Chapter X: Justice

AS a rule, the style of Aristotle is dry and crabbed, but on one occasion when he mentions justice he almost becomes a poet. He says that justice is the most excellent of all the moral virtues, and that neither the evening nor the morning star is so beautiful. St Thomas Aquinas quotes this saying of Aristotle with approval. Hamilton, the American statesman, tells us that “Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been, and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty is lost in the pursuit.” Herbert Spencer asserts that “beyond maintaining justice the State can do nothing else without transgressing justice.” These sayings of eminent men of very different times and schools of thought will help us to appreciate the immense importance of our subject. Our subject is the Catholic doctrine of justice. By that I do not mean that the Catholic Church teaches a doctrine of justice which is peculiarly her own, and which non-Catholics cannot be expected to accept. Justice is the chief of the moral virtues which rest on right reason and common sense. The great Catholic writers on justice such as St Thomas, Soto, Molina, Lessius, and Lugo, took what was sound in the teaching of Aristotle, Cicero, and the great Roman lawyers on justice, made it their own and developed it. This they did in the light of the Christian faith and under the guidance and watchfulness of the Catholic Church. When rash and untrue assertions were made on questions of justice by Catholic writers which threatened to do harm, the Church interposed her authority and condemned the false teaching. Thus on March 2, 1679, Pope Innocent XI condemned the proposition that domestic servants may secretly steal from their masters to compensate for their work which they judge to be worth more than they get in wages. On the same occasion the same Pope condemned the proposition that one is not bound under pain of mortal sin to make restitution for what has been stolen by several small thefts, however great may be the total sum taken; and a third proposition which asserted that he who incites or induces another to cause great loss to a third party is not bound to make restitution for the loss caused. These are but specimens of false teaching on justice which has been condemned by the Church. They will illustrate what I mean by her guidance and watchfulness which safeguards the development of Catholic teaching on this and on other points. When the Church has spoken Catholic writers obey her voice and only mention condemned doctrines to express their reprobation of them. In this way a Catholic tradition on justice was formed, a tradition which has the implicit approval of the Catholic Church.

St Thomas approves and adopts the definition of justice given in the Roman civil law: Justice is a perpetual and constant will of giving to everyone his due; and he says that it agrees with that given by Aristotle in his Ethics. Cicero defined it as a habit of mind of giving to everyone what belongs to him, which amounts to the same. It is the common meaning of the word in ordinary English speech. A man who thinks he has been wronged says, “I want justice, I want my due, my rights.”

The moral virtue of justice, then, teaches us to give every man his due, to render to every man what belongs to him, to respect and yield their rights to all men. It has two special properties or characteristics.

(a) Justice regards others, not self; it is an altruistic, not a self-regarding virtue. It regulates our actions with regard to others, and in this respect it differs from most other moral virtues. Temperance, for example, regards self; it moderates the actions of the temperate man with regard to bodily pleasures. The temperate man takes that amount of food and drink which becomes him. There is not the same measure for all alike; one requires more, another less. On the contrary, justice does not regard the just man primarily. It looks at the rights of others and strives to satisfy them. Whatever be the position and capacity of the just man, he tries to pay his debts to others, to satisfy the just claims which they may have against him.

We do, indeed, sometimes say of a speaker, for example, “He did not do himself justice,” meaning that on some occasion he did not reach his ordinary level of excellence. But when we make use of that expression, we use the word “justice” in a figurative sense, not in its strict sense.

(b) The second property of justice is that it renders to others precisely what is due to them, neither more nor less. There is a determinate quantity of right in another, and justice gives it to him. It gives the driver of a taxicab his fare, neither more nor less. I may, indeed, give a driver more than his fare if I like, but if I do I practise generosity. If I do not give him his fare I sin against justice.

Justice, then, renders to every man what is due to him, it gives him his rights. Rights are the object of justice, and if we want to understand what justice is, we must try to understand what is meant by a right.

Rights are natural or acquired.

Because man is a rational human being, he has certain moral faculties of doing, possessing, acquiring something. He has the natural right to life, liberty, reputation, respect, the right to marry, to work, and to enjoy the fruits of his labour, to own property. Parents have the right to educate their children. Such natural rights come from Nature herself, and from God, the author of Nature. They imply duties. I have a right to my life because I have a duty to preserve it. God gave it me; it is a talent entrusted to me by him, to be used in his service for my own good. It does not depend on force, on my power to defend it. The right exists in the unborn child as well as in the master of armies. Anyone who unwarrantably takes it away is guilty of an injustice against the owner of it and against God. That is what is meant by saying that a right is a moral, not a physical, quality or capacity. Might or power is merely physical; there is no moral quality about it. It can be used rightly or wrongly, morally or immorally.

