Injuries in General

408. Definition. Injury is the violation of another's right strictly so called, whether this happens by action or by omission of an action which is owed by strict right. A violation of strict right of this kind is theft, detraction, homicide.

a. Concerning the relation between injustice and injury it must be said that injustice is the wicked habit which is contrariwise opposed to the virtue of justice; for just as justice signifies a good habit, so injustice signifies the opposed evil habit. Injury is an act which pertains to that vicious habit.

b. Since there is a threefold true and properly so-called right, namely the right which is the object of legal, distributive, and commutative justice, there is also a threefold injury of right, namely injury of the right of legal justice, which lacks a proper name; injury of the right of distributive justice, which is called acceptance of persons; and injury of the right of commutative justice or of right strictly so called, which is properly called injury.

c. It is clear that injury is opposed to charity and justice, because through it a right is injured and at the same time an evil is inflicted. Nevertheless sins of injustice (for example, thefts) do not contain a twofold malice, one against charity and another against justice, but only one against justice, in which the injury of charity is contained as a genus.

409. Division. Injury is divided:

a. Into positive, which is inflicted by doing something against another's right, and negative, which is inflicted by omitting what is owed to another by strict right.

b. Into personal and real, according as the right of another is injured in the person, that is, in goods of soul or body, or in external goods.

c. Into verbal and real, according as the neighbor's rights are injured by words or by deeds.

To verbal injury is referred injury inflicted by writing, namely when through a letter, poem, defamatory pamphlet, etc., something which falls to another's ridicule, contempt, or infamy is spread among the people.

d. Into mere and damaging, according as the right of another is injured without damage or with damage of him to whom the right pertains. Thus adultery of a wife, with offspring not conceived, is mere injury; with offspring conceived, it is damaging injury.

410. Moral and specific malice. 1. Injury is a sin grave from its genus, because it is opposed to commutative justice, which indeed of itself obliges under grave obligation. This is also established from sacred Scripture: for the precept of not injuring justice is reckoned among the commandments which must be observed that we may enter into life.¹ It admits smallness of matter, because order is not gravely disturbed if a right in a slight thing is injured.

2. The gravity of matter in an injury of justice, especially if the matter concerns goods of fortune, must be determined from a twofold source: a. from the damage which is inflicted on the neighbor; b. from the damage which would arise for the community if such matter were not prohibited under grave obligation. For a twofold reason demands that the right of each be preserved uninjured: both the good of individual men, and the peace and security of the community. Since each person is gravely unwilling about grave damage inflicted on himself, it is usually said that a grave injustice is committed when the injured person, either on account of the damage which he himself suffers, or on account of the damage which threatens the community, is by right deservedly gravely unwilling.²

In sins which are committed against justice, gravity is to be taken not so much from the affection with which the owner is borne toward the thing taken away, nor from the indignation or sadness with which he is affected on account of it, but from the damage which he himself suffers, and consequently from the reluctance and opposition of will by which he is reasonably unwilling. Hence it can happen that he who takes away a thing of slight value, but very dear to the owner, sins gravely against charity, if namely he foresees that he will be affected with grave sadness and indignation, but not against justice.

Note. This universal norm, which extends itself to all genera of goods, will have to be applied and determined more accurately in its own places to individual goods.

3. Not all injuries are of the same moral species, but there are as many specifically diverse injuries as there are rights or goods diverse in species in which the neighbor can be injured. But first four genera of goods must be distinguished: a. spiritual goods, both natural and supernatural; b. internal goods (of life and members); c. mixed goods (of reputation and honor); d. external goods (of fortune). Some of these genera contain within themselves goods diverse in species, as will be said in their own places.

4. A right in goods of fortune can be injured in a twofold way: by unjust taking away of a thing and by unjust damaging. Through taking away a thing, the one taking receives profit; through damaging, the one damaging takes no advantage. Unjust taking away and damaging do not differ in specific malice: for each injures the neighbor's right only in goods of fortune; but that someone takes an advantage from this does not change the morality of the action.

¹ Matt. 19:18.

² Cf. Reuter, Theol. moralis, III, n. 294; Lehmkuhl, I, n. 761 s.

411. To one knowing and consenting no injury is done:¹ for no injury is inflicted where no right is injured; but no right is injured of him who freely yields his own right. But he freely yields his own right who consents to an action unjust of itself. Nevertheless a twofold condition is required, that then no injury be done: a. that the one consenting can yield his right; for if he cannot yield it, the yielding is invalid; b. that he in reality wishes to yield his right, that is, that the yielding be altogether free. For this it is required that consent be given fully and with full knowledge. Hence where consent is given from error or is extorted by fraud or fear, in reality it is none.

Hence a. he who kills one consenting or asking for his own killing commits injury: for since God alone has ownership over the life of man, man cannot fully yield this right. He who strikes a cleric renouncing the privilege of the canon does injury, because a singular person cannot renounce this privilege, since it was granted in favor of the clerical state. He who takes goods from a ward, even one consenting, commits injury, because the ward cannot validly yield his right. He who sins with another's wife commits injury, even if the husband approves the adultery of the wife, because he cannot alienate all the rights which in this case are injured.²

b. Therefore the action of him who kills one consenting is unjust against God, but cannot be unjust against him who consents to the action injurious in itself. Likewise the action of a wife who commits adultery with the husband consenting is opposed to the holiness of the sacrament and to the right of legitimate offspring, but is not unjust against the husband himself.

c. He who gives money to a robber to avoid death suffers injury; likewise a buyer who pays for merchandise beyond the highest price, or buys a defective thing as sound, because these persons do not consent freely. A worker who, compelled by necessity, consents to a wage less than what is owed to him by natural right suffers injury.

d. If someone, as holy men are read to have done, desires that injury be inflicted on himself and rejoices over it once inflicted,³ likewise if someone, having followed the counsel of Christ the Lord, leaves his cloak also to one taking away his tunic,⁴ he is not judged to wish to yield his right, but to exercise excellent virtue.

¹ C. Scienti 27, reg. iur. in 6.

² Cf. Lugo, disp. 8, n. 10; Vermeersch, n. 144.

³ Cf. Heb. 10:34.

⁴ Matt. 5:40.

412. Whether the intention of harming can render the external act unjust.

a. If the action indeed harms another, but does not injure his strict right, whether because the other does not have strict right, or because the agent has the right of placing the action, intention cannot render the act unjust, although it is harmful: for no injury is inflicted where no right is injured.

A private man who does not extinguish a fire from a wicked mind of harming does not act unjustly, because he is not bound to this by strict right. A judge who condemns a guilty person from hatred, so that he may harm him and his family, likewise he who in legitimate defense of himself wounds an enemy from hatred, is not unjust, because these persons have the right, one to condemn the guilty person, the other to defend himself.

b. If the action of itself is indifferent toward a just or unjust effect, it can become unjust through the wicked intention of the agent: for an unjust intention causes that then the right of another is injured.

He who takes another's thing from a thief so that he may restore it to the owner does not act unjustly; he who takes it so that he may retain it for himself commits injustice. According as someone takes away the book of a friend either with the mind of stealing or with the mind of joking, he acts or does not act unjustly; wherefore if afterward by chance he lost the book, by reason of the intention he would or would not be bound to restitution.

THE wide term injustice may be used to designate any violation of justice, whether it be legal, distributive, or commutative. Sins against legal justice are committed by doing anything against the common good of the society to which one belongs, or by neglecting to do what the common good requires to be performed. Such sins may be committed by rulers and by subjects, more frequently, however, by the former, inasmuch as the common good is specially entrusted to their care and guardianship. As the separate members of a society constitute that society, it is obvious that there is not a perfect and adequate distinction between a society and its members, In legal justice, therefore, which regulates the relations which ought to subsist between men and the society to which they belong, there is something wanting to the complete distinction of persons required in order that the obligations of strict justice may subsist between them. A violation, then, of legal justice is not a sin against justice in the strict and full sense.

Distributive justice prescribes that the ruler divide common burdens and emoluments among his subjects. according to their capacity and merits. Before they are assigned to each one, no one has a strict right to any determinate share of them, and so a distribution of burdens and favours which is not according to merit is not against strict justice. A ruler who in his distribution of offices and burdens shows undue favour to some to the detriment of others’ sins indeed against strict justice if he thereby cause damage to the community, for strict justice and the implicit agreement which he made on assuming his office forbid him to do that. If, however, no special injury accrues to the community through his showing undue preference for some of his subjects, he commits a sin which is called acceptation of persons, but he does not sin against strict justice. On the other hand, one who violates particular or commutative justice deprives another of his strict right. Such a sin is called an injury, which may be defined to be the violation of the strict right of another against his reasonable will.

Such an injury is formal if it is committed knowingly and - wilfully, otherwise it is material.

A personal injury is committed against rights which are intrinsic to the person, such as the right to life, liberty, good name, and honour. A real injury is committed against the property of another.

Personal injuries are treated of elsewhere under the Fifth and Eighth Commandments; here we consider more especially real injuries done to the property of another.

There are three different species of real injuries—robbery, theft, and simple damnification. Robbery, besides injury to property, includes also a personal injury, which consists in violence offered to another by forcibly depriving him of what is his. Simple damnification is the causing of damage to the property of another without taking away any of that property. Theft is the secret taking away of the property of another against his reasonable will. . No action is an injury unless it is against the reasonable will of the injured person, scienti et volenti non fit injuria, according to the twenty-seventh rule of law in the Sixth Book of the Decretals. The reason is obvious; because a person may as a rule renounce his rights, and then an action contrary to them ceases to be a violation of justice. It is no longer a depriving another of what is his; it has ceased to belong to him. There are, however, some rights which are inalienable, and actions against these will be contrary to justice even if the party wronged give his consent. No one can validly renounce his right to life, and so the private killing of another, even with his consent, except in lawful self-defence, is always murder. Similarly, marital rights of married people are inalienable, and, even if the husband consent, a wife’s adultery is always adultery. The maxim, then, must be understood of rights which the owner can validly forego, and it asserts that no injury is done by acting against rights which the possessor with full knowledge and with perfect freedom does forego.

I. Notion. Injustice, also called injury, is the violation of another's strict right. From this very definition it must be deduced in what sense Rule 27 of law in the Sext is to be understood: No injury is done to one who knows and consents, namely:

1. If someone freely consents, and there is question of a right which he can validly renounce, injury is absent.

2. If someone freely consents, and there is question of a right which he cannot validly renounce - suppose if someone consents to his own killing, or a husband consents to intercourse being had with his wife - it is disputed whether injustice is committed with respect to the one consenting.

But now, against many, it seems that this must be affirmed; since, while the right persists, the violation of the right, or injustice, persists. But in the hypothesis posited the right persists, because the renunciation is invalid. There is added proposition 50 condemned by Innocent XI: "Intercourse with a married woman, with the husband consenting, is not adultery; and therefore it suffices in confession to say that one has fornicated;"¹ this is explained with difficulty by the adversaries. They do indeed speak of an injury inflicted on the marital state, etc.; but the marital state is not a moral person which enjoys strict rights.

Objection. In order that injustice cease, it suffices that someone not oppose his own right.

Response. I deny the assertion, in the case in which the right persists, even if someone does not oppose his own right. But in our hypothesis the right persists, whether someone opposes his own right or does not oppose it.

Still, it must be said otherwise concerning rights which the one consenting can validly renounce, and which would be violated together with the right which he cannot renounce. Thus, for example, one who, with the husband consenting, committed adultery is not bound to restore to the husband damages that would follow from the adultery.

¹ Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 1200.

II. Division. Injustice is divided:

1. Into formal and material, according as another's right is violated with or without theological fault.

2. Into personal and real, according as someone is harmed in goods of the soul or body, or in external goods.

III. Morality. Injustice is a grave sin by its kind, that is, grave or light according as it regards grave or light matter. Injustice which regards grave matter is a grave sin, because it is simply or gravely opposed to the good of one's neighbor and of society, and therefore to charity (cf. St. Thomas, II-II, q. 59, a. 4; q. 66, a. 6; St. Alphonsus, III, 700). Furthermore:

1. The gravity of the matter must be drawn both from damage that is relatively grave, or which is grave when the condition of him to whom it is inflicted has been considered, and from the relation which exists between the one causing damage and the one damaged, so that if, for example, there is question of a son of a family, a graver matter is required for mortal sin than if there is question of another.

2. A sign of grave matter is present when the damage inflicted, with attention paid to the common disposition of men, is apt to move great sorrow or indignation.

3. In doubt whether the thing or quantity to be taken away or consumed by you is grave, you are bound under grave obligation to abstain, because, once another's certain right to some thing or to a certain quantity has been posited, it is gravely illicit for you to expose yourself to the danger of inflicting grave damage on someone.

Bodily Injuries.-Injustice is done not only by destroying the life of a human being, but also by harming him in his rights to bodily integrity or well-being. The chief bodily injuries are the following:

(a) mutilation, which deprives a person of limbs or members, without inflicting death;

(b) wounding, which by an act of violence (such as a stab or blow) breaks the continuity of the body, or impairs its strength or beauty;

(c) enfeeblement, which impairs or destroys the health, strength, or comfort of the body in unlawful ways (e.g., by deprivation of necessary food, sleep, fresh air, by communication of infection, by beating, hazing, etc.);

(d) restraint, which hinders the lawful exercise of the bodily powers (e.g., by holding a person against his will, by chaining him to a post, by locking him in a room).

