can be proprietor with respect to another man. The reason is that this is repugnant under no aspect: not on the part of men, because, since these are equal by nature, they do not depend in this matter one upon another; not on the part of the things themselves, because these rather have an aptitude to be possessed and brought into use, although not by diverse persons at the same time on account of their finitude; nor finally on the part of God, because God wills that we use created goods as means for conserving life, as is clear from the nature of those goods and from the exigency of man.

III. If any man has legitimately made certain goods his own, he has acquired in them a right inviolable of itself. The reason is that, this condition having been posited, God, who gave both aptitude and exigencies to man for the use of things, immediately communicates a right in them; but that right cannot be violated by another man without disorder. - Hence it follows 1st. that there is a natural precept promulgated and sanctioned by God himself, forbidding that the right of another be injured, and prescribing that if at any time it has been injured, it be restored whole; 2nd. that he who unjustly usurps another's thing becomes guilty both toward neighbor and toward God: toward neighbor indeed, because he injures his natural independence; toward God, by violating the divine right communicated to the neighbor, and at the same time the natural precept commanding that the aforesaid right be observed.

IV. Commutative justice obliges under grave sin and with the burden of restitution. The reason of the first is taken both from the fact that in the Scriptures eternal punishment is decreed not only once against those who violate commutative justice, and because the violation of another's right, since it is essentially harmful, by its own nature introduces great disorder into the mutual fellowship of men, and is repugnant to charity, which moves one to will another's good. But the reason of the second is that commutative justice regards equality of thing to thing, which can be brought about only through full restitution, once it has been violated.

V. The other species of justice of themselves also oblige under grave sin, but not with the burden of restitution. The first is clear from this, that, their definitions being inspected, grave harm to the whole society would follow if they could be violated either with impunity or under light sin only. But the other is gathered from this, that there cannot be the burden of restitution where either equality or relation to another is lacking, namely where restitution itself is not possible. - Nevertheless, commutative justice is often joined to the others, and thus the burden of restitution is introduced. Wherefore a magistrate or judge is held to restore if, on account of grave negligence in punishing, he is the cause why private persons or the community suffer grave damage, not by virtue of legal justice having been neglected, but of a violated contract by which, in assuming the office, he implicitly obligated himself to prevent the damages of subjects.