(c) Acquired rights are such as are obtained by occupation of something which belongs to no one, by gift, inheritance, contract, or which have been granted by the Church or by the State, such as the franchise, the right to education. Sometimes it is a matter of dispute as to whether a particular right is natural or acquired—as, for example, copyright. The traditional ‘notion of justice which I have been trying to explain will perhaps become clearer if we contrast it with that adopted by Herbert Spencer. According to Herbert Spencer, the formula of justice is this: “Every man is free to do that which he wills provided that he infringe not the equal freedom of any other man.” This explanation of the notion of justice gives too great a prominence to subjective claims and takes no account of some necessary limitations of those claims. Justice, as we have seen, is altruistic, not self-regarding; it gives others their due, it does not concentrate its attention on its own claims. Moreover, it is too absolute and unlimited. We cannot do what we please with our own life. Suicide is an act of injustice towards God and towards our country which has its rights over us.

The nature of justice may be further explained by contrasting it with charity or benevolence. Charity also is altruistic; it teaches us to love others as ourselves, to do as we would be done by. But what we owe to our neighbour in charity is not a precise and definite sum or service as is that which we owe him in justice. Charity requires that we assist our neighbour according to his need, our own capacity, and the closeness of his relation to ourselves. Charity is wider, but justice is more strict. We must be just before being generous. The two virtues should go together, for human society rests on them both. Justice without charity is liable to be hard, unsympathetic, inhuman. It is charity which makes the whole world kin and kind.

Justice prescribes that all should have what is due to them, that all should have their own, that all should have their rights. A man has rights as an individual to be rendered to him by other individuals. As a member of a state he has certain rights to be rendered to him by the state of which he is a member. The state also has rights which justice prescribes to be rendered to it by the members who compose it. These rights are of different kinds, and so there are three different kinds of justice which order the relations which should exist in justice between individuals, between the state and its members, and between citizens and the state to which they belong. These three kinds of justice are called respectively Commutative, Distributive, and Legal. Legal justice is also called General because its acts are not confined to any particular department of human conduct, but embrace all acts which either of their own nature or because they are prescribed by law are required to be done for the common good. The following scheme will show the connection of these three species of justice:

Justice

General or Legal Particular

Distributive Commutative

In this section we will deal with General or Legal justice. Modern states are not mere voluntary associations, as Herbert Spencer supposed. It is true that, as a rule, a man may emigrate, abandon his country if he choose to do so. But unless he wishes to live like a hermit in some uninhabited spot, where-ever he goes he will find an organized society which will make claims on his allegiance. As man is born a member of a family, so he is born a member of a state, and as he has duties to his family, so he has duties to his state, nation, or country.

The state is not a mere collection of individuals ; it is an organized unity. It has rights quite distinct from the rights of the individuals who compose it. It has, for example, the right to make war for a good cause, and it has the right to inflict capital punishment on those who commit serious crimes. It also has authority to make laws for the common good. Legal justice prescribes that for the common good citizens should yield obedience to the just laws of their country.

It does not follow from this that a citizen commits sin whenever he violates a just law of his country. A law must, indeed, impose some sort of obligation; a law binds, and in this it differs from a request or a counsel. But the obligation which a law produces need not be an obligation under pain of sin. In this connection Catholic theology distinguishes between moral, penal, and mixed laws. Moral laws impose an obligation under pain of sin; the wilful violation of such a law is a sin. Penal laws impose an obligation to submit to a penalty enacted by the law against those who violate the law, if the penalty be imposed. Mixed laws are both moral and penal; they impose a moral duty to conform to them, and they provide a sanction against transgressors.