What sort of sin is opposed to justice? Up to this point we have treated justice; now we treat injustice, which is the vice opposed to the virtue of justice. Violation of legal justice is contained in transgression of laws, and it is a grave or light sin according as it gravely or lightly injures the common good. Transgression of distributive and vindicative justice is had by acceptance of persons, through which, in the distribution of common goods and burdens, rewards and punishments, regard is not had to the reason of the cause which makes the person worthy, or to the motive of justice, but to the reason of the person, namely of those qualities of his which do not pertain to the matter, e.g., blood relationship, friendship, flattery, etc. This is a grave or light sin according to the matter concerned; and thus the election of an unworthy person even to secular offices, e.g., of governor or judge, is a grave sin. St. Thomas, 2. 2, q. 63, a. 1. Finally, transgression of commutative justice is properly contained in injury. St. Thomas, Quod. 10, a. 12.

What is offense and injury? - Resp. To the 1st: Simple or pure offense is one thing, and injury is another. Simple offense is the wounding or irritation of another's will, by which someone brings trouble to another against his rational will, and as it were gives him some right to anger, indignation, or aversion against the offender, yet without injuring any right of property. If you deny to your friend asking for a book as a loan, of which he greatly needs and which you can easily do without, you undoubtedly offend your friend, and give him sufficient motive of aversion; yet you do not inflict injury on him, because you injure no right of his. Hence by justice you are not obliged to satisfaction for injury, but only to satisfaction for offense, by the virtue of charity and human reconciliation of peace, renewing friendship.

Resp. To the 2nd: Injury is voluntary lesion of another's right, when he is reasonably unwilling, by which namely someone knowingly and willingly does something not only against the will, but also against the true and strict right of another. Moreover such an injury can sometimes be done without damage to another, and then it is called mere injury, such as occurs if you commit occult adultery with no child conceived; for in such a case you injure the right of another, yet you do not cause damage. Hence you are held to satisfaction, but not to restitution; namely to satisfaction of the injury, by suffering something which brings trouble or burden, at least, e.g., by humbly asking pardon. This satisfaction is compensation for personal injury. Cf. 1319. But sometimes injury is done with damage to another and is called damaging injury. Such occurs if you commit adultery and a child is conceived. Hence you are held to restitution or to reparation of the damage. Wherefore this restitution is compensation for real injury. L. 584; C. A. 1293-1295; Inst. l. 4, t. 4.

What is the object of injury? - Injury can have place: 1. in the goods of reputation and honor, concerning which there is discussion in the Eighth Precept of the Decalogue; 2. in the goods of body and life, concerning which it is treated in the Fifth Precept of the Decalogue; 3. in the goods of fortune, concerning which the question chiefly is here; 4. in the goods of the soul, whether natural or supernatural. - C. A. 1293.

How many kinds of injury are there in the goods of fortune? There is chiefly a threefold kind, namely theft, robbery, and simple damaging. Theft properly is the hidden taking away of another's thing, when the owner is reasonably unwilling. St. Thomas, 2. 2, q. 60, a. 3. Taking away: so that he may have it for himself; not so that he may burn it, throw it away, or destroy it. Those participate in the malice of theft, and therefore are reduced to theft, who accept even another's thing taken away by another, or simply detain another's thing, or usurp another's thing; for that acceptance is a certain continuation of theft, and "to detain that which is owed to another has the same character of harm as unjust taking." St. Thomas, 2. 2, q. 66, a. 3. And the same harm is had if someone occupies or usurps another's thing as though his own. When he is reasonably unwilling; otherwise the right of another is by no means violated. - But robbery is the taking away of another's thing by force or violence brought upon the person. L. 1, Cod. de Vi bonorum raptorum. Hence robbery adds to theft a distinct species of the sin of injustice, because to the owner who is reasonably unwilling and wishes to preserve his own thing force and personal injury are brought. Finally, simple damaging is when, while the owner is reasonably unwilling, some damage is inflicted without anything being accepted or retained by the one inflicting the damage. - Inst. l. 4, t. 1, 2, 3; L. 1, C. de Usucap. pro empto; L. 2, C. de usucap. pro donato; L. 518; St. Thomas, 2. 2, q. 66, aa. 3, 4, 9. "If some private thing is taken away from a private person, it is called theft; if it is secretly taken from the public by him to whom a public office has been entrusted, it is called peculation; they call it kidnapping if a free man or another's slave is led away into servitude; but if a sacred thing is taken away, it is named sacrilege." Roman Catechism, 5. The unjust taking away of animals is cattle-theft. "Labeo says that theft is said from furvus, that is, black, because it is done secretly and in darkness, and generally at night; or from fraud, as Sabinus says; or from carrying and taking away; or from the Greek speech, which calls thieves phores; indeed the Greeks also said phores from pherein, that is, from carrying. § 1. Hence the mere thought of committing theft does not make a thief. § 2. Thus he who denies a deposit is not immediately also held for theft, but so if he has concealed it for the cause of intercepting it. § 3. Theft is fraudulent handling of a thing for the sake of making profit, either of the thing itself, or even of its use or possession; this is prohibited by natural law to admit." L. 1, de Furtis ff.

"Cattle-thieves are properly held to be those who withdraw cattle from pastures or from herds, and in some way plunder them, and practice the pursuit of driving away as though an art, leading horses from droves or oxen from herds. Certainly, if someone has led away a wandering ox, or horses left in solitude, he is not a cattle-thief, but rather a thief." L. 1, 3, de Abigeis Dig.

Whether legitimate consent removes the character of injury? - To one who knows and consents fully and at the same time juridically, no injury is done. It is proved 1. from Rule 27 of Law in 6, where it is expressly said: To one who knows and consents, injury is not done, nor deceit. And Rule 145 ff. de Regulis Iuris: No one seems to defraud those who know and consent. 2. Because he who juridically consents has, according to human and divine laws, legitimate power of consenting; therefore by the very fact that he fully and perfectly consents to some action, such an action is not injurious to him. St. Thomas, 2. 2, q. 54, a. 3.

Whether simple consent also removes the character of injury? - To one who knows and freely consents without the right of validly consenting, injury is done by an action which otherwise is injurious to him. It is proved, because by the very fact that the consent is invalid by law, in moral estimation it is null; and therefore injury is done to one consenting in such a way just as if consent were absent. Without the right of validly consenting; for if some consent were only prohibited by law, but not void and invalid, it would still be efficacious in moral estimation, and consequently would remove the active right and the injury. Thus, although the defloration of a virgin outside marriage, and consent to it, is prohibited, nevertheless if the virgin consents to it, no injury is done to her, and there is sin only against chastity. St. Thomas, 2. 2, q. 59, a. 3, ad 3.

Resolutions: Injury is done to a cleric, although he consents to being dragged before a secular tribunal or to being struck, because he cannot validly and efficaciously yield the right conferred in favor of the whole clerical state. Likewise injury is done to a husband, although he consents to the adultery of his wife; for such consent, on account of reverence for the sacrament and the indissolubility of marriage, is invalid by divine law. Cf. pr. 50 condemned by Innocent XI. "At most this will be effected from the consent of the spouse, that the spouse consenting to the adultery of the other cannot institute a complaint concerning the injury inflicted on himself by the adulterer, since he seems to have stripped himself voluntarily of action against him." Ithur., Cas. 6, n. 16.

Whether consent from error and fear removes injury? - Injury is done to one consenting from error, fear, or necessity. It is proved because by the very fact that consent is made from error, fear, or necessity, it is involuntary, at least in some respect, and the one consenting does not wish altogether freely to yield his right. Therefore, while such consent stands, injury is done to him.

Whether injury can be inflicted by an anterior act alone? - Although injury can be inflicted on another through a merely internal act, nevertheless an internal act of itself cannot cause an external act to become unjust. The first part is proved, because sometimes by an internal act alone the strict right of another can be injured. This is clear from the example of rash judgment, by which, according to the common opinion, justice toward neighbor is violated, since each person has a strict right to the good estimation of himself among individuals. The second part is proved, because an internal act cannot change the nature of an external act. Hence he who refuses out of hatred to help another does not sin against justice, unless he is held by office; nor does a judge, condemning a murderer from hatred to the death he deserves; nor a merchant, selling his goods at the lowest price so as to deprive other merchants of profits. Of itself; for an external action inchoatively indifferent is determined only by the interior intention, so that it is the beginning of a completed unjust external action rather than a just one. And thus one who accepts a thing from the hands of a thief does not sin against justice if he does it to restore it to the owner, but he does if he does it to retain it. Lugo d. 22, n. 156; La-Croix l. 3, p. 2, n. 635, 636; C. A. 1305.

What sort of sin is injury? - Injury is a grave sin from its kind. But that matter is judged grave which from its nature, or from the estimation of men, is apt to cause another sorrow difficult to calm, or to dissolve mutual charity. The first part is proved, because injury of itself brings grave harm to the good of others; and therefore tends to dissolve charity. But mortal sin is "that which is contrary to charity." St. Thomas, 2. 2, q. 59, a. 4.

The second part is proved, because since the end of justice is to promote common peace, public tranquility, and mutual love through the conservation of rights, that matter is deservedly judged grave which from its nature, or from the estimation of men, can dissolve mutual love, with loss of common peace, or cause sorrow difficult to calm. From its nature: because, generally speaking, in establishing a general rule, attention must be paid to that which commonly occurs among men using tempered judgment and affection, not what the tumult and intemperance of the passions suggests in these circumstances; for justice follows the guidance of reason and the dictate of prudence.

But speaking specifically of justice, since it belongs to justice to preserve equality of thing to thing, one must attend in it to the objective lesion itself of another's thing, and by no means also to the subjective dispositions of the individual, to which charity further extends itself in attending. - L. 700. But injury is of a diverse species according to the diverse right injured, and the morally diverse object, as regards the supernatural or natural goods of the soul, as regards intrinsic goods of life and members, and as regards extrinsic material goods of fortune, or as regards extrinsic moral goods of reputation and honor.

599. • Definition. Injury is the violation of another's right.

Division. It is 1. formal or material, according as it is done knowingly and voluntarily, or without knowledge and consent.

2. Grave or light, according as from it the neighbor suffers grave damage or only light damage.

3. Direct or indirect, according as it is intended in itself, or only foreseen and permitted in the cause.

Aurelius, a bookkeeper for a certain merchant, writes the books of merchandise and commerce, recording daily in them what is given and received, expenses made, sales, and other contracts. Hence Aurelius knows well that the merchant, who before him and before others simulates by every art that he is an altogether honest man and merchant, proceeds, on the contrary, often with bad faith and fraud, deceives buyers and defrauds partners in commerce. It is indeed difficult for Aurelius to find another merchant, or anyone else, with whom he can exercise his office. But if he himself leaves the office, very many others are already prepared to undertake it.

Q. Can Aurelius continue in such an office?

R. The transcription of what is given and expended, and also of the various contracts, indeed of itself influences nothing in the merchant's frauds. For it supposes these as already done. Wherefore no cooperation in those frauds can be had from this. Nor indeed does the merchant become bolder from this, nor is he confirmed in his frauds, since he thinks that he is held by Aurelius and others as an honest man. Nor likewise, if Aurelius leaves his office, will the aforesaid frauds therefore be impeded. Finally, grave inconvenience is present for Aurelius if he leaves the office. Therefore Aurelius is not held to leave an office of bookkeeper of this sort.

"He does not sin," says La-Croix, l. 2, n. 268, "who assists a usurer in counting monies, in writing bare accounts, which do nothing toward demanding usuries, in carrying a pledge for the security of usury, in friendly demanding usuries, lest the other seem unfaithful. The reason is that these suppose the sin, or merely accompany it, nor is the borrower unwilling with respect to these things. Nevertheless a notary sins when writing a usurious contract, because although the usurer consents, he himself acts against his oath, by which he is held not to serve in unjust acts. And the same is true of witnesses signing such a contract." And St. Alph., l. 2, n. 78, says: "He who assists a usurer only in counting monies, writing accounts, or in carrying a pledge, can be excused from sin by the sole reason of service; but otherwise if he demands usuries, because the demand is cooperation more proximate to the sin of the usurer, even if he demands amicably. But if he were to demand by force or threats, he would not only sin, but besides would be held to restitution."

Another question could be raised in the case, namely whether Aurelius is held to warn buyers and partners of the merchant and others defrauded by him, that they may be on guard for themselves. It seems that one must respond affirmatively, if nevertheless he himself can effect this, due caution having been preserved, without grave inconvenience to himself, and without scandal being provoked from it. For then, from charity, he is held, as much as he can, to impede grave harm to neighbor.

1. Gastonius had made a testament in favor of Fabianus, his nephew. But Florianus, his other nephew, learning this, reports to Gastonius that Fabianus had often spoken badly of him. Gastonius, hearing these things, his testament having been torn up, instituted Florianus himself as his heir, and a little afterward departed from the living.

Q. 1. Does an obligation of restitution arise from unjust damage? — 2. What as to the Case?

R. To the 1st. Affirmatively. For whoever damages someone really takes away from him that in which he damages him. And therefore he is held to restitution of that thing taken away, whether this thing has come to the one causing damage or not. For restitution is not principally ordained to this, that he who has more than he ought should cease to have it, but to this, that to him who has less than he ought, it be supplied. S. Th. 2.2. q. 62. a. 4, 6 ad 1; I. M. 1357 seqq.

To the 2nd. Florianus must restore the inheritance to Fabianus, if, in reporting those evil words, he committed calumny or detraction. For then Florianus impeded Fabianus from certainly obtaining the inheritance by an illicit and unjust means. But otherwise it would have to be said, if Fabianus [printed: Fabianus; sense requires Florianus] with truth and from a reasonable and grave cause had manifested those grave sins of Fabianus, by which Gastonius then judged him unworthy of the inheritance. G. 635; I. M. 1367.

But what if Florianus had simply persuaded Gastonius, yet from hatred toward Fabianus, not to leave the inheritance to Fabianus? Probably then he would be held to nothing. For that persuasion without force, without lie, without deceit and fraud, although it would have been against charity by reason of hatred, nevertheless would not have been against justice. G. 638; I. M. 1368.

