Tractate IV: On Observance and the Mutual Relations of Superiors and Inferiors

Utility. Although there is not leisure to explain according to its merit the argument of the present tractate, which touches in no slight way upon the social question itself, nevertheless already a summary proposition of the relations by which, in the private and public order, superiors and inferiors are bound by mutual benevolence from their very offices, is very opportunely opposed today to haters and contemners of all authority, and to those disturbers of society who meditate and strive either to confound the orders of citizens or to separate them by deadly hatred.

Notion of the virtue. Observance is the virtue which honors the excellence of another. It was introduced on account of good governance. For every excellence denotes some aptitude for leading or governing others in some matter. The offices of this virtue are absorbed by piety, when there is question of honoring parents; by religion, when there is question of honoring God.

According to the diverse order of governance, the virtue varies specifically; whence political observance is distinguished from religious observance. But in the same order, the honesty and necessity of the virtue differ in degree but not in species. Wherefore the offices of observance toward a pastor and toward a bishop are of the same species. Cf. Lehmkuhl, I, 923.