§ 2. First Approach to the Disputation

We shall propose three things in this place: notions, opinions, and a censure of certain arguments.

422. What it is that we are investigating. 1. Lest our entire discourse be weakened by a bad understanding, we judge that it must again be warned that it is not concerned with the lowest common assessment of the price of labor—for above, no. 340, we showed that for any thing there is distinguished a common just price which is the highest, middle, and lowest—so that we do not contend that he who has paid the wage which we shall establish here as the minimum among just wages has already given what is sufficient. But whether it often happens that this rationale of the minimum wage differs little from the wage which in common usage is held to be the lowest among just wages, we shall investigate in the scholium; here, however, we formally omit it. But although it is not repugnant in itself that other things, because of the abundance in which they are available, become so cheap that nearly all their value is taken away, we ask whether human labor is likewise tossed about according to the number of those who offer it for hire, or whether, on the contrary, natural justice, which we call commutative, prevents it from being depressed below a certain measure for this reason.¹

¹ Then that famous saying of Cobden would hold quite absolutely: “Labor becomes cheap if two workmen pursue one employer; but if, on the contrary, two employers pursue one workman, labor becomes dearer.”

2. Nor, again, can the state of the question be placed as not a few who are opposed to our conclusion imagine it: whether or not labor must be recompensed according to its value.² For we affirm this of our own accord,³ and, we think, no one who has attended even moderately to the things thus far handed down will deny it.

² Therefore, difficulties of this kind appear most vain: “Need is not a title for demanding a wage above the value of the labor”: for this is conceded; but the supposition is denied, namely, that the value of the labor is exceeded by such a wage. Moreover, no one has ever contended that the same wage must be paid for labors of unequal merit, as Rev. Fr. Castelein objects, work cited, p. 376.

³ Indeed, the argument of the Most Illustrious Bishop of Bruges, in the observations cited, proceeds from this very first beginning.

3. But this is called into question: whether or not by nature there inheres in human labor some value which is the minimum. Rightly and deservedly, indeed, our adversaries demand that we prove by valid arguments that the norm which we establish as to be followed is true; but while they themselves wish to estimate labor from an agreement alone, or from the custom of a shop which perhaps is the only one in a certain region, or from the price of things or the number of those offering labor, let them beware lest they tacitly posit that which would have to be demonstrated by them, and so fall into a pure and simple begging of the question.

Therefore, to encompass the matter in a few words, the question at present is not formally one concerning a positively just price, but rather concerning its negative definition: concerning, I say, a lower limit of the value of labor, if there is one, and what it is.

423. The workman we establish as one who, sound in strength and adult in age, possesses that knowledge, art, and skill which, according to the culture of the state, seems able to be demanded of all.

424. The labor we establish as necessary to the hirer for the intended end. Therefore, if someone from charity enrolls another among his servants beyond the customary number, or, having been asked, entrusts to an able-bodied man a work for which either a woman or a boy could appropriately suffice, we do not wish to transfer our conclusion concerning the wage to him.

425. The material rationale of the wage is not always contained wholly in counted money, but advantages of another kind, whether formally or tacitly promised and agreed upon, can be regarded as part of the wage.⁴ To this belongs, for example, that more ample manner of living which domestic servants are accustomed to enjoy, and the contribution which is paid in not a few shops for preparing a pension by which provision is made for old age or misfortune, provided that it is then sufficiently assured that the workman cannot be dismissed at pleasure unless the damage from the loss of this sort of hope is compensated to him. Therefore, we said promised and agreed upon, lest subsidies of charity perform the function of a just price.

⁴ Mr. Périn writes elegantly, Premiers principes, p. 285, 2nd ed.: “The wage is the sum of the useful objects which are attributed to the workman in recompense for his labor.”

It is also evident that how great the wage of labor is cannot be estimated from money alone, but that one must in addition observe the varying value of money itself, or how many and how great useful things can be acquired by means of money. And thus they distinguish the real wage (salaire réel) and that which is a wage in name only (nominal).