If there is question of merely positive laws, the legislator in general may make either moral, penal, or mixed laws. Just as a father, who has authority from nature and from God to give a strict command to his children which they are bound to obey under pain of sin, does not use all his authority on all occasions, but sometimes is content merely to manifest his wish with full confidence that a child will conform to it, so the state may intend its merely positive laws to bind under pain of only incurring the penalty and not sin. That a positive law may only bind in this way seems clear from the nature of things, and it is an accepted doctrine of Catholic theology and ethics. With regard to any particular law or system of laws it is merely a question of fact. Is this particular law a penal law or not? Is this particular system of positive laws a system of penal laws or not? With regard to English positive laws it is the well-grounded opinion of Blackstone and other authorities that they are penal laws, which do not bind the conscience under sin, but only under the duty of submitting to the penalty if it is imposed.*

However, a good citizen will make a point of observing the laws of his country as far as possible. The laws are presumed to be for the public good, and their observance will conduce to the peace and prosperity of the country. They express what is expected of a good citizen, and in order to give good example to others a good citizen will do what is expected of him. He will not be a cause of scandal to others. A natural love for his country will induce a good citizen to observe faithfully the laws of the state, although he knows that for good reasons they are not imposed on him with a strictly moral obligation.

Commutative justice, as the name implies, has to do chiefly with buying and selling and other contracts. It regulates relations which exist, or which ought to exist, between different and independent persons, whether physical or moral. It is a matter of commutative justice to observe agreements between nations as well as between individuals. It prescribes that what is due to another as his strict right should be rendered to him. Those who hold an office of any kind are bound by commutative justice to fulfil its duties. Statesmen, judges, magistrates, public, and private servants, lawyers, and doctors sin against commutative justice if they fail to do their duty. They violate an implied or expressed contract entered into when they assumed office.

• Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, i 57. St Thomas Aquinas, Summa, II–II, q. 186, a. 9.

What must be rendered to another in justice is his due or his strict right. Such rights are of various kinds, both natural and acquired. The right to life, liberty, and proper treatment at the hands of officials are instances of natural rights. A man has a natural right to make things his own, or to acquire private property. Commutative justice recognizes that such a right should be respected. Robbery and theft are against the natural law of justice. Thou shalt not steal is a precept of the natural law.

If commutative justice be violated an injury is done to another, and it is peculiar to such an act that it entails an obligation of making restitution or reparation for the injustice that has been done. This follows from the very nature of commutative justice. When commutative justice is violated, another person is deprived of what belongs to him, of his right. But justice requires that each one should have what belongs to him, and so justice is not done till what he has been deprived of, or its equivalent, is restored to him. This is what is meant by making restitution.

There are two roots of restitution: possession of what belongs to another, and unjust damage of what belongs to another.

If I find a watch I may keep it till I find the owner, but when I have found the owner, I must give him his watch. The watch is his, it belongs to him, and I sin against justice if I do not give another what belongs to him. There is a peculiar connection between the owner and his watch; that connection gives the owner the right to possess his watch; justice demands that the watch should be in the possession of its owner, the watch cries for its owner, just as the child cries for its mother.

If I unjustly destroy or damage what belongs to another, he has not what belongs to him. I must then give him an equivalent. I must put him as far as possible in the possession of the rights of which I unjustly deprived him. I must make restitution to him. Justice demands that, for justice demands that each one should have what belongs to him.

Are prices of commodities a matter of justice, or may a seller get what he can for his goods?

Until quite recent times the answer given to this question was that prices of commodities are certainly a matter of justice, and that a seller who tries to get for his goods more than they are worth is a cheat. At present the question is involved in the greatest confusion, chiefly due to political economists. Some economists merely abstract from the question of justice in prices. Justice, they say, is a matter for ethics, and political economy has nothing to do with ethics. Others assert that prices are regulated by natural forces as inexorable as those which govern the weather, and so are not subject to the law of justice. The Catholic doctrine is that justice is a moral virtue and that it should rule all men’s actions, and therefore his buying and selling, as well as the rest. Price is the money measure of value, but what is value? We must distinguish carefully between use-value and exchange-value. The use-value of a thing is the advantage which one derives from using it, and the consequent esteem in which he holds it. It is something individualistic, subjective, and variable. The use-value of a glass of water depends on the individual, on his tastes, on his variable needs. Exchange-value is what a thing will exchange for, what the owner can get for it. A glass of water has great or little use-value, according to circumstances; it has no exchange value, because nobody will give anything for it; it can be got for nothing. In order that a thing may have exchange-value, it must be capable of satisfying men’s wants, it must be of limited quantity and relatively scarce, and there must be a society of men in existence who have different goods which they are willing to exchange for others. Exchange-value can only exist in society. It is a social product; society gives goods their exchange-value; the social, or common, estimate is the measure of exchange-value. Because it is a social estimate, exchange-value is not mathematically determined. There is a certain indefiniteness about it. In a given society at a certain time those who are acquainted with the exchange-value of a horse will say on seeing a particular horse: “Oh! he’s worth about forty pounds.” You might get forty-five pounds for him, but hardly more. You might have to let him go for thirty-five pounds, if you are compelled to sell. In other words, the exchange-value of commodities and consequently their price fluctuates, and even when stable it is not determined to the last penny.