2. Ranulfus had instituted Laelius as universal heir. Lying in extreme illness, Ranulfus calls Laelius and asks him to summon a notary. Laelius, fearing that Ranulfus might wish to change his last will to his prejudice, answers Ranulfus that all things had been altogether well done by him; but that it would now be better if, rather than think about death and the testament, he thought about recovering health. Ranulfus acquiesced, and after three weeks he died.

Q. 1. How much must be restored from damage? — 2. What as to the Case?

R. To the 1st. “Someone is damaged in two ways: in one way, because that which he actually had is taken away from him; and such damage must always be restored according to an equal recompense, as if someone damages another by tearing down his house, he is held to as much as the house is worth. In another way, if he damages someone by impeding him from obtaining what was on the way to being had; and such damage need not be recompensed equally, because it is less to have something virtually than to have it actually. But he who is on the way to obtaining something has that only according to virtue or potency, and therefore, if it were rendered to him so that he would have this actually, there would be restored to him what was taken away, not simply, but multiplied; which is not of the necessity of restitution. Nevertheless he is held to make some recompense, according to the condition of persons and of affairs.” S. Th. 2.2. q. 62. a. 4.

For that which is not yet had actually, but only virtually, can still be impeded in many ways. Wherefore the value of each is not the same. But for determining this value, the conditions of persons and of affairs must be attended to; whence the hope of the thing to be had is not always established as the same, but as greater or less, as can be seen in relation to a future harvest, e.g., in him who has not yet scattered seed in the field, or has already scattered it, or the harvest is now near maturity, or the harvest is now mature and soon to be gathered. And therefore, consequently, the value of the aforesaid hope is not the same. I. M. 1359.

To the 2nd. It indeed does not appear from the Case that Laelius acted illicitly, whether against justice or even against charity. For he used no illicit and unjust means for averting Ranulfus from making any change. Nor truly did he act from any hatred against someone, but he wished only to consult his own good; and charity does not obligate someone to consult the good of others rather than his own, or to consult the good of others with notable detriment to himself. Besides, Ranulfus signified no will in particular why he wanted the notary to be called. And if in truth he had the will of changing something in the testament, he withdrew from that will, since he altogether acquiesced in the response of Laelius, nor during three whole weeks did he speak any more of calling the notary, or of making some change in the testament.

But what? if Ranulfus had signified the will of adding some legacy in the testament in favor of some determinate person, and Laelius had promised that he would soon call the notary with the intention of not calling him, and afterward did not in fact call him; or if he had said, lying, that it was impossible for the notary to come. In such a case Laelius would have impeded Ranulfus from making the legacy by fraud, by a feigned promise, and by a damaging lie. Wherefore he would be held on this head to restitution or reparation of the damage. But since there still would not be altogether certain evidence concerning the will of Ranulfus, restitution would have to be made only pro rata of the hope. For the legatee as yet had no right to the legacy itself; nevertheless he had a right not to be fraudulently impeded from obtaining the legacy. It would be very difficult in practice to assign the quantity, if Ranulfus himself had not declared the quantity of the legacy to be constituted. But if he had declared that quantity, it seems sufficient if he restore half the part. And if Ranulfus had signified the will of a legacy, and had also declared its quantity, but had not manifested the person, then the aforesaid restitution would have to be made to the poor, or to pious causes. G. 636, 637, 853.

3. “Whether a Christian faithful who knowingly and willingly destroys and ruins the walls, doors, and implements of a temple, and for that cause is captured by the pagans, ought or can repair the damage, at least under another title? — R. He is held to restitution, by title of justice.” S. I. C. 21 Sept. 1842.

4. Hircinus killed Beraldus. The family of Beraldus abounds in many riches. Nevertheless the confessor of Hircinus obligates him to restitution both toward the nearer connections of Beraldus and toward the more remote relatives.

For he says that Hircinus [is bound] in place of Beraldus to furnish support to this man’s blood-relatives.

5. Iacobus killed Marcus, who brought no help to his family, but on the contrary impoverished it by his vices. Nevertheless the confessor of Iacobus obligates him to restitution, because, he says, Iacobus could have returned to better fruit and helped his family.

6. Ubaldus challenged Sabianus to a duel; and, the duel having followed, he was unhappily killed by Sabianus, leaving in extreme misery his mother, wife, and children, whom he himself was sustaining.

Q. What as to the Cases?

R. 1. Since the family of Beraldus, and his nearer blood-relatives, namely his wife, parents, and children, can easily provide for themselves, Hircinus seems to be excused from restitution toward them. For the homicide is obligated to restitution toward nearer relatives only insofar as relatives of this sort are considered one and the same person with the deceased, and have the right, from strict piety, to be sustained by the deceased; and consequently the deceased in turn could and ought to have sustained them. Whence it also is that Hircinus is not held to restitution toward the other more remote relatives. For as to these, if they undergo any damage, the homicide is their cause only remotely and by accident. Therefore the reasoning of the confessor rather proves the contrary in the Case. G. 733, 734; I. M. 1373.

2. Iacobus does not seem, in the Case, to be held to any restitution: for in fact he inflicted no damage as to the goods of the family. Indeed, on the contrary, he prevented a greater damage of goods. But the hope of the conversion of Marcus appears altogether slight, since rather the presumption in itself is contrary, namely that Marcus would have continued, as he did before, in wasting the goods of the family. Wherefore no certain obligation of restitution can be imposed for damages so uncertain and remote. G. 735, 736; I. M. 1373.

3. Sabianus is probably not held to the compensation of damages. For first, Ubaldus by his own consent placed the whole necessary and sufficient cause of his own damages, namely by consenting that his adversary act against him as much as he can, even by killing him. Therefore he implicitly consents also to temporal damages, if any perhaps he himself is to suffer from the wound received, and consequently he is judged to remit the obligation of repairing these damages. No injury is done to one knowing and willing, when a right can be remitted. But a duelist can well remit temporal goods, and renounce his right in order that damages inflicted on him be repaired by the other.

Besides, for the same reason, because Ubaldus by his own consent placed the whole necessary and sufficient cause of the damages which were inflicted on his own relatives, neither is Sabianus probably held, as to them, to compensate the damages. For this consent of Ubaldus standing, every reason of injury and injustice done by Sabianus to the aforesaid relatives ceases; and so there will no longer be any obligation from justice to compensate the aforesaid damages.

For a killer is held to the compensation of damages in relation to the nearer relatives of the one killed because he himself, from his unjust action, by killing, e.g., the father, is the cause per se of those damages. Wherefore this right of the nearer relatives is not founded in the obligation which the father, e.g., had of feeding children and wife, but in the injury by which through force the killer impeded that which the children and wife would have had from the living father; which injury gives to the children a right of justice to having that which they would have had from the father without such obligation of justice, but from piety only. Whence the right to that compensation is not acquired by the one killed himself, nor is it derived from him into others, but is immediately acquired by those others, whose individual right has been injured, and to whom individually an injury has been inflicted. And thus the father cannot dispose of this injured right of others, nor remit the obligation of compensation. “You have a very good example of this doctrine when by force or deceit you impede Peter from conferring a benefice upon Paul, in which case afterward you are held to restore to Paul as much as that hope is worth; and this debt indeed cannot be condoned by Peter, whom you impeded, but by Paul, concerning whose damage there is question.” Lugo d. 11. n. 63, 64.

Hence in the case of a duel, the obligation of damages ceases also as to others. For in relation to these, the action of the killer is no longer unjust, that is, impeding by force their support or emoluments. For by this very fact, that the one killed himself consents to his own killing, the killer now does not impede by force the support or emoluments of others, but from the consent and will of him from whom they would have had the emoluments, and who consequently by his own consent places the whole necessary and sufficient cause of their damages, thus impeding by his own consent the reason of violence and injustice in the killer as to the damages that are to follow to the relatives. But when the reason of violence has been taken away, the root of the obligation of restitution of damages ceases, which is the violence by which the killer impedes the emoluments of others. Wherefore the killer then sins only insofar as he cooperates, e.g., with a father who, notwithstanding that debt of feeding his own, wishes to be killed with damage to them; and since this in the father is not against justice, neither is it in the cooperator, in order to them, but only against charity and piety. It would consequently be otherwise if the one killed were held toward others from justice, and not only from charity or piety. Lugo d. 11. n. 71, 72; G. 735, 736; I. M. 1373, 1375.

7. Carpophorus contracted very many debts because of extraordinary luxury and rather frequent banquets, to which Bertha his wife cooperated not a little. But behold, the husband being seized by sudden death, the creditors immediately came together from every side to the widow Bertha, who received nothing from her husband, since he left nothing after his death except debts. Wherefore, pressed by these straits, Bertha asks her confessor whether she is held from her own goods to pay the aforesaid debts.

Q. 1. Does an obligation of restitution arise from cooperation? — 2. What as to the Case?

R. To the 1st. Affirmatively. Since “to restore imports the rendering of that thing which has been unjustly taken away, for thus by its repeated presentation equality is repaired,” S. Th. 2.2. q. 62. a. 2, whoever is either directly or indirectly the cause of an unjust acceptance is held to restitution. “Directly indeed when someone induces another to accepting, and this indeed in three ways: first, from the side of the acceptance, by moving him to the acceptance itself, which indeed happens by commanding, counseling, expressly consenting, and praising someone as if strenuous because he accepted another’s things; in another way, from the side of the one accepting, namely because he receives him, or in whatever way bears help to him; in a third way, from the side of the thing accepted, namely because he is a participant in the theft or rapine, as a companion of the evil deed. But indirectly, when someone does not impede, although he can and ought to impede; either because he withholds a precept or counsel which would impede the theft or rapine; or because he withholds his help, by which he could oppose; or because he conceals after the deed; which things are comprised in these verses: Command, Counsel, Consent, Flatterer, Recourse, Participant, Silent, Not opposing, Not manifesting.” S. Th. 2.2. q. 62. a. 6.

To the 2nd. From the fact that Bertha merely cooperated with the extraordinary luxury by which her husband was living, and by which consequently he wanted the whole family to live, by complying with her husband, and also consequently by delighting herself and taking pleasure in the display of such luxury, Bertha does not seem obligated to restitution in place of her husband. For in this mode of acting there does not appear efficacious and unjust cooperation toward contracting those debts. In truth, the obligation of restoring is personal and real. Insofar as personal, it obligates the one causing damage himself, and his cooperators. But insofar as real, it affects the thing taken away by theft. But Bertha, just as she was not cooperating in cause with the debts contracted by her husband, so she accepted nothing from her husband. But if Bertha had induced her husband to contract those debts; or even if she herself had induced her husband to the aforesaid luxury, knowing well that his fortune did not suffice for such a manner of living, and consequently that he had to contract debts which he himself was unequal to paying, then indeed Bertha would have cooperated efficaciously and unjustly toward them, and so would be held to pay those debts from her own goods. G. 385; La-Croix l. 3. p. 2. n. 381.

264. Notion and species. Although right cannot be violated licitly, in fact it is often injured, and the act by which another's right is violated is deservedly called injury (in-jus, that is, a negation of right). Among jurists, and many others, injury is frequently taken in a restrictive sense for an unjust lesion of honor; but here we use the word in a broader sense, to signify any lesion whatever of strict right.

Injury is properly distinguished from injustice as act from habit: the former, namely, is the act by which the strict right of another is violated; but the latter is the habit of eliciting such acts. Sometimes, however, in a broad sense these two words are taken indiscriminately.

By reason of morality, injury is formal, or imputable, when someone knowingly and willingly injures the right of another; material, when another's right is violated involuntarily, e.g., from ignorance or a fortuitous case.

265. Division of the chapter. There are as many kinds of injuries as there are diverse goods which can be violated. Now the goods possessed by men are of three kinds: goods of the body, goods of the soul, and goods of fortune; therefore a threefold kind of injuries can be distinguished; but before we discuss the individual kinds, a few things concerning injury and crime in general must be premised.

285. 1. On the gravity of injury. Injury is a grave sin from its kind, insofar as it violates a right which of itself is of grave moment; but it can be venial both from imperfection of the voluntary act and from smallness of matter.

But in order to judge whether an injury is grave or not, attention must be paid to two things: (a) to individual men whose rights are injured, namely whether a grave hurt or damage is inflicted upon them, whether material or spiritual, by disturbing their liberty, security, or peace; for, as St. Thomas rightly says,¹ "sins which are committed against one's neighbor are to be weighed in themselves according to the harms which are inflicted upon the neighbor, because from this they have the character of fault"; (b) to society itself, namely to the damage which is inflicted upon the public good, or which would be inflicted if such an injury were committed with impunity; for since the common good, other things being equal, prevails over the private good, he sins mortally who, although he has inflicted only slight damage upon some private person, gravely harms the commonwealth, or would harm it on the supposition that his action were not prohibited under grave sin. Thus he who steals one hundred coins from a rich man perhaps brings him only slight harm; nevertheless he sins mortally, because, on the supposition that such theft were not prohibited under grave sin, the order of society would soon be overthrown.

¹ St. Thomas, 2. 2., q. 73, a. 3.

286. 2. On the meaning of the axiom: To one knowing and consenting, injury and deceit are not done.² The meaning is that no injury is committed against him who knowingly and freely can and wills to renounce his right; for then he cannot complain of a violated right.

² Reg. 27 de Reg. juris in 6°, p. 1122, ed. Richter-Friedberg.

But, in order that the axiom may be true, it is necessary that the consent be:

(a) Fully free, that is, extorted neither by error nor by deceit or fear; thus the traveler who, through fear of death, hands money to a robber lacks due liberty, - as does the laborer who, compelled by necessity, accepts a wage less than what is owed from strict justice, - and the one who gives money to someone falsely asserting that he is his relative, when the only motive of the donation is the alleged kinship, etc.