426. On the family wage. 1. The name itself is not approved by many, who think that what they intend is not expressed by these words and that occasion is given for no small confusion.⁵ We do not wish to dispute this, since we prefer not to depart from an accepted manner of speaking, even one which seems less suitable.

⁵ “The term family wage must be banished from the vocabulary of sound political economy.” Périn, Premiers principes, 2nd ed., p. 303, note. Nor is the name pleasing to the distinguished Mr. Waffelaert, article cited.

2. But the thing which is subjected to these words must be carefully considered. Come then, a threefold rationale of it is distinguished, whose common point is that in the estimation of the wage not only the workman, but also in some manner his family, is regarded. Therefore:

a) The relative family wage is so called because it varies according to the persons of whom the family is composed and according to their necessities. The labor furnished is then regarded less than the necessity of the one furnishing it, and it is less a recompense of labor than a subsidy of need.

b) From this the absolute family wage plainly differs; it is described as such a recompense of labor by which a frugal and honorable workman, without neglecting the aids which thrift and the moderate cooperation of his wife and children can bring, is able to provide decently for himself in the varied circumstances in which he will, per se, find himself in the course of life. Among these circumstances are found the married state and customary offspring.⁶ This is its genuine and formal rationale, which we shall approximately defend in our conclusion. But what it seems to comprise materially, we shall state more explicitly in the corollaries, no. 444.

⁶ Those somewhat distort this rationale, or expound it inadequately, who call that wage absolute whose present amount suffices for present necessities.

c) Finally, the collective family wage is understood as the sum of the wages received by the order of workmen which, with the aid of various subsidies,⁷ suffices to support the workmen with their families. Therefore, it is called collective in two ways: α) Insofar as the sufficiency is not that of individuals taken distributively, but, in general, of the whole body of workmen; β) insofar as an account must be made not only of the wage but also of subsidies which are paid under a title other than commutative justice, whether the employer or master himself, from his humanity or equity, prepared them and determined that they be distributed, or whether private charity or public providence undertook the office of supplying what is sufficient.

⁷ Including those which are supplied publicly, as the Collationes Tornacenses, 1895, no. 353, explain.

N.B. Take care lest, as some have begun to speak, you oppose the personal wage to the family wage. For we call every wage personal insofar as it is the exchange of the personal labor of the one who is hired and insofar as it is owed to the workman himself, not to the family. Moreover, the father, insofar as he provides for his own, is not so distinguished from his own that he is not rather to be regarded with them, in moral consideration, as one person or subject of right. Cf. no. 39.

If, however, some defend the relative family wage, they seem, with the person of the workman omitted, to assign the wage immediately to the family. Therefore, at most, against them the expression personal wage and an argument drawn from this name can be employed. The rationale of a wage which is enough to support one man could more suitably be called singular (individuel).

427. Liberal tenets. All those who hold liberal tenets, unless they omit the question concerning a limit while professing that their own consideration of the matter is economic and not moral—as not a few economists do—deny that any limit of what is just can be drawn from the source of nature. I say of what is just, for they concede some necessity of fact, so that the workman may be supported by his labor, and indeed may be able to beget offspring, lest the very order of workmen perish. That this doctrine is most foreign to the encyclical Rerum novarum is sufficiently evident of itself.

428. Concerning those who establish the price of things as the absolute norm.

We shall speak again of this opinion in no. 432. Here we shall especially warn that, as it seems to us, those do not sufficiently answer to the mind of the Supreme Pontiff who altogether reject the necessities of the workman as a criterion of the just wage, although they too contend that sustenance will not be lacking to the workman from another absolute norm, which they place in the value of labor estimated from the price of things. For to one reading the passage of the encyclical cited above, it is easily evident that the conclusion concerning a wage which is inadequate for supporting the workman is artfully coupled and connected with the argument taken from the workman’s necessity. Therefore, if you pass this over entirely, you must judge the conclusion of the Pontiff to be formally false, even if perhaps you preserve for it some material truth.