But justice requires that prices should be fair and reasonable. Nobody likes to give more for an article than it is worth, and the common estimate of people acquainted with the state of the market is the measure of its worth. Its use-value to the buyer will be greater than the price which he pays for it, or else he would not part with his money. But justice requires that exchange-values should be equal when things are exchanged in ordinary contracts of buying and selling. That is the doctrine expounded by Aristotle and faithfully adhered to as being the teaching of natural reason until the time of Hobbes and Locke.

Hobbes and Locke denied the traditional teaching without attempting to show that it was false. When the road had thus been cleared, Adam Smith, Ricardo, and other leading economists developed a doctrine of value which was to produce the most important results. They taught that labour is the source and measure of value. Commodities are exchanged according to the amount of labour which has been put into them. Karl Marx adopted this theory of value and built on it his doctrine of scientific Socialism. He argued that if labour is the source of value, then the worker produces all the wealth of the world. The capitalist pays the worker less for his labour than it is worth and takes the surplus value for himself. Thus the capitalist robs the worker, and no wrong is done by depriving him of his ill-gotten gains.

The doctrine of Karl Marx is the cause of a great deal of the social and economic troubles of our time. It shows how disastrous false teaching may become, and how important it is to keep to the truth.

Labour is, indeed, a source of value, but it is false to say that it is the only source of value or that it is the measure of value. A few examples will make this perfectly clear. There are things of great value which have been acquired without any labour at all, as, for example, a diamond found by chance on the South African veldt. The same quantity of labour often produces commodities of very different values. The faggot maker, the ordinary carpenter, and the cabinet maker may each work for eight hours a day, but the product of their labour will be of very different values. Not unfrequently a workman complains that his labour has been thrown away; he has mixed his labour with the material, but the result is worthless. The Marxian theory of value is false, and the consequences to which it leads are false and disastrous.

All citizens can share equally in many of the advantages which the state confers. All have the use of the public highways, of the parks, and all enjoy the security of life and property guaranteed by the laws. But there are some emoluments in the gift of the state which cannot be conferred on all. There are not enough for all, and besides all have not the qualifications necessary. All the citizens of a state cannot be judges, or magistrates, or officers in the army and navy, or hold posts in the civil service. All cannot be raised to the peerage or the baronetage; there must be some to fill the role of ordinary common men and women. There are also public burdens to be borne, and all have not the same capacity to bear them. It would be iniquitous to force all to bear an equal share of taxation in order to meet the costs of government. Yet the emoluments which the state has in its gift, and the burdens which it imposes for the common good belong, in a sense, to all the citizens. The citizens compose the state; what belongs to the state belongs, in a sense, to the citizens. The citizens have a right in justice that common emoluments and common burdens be not distributed among the citizens arbitrarily, according to whim and fancy, or out of favouritism or ill-will. They should be distributed according to the rules of Distributive Justice. What are those rules?

In the first place, those who have the distribution of the common emoluments and burdens should constantly look to the common good in their distribution. Their office obliges them to do this, and explicitly or implicitly they bound themselves to do it when they assumed office. If they fail in this duty they will sin more or less grievously against commutative justice; they will be responsible for all the harm done to society by their wrong distribution, and they will be bound to make restitution for that harm as far as possible.

They should choose only those who are fit for the posts in which they are placed, and among those who are fit they should select those who have the greater claims and the greater merits. In their apportionment of burdens they should look at capacity to bear them, so that the sacrifices which all are compelled to make for the common good should be equal as far as possible. Distributive justice does not proceed according to arithmetical equality, but is proportionate to merits and capacities. This rule can best be illustrated by a few concrete examples.

A ship, Niagara, when in danger of foundering was salved by the ship Tagus. The judge assigned the sum of five thousand pounds to the officers and crew of the Tagus in reward for their services. Of this sum the captain got one thousand pounds, one thousand five hundred pounds were divided among the officers of the ship, and the rest was divided equally among the crew.

