Natural Law

CERTAIN actions are in themselves conformable to right reason, while others are opposed to it. On account of the relation between parent and child, right reason tells us that it becomes a child to show love and reverence toward his parents; on the other hand, hatred and ill-treatment of one’s parents are opposed to right reason. Conscience tells us, moreover, that it is our “ duty’ to love and reverence our parents, that we “‘ ought ” to do so, that we are “‘ bound ” to do so; thereby making known to us the will and precept of a superior, the will and command of God, the Author of nature, and our Lord and Master. He cannot be indifferent as to whether we follow the dictates of right reason or not; he necessarily, as he is good and holy, wills that right order should be observed by us.

The rules of conduct which right reason manifests to us, and conscience, the voice of God, commands us to follow, constitute the natural law, which is a participation in human reason of the eternal law of God, willing that right order should be observed, forbidding it to be disturbed.

The objects, then, of the natural law are all those actions which in themselves are conformable or not conformable to rational human nature. They are actions which are necessarily prescribed, because they are demanded by human nature, or, on the contrary, they are necessarily forbidden, because they are contrary to the demands of human nature. They are good or evil, not merely because they are commanded or forbidden by lawful authority, but because in themselves they are becoming or unbecoming for man to perform because human nature is what it is, This is the ground of the well-known distinction between mala in se and mala quia prohibita.

As rational human nature remains substantially the same, and its essential relations do not change, it follows that the duties which the natural law imposes on man do not change substantially ¹ objectively times. either. The natural law, then, in itself and is universal and unchanging; it binds all men at all However, it does not follow that the natural law is always and everywhere equally well known. In its broad general principles, indeed, it has been known and taught at all times; it would be impossible for human society to continue unless the general principles of the natural law were known and acted on. Any serious departure from the law of nature soon brings with it its own remedy and correction by the stern elimination of the delinquent. Still there may be, and there is, ignorance of particular details and applications of the law of nature, even in matters of importance and of frequent occurrence. This is true not only of savage and untutored races, not only of primitive races, but even of civilized and Christian peoples. Theologians readily admit this. Many theologians of note allow that among such peoples there may exist ignorance of the malice of fornication; they warn us that other acts against the natural law are sometimes done in good faith, without any knowledge of their malice. The presumption, then, is that among Christians the general principles of the law of nature are known, but the confessor must be prepared to meet with cases of ignorance of the particular details and applications of it.

¹ Matt. v 17.

I. Notion of the voluntary. The voluntary is that which proceeds in any way whatsoever from the will, whether it is the actuation of the will itself, as the willing of drunkenness; or the actuation of another faculty from the command of the will, as drunkenness committed. Moreover, an effect following from an action or omission is usually called voluntary when it could and ought to have been foreseen, as pollution following from drunkenness and foreseen.

Since the will is a rational appetite, it cannot act except from a prior cognition of reason or intellect. Besides, for the sake of completeness and clarity, note:

1. The voluntary differs:

a) From the willed, insofar as the willed extends more widely than the voluntary. For the willed is the object of the will, or that toward which the will is borne, whether it depends on the will and is voluntary, or does not depend on it, as, for example, excellent weather, which is willed by farmers but is nevertheless not voluntary.

b) From the violent, which is from a principle extrinsic to the will, while the will resists or at least contributes nothing, as motion inflicted on someone by an external cause.

c) From the spontaneous, which proceeds from the sensitive appetite, from sensitive cognition, as the anger of a beast.

d) From the natural, which proceeds from an intrinsic principle without cognition, as a vegetative act (cf. St. Alphonsus, V, nn. VI-VIII).

2. Since the voluntary, as we have said, requires prior knowledge, it extends only to things known. Hence, in order that "some action be called wholly voluntary, it is necessary that it be known according to all its parts and circumstances. If any one of these is unknown, the action is not called voluntary with respect to that unknown circumstance. Thus, one who approaches a woman whom he does not know to be married does not commit the sin of adultery, but of simple fornication, since he is involuntary with respect to the circumstance of marriage, which he does not know" (St. Alphonsus, V, VIII).

3. The involuntary is opposed to the voluntary. It is taken in two senses, negatively and positively. Taken negatively, it is the same as the merely non-voluntary, or signifies that which the will neither positively wills nor positively does not will. Taken positively, that is called involuntary which the will by a positive act does not will or turns away from (St. Alphonsus, V, XIII).

I. Notion of natural law. "Natural law," says St. Thomas, "is nothing other than a participation of the eternal law in the rational creature" (I-II, q. 91, a. 2). But a natural participation is understood, so that it may be distinguished from the participation of eternal law which is made by means of divine revelation. Now the said natural participation consists in human reason itself, insofar as it naturally knows what must be done or avoided, and intimates or announces this as something to be done or avoided. It is said "naturally," that is, by means of nature itself or by means of the inclination of nature; these things will be clearer from what is to be said.

Corollary. Natural law differs from eternal law insofar as the latter is supreme, unparticipated, eternal, and in God; but natural law is lower, participated, temporal, and in man.

II. Existence of natural law. This is clear: 1. from Sacred Scripture. St. Paul¹ declares: "For when the gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature those things that are of the law, such persons, not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them, and their thoughts among themselves accusing or also defending them, on the day when God will judge the hidden things of human beings, according to my Gospel, through Jesus Christ." 2. Leo XIII teaches thus: "Such is the chief of all laws, the natural law, which is written and engraved in the souls of individual human beings, because it is human reason itself commanding them to do rightly and forbidding them to sin."² 3. Natural law, as we have said, is a participation of eternal law, which consists in human reason, insofar as this naturally knows what must be done or avoided and intimates or announces it as something to be done or avoided. But such a participation of eternal law is found in man. Human reason is in him, as is clear. But it naturally knows what must be done or avoided, namely by means of the inclination of nature; for from the fact that nature is inclined toward something, reason apprehends that as agreeing with nature or as a good of nature, and therefore as to be pursued; but from the fact that nature turns away from something, reason apprehends that as repugnant to nature or as an evil of nature, and therefore as to be avoided. Once the said apprehension of a good to be pursued or an evil to be avoided is posited, reason naturally intimates or announces the pursuit or flight as to be carried out in deed. And thus it has been proved that all those things which are comprehended in the notion of natural law are found in man; in other words, that natural law exists. 4. There are added the testimony of conscience and the common persuasion of human beings.

¹ Rom. 2:14-16.

² Encyclical Libertas, June 20, 1888.

III. Object of natural law is that which man naturally apprehends as good or evil; naturally, that is, as we said above, by means of nature itself or the inclination of nature. And because the inclinations of nature are distinguished in three ways, namely according to the nature of substance, according to the nature of animal, and according to the nature of reason, therefore the objects themselves of natural law can also be distinguished in three ways.

"For there is first in man," says St. Thomas, "an inclination to good according to the nature in which he shares with all substances, namely according as any substance desires the conservation of its own being according to its nature; and according to this inclination there pertain to natural law those things by which the life of man is conserved and the contrary is impeded. Second, there is in man an inclination to certain more special things according to the nature in which he shares with other animals; and according to this those things are said to be of natural law which nature has taught all animals, such as the union of male and female, the education of offspring, and similar things. In the third way, there is in man an inclination to good according to the nature of reason, which is proper to him, as man has a natural inclination to this: that he know the truth about God, and that he live in society. And according to this, those things which pertain to an inclination of this kind belong to natural law, for instance that man avoid ignorance, that he not offend others with whom he ought to live, and the other things of this sort which pertain to this" (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 94, a. 2).

IV. Subject of natural law is all human beings, because the light of reason is infused into all, by which, at least of itself and in potency, they naturally know what must be done and what must be avoided. Hence all, even infants and the perpetually insane, are bound by the said law objectively or in first act, as it is said; but in order that someone be bound by it subjectively or in second act, knowledge of it is required.

V. Knowability of natural law. Concerning this, it must first be seen how far the objects, and consequently the precepts, of natural law are distinguished when their knowability is considered; then how far ignorance can in fact have place concerning them.

1. The objects, and consequently the precepts, of natural law, by reason of knowability, are distinguished into primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary precepts are those which become known at first glance, as: good is to be done; evil is to be avoided; order is to be preserved. Secondary precepts are those which are immediately and easily deduced from the primary ones. To these belong the precepts of the Decalogue, except the circumstance of the third precept by which the day to be sanctified is determined. Tertiary precepts are those which are deduced mediately and with more difficulty from the primary or secondary ones, such as, for example, precepts concerning certain contracts to be avoided (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 94, aa. 4 and 6; q. 100, a. 1; St. Alphonsus, I, 171; Homo Apostolicus, tr. 1, n. 5).

2. Ignorance with respect to the precepts of natural law can have place in a human being of sound mind as follows:

a) Ignorance cannot be given with respect to primary precepts, because "these stand to practical reason as the first principles of demonstrations stand to speculative reason" (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 94, a. 2). Moreover, first principles become known to each person (St. Alphonsus, I, 170).

b) Generally ignorance is not given with respect to secondary precepts considered in themselves. This is clear both from the notion of them handed down and from experience. I have said "generally" and "considered in themselves," because sometimes ignorance is present "in rude persons and for a brief time, or... with some apparently honorable circumstance added" (St. Alphonsus, Homo Apostolicus, tr. 1, n. 5; St. Thomas, I-II, q. 94, a. 6), for example if there is question of a lie for saving the life of an innocent person.

c) Concerning tertiary precepts, ignorance is more easily had, as is deduced from their notion and from daily experience (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 100, a. 1; St. Alphonsus, I, 171).

VI. Mutability of natural law. First it must be noted that change is taken in two ways, improperly and properly. Change improperly so called is had: 1. when something is added to natural law through positive law; 2. when the matter which was the object of the law is so changed that it ceases to be the object of the law, as when God, as supreme Lord of all goods, transferred the spoils of the Egyptians into the dominion of the Hebrews.

Change properly so called is had when, while the matter of the law persists, the law ceases, or at least does not oblige someone.

Change properly so called is distinguished in two ways, from within and from without. Change from within has place when the law becomes useless or harmful, or the time for which the law was established has elapsed. Change from without has place when a superior totally or partially removes the law or dispenses in it. Having noted these things, I say:

1. Change improperly so called, if it is understood in the sense that something is added to natural law, manifestly can have place. "For many things useful to human life have been added over and above natural law both through divine law and also through human laws" (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 94, a. 5).

2. Change improperly so called, which consists in the change of matter, can be had in those things which are constituted as the object of law dependently on some act, whether of God or of man, for example dependently on the act by which someone has made some good his own, or has taken some person to himself as wife, etc. The reason is that at least God can invalidate the said act or deprive it of its effect (cf. Corollary II). Change improperly so called cannot have place in those things which through themselves, or independently of some act, constitute the object of law, whether prescriptive or prohibitive, such as love and hatred of God, truthful speech and lying, etc. The reason is that the essence itself of the thing cannot be changed; hence the aforesaid things necessarily remain objects of law.

3. Change properly so called and from within is impossible; for natural law is founded in human nature itself, and therefore, if this nature persists unchanged, it cannot become useless or harmful to that nature. But human nature is immutable.

4. Change properly so called and from without, for example by dispensation, likewise seems impossible. For the goodness and malice of the acts which natural law prescribes or forbids do not depend on the free will of God. But what is evil, for example, independently of the free will of God, cannot be permitted by him. Thus teach St. Thomas (I-II, q. 100, a. 8) and authors much more commonly, against Scotus and his disciples, who judge that God can dispense in the precepts of the second table of the Decalogue, as it is called, except for the precept concerning lying.

Corollary I. No change of natural law has place where the law itself does not extend itself to some case. Thus, for example, natural law forbids killing a human being; nevertheless, with the things that must be posited being posited, it is permitted to kill an unjust aggressor. Natural law forbids marriage between brothers and sisters; nevertheless, marriage between the sons and daughters of Adam was lawful on account of the necessity of propagating the human race. From these and other examples it is clear that natural laws, for example the law of not killing, are rather often not adequately expressed by the formulas customarily employed by us.

Corollary II. Several cases occur in Sacred Scripture in which, according to St. Thomas and others, change improperly so called had place. Namely, God, as the supreme Lord of all persons and things, can grant and take away rights. "And therefore when the children of Israel took the spoils of the Egyptians by the command of God, it was not theft, because this was owed to them by the sentence of God. Similarly, when Abraham consented to kill his son, he did not consent to homicide, because it was owed that he be killed through the command of God, who is Lord of life and death; for he himself is the one who inflicts the penalty of death on all human beings, just and unjust, for the sin of the first parent. If a human being is the executor of this sentence by divine authority, he will not be a murderer, just as God is not. And likewise Hosea, approaching a fornicating wife or an adulterous woman, did not commit adultery or fornication, because he approached her who was his according to the divine command, from him who is the author of the institution of marriage" (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 100, a. 8).¹ By the same reason, God, on account of a special reason, can grant divorce even with respect to the bond, polygamy, by dividing the power over the body of the man among several women, etc. Whether and to what extent such power has also been entrusted to the Church will be explained in its own place.

Corollary III. Dispensation in vows rests on the fact that the competent authority remits in the name of God a debt owed to God.

¹ Others explain these and similar cases otherwise, or even have recourse to the said cases to prove that change of natural law properly so called, or dispensation, is possible (cf. Billuart, De legibus, diss. 2, a. 4).

VII. Source of obligation. Natural law does not oblige independently of God. This is established against the supporters of independent morality, who indeed admit natural obligation, but derive it not from God but from elsewhere, for example from human reason, Kantianism or autonomy of reason.¹ The proposition is proved from the fact that obligation, that is, an intrinsic and moral restriction of physical liberty, cannot come except from a Superior. But man's reason is not superior to man himself; nor, when authority granted by God to someone has been set aside, is one person subject to another. Of themselves, all are equal, and God alone is man's superior. Hence the third proposition of the Syllabus was condemned: "Human reason, with no regard at all had for God, is the only arbiter of the true and the false, of good and evil; it is a law to itself."² (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 93, a. 3).

¹ Others derive the obligation of placing or omitting an action from the fact that it is useful or harmful. Thus utilitarianism, the philosophy of positivism, and Darwinian ethics. Vasquez (In I-II, disp. 150, c. 3), Grotius (De iure belli ac pacis, Proleg. 11), and others judge that some obligation arises antecedently to divine ordinance from the conformity of actions with human nature; by approving and willing this obligation, God induces a new obligation.

² Cf. Encyclical Libertas, June 20, 1888.

(Summa Theologica, I-II, qq. 93, 94.)

Meaning.—The Natural Law is so called for the following reasons: (a) it is received by man, not through special promulgation, but along with his rational nature. Hence, St. Paul says that the Gentiles, who had not received the laws specially promulgated, were a law unto themselves, that is, through their rational nature (Rom., ii. 14); (b) it includes only such precepts as can be known or deduced from the very nature of man, and thus some pagans fulfilled the Law of Moses naturally, i.e., as regards its natural precepts (Rom., ii. 14); (c) it can be known from the natural light of reason without instruction, being a law written on the heart of man (Rom, ii. 15).

The Natural Law is defined theologically as a participation of the Eternal Law in man. Three elements constitute its essence in its integrity: (a) a passive participation of the Eternal Law consisting in man’s nature and faculties with their inclinations to their proper acts and ends. This man shares with all creatures. (b) an active participation in the Eternal Law proper to man. This consists in the activity of man’s intellect through which he shares in God’s providence and government in a special way as one who can rule himself and others. Reason, reflecting upon the natural inclinations and ordering them to their proper acts and ends, formulates (c) a dictate or command of the practical reason. This command constitutes the essence of Natural Law. “Hence the Psalmist after saying (Psalm, IV. 6): Offer up the sacrifice of justice, as though some one asked what the works of justice are, adds: Many say, Who showeth us good things, in answer to which he says: The light of thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us. Thus the Psalmist implies that the light of natural reason, whereby we discern what is good and bad, which is the function of the Natural Law, is nothing else than an imprint on us of the divine light. It is therefore evident that the Natural Law is nothing else than the rational creature’s participation in the eternal law” (Summa Theol. I-II, q. 91, a.2).

Relation of the Natural Law to Other Laws.-(a) The Natural Law is inferior to the Eternal Law; for, while the Eternal Law exists in the mind of God, underived from any other law and is regulative of all created things, the Natural Law exists in the mind of man, as a derivation and image of the Eternal Law and a rule for man’s acts only. (b) It is superior to Positive Law, for all Positive Law is a deduction from or a determination of Natural Law.

Properties.—Since the Natural Law is the reflection of God’s Eternal Law impressed on the rational nature of man, it has the following properties: (a) it is both declarative and imperative; being immanent in man, it declares to him his duty; being transcendent in its origin, it speaks with the voice of authority; (b) it is universal, or for all, for it declares the necessities of nature, which are the same in all men; (c) it is unchangeable, that is, it admits of neither abrogation, nor dispensation, nor emendatory interpretation, for the essences of things, on which it is based, do not change; (d) it is recognizable and indelible, that is, it cannot fail to be known and cannot be forgotten by mankind, for it is promulgated through the light of reason given to man.

The Natural Law is of universal obligation. It is in force in all places, at all times, and for all persons. (a) Thus, those who have not the use of reason, such as infants and the insane, are subject to the Natural Law on account of their human nature which is injured by any transgression of its inclinations. Their ignorance, of course, excuses them from formal sin (see 24 sqq., 97 sqq.). Example: It is sinful to induce or permit children to blaspheme or become intoxicated, not only because of scandal or of harm done to them, but also because such things are necessarily repugnant to their dignity as human beings. (b) those who have the use of reason are subject to the Natural Law, and their transgressions are imputable as formal sins and incur the debt of punishment.

The Natural Law is unchangeable, not as regards additions, but as regards subtractions. (a) Additions may be made to the Natural Law, for, in many points not determined by it, it is well that supplementary regulations be made to provide for particular situations. These additions, made by Positive Law, divine and human, are amplifications rather than changes, for they must not be out of harmony with Natural Law. (b) Subtractions may not be made from the Natural Law—that is, there can be no exception when it declares that a certain thing must always be observed, and there can be no abrogation when it declares that a certain thing must be observed usually.

From the foregoing it follows that no precept of the Natural Law can be abrogated—that is, repealed and deprived of all force, so that what was today a precept of nature should no longer be such tomorrow; for the necessities of nature on which the Natural Law is based do not change.

As to the question whether any precepts of the Natural Law may be dispensed or not, distinction must be made between two kinds of dispensation.

(a) A dispensation in the strict sense is granted when a legislator relaxes for a particular case the obligation of a law, although the subject-matter of the law still remains. Example: Titus is in the class of those who are bound by the law of fast, but he is exempted by competent authority from the obligation of the law.

(b) A dispensation in the wide sense is granted when the subject-matter of the law is taken away by the legislator himself or by another, so that it ceases to be comprehended under the law, although the obligation of the law still remains. Example: Balbus owed money to Caius, but, as Caius forgave him the debt, he is no longer in the class of those who are bound by law as debtors to Caius; he is not exempted, however, from the obligation of the general law that one must pay one’s debts.

There are various opinions as to the possibility of a dispensation from the Natural Law granted by God, but the following doctrine seems the most probable.

(a) God Himself cannot dispense in any way from those precepts whose matter is necessary (see 302), such as axiomatic precepts (viz., those that prohibit malice and those that command duties to be fulfilled at a proper time and place). For all the subject-matter of these precepts is intrinsically either consonant with or dissonant from right reason. Example: God could not by decree abolish the Ten Commandments, for, as long as God is God, He must remain worthy of worship, praise and love; and, as long as man is man, it must be against his rational nature to murder, steal, lie. etc.