Catholics must at least hold this declaration of the encyclical, which Génicot, Theol. mor. [Moral Theology], vol. 1, no. 646, after the Roman response to doubt I, hands down thus:

“It [labor] is dissimilar [to merchandise] insofar as the active power by which labor is furnished adheres to the person (the rationale of personality), and, for most men, it is the sole means by which they acquire for themselves the things which are necessary for the various uses of life, and especially for their own preservation (the rationale of necessity). Therefore, the contract of hiring labor must not be withdrawn from the general norm by which a just price is established in a contract of purchase and sale, namely, that from the very nature of things and antecedently to a private agreement (natural justice), labor be compensated according to the true value which it has in concrete circumstances. But from the special rationale of necessity, which cannot be separated from human labor, it comes about that, commonly and with special circumstances excluded, the value of this labor cannot justly be estimated below that price which suffices for supporting a frugal and well-behaved workman.”

This formal regard for necessity is lacking in the rules and rationales of Rev. Fr. Castelein,⁸ which we showed above do not regard anything except profitable labors. Moreover, it seems better to us to abstain from a lengthy statement of his opinion. For the principles upon which it rests have already been discussed above, no. 406, p. 532, and will be discussed below, no. 432, p. 567 ff. But in his conclusions he now scarcely seems opposed to our tenets. For in his own behalf he appeals⁹ to an author who in his writings openly says that a wage sufficient for a father of a family is owed per se from commutative justice. Cf. also below, no. 439, argument 3, no. 6.

⁸ This appears still more from the manner in which, on p. 379, note, and p. 397, he wishes to vindicate himself from contradiction with the encyclical.

⁹ Droit naturel [Natural Right], p. 322, note.

429. Concerning those who appeal to legal justice. Others formally place the lower limit of the just wage in the sustenance of an individual workman. At times they understand this sustenance quite strictly as those things which seem required in the present.¹⁰ But at the same time they add that the absolute family wage is owed per se from legal justice: for this rationale of a wage is demanded by the common good.

¹⁰ “The minimum just wage is equal to the daily subsistence of the workman under normal conditions.” Antoine, Cours d’économie sociale [Course of Social Economics], chap. 18, art. 4, p. 601 (2nd ed.).

They are accustomed to support the positive part of their opinion, by which they require sustenance, with this argument: An able-bodied workman hands over to the master of a business all the powers of his body, morally speaking, to be used. Therefore, the exchange will not be just, since it rests wholly upon equality between what is given and what is received, unless those powers are restored to the workman by the employer. But they are restored through the sustenance by which he refreshes himself. Therefore, we have this equation:

The wage which is the minimum = Powers to be used = Sustenance

Lest we conceal or cover over anything, this kind of argument pleases us little, whether we consider its antecedent, its consequent, or the inference itself.

As to the antecedent. If there were question of a beast of burden, we would well understand all its powers to be destined for the man using it, and neither food nor rest to be supplied to it except insofar as they are directed to new labor. But the body and powers of the workman, who is a man, have a nobler use. Therefore, we can by no means be brought to refer every cessation from servile labor to the utility of the hirer. Rather, once some suitable time has been granted to labor, during the remainder of the day or time the workman seems to us primarily to spend his time, to rest, to use either mind or body, and to live for himself and his family. Since these things are so, the antecedent by which all his powers were said to have been handed over for the use of the hirer of labor does not seem true.

But if they say that these powers are nevertheless handed over during the time in which the craftsman could have worked for himself, they will easily see, if they attend for a little while, that they formally change the argument. For why is a complete restoration of the powers owed on account of that partial use? They will find no other rationale except either that it is commonly valued at least so highly, or that from the right ordination of nature it is deservedly concluded that such fruitfulness belongs to human powers by nature that the craftsman, fruitfully expending his labor upon himself, would per se have gathered just as much, so that this recompense is a certain compensation for gain ceasing. But then we shall again ask whether something greater can be gathered from this ordination of nature. Concerning this, consult the arguments of the thesis.