(b) Valid, or truly given by him who can lawfully renounce his own right. Now he who patiently tolerates or condones an injury is not by that very fact judged to yield his right; nor even he who, for the sake of humility, desires reproaches; but an act is required by which one properly abdicates his rights; and, although consent can sometimes be presumed, if it rests upon valid reasons, it ought not easily to be presumed.

On the other hand, the consent of one who consents to be killed in a duel is not valid, - nor that of a husband who permits another to use his wife, - nor that of a cleric who renounces the privilege of the canon; for the rights in question can be renounced neither licitly nor validly.

Moreover, in order that the one injuring may be immune from the sin of injustice, it is required that he know that this abdication of right has in fact been made validly; otherwise subjectively he will be guilty of injustice.

287. 3. On the meaning of the axiom: Injury is not done when the owner is irrationally unwilling. When from strict justice the owner is bound not to be unwilling to the occupation of his thing, no injury is done to him, even if he opposes this occupation; e.g., a poor man placed in extreme necessity can take bread necessary for sustenance, even against the owner's will; for in this case the owner from strict justice is bound to permit the hungry man to take what is necessary for saving his life, unless he himself is in the same necessity; hence he does not have a right to retain his thing; nor consequently is injury done to him.

288. 4. On the influence of intention in the injustice of an external act. Since two things are required for injury, namely an action or omission injurious to another's right and the mind or intention of harming, the question arises whether the agent's intention influences the injustice of the act, so that from the internal act the external act can become unjust.

Now especially a threefold hypothesis can be conceived:

(A) When the external act is of itself indifferent, the agent's intention can render it unjust, because it can bring it about that this act is harmful to another or not; thus he who buys a stolen thing with the intention of returning it to its owner does nothing unjust; but if with the mind of retaining the same thing, he commits an injury.

(B) But when the external act is of itself just and licit, a depraved intention of harming does not render it unjust; such is the case of a judge who justly, from proofs, condemns the guilty man to death, even if he does this from hatred; for then he does not violate the neighbor's right, since the latter has juridically been recognized as guilty; nevertheless he injures charity by the sin of hatred.

(C) When the external act is indeed illicit, but not unjust, the intention of harming does not render it unjust; e.g., he does not act unjustly who refuses to aid another who is in grave danger, since otherwise he is bound to this only from charity; for although he does this from the mind of harming, he does not injure the other's strict right.

Notion. Violation of commutative justice receives the proper name of injury, and it is distinguished as personal and real, according as it directly regards the person, that is, goods of soul or body, or extrinsic goods. Each can be damnose, or a simple lesion without damnification, as if someone should take money from a chest where it was lying idle and then replace it in its place. Material injury is had whenever an action or omission lesive of right is committed; formal injury, however, when someone wishes to be injurious. Both can be per se conjoined, or per accidens separated, as if someone unknowingly kills a person, or if someone takes as another's what was his own.

Conditions of Injury. That an injury be committed, it is required and suffices that the right of one not consenting be violated.

"For injury is not done to one consenting." As no one can be unjust to himself, so neither to another who gives spontaneous consent to an action per se unjust; for he seems to act in this one's name. Besides, the active use of a right is a faculty: we use a faculty when we will. This principle is universal, so that it suffers no exception.

Nor is it an obstacle that there are inalienable rights: it is one thing to transfer one's right to another, another thing not to oppose one's right. Transfer is proper to an alienable right; non-opposition can be common to every right.

But in application, patrimonial rights are to be distinguished, whose disposition or active use can be in the power of another than the subject of the right, and rights strictly personal, whose disposition, inseparable from the person, is in the power of no one unless in the power of him whose right it is. The opposition of the former can be in the power of the tutor of an incapable person, while the others, during incapacity, are always judged to be opposed. Wherefore it is whole and entire for an adult to abandon a ship too full with certain danger of death; but no one can, in the same necessity, throw a sick infant into the sea. - Certain recent writers have imagined that consent concerning an inalienable right is invalid.

But that consent is not always given honestly, nor can it remove other malices besides the note of injustice.

Finally observe that, for the action of another to be injurious, it is not required that the owner oppose his right by a positive act, but it is enough that he does not positively consent.

— But unjust arts are two: violence and frauds. Yet between each there is this difference, that force brought upon a person in himself or in his goods is always per se unjust, while frauds are not unjust when, through them, aid, for example of knowledge, which is not owed from justice is merely denied.

But those things are per se opposed to justice which take away the free action or option of another by positive deception.

Unjust damnification is not made by omission, unless the other per se or from contract has a right to the action which prevents damage. Thus, for example, children or animals are to be guarded from justice lest they inflict damages on others.

Applications. 1. You ask concerning an action by which another is impeded from obtaining a good. Is it unjust? That future good is either owed from justice or merely hoped for. Its concession and acquisition can be honest, or be forbidden by moral law. These things posited:

1. The attainment of a good which is owed to someone from justice cannot be impeded by a voluntary action positively and per se without a sin of injustice and an obligation of restitution.

2. An action by which the attainment of a merely hoped-for good of another is impeded cannot be unjust from the object: hope is not a right. Therefore every injustice will have to be drawn from the mode, if the mode contains some violation of right. Unjust modes are force and fear unjustly struck into a person; lesion of reputation by detraction or calumny; damnification of another's thing, for example of a statue by which someone wished to compete for a prize; the lie itself, if and insofar as by deception it takes away freedom of action, as if someone, deceived about the time, can no longer appeal from a sentence or vindicate a prescribed right.

3. But if attainment of a temporal good is forbidden by a moral precept, no right to it which could be violated can exist, although the mode can be unjust. Suppose someone has detained a prostitute by force: he will not have to restore anything to her for the lost gain of the infamous commerce.

— But the mode can be unjust both with respect to him who hoped for the good and with respect to him from whom the good was hoped. Suppose beggars who hoped for alms from pilgrims. By force brought upon them or upon the pilgrims they can be disturbed from their hope. In the former case, no condition of injustice and restitution is lacking: according to the proportion of the hope, restitution must be made to them. In the latter case, he alone who wished to confer the good has been affected by injustice. Wherefore restitution is owed directly to him alone; but to the one hoping it is not owed except so far as it is necessary that satisfaction be made to the former. Now, in the case brought forward, the pilgrims are not judged to have had an absolute and persevering will of giving alms to those poor persons, so that nothing is to be restored to them. On the contrary, a will of bequeathing a thing by testament is thought absolute and constant. Wherefore the execution of the legacy is owed to him who would have been legatee by him who by force or fraud, not by mere prayers, impeded the testator from writing the legacy in the testament. But if the legatee was unworthy to receive the legacy simply or from such a testator, he will not have been unjust who revealed the unworthiness, even occult, to the testator.

2. Is he injurious who did not prevent the damnose effects of his own non-blameworthy action, for example if you neglect to extinguish a fire which arose from your non-voluntary negligence?

Injury and the obligation of restitution are to be affirmed, if a proportionate inconvenience does not excuse the author of the damage. For commutative justice forbids that our action deprive another of his things, and therefore commands that we restrain the damnose efficacy of the same, as long as we morally can. Yet because the cause was not blameworthy, already a relatively grave inconvenience excuses: that is, one which, considered in relation to the imminent damage and the faculty of impeding it, is not to be held as slight.

Wherefore, if the evil which you clearly say about Peter is understood of Paul, that present effect of your past action must be corrected from justice. Thus Molina, Iust., t. 5, d. 40, n. 3; Lugo, Iust., d. 15, n. 6; Lessius, however, c. 11, n. 119, obligates from charity alone, because the cause of the confusion was not your speech but the error of others. This opinion is probable, if no occasion of erring was given by you. Yet, the involuntary error of the hearers being supposed, that damnose effect of your action seems to have to be impeded from justice, on account of the reason just made in this way. Therefore we think agreement must be given to Molina and Lugo.

Note. We do not so treat of injuries in this chapter that we pass over in silence connected licit acts. Thus, while we mention forbidden homicide, at the same time we explain the right of bloody defense; beside theft we place the right of necessity; no less than of the possessor in bad faith, we propose to treat of the possessor in good faith. Hence there will also be place in the Appendix for saying a few things on the action of public power and on the right of war.

Highest General Principle. Private persons, as such, in their mutual relation, are equally inviolable; and this without any consideration of merit or demerit, consent or dissent. Wherefore no malice, no formal or virtual renunciation, can take away or diminish that inviolability. Therefore:

1. No one can assume another person as a means for himself.

2. No evil of neighbor can be intended or chosen by another, but only permitted for a just cause, so that all evils of another which follow, as effects, upon someone's voluntary action, can be excused either in no way or only by the principle of double effect.

3. A conflict of rights, as it is called, cannot arise except concerning rights over a thing and alienable goods, which can be possessed by several and can pass from one person to another.

These things, as it were, dominate the whole present argument.

Yet another perpetual principle, already demonstrated before, remains: no injury is done to one consenting.

The division of personal injuries is from the object. Some injuries touch immaterial goods: supernatural grace, truth, the use of reason, honor, reputation; others harm the body.

This question is divided into four chapters: 1. on injustice in general; 2. on injustice committed through the taking away of another's thing; 3. on injustice committed through the damaging of one's neighbor; 4. on the reparation of violated justice through restitution.

Notions. Just as the words right and justice are employed in various senses, so also injury and injustice. For first, injustice generally signifies the state of sin or even sin itself; then, everything which is opposed to the cardinal virtue of justice, whether general or particular. Hence transgressors of the law, judges who are acceptors of persons, thieves, robbers are called unjust. Here we do not treat of injustice in the first sense, but only of injustice insofar as it is directly opposed to the cardinal virtue of justice (whether general or particular). - Injustice and injury are sometimes, especially by modern authors, for example Waffelaert,¹ Tanquerey,² distinguished in such a way that injustice signifies the habit, but injury the act. The matter is of small moment.

¹ Tract. de iust. II, n. 2.

² Synopsis Theol. mor. de virt. iust. n. 264.

74. Principle 1. a) Injustice or injury, which is opposed to the cardinal virtue of justice, is a mortal sin from its genus; b) but it can be a light sin either from imperfection of act (i.e. from inadvertence or imperfect consent), or from smallness of matter.

a) Thus all teach. Sacred Scripture itself testifies that at least some acts of injustice are mortal sin; for example: "Do not err: ... Neither thieves ... nor the rapacious shall possess the kingdom of God."³ Moreover if some acts of a vice, without any other moral species added, are mortal sins, it follows that such a vice from its genus is a mortal sin. - The same is clear from reason; for justice is exceedingly necessary for social life, so that it can deservedly be called the foundation of the good and peace of the community, and without it the peaceful cohabitation of men is wholly impossible. Therefore he who gravely violates justice commits great damage and consequently grave sin. Besides, charity can be gravely violated through acts of injustice, which are accustomed to cause sadness, quarrels, hatreds, damages, etc., to one's neighbor. But a violation of charity from its genus is a mortal sin.

b) Therefore injustice from its genus is a mortal sin. But it is most difficult to determine in particular when its individual acts are mortal or venial sins from gravity or lightness of matter. On the contrary, it is not so difficult to determine when there is imperfection of act from inadvertence or from imperfect consent.

As a general rule concerning gravity of matter it can be held: injustice is a grave sin if from it notable damage has arisen either to one's neighbor or to the common good, or, as St. Thomas says:⁴ "Sins which are committed against one's neighbor are to be weighed, in themselves indeed, according to the harms which are inflicted on one's neighbor, because from this they have the ratio of fault." This rule is explained: every injustice causes damage, and indeed ordinarily a twofold damage, namely to one's neighbor and to the common good; for example, a thief taking away a sum of 100 francs causes damage: 1. to the legitimate proprietor, as is clear of itself; 2. to the common good, because he disturbs common peace, public tranquillity, and the mutual conjunction of men. - The same rule can also be expressed in this way: injustice is a grave sin as often as both he who suffers the damage and the governor of the community are reasonably gravely unwilling. Whence, for example, if someone takes 2 francs from a poor workman, that workman himself and the governor are reasonably and seriously unwilling; but if someone takes 100 francs from a very rich man, perhaps great injurious damage is not caused to that man, nevertheless the superior of the community must be gravely unwilling that such thefts be committed in his territory. - If the proprietor is gravely unwilling not on account of the objective value of the thing injured, but on account of a subjective and excessively exaggerated affection for the thing, for example for a beloved little bird, then the voluntary injury of such a thing can indeed be a grave sin against charity, but not against justice.

³ 1 Cor. 6, 10.

⁴ S. theol. 2, 2, q. 73, a. 3.

75. Principle 2. All injuries indeed are opposed to the virtue of justice, but nevertheless they are not of the same lowest moral species, and they are distinguished according to formally diverse objects.

Hence the injustice committed in theft is one thing, that in homicide another, that in detraction another, etc. But the reason is that diverse vices can be opposed to one and the same virtue. Especially two great categories of injustice are customarily distinguished, namely the unjust taking away of another's thing and the unjust damaging of one's neighbor in his diverse goods. Whence we shall treat each category individually below.

76. Principle 3. The unjust, speaking per se and formally, a) no one can do except one willing, b) nor suffer except one unwilling.

Thus St. Thomas writes most truly and in pregnant style.⁵ The first part of this saying is clear of itself, because no one can sin except willingly. But formal injustice is always sin. For formal injustice, which someone knowingly and willingly commits, must be distinguished from material injustice, which indeed objectively violates the right of another, but without fault of the agent. Formal injustice, which is opposed to commutative justice and efficiently and really causes damage to one's neighbor, induces an obligation of restitution, but material injustice does not - at least not always - as will be said below.