In a certain town the ratepayers contribute a sum of money every year in support of the secondary schools of the district. One or two of the schools are endowed and neither ask for nor receive any assistance from the rates. One or two others are commercial undertakings. They demand high fees for tuition and thus pay all expenses. There are other schools, municipal and voluntary, which give a secondary education to boys and girls of more humble means. Fees are charged, but they are too low to maintain the schools. It is to assist these that the school rate is raised. Distributive justice requires that they should be assisted according to their need, provided that the standard of education given in them reaches a satisfactory level. It would not be just if the municipal schools had all their requirements lavishly supplied, while the voluntary schools suffered from penury and could hardly make ends meet. The voluntary schools do a public service; it is supposed that they do it well, they have a claim in justice to public support, especially as the parents of the pupils contribute their share to the school rate.

If the trustees of a school issue notices of a vacancy in the post of headmaster and announce that they intend to appoint the most suitable candidate, they sin against commutative justice if they fail to do so. They break their contract with the candidates. If they appoint one who is unfit, they co-operate in the harm which he does. But, unless the school is a state school, they do not sin against distributive justice by appointing one who is less worthy than other candidates, because the appointment is not one of state patronage.

If parliamentary electors send an unfit person to represent them in Parliament, they co-operate in the evil which he does. But they do not sin against distributive justice, for no particular person has a right to represent them; they are free to appoint their own representative, who in a manner acts for them as an agent. The right to vote is theirs; no one has a right to be appointed.

The Catholic Church is not satisfied with teaching the general principles of Christian morality. She descends to particulars and applies general principles to concrete cases. This is casuistry, and the modern world is strongly prejudiced against casuistry. In this section I will try to explain the grounds of this prejudice and what is the Catholic position. We keep specially in view the principles of justice and their application by casuists to particular and concrete cases.

It is sometimes said that Jesus Christ condemned casuistry. It is quite clear from the Gospel narrative that our Lord did not condemn casuistry, but that he only condemned bad casuistry. The Pharisees taught that if one took an oath by the Temple at Jerusalem the oath was not binding, but if he swore by the gold on the Temple the oath was binding. Our Lord rejected the distinction. The Temple, he said, sanctified the gold which decorated it, and if an oath by the gold on the Temple was valid and binding, much more was an oath by the Temple valid and binding. The Pharisees taught that tithe must be paid on such insignificant products as mint, anise, and cummin; they neglected to inculcate the weightier matters of the law, judgement and mercy and faith. Our Lord said that they were right in attending to the more trivial obligations of the law, but that they were wrong in neglecting the more important. They did right to strain at gnats, but they should not swallow camels. Pascal is supposed by some to have dealt casuistry its death-blow in his Provincial Letters.

Pascal and the Provincial Letters cannot be understood without reference to the circumstances of the time. Pascal was a Jansenist and lived and wrote in intimate relations with Arnauld, the leader of the French Jansenists. Jansenism took its rise from the publication of Augustinus, a posthumous work written by Jansen, Bishop of Ypres. The book was published in the year 1640; it was condemned by the Holy Office in 1641, and in the following year it was condemned by Pope Urban VIII. The Jansenists professed not to know why the book was condemned; they said that it contained the teaching of St Augustine on grace, and that a condemnation of Augustinus involved a condemnation of the great Doctor on Grace. Five propositions were extracted from the book and condemned in 1653. Still the Jansenists refused to submit. They acknowledged that the Church is infallible on matters of doctrine, but here was a mere question of fact. They denied, as a matter of fact, that the five propositions were contained in Augustinus. However, they realized that the best way to defend oneself is to attack the enemy. The Dominicans and the Jesuits had distinguished themselves in the attack on the Jansenists. The Jansenists determined to retaliate by attacking what they thought were the most vulnerable points in the armour of the Dominicans and Jesuits. Pascal was no theologian, but the Jansenists furnished him with extracts from Dominican and Jesuit writers and told him to make the attack in his own way. The result was the Provincial Letters, which began to appear in 1656. The first letters attacked the Dominican doctrine on Grace, but the matter was abstruse and difficult, and the Letters failed to attract much attention. From the fifth letter onwards Pascal professed to attack the moral theology of the Society of Jesus. The matter was more popular and intelligible, and the wit and style of the writer at once secured a wide hearing. The Letters were immediately condemned by both ecclesiastical and civil authorities.

The extracts on which Pascal based his attack were often carefully worded and strictly guarded propositions on delicate points of moral conduct. The mere taking of them from their context unduly extended and altered their meaning, especially when important words were omitted, as was sometimes the case. Pascal accused the Jesuits of teaching that the end justifies the means, a calumny which has often been repeated but never proved to be true. The proposition is rank heresy, as Vasquez, a great Jesuit theologian, expressly teaches.