As to the consequent. That restoration of the powers, if this alone is owed, can be made at the least expense if the employer should wish aptly to select foods,¹¹ and to establish common meals and sleeping quarters for the workmen. Why would it be forbidden by this norm to assess the price of the sustenance? But in this way the strict obligation falls back upon that wage which is branded with a certain infamy by the name salaire de famine [starvation wage], Hungerslohn [hunger wage], and pertains to the blameworthy sweating system. Nor will any Catholic depress the lower limit of justice to a wage of this kind. Therefore, such reasoning is futile.

¹¹ A certain landlord from England acquired celebrity for himself by publishing methods of feeding workmen sparingly.

N.B. This kind of reasoning nevertheless seems to us to have been the cause why many who define the lower limit by the workman’s own sustenance have, openly or tacitly, looked only to the workman’s present need, and have not always dared to affirm as owed per se a wage by which he is able to reserve something for providing against probable infirmity or old age.

The inference itself does not seem correct. We have already disclosed one defect in it by disproving the antecedent. Moreover, unless you make the workman’s powers barren in themselves like money, the equality of what is given and what is received requires not only the restoration of the powers but compensation for their use. It is truly astonishing that, in this age of ours, in which the gratuitousness of a loan of money has been so greatly doubted, the labor of a craftsman has at the same time been so valued that it appears to be the object of a barren loan.

If, with Rev. Mr. de Gryse,¹² they understand this obligation of legal justice in such a way that they signify the duty of the ruler to introduce by suitable means such an economic order in which the family rationale actually flourishes, while meanwhile leaving the matter to the equity or humanity of private persons, they will have said something definite which can probably be held.

¹² De contractu conductionis operarum [On the Contract for the Hiring of Labor], pp. 47–49.

But most subject this force to the word, so that, with every law excluded, they place in private persons themselves a present and grave obligation of legal justice to pay per se this wage.

Thus the Rev. Fathers Antoine, place cited, p. 607; Génicot, place cited, no. 647; and Rev. Mr. Keesen, 3e Congrès de Liège, 1st section, Terminologie sociale [Social Terminology], p. 98.

We judge that they speak confusedly or are deceived by the word.

For, insofar as we understood from St. Thomas, Thesis IV, legal justice is a special virtue insofar as, from its proper intention of the common good, it makes some act of another virtue necessary. Therefore, if you speak of an obligation of legal justice, you tacitly speak of an act of another virtue commanded from the common good. Consequently, in order that you may speak distinctly, you must declare at once the act of which virtue is commanded. Thus, if Christians are bound by legal justice on certain days to be present at the sacred rite and to abstain from meat, these obligations are ascribed by theologians to religion and to temperance. In the same manner, in our matter, the special virtue whose act is necessary under the command of legal justice must be indicated; I mean that virtue in whose order the precept is made. But in the present case, what else is at issue except a suitable recompense of the workman? Therefore, if you think that a family recompense is required from the common good—that is, such an exchange for labor—it is necessary to acknowledge that this pertains proximately to commutative justice. Moreover, by what argument, I ask, do theologians demonstrate absolutely grave matter in theft? They appeal to the common good. Nevertheless, they say that the guilt is opposed to commutative justice. We must not depart here from that wisdom.

But if they wish to find a title distinct from the obligation of strict justice, which is denied, and from charity, which they admit does not suffice, they strive in vain to increase the catalogue of virtues by some new rationale of virtue.