The other part of the above-mentioned sentence is also expressed in Rule of Law 27 in VI: "To one knowing and consenting, neither injury nor deceit is done"; nevertheless it needs some explanation, because it is not true unless consent has the following conditions: a) that it be free. Whence, for example, if someone compelled by a robber consents that money be taken away from him, he nevertheless suffers injury and can reclaim the money taken away; b) that it be lawful. For in many cases a man cannot lawfully consent, because namely he does not have perfect dominion, or because there is question of inalienable rights; for example, he who kills one consenting sins and commits injustice; likewise he who commits adultery with a wife while the husband consents;⁶ likewise he who strikes a cleric renouncing the privilege of the canon, etc. But when someone has perfect dominion of some thing, then no injury is done to him when he wills it; for example, no injury is done to a rich man having apples in his garden, and not unwilling that neighboring boys usurp those apples, if the boys really take away the apples.

Since, therefore, formal injustice does not proceed except from one knowing and willing it, the question arises how this knowledge and will influence the external act, especially with respect to the obligation of restitution; or more briefly: whether the intention of harming always renders the external act unjust. To this question I answer thus: if someone has the intention of harming another, he indeed sins, for he commits mental injustice, but he is not bound to restitution unless the external act placed from this evil intention is also by itself alone against justice. For example, if a private man, from hatred toward an enemy, does not save his house burning, although he can easily do this, he indeed commits grave sin, but he is not bound to restitution, because the external act of saving the house is prescribed to him not from justice, but from charity alone. The judge who, according to the laws indeed, but chiefly from an intention of harming, condemns the guilty person, sins! But he is not bound to restitution, because his external action is not unjust. But the reason for this response is taken from the character of commutative justice, in which above all the "mean of the thing" must be observed. But there is never an obligation of restitution unless the mean of the thing has in reality been injured.

⁵ S. theol. 2, 2, q. 59, a. 3.

⁶ Cf. proposition 50 condemned by Innocent XI: "Copulation with a married woman, with the husband consenting, is not adultery; and therefore it suffices in confession to say that one has fornicated" (Denz. n. 1200).

S. Th. II-II, q. 59.

236. Injustice, etymologically, is the privation or violation of justice, just as injury is the violation of right, which is the object of justice. Hence according to the various significations of the word justice, various kinds of injustice are spoken of:

1. improperly and metaphorically so called, it is the complex of vices and every transgression of law, in which sense every sin and every violation of virtue is called injustice or iniquity (I John, III, 4 in the Vulg.), because it injures the right or law of God;

2. properly so called, it is the violation of the special virtue of justice strictly so called, and in this sense it is taken in the present treatise, and indeed

a) either actually, and then it is the violation of another's right, which is strictly due to him according to perfect equality;

b) or habitually, and it is the depraved habit which is opposed contrarily to justice and inclines the will to injuring the right of another.

Among more recent authors, however, injustice is usually distinguished from injury: the former more indicates a habit inclining one to act unjustly; the latter rather the act by which the right of another, properly so called, is violated, although it is also quite often taken in a restricted sense for insult alone, or an unjust injury to honor.

237. Injury, or actual injustice, is defined: the voluntary and efficacious violation or injury of another's right properly so called. It is said:

a) of another's right properly so called, because where there is not right simply so called, there cannot be injury strictly so called, although there can be sin against charity or also against another virtue; and thus it is distinguished from simple offense, by which the reasonable will or good pleasure of another is violated, so that there is for him a motive of displeasure or indignation, without violation of right; for example, if you refuse to point out the way to one who asks politely;

b) violation or injury, and not necessarily the infliction of damage, because there can be injury without damage, as an insult inflicted on someone with no one else present, or adultery committed secretly with no offspring conceived; and, on the contrary, not every infliction of damage is always unjust, when we are not held to abstain from damage and do not use an unjust means: thus, for example, to plant trees next to the field of a neighbor, to open a well, to condemn justly to death.

Moreover violation is an action by which violence is brought to bear and a right is injured against the will of the person; this can be done by a positive unjust deed, or by omission of that which from justice is due to be furnished to another. Everyone is judged to will to preserve what is his, and to be unwilling and to resist lest his right be injured by another. But if he consents, injury will no longer be present, because he renounces his right or the use of it; and therefore that ceases and can no longer be violated;

c) voluntary: for if it is voluntary neither in itself and directly, nor in its cause or indirectly, there can be merely material injury, by which an unjust thing is done; there is not formal injustice, by which something is done unjustly;

d) efficacious: for injury it is not sufficient to have the intention of injuring a right, or an unjust affection, nor from such an intention to posit a condition or mere occasion of injuring the rights of others; but it is necessary effectively to injure the right and to posit a cause which truly influences such injury. Injustice is in external things, not in mere intention.

238. Division of injury. — 1. By reason of morality, one injury is formal, by which someone knowingly and willingly injures the right of another; another is material, by which a right is violated involuntarily, for example, from invincible ignorance or by chance event.

2. By reason of effect, it is divided into mere injury and damaging injury, according as a right is injured without damage, or also damage is inflicted on him whose right is injured: thus secret adultery without offspring conceived is mere injury, but public adultery, or secret adultery by which offspring is introduced among legitimate children, is damaging.

3. By reason of the goods which are injured, it is divided into real and personal injury, according as the right of another is directly violated in external goods, or in his person, namely, in the internal goods of soul or body.

4. By reason of the act or mode by which it is done, it is divided into mental, verbal, and real injury, according as it is done by a merely internal mental act, by word or writing, or by deed and work.

239. Principle. Injustice is a mortal sin from its genus. — For it consists in harm inflicted on another, which is against charity, which moves one to will good to another. But through charity there is the supernatural life of the soul. Hence injustice of itself takes away charity, and thus brings death to the soul. For:

a) It is repugnant to the primary precept of the natural law, commanding one to preserve the right of each one uninjured, and forbidding one to cause to another the detriment which we do not will to be done to ourselves.

b) In the decalogue itself it is forbidden, in which only grave matters are set forth (Exod. XX, 13-17), which must be observed in order to have eternal life (Mt. XIX, 17-18); hence the unjust will not possess the kingdom of God (I Cor. VI, 8-10).

It is nevertheless venial, both from indeliberation or imperfection of the act, and from the quantity of the matter in slight things, or where the owner is known not to be much unwilling, at least reasonably.

For order is not gravely disturbed if right is injured in a slight matter. Therefore attention must be paid

a) to the private person whose right is injured, whether a right of great moment is injured, the sign of which is that he himself is much saddened or indignant, gravely unwilling; — or whether grave harm or damage is inflicted on him, whether material or spiritual, which by its nature disturbs the liberty, security, or peace of men, dissolves public tranquility, the mutual union of men, or friendship;

b) to society itself, or to the damage which is inflicted on the public good: damage not only actual, but also virtual, which would be done to society if such an injury were committed with impunity or multiplied. For the common good, other things being equal, is preferable to private good. And therefore an injury is grave which, although it inflicts slight damage on some private person, gravely harms the republic, or is of a nature to harm it unless it is prohibited under grave obligation. Thus one who steals a horse, or an ox, or a hundred gold coins from a very rich man brings only slight harm upon him; and nevertheless he commits a grave injury, because such an action much harms the public good, since it is of a nature to overturn the order of society.

240. Observation. — St. Thomas notes, in art. 2, that someone is not properly called unjust from the fact that he does an unjust thing, but if he does it from a habitual and deliberate choice of committing injustice. He who does an unjust thing is not unjust 1) if this is done beyond intention and by accident, while he does not intend to do an unjust thing, for example, if he does it through ignorance, not thinking that he is doing an unjust thing: then the injustice is only material, because per se and formally he does not do an unjust thing; 2) even if knowingly and from intention he does an unjust thing, yet not from the end of injustice, but is enticed by some passion, such as anger, cupidity, or hatred, and wills the unjust thing: for then he acts unjustly and commits formal injustice, but he is not unjust, because he does not act from a habit of injustice by which with a habitual and deliberate will he seeks injustice. But he who from intention and from choice does an unjust thing, not on account of something else but on account of itself, namely, because injustice is pleasing to him per se, he is unjust, because he has the habit of injustice. Hence although acts of injustice are very frequent, the vice of injustice is rare.

S. Th. II-II, q. 59, a. 3.

From the notion of injury handed down, certain general principles of right can easily be understood by which injury may be discerned, and in what precise sense they are to be interpreted.

245. Principle I and principal: To one knowing and consenting, neither injury nor deceit is done (reg. 27 in VI of law). — St. Thomas, art. 3, shows this almost thus:

Just as no one per se and formally does an unjust thing unless willing, so neither does he suffer it unless unwilling. For action as action proceeds from the agent himself; passion as passion is from another; hence the same one cannot be agent and patient under the same respect. Now the proper principle of acting in man is the will, and therefore properly a man does what he does willingly; otherwise the human action would not be from him as agent; — and properly he suffers what he suffers contrary to his will, otherwise he would suffer from himself willing and acting, and under the same respect he would be patient and agent; all of which things are repugnant. Therefore properly, per se and formally, no one can do an unjust thing unless willing, nor suffer one unless unwilling. — Yet accidentally and materially someone can either do an unjust thing unwillingly, if he works beyond intention, or suffer one willingly, as when someone gives more to another by his own will than he ought.

Therefore "if we speak formally, someone can do an unjust thing intending to do an unjust thing, and yet another will not suffer an unjust thing, because he wills the unjust thing; — and conversely someone can suffer an unjust thing, if unwillingly he suffers that which is unjust, and yet he who does this in ignorance does not do an unjust thing formally but materially only" (ad 3).

But lest the aforesaid axiom be understood wrongly, it must be noted that not any consent whatever on the part of the owner suffices so that formal injury is not had. Therefore:

1. Knowledge must be immune from error which, if it were recognized, would of itself hold one back from giving consent.

Thus he suffers injury who in the purchase of a defective thing consents but errs through deceit or fraud, and perhaps even through simple ignorance of it. Likewise he inflicts injury who obtains money from him whom he has falsely persuaded that he has rendered him an office of great moment.

2. Consent must be full on every part, namely:

a) on the part of the motive, altogether voluntary and free, and in no part involuntary, mixed with no involuntary element; hence the consent which someone gives unwillingly, or which is extorted through violence or fear, does not suffice: for insofar as he in some way does not will and does not consent, he has that from which he suffers, whence injury can be done to him.

Thus the traveler lacks due liberty who, from fear of death, hands money to a robber; or the workman who, compelled by necessity, accepts a wage less than what is due from justice; or the needy man who borrows money but with usurious interest.

b) on the part of the will, not merely permissive, by which one tolerates the injury, but positive, which really admits it.

Thus the martyr, who by suffering injury tolerates and remits it, or desires reproach, does not by that very fact yield from his right, but an act is required by which he positively abdicates it;

c) on the part of the object, which yields the whole and every right: for insofar as he does not yield, or even cannot yield, to that extent injury subsists.

The consent is not full of him who consents to be killed in a duel, or of the husband who consents that another abuse his wife by adultery, or of the cleric who renounces the privilege of the canon: for the rights of which there is question he cannot fully renounce, since he does not have full dominion over them. In such a case perhaps a man can renounce the right, or at least its use, insofar as it is on his own part, and if he does this, under this respect injury is not done to him formally, because he no longer suffers; but he cannot renounce the right insofar as it is on the part of God, of others, of the Church, or of the republic, to whom injury is always inflicted.¹

¹ Many moderns are accustomed to say that these rights can in no way be renounced, and that the renunciation is invalid; hence they are accustomed to limit the principle to one consenting as to rights which he can abdicate. Certain unnamed authors already held this in the time of Lessius, of whom he says: "Certain doctors have limited this rule to those things in which by natural right we can yield, as in reputation and honor and other external goods of which we are masters. For in these, to one knowing and willing injury is not done, because since these are subject to our disposition, by the very fact that we will to be despoiled of them we deprive ourselves of our right and place it at another's judgment. It is otherwise in other things of which we are not masters but only guardians, as in life and the integrity of members, in a spouse, in offspring, and like things in which we cannot yield from our right. For in these, injury is properly done to him to whom these things have been entrusted or to whom they are bound, if they are destroyed or injured, even if this is done with him willing.

Here there is treatment of commutative justice alone, to which injury and injustice are properly opposed. As regards other things, see n. 398.

Since justice is concerned solely with right, the notion of right must necessarily be premised; then the notion of strict justice.

720. Definition. Right is taken in a threefold way: 1. For law, which is the rule of what is just in general: in which sense we say natural right, divine positive right, canonical right, etc. Thus it is the foundation of right in the second sense. - 2. For a legitimate faculty which belongs to someone for doing something freely, or having something for his own convenience. It is active right, in which sense we are said to have a right to something. This is the foundation of right in the third sense. - 3. For that which is just, or owed to another, which therefore has a moral relation with another thing or person. It is passive right, which is the object of justice (Willems, Phil. mor., III, p. 207).

From these things you will gather: 1. Right in one supposes obligation in another, and conversely. Wherefore, in society, all rights depend on one another, to constitute order, nor are they ever really opposed to themselves. Right against right is not given.

2. The ultimate reason of every right is rooted in the obligation of attaining the ULTIMATE END. For by this very fact that some end is to be pursued and obtained, man has a right to those means without which this end cannot be obtained. But all ends are contained under the ultimate end as means to it.

3. Since this obligation of attaining the end is personal, it necessarily involves the faculty of using earthly things independently of another. For whatever is touched, apprehended, or changed by man receives as it were the seal of his person: from this comes the distinction between mine and thine. It will always belong to justice, the tendency toward the end being presupposed, to preserve those things by which mine and thine are distinguished from each other; but it belongs rather to charity, which considers itself in another, to join and unite.

Division. We can distinguish:

1. Right CONCERNING PERSONS, that is, the right which belongs to one person over another; and it is defined: A legitimate power of governing subjects for THEIR convenience.