Pascal professed to attack the lax moral teaching of the Jesuits, but of the three typical authors whom he quotes most frequently, Diana, Pontius, and Bauny, only the last was a Jesuit. Diana was a Theatine, and Pontius an Augustinian. Bauny was indeed a Jesuit, but he was not looked upon as a great theologian of the Society. His popular French book, Somme des Péchés had been condemned by the Holy Office at Rome in 1640.

The Society has no moral theology of its own. Its theologians have ever professed to teach the morality of the Catholic Church. Like the theologians of other Orders, some of the theologians of the Society have inclined to the side of rigour in morals, while others have in general followed milder opinions. It is a gratuitous insult on the part of Pascal to attribute this very natural phenomenon to deliberate policy adopted in order to gain influence with all, both rigorists and laxists.

Modern writers often base their objections against casuistry on more fundamental grounds. They say that it attempts to do what is impossible. Casuistry tries to draw up rules for the regulation of every human action. It is baffled by the infinite complexity of human life and its ever-changing circumstances.

Casuists are well aware of the infinite complexity of human life; they know well that the circumstances of human action are constantly changing and that all the circumstances of any future action cannot be foreseen. Still they hold that rules for human action can be framed so that anyone by their aid can discover whether any particular action which he contemplates is right or wrong. To discover this it is not necessary - to attend to all the circumstances of the action, but only to those that are relevant. Rules for these relevant circumstances have been drawn up by moralists of all ages and of all schools. With a sound judgement and an honest purpose they can be applied to most concrete cases without great difficulty. Occasionally it is true a difficult moral case will occur, but even then a good moralist will be able to find a practical solution. There is no greater difficulty in morals arising from the infinite variety of human life than there is in mathematics. Future problems in arithmetic cannot be foreseen in all their details, but this does not prevent a solution being reached by one who knows his principles of arithmetic, and by practice in examples has learnt how to apply them correctly.

A modern theory which underlies a good deal of the prejudice against casuistry is what is called independent morality. According to this theory man is a law to himself; there are no objective rules of morality which are obligatory on man. It is the height of impertinence for anyone to formulate rules of moral conduct and try to impose them on others.

This attitude is irrational and un-christian. It is irrational, for reason and experience teach us that man is subject to certain moral laws which he violates at his peril and to his ruin. If a man persists in over-indulging his appetites or selfishness he is sure to pay for it dearly. It is un-christian, for Jesus Christ proclaimed the necessity of observing the commandments if we would be followers of him. Those commandments are not mere abstract and theoretical propositions. They are practical rules of conduct, which can be applied to the concrete cases of everyday life without much difficulty. Human life in accordance with them is quite possible, and it is quite easy to know when they are violated. Children of eight or nine know quite well when they break them, and which of them is broken by theft or disobedience. One who wishes to lead an honest life cannot escape casuistry. He must act with a good conscience, or in other words he must perform every deliberate action with the conviction that he is doing right. He can only do this by realizing that his action is in conformity with the moral law. Such a judgement must at least implicitly precede every deliberate action, and such a judgement is an application of moral principles to concrete cases, or it is casuistry. Is it safe to leave the judgement to each individual as the cases arise, or is it safer to trust such work to the expert? The Catholic Church is not the only authority which holds that such work can only be done safely by the expert. Self-interest warps the judgement, and many questions in ethics, and especially in matters of justice, are difficult. Even able men, specially trained to treat such subjects, will often hold different opinions on particular points. The Stoics were highly esteemed for their ethical teaching, a branch of philosophy which they cultivated with care. In his work On Duties, Cicero gives some interesting examples of moral questions concerning justice which were discussed by them. There was a scarcity of provisions in the island of Rhodes, and the price of corn was high. A certain corn merchant had secret information that large supplies were not far off and would shortly arrive. Might he keep his information to himself and continue to sell his corn at famine prices? Another case was that of a man who had an insanitary house for sale. Was he obliged to tell all its defects to intending buyers ?

Cicero tells us that the Stoic philosopher, Diogenes, took the more lenient view in both cases, while his pupil Antipater took the stricter. From the schools of the Stoics the two cases passed into those of the Catholic Church, where they are discussed to this day. Both St Thomas Aquinas and St Alphonsus discuss them, and we shall do better to follow their solution than that of the interested corn merchant or owner of insanitary property.