In vain, I say, yet not without detriment to the good cause. For if the rationale of the common good is posited as proximately and immediately producing in employers or masters a special obligation to pay a family wage, lest the families of the workmen lack suitable sustenance, this rationale and the conclusion joined to it seem able to be restricted to those workmen who are actually joined in marriage and to vary in degree and force according to the variation of the family itself. Indeed, it could be defended with Rev. Fr. Castelein, p. 384, that the common good is better procured by subsidies accommodated to the necessities of individual families. Therefore, a) the employer will easily think himself immune from the obligation as regards bachelors, and from this there will soon arise in him the will and zeal rather to hire such persons; b) the whole matter will fall back upon a certain quite ill-defined obligation of a collective wage, by which workmen, unless the family wage is the customary wage (salaire courant), become entirely subject, as regards the necessities of their household, to the benevolence and humanity of the masters.

430. Concerning those who ascribe the absolute family wage to commutative justice. Not a few today think that, per se, in the right and ordinary state of affairs, at least the absolute family wage itself is owed as the just price of an adult workman. This opinion has acquired distinguished patrons: Cardinal Manning, Commentarius in Encyclicam [Commentary on the Encyclical]; Liberatore, work cited, pt. 2, no. 89; Marrès, De iustitia et iure [On Justice and Right], bk. 4, no. 353; Rev. Mr. Nicotra, Le minimum de salaire [The Minimum Wage], art. 2; Steccanella, De Communismo [On Communism], bk. 2, chap. 15; the Rev. Fathers Lehmkuhl, in the little work cited, and Biederlack, Die sociale Frage [The Social Question], no. 99; Rev. Mr. de T’Serclaes, in the letter cited to Bien Public; Collationes Tornacenses, 1895, no. 353; Messrs. A. Verhaegen, Le minimum de salaire, and Esbach, in a letter inserted in that little work; Charles Périn, Premiers principes [First Principles] and Note sur le juste salaire [Note on the Just Wage]; Rev. Fr. Dehon, Manuel social chrétien [Christian Social Manual]; Rev. Messrs. Gayraud, Questions du jour [Questions of the Day], pp. 171–176; and Pottier, De iustitia [On Justice], diss. 3, no. 195 ff. D’Hulst, 6th conference at Notre-Dame de Paris, 1896, does not oppose them. Nor is anything else elicited from those things which Taparelli has concerning the recompense of officials, Saggio, and so forth, vol. 2, no. 1143, compared with vol. 2, no. 428.

The distinguished Bishop of Bruges also subscribes in substance to the same opinion, and indeed in the manner which pleases us more, as we shall say in the conclusion.

431. Concerning the patrons of the relative wage. But that the relative wage is owed from justice can be contended only by socialists, or rather communists, from their norm of distribution, by which each would contribute according to his powers but would receive according to his necessities.¹³ We treated it sufficiently in Thesis V, concerning just distribution, and in Question V, concerning socialism. Therefore, we may refrain from saying more. For since the relative wage is defended by none of the Catholic writers, the haters of the family wage waste much oil when they are wholly occupied in refuting this rule of the just wage.

¹³ “That would be the extreme claim of pure socialism, attributing to each worker a recompense proportioned to his needs.” Périn, Premiers principes, 1st ed., p. 297; 2nd ed., p. 303.

Nor is there an office either of equity or of charity by which the employer is bound to pay this reward; this is well shown by Rev. Fr. Castelein, pp. 369–370.

In order that our approach to the truth may be simpler and more direct, it is useful also to observe some things concerning the very arguments which are customarily brought forward in this matter.

432. Whether the lower limit depends upon the price of things.¹⁴ You would proceed from a false beginning if you were to argue in such a way that you seemed then for the first time to value human labor economically, or to judge it worthy of a price, from the point at which it increases the value of other things or is employed in producing riches. For we have already warned that labor has value of itself—where we treated the difference between labor and money, no. 415—and it is altogether manifest. Otherwise, every value and every just price would be absent from domestic service and from many unprofitable labors. But shall we dare to deny to the noblest of things—to the use, I say, of the human person—that weight of estimation which we do not deny inheres in iron, silver, wool, and the cheapest things, and subject the price of human labor, as to a superior norm, to the price of other things? Therefore, just as one who wishes to destine things valuable from some other source to the exercise of his craft—for example, iron to be converted into a workshop machine, or a horse to be assigned to transporting merchandise—must, if he buys or hires them, repay to the seller or lessor this value which already exists, in addition to that which is accustomed to accrue from destinations of this kind, if their use has been frequent enough (cf. nos. 350 and 380, at the end); so an employer cannot value labor hired by him at nothing before it serves the workshop and define its price absolutely from that use, but must first consider of what monetary compensation it is already worthy of itself.