Of this kind is: a) dominative right of private authority, for example of father over children, husband over wife; - b) right of jurisdiction of public power, which is ordered especially to the common good. Concerning these there has already been discussion.

2. Right CONCERNING GOODS, which is defined: A legitimate faculty of having or doing something for ONE'S OWN convenience. It is imperfect or perfect.

IMPERFECT right, not strict, right improperly such, is that which is not determined, whether in itself, or as regards persons, nor can be demanded by way of coercion. Such is, for example, the right of individuals to alms left by a testator to the poor in general; the right which the worthy have to obtaining functions or offices of the community, etc. (Carriere, de Just., n. 10).

PERFECT right, strict, coercible, right properly such, is that which is determined, both in itself and as regards persons, and can be demanded by way of coercion.¹ Such is the right of defending one's life or reputation, of recovering one's own thing, etc. It is subdivided into right to a thing and right in a thing, as will be explained below (cf. n. 839). - Perfect right is the object of strict justice.

See other distinctions in Lessius, l. c., c. 2.

721. • STRICT or COMMUTATIVE justice is a moral virtue constantly inclining the will to render to each one his own strict right, according to equality of thing to thing.

It is said 1. To render to each one; that is, either positively, when between two persons some contract or quasi-contract has intervened, or some action by which the right of either one has at least materially been violated; or negatively, by harming no one: for as he who renders to another the thing owed, so he who does not take it away is judged to render to him his own right.

2. To each one, private or moral person, his own strict right, that is, right objectively and passively taken, and indeed rigorous, in the sense which will be declared below (n. 723, 724).

3. According to equality of thing to thing, that is, through commensuration of the thing which must be rendered with the right of another (cf. n. 383).

This virtue differs: a) from natural love of neighbor. For love wills the good of another as the good of the beloved, and from complacence in him; but justice wills that good as owed and from simple rectitude of the will; - b) from charity toward neighbor: both because the material object of charity is the person of neighbor, but of justice the right which belongs to neighbor; and especially because the formal object of charity is God Himself, but of justice that special honesty which shines forth in rendering to each one his own right, to equality. Cf. n. 478; - c) from legal and distributive justice, which do not regard strict right, as is plain from what was said n. 400.

722. Definition. Injury is the violation of another's right. - Strictly taken, as in this article, it is the violation of another's perfect right. But injury contains offense and damage. Offense is repaired by satisfaction; damage by restitution.

INJUSTICE has itself toward injury as a habit toward an act, and is an inclination to not rendering to each one his own right.

Division. Injury is: 1. By reason of the act itself, merely internal, or external. Merely internal, intentional, if by thought or purpose the right of neighbor is harmed, for example if someone judges rashly concerning neighbor, or adds to an act which can be good, for example taking away a book in jest, an evil intention, the mind of stealing. It is external, if by an external harmful action the strict right of neighbor is violated, for example by burning a house, and similar things. See n. 726 and 727.

2. By reason of the mode of acting, positive or negative, according as someone inflicts it either by commission, by acting against another's right, or by omission, by omitting to do what is owed to another by strict right.

3. By reason of imputability, material or formal. MATERIAL injury is an involuntary harming of another's right. FORMAL injury is an unjust action or omission, with the mind of harming directly or indirectly: directly, if the harm is intended; indirectly, if it is foreseen when the cause is posited, and permitted.

723. Principles. I. For the notion of injury, whether material or formal, it is required that it be involuntary on the part of the one suffering, that is, against his right will. Rule 27 of law in the Sixth agrees: "To one knowing and consenting no injury is done." The reason is that he who can and wishes to yield his right does not retain it, and therefore no injury is inflicted on him. Besides, no one receives injury from himself; therefore if someone assents that another harm him, it is just as if he himself inflicted harm on himself (St. Thomas, 2.2, q. 59, a. 3).

Hence: 1. Injury is done to him who consents to his own damage not freely, but from force, fraud, or fear unjustly struck in; as also to him who cannot validly renounce his right, because some law or the right of another stands in the way; for in this case at least the higher right is truly violated.

2. Notwithstanding the consent of the one suffering, injury is done: to the traveler who from fear of death hands money to a robber; to the buyer paying for merchandise beyond the highest price; to the worker who in necessity accepts a lesser salary; to the one giving money to him who fraudulently asserts that he is his blood relative, etc.; for none of these is judged to give freely. See however n. 1051.

3. Likewise, injury is done to the cleric who is struck, even if he consents; to the ward who consents that he be deprived of his right; to the husband of a woman committing adultery, even if he approves her adulteries; to martyrs, even if they gladly bear slaughter; indeed also to men themselves who ask to be killed, as unhappy Saul asked; because in all these the right is inalienable, nor can it ever be yielded without injury to others.

724. • II. For the notion of formal injury, it is required besides that it be voluntary on the part of the agent. For the primary reason of formal injury is the mind of harming, since injury without such a mind is only material (Lugo, disp. 8, n. 58; St. Alph., III, n. 551, 556).

Hence, formal injury does not extend more widely than the mind of harming. This again does not extend more widely than knowledge of the damage, because the will cannot choose what is thoroughly and invincibly unknown.

Therefore formal injury is not to be estimated from the damage which followed, but from knowledge of the damage, at least foreseen confusedly; and thus it can happen that it exists as less than the damage: for example, he who destroys a gem of the price of ten gold coins, which he thinks to be worth only five, inflicts an injury of five gold coins only, and the other five are to be referred only to material injury (cf. n. 950).

725. III. Injury is a grave sin from its genus. For it is gravely opposed to right reason and divine law.

We have said: from its genus; whence smallness of matter is admitted in this matter. Moreover, that matter is judged grave which from its nature, or from the common estimation of men, is apt to cause another sadness difficult to quiet, or great damage, or to dissolve mutual charity (Reuter, de Just., P. III, n. 294).

726. IV. Formal injury, the effect having followed, induces the obligation of restitution. Commutative justice regards equality of thing to thing. Whence it must demand the reparation of the harming of rights, if any has been made, and indeed by restitution; because otherwise equality is not had. In other words: as long as inequality remains, so long remains the obligation of reducing equality. Hence, he who does not restore, when he can, sins by preserving inequality, as he sinned by inducing it (cf. n. 924).

It is said: the effect having followed; for injurious acts merely internal do not oblige to external reparation.

727. A fuller explanation of certain things. I. THE SENSE OF THE AXIOMS: To one knowing and consenting no injury is done; to one unwilling unreasonably no injury is done.

Note. The axiom He who is silent seems to consent was explained above (n. 272).

a) The sense of the first is: To him who is not deceived, provided he freely, force and madness being excluded, positively, validly, perseveringly grants the harmful action, as remitting something from his own right, injury is not done, that is, a harmful action containing the formal notion of violated right is not committed against him. From this it does not follow that the action becomes licit, and that the other acquires certain rights; it follows only that the action lacks the guilt of formal injustice. Thus St. Thomas, Lessius, and others. Cf. Vermeersch, de Just., n. 142-155.

b) The sense of the second is: No formal injustice is present if neighbor, from strict justice, is held to yield his right, and does not wish to. But formal injustice is given if neighbor, from motives only of charity, gratitude, and the like, is held to yield, and refuses to do this. - In doubt, consent is presumed, since someone is always supposed to wish to act according to right reason.

Thus indeed the authors commonly. Nevertheless, as Vermeersch says, l. c., they also commonly admit certain exceptions, for example in the case in which someone defers restitution because of fear of danger for himself or his own, see below n. 1018. Therefore there are circumstances in which, from charity only or from epikeia, the owner ought to be willing and consenting; and yet no injury is present if one does not comply with him refusing (cf. n. 987).

II. CONCERNING AN ACTION WITH HARMFUL INTENTION. There is not one mind of authors concerning the question: Whether intention added to an external act makes this act become unjust.

What things are commonly admitted we shall indicate here.

a) If the action does not of itself harm the undoubted right of another, it does not become unjust from the intention of harming. If the intention is conceived from hatred, or from vengeance, anger, etc., it indeed adds sin, but not formal injury. Hence, they do not act unjustly: the lustful master who dismisses a modest maidservant, we suppose the conditions of the pact to have been observed; a judge condemning a homicide from hatred; a fellow citizen who from hatred refuses to succor another, except if by office he were held to this. Cf. Lugo, disp. 19, n. 110. See what is to be said n. 949.

b) If the action is indifferent, it can become unjust through intention, namely insofar as precisely the intention gives the species and nature of injury to the action. Thus to take a thing from the hands of a thief, with the intention of restoring it, is something good; but with the intention of retaining it, is something unjust.

c) If the action includes force or fraud in itself, a special intention directed against someone can effect that also with respect to this person it become unjust. Thus he who kills a man precisely so that creditors may be deprived of the obtaining of a just good acts unjustly also toward the creditors. Thus St. Alphonsus, III, n. 633, 634; ed. G., II, p. 111, with Lugo, Salmant.

As regards the last, there is disagreement of authors; see in Lehmkuhl, I, n. 1180, note. They rely on this reason, that intention cannot render unjust what from its nature does not harm strict right.

GENERAL DIVISION. There are as many species of injuries as there are goods or rights in which neighbor can be harmed. But four goods of man are numbered: 1. goods of one's own life, namely of body and soul, concerning which now; - 2. goods of modesty and of the life of the species, concerning which in the sixth precept; - 3. goods of fortune, concerning which in the seventh precept; - 4. finally goods of reputation and honor, concerning which discussion must be instituted in the eighth precept (cf. n. 324, 528).

688. Definition. - Injury is the violation of strict right.

Division. - It is 1° formal or material, according as it is done knowingly and voluntarily, or without knowledge or consent.

2° Grave or light, according as from it damage absolutely or relatively grave, or altogether light, is caused.

3° Direct or indirect, according as it is intended in itself, or only foreseen and permitted in the cause (n. 6. 8).

689. Principles. - I. There is a natural precept promulgated and sanctioned by God, forbidding that the strict right of another be injured; hence every injury is opposed to natural right. For since someone has been made the legitimate owner of certain goods, necessarily he ought to have an inviolable right in them; otherwise his right would be illusory, or would not be a right, which involves a contradiction.

II. Injury, or the wounding of another's right, is a grave sin from its kind. The reason is that it is gravely opposed to right reason, to good order, and to the divine law.

III. No injury is done to one knowing and willing; because one who wills yields from his right, and therefore does not wish the right to be observed. Understand this, provided it is a question of a right from which one can yield; and hence:

Except those cases in which a man cannot yield his right, however willing he may be, either because it is of itself inalienable, or because it cannot be yielded without injury to others. Thus a married man cannot by his own consent prevent the violation of his wife from being adultery, because nature demands that conjugal right be altogether inalienable. Add, for Christians, the right of the Sacrament, which cannot be violated. Cf. prop. 50 among those condemned by Innocent XI, p. XVI.

690. Resolutions. - 1° Injury is done to one consenting because of fraud or fear unjustly struck into him, because in reality he either gives no consent, or does not give it freely, but only in order to redeem himself from an unjust vexation.

2° He likewise sins against justice who kills another asking it; the reason is that God has reserved to Himself dominion over human life. Man, however, is merely a usufructuary, who therefore cannot abdicate from himself the right to life; hence if not a man's right, certainly God's right is violated.

3° A usurer does injury to the borrower paying usury, just as a seller does to the buyer conceding a price above the highest for the merchandise; for neither of these is judged to wish to make a gift. Therefore there is lacking a title by which dominion either of the exacted usury or of the excess in the price is transferred.

4° The torturers did injury to the martyrs, even if the martyrs desired death and bore it gladly.

691. Questions. - Query 1° What matter is judged grave or light in injury?

Resp. That matter is judged grave which, from its own nature or from the estimation of men, is apt to cause in another a sadness difficult to settle, or to dissolve mutual charity. - Thus Lacroix,² and others. The reason is that, since the end of justice is to promote common peace, public tranquillity, and mutual love by the conservation of rights, that matter is deservedly judged grave which, from its own nature or from the estimation of men, can dissolve mutual love with loss of common peace, or can cause a sadness difficult to settle.

I said: from its own nature, etc.; because in establishing a general rule that must be attended to which commonly happens among men using a temperate judgment and affection, and not what the tumult and intemperance of the affections suggests in those circumstances; for justice follows the guidance of reason and the dictate of prudence.

Query 2° Can injury be inflicted effectively upon another by a merely internal act?

Resp. Affirmatively. Because sometimes by an internal act alone the strict right of another can be injured. - This is clear from the example of rash judgment, by which, according to the common opinion, justice toward one's neighbor is violated, since each one has a strict right to the good estimation of himself among individuals. - Recall what was said n. 537. - Moreover, in this case there is no special difficulty; since, when merely internal injury inflicts no external damage upon the injured party, no exterior reparation is to be made, but only the imprudent judgment of the mind must be rejected.

692. • Query 3° Can an internal act of itself effect that an external act become unjust?

Resp. 1° Negatively, if the external act of itself does not injure the strict right of another, notwithstanding a depraved intention of harming in the agent. The reason is that where no right is injured, there can be no injury. Hence one refusing through hatred to succor another does not sin against justice, unless he is bound by office. - Thus most commonly. - Lugo¹ against a few.

Resp. 2° Likewise negatively, when the agent has a right directly to place the external act which is harmful to another, even if he acts from the intention of harming. The reason is that a depraved intention cannot make unjust what of itself is just, since it cannot change the nature of the external act. Hence a judge condemning from hatred a murderer to the death merited does not sin by an external act against justice; nor a merchant selling his wares at the lowest price, in order to deprive other merchants of profits; nor one who dismisses a maidservant, the conditions of the agreement made with her being kept, although he acts with an unjust mind, for example in order to punish her because she did not wish to consent to his lust. Thus Lugo.