(b) God cannot grant a dispensation in the strict sense from those precepts of the Natural Law whose matter is contingent, such as the precepts against the taking of human life, against taking possessions from others against their will, etc. For, as long as the subject-matter of these precepts remains what it is supposed to be by the law, transgression of them is necessarily opposed to reason. Example: God cannot command the killing of a person who has the right to life, nor the taking of property that rightly belongs to another.

(c) God can grant a dispensation in the wide sense from contingent precepts of the Natural Law—that is, He can make a change as regards the subject-matter, so that it no longer falls under the law. Thus, since God is the supreme Lord of life and property, He can without injury to human rights command that a person be put to death or deprived of his property by another. These acts would not constitute murder (i.e., unjust homicide) or stealing (i.e., unlawful taking); for God has a higher claim on life and possessions than the immediate owners have. Examples: The command to Abraham to kill his son was not a dispensation from the law against murder any more than the sending of death to the first-born of Egypt was the commission of murder by God. The command given the Israelites to carry away with them the goods of the Egyptians was not a dispensation from the law against theft, any more than the destruction of the fruits of the Egyptians by plagues was the commission of theft by God.

Is God able to make a decree which sets up a most grave public necessity opposed to the observance of a law of nature?

(a) If there is question of absolute laws (see 303), this cannot be done, for God cannot deny Himself by making a disposition contrary to His Eternal Law. Example: We do not read that God ever sanctioned polyandry or marriage between parent and child, and it seems that He could never permit such things as lawful.

(b) If there is question of relative laws (see 303), the decree in question can be made by God; for the unbecomingness of that which is forbidden by a relative law passes away in the face of a great need. Example: Since God desired the propagation of the human race from one man and one woman, marriage between brothers and sisters was not against the Natural Law at the beginning. Since God desired the speedy multiplication of the chosen people after the patriarchal era, polygamy was not repugnant to nature among the Jews of that period.

Is God able to remove a natural obligation in a case of private necessity, that is, when the fulfillment would be harmful to an individual?

(a) Natural obligations that do not depend upon any free consent of the will given to them (see 304) cannot be removed except by a dispensation widely so-called and when their matter is contingent (as explained in 309-310). Examples: God could not dispense an individual from the duty of confessing Him in order to escape death, for the subject-matter of the law here is necessary. God, could dispense an individual from the obligation of not taking the property of another, for God is the principal owner of all things, including those possessed by others.

(b) Natural obligations that depend upon the act or deed of human beings consenting to obligation (see 304) can be removed. For since human beings cannot know all the circumstances existent, or all the conditions that will arise, it can happen that a thing agreed to or promised is only seemingly good, or will change from good to bad, so that while the promise or agreement made is in itself good and naturally obligatory, its fulfillment would work harm and evil, or be useless, or would prevent the accomplishment of a greater good. It is reasonable, therefore, that God should release from obligation here, thus changing the subject-matter of the law, so that it is no longer comprehended under the law (see 309-310). Example: Titus vows or swears that he will give a certain alms or make a certain pilgrimage; but, when the time for fulfillment arrives, his circumstances have so changed that it would not be advisable for him to keep the promise made. The Church, acting in the name of God, can declare that the subject-matter of this promise has become harmful and is not longer suitable, and hence that the obligation has ceased.

Human Authority and Modification of the Natural Law.

(a) Additions to the Natural Law may be made, not only by positive laws of God, but also by human laws of Church or State, through the introduction of that which Natural Law permits, or the determination or confirmation of that which Natural Law contains implicitly or explicitly. Examples: Division of property rights introduced by the law of nations; conditions for valid contracts determined by particular codes; the laws against theft and murder confirmed by definite penalties prescribed for those crimes.

(b) Subtractions from Natural Law cannot be made by any human authority, for God has not delegated His power of dispensing which He has as supreme owner of all things. Examples: No human authority could authorize a father to sacrifice his innocent son, nor permit a servant to carry away the effects that belong to his employer.

Apparent Cases of Dispensation from Natural Law made by Human Authority. (a) The Church frees from the obligation of vows, contracts and promissory oaths, from impediments to marriage, from espousals, etc. In so doing, however, she does not dispense from the Natural Law that vows, contracts, etc., should be fulfilled, but only declares in the name of God that the subject-matter of an obligation contracted by act of man’s will has become unsuitable for vow, contract, etc., and hence is no longer comprehended under the law.

(b) Societies or private individuals can free from the obligation of paying or returning to them what they have a right to, as when a creditor forgives a debt, or an owner permits a thief to keep what he stole. In so doing, however, they do not dispense from the law of nature that one should pay one’s debts and not keep ill-gotten goods; they only change the quality of the things in question so that they cease to be due another or ill-gotten, and hence no longer fall under the law. This differs, too, from the dispensation that God can grant; for He can transfer rights without the consent of the immediate owner (see 310).

Interpretation—that is, explanation of the law which indicates whether or not it obliges in a particular case—may be applied to the Natural Law as follows:

(a) Interpretation which explains the intention the lawgiver had in making the law and the sense he gave to the words of the law (verbal interpretation), may be made when either a law itself is not entirely clear, or some person is not clever enough to see its meaning. Example: The commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” needs to be interpreted, for it does not forbid every kind of killing.

(b) Interpretation which explains the intention a lawgiver would have had, had he foreseen a particular case in which his law would be harmful, and which therefore sets the will of the lawgiver against the words of the law (emendatory interpretation, epieikeia), may not be applied to the Natural Law; for God, unlike human legislators, foresees things not only in general, but also in particular, and hence there is no room for correction or benign interpretation of natural laws. Example: Titus, who was a chronic invalid, committed suicide in order that his family might be freed from distress. He argued that the Fifth Commandment did not foresee the difficulties of earning a living under modern conditions, and that his sacrifice would be pleasing to God. Titus did not reason well, for suicide is forbidden for motives that apply universally (e.g., that society, and especially one’s family, are injured by the act of suicide).

Verbal interpretation of the Natural Law is made as follows: (a) by private authority—that is, by those who are competent, on account of learning and prudence, to understand the meaning of the law, such as moral theologians; (b) by public authority—that is, by those who are appointed to rule, with the prerogative of declaring the meaning of the Natural Law. The Pope, since he must feed the flock of Christ, is divinely constituted to interpret Natural Law, and does so authentically and infallibly. Thus, the Church declares that certain matrimonial impediments are natural, and therefore incapable of being dispensed.

On the competence of the Church to give authoritative interpretations of the natural law in the field of morals, Pius XII has spoken clearly and forcefully: “... it must openly and firmly be held that the power of the Church has never been limited to the boundaries of strictly religious matters’ as they are called; but the whole content of the natural law, its institution, interpretation and application are within its power insofar as its moral element is concerned. For the observation of the natural law, by the ordination of God, is the way by which man must strive to attain his supernatural end. On the road to this supernatural end. it is the Church that is his leader and guide. This is the way the Apostles acted, and from the earliest times the Church held to this way of acting as it does today—and not in the manner of a private leader and counselor, but from the command and authority of God” (AAS 46 [1954] 671-672).

From the foregoing it follows that the Natural Law is so unchangeable that it cannot be abrogated or properly dispensed, or given an emendatory interpretation. But, though the law itself remains, there are cases in which non-observance of it is excused from guilt. These cases can be reduced to physical and moral impossibility.

(a) In cases of physical impossibility (i.e., when the powers requisite for observance are wanting), one is manifestly excused; for law is reasonable, and it is not reasonable to require impossibilities. Examples: Infants are not guilty of sin against the Natural Law, when they do not pray; for they lack the use of reason, which is presupposed by the notion of prayer. He who is unable to work is not obliged to earn support for relatives.

(b) In cases of moral impossibility (i.e., when a law cannot be kept without the infringement of a higher law or the loss of a higher good), one is also excused; for it is unreasonable to prefer the less to the more important. Example: Titus lends a revolver to Balbus. Later he asks that it be returned to him, as he wishes to kill himself. Now, property is less valuable than life, and hence Balbus is unable in this case to observe the law which requires that things borrowed must be returned.

Moral impossibility is also defined as the inability to observe the law without serious injury or loss to oneself or a third party. Serious injuries are such as deprive some one of great goods, such as the use of reason, life, knowledge, friendship, health, reputation, property. Serious losses are such as prevent one from obtaining notable goods, The following rules indicate when grave inconvenience excuses, and when it does not excuse, from the guilt arising from the non-observance of Natural Law:

(a) when the law is negative (i.e., prohibitory), no inconvenience excuses from sin; for that which is forbidden by the Natural Law is always morally evil, and hence more to be shunned than even the greatest physical evil, or death. Example: One is obliged, under grave or light sin, as the case may be, to forfeit all temporal goods rather than blaspheme, murder, lie, etc.;

(b) when the law is affirmative (or mandatory), an inconvenience which, all things considered, is really and relatively grave, excuses from sin; for that which is commanded by the Natural Law is not always morally obligatory, but only at the right time and in the right circumstances (see 371), and hence its omission is not always morally evil. Examples: Sempronius vowed that he would go on foot to a place of pilgrimage, but when the day came he had a sprained ankle that would be badly injured if he walked. Caius received a jewel stolen from Balbus and promised that he would return it at once to the owner, but he finds that he cannot do so now without danger, either of the arrest of himself or of the one who took the jewel. Titus sees a person who has been seriously injured lying by the roadside, but he is tired, and neither gives help himself nor summons aid. In the first two cases the inconvenience is grave, and hence Sempronius may ride to the place of pilgrimage, and Caius may return the jewel to Balbus later; but the inconvenience of Titus is slight, and does not excuse him from sin.

Just as the Natural Law is unchangeable, because based on the unchangeable Eternal Law instituting the nature of man, so is it easily knowable, because it is promulgated by the light of reason. Hence: (a) invincible ignorance of the entire Natural Law is impossible in any person who has the use of reason; (b) complete forgetfulness of the Natural Law by mankind is impossible.

Those who have not the use of reason, either habitually (as children and the insane) or actually (as the intoxicated), may be invincibly ignorant of the Natural Law—for example, they may be unable to perceive even the difference between right and wrong. As to those who have the use of reason, they can be ignorant of the Natural Law only as follows:

(a) they cannot ever be invincibly ignorant of the most general precepts (such as “good is to be done,” “evil is to be avoided”), for since they know the difference between right and wrong, they must also perceive that which is contained in the concepts of right and wrong, viz., that the former is something desirable and which ought to be done, the latter something undesirable which must not be done;

(b) one cannot, as a rule, be invincibly ignorant of those precepts that are immediately inferred as necessary conclusions from the most general precepts (such as “that which was borrowed must be returned”), for the conclusion follows so easily from the manifest principle that only in exceptional cases could one be excused for not knowing its truth;

(c) one can, even as a rule, be ignorant of precepts that are inferred as necessary but very remote conclusions from the most general precepts, (such as “that which was borrowed must be returned at such a time or place, or in such a manner or condition”), for this conclusion is so far removed from its premise, and there are so many factors to be considered, that considerable knowledge and skill in reasoning are required for a correct judgment—things in which many people are lacking.

The Commandments of the Decalogue follow directly from the most general precepts of the Natural Law, and so to them may be applied what was said in the previous paragraph. Hence: (a) generally speaking, no person who has the use of reason can be invincibly ignorant of the Commandments. St. Paul blames the pagans as inexcusable in various sins committed against the Decalogue; (b) in special cases, a person who has the use of reason can be invincibly ignorant of one or more Commandments; for while the Commandments may be easily inferred by most persons from the common principles of right and wrong, there are sometimes involuntary impediments that hinder the right employment of reason. Thus, children and older persons whose mentality is undeveloped, although they know the difference between right and wrong, are frequently unable to draw the conclusion that follows from it (e.g., that one should not tell lies).

The Commandments regarding which invincible ignorance may most easily exist are: (a) those that deal with merely internal acts, for the malice of violating them is less apparent. Hence, many theologians admit that even among Christians the wickedness of sinful thoughts and desires may be inculpably unknown, at least when the wickedness of the corresponding external acts is also not known; (b) those that deal with the control of sensuality, for the impulse to inordinate acts is at times most vehement. Unde theologi sunt qui affirmant malitiam peccatorum externorum contra sextum invincibiliter ignorari posse, non solum apud infideles, sed etiam apud Christianos, ita quod ab adolescentibus facile ad tempus ignorari possit malitia mollitiei.

If a Commandment be applied to some particular case in which there are many circumstances to be considered, or some reason that appears to change the subject-matter of the law, even adults who have the perfect use of reason may be invincibly ignorant; for in such instances we are considering, not an immediate, but a remote conclusion from the general principles of Natural Law.

(a) If the case is difficult relatively (i.e., in view of the training or lack of education of the person studying it), there can be invincible ignorance, at least for a time. Examples: Jepthe, according to St. Jerome, appears to have been invincibly ignorant that it was not lawful for him to slay his daughter. Being a soldier and living in a rude age, he perhaps did not appreciate the sacredness of human life. Unlettered persons might conceivably think in good faith that it is not wrong to commit perjury in order to help one in danger, to steal in order to pay debts, to think evil if there is no intention to fulfill it, to do what the majority do or what is tolerated, etc.

(b) If the case is difficult absolutely (i.e., in view of the matter itself, which is complicated and obscure), there can be invincible ignorance, even for a long time. Thus, it is so difficult to settle many problems pertaining to justice (i.e., to the application of the Seventh Commandment) that we find professional theologians who take opposite sides, or admit that, speculatively speaking, they do not know where the truth lies.

The Natural Law can never be erased from the hearts of men. (a) In abnormal circumstances only, as when the general power of reasoning has been weakened or lost, can the Natural Law be forgotten. Thus, to a degenerate who becomes violently insane murder and other crimes may appear as good acts. But no community could govern itself by the standards of madmen and long survive. (b) In normal circumstances (i.e., as long as the general power of reasoning remains unimpaired), the Natural Law cannot be forgotten, as far as its general principles or immediate conclusions are concerned, although it may be overlooked or lost sight of when it is applied to particular cases, or when remote conclusions are deduced from it.

As long, therefore, as a body of men remain sane, even though they be uncivilized or addicted to crime, they cannot become oblivious of the Natural Law. (a) The general principles (“good is to be done,” “evil is to be avoided”) cannot vanish from the mind, although, in particular affairs, anger, pleasure, or some other passion may prevent men from thinking about them. Thus, when the mob spirit takes hold of a crowd, it becomes intent only on violence or revenge, and gives no thought to conscience. (b) The secondary precepts, such as those contained in the Decalogue, cannot be obliterated from the mind, although in applying them to concrete situations a people may go astray.

There are many examples of laws, both ancient and modern, which permitted or commanded, for particular cases, things contrary to the current application of natural precepts. Thus, the Spartans and the Romans ordered the murder of infants who were weakly and of slaves whose master had been killed. Some ancient races encouraged robberies committed beyond the boundaries of the states, and savage tribes have been found who had the practice of putting to death parents who were aged or infirm.

The causes of wrong applications of the Natural Law are the following:

(a) Some causes are involuntary. Thus, the correct application may be difficult, as when more than one moral principle has to be considered and applied; or, if the case is not difficult, the person who makes the application may be mentally undeveloped, or his mind may be blinded on account of his bad education or environment. Examples: The races who saw no infamy in robbery committed against their neighbors, lived in a wild age when such acts of violence seemed necessary as measures of self-protection. The savage killed his aged parents, because to his untutored mind this seemed an act of mercy.

(b) Some causes are voluntary, such as neglect of the truth, vicious habits, etc. Examples: St. Paul blames the pagans for their idolatry, because they had darkened their own minds about God. Pirates and bandits who came to regard violence as necessary for their own defense were responsible for their state of mind, inasmuch as they had chosen a life of crime.

Transgression of Natural Law, therefore, is not imputable as formal sin if it is not voluntary. Hence: (a) lack of knowledge excuses, when ignorance is involuntary (e.g., those who have not the use of reason, as infants and the unconscious; children and others mentally undeveloped who cannot grasp the meaning of some precept; educated persons who are unable to get a right solution of some knotty problem of morals, etc.); (b) lack of consent excuses in whole or in part (as when one acts through fear).

Who generally can make laws? - Since God is Lord of all, and has ordered obedience to superiors not only ecclesiastical but also civil, not only he himself, but they also can make laws. L. 140. Hence several laws are distinguished:

Eternal law, which is: The eternal reason and will of God commanding the natural order to be preserved and forbidding it to be disturbed. S. Aug. l. 22 Contra Faustum c. 27. It is the beginning and foundation of every law; for from it flows natural law, and from natural law the remaining laws take their force and norm. Cf. S. Th. 1. 2. q. 91. a. 1, q. 93, q. 95 a. 2, q. 96. a. 4; Wirceburg. De Legib. c. 1. a. 2.

Natural law, which is the eternal law of God promulgated to men through right reason, by which we discern what is good and what evil, the good to be done and evil to be avoided. Therefore the object of this law is that which is per se and intrinsically good or evil. In it are distinguished the first principles of morals, immediate conclusions, and mediated conclusions. Cf. S. Th. 1. 2. q. 91. a. 2. 6, q. 94; L. 102; Wirceburg. l. c. a. 3. 4. 6.

Divine law, which is law given by God through revelation. It is twofold; for one is contained in the Old Testament, the other in the New Testament. The Old Testament contained ceremonial, judicial, and moral precepts. Only the moral precepts remain to be observed today, the rest having been abrogated by the New Law. Matt. 19:17; 1 Cor. 7:19. The New Testament, besides counsels, contains precepts of catholic faith, morals, sacraments, sacrifice, and ecclesiastical hierarchy. The moral precepts are those very things which stand by natural right, and the law of the unity and indissolubility of marriage is that which, enacted from the beginning of the world, was confirmed by Christ. Matt. 19:4 seq. Cf. S. Th. 1. 2. q. 91. a. 4. 5, q. 98-108; L. 103. - The legal precepts of the Old Testament, or ceremonies, sacred things, sacrifices, sacraments of the Mosaic Law, all ceased after the Gospel was promulgated, nor can they be observed without sin. Eugene IV, B. Cantate Domino. - Wirceburg. l. c. c. 2.

Canon and civil law. The former is from ecclesiastical power, and it touches those things in the Church which regard the salvation of souls. The latter is from civil power, and moderates rights and obligations between citizens and citizens; between citizens and society and its Prince; between nation and nation. Whence private, public, and international or law of nations arises. C. 1. 13 de Const., C. 2 e. t. in 6; Inst. l. 1. t. 1. 2, l. 2. t. 1. § 11; L. 2 de Origine Iuris etc. §§; S. Th. 1. 2. q. 91. a. 3, q. 95, 2. 2. q. 57; Wirceburg. l. c. c. 3; E. M.

But the law of nations can be taken otherwise, namely insofar as it is distinguished from civil law. Appositely S. Th. 1. 2. q. 95. a. 4 says: "It belongs to the notion of human law that it be derived from the law of nature, and according to this positive law is divided into the law of nations and civil law. For to the law of nations pertain those things which are derived from the law of nature as conclusions from principles, such as just purchases, sales, and other things of this kind, without which men cannot live together with one another; which is of the law of nature, because man is naturally a sociable animal. But those things which are derived from the law of nature by way of particular determination (of certain common things, a. 2) pertain to civil law, according as any city determines something suitably to itself." And thus likewise that one must not kill pertains to the law of nations; for it is derived as a conclusion from the fact that evil must be done to no one. To punish the criminal with such or such a penalty pertains to civil law; for it is a determination of the common law of nature, that he who sins be punished. S. Th. ib. a. 2. "And therefore Caius the jurist says, L. 9 ff. De Iust. et iure: What natural reason has constituted among all men, that is preserved equally among all, and is called the law of nations." S. Th. 2. 2. q. 57. a. 3. Hence the law of nations embraces not only those things which are imposed by the very necessity of nature, as the division of goods, but also those things which flow from a certain highest suitability of nature, and which therefore are preserved by all through use and custom, by a certain implicit compact, or, when doubts arise, by an explicit compact, such as to enter a foreign region, unless danger arises from it for that region; free navigation of every sea; mutual commerce among peoples; transmission of letters; abolition of servitude, etc. - But positive law more determinately defining the various relations to be observed among nations will be able better to be called international law.

180 bis. Note: Natural law is altogether immutable, since it regards those things which by their nature are good and by their nature are evil. Against this immutability, as is clear, certain things permitted by God have no force, which because of peculiar circumstances were no longer opposed to the right order, as, for example, polygamy permitted to the patriarchs, dissolution of marriage, etc.; or were not opposed to that order because the matter is subject to divine dominion, as theft once permitted to the Hebrews. But change is not had as regards the precepts of natural law which are called primary, without which the order of things cannot exist, as, for example, the honor due to God, subjection in man of the lower part to the higher, etc.; but only as regards those precepts which are called secondary, and which regard not the very being of the order, but the perfection of the order, as, for example, the marriage of brothers and sisters permitted to the first parents. - S. Th. 1. 2. q. 100. a. 5; Wirceburg. De Legib. c. 1. a. 5.

Canon Law: The collection of canonical laws constitutes Canon Law. Yet some canonical laws are contained in the Corpus Iuris, others are outside it. The Corpus Iuris contains three Parts. The first part contains the Decree of Gratian, a Benedictine monk, around the year 1150, in which, in a threefold part, under the title on Distinctions, on Causes, on Consecration, there is treated successively of ecclesiastical persons, ecclesiastical judgments, and sacred things. This collection is not authentic; therefore the individual texts have and retain their force from themselves, not from the collection. The second part contains the Decretals by S. Raymond of Pennafort, of the Order of Preachers, in the year 1234, in which likewise, in five books, there is treated successively of persons, judgments, things, marriage, and penalties. This collection, completed and published by order of Gregory IX, is authentic, and therefore the laws contained in it have the force of universal laws from the very fact of insertion into it. The third part contains the sixth book of the Decretals, so called because it was added to the five books of the Decretals of Gregory IX. It was published by the authority of Boniface VIII in 1298; therefore the collection is authentic, and proceeds in the same order as the Decretals of Gregory. This third part also contains the Clementines and Extravagantes. The Clementines are so called from Clement V, who after the Council of Vienne, over which he himself presided in 1311, ordered the Constitutions issued by himself and by the same Council of Vienne to be collected. Therefore this too is an authentic Collection. It is divided into five books. This same third part contains the Extravagantes of John XXII and the Common Extravagantes. The former are constitutions issued in the earlier years of the pontificate of the aforesaid Pontiff. The latter are other Constitutions issued by John XXII and by other Pontiffs, divided into five books. Although all those Constitutions are genuine, nevertheless they do not constitute an authentic Collection. The other Constitutions that are present, besides these, of the Council of Constance, of Trent, and of the Vatican, and also of the Supreme Pontiffs, issued afterward, were not collected into the Corpus Iuris.

Civil Law: Roman Law is contained in the Corpus of Civil Law issued by order of Justinian in the 6th century. It embraces four parts: the Institutes of Justinian, divided into four books, which are subdivided into titles and paragraphs; the Pandects, which comprehend selected responses of jurists, to which the force of law was attributed, also called the Digest or Digests, because they contain legislation arranged in order, and are divided into fifty books, which are subdivided into titles and laws; the New Code, or repeated lectures, that is, in a second edition or publication, C. Cordi nobis, Nov. 16, 534, which contains twelve books, subdivided into titles and laws, and embraces the constitutions of Princes; the Novels, or Constitutions issued after the Code, which are not all of Justinian himself, and are genuine, although their Collection is not authentic as the three preceding parts are. Modern law is contained in modern Codes, which are divided into books, titles, and articles.

122. • Natural law is the divine will, manifested by the natural light, commanding those things which are necessary for preserving right order.

Hence natural law is nothing other than the eternal law intimated to rational nature through the natural light, whether habitually through right reason, or actually through its dictate.

The object of natural law is everything which so agrees with, or disagrees with, rational nature, that it is necessary that it be commanded or forbidden by the Author of that nature; that is, it embraces all those things which are conformable to the eternal law ¹. - Hence the law of nature is concerned

¹ A twofold object of the natural law can be distinguished, material and formal. The material object includes all principles of honesty, whether primary or secondary, which are deduced from the primary principles proximately or remotely; yet these, as to a supreme principle, are reduced to this: Good is to be done, evil is to be fled. Yet good and evil are not the object of natural law in the same way. For whatever is evil of itself and independently of positive law is prohibited by natural law; but, conversely, not whatever is good is commanded, but only those good acts are commanded which the condition of man necessarily demands according to the threefold relation which he has, namely to God, to himself, and to his neighbor.

But the formal object of natural law must not be placed in agreement with rational nature, nor in a perfection due to that same nature, which therefore is to be sought, nor in some necessity or agreement with the happy state of human nature, whether in individuals or in society; but in the nature of a precept imposed by God upon men; so that the dictate of reason must be held as the promulgation of the divine ordinance, or as a sign of the divine will either commanding or forbidding. Whence that saying of St. Anselm: Whoever goes against the natural law does not keep the will of God. Wherefore natural law could neatly and properly be defined: A judgment of the intellect concerning the will of God as supreme governor of nature, forbidding evils and commanding goods.

1. with the first principles of morals, for example: good is to be done; evil is to be avoided; do not do to another what you do not wish to be done to you; 2. with the secondary principles of morals, or immediate conclusions from the first principles, such as most precepts of the Decalogue are; 3. with mediate conclusions, or those more remote.

123. Questions. - QUESTION 1. Whether the object of the law of nature can sometimes be unknown?

I answer: 1. The primary principles of morals can be unknown to no one. - 2. Likewise the proximate conclusions, so that in these invincible ignorance cannot be given, except either rarely, or for a short time in the rude and in children. Thus commonly. - 3. But remote conclusions can be unknown and often are unknown. Hence so many controversies concerning them are still agitated among Doctors. - St. Lig., no. 170 and following; On Conscience, no. 8.

QUESTION 2. Whether invincible ignorance can be given concerning the malice of depraved desires in one who knows the malice of the act?

I answer: No, at least as regards efficacious desires. The reason is that to will what is formally evil, and indeed known as such, is to will what is known to displease God, and consequently is to will to displease Him. But it is difficult for the malice of an act to be unknown by which one knows that he displeases God. - St. Lig., On Conscience, no. 9, etc. ².

² ** St. Alphonsus (l. c.) attributes the opposite doctrine to Sanchez and Cardenas, indeed also to Granado and Croix, as the editions of 1748 and 1757 have it. - But in reality the question which St. Alphonsus discusses is one thing, and that which the cited authors treat is another.

The question is put by the Holy Doctor (book 1, no. 9): Whether an invincibly erroneous conscience can be given in one who desires to perpetrate some evil, for example fornication, judging through error that the mere desire of fornicating is not mortal if fornication does not in fact follow. And he adds: Sanchez and Cardenas affirm this as more probable, (in other editions) Granad. and Croix.

But those authors put only the hypothetical question, whether he would sin who invincibly was ignorant that his desire was illicit, etc. Thus Sanchez (On the Decalogue, book 1, ch. 16, nos. 16, 17) asks, Whether one invincibly ignorant that an internal act is a sin, yet knowing that the external act is a sin, is excused from fault, admitting only the internal act; as if a rustic had heard from a man esteemed learned and pious that fornication and theft externally are sins, but that the desire of fornicating or stealing is licit.

And Croix (book 1, no. 34): Question 6, Whether he sins mortally who invincibly thinks an internal act is not evil, and yet knows that the object of such an act is evil?

Therefore Sanchez and the others do not ask whether invincible error is given concerning the malice of that depraved desire (which is the question proposed by St. Alphonsus), but whether, supposing such ignorance, the rustic sins materially or formally. Indeed La Croix (ibid. no. 35) had expressly warned that the dispute is only hypothetical, and that the hypothesis is scarcely about a possible thing. Thus he: I speak from the supposition, if such a case were given; for perhaps it is impossible.

But what will seem somewhat strange: St. Alphonsus in the editions of the year 1748 and 1757 had proposed the question in nearly the same way as Sanchez and Croix, thus: It is asked whether he sins formally who desires to commit some evil, namely fornication, thinking through error that the mere desire of fornicating without effect is not a sin. Nevertheless, 1. in proposing the question he omits that word invincibly, which the authors whom he attacks have; 2. even here, omitting the hypothetical question about which those authors were treating, he fights against them as though they were disputing absolutely about the possibility of the hypothesis.

QUESTION 3. Whether natural law is mutable?

I answer: No. For since it commands or prohibits that which by its nature is good or evil, it plainly follows that natural law cannot be changed not only by creatures, but not even by the Author of nature Himself ³.

³ Since the object of natural law can become neither harmful nor useless, either in whole or in part, which are the two causes why a law must either be entirely abrogated or derogated from in part; hence no change properly so called can be found in natural law, since it is concerned with those things which are intrinsically good or evil.

Nor should you say, 1. that God has several times changed the natural law, for example, by permitting polygamy to the Patriarchs, theft and divorce to the Hebrews, etc. For in the aforesaid examples the natural law was not changed, but only the circumstance of the matter; whence it happened that that which of itself was opposed to right order, on account of new circumstances was now no longer opposed to it.

Nor should you say, 2. that there are certain matters which undergo change, for example carnal intercourse, which is opposed to natural right among the unmarried, but not among those joined by lawful matrimony; for natural right prohibits intercourse outside matrimony for the reason that its lawful end is then lacking.

Yet some distinguish strict natural law, or law wholly immutable, as, for example, that which prohibits blasphemy, and another broad law, which can be changed when circumstances are changed, as, for example, that which prohibits killing one's neighbor. Thus Voit, no. 534. But others reject this distinction. Whatever be the case, it is certain that that distinction falls at least upon the matter of natural law, which is subject to the dominion of God, and which consequently can be changed according to various circumstances ⁴.

⁴ A twofold order of things must be distinguished. One of them is founded in the very natures of things in such a way that not even God can change it, unless He could be said to be able to deny Himself. Of this sort, for example, is the subjection of the creature to the Creator, and therefore the debt of servitude; consequently blasphemy, perjury, etc., cannot fail to be evil, and God would deny Himself if He inverted this order. But the other order is one which, by reason of the dominion which belongs to God over all creatures, is subject to divine power; and therefore, since it is not absolutely necessary, God can change it. Hence, since God is Lord both of the life and rights of man and of all creatures which He has granted to men to use, therefore God can dispose of the life, rights, and goods of men by taking away, transferring, etc., as it pleases Him; therefore any malice will cease in taking away the life or goods of someone, if God has made this right and power to another. And this indeed is what some say, that by the will of God it happens that matter is withdrawn from the natural law.

213. (A) Notion. (a) Natural law, according to St. Thomas,² "is nothing other than the participation of the eternal law in the rational creature." For God from eternity knows and ordains whatever is consonant with the nature of each being, and that ordination, from what was said above, n. 210, is called the eternal law. But in time He created rational creatures, and manifested this eternal law to them. Now natural law is nothing other than the manifestation or promulgation of the eternal law in the conscience of the rational creature. Therefore it can be defined: the divine ordination of the rational creature to the ultimate end, founded in nature itself, and perceived by the natural light.

² St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 91, a. 2.

It is called natural for a twofold reason: namely because it embraces only precepts which are founded in the very nature of things, and moreover because it is known by the natural light. Thus it is distinguished from the positive law of God, which concerns things necessary for attaining the ultimate end, not of themselves, but from the will of God, and becomes known only by revelation.

Therefore natural law commands all those things which by their nature are honorable and necessary for the ultimate end; but it prohibits all those things which by their nature are evil. Hence it is thus described by Augustine:¹ "The eternal law is the divine reason or the will of God, commanding that the natural order be preserved, forbidding that it be disturbed."

¹ St. Augustine, Contra Faustum, l. XXII, c. 27, P. L., XLII, 418.

214. (b) Consequently natural law is not the free will of God alone, as the Nominalists used to say: for actions are not good or evil because they are commanded or prohibited by God, but rather are commanded or prohibited because divine reason, which cannot be deceived, sees that they are good or evil (above, n. 22).

Nor is it the dictate of practical human reason, or the categorical imperative of the autonomous will; for human reason is not the rule obliging, but only exhibiting and manifesting obligation (above, n. 26); and the human will is not autonomous, but essentially depends upon God.

215. All those who acknowledge the existence and providence of God admit that some natural law exists in the sense explained above; but atheists, positivists, and evolutionists reject it, whose systems we have already explained, n. 34-42. - Traditionalists indeed admit the existence of the natural law, but they assert that, in the present state of fallen man, it becomes known to us only by the supernatural light of faith or tradition.

Thesis: A moral law must be acknowledged which deservedly is called natural, because it is inserted into nature by God, and can be known by the natural light of reason, at least as to its primary principles. - It is of faith that the natural law exists, since the ordinary magisterium of the Church clearly teaches this; it is certain that this law can be known naturally.

216. (A) It is proved by authority. St. Paul, after he had reproved the Jews who, notwithstanding the positive law of God, had sinned gravely, writes concerning the Gentiles, who had not received revelation: "For when the Gentiles, who have not the law [the Mosaic law], do naturally those things which are of the law, these, not having the law, are a law to themselves: who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them, and their thoughts between themselves accusing, or also defending one another, in the day when God shall judge the hidden things of men, according to my gospel, by Jesus Christ."¹ Now (a) there it is declared that the Gentiles, who lacked the Mosaic law, nevertheless observed certain precepts of the natural law, because, namely, this kind of law was written in their hearts, and conscience, reproving evil and approving good, urged its observance; and this law was not merely human, but divine, since according to it God will judge the Gentiles. (b) Moreover, the Apostle in no way teaches that this law was known by tradition, but by natural reason, since it is written in the heart and is confirmed by the testimony of conscience.

¹ Rom., II, 14-16. - That this text is to be understood of pagans we proved in De Gratia, n. 35, note 10.

217. The Fathers confirmed this doctrine of Paul; thus Tertullian says:² "Therefore do you seek the law of God? You have that common one in the public place of the world, in the natural tablets, to which also the Apostle is wont to appeal... when, in saying to the Romans that the nations by nature do those things which are of the law, he suggests both natural law and legal nature." - The same Fathers likewise teach that this law is inscribed in hearts by the finger of God, innate, inserted, implanted, and therefore known naturally by human understanding; thus St. Ambrose:³ "Therefore that law is not written, but is born within; nor is it received by any reading, but is expressed in each one by a certain flowing fountain of nature." Nor otherwise Chrysostom:⁴ "From the beginning, forming man, God placed the natural law within him. And what, finally, is the natural law? He impressed conscience upon us, and willed the knowledge of good things and of contrary things to have been implanted by nature." - Leo XIII briefly sums this up: "Such is the chief of all, the natural law, which is written and engraved in the souls of individual men, because it is human reason itself commanding right action and forbidding sin."⁵

² Tertullian, De corona, VI, apud Migne, P. L., II, 83.

³ St. Ambrose, Epist. 73, n. 3, Migne, P. L., XVI, 1251.

⁴ St. Chrysostom, homil. XII, de statuis, Migne, P. G., XLIX, 131.

⁵ Encycl. Praestantissimum, 20 Jun. 1888.

218. (B) The same is established psychologically and historically. (a) By the intimate testimony of conscience we know that certain actions are good of themselves, and others depraved (above, n. 22), - that the latter are to be avoided, but the former to be done, at least those which are apprehended as necessary and as commanded by supreme authority, - so that he who obeys this command obtains peace of soul, while he who transgresses the same is disturbed by the goads of conscience. Now all these things suppose that some natural law exists, promulgated in each one's conscience, which we are bound to obey, and indeed a universal and absolute law: for this authoritatively commands the fulfillment of certain duties for all and unconditionally, independently of any civil law.¹

¹ J. Simon, Le Devoir, 3e p., ch. 1, p. 233-262.

(b) The intimate experience of each person is confirmed in no small degree by the unanimous consent of peoples, who, although they think differently concerning some moral precepts, nevertheless agree in admitting a moral distinction between good and evil; - they hold that there is some law which arises not from kings, nor from the decrees of the people or senate, but from nature itself or from the divine power; - that violators of it are vexed by anxieties, even when they can avoid human punishments; - and that from it other laws draw their force, so that they ought to be conformable to it.

219. Thus, among the Greeks, Sophocles commends the natural law in this way:² "Would that fortune be present to me for attaining the holy integrity of all words and works, concerning which sublime laws have been set forth, born in the heavenly ether, of which Olympus alone is father, and the mortal race did not beget them, nor indeed will oblivion ever lull them to sleep: in these there is a great God, and He does not wither with age." Among the Latins, let Cicero be heard:³ "I see that this was the judgment of the wisest men, that law was neither devised by the talents of men, nor is it some decree of peoples, but something eternal, which rules the whole world by the wisdom of commanding and forbidding... But it arose together with the divine mind. Wherefore true and chief law, apt for commanding and forbidding, is the right reason of supreme Jove." Among the Chinese likewise a universal rule of morals is admitted, which rules heaven and earth, and is read as inscribed in the heart of all.⁴ Similar things are found among various nations, even barbarous ones.⁵

² Sophocles, Oedip., v. 863-871; cf. Antigon., v. 446-460. Similar things may be seen apud Plato, Respub., l. IV, p. 427, ed. Stephan.

³ Cicero, De Legibus, II, 4. Cf. Pro Milone, IV, 10; Philipp., XI, c. 12, n. 28; likewise the fragment preserved apud Lactantius should be read, Instit. VI, 8, Migne, P. L., VI, 660-661.

⁴ "The rule of moral conduct of man is the law of all intelligences; it illumines the universe in the highest heavens, as in the deepest abysses. The rule of moral conduct of the wise man has its principle in the heart of all men, whence it rises to its highest manifestation, to enlighten heaven and earth with its brilliant rays." (Apud J. L. De Lanessan, La Morale des Philosophes Chinois, Paris, Alcan, 1896, p. 44-45.)

⁵ Cf. Quatrefages, L'unité de l'espèce humaine; L'espèce humaine, Paris, Alcan; Carbonnelle, L'aveuglement scientifique, in period. Revue des Quest. scientif., VII, 193.

220. (C) Reason supports this. For once the creation of man is posited, natural law already becomes necessary. For God, the most wise creator and orderer of all things, must direct all beings to the end for which they were destined by Him. But no directive principle is suitable for beings endowed with liberty except a moral rule. Beings which lack liberty tend to their end by a certain necessary instinct divinely impressed; but man, since he is free, tends to his end only freely; and therefore he must not be led by a blind and necessary impulse, but by a moral rule which shows him the way to be followed, without taking away his free will. But this rule, common to all, can be nothing other than a certain participation or manifestation of the eternal law, or, in other words, the natural law.

221. In a general way the natural law embraces those things which are so fitting or repugnant to rational nature that they ought to be commanded or prohibited by the Author of nature.

(A) Now, with respect to the logical nexus by which they are connected with one another, the precepts of the natural law are of three kinds: -

(a) Some indeed are most universal, so that the rest flow from them; such are these and similar ones: good is to be pursued and evil avoided; the supreme good is to be loved; what you do not wish to be done to you, do not do to another; live conformably to right reason.

222. Among philosophers and theologians it is asked what is the supreme principle from which the rest flow logically. St. Thomas asserts that it is this: good is to be done and evil avoided.¹ According to others: Live conformably to human nature, considered according to all its essential relations.² Berti proposes this, according to the mind of St. Augustine: Love God as the end and the rest on account of Him.³ Others prefer this formula: Exhibit also by free actions the image of God, absolutely holy, impressed upon you by way of rational nature.⁴ Meyer proposes this: Preserve the right order of rational nature as divinely holy.¹

¹ St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 94, a. 2.

² Thus not a few Scholastics.

³ Berti, Theolog. discipl., lib. XX, c. 4, prop. 3.

⁴ Carl Aeger, Moralphilosophie, 1873, S. c. 63 ff.

¹ Meyer, op. cit., n. 284.

Of these, the formula of St. Thomas is the simplest and most clearly intelligible; the last, although not so clearly intelligible, seems more complete and scientific; the Augustinian one is in itself most perfect, but in the order of knowledge it is not first, nor explicitly known to all. In any case all agree substantially as to the sense.

223. (b) In the second place come those precepts which are deduced from universal principles by an immediate and easy discourse; for example, honor your father and mother, you shall not steal, you shall not kill, and the rest contained in the Decalogue, if one excepts the sanctification of the Sabbath day, which is a positive law.

(c) In the third place proceed those precepts which are deduced from the first principles remotely and only by diligent study and more difficult discourse; for example, an injury inflicted on someone, in a well-ordered society, is not to be avenged by one's own authority. Since precepts of this kind are not easily known by all, they are often proposed more clearly and certainly by positive law.

224. (B) With respect to necessity, the precepts of the natural law are some primary and others secondary: the former are so necessary for the particular or social good that, without them, the moral order is impossible; thus blasphemy, the unjust killing of an innocent man, false testimony, etc., are opposed to primary natural right. - But secondary precepts are those which are very useful for the particular or social good, but not necessary, so that the moral order can subsist without them, although less perfectly; thus polygamy and divorce are opposed to secondary natural right.

225. (C) By reason of the object about which they are concerned, natural precepts regard: (a) God, who is to be worshiped and loved; (b) our neighbor, to whom reverence, justice, and charity are owed; (c) ourselves, insofar as we ought to subject the sensitive faculties to reason, and reason to God.

226. The natural law is universal, immutable, and non-dispensable; the reason is because it flows not from the positive will of God, but from the very nature of things. This, however, needs declaration.

(A) The natural law is universal, insofar as it binds all those who enjoy the use of reason; for, on the one hand, it is promulgated in the conscience of each rational being, and on the other it is enacted for every rational creature.

It is asked, however, whether it also reaches infants and the insane. The controversy had concerning this matter can be reconciled in this way: the natural law of itself affects them, insofar as they are radically and potentially rational; but it does not oblige them morally, under penalty of sin:¹ for only those are capable of moral obligation and imputability who enjoy the use of reason.

¹ Adults, however, using reason, sin when they impel them to act against the natural law.

227. (B) The natural law is immutable, in the sense that it cannot be changed in itself, although it admits some changes in its application.

(a) Indeed, it cannot be changed in itself: for it is founded in the very nature of the rational being, considered in its relations with the ultimate end; but the nature of things and their relations to the ultimate end always remain the same. - Yet in order rightly to understand immutability of this kind, we must consider the natural law not in some abstract and insufficiently determined principle, but with all the adjuncts which constitute morality. Thus homicide is prohibited by natural right, and nevertheless there are many cases in which it is licit to kill others. But to one attending even a little, it is clear that not every homicide is prohibited, but only unjust killing, or the killing of an innocent man by private authority, without necessity; consequently, when an unjust aggressor is killed, or a criminal is condemned to death, the natural law is not changed, since it in no way prohibits the legitimate defense of oneself or of society: the circumstances, the adjuncts, are changed; the law itself remains the same.

This is true also of secondary precepts; take, for example, polygamy, which is opposed to secondary natural right, and yet flourished among some Patriarchs; the law itself suffered no change in itself; for at every time it was contrary to the secondary ends of marriage, especially to the peace of families; but, since it did not hinder the primary end of marriage, namely the procreation and education of offspring, it could be permitted or tolerated, with means employed by which abuses would be prevented.¹

¹ Some older scholastics wrote that the natural law can be changed as to the more remote conclusions; they bring the example of a deposit, which by natural right ought to be returned, and nevertheless sometimes cannot be returned, because, for example, it is foreseen that the owner will use the deposited sword to kill an enemy. - But in a case of this kind there is no change of the natural law; for the law does not establish that a deposit is to be returned in every case, but forbids it to be returned at that time when the owner is going to abuse his own thing.

(b) But in its application it suffers some changes, when secondary precepts are in question. Thus God tolerated, under certain conditions, polygamy and divorce; for in those things which are not absolutely necessary, but only very useful, it can happen that, circumstances having changed, the application of the law, even if very useful, is not urged; for example, among the Jews divorce was tolerated, in order to avoid worse abuses, namely adultery or the killing of a spouse; but divorce of itself remained contrary to the perfect equality of the contract, to the best education of offspring, to the peace of families, etc.

228. (C) The natural law is not properly dispensable; and indeed, if God Himself does not change the natural law, no one on earth, not even the vicar of Christ himself, can dispense in this law.² The Church, however, can declare and interpret it, and that infallibly; for she received from Christ the power of teaching, and consequently of explaining and interpreting divine laws, by defining whether in these or those adjuncts they truly oblige. Thus the indissolubility of marriage pertains to secondary natural right; but the Church, by long-standing practice, has implicitly declared that this indissolubility does not belong to a marriage simply ratified.

² Likewise some older theologians said that some dispensation can be admitted in secondary natural law; they bring the example of the permission given to the Hebrews to carry off the goods of the Egyptians; but from this nothing can be inferred as to the thesis set forth: for since God is the supreme lord of all goods, He could transfer the ownership of certain goods from the Egyptians to the Hebrews, on account of the reason of the public good, or by way of compensation for the labors furnished.

229. The natural law certainly obliges all rational creatures as soon as it has been sufficiently promulgated in their conscience: for it is nothing other than the manifestation of divine reason and will, which all must obey.

(A) Now, on God's part, for sufficient promulgation two things are required and suffice: (a) that the most universal principles of the law can easily be known by him who enjoys the use of reason; (b) that from these, through natural means, internal and external, individual and social, those practical conclusions can be deduced which are necessary for the right institution of life. It is in no way required that all men be able to acquire these notions for themselves with equal facility, or know individual conclusions without admixture of error; for this would contradict the natural inequality and infirmity of men. Therefore it suffices that those who enjoy lesser ability can learn from those who are endowed with a more powerful mind the truths necessary for living rightly.

As to the fact, man is indeed physically capable, by his own powers, of knowing the natural law; but, as the Vatican says,¹ "it is to be attributed to divine revelation that those things which in divine matters are not of themselves inaccessible to human reason, in the present condition also of the human race, can be known by all expeditiously, with firm certitude, and with no admixture of error." - If man had remained in the state of pure nature, God would have furnished men, by a special natural concurrence, the means for knowing the natural law more expeditiously.

¹ Vatican, sess. III, cap. 2, de Revelatione; we explained this decree in Tr. de Vera Relig., n. 50.

230. (B) But on man's part, certain things are necessary for attaining knowledge of natural right: (a) positive means, namely one's own study of the truth, recourse to wiser men in more difficult matters, prayer to God, who is the Father of lights; for right reason suggests all these things; (b) negative means, or the removal of impediments, the chief of which are levity of mind and want of reflection, prejudices, depraved customs which cloud the mind, and evil counsels received from others.

If, notwithstanding those means seriously employed, knowledge of some natural precept could not be acquired morally, the ignorance is invincible; otherwise it is called vincible, according to what was explained above, n. 91-92.

231. From this it can be understood what sort of ignorance can be admitted concerning the precepts of natural right.

(A) The first and most universal principles of the natural law cannot be invincibly unknown by an adult who is fully in possession of reason. For these principles stand to practical reason as the first principles of demonstrations stand to speculative reason: both are per se known; thus no one in possession of himself can be ignorant that good is to be done and evil avoided.

232. (B) Particular precepts, which are deduced immediately and clearly from the first principles, cannot be invincibly unknown for a long time by one who uses suitably developed reason. Such are: honor your father, do not kill an innocent man, do not steal, etc. For these, since they flow from known principles by an obvious and easy inference, cannot be unknown for long by one whose reason has been sufficiently cultivated. It can indeed happen that, by prejudices imbued from infancy, by depraved persuasions and examples, and also by evil habits, the mind is clouded for some time; but, when someone in good faith pursues the truth, and thinks seriously about the rule of morals, at least a doubt arises concerning the liceity of acts contrary to these natural precepts; but doubt produces the obligation of inquiring further about the truth, and God does not deny the help of illumination to those who inquire. But if the search for truth is omitted, the ignorance is not without fault: and the gravity of this is judged from what was said, n. 95-97.

233. (C) Remote conclusions of the natural law can be invincibly unknown even by one who uses suitably developed reason. For conclusions of this kind can be known only after diligent study has been premised, and with great difficulty; wherefore they are not rarely unknown by those who cannot diligently devote themselves to the study of truth, whether because of weakness of mind, or because of lack of time, or the necessity of attending to other matters. Moreover, in the more remote conclusions of the natural law, there is often some obscurity and uncertainty: for the more we recede from first principles, the more frequent is the danger of erring or at least of doubting. Hence among theologians themselves it is often disputed whether this or that precept pertains to natural right; thus, for example, Scotus taught that the precepts of the second table are not of natural right,¹ while most others hold otherwise; it is disputed whether there is a natural obligation of referring all acts to God, whether every lie is evil per se, etc.; what wonder, therefore, if the unlearned are ignorant of many other things?

¹ Scotus, in III Sentent., dist. 37.

In fact confessors, who have frequented the sacred tribunal, know very well that certain penitents labor under the greatest ignorance concerning the more remote conclusions of the natural law, for example concerning the malice of internal acts,² or even of an officious lie, of perjury for preserving life,³ of certain acts against chastity,⁴ etc. - Therefore penitents are to be questioned prudently, treated benignly when they are in ignorance, - and instructed discreetly.

² Cf. Lacroix, lib. I, n. 135; St. Alphonsus, De conscientia, n. 9.

³ Sanchez, De praeceptis Decal., lib. I, c. 16, n. 33.

⁴ St. Thomas, Quaest. disp., de malo, q. 3, a. 8, thinks it can happen that someone invincibly does not know the prohibition of fornication. Cf. Ball. P., I, n. 48.

1. DEFINITION. —By the moral law of nature (lex moralis naturalis) is understood the sum-total of those ethical precepts which God has implanted in the rational nature of man. It is that law which St. Paul says is "written in the hearts" of men,¹ in order to enable them to attain their natural destiny as free beings,² capable of doing right or wrong.

¹ Rom. II, 15. —Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, God: His Knowability, Essence, Attributes, pp. 18 sqq. —St. Augustine, De Div. Quaest., 83, qu. 33, 2: "The natural law has been, as it were, transcribed into the rational soul, so that in the conduct of this life and in earthly customs men may preserve images of such distributions." (Migne, P. L., XL, 36). —IDEM, Epist., CLVII (a/. 89), n. 15: "There is also a law in the reason of man, who uses the judgment of liberty, naturally written in the heart, by which it is suggested that each person should not do to another what he himself does not wish to suffer." (P. L., XXXIII, 681).

² Cfr. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 91, art. 2: "The natural law is nothing other than the participation of the eternal law in a rational creature." —Ibid., qu. 93, art. 1: "The eternal law is nothing other than the reason of divine wisdom insofar as it directs all acts and movements."

The moral law of nature is promulgated by reason.

The content or object of this law are the general conditions under which man lives as an ethical being, especially his relations to God, to himself, and to his fellowmen.³

³ Rom. I, 18-25; Tob. IV, 16; Matth. VII, 12.

Though present from the beginning, the moral law of nature at first manifests itself but vaguely in human reason, but with the growth of that faculty the concept of law and its obligatory force is more clearly and fully brought home to the individual.

2. EXISTENCE. —The existence of the moral law of nature can be proved from the Old and the New Testament.

It is of this natural law, above all others, that Jehovah says: "This commandment that I command thee this day is not above thee, nor far off from thee. Nor is it in heaven, that thou shouldst say: Which of us can go up to heaven to bring it unto us, and we may hear and fulfil it in work? Nor is it beyond the sea: that thou mayest excuse thyself, and say: Which of us can cross the sea, and bring it unto us: that we may hear, and do that which is commanded? But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it." ⁴ More definite is the teaching of St. Paul, who says: "For when the gentiles, who have not the [positive divine] law, do by nature those things that are of the law; these having not the law [i. e., the positive law] are a law to themselves: who shew the work [i. e., substance] of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them, and their thoughts between themselves, accusing, or also defending one another." ⁵ Therefore, though the positive law of God had not been revealed to the gentiles, they knew and observed its essence in the Decalogue. The law was implanted in their very nature and revealed itself to them.

⁴ Deut. XXX, 1-14; cfr. Jer. XXI, 31-33; Wisd. IV, 20; Matth. VII, 12.

⁵ Rom. II, 14-15. —Cfr. Th. Simar, Theologie des hl. Paulus, 2nd ed., pp. 80 sqq.; J. Quirmbach, Die Lehre des hl. Paulus von der natürlichen Gotteserkenntnis und dem natürlichen Sittengesetz, Freiburg 1906, pp. 60 sqq.

The existence of the moral law of nature is attested by human consciousness. Cicero says that the natural law is co-eval with the divine intellect, and that all men are imbued with it.⁶ Ecclesiastical Tradition on the subject is so constant and uniform that there is no need of developing it.⁷

⁶ De Legibus, II, 4: "It arose together with the divine mind. Therefore the true and sovereign law, fitted for commanding and forbidding, is the right reason of supreme Jove." Cfr. Pro Milone, 10: "It is an unwritten, inborn law for which we were not taught but made, not instructed but imbued."

⁷ On the teaching of Clement of Alexandria and Origen see the monographs of W. Capitaine, Die Moral des Klemens v. Alexandrien, Paderborn 1903, pp. 225 sqq., and De Origenis Ethica, Münster 1898, pp. 76 sqq. —St. Ambrose says (De Abraham, II, c. 11, n. 98): "Let [the wise man] know nothing except to live according to nature, in whose institution and order is the law of God." (Migne, P. L., XIV, 500). —IDEM, De Fuga Saec., c. 3, n. 15: "The law is twofold, natural and written: the natural law in the heart, the written law on tablets." (P. L., XIV, 577). — IDEM, Epist., 73, n. 2-3: "The Apostle also teaches that there is a natural law in our hearts, for he wrote that often 'the Gentiles naturally do the things that are of the law,' and so forth. That law therefore is not written but is inborn; it is not acquired by any lesson, but is expressed in individuals from a certain overflowing fountain of nature and is drawn in by human minds. " (P. L., XVI, 1251). —On the teaching of St. Augustine, who treats of the natural law very exhaustively in different parts of his writings, see H. Oberrauch, De Lege Dei Aeterna ad Mentem S. Augustini, Innsbruck 1776, pp. 14 sqq. —The Catechism of the Council of Trent (III, c. 1, qu. 3) says: "There is no one who does not perceive that a law has been implanted in his soul by God." —Pius IX, in his Encyclical Letter of Aug. 10, 1863, declares: "The natural law has been engraved by God upon the hearts of all."

God Himself is the author of the moral law of nature. The organ of the natural revelation through which He promulgates it, is human reason.

Reason, therefore, is not the author of law.⁸ Reason is not autonomous; it cannot make laws independently of God,⁹ but is merely the organ through which the Supreme Lawgiver proclaims His will.¹⁰ It was in this sense that St. Augustine called the moral law of nature "the law of reason which not even iniquity itself is able to destroy."¹¹ u The sum-total of the ordinances contained in the moral law of nature is often called ''the natural law." ¹² The existence of a natural law in this sense is admitted by all Catholic philosophers and theologians. But there is a controversy regarding the question whether the natural law embodies practicable rules for all the social relations of men, binding them prior to and outside of positive, especially human, legislation.¹³

⁸ Cfr. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 91, art. 3, ad 2: "Human reason in itself is not the rule of morals, but the principles naturally implanted in it are certain general rules and measures of all the things that are to be done by man." — The Syllabus of Pius IX condemns the following assertion (prop. 3): "Human reason, without any regard whatever for God, is the sole arbiter of truth and falsehood, of good and evil; it is a law to itself and by its natural powers suffices to care for the good of men and peoples." (Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 1703).

⁹ Cfr. Deut. VI, 13; Matth. IV, 10; Luke XXII, 42; John IV, 34; VI, 36.

¹⁰ Cfr. Saint Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 90, art. 4, ad 1: "The promulgation of the law of nature consists in this very fact: that God implanted it in human minds to be known."

¹¹ "Lex rationis, quam ne ipsa quidem delet iniquitas." Epist., 157 (al. 80), n. 18 (Migne, P. L., XXXIII, 683); cfr. Confess., II, c. 4 (P. L., XXXII, 678).

¹² Ius naturale.

¹³ Cfr. Theodore Meyer, S.J., Die Grundsätze der Sittlichkeit und des Rechts, Freiburg 1868, pp. 147 sqq.; V. Cathrein, S.J., Moralphilosophie, Vol. I, 4th ed., pp. 485 sqq.

READINGS. —Theodore Meyer, S.J., Institutiones Iuris Naturalis, Vol. I, 2nd ed., Freiburg 1906.—G. von Hertling, Kleine Schriften zur Zeitgeschichte und Politik, Freiburg 1897, pp. 168 sqq. —C. Gutberlet, Ethik und Naturrecht, 3rd ed., pp. 123 sqq. —Jos. Rickaby, S.J., Moral Philosophy, pp. 133 sqq. —J. Haring, Der Rechts- und Gesetzesbegriff, Graz 1899, pp. 25 sqq. —V. Cathrein, S.J., Recht, Naturrecht und positives Recht, Freiburg 1901, pp. 101 sqq. —IDEM, in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. V, pp. 562 sq. —R. I. Holaind, S.J., Natural Law and Legal Practice, New York 1899, pp. 37 sqq. —M. Cronin, The Science of Ethics, Vol. I, pp. 607 sqq. —A. Tanquerey, S.S., Synopsis Theologiae Moralis, Vol. II, pp. 123 sqq. —A. Sweens, Theologia Moralis Fundamentalis, 2nd ed., pp. 139 sqq.

1. The natural law is universal, that is to say, it embraces all the actions of man.¹ Because of this universality it is the foundation and measure of all positive law, divine as well as human, ecclesiastical as well as civil.² No law is valid unless it conforms to the moral law of nature. Hence it is false to say that politicians and diplomats are bound by a different law than that which governs private life.

¹ Cfr. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 93, art. 1: "The eternal law is nothing other than the reason of divine wisdom insofar as it directs all acts and movements."

² Cfr. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 99, art. 2, ad 1: "Just as grace presupposes nature, so the divine law must presuppose the natural law." —Ibid., qu. 95, art. 2: "Every humanly established law has the character of law to the extent that it is derived from the law of nature. But if in anything it disagrees with the natural law, it will no longer be law, but a corruption of law." —F. Suarez, De Legibus, II, c. 9, n. 10: "Nature is the foundation both of grace and of every human law. The natural principles by which man ought to be governed in moral matters are so general that they virtually comprehend every obligation, so that none can be applied to man except through those principles." (Opera Omnia, V, 120).

The natural law, moreover, is universal because it binds all men. Its divine Author recognizes no "super-man." No human being is "beyond good and bad," as Nietzsche would have it, but all without exception are subject to the precepts of the moral law.³ Human nature is essentially the same in all men, and hence all are equal before the natural law without distinction of time, place, sex, or intellectual attainments. "The natural law" the Schoolmen were wont to say, "is one for all."⁴

³ Pius IX condemned the following propositions in his famous Syllabus (No. 56): "Moral laws do not need divine sanction, and it is by no means necessary that human laws conform to natural right or receive their binding force from God." No. 64: "Both the violation of any most sacred oath and any wicked and shameful action contrary to the eternal law is not only not to be condemned, but is altogether lawful and to be extolled with the highest praises when it is done for love of country." (Denzinger-Bannwart, numbers 1756 and 1764).

⁴ Cfr. Cicero, De Republica, III, 22: ''Nor will there be one law at Rome and another at Athens, one now and another later; rather, one eternal and immutable law will embrace all peoples at every time, and God will be, as it were, the one common master and ruler of all, the discoverer, judge, and giver of this law. Whoever does not obey Him will flee from himself and, having spurned human nature, will by this very fact pay the greatest penalties." — St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 91, art. 5, ad 3: "The natural law directs man according to certain common precepts in which both the perfect and the imperfect agree, and therefore it is one for all. But the divine law also directs man in certain particular matters toward which the perfect and imperfect are not similarly disposed, and therefore the law had to be twofold." —On the foolish notion of the "superman" see W. Schneider, Göttliche Weltordnung, 2nd ed., pp. 165 sqq., 233 sqq.; F. Sawicki, Das Problem der Persönlichkeit und des Übermenschen, Paderborn 1909.

In view of the fact that the light of reason was darkened by the fall of our first parents, we must distinguish between primary and secondary precepts of the natural law.⁵ The knowledge of the former (prima et communissima principia), though often impaired by sin, cannot be effaced from the human conscience. Man may, however, through internal and external influences, so completely lose all knowledge of the secondary principles of the natural law (praecepta secundaria) that he is led to commit evil actions without being aware of their true character.⁶ Such actions are morally guiltless, which is but another way of saying that with regard to the secondary precepts of the natural law there may be what theologians call ignorantia invincibilis et inculpabilis. ⁷ Many writers distinguish three species of moral precepts:

⁵ Cfr. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 94, art. 6: "To the natural law belong first certain most general precepts known to all, and secondly certain more particular secondary precepts, which are as it were conclusions closely derived from the principles."

⁶ Cfr. Tertullian, De Anima, c. 41: "There is also in the soul that principal good, that divine and genuine good which is properly natural. For what is from God is not so much extinguished as overshadowed. It can be overshadowed because it is not God; it cannot be extinguished because it is from God." (Corpus Script. Eccles. Lat., Vol. XX, pp. 1, 368). —St. Augustine, Confess., II, c. 4: "The law written in the hearts of men, which not even iniquity itself erases." (Migne, P. L., XXXII, 678). —St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 94, art. 6: "As regards those common principles, the natural law can in no way be erased from the hearts of men universally; it is nevertheless erased in a particular matter of action insofar as reason is prevented from applying the common principle to the particular action because of concupiscence or some other passion. As regards the other secondary precepts, however, the natural law can be erased from the hearts of men either because of evil persuasions—in the same way that errors concerning necessary conclusions also occur in speculative matters—or because of depraved customs and corrupt habits, as among some peoples robberies, or even vices contrary to nature, were not considered sins, as the Apostle also says." (Rom. I, 18-32).

⁷ Among the propositions condemned by Alexander VIII, Dec. 7, 1690, is the following (prop. 2): "Although invincible ignorance of the natural law be granted, in the state of fallen nature this ignorance does not of itself excuse the person acting from formal sin." (Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 1291). —On the theological controversy regarding the ignorantia invincibilis, cfr. K. Werner, Franz Suarez, Vol. I, pp. 354 sqq.

(1) First, highest, and most general precepts (praecepta primaria), as, "We must do good and avoid evil," "We must worship God," etc.; (2) Secondary precepts (praecepta secundaria), derived by direct deduction from the first, as: "We must not blaspheme," "We must not lie," etc.; (3) Remote precepts (praecepta remota), which are deducible from the first indirectly, by a process of logical reasoning, as: "It is wrong to practice usury," "Lost articles should be restored to their rightful owners," etc.

With regard to precepts of the second class (secundaria), persons intellectually undeveloped or unfamiliar with the common teaching of morality may occasionally err, though only for a time. The precepts of the third class are easily subject to invincible, and therefore guiltless, error.

It is impossible, however, to draw a hard and fast line between the precepts of the second and those of the third class. Some theologians (Scotus, Gerson, etc.) have held that the unity and indissolubility of marriage, the right of private property, and other important principles, cannot be deduced with certainty from the primary precepts of the natural law.⁸

⁸ Cfr. A. Stöckl, Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, Vol. II, pp. 852 sq.

2. With respect to its binding force, the moral law of nature is absolute or unchangeable, that is to say, it cannot be abrogated by positive divine or human law.⁹ Not even God can change it or dispense from its precepts. The reason is that, as He commands man absolutely through the voice of conscience to do good and avoid evil, it would be a contradiction were He to permit anyone to disobey that voice.¹⁰

⁹ Cfr. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 94, art. 5; V. Cathrein, S.J., Moralphilosophie, Vol. I, 4th ed., pp. 401 sqq.

¹⁰ Cfr. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 100, art. 8, ad 2: "The Apostle says (2 Tim. II, 13): 'God remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.' But He would deny Himself if He removed the order of His justice, since He Himself is His justice. And therefore God cannot dispense in this matter so that it would be lawful for man not to be rightly ordered toward God or not to be subject to the order of His justice, even in those matters according to which men are ordered toward one another. "

Those who hold that God can dispense from the precepts of the natural law, regard that law as an arbitrary fiat or else think there is no other way of explaining certain incidents recorded in the Old Testament (the sacrifice of Abraham, the appropriation of the golden vessels by the Israelites, the marriage of Osee,¹¹ etc.). The former assumption is manifestly false. The latter may be characterized as a clumsy subterfuge. The exegetical difficulties which it was devised to meet, are real; but they cannot be solved by the assumption that God, as the Sovereign Lord and Lawgiver, can dispense from the precepts of the natural law and arbitrarily dispose of the lives and property of men.¹² For, though there are some technical difficulties in the text,¹³ it is clearly impossible for God to dispense any man from the natural law because that law is an effluence of His voluntas ordinata, i. e., His will as governed by His wisdom and benevolence.¹⁴ Whatever the natural law commands is good and whatever it forbids is evil, not because it is commanded or forbidden by lawful authority, but because it is in conformity with, or opposed to, man's rational nature; or, as the Scholastics say, "Things are not good because they are commanded, but are commanded because they are good."

¹¹ Gen. XXII, 2; Ex. I, 15-21; III, 22; XI, 2; XII, 35-36; Os. I, 2.

¹² Cfr. St. Augustine, Quaestiones in Heptateuch., VII, qu. 36 (Migne, P. L., XXXIV, 803); IDEM, De Civitate Dei, I, c. 21 (P. L., XLI, 35); IDEM, De Divers. Quaest., 83, qu. 53 (P. L., XL, 34-38); St. Bernard, Liber de Praec. et Dispens., c. 3, n. 6-8 (P. L., CLXXXII, 864); St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 100, art. 8, ad 3.

¹³ With regard to the sacrifice of Abraham cfr. P. Scholz, Die hl. Altertümer des Volkes Israel, Vol. II, Ratisbon 1868, pp. 119 sq.; on the marriage of Osee, W. Riedel, Alttestamentliche Untersuchungen, Leipsic 1902, pp. 1 sqq. (The prophet's consort was a servant of Baal and an idolatress, and in this sense is called "a wife of fornications"). On Ex. III, 22 see F. Bennewitz, Die Sünde im alten Israel, Leipsic 1907, pp. 70 sqq.—Cfr. Ph. Kneib, Die "Jenseitsmoral," pp. 200 sqq.

¹⁴ Cfr. Rom. VII, 14; Eph. I, 1 1; Kneib, Die "Jenseitsmoral," pp. 38 sqq.; P. Minges, O.F.M., Der Gottesbegriff des Duns Scotus, pp. 101 sqq., 120 sqq.

To this consideration may be added another. God's action furnishes the ideal for the moral conduct of men. "Be ye holy, because I the Lord your God am holy."¹⁵ He is absolute goodness. "One is good, God."¹⁶ 1G Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Trinity, is the pattern-exemplar of all perfection, "as a kind of law and living justice."¹⁷ Were God, therefore, even in one single instance, to dispense from the natural law, He would set up a different rule of conduct for Himself and His rational creatures, and thus confuse the minds of men, give scandal, and render His own example ineffective.¹⁸

¹⁵ Lev. XIX, 2; cfr. Lev. XI, 44; Matth. V, 48; i Pet. I, 16.

¹⁶ Matth. XIX, 17: "Unus est bonus, Deus."

¹⁷ "... quasi quaedam lex et quaedam iustitia animata." (St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 3a, qu. 59, art. 2, ad 1).

¹⁸ St. Thomas, De Veritate, qu. 23, art. 6: "The will does not have the character of the first rule, but is a right rule. For it is directed by reason and intellect, not only in us but in God. ... To say that justice depends upon sheer will is to say that the divine will does not proceed according to the order of wisdom, which is blasphemous." —IDEM, Summa Theol., 1a, qu. 21, art. 1, ad 2: "Since the good understood is the object of the will, it is impossible for God to will anything except what the reason of His wisdom has. This reason is like a law of justice, according to which His will is right and just. Hence what He does according to His will He does justly, just as we too act justly when we act according to law. We, however, act according to the law of someone superior, whereas God is a law to Himself.

To-day not a few who reject the teaching of Christianity demand an ethical system in which man is his own law. This demand is to some extent justified. Man has a right to insist that the moral yoke imposed on him should conform to his rational nature. But reason is not the highest and final authority. Man, far from being independent and autonomous, is a creature subject to God. On the other hand we must not exaggerate the heteronomous side of Christian ethics. The moral law is not an arbitrary fiat of the Almighty which demands blind obedience without regard to the dictates of reason. Heteronomy in this sense would be unworthy of human nature and of God. In matter of fact Christian morality is by no means onesidedly heteronomous. It combines autonomy with heteronomy by teaching that, though God is the Author of all law, His will is not arbitrary, but based on His wisdom. Human reason being a reflection of the divine Intellect, its dictates must coincide with the laws of God. In other words, the will of God is promulgated in our rational nature, which thereby becomes for us the proximate, though only a secondary, source of the moral law. Man sins when he acts against his reason or conviction. But reason does not get its authority from itself. God, from whom all authority comes, has inscribed the natural law into the hearts of his rational creatures.

Thus, according to the Catholic view, man serves God by obeying the dictates of his reason, and morality is alike autonomous and heteronomous.

READINGS. —E. Sawicki, Wert und Würde der Persönlichkeit im Christentum, Cologne 1906. —IDEM, Das Problem der Persönlichkeit und des Uebermenschen, Paderborn 1909. —Ph. Kneib, Die "Heteronomie" der christlichen Moral, pp. 17 sqq. —IDEM, Die "Jenseitsmoral" im Kampfe um ihre Grundlagen, pp. 7 sqq. —M. Cronin, The Science of Ethics, Vol. I, pp. 615 sqq. —E. Müller, Theol. Mor., Vol. I, 5th ed., pp. 137 sqq.—W. McDonald, The Principles of Moral Science, Dublin 1904, pp. 92 sqq.

— I. Notion. 1. Natural law is "nothing other than the participation of eternal law in the rational creature" ¹. Participation is had through the light of natural reason, by which man knows that the things which God has ordered have been imposed upon him, and, according to that primary ordering, he can also provide for himself and others through secondary orderings. But natural reason, of itself, can know only the order proportioned to human nature. Wherefore natural law is circumscribed by that part of eternal law which places an order congruent with non-elevated nature, and therefore an order hypothetically, that is, supposing creation, necessary: it cannot reach the higher order, which contains and perfects the former.

2. Natural law founds every other law: not only human law, because the principle of obliging cannot be in man ², but also positive divine law. That I may be held by this, it is necessary that, in my nature, I first have read the dominion by which God possesses me and has my will subject to Himself.

¹ St. Th. 1, 2, q. 91 art. 2, c.

² St. Th. 1, 2, q. 93 art. 3.

— II. Promulgation. Natural law, since it is the very order of nature, has been promulgated in human nature itself. Wherefore, although in the present condition of the human race it can have obscure parts, even according to those parts it obliges us all in first act, and ignorance of them only brings excuse to the person obligated of himself.

That is, contrary to what Lehmkuhl thinks, cf. I, 177, it has been promulgated whole. For by whatever way I know that some such thing is required by the natural order, already I read it in my nature, or in the authentic instrument of promulgation. From the beginning it is wholly in us habitually ¹. We think it must be denied that there are parts strictly impervious to the human intellect: these would not pertain to natural law. But if, with respect to the parts which are now obscure to us and for which revelation is morally necessary for us, natural law had to be called not promulgated, those parts, after revelation, would pertain to positive divine right and not to natural right: which no one will admit.

¹ Cf. St. Th. 1, 2, q. 91 art. 1 ad 3, and the response to the contrary.

— III. Divulgation. In the present condition of the human race, divine revelation is morally necessary so that natural law can be known sufficiently expeditiously, sufficiently certainly, sufficiently fully, and sufficiently generally. But the revelation by which that sufficient knowledge was given is now at the same time or identically revelation made for a supernatural end.

But even after revelation, if many things are plain to all, many others must be learned by the less instructed from the more learned, and many remain long controverted and doubtful even to the learned themselves.

Concerning those natural duties which of themselves are known to all, both these things are usefully noted.

1. Besides certain things which are so proximate to the first principles that they cannot be unknown, there are not a few conclusions, even not so remote from the first principles, which, at least outside the matter of justice, by accident are unknown by many for some time; and this ignorance can also, because of depraved customs, be increased, so that, for example, simple fornication is everywhere not held to be illicit. Cf. St. Th., 1, 2, q. 94 art. 4 c. and art. 6.

2. But the things which are known by all become known not only from a higher principle to which they can be reduced ², but also are perceived in themselves by direct intuition. Hence it happens that, concerning many things which are not doubted, the demonstration can be laborious and controverted: for example, concerning the grave malice of every voluntary pollution, concerning the duty of gratitude.

² St. Th. 1, 2, q. 94 art. 2.

— IV. Firmness. Nothing prevents many things from being added to natural law. But from it nothing can be subtracted. Wherefore the things which are imposed by natural law are immutable. But the matter of certain precepts can be placed, some in human power, some in divine power.

By the use of such power, it sometimes happens that, in fewer cases, a precept seems to cease negatively or even contrariwise.

Thus the common destination of material things brings it about that public power, for just causes, can transfer dominion from one person to another, and that things need not be returned to an owner who asks for them unreasonably. In these cases, the duty of returning the thing to the owner will not press; indeed it can be impeded by a stronger duty. God Himself, not as legislator but as lord, can bring it about that the note of homicide or of fornication is absent from a certain killing or from a certain intercourse, 1, 2, q. 94 art. 4, c.; art. 5, c.

But those apparent changes or exceptions furnish us no reason why, by our private authority as men, we should restrict the absolute dictates of natural law when it is a question of matter which is withdrawn from our power, such as, for example, the human person. Thus it will never be lawful, by private authority, to kill a man.

Nor, in the same matters, can cessation of the end on account of which, for example, pollution and fornication are prohibited, be alleged so that someone may think himself immune from the order to be observed. For we are subject not to the end alone but, and indeed most of all, to the very order established on account of the end. We find the title of our obligation less in the end, which can accidentally fail, than in the nature whose order is inviolable for the individuals who participate in that nature. That is, God does not command human nature through individual men, so that the immediate obligation of individuals would produce the obligation of nature, but He commands individuals through nature. To remain in the examples adduced, the precept is not only: "take care that men be duly multiplied, that offspring be prudently educated," but it is especially: "preserve the order of nature, which has been constituted for that purpose." Besides, since we bear in ourselves, toward the natural end, an intrinsic disposition or ordering, one already begins to act against the end who disturbs that disposition in himself by violation of that order, so that, whatever may happen, there is nevertheless already sin against the end of nature. Finally, the end which in some case seems to cease is not the adequate end, but generally is already seen by human reason itself to be only partial. And who are we to assign an adequate end to the work of God?

Thus, when St. Thomas demonstrates that fornication is a grave sin from the fact that it is against the good of offspring, the holy Doctor neither is ignorant of nor intends to deny the many other evils which extra-marital intercourse carries with it.

That conclusion is confirmed by the dangers of delusion. The most approved theologians agree in it, especially those of the golden age of the scholastics of the Middle Ages, who therefore, in demonstrating the grave and absolute obligations of natural duties, did not experience that difficulty which has made even excellent theologians of our age more or less hesitant.

For this reason, concerning natural law itself, St. Thomas could write: "that which falls under the determination of law is judged according to what commonly happens, and not according to what can happen in some case" (2, 2, q. 154, art. 2).

Kant also confirms this in his own way, when he proposes this perpetual rule of acting as necessary: "Act so that your action can be regarded as a universal norm." (Krit. der praktischen Vernunft, 1 T., 1 B., 1 Haupts., § 7.)

— V. What things are contained in natural law. All the precepts of natural law are founded in that highest natural precept of which there is no ignorance: "Good is to be done, and evil avoided." That is, by natural law all those things are prescribed to be done and avoided which reason naturally apprehends to be determinately human goods or evils ¹.

Those precepts themselves can be variously distributed or set forth in a logical order.

Thus, taking man as a creature redeemed by Christ, we see that man, insofar as he is a creature, ought to do those things which glorify God; but insofar as he is redeemed by Christ, that his actions ought to redound to the glory of Christ. Then, in natural inclinations, according as they are regulated by reason, we detect that there pertain to natural law those things which regard the proper preservation of man, the propagation of the human race and the due education of offspring, higher truth and social life: which are the inclinations of man as he is a substance desiring its nature, as he is an animal, and as he is a rational animal. For those things to which we incline are at the same time an end and a good, since the aspect of good is in the end. Cf. St. Thomas, 1, 2, q. 94 art. 2.

The same precepts can also be proposed as certain corollaries of principles or of more general precepts. Thus from the precepts of the Decalogue many other precepts are gathered.

There are also postulates required by the end for which the law itself was constituted. Thus we are taught by the very end of every law, which is that we have charity with God and with other men, that we must act in a spirit of charity ².

It also appears that the order of nature is composed of these three orders: the order which man must preserve toward God; the order which he must maintain toward neighbor; and the order which he must care for in himself. And the various precepts which are customarily recited are referred to these principles and are illustrated by these principles.

Hence the order of nature is shown to be entirely essential, insofar as it rests upon essences themselves, and at the same time it is nevertheless understood how it has less substantial parts. Thus, to the integrity of man in himself there pertain certain particular orders without which, nevertheless, man is seen to remain substantially ordered in himself. Cf. what is to be said concerning mortal and venial sin.

¹ St. Thomas, 1, 2, q. 94 art. 2.

² 1, 2, q. 99 art. 1 ad 2.

— VI. Subject of natural law. Every man is subject to natural law. Wherefore, although children and the perpetually insane cannot formally sin, they can commit material sins; and human nature can be violated by others in them. Wherefore they are to be blamed who are the cause why shameful things are done by children; and while they abuse childish simplicity, they commit a certain kind of stuprum.

— VII. Sanction of natural law. "Wherever there is some due order to an end, it is necessary that that order lead to the end, but withdrawal from the order excludes the end ¹." Lehmkuhl, I, 279, confirms the same in these words: "The divine will left freedom to rational creatures, here we take man, in such a way that, according as they were freely to conform themselves to the divine will or to resist it, they would consult their own happiness or misery." And indeed, eternal law, of which natural law is a participation, in its concept denotes the ordering by which God recalls all things to Himself, and at the same time brings creatures to their proper perfection. Therefore, by whatever reason or proportion the free creature withdraws from that order, by the same he virtually chooses withdrawal from his own perfection or good and beatitude, and from God. And opposition of contrariety brings aversion both from God and from one's own perfection or beatitude. And since the natural end is contained eminently in the supernatural end, in whatever manner one withdraws from the natural end, in the same manner one withdraws from the supernatural. Therefore, in this connatural sanction of natural law, we detect a certain immediate indication or explanation of mortal and venial sin, concerning which later; and already we understand in what way sinful man himself is the maker of his own ruin. Cf. St. Th., c. Gentiles, book 3, cap. 140 and following.

Therefore by its very essence, natural law in its entirety is moral. And because that law imposes the whole order of reason, that whole order also must be said to be sanctioned by natural law.

This also must be observed concerning the sanction of divine law. That sanction must be perfect, insofar as it is proportioned to every force and difficulty of the precept, so that it can never be truly useful or blessed for man to withdraw from that law; but there is no need that in fact it obtain an almost universal observance of the law. The reason is that, whether men observe or violate the divine law, the primary end of that law, the external glory of God, will in no way be frustrated. Human laws, on the contrary, must be practically efficacious, lest they be useless.

¹ Summa contra Gentiles, III, 140.

The science of Medicine is progressive; genius irradiates its onward march. Few other sciences have advanced as rapidly as it has done within the last half century. Hence it has happened that in many of its branches text-books have not kept pace with the knowledge of its leading minds. Such is confessedly the case in the department of Medical Jurisprudence. This very term, Medical Jurisprudence, as now used in colleges, is generally acknowledged to be a misnomer. There is no reason why it should be so used. The leading medical writers and practitioners are sound at present on the moral principles that ought to direct the conduct of physicians. It is high time that their principles be more generally and distinctly inculcated on the younger members, and especially on the students of their noble profession. To promote this object is the purpose aimed at by the author. His brief volume is not intended to be substituted for existing text-books on Medical Jurisprudence, but to supply some chapters imperatively demanded by science for the thorough treatment of this important subject.

Gentlemen:—When I thoughtfully consider the subject on which I am to address you in this course of lectures, i.e., Medical Jurisprudence, I am deeply impressed with the dignity and the importance of the matter.

The study of medicine is one of the noblest pursuits to which human talent can be devoted. It is as far superior to geology, botany, entomology, zoölogy, and a score of kindred sciences as its subject, the body of man, the visible lord of the creation, is superior to the subject of all other physical sciences, which do so much honor to the power of the human mind; astronomy, which explores the vast realms of space, traces the courses and weighs the bulks of its mighty orbs; chemistry, which analyzes the minutest atoms of matter; physics, which discovers the properties, and mechanics, which utilizes the powers of an endless variety of bodies—all these noble sciences together are of less service to man than that study which directly promotes the welfare of his own structure, guards his very life, fosters the vigor of his youth, promotes the physical and mental, aye, even the moral, powers of his manhood, sustains his failing strength, restores his shattered health, preserves the integrity of his aging faculties, and throughout his whole career supplies those conditions without which both enjoyment and utility of life would be impossible.

The physician, indeed, is one of the most highly valued benefactors of mankind. Therefore he has ever been held in honor among his fellow-men; by barbarous tribes he is looked upon as a connecting link between the visible and the invisible world; in the most civilized communities, from the time of Hippocrates, the father of medicine, to the present day, he has been held in deeper veneration than the members of almost any other profession; even in the sacred oracles of Revelation his office is spoken of with the highest commendation: “Honor the physician,” writes the inspired penman, “for the need thou hast of him; for the Most High hath created him. The skill of the physician shall lift up his head, and in the sight of great men he shall be praised. The Most High has created medicines out of the earth, and a wise man shall not abhor them. The virtue of these things is come to the knowledge of men, and the Most High has given knowledge to men, that He may be honored in His wonders. By these He shall cure and shall allay their pains, and of these the apothecary shall make sweet confections, and shall make up ointments of health, and of His works there shall be no end.” (Ecclus. xxxiii. 1–7).

It is well to remind you thus, gentlemen, at the opening of this new year of studies, of the excellence of your intended profession; for you cannot help seeing that a science so noble should be studied for a noble purpose. In this age of utilitarianism, it is, alas! too common an evil that the most excellent objects are coveted exclusively for lower purposes. True, no one can find fault with a physician for making his profession, no matter how exalted, a means of earning an honest livelihood and a decent competency; but to ambition this career solely for its pecuniary remuneration would be to degrade one of the most sublime vocations to which man may aspire. There is unfortunately too much of this spirit abroad in our day. There are too many who talk and act as if the one highest and worthiest ambition of life were to make as large a fortune in as short a time and in as easy a way as possible. If this spirit of utilitarianism should become universal, the sad consequence of it to our civilization would be incalculable. Fancy what would become of the virtue of patriotism if officers and men had no higher ambition than to make money! As a patriotic army is the strongest defence of a nation’s rights, so a mercenary army is a dreadful danger to a people’s liberty, a ready tool in the hand of a tyrant; as heroism with consequent glory is the noble attribute of a patriot, so a mercenary spirit is a stigma on the career of any public officer. We find no fault with an artisan, a merchant, or a common laborer if he estimate the value of his toil by the pecuniary advantages attached to it; for that is the nature of such ordinary occupations, since for man labor is the ordinary and providential condition of existence. But in the higher professions we always look for loftier aspirations. This distinction of rewards for different avocations is so evident that it has passed into the very terms of our language: we speak of “wages” as due to common laborers, of a “salary” as paid to those who render more regular and more intellectual services; of a “fee” as appointed for official and professional actions; and the money paid to a physician or a lawyer is distinguished from ordinary fees by the especial name of “honorary” or “honorarium.” This term evidently implies, not only that special honor is due to the recipients of such fees, but besides that the services they render are too noble to be measured in money values, and therefore the money offered is rather in the form of a tribute to a benefactor than of pecuniary compensation for a definite amount of service rendered.

Wages may be measured by the time bestowed, or by the effect produced, or by the wants of the laborer to lead a life of reasonable comfort; a salary is measured by the period of service; but an honorary is not dependent on time employed, or on needs of support, or on effect produced, but it is a tribute of gratitude due to a special benefactor. Whatever practical arrangements may be necessary or excusable in special circumstances, this is the ideal which makes the medical profession so honorable in society.

From these and many other considerations that might be added, it is evident, gentlemen, that in the pursuit of the distinguished career for which you are preparing, you are expected to make yourselves the benefactors of your fellow-men. Now, in order to do so, it will not suffice for you to understand the nature of the various diseases which flesh is heir to, together with the specific powers of every drug described in works on materia medica. The knowledge of anatomy and surgery, and of the various branches that are taught by the many professors with whom I have the honor of being associated in the work of your medical education, no matter how fully that knowledge be mastered, is not sure by itself to make you benefactors to your fellow-men, unless your conduct in the management of all your resources of science and art be directed to procure the real welfare of your patients. Just as a skilful politician may do more harm than good to his country if he direct his efforts to improper ends, or make use of disgraceful means; as a dishonest lawyer may be more potent for the perversion than the maintenance of justice among his fellow-citizens; so likewise an able physician may abuse the beneficent resources of his profession to procure inferior advantages at the sacrifice of moral rights and superior blessings.

Your career, gentlemen, to be truly useful to others and pursued with safety and benefit to yourselves, needs to be directed by a science whose principles it will be my task to explain in this course of lectures—the science of Medical Jurisprudence.

It is the characteristic of science to trace results to their causes. The science of Jurisprudence investigates the causes or principles of law. It is defined as “the study of law in connection with its underlying principles.” Medical Jurisprudence, in its wider sense, comprises two departments, namely, the study of the laws regarding medical practice, and, more, especially, the study of the principles on which those laws are founded, and from which they derive their binding power on the human conscience. The former department, styled Medical Law, is assigned in the Prospectus of this College to a gentleman of the legal profession. He will acquaint you with the laws of the land, and of this State in particular, which regulate the practice of medicine; he will explain the points on which a Doctor may come in contact with the law courts, either as a practitioner having to account for his own actions, under a charge of malpractice perhaps, or as an expert summoned as a witness before a court in matters of civil contests or criminal prosecutions. His field is wide and important, but the field of Medical Jurisprudence, in its stricter or more specific sense, is wider still and its research much deeper: it considers those principles of reason that underlie the laws of the land, the natural rights and duties which these laws are indeed to enforce to some extent, but which are antecedent and superior to all human laws, being themselves founded on the essential and eternal fitness of things. For things are not right or wrong simply because men have chosen to make them so. You all understand, gentlemen, that, even if we were living in a newly discovered land, where no code of human laws had yet been adopted, nor courts of justice established, nor civil government organized, still even there certain acts of Doctors, as of any other men, would be right and praiseworthy, and others wrong and worthy of condemnation; even there Doctors and patients and their relatives would have certain rights and duties.

In such a land, the lecturer on Medical Law would have nothing to explain; for there would be no human laws and law courts with which a physician could come in contact. But the lecturer on Medical Jurisprudence proper would have as much to explain as I have in this country at present; because he treats of the Ethics or moral principles of Medical Practice, he deals with what is ever the same for all men where-ever they dwell, it being consequent on the very nature of man and his essential relations to his Maker and his fellow-man. Unfortunately the term “Medical Jurisprudence” has been generally misused. Dr. Ewell, in his text-book on the subject, writes “While the term ‘Medical Jurisprudence’ is a misnomer,—the collection of facts and conclusions usually passing by that name being principally only matters of evidence, and rarely rules of law,—still the term is so generally employed that it would be idle to attempt to bring into use a new term, and we shall accordingly continue the employment of that which has only the sanction of usage to recommend it” (Ch. I).

I prefer to use terms in their genuine meaning; for misnomers are out of place in science, since they are misleading. Yet, to avoid all danger of misunderstanding, I will call my subject “Moral Principles and Medical Practice,” and distinctly style it “The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence.”

On what lines will my treatment of the subject depart from the beaten path? On the same lines on which most other improvements have been made in the science of medicine. Science has not discovered new laws of physical nature that did not exist before; but it has succeeded in understanding existing laws more perfectly than before, and has shaped its practice accordingly. So, too, the leaders of thought among physicians, especially in English-speaking countries, now understand the laws of moral nature—the principles of Ethics—more thoroughly than most of their predecessors did, and they have modified their treatment so as to conform it to these rules of morality. Hitherto Medical Jurisprudence had regulated the conduct of practitioners by human, positive laws, and sanctioned acts because they were not condemned by civil courts. Now we go deeper in our studies, and appeal from human legislation to the first principles of right and wrong, as Jurisprudence ought to do; and, in consequence, some medical operations which used to be tolerated, or even approved, by many in the profession are at present absolutely and justly condemned. The learned physician these days is no longer afraid to face the moral philosopher; there is no longer any estrangement between Ethics and Medical Practice. Medicine, sent from Heaven to be an angel of mercy to man, is now ever faithful to its beneficent mission; it never more performs the task of a destroying spirit, as—not in wantonness, but in ignorance—it did frequently before.

On these lines, then, of the improved understanding of first principles, I will now proceed to develop the teachings of Medical Jurisprudence.

The first principle that I will lay down for explanation is, that a man is not to be held responsible for all his acts, but only for those which he does of his own free will, which, therefore, it is in his power to do or not to do. These are called human acts, because they proceed from a distinctively human power. A brute animal cannot perform such acts; it can only do under given circumstances what its impulses prompt it to do; or, when it experiences various impulses in different directions, it can only follow its strongest impulse; as when a dog, rushing up to attack a man, turns and runs away before his uplifted stick. When a bird sings, it cannot help singing; but a man may sing or not sing at his choice; his singing is a human act. When, however, under the impulse of violent pain, a person happens involuntarily to sigh or groan or even shriek, this indeed is the act of a man, but, inasmuch as it is physically uncontrollable, it is not a human act. So whatever a patient may do while under the influence of chloroform is not a human act, and he is not morally responsible for it. His conduct under the circumstances may denote a brave or a cowardly disposition, or it may indicate habits of self-command or the absence of them. His prayers or curses while thus unconscious are no doubt the effects of acquired virtues or vices; yet, in as far as his will has no share in the present acts, they are not free or human acts. He deserves praise or blame for his former acts, by which he acquired such habits, but not for his unconscious acts as such.

From this principle it follows that a physician is not responsible to God or man for such evil consequences of his prescriptions or surgical operations as are entirely beyond his will and therefore independent of his control. If, however, his mistakes arise from his ignorance or want of skill, he is blamable in as far as he is the wilful cause of such ignorance; he should have known better; or, not knowing better, he should not have undertaken the case for which he knew he was not qualified.

But it often happens that the best informed and most skilful practitioner, even when acting with his utmost care, causes real harm to his patients; he is the accidental, not the wilful, cause of that harm, and therefore he is free from all responsibility in the matter.

The practical lessons, however, which all of you must lay to heart on this subject are: 1st. That you are in duty bound to acquire sound knowledge and great skill in your profession; since the consequences involved are of the greatest moment, your obligation is of a most serious nature. 2d. That in your future practice you will be obliged on all occasions to use all reasonable care for the benefit of your patients. 3d. That you cannot in conscience undertake the management of cases of unusual difficulty unless you possess the special knowledge required, or avail yourselves of the best counsel that can reasonably be obtained.

A second principle of Ethics in medical practice, gentlemen, is this, that many human acts may be highly criminal of which, however, human laws and courts take no notice whatsoever. In this matter I am not finding fault with human legislation. The laws of the land, considering the end and the nature of civil government, need take no cognizance of any but overt acts; a man’s heart may be a very cesspool of vice, envy, malice, impurity, pride, hatred, etc., yet human law does not and ought not to punish him for this, as long as his actions do not disturb the public peace nor trench upon the happiness of his neighbor. Even his open outward acts which injure only himself, such as gluttony, blasphemy, impiety, private drunkenness, self-abuse, even seduction and fornication, are not usually legislated against or punished in our courts. Does it follow that they are innocent acts and lawful before God? No man in his right senses will say so.

The goodness and the evil of human acts is not dependent on human legislation alone; in many cases the moral good or evil is so intrinsic to the very nature of the acts that God Himself could not change the radical difference between them. Thus justice, obedience to lawful authority, gratitude to benefactors, are essentially good; while injustice, disobedience, and ingratitude are essentially evil. Our reason informs us of this difference; and our reason is nothing else than our very nature as intelligent beings capable of knowing truth. The voice of our reason or conscience is the voice of God Himself, who speaks through the rational nature that He has made. Through our reason God not only tells us of the difference between good and evil acts, but He also commands us to do good and avoid evil;—to do certain acts because they are proper, right, orderly, suitable to the end for which we are created; and to avoid other acts because they are improper, wrong, disorderly, unsuitable to the end of our existence. There is a third class of acts, which, in themselves, are indifferent, i.e., neither good nor evil, neither necessary for our end nor interfering with its attainment. These we are free to do or to omit as we prefer; but even these become good and even obligatory when they are commanded by proper authority, and they become evil when forbidden. In themselves, they are indifferent acts.

These explanations are not mere abstractions, gentlemen, or mere philosophical speculations. True, my subject is philosophical; but it is the philosophy of every-day life; we are dealing with live issues which give rise to the gravest discussions of your medical journals; issues on which practically depend the lives of thousands of human beings every year, issues which regard physicians more than any other class of men, and for the proper consideration of which Doctors are responsible to their conscience, to human society, and to their God. To show you how we are dealing with present live issues, let me give you an example of a case in point. In the “Medical Record,” an estimable weekly, now in almost the fiftieth year of its existence, there was lately carried on a lengthy and, in some of its parts, a learned discussion, regarding the truth of the principles which I have just now explained, namely, the intrinsic difference between right and wrong, independently of the ruling of law courts and of any human legislation. The subject of the discussion was the lawfulness in any case at all of performing craniotomy, or of directly destroying the life of the child by any process whatever, at the time of parturition, with the intention of saving the life of the mother.

I will not examine this important matter in all its bearings at present; I mean to take it up later on in our course, and to lay before you the teachings of science on this subject, together with the principles on which they are based. For the present I will confine myself to the point we are treating just now, namely, the existence of a higher law than that of human tribunals, the superiority of the claims of natural to those of legal justice. Some might think, at first sight, that this needs no proof. In fact we are all convinced that human laws are often unjust, or, at least, very imperfect, and therefore they cannot be the ultimate test or fixed standard of right and wrong; yet the main argument advanced by one of the advocates of craniotomy rests upon the denial of a higher law, and the assertion of the authority of human tribunals as final in such matters.

In the “Medical Record” for July 27, 1895, p. 141, this gentleman writes in defence of craniotomy: “The question is a legal one per se against which any conflicting view is untenable. The subdivisions under which the common law takes consideration of craniotomy are answers in themselves to the conclusions quoted above, under the unfortunate necessity which demands the operation.” Next he quotes the Ohio statute law, which, he remarks, was enacted in protection of physicians who are confronted with this dire necessity. He is answered with much ability and sound learning by Dr. Thomas J. Kearney, of New York, in the same “Medical Record” for August 31, 1895, p. 320, who writes: “Dr. G. bases his argument for the lawfulness of craniotomy in the teachings of common law, contending, at least implicitly, that it is unnecessary to seek farther the desired justification. However, the basis of common law, though broad, is certainly not broad enough for the consideration of such a question as the present one. His coolness rises to sublime heights, in thus assuming infallibility for common law, ignoring the very important fact that behind it there is another and higher law, whose imperative, to every one with a conscience, is ultimate. It evidently never occurs to him that some time could be profitably spent in research, with the view to discovering how often common-law maxims, seen to be at variance with the principles of morality, have been abrogated by statutory enactments. Now the maxims of common law relating to craniotomy, the statutes in conformity therewith, as well as Dr. G.’s arguments (some of them at least), rest on a basis of pure unmitigated expediency; and this is certainly in direct contravention of the teachings of all schools of moral science, even the utilitarian.”

Dr. Kearney’s doctrine of the existence of a higher law, superior to all human law, is the doctrine that has been universally accepted, in all Christian lands at least, and is so to the present day. Froude explains it correctly when he writes: “Our human laws are but the copies, more or less imperfect, of the eternal laws so far as we can read them, and either succeed and promote our welfare or fail and bring confusion and disaster, according as the legislator’s insight has detected the true principle, or has been distorted by ignorance or selfishness” (Century Dict., “Law”).

Whoever calmly reflects on the manner in which laws are enacted by legislative bodies, under the influence of human passions and prejudices, often at the dictation of party leaders or of popular sentiment, of office-seekers or wealthy corporations, etc., will not maintain for a moment that human laws and human tribunals are to be accepted as the supreme measure or norma of right and wrong. The common law of England, which lies at the basis of our American legislation, and is an integral portion of our civil government, is less fluctuating than our statutory law, and is in the main sound and in conformity with the principles of Jurisprudence. But no one will claim infallibility for its enactments; the esteem we have for it is chiefly due to its general accord with the requirements of the higher law.

There is, then, a higher law, which all men are bound to obey, even lawgivers and rulers themselves as well as their humblest subjects, a law from which no man nor class of men can claim exemption, a law which the Creator cannot fail to impose upon His rational creatures: although God was free to create or not to create as He chose, since He did not need anything to complete His own happiness,—yet, if He did create, He was bound by His own wisdom to put order into His work; else it would not be worthy of His supreme wisdom. As the poet has so tersely expressed it, “Order is Heaven’s first law.”

How admirably is this order displayed in the material universe! The more we study the sciences—astronomy, biology, botany, physiology, medicine, etc.—the more we are lost in admiration at the beautiful order we see displayed in the tiniest as well as in the vastest portions of the creation. And shall man alone, the masterpiece of God in this visible universe, be allowed to be disorderly, to be a failure in the noblest part of his being, to make himself like to the brute or to a demon of malice, to waste his choicest gifts in the indulgence of debasing pleasure? The Creator is bound by His own wisdom to direct men to high purposes, worthy of their exalted intellectual nature. But how shall He direct man? He compels material things to move with order to the accomplishment of their alloted tasks by the physical laws of matter. He directs brute animals most admirably to run their appointed careers by the wonderful laws of instinct, which none of them can resist at will. But man He has made free; He must direct him to do worthy actions by means suitable to a free being, that is, by the enacting of the moral law.

He makes known to us what is right and wrong. He informs every one of us, by the voice of reason itself, that He requires us to do the right and avoid the wrong. He has implanted in us the sense of duty to obey that law. If we do so, we lead worthy lives, we please Him, and, in His goodness, He has rewards in store.

But can He be pleased with us if we thwart His designs; if we, His noblest works on earth, instead of adding to the universal harmony of His creation, make monsters of ourselves, moral blots upon the beautiful face of His world? It were idle for Him to give us the knowledge of His will and then to stand by and let us disfigure His fairest designs; to bid us do what is right, and then let us do wrong without exacting redress or atonement. If He is wise, He must not only lay down the law, but He must also enforce it; He must make it our highest interest to keep His law, to do the right; so that ultimately those men shall be happy who have done it, and those who have thwarted His designs shall be compelled to rue it. He will not deprive us of liberty, the fairest gift to an intelligent creature, but He will hold out rewards and punishments to induce us to keep the law and to avoid its violation. Once He has promised and threatened, His justice and His holiness compel Him to fulfil His threats and promises. A man can commit no rasher act than to ignore, defy, and violate that higher law of which we are speaking, and which, if it must direct all men, especially requires the respect and obedience of those into whose hands he has placed at times the lives of their fellow-men, the greatest of earthly treasures.

I have insisted so much, gentlemen, on the existence of the higher law, on its binding power and on the necessity of observing it, because it is the foundation of my whole course of lectures. If there were no higher law, then there would be no Medical Jurisprudence, in the true sense of the word. For Jurisprudence studies the principles that underlie legal enactments, and if there were no higher law, there would be no such principles; then the knowledge of the human law would fill the whole programme. This in fact is the contention of the defendant of craniotomy to whom I have referred; and he boldly applies his speculation to a matter in which the physician has the most frequent opportunity to exhibit his fidelity to principle, or his subserviency to the requirements of temporary expediency at the sacrifice of duty.

You will find, gentlemen, as we proceed in our course, that Doctors have very many occasions in which to apply the lessons of Jurisprudence in their medical practice. I even suspect that they need to be more conscientious in regard to the dictates of the higher law than any other class of men, the clergy alone, perhaps, excepted. They need this not only for their own good, but also for the good of their patients and of the community at large. The reasons are these:

A. The matters entrusted to their keeping are the most important of all earthly possessions; for they are life itself, and, along with life, health, the necessary condition of almost all temporal enjoyment. No other class of men is entrusted with more weighty earthly interests. Hence the physician’s responsibility is very great; hence the common good requires that he be eminently faithful and conscientious.

B. With no other class of men does the performance of duty depend more on personal integrity, on conscientious regard for the higher law of morality than with the Doctor. For the Doctor’s conduct is less open to observation than that of other professions. The lawyer may have many temptations to act unjustly; but other lawyers are watching him, and the courts of justice are at hand to check his evil practices. As to the judge, he is to pronounce his decisions in public and give reasons for his ruling. The politician is jealously watched by his political opponents. The public functionary, if he is unjust in his dealings, is likely sooner or later to be brought to an account. But the physician, on very many occasions, can be morally sure that his conduct will never be publicly scrutinized. Such is the nature of his ministrations, and such too is the confidence habitually reposed in his integrity, that he is and must be implicitly trusted in matters in which, if he happens to be unworthy of his vocation, he may be guilty of the most outrageous wrongs.

The highest interests of earth are in his hands. If he is not conscientious, or if he lets himself be carried about by every wind of modern speculations, he can readily persuade himself that a measure is lawful because it is presently expedient, that acts can justly be performed because the courts do not punish them; and thus he will often violate the most sacred rights of his patients or of their relatives. Who has more frequent opportunities than a licentious Doctor to seduce the innocent, to pander to the passions of the guilty, to play into the hands of greedy heirs, who may be most willing to pay him for his services? No one can do it more safely, as far as human tribunals are concerned. As a matter of fact, many, all over this land and other lands, are often guilty of prostituting their noble profession to the vilest uses. The evil becomes all the more serious when false doctrines are insinuated, or publicly advocated, which throw doubt upon the most sacred principles of morality. True, the sounder and by far the larger portion of medical men protest against these false teachings by their own conduct at least; but it very frequently happens that the honest man is less zealous in his advocacy of what is right than is the propagandist of bold speculations and dangerous new theories in the spreading of what is pernicious.

The effect thus produced upon many minds is to shake their convictions, to say the least; and I need not tell you, gentlemen, that weak convictions are not likely to be proof against violent and repeated temptations. In fact, if a physician, misled by any of those many theories which are often inculcated or at least insinuated by false scientists, can ever convince himself, or even can begin to surmise that, after all, there may be no such thing as a higher law before which he is responsible for even his secret conduct, then what is to prevent him from becoming a dangerous person to the community? If he see much temporal gain on the one hand, and security from legal prosecution on the other, what would keep him in the path of duty and honesty? Especially if he can once make himself believe that, for all he knows, he may be nothing more than a rather curiously developed lump of matter, which is to lose forever all consciousness in death. Why should he not get rid of any other evolved lump of matter if it stand in the way of his present or prospective happiness? Those are dangerous men who inculcate such theories; it were a sad day for the medical profession and for the world at large if ever they found much countenance among physicians. Society cannot do without the higher law; this law is to be studied in Medical Jurisprudence.

It is my direct object, gentlemen, to explain this law to you in its most important bearings, and thus to lay before you the chief duties of your profession. The principal reason why I have undertaken to deliver this course of lectures—the chief reason, in fact, why the Creighton University has assumed the management of this Medical College—is that we wish to provide for the West, as far as we are able, a goodly supply of conscientious physicians, who shall be as faithful and reliable as they will be able and well informed; whose solid principles and sterling integrity shall be guarantees of upright and virtuous conduct.

That this task of mine may be successfully accomplished, I will endeavor to answer all difficulties and objections that you may propose. I will never consider it a want of respect to me as your professor if you will urge your questions till I have answered them to your full satisfaction. On the contrary, I request you to be very inquisitive; and I will be best pleased with those who show themselves the most ready to point out those difficulties, connected with my lectures, which seem to require further answers and explanations.

151. 1. Notion. The essence of the natural law is not explained in the same way by diverse authors. Some say that the natural law is rational nature itself, insofar as certain acts agree or disagree with it. Others assert that the natural law is a natural habit, by which each man knows the duties imposed upon him according to nature. Others think that the natural law is the actual dictate of natural reason. Others finally say that the natural law is the eternal law itself, and therefore they apply indiscriminately to both eternal and natural law the Augustinian definition given in the preceding article. Leaving aside all these opinions, which there is no time to refute one by one,¹⁶ we say with St. Thomas:¹⁷ "The natural law is nothing other than the participation of the eternal law in a rational creature." But we speak only of the moral natural law, not of the physical natural law, as we have already noted above.

It is explained: From eternity God knows and orders whatever is consonant with rational nature; and this ordinance existing in the divine mind is called the eternal law. But in time God created the human race and implanted in it this His ordinance conceived from eternity. Therefore as soon as man is born, he is also subject to this natural law. This participation of the eternal law, or moral order constituted by God, is the natural law considered objectively. But when man attains the use of reason, he knows at least the first principles of the natural law, for example, good is to be done and moral evil is to be avoided. And he not only knows that this law exists, just as, for example, someone knows the existence of the ancient Roman law, but he also intimately perceives that this natural law is strictly imposed upon him. This participation of the eternal law is the natural law considered subjectively.

This law is called natural for a twofold reason: 1. Because it includes only precepts which are deduced from the very nature of man. In this way it is distinguished from all other laws and notably from positive divine law, which contains precepts obliging from the divine will alone, for example, the obligation of receiving the sacraments. Sometimes, however, positive divine law for greater inculcation still expressly commands those things which have already been established by the natural law, for example, the precepts of the Decalogue. It is also distinguished from the eternal law, since this extends more broadly, containing besides the supernatural order. - 2. Because the natural law is known, or at least can be known, from the light of natural reason alone, without divine revelation or human magisterium being required. Nevertheless, with divine revelation or human magisterium acceding, the natural law is known more easily and more clearly, as is plain of itself.

¹⁶ See these refutations in Billuart, De leg. diss. 2, a. 2.

¹⁷ S. theol. I-II, q. 91, a. 2. In German: Das Naturgesetz ist die Ausstrahlung oder der Abglanz des ewigen Gesetzes in den vernünftigen Geschöpfen. In French: La loi naturelle est le reflet de la loi éternelle dans la créature raisonnable.

152. 2. Existence of the Natural Law is denied not only by Atheists, Materialists, Pantheists, etc., but also by all those who do not admit the supreme objective norm of morality;¹⁸ especially also by followers of the so-called "Historical School,"¹⁹ who admit no other law properly so called except positive law. According to these authors the state is the supreme legislatrix, and without it no law induces juridical obligation. Against all these the existence of the natural law is easily proved:

1. From Sacred Scripture. St. Paul²⁰ says: "For when the gentiles, who have not the [Mosaic] law, do by nature (φύσει) those things that are of the law, these, not having the law, are a law to themselves: Who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them, and their thoughts between themselves accusing or also defending, in the day when God shall judge the hidden things of men, according to my Gospel, through Jesus Christ." - From these words the following clearly appear: a) that the gentiles, who lacked the Mosaic law, nevertheless knew and observed certain precepts of the natural law; b) that this law is inscribed on the heart of every man; c) that on the day of judgment God will judge men according to this law. - Leo XIII²¹ expresses similar things in these words: "Such is the first of all laws, the natural law, which is written and engraved in the souls of individual men, because it is human reason itself commanding right action and forbidding sin."

2. By manifold reason. a) The natural law is nothing other than the participation of the eternal law in a rational creature. But the eternal law exists, indeed must exist, since without the eternal law there would be neither providence nor governance of the world; and consequently the whole world would perish. Therefore the natural law also exists and must exist in the rational creature. - b) To the whole world the glory of God has been established by the Creator as its end. But each creature must cooperate toward this end, and indeed according to the character of its nature: irrational creatures by following the physical rules imposed upon the world; but rational creatures by freely observing the moral rules wisely imposed by the Creator for the preservation of the moral order and for the good of human society. But these moral rules are the natural law. - c) A third and indeed apodictic argument is drawn from the conscience of every man. For conscience intimately and with undoubted conviction dictates to each one that good is to be done, evil is to be omitted, that certain actions are intrinsically evil, such as to blaspheme, to kill the innocent, etc.; on the contrary, that certain other actions are intrinsically good, as, for example, to honor parents, to worship God, etc. But conscience not only intimately perceives the goodness or malice of these actions, but also persuades itself that these actions are to be done or omitted. Therefore after the transgression of this obligation vivid remorse of conscience arises, while on the contrary after faithful observance of these precepts conscience is tranquil and procures sweet internal peace for man. - The existence of this conscience punishing or rewarding was already acknowledged by the ancient pagans, such as Aeschylus,²² Cicero,²³ Horace,²⁴ Tacitus,²⁵ Juvenal,²⁶ etc. All these things indeed manifestly demonstrate that in the heart of every man there is a law inscribed by the Creator, wholly indelible and independent from all positive statutes. This law is called the natural law. - d) The same is established from the testimony of all peoples. History and ethnography prove that all peoples, even barbarous ones, however much they think differently concerning some moral precepts, nevertheless agree in general moral precepts, for example, that good is to be done, that parents are to be honored, that the divinity is to be worshiped, etc. All peoples also admit that general precepts of this kind do not arise from the decrees of some king or senate or plebiscite, but have been imposed by nature itself or by the divine numen.²⁷

¹⁸ Cf. above n. 100 sqq.

¹⁹ K. v. Savigny, F. Stahl, Puchta, R. v. Jhering, etc.

²⁰ Rom. 2:14-16.

²¹ Encycl. Praestantissimum, June 20, 1888.

²² Agamemnon 179.

²³ De leg. l. 1, c. 14.

²⁴ Ep. 1, 1, 60.

²⁵ Annal. 6, 6.

²⁶ Satyr. 13, 196. Behold the words of this poet:

²⁷ Lactantius (Instit. 6, 8 [Migne, Patr. lat. 6, 660-661]) brings forward the following most beautiful words from Cicero: "There is indeed a true law, right reason, congruent with nature, diffused into all, constant, everlasting; which calls to duty by commanding, deters from fraud by forbidding; which nevertheless neither commands nor forbids the upright in vain, nor moves the wicked by commanding or forbidding. It is not lawful for this law to be abrogated, nor is it permitted that anything be derogated from it, nor can it be wholly abrogated; nor indeed can we be released from this law through the senate or through the people; nor is another expounder or interpreter of it to be sought; nor will there be one law at Rome, another at Athens, one now, another hereafter, but one and everlasting and immutable law will contain all nations and at every time, and there will be one God, as it were the common master and ruler of all, He the inventor, judge, and bearer of this law; and whoever will not obey Him will flee himself, and, having spurned human nature, by this very fact will pay the greatest penalties, even if he should escape the other punishments which are thought such."

153. 3. Subject of the Natural Law is every man of all times and places. Wherefore even children and the insane are subject to the natural law, and consequently they sin materially when they commit acts prohibited by the natural law, for example, by acting immodestly, blaspheming, etc. But although these persons, because of defect of the use of reason, cannot sin formally, nevertheless, since even material sin is something evil and therefore to be avoided, no one can licitly induce them to transgression of the natural law.

154. 4. Object of the Natural Law. As is plain from the things said above in n. 151, the natural law contains all precepts which are deduced from the very nature of man and can be known by the light of reason alone. Therefore the object of this law is the natural moral order necessarily to be observed and naturally known. With St. Thomas a threefold object of the natural law is distinguished:

1. first and most universal principles, which are necessarily known by force of synderesis, namely, good is to be done; evil is to be avoided;²⁸

2. secondary principles, which are immediately deduced from the first principles and are very easily known by every man using reason; to these principles belong all precepts of the Decalogue;²⁹

3. remote conclusions, which are deduced by diligent reasoning from primary and secondary principles, for example, marriage is altogether indissoluble, duel is always illicit, abortion is illicit, etc.

But a punishment vehement and much more savage than those which grave Caeditius or Rhadamanthus devised: to carry night and day one's own witness in the breast.

5. Properties of the Natural Law. The natural law is 1. universal; 2. immutable; 3. it admits neither dispensation properly so called nor epikeia.

1. The natural law is universal, that is, it obliges all men without any exception. Therefore it also obliges infants and the insane, although they cannot transgress it formally, as was already said above.

2. The natural law is immutable, so that nothing may be subtracted from it. For the natural law is founded upon human nature itself and upon the moral order itself, from which nothing essential may be subtracted. Hence it is certain that the natural law cannot be changed from within, for example, it cannot cease, because it has not been given for a time, but in perpetuity; it cannot become unjust, since it commands nothing which is not essentially good, and prohibits nothing which is not essentially evil.

Some authors admit a certain improper change of natural right, namely, a) by way of addition; b) in the conflict of two laws. Nothing prevents certain just statutes of positive law, whether human or divine, from being added to the natural law. And thus positive laws truly are additions to the natural law, which nevertheless remains safe and sound from this.³⁰ But in the conflict of two laws the stronger law is to be observed. Thus, for example, one natural law dictates that a deposit is to be returned; but another natural law, and indeed a stronger one, commands that the neighbor be loved and his grave harm be forestalled. Therefore in the case in which, for example, a furious man should demand his sword deposited with me in order to kill an innocent man, I would have to observe the stronger natural law, namely, of love toward the neighbor, setting aside the lesser law concerning the returning of a deposit. Therefore I would have to retain the deposited sword until the innocent man could save himself.³¹

3. The natural law does not admit dispensation properly so called nor epikeia. Dispensation of law is some change of law from without, namely, made by competent authority; hence to ask whether the natural law is dispensable is the same as to ask whether the natural law is changeable from without. A few ancient authors, such as Occam, Gerson, Peter de Alliaco, etc.,³² thought that God could absolutely dispense in all precepts of the law of nature, indeed abolish the whole natural law, so that even hatred of God would no longer be a sin. This opinion indeed is not only most false, but also today wholly obsolete. But Scotus³³ with many Scotists (others contradicting)³⁴ teaches that God can truly dispense at least in some precepts of the natural law, and notably in the precepts of the second table of the Decalogue, so that, for example, fornication would be licit if God gave a dispensation. Against all these there is established:

²⁸ S. theol. I-II, q. 94, a. 2. Other theologians and authors have placed as the first principle of the natural law: one must live and act according to right reason; or: Love God as the end of all things, and other things on account of God. - The opinion of the Angelic Doctor is much truer, clearer, and more common.

²⁹ The third precept of the Decalogue pertains to the natural law insofar as it commands the external worship of God, but not as to the determination of the day.

³⁰ Blessed Albert the Great neatly says (4, dist. 26, a. 14 ad q. 1): "The law of nature accompanies every law, and therefore this remains in every law."

³¹ S. theol. I-II, q. 94, a. 4-5.

³² Cf. Billuart, De leg. diss. 2, a. 4.

³³ 3, dist. 37. For a refutation of Scotus see Cajetan, Comm. in S. theol. I-II, q. 100, a. 8; but for his defense see Caramuel, Theol. fundam. n. 566 sqq.

³⁴ Cf. Elbel, Theol. mor. Pars 1, Conferentia XVI, n. 444.

155. Thesis: The natural law even from without is immutable and does not admit dispensation properly so called; nevertheless it can happen that, when the matter has been changed, some obligation of the natural law ceases which otherwise would exist.

Thus teach St. Thomas and almost all modern theologians, although sometimes they differ somewhat in mode of speaking. The Angelic Doctor³⁵ says simply and without any limitation: "The precepts of the Decalogue are altogether indispensable." But the precepts of the Decalogue pertain to the natural law, as was said above. - But the reason why the natural law is indispensable proceeds from the fact that it is a participation of the eternal law. For the eternal law is altogether immutable and indispensable, since it is the very reason of divine wisdom. Therefore the same must be said concerning its participation, or concerning the natural law. - Next, the moral natural law is founded upon the very essential condition of human nature. Therefore, since the essential condition of human nature is immutable, the natural law also must remain immutable.

Nevertheless it can happen that, when the matter has been changed, some obligation of the natural law ceases, as is plain from these examples: The natural law prohibits the killing of the innocent, the taking away of another's thing, carnal copulation with an unmarried person, polygamy, etc. But God, who is the supreme and absolute lord of all things and persons, could command that Abraham kill his son Isaac, that the Israelites take the spoils of the Egyptians, that the prophet Hosea have intercourse with a fornicator woman, that polygamy be licit in the Old Testament. For just as God daily sends death to thousands of men, so He could, without injury to natural right, cause the death of Isaac by the aid of Abraham; a fortiori He could distribute the spoils of the Egyptians; likewise He could concede that that woman, until then fornicatory, could be legitimately joined with the prophet Hosea.³⁶ Moreover, concerning this deed of the prophet Hosea there are several other explanations.³⁷ God could also permit polygamy, since it is not against the primary end of marriage.

From what has been said it appears that God never properly dispensed in the natural law, but only improperly, that is, changed the matter of the act. - But if not even God Himself can properly dispense in the natural law, a fortiori no created authority can do this, such as the Church or a civil prince. But if the Church dispenses concerning a ratified marriage or even concerning the consummated marriage of infidels, notwithstanding the indissolubility of marriage introduced from natural right, those dispensations are not dispensations properly so called, but rather improper, and indeed in things which otherwise do not pertain to the primary principles of the natural law and which are founded upon some human fact which lies under the jurisdiction of the Church. Moreover authors, although they admit that the Supreme Pontiff truly can make concessions of this kind, nevertheless by no means agree in the mode of explanation. Some say that God and His vicar, the Supreme Pontiff, can dispense not indeed in the primary and secondary principles of natural right, but in its more remote conclusions. Others explain in this way: The indissolubility of marriage, the obligation of observing a vow made, etc., arises from the free will of the man entering upon a contract of this kind. But God, and by His delegation also the Church, can remit to man an obligation arising from a free promise, just as a master can remit to a servant a contract freely entered upon. After this remission man becomes free, so that, for example, he can enter a new marriage. But whatever may be said of these explanations, no created authority can grant dispensations properly so called in the natural law.

³⁵ S. theol. l. c.

³⁶ Hos. 1:2.

³⁷ Cf. Billuart, De leg. diss. 2, a. 4; St. Bernard, De praecepto et dispensatione c. 3 (Migne, Patr. lat. 182, 864).

156. Even epikeia properly so called cannot be employed in the natural law, because epikeia is a benign interpretation of law according to the mind of the legislator, where the law fails. Therefore where there is no deficient law, there epikeia cannot have place. A created legislator cannot foresee all singular cases and all circumstances, and therefore cannot establish a law which in all occurring cases is just and useful. Therefore in a case in which the law borne by him becomes unjust or harmful, it is licit to employ epikeia, that is, according to the presumed mind of the legislator it is licit to interpret the law or even to omit it. But all these things cannot happen in the natural law, since it is never deficient, but always fitting to human nature. Besides, a case not foreseen by the divine legislator of the natural law cannot occur, since He is omniscient. Below, n. 231, a fuller discussion will return concerning epikeia.

157. 6. Cognition of the Natural Law is had very easily by all, at least as to the primary and secondary principles. Wherefore the Scholastics taught that there exists in man a habit of the first practical principles, or synderesis, by which these principles of natural right are known. But theologians dispute whether and how far invincible ignorance of the natural law is possible, for example, of the malice of pollution, fornication, an officious lie, etc.

That ignorance of some human or positive divine law is possible, all admit, and it is plain of itself. Thus, for example, the divine law itself of receiving the faith can be invincibly unknown by those to whom the faith has never been preached. In this case this negative infidelity would not be a sin, as is also plain from the condemned proposition 68 of Baius: "Purely negative infidelity in those to whom Christ has not been preached is a sin."³⁸ It is not so clear whether someone can invincibly be ignorant of the natural law. Among all there is indeed agreement: a) that the most general precepts of the law of nature cannot be unknown by adults having the use of reason.³⁹ Such precepts are: Good is to be done, evil is to be omitted, and also the precepts of the Decalogue as to substance; b) that remote conclusions deduced from the principles of the natural law can be invincibly unknown, for example, that marriage is indissoluble from natural right. But theologians dispute whether inculpable ignorance of the secondary precepts of the natural law is possible. The truer opinion, more conformable to experience and more common among theologians, is this:

³⁸ Denz. n. 1068.

³⁹ Cf. S. theol. I, q. 79, a. 12, and I-II, q. 94, a. 6.

158. Thesis: The secondary precepts of the law of nature in particular circumstances can inculpably be unknown at least for a time.

This opinion is proved:

1. From St. Augustine,⁴⁰ who, after he had narrated the deed of the Antiochene woman who, with her husband consenting, indeed commanding it, had given the use of her body to another, so that from him she might receive a pound of gold by which she would liberate her husband from captivity and unjust death, does not dare to define that those spouses sinned, and permits each one to judge what he wishes, because those spouses "in no way had judged under those circumstances that that act was adultery." But if no inculpable ignorance of the natural law could be given, it is clear and certain that those spouses sinned gravely. Therefore St. Augustine judged that adultery, which most certainly is prohibited by the natural law, can in some circumstances be thought licit, and consequently that inculpable ignorance of the natural law is possible.⁴¹

2. From reason. Although the natural law is inscribed by the Creator in the hearts of men, nevertheless on account of the clouding of reason (arising both from original sin and not rarely from the morals of some people) it easily happens that in a particular case, especially in a conflict of two laws of natural right, it is morally impossible to know certainly what is to be done. Thus, for example, the natural law commands that the innocent be not condemned. Likewise the natural law commands that a judge sitting in tribunal judge according to the clear and certain testimonies of witnesses. But what must the judge do if from private knowledge he knows certainly that some accused man is innocent, but from the testimonies of several witnesses it is held that the same accused man is guilty?⁴² St. Thomas teaches that in this case the judge is bound to pronounce sentence according to the testimonies of the witnesses; but St. Bonaventure affirms that in this case the judge is bound to absolve the accused from fault. Therefore it is plain that even most holy and most learned men do not agree concerning some precept of the law of nature in certain circumstances. But among the unlearned there will be much easier doubt and inculpable ignorance. This is plain in diverse cases, for example, concerning the liceity of craniotomy, when otherwise the life both of the mother giving birth and of the infant to be born would be in most certain and greatest danger; concerning imperfect marital copula, etc. - From all these things it clearly appears that sometimes the natural law can inculpably be unknown.⁴³

But we have said: at least for a time. For if there is question of sufficiently clear precepts of natural right, that ignorance cannot persist for long without at least some doubt arising. This doubt indeed must be solved by consulting learned men. But if such consultation is neglected, the existing ignorance will no longer be inculpable. A case of this kind can easily occur with regard to the sin of pollution or mollities, which can indeed be unknown by adolescents for a time, but not perpetually. Likewise with regard to the malice of internal acts, namely, of depraved thoughts and desires, especially inefficacious ones.

In the case in which someone from inculpable ignorance transgresses a precept of the natural law, he does not commit formal sin, as is plain from the proposition condemned by Alexander VII on September 7, 1690: "Even if invincible ignorance of natural right is given, in the state of fallen nature this does not excuse the one acting from formal sin."⁴⁴ The contrary was falsely taught by Luther, Calvin, Baius, and the Jansenists.⁴⁵ Nevertheless a transgression of this kind is material sin.

⁴⁰ Lib. 1 de serm. Dom. in monte c. 16 (Migne, Patr. lat. 34, 1254).

⁴¹ In Billuart, De pecc. diss. 5, a. 4.

⁴² Cf. below II, n. 158.

⁴³ Cf. Bouquillon, Theol. mor. fund. n. 78 sq.

⁴⁴ Denz. n. 1292.

⁴⁵ Cf. Billuart, De pecc. diss. 5, a. 4.

113. Divine law is twofold, namely natural and positive. Now natural law is usually considered under a twofold aspect: 1. insofar as it is eternal, existing in the mind of God; 2. insofar as it is promulgated in time, and existing in creatures. Although positive divine law has been given through a decree which existed from eternity, nevertheless, strictly speaking, it is not called eternal; because, as we shall see below, it does not participate in the same necessity or immutability as natural law. Therefore we shall treat: 1. of eternal and natural law; 2. of positive divine law.

St. Alphonsus, I, n. 57 and 70; ed. G., I, p. 26 and 41 ff.; H. Ap., I, 50; Billuart, Diss. II, a. 2-4; Gonet, Clypeus Theol. Thom., tr. VI, disp. 3; Leroy, Religion des Primitifs; Huby, Manuel d'histoire des Religions; D'Annibale, I, n. 190.

114. DEFINITION. Eternal law, in a broad sense, is defined by the Angelic Doctor (1.2, q. 91, a. 1): "The reason of the order of things to the end." By this word order is comprehended every order which is had in the world, namely physical and moral, natural and supernatural.

But in a stricter sense, eternal law is defined by St. Augustine (Contr. Faust., l. 22, c. 27): "The divine reason or the will of God, commanding that the natural order be preserved and forbidding that it be disturbed."

115. PRINCIPLES. I. There is in God eternal law. It is evident 1. From Sacred Scripture, especially Prov. 8:23: From eternity I was ordained, etc.; where those things which are said of wisdom, according to the interpretation of doctors, are to be understood of eternal law, which rules and moderates all things. It is proved 2. From reason; for this teaches that there exists in the world a certain natural, or essential, order, which arises from the very natures of things, for example, that between God and man there intervenes the relation of Creator to creature, of Lord to servant, etc. Now God, who cannot deny himself, necessarily wills that an order of this kind constituted by him not be disturbed, but be preserved. But this most ordered and immutable will of God most rightly receives the name ETERNAL LAW (Suarez, de Leg., l. 2, c. 3).

116. II. Eternal law, as such, is not law properly so called, but is the reason and source of all laws.

We say 1. It is not law properly so called; as not having been proclaimed to subjects, who did not exist from eternity. Hence St. Alphonsus with Sylvius (I, n. 71): "Eternal law," he says, "was from eternity law materially, not formally, or under the notion of law actually obliging."

In another place (I, n. 70; ed. G., I, p. 41) the Holy Doctor says: "Eternal law, with respect to men, is not proper law." For proper law, as to them, is natural law.

2. It is the reason and source of all laws. For every law, whether divine or human, receives the force of obliging from the fact that order, or eternal law, demands that subjects obey Superiors prescribing just things.

Nor does it stand in the way that positive laws, especially human laws, are mutable; for eternal law itself establishes that, according to the changed conditions of times, places, and persons, these laws are changed.

117. III. All human things, although in a diverse way, are subject to eternal law. For eternal law is the reason of divine governance: therefore whatever things are subjected to divine governance are also subjected to eternal law; accordingly all things are subjected to this law. But this subjection happens in a twofold way: in one way insofar as eternal law is participated by knowledge, by which a certain rule, which is a principle of acting, is impressed on the mind; in the other way insofar as it is participated by the natural inclination implanted in creatures, by which they are moved by divine providence. In this latter way irrational creatures are subjected, but rational creatures are subject in both ways. For in these there is both a certain notion of eternal law and a natural inclination to that which is consonant with this law.

Yet there is a distinction between the good and the wicked. In the wicked, the natural inclination to virtue is depraved through vicious habit, and the natural cognition itself of good in them is darkened through passions and habits of sins. Therefore the manner of subjection in the wicked is imperfect. But in the good a more perfect subjection is found, because both above the natural cognition of good there is superadded to them the cognition of faith and wisdom, and above the natural inclination to good there is superadded to them an interior motive of grace and virtue. Yet among the wicked, as much as is lacking on the part of action is supplied on the part of passion; namely insofar as they suffer what eternal law dictates concerning them, insofar as they fail to do what agrees with eternal law. Therefore whoever does not hold order, is held by order. Cf. St. Thomas, 1.2, q. 93, a. 6.

118. Note. Eternal law is the remote rule of morality, whether of our intellect or of our will. For through it, or through its light, we judge all things; but we cannot judge it, because it is infinite and incomprehensible, nor can any created intellect reach so far as to contemplate perfectly and from every side what the order of things is toward God. Hence, since sin turns aside from this order, we can never perfectly inspect its intrinsic and total malice.

Three things come here to be considered, namely of natural law: 1. existence and object; 2. promulgation and cognition; 3. immutability.

119. DEFINITION. Natural law (which is also called natural right) is the ordination of God commanding that the natural order be preserved and forbidding that it be disturbed, known through natural light. It is eternal law itself, insofar as the rational creature participates in it.

Therefore human reason is not the source of law, but is the faculty by which law is known (Dichiar. del sistema, n. 19). Hence this 3rd proposition of the Syllabus was proscribed by Pius IX: "Human reason, with no regard whatever had to God, is the sole arbiter of true and false, of good and evil; it is a law to itself, and by its natural powers suffices for caring for the good of men and peoples." The saying smells of insanity: Thus I will, thus I command, let will stand for reason, if indeed it is understood absolutely and without restriction.

DIVISION. In natural law primary and secondary right are distinguished. Primary, or absolute, is called that whose matter has an immediate connection with the essence of God; so that not even indirectly, through added circumstances, can it be changed: for example, you shall not swear falsely, you shall not blaspheme, you shall not tell a lie. Secondary, or hypothetical, is that whose matter concerns created things; which for that reason can be changed indirectly by the dominion over things, namely by God (or also by man, according to the need of the common good): for example, you shall not kill, that is, by private authority; you shall not commit theft, that is, as long as the thing will have been another's. Suarez, de Leg., l. 3, c. 13, n. 5.

120. PRINCIPLES. I. Natural law exists. It is evident from the words of the Apostle (Rom. 2:14): The Gentiles who do not have the law (that is, the Mosaic law), naturally do those things which are of the law; not having a law of this kind, they are a law to themselves: who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them, and their thoughts among themselves accusing or also defending.

121. II. The object of natural law is everything which so agrees with or repugns to rational nature that, for the preservation of order, it is necessarily prescribed or prohibited by the very Creator of nature. In other words: to the law of nature belong all precepts to which, from the nature of the thing and independently of any positive law whatever, we are bound. This is evident from the very definition of natural law.

"The ORDER OF NATURE is in this," says Reuter (P. I, n. 29), "that a rational creature have himself duly toward God, toward the neighbor, toward himself, and toward other creatures. Now the order toward God requires that he render faith to divine wisdom and veracity; hope and trust to benignity, mercy, omnipotence, and fidelity; love to the highest goodness; ... subjection and obedience to supreme jurisdiction, etc., and that he avoid the opposite vices. The order toward the neighbor requires that he love him, revere parents, obey Superiors, render to each his own, ... exercise the other virtues for an ordered society, and flee the vices opposed to these. The order toward himself requires that appetite be subjected to reason, and reason to God and Superiors. Finally, the order toward the remaining creatures demands that the rational creature use them rightly, as means to the end, and not expend on the means the love due to the end; nor turn them aside from the end to which by their nature and God's intention they are ordered" (cf. n. 379 ff.).

122. From these things it is inferred: 1. All acts of virtues belong to the law of nature insofar as in general they are virtuous: for reason dictates that each one act virtuously, even in a merely lawful and indifferent matter. But if the acts of virtues are considered according to themselves, and in their proper species, not all are of natural law. For this does not prescribe all actions conformable to order, but only those which are necessary for the preservation of order, and whose omission is base. Thus, for example, certain virtues, such as virginity and evangelical poverty, can be omitted without sin. Likewise, there are many acts of virtues which are of themselves mere counsel, and are prescribed only by positive law, such as abstinence from meats, and similar things (St. Thomas, 1.2, q. 94, a. 3).

2. All sins are against natural law, at least reductively and mediately: for whoever transgresses a positive precept of God or of man, by that very fact violates the order of reason, and the law of subjection which is required by nature (cf. n. 316).

123. PRINCIPLES. I. Natural law is promulgated and begins to oblige as soon as man obtains the use of reason. For natural law arises from the essences of things and from the divine perfections: therefore, as soon as man, using reason, knows God and the essential relations to him, which is to use reason, he knows natural law, and is bound to observe it. But until the use of reason is present, natural law remains promulgated only in first act, through the connatural habit of first principles (cf. H. Ap., I, 53).

124. From these things you will gather: 1. Since the promulgation of natural law becomes known through the light of reason, by that very fact it is subject to the imperfection of human reason. Hence, in order that law can be known integrally, easily, without doubt and error, another and more perfect promulgation is morally necessary; this is made both through the supernatural revelation of God and also through the infallible magisterium of the Church.

2. "The promulgation which obliges (in second act) is made when the creature knows the precept by the light of reason, or hears it from the Church, or from wise men who teach him" (H. Ap., I, 50).

3. Those sin who induce the insane, or children not yet capable of reason, to something which is against natural right (H. Ap., II, 36). For children and the insane, although they cannot sin formally, nevertheless in act they are in first act subject to the laws of nature. Hence blasphemy, for example, or a base act, is in them a material sin; and formally guilty of this is he who compels them to such a deed, or exhorts them to it. Cf. Lehmkuhl, I, n. 226. See below n. 193.

As to sins of deed, there is no difficulty. As to sins of speech, or of this sort, which require advertence and knowledge, it must be said that, if sin is lacking under the head of the delict to which they are induced, nevertheless it is present under the head of the depraved habit which is introduced into the insane, or under the head of scandal. Cf. Sweens, n. 408; Reuter, Neo-Conf., p. 100.

125. II. Natural law is always sufficiently promulgated as to first principles; it is sometimes unknown as to nearer conclusions; it is often unknown as to remote conclusions. So commonly against traditionalists and rigorists.

Once ignorance of fact has been admitted, by which namely man, generally conscious of the law, does not know that this or that is contained under the law, or does not advert to this, the question is made concerning ignorance of right, that is, of obligation. For this the precepts of natural law are divided into a threefold class (H. Ap., I, 5). The first embraces universal principles of morals which are known of themselves and are dictated by synderesis: for example, "good is to be done, evil avoided; what you do not wish to be done to you, do not do to another." These principles can by no means be unknown by a man capable of reason, and are indelible in each one, because they are innate through synderesis. The second comprehends immediate