¹⁴ Observe that by the patrons of this opinion not just any things are taken, as though you were to say, “the just wage is related to the price of things or of subsistence,” but rather merchandise, that is, the things made by workmen: “the current price of the products of the workman’s labor.” Castelein, Droit naturel, p. 313.

From this it is perceived that an adequate rule of the just wage cannot be placed in the price of merchandise.¹⁵ For the price by which any things whatsoever that possess value of themselves are estimated is, at least in part—that is, as regards the lower valuation—by its nature prior to the price of the things produced by them. From a profitable use which is common there comes an accession of price, not its first generation. Therefore, those who have some power in defining the prices of merchandise do not so much estimate materials from the price of the things produced as accommodate the price of the things produced to the value of the materials and to all expenses.¹⁶

¹⁵ Rev. Mr. Gayraud writes excellently concerning this matter, Questions du jour, p. 167.

¹⁶ At the same time, rationales of this kind are shown to be fallacious: “The employer ... intends to hire the workman’s labor formally on account of the product materially produced” (Rev. Fr. Castelein, work cited, p. 377). For although he is led by no other intention to buy wool from which he will make cloth, he nevertheless must pay the seller of the wool the just price of the wool. Why is he any less bound to pay an equitable stipend—I mean that which human labor already merits of itself?

Moreover, it is evident from fact and practice that several things are sold at a greater price, for example, in England than in Belgium because in Belgium the workmen themselves are accustomed to be hired at a lower wage. Therefore, how can the same wage which is the cause why merchandise costs so much depend in turn upon the price of the merchandise?

Therefore, the opinion which wishes instruments and materials to be estimated from the price of their fruits is economically false as regards other things; but, as regards human labor, it prepares the way for inequity.

For while the sellers or lessors of other things, and even lenders of money themselves, are usually those who can reject harsher conditions, workmen not rarely have nothing available except the protection of their right. If, by denying the right, you virtually remove this protection, you now abandon them to the pleasure of the masters of businesses.

Therefore, you would also be deceived if you thought that, by this norm according to which you have said that the wage must be estimated absolutely from the price of things produced, you had warded off the odium into which those fall who judge that the wage varies according to the greater or lesser number of workmen.¹⁷ For one may ask whether or not the masters of great workshops, who have some power in establishing the price of merchandise, and contractors themselves when contracting for works, must strive from commutative justice itself that the selling price of things or the contract price be such that they can pay a suitable wage for supporting the workmen. If you affirm it, you concede in substance to our opinion and make the norm of the just wage prior to the price of things itself. But if you deny it, then, with justice intact, employers and hirers of workmen will be able to use every advantage which they will have from the very number of those offering their labor in order to pay a lower wage and diminish the price of things. And thus the odious opinion returns: that the price of labor depends upon the labor offered or sought.

¹⁷ Castelein, Droit naturel, p. 535, note at the end.

It is therefore plainly necessary to establish beforehand for those who, either alone or jointly,¹⁸ possess some influence in markets a norm according to which they must judge the value of human labor. This is what is proposed to us in the present question. Almost the whole question of the just wage then easily returns to this: whether, without injury, any price of labor can be established at which there is hope that there will be those who hire out their labor, or whether, on the contrary, there is some innate value of that same labor, and what it is, withdrawn from the effect of competitions,¹⁹ which consequently is the lower limit of its just price.