Resp. 3° Also negatively, if the external act is only an accidental or occasional cause, but not the per se cause of the neighbor's damage. Thus the intention of a murderer killing another for this reason, that his crime may be imputed to an innocent man, will not effect that his action is the cause of the innocent man's damage.² (n. 746. 2°.)

Resp. 4° Affirmatively, however, if the external work is indifferent to harming or not harming, the direct right of the agent being set aside; for then the intention of harming determines the external work, so that it becomes damaging. Therefore you do not indeed sin against justice by receiving a thing from the hands of a thief, so that you may restore it to the owner; otherwise, however, if you receive it in order to keep it. Resolve the same concerning a servant receiving the master's money: for he will not be unjust if he receives it in order to buy something for the use of the family; but he will be, if he steals it in order to spend it for his own uses. Nor do you do injury to a friend by taking his book in order to run through it in passing; otherwise, however, if in order to steal it. Nor will he be called a thief who takes another's money, without damage to that other, for his own uses, with a mind firmly determined to restore it as soon as possible; although that manner of acting, by which he exposes himself to danger of injustice and usurps the thing without the owner having been informed, must be disapproved.

From this head very many bankers have sinned, usurping money entrusted to them, even with the intention of returning it; which, nevertheless, being frustrated in hope, they were not able to accomplish.³

Resp. 5° Affirmatively also, if the intention comes forth into an unjust means by which someone is deprived of a good probably to be obtained (n. 757. q. 15°), as if someone intending to harm a creditor were to kill this creditor's debtor.⁴

Here only injuries in goods of fortune are to be treated, namely theft and its species. - For enough has been said concerning other injuries, namely in goods of the body, of honor, and of reputation, in the Treatise on the Fifth and Eighth Precepts of the Decalogue.

It must be treated 1° concerning the nature and gravity of theft; 2° concerning the causes on account of which theft ceases to be such.

693. Definition. - Theft, taken generically, is the taking away of another's thing while the owner is reasonably unwilling.

Division. - Theft is thus distinguished:

1° Theft simply, if it is done secretly. - 2° Robbery, if it is done while the owner is positively resisting (morally or physically). - 3° Sacrilege, if it is done concerning a sacred thing.

694. Principles. - I. Theft, by whatever name it is called, is a grave sin from its kind, because of itself it is gravely opposed both to charity and to justice, and in Sacred Scripture it is numbered among the sins which exclude from the kingdom of heaven. For thus the Apostle Paul says:¹ Neither thieves, ... nor the rapacious shall possess the kingdom of God.

II. Sacrilegious theft and robbery constitute a species of malice diverse from theft: the former because besides justice it violates religion; the latter because to the unjust taking away of another's thing it adds injury inflicted upon the person. But the other modes, or the other objects of theft, do not change the species, because through them the nature of the damaging is not changed.

695. Questions. - A. Concerning theft grave of itself. - Query 1° What matter is judged grave in thefts of outsiders?

Resp. 1° According to the common opinion, this matter is not to be looked at absolutely in itself, but relatively to the various conditions and necessities of men, so that a graver matter is required for grave sin in theft against a rich man than against a poor man. The reason is that the gravity of theft, like the gravity of any injury, depends especially upon the greater or lesser privation, pain, and reluctance of the will which he from whom it is stolen suffers; but now no one fails to see that the same matter causes sadness now light, now grave, according as the owner from whom it is taken is rich or poor. - Thus commonly with S. Alph.² against some, who contend that matter, whether grave or light, must be looked at absolutely in itself, and that it consists in that which is required for the daily support of an honorable man or of one moderately rich.

Yet some absolute matter must be determined, which it is never licit to pass beyond without grave fault; otherwise, if complete proportion had to be preserved among all conditions, surely the greatest quantity would be required for grave matter when someone steals from a very rich man. But this would certainly yield to the harm of society. - Hence:

Resp. 2° According to S. Alph.,¹ and with attention to the circumstances of this region and of our times, it will be grave approximately - relatively 1) to beggars, $0.50, and less if some poor man would not collect so much daily; 2) to diggers and similar laborers, $1.00; to artisans and merchants of slender fortune, $1.25; 3) to those moderately rich or living from their own incomes, $2.00, but less if from their own they live wretchedly; but relatively to the absolutely rich, for example merchants sufficiently wealthy, $2.50 or $3.00; 4) to a wealthy community, $5.00, or even, if it is very wealthy, $7.50; 5) to the very rich, $10.00, which sum indeed can be judged absolutely grave.

In practical doubt, generally that which does not reach $2.50 or $3.00 is not to be reputed grave.

Resp. 3° The value of a sacred thing, as to the physical species estimable by price, for example of a chalice, is the same as that of a profane thing; otherwise, as in Relics, its dignity and rarity must be considered,² or the special prohibition of the Church (n. 1730).

696. • Query 2° What matter is required, so that thefts of wives, children, and servants become grave?

Resp. 1° It is certain that in thefts of a wife and of children more is required than in thefts of outsiders; because the father of the family is less unwilling, or at least less reasonably unwilling, in the former case than in the latter, and often he is unwilling more as to the mode (that it is taken secretly) than as to the substance;³ but no general rule can be assigned. For the matter must generally be defined from the various circumstances of persons or conditions. Thus S. Alph.⁴ with others resolves that a son does not sin gravely who steals two or three scuta from a rich father (today and among us, I think, he would say $10 or 15).

Resp. 2° For servants it depends also upon the greater or lesser liberality of the masters, upon the quality or situation of the thing stolen, for example if it is edible or not, guarded or open, etc. According to the common opinion, through small thefts committed by servants in foods and edible things which are not usually kept carefully, generally one does not arrive at mortal sin, provided these things are not sold or carried out of the house, or taken in extraordinary quantity, or are of extraordinary price.¹ But if servants steal money or things carefully guarded, a greater quantity is not required for grave sin, because masters then are not less unwilling toward them than toward others.

Query 3° Must the circumstance be explained by a son, that he stole from his father?

Resp. Negatively, because theft regularly is not directly and gravely opposed to piety, as for example hatred is. I say: regularly; for it is otherwise if the father would suffer much from it concerning his state. Scav.²

697. Questions. - B. Concerning theft grave by accident. - Query 4° In how many ways does theft of matter light of itself become grave by accident?

Resp. 1° By the intention of arriving at grave matter (n. 703. 2°); 2° by conspiracy, where many conspire among themselves and the little thefts of individuals gathered together constitute grave matter (n. 701. 702); 3° on account of grave damage coming to the owner from a light theft (n. 703. 3°); 4° by multiplication, concerning which in the questions n. 697-700.

Query 5° Do multiplied small thefts suffice to constitute grave matter?

Resp. 1° Affirmatively - whether it is a question of thefts committed against the same person, because united they can easily bring grave damage upon the owner; or it is a question of thefts committed to the damage of diverse persons, because, if not to individuals taken singly, certainly they bring grave damage to the community. Cf. prop. 38 condemned by Pius V.

Resp. 2° By multiplication they coalesce into grave matter either physically or morally. Physically, if they are conserved and the heap becomes grave; for then another's property is retained in a notable quantity. Morally, if indeed they are consumed, but between them there intervenes an interval which is morally or proportionately estimated as brief. - S. Alph.,³ Lugo.⁴

698. • Query 6° Do small thefts also coalesce if a great interval is placed between them?

Resp. Negatively, according to the more common opinion. The reason is that, when a great interval has been posited, small thefts are not judged to be morally united by the common estimation of men, nor therefore do they constitute one object in the genus of morals. Moreover, then grave damage inflicted upon the owner does not appear, since he can scarcely perceive it; and thus he is not judged gravely unwilling.²

Query 7° When is the interval judged great?

Resp. To S. Alphonsus³ the opinion teaching that thefts no longer coalesce beyond the space of two months is more pleasing, even if they were approaching matter as it were grave. But if it is a question of little thefts whose matter each time is very small, he considers a month or even a fortnight as a great interval. - Except, as I said above n. 697. q. 4° and 5°, if an accumulation is made or there is the intention of arriving at a grave sum.⁴

699. • Query 8° When does matter become grave in small thefts?

Resp. 1° If small thefts are made from the same person at diverse times, or by diverse persons at the same time, the matter will be grave when this exceeds by half the sum commonly required for grave theft. - Thus commonly.

Resp. 2° If small thefts are made from diverse persons, and discontinuously, grave matter of itself will be judged present when it is double the sum commonly required for grave theft.⁴

Query 9° Does retraction of the will prevent following little thefts from being united with preceding ones?

Resp. 1° Affirmatively, if the retraction was efficacious, that is, if in fact the things previously taken have been restored, because once separated they now no longer exist here and now. - Thus commonly.

Resp. 2° Again affirmatively, if the subsequent theft were done from some particular motive; for then it would not seem efficaciously to destroy the preceding will of restoring. Or even if the thief expressly and seriously proposes again at the same time to restore the things previously stolen; which, nevertheless, can scarcely be admitted in practice, since one who seriously proposes restitution does not here and now repeat thefts. - Negatively, however, where this will seems in some way to be revoked by a new theft; for in this case nothing prevents a notable sum from being retained, and the thefts coalescing into one.

700. • Query 10° Does he sin gravely who, after grave matter has been completed, still steals some light thing?

Resp. It is disputed. An opinion, very probable, denies it, the intention of arriving at a new grave sum being set aside. The reason is that that little theft does not seem to be referred to the grave sum already completed, but rather to a new one, which the thief then begins and pursues. - Thus S. Alph.¹

701. • Query 11° Does he sin gravely who by a light theft completes grave matter begun by others with the same person?

Resp. 1° Negatively, if he did not know that little thefts had been committed by others, because he is not conscious of grave damage inflicted upon the owner. - Thus all.

Resp. 2° Negatively, at least more probably, even if he knew that nearly grave damage had been perpetrated by others, nevertheless with the case of conspiracy set aside. The reason is that this man taking a little thing neither is per se the cause of grave harm, nor is he the cause that the others accepted other things. Therefore the grave damage which the owner suffers ought in no way to be imputed to him. - Nor say that such a thief sins as gravely as a murderer inflicting death by a light blow upon a man already struck by others with innumerable light wounds; for death is owed to this last wound, which otherwise would not have followed. But the matter is otherwise in the case of theft; for by the last little theft no notable calamity or damaging is added. - Lugo,² and others commonly, against Bonacina and others.

702. • Query 12° If many, without common counsel but by example, commit light thefts, so that the total damage is grave, do individuals sin gravely?

Resp. More probably negatively by reason of justice, although they can sin against charity. The reason is that example is not a per se cause, but only an occasional cause, of the damage. - Thus S. Alph.³ and others more commonly against some.

703. Resolutions. - 1° "Probably," says S. Alphonsus,¹ "those who would eat fruits in others' vineyards" or orchards, "provided they are not rare and of great price, can be excused at least from grave sin, if they do not carry them out in great quantity; for in this kind of things, which are too exposed, a greater quantity is required for constituting grave matter."

2° If a thief, intending to arrive by little thefts at a grave sum, renews this intention as often as he steals, as often as he steals he sins gravely. The reason is that the external act derives its malice from the internal act, which is gravely sinful.² Say the same of him who steals a small quantity with the intention of taking a notable quantity. Recall what was said n. 225. 8°. a).

3° He who takes from an owner a trifling thing very dear to him, for example a rare and singular flower, the first fruits from a tree destined to honor some special man, and foresees at the same time that the owner is to be gravely afflicted by such a loss, sins gravely against charity; but against justice lightly, unless perhaps grave damage seems likely to follow from it.

4° Merchants using false weights sin gravely, although each time they defraud in small matter; because they intend to arrive at grave matter, or certainly know that they will arrive at it.

5° Tailors and their servants sin lethally against justice, when by retaining for themselves or selling fragments of cloth which remain over, otherwise still useful to the owners, they have arrived at grave matter. Except unless in some place a custom prevails that less be paid and the fragments remain to the tailors; or unless it is established that wealthy owners do not wish the fragments to be restored to them, or care little about them.

6° They must be accused of theft who by deceitful beggary (not those who truly beg with exaggeration), or by going about with fabricated reasons, draw money from citizens. Yet those are not to be condemned who have a certain modest amount of money placed in a savings bank, in order to provide for old age and infirmity, lest they be forced to withdraw into a public poorhouse, or so that funeral expenses may be paid, meanwhile collecting alms from private persons whoever they may be, or from pious societies.

collecting alms, so that provision may be made for daily necessities. Indeed, that little money which they keep saved would shortly be spent, and they themselves would be a burden either to pious societies or to hospices. It must be said otherwise if they have money which is sufficient for the support of life. These things likewise can be understood of those who deposit a modest sum of money with a friend, when they betake themselves to a hospice, so that, if afterward it happens that they leave it, they may not lack every aid, or, if they die, their bodies may be committed to burial.¹

7° Concerning youths educated gratis in seminaries, or at the expense of private persons, with that hope that they will serve the ecclesiastical ministry, it must be held that they commit fraud if they enter seminaries without the intention of dedicating themselves to sacred duties, and with this purpose only, that they may be imbued with letters or indulge leisure; and therefore that they are bound to repair the damage. It is not necessary, however, that they be altogether certain of their vocation; for holy leisure is conceded to them for this reason, that they may have more mature counsel concerning so great an undertaking. But they ought neither rashly to enter nor to remain in sacred buildings after they have cast off hope and purpose. But if by their own fault they bring it about that they are held unworthy, they do not seem for that reason bound to make restitution, whenever the mind of defrauding was lacking; for donors are not to be judged to have placed the condition of restitution on account of sluggishness or other customary faults.²

8° Those who dig out coals are prohibited from carrying them away for their own use, unless a certain price has been paid; nevertheless, from the convenience of the thing, it easily happens that each one takes the coals necessary for his family. That custom indeed must be reprehended, but restitution does not seem to be exacted, since there is so great an abundance of coals there, and the owners are scarcely to be judged altogether unwilling; for they do not use solicitude to detect thieves. Those who carry away some coals for their own use from the banks of canals and rivers, where coals are deposited from boats, sin, and indeed gravely if they take a great abundance; not so if a few, especially those which lie scattered here and there. Moreover those who have been accustomed through the whole winter, or another long time, thus to take coals for themselves are guilty of grave theft, and ought to make satisfaction according to an equitable estimation of the damage. But often it is very difficult to send the price safely to the owners. The same must be said concerning those collecting wood which another cut for his own use, or carrying away what another procured for himself; for it is a grave fault of theirs to take an abundance for themselves without the owner's permission.¹

A twofold cause is assigned: 1° necessity; 2° hidden compensation.

Necessity is one thing extreme, another grave, and another common. Extreme is called that in which life itself is endangered, or a most grave evil threatens; grave, however, that in which life is led very burdensomely; common, however, that in which poor beggars commonly are situated.

704. Principles. - I. A man can in the extreme necessity of himself or of his own use another's goods, as much as is sufficient for freeing himself from such necessity, supposing that other means licit of themselves and morally possible are not present. The reason is that the division of goods, in whatever way it has happened, cannot derogate from the natural right which belongs to each one, that he provide for himself while he labors under extreme necessity. Therefore in such a case all things become common; and so one taking another's thing in order to help himself takes a thing truly common, which he makes his own, as happened before the division of goods. Therefore he does not commit theft. - S. Thom.,² S. Alph.³

II. In order that someone may be able to steal another's things, grave necessity does not suffice, nor a fortiori common necessity; for in these circumstances owners are reasonably unwilling, and otherwise an easy entrance would lie open to plunderings. It is confirmed from Prop. 36 among those proscribed by Innocent XI, p. XVI.

705. Resolutions. - 1° It is not licit for a poor man placed in extreme necessity to take more than is necessary for himself.⁴ Hence if the use alone of the thing suffices, for example of a horse, when the necessity ceases the obligation of restoring remains.

2° If one extremely in need has elsewhere, in reality or in probable hope, whence he can pay, he cannot take another's thing except with the burden of restitution; because necessity does not demand that he be relieved by the ownership of a thing, who can sufficiently be relieved by a thing received as a loan for consumption or for use.¹

3° But one who in extreme poverty consumed another's thing is bound to nothing after the use of the thing, if he had no probable hope that he would ever be able to restore, even if afterward he comes to a better condition.²

4° The things which are said concerning extreme necessity can also be said concerning necessity quasi-extreme or most grave. But such necessity is judged to be present when someone is in probable danger of incurring death, of losing some principal member, of falling into perpetual captivity or infamy, or of undergoing a very hard penalty or a most grave or perpetual illness. For in these cases extreme necessity is already morally present.³

5° A rich man hiding his things, or using other industry, lest he succor a poor man, when the poor man's necessity has ceased, is not bound to restitution, because on the one hand the rich man is bound from charity only in this case; on the other hand necessity, even extreme, confers upon the poor man a right to the use of another's thing only so long as the necessity itself presses.⁴

6° But one who by force would impede a poor man from taking some thing for himself in such a case would sin against justice, as will be clear from the things to be said below, and would be bound to compensate the damages thereby coming to necessary heirs; but if none have come to these, when the necessity has ceased, and thus the poor man's right, the burden of restitution also ceases.⁵

706. Questions. - Query 1° Can someone steal the thing of another not only for succoring his own necessity, but also another's?

Resp. Affirmatively, with S. Thom.⁶ and others commonly. The reason is that then he in some way bears the place of the needy person, and shows that he loves his neighbor as himself. Except, however, if he could have given his own thing; in which case he seems bound to restitution, if he gave another's thing, because then he could not determine another's thing for fulfilling the precept of almsgiving when his own was at hand.¹

707. • Query 2° Can he be said to be situated in extreme or quasi-extreme necessity who is to be killed by robbers unless he hands over such a sum of money, or he upon whom perpetual or most grave captivity threatens, or another similar misfortune?

Resp. Not a few affirm with S. Alph.² and Lugo.³ The reason is that that necessity consists in a most grave or extreme danger which threatens when someone has been reduced to the greatest misery, or is just now about to die, not only from want of food, but from any other cause. Hence in these cases it is licit to provide for oneself from another's goods.

Query 3° In what necessity is it licit for a wife and children of the family to receive food from a husband or father who is a thief?

Preliminary note. a) The necessity of the wife or of the children of the family can be either extreme, and that either temporal or spiritual, as for example if daughters are exposed to danger of prostitution, or sons to injustices, unless they are nourished by the father who is a thief; or quasi-extreme, suppose grave danger either of an illness morally certainly mortal, or of an unjust, grave, and morally irreparable infamy; or grave, that is, such in which the things necessary for a justly acquired state would be lacking.

b) That from which the family is nourished will be either that very thing which has been taken by theft, or the same in species, for example money of the same value, or something else.

c) The thief will be able to restore from goods already justly acquired, or not.

d) The wife and children of the family can be nourished from their own goods or not; and likewise they earn something for the family or nothing at all. These things having been noted beforehand:

Resp. 1° If the family is not nourished from the thing stolen or from a thing the same in species, and nevertheless the thief can restore from goods already justly acquired, it licitly receives from him even those things which are not necessary either for life or for state. The reason is that then neither is another's thing received, nor is impotence of restitution induced in the thief from what is received. - Resolve the same, although the thief cannot restore from goods already justly acquired, and although wife and children spare their own goods, provided that a) by their labor they earn for the family as much as is furnished to them in food by the thief, and b) they are not nourished from the stolen thing itself or from a species the same as it. The reason is that by receiving what they earn they do not induce in the thief a greater impotence of restitution.

Resp. 2° In necessity, whether temporal or spiritual, and whether extreme or quasi-extreme, if they do not have their own things, they can receive, even from the stolen thing, everything which is required for relieving that necessity. This is clear from principle I. n. 704.

Resp. 3° In grave necessity they can receive that which is necessary for state, provided a) they cannot provide for themselves from their own goods (and indeed the wife, even if she could); b) they receive nothing from the stolen thing or from a species the same as it; c) the creditors of the thief are not situated in the same necessity. The reason is that grave necessity of oneself or of one's own excuses from restitution, as will be said below. - It is said: they receive nothing, etc. For from money which is the price of the sale of a stolen thing, or from a thing bought by stolen money (n. 960. q. 2°), or from coins or things belonging to others which the thief has mixed with his own in the way I said n. 673. b). 2), they can receive, since those things are the thief's.¹

Hidden compensation is the recovery of a thing owed to me through occupation of a thing of the debtor, done without this debtor's knowledge.

708. Principles. - I. Hidden compensation can sometimes be just and licit, if it does not lack the required conditions, that is, if no injury is done to the debtor, nor any disturbance of the order of right follows, nor of the Republic. But these three can be present. And 1° No injury is done to the debtor; for by hypothesis in such compensation you receive only that which is certainly yours, or what is owed to you from strict justice. - 2° There is no disturbance of the order of right, since it is supposed either that the judge cannot be approached, at least not without notable inconvenience, or that he cannot restore his right to the injured party. For that is not said to be omitted which would be sought in vain. - 3° There is no disturbance or damage of the Republic; for enough is provided for it by the cautions to be placed in the conditions. - Thus S. Alph.,¹ Lacroix,² etc.

709. • II. But the required conditions are the following: 1° That the debt be from justice, morally certain, demandable. From justice, not from charity alone or gratitude. - Certain; for in doubt the principle is valid: The condition of the possessor is better. Therefore in doubt compensation is illicit and unjust. - Demandable ("due").

2° That the debt cannot be recovered otherwise, at least not without grave inconvenience. For if the creditor can by mere petition or recourse to a judge obtain what is owed to him, by compensating himself he does injury to the public power, and therefore sins against legal justice (n. 712).

3° That the thing be taken in the same species, if it can be done. Otherwise the debtor's thing is exchanged without his consent, and therefore unjustly.

4° That it be done from a thing of the debtor. Otherwise it would be done with damage to a third party, as would happen if it were done from a thing deposited with the debtor or lent to him for use.

5° That damage to the debtor be guarded against, namely by taking care that the debtor or his heirs not be exposed to the danger of paying twice, if perhaps they are going to restore. Hence if that case is in some way foreseen, they must be warned in some manner, for example through a fictitious renunciation or condonation, etc. But if, after the compensation has been made, they restore, it will have to be restored to them again.³

710. Questions. - Query 1° Can servants, workers, officials of the government, municipality, etc., judging that the salary is below the work furnished by themselves, use hidden compensation?

Resp. Negatively, at least speaking generally, with the common opinion. It is established 1° from proposition 37 condemned by Innocent XI, p. XVI. 2° From reason; for they would act against the agreement, since they consented to the lesser price, and from elsewhere nothing is owed to them except the price concerning which agreement was made. Besides, if that were licit, the way would be opened to innumerable thefts; for servants would easily persuade themselves that wages are less than just, and thus no security would remain for masters. - The same must also be said, from parity of reason, concerning all workers, artisans, and merchants who would wish to recur to compensation under the pretext of the cheaper price for which they hired out their works or sold their wares.

I said: at least speaking generally; because a servant can compensate himself up to the lowest price. 1° If he is compelled by force or fear to consent to an unequal price. 2° If compelled by necessity he consented to it, provided nevertheless that the master would not have found other servants already justly, that is, within the limits of a just price, at least the lowest, at the same cheap price, or did not receive this one asking from mercy. 3° If unwillingly he is burdened with works not owed. 4° If the master is judged to consent to compensation, as for example can happen in the case of those who among us are called "horse-car conductors"; namely, it is supposed that by most masters those men are hired below the lowest price for this reason, that they know that they are to be defrauded by most, and that the masters are not willing (which besides they would will unreasonably) to deprive honest conductors of due salary because they protect themselves from dishonest ones. But in determining their salary, "conductors" should especially attend to the number of hours which they spend in the service of their masters, and to the salary which is given by the hour to workers of their condition. Meanwhile they must be exhorted to seek another trade, on account of the danger of injustice to which they expose themselves.

Query 2° At least can a servant who increases the works owed compensate himself?

Resp. 1° Negatively, if he acts thus by his own choice, because then he is judged to condone his work in order to conciliate the favor of the master to himself.

Resp. 2° Affirmatively, if he increases the works from the will of the master, whether express or tacit, because then the worker is judged worthy of his wage by right.¹ - But what compensation is just can sometimes be left also to the judgment of the servant, if he is fearful of God and prudent, and the danger of self-love is absent; which nevertheless will happen very rarely.²

711. • Query 3° Can he use hidden compensation who is condemned by a judge to pay a debt which he certainly did not contract, or to which he certainly has already made satisfaction?

Resp. Affirmatively, because the sentence of the judge is unjust, as being founded upon a false presumption of fact, and therefore cannot bind in conscience. For although one must always stand by the sentence of the judge in matter of law, unless it is a question of a law or sentence evidently unjust, it is otherwise, scandal being set aside, if the judge certainly errs concerning a fact which from error he thinks true. From another source, moreover, the judge does not have the faculty of transferring dominion; nor can one who has obtained a favorable sentence, even after the error has been detected, keep the thing adjudged to him. - Thus commonly.

712. • Query 4° Does he sin gravely, and against justice, who compensates himself without first having recourse to the judge?

Resp. 1° He does not sin of itself against justice, provided he takes only as much as is owed to him; nor therefore is he bound to restitution. The reason is clear, because, this compensation having been made, equality is restored between him and the debtor. I said: of itself; because sometimes detriment could follow for the debtor from deprivation of some determinate thing, for example a horse, a precious thing, etc. - Lugo,² and others.

Resp. 2° Nor does he sin gravely, speaking generally; because ordinarily from this inversion of order neither grave scandal nor grave disturbance of the Republic follows. - Lugo.³

Resp. 3° He does not sin in any way if recourse to the judge is difficult, if there is danger of scandal, or extraordinary expenses, etc., because then recourse is morally impossible.

Admonition. - Confessors should not easily advise compensation, and should rarely even permit it. But to compensation already made, to which none of the necessary conditions is lacking, it is licit so far to connive, that the penitent not be bound to restitution.

To recover one's own thing, even by employing moderate force, is licit, whether when the unjust robber is caught in the very delict, or when the thing has not yet been put in safety; indeed it is licit if it has been put in safety by the robber, provided it is movable and still exists in species. For in the former hypothesis you use the right of defense (n. 471. 1°); in the other, neither is the right of the robber injured nor is the order of right passed over. Mar. p. 333. n. 185.

Cooperation toward the damage of the neighbor can happen in nine ways. What those are was said above, n. 194; but here note that the first six ways are positive and the last three negative. Something will be said briefly concerning each.

A receiver, or one providing refuge, is he who knowingly and freely provides security to a robber or another damager. Concerning him these things must be established:

1st. One receiving is held for damages coming from his manner of acting. For one providing security efficaciously and unjustly determines the will of the thief, or makes it firmer, in the purpose either of stealing or of not restoring or of stealing again.

2nd. Likewise merchants and especially innkeepers are held to restitution who accept stolen goods of sons of families, servants, etc., or hide them, or even claim them for themselves as the price of merchandise, drinking-bouts, etc.

3rd. Among those receiving are not to be reckoned those who receive at home friends or blood-relatives who are evildoers; nor those who hide them under hope of amendment, or show them the way by which they can flee, when they are sought for prison or for death. Cf. St. Alphonsus, n. 568.