¹⁸ We say this lest they seem to be few. And indeed daily practice shows that employers, if they agree not to sell except at a fixed price, have no small power to obtain an equitable valuation of things.

¹⁹ There will be a twofold cause of this necessity: either because other employers, and so forth, have abused their power so as to impose harsher conditions upon the workmen, or because the whole economic state of affairs is per accidens unstable and calamitous.

Once this is defined, we shall indeed concede of our own accord, as we did in the preceding thesis, that those who are pressed by the necessity of submitting to the determination of others are excused from injury if, because they are compelled by a lower price of merchandise, they promise a lower wage: we shall say that they do not indeed pay what is just, but are excused from paying what is just (cf. nos. 343, 349); but take care lest, by confusing the causes of excuse and of objective justice, you wish the just wage to be estimated adequately by the price of things, in which, when it becomes excessively low, there is no longer anything but a means of avoiding the crime of theft, but by no means a norm of the lower limit.

433. Rationales that are too particular. Those rationales which do not have force for the whole range of hired labor but only for one kind—for example, profitable arts—are inadequate and suspect. Inadequate, because the present matter pertains to all kinds; and also suspect, because, by the fact that they are proper to a certain kind, they seem to regard less that common value of all human labor which is at issue in the question of the lower limit than a special accession of price from some peculiar cause.

434. What if you argue from the encyclical, from the duty of maintaining oneself and one’s own.

1. In the matter of the family wage, the encyclical Rerum novarum cannot formally be appealed to. We gave above why we think thus; and that is now conceded by most.

2. From the duty of maintaining oneself and one’s own to the right of obtaining a stipend by which it may be fulfilled, the immediate inference is not correct. For if the conclusion is posited as immediate, it must extend as widely as its principle. Therefore, the right of obtaining that stipend would have to be defined in the same manner as the duty of maintaining oneself and one’s own; and whether that duty pertains to more or fewer persons, whether per se it comprehends only children and wife, or per accidens is extended to parents, similar extensions per se or per accidens will be made to the right itself. For, once the major premise is conceded, what would you censure in this reasoning: The duty of supporting demonstrates a right of receiving for labor a wage by which sustenance is procured. But Titius has the duty of supporting ten persons. Therefore, a right is demonstrated for Titius to receive in his stipend the sustenance of ten persons? You cannot escape this force of the argument unless you appropriately restrict the major premise of the syllogism, and thus show that a middle term must be interposed between the conclusion and the principle itself; a middle term, I say, by which it may be suitably tempered.

Therefore, we think that something is lacking in the argument of Rev. Mr. Pottier when, work cited, diss. 3, no. 227, he establishes the principle thus: “Where nature has imposed a duty and one means has been given by nature for fulfilling it, the one upon whom the duty has been imposed has a strict right to that means”; and then, by means of the minor premise, which from nos. 205 and 217 may be proposed thus: “But for the workman the stipend of labor is the one means given by nature for fulfilling the natural duty of supporting himself and his own,” he concludes that there belongs to him the right of obtaining a wage by which he can suitably support himself and his own. For the distinguished professor cannot avoid the consequences concerning the relative wage, and so forth, which he rejects in the following numbers, except by denying or distinguishing one or the other premise, and at the same time acknowledging that the reasoning is not aptly expressed.

435. Concerning the argument from analogy. Nor does that which is said concerning the workman’s own person seem able to be immediately transferred to the matter of the family. For it cannot be denied that there is some difference between an obligation which is imposed by nature and another whose cause is free, so that it is not suitably undertaken by all; or, if you prefer, between a duty which strictly belongs to individuals and another which in reality will belong only to the greater part of men, that is, to those who are joined in marriage.

436. What must first be regarded. Indeed, rationales for demonstrating and teaching the family wage will remain of little efficacy unless they persuade that this recompense is consonant with the value which inheres per se in the labor of an adult man. Otherwise, adversaries will always occur, contending not without reason that labor must not be recompensed from justice except according to its value; for this is the perpetual rule of just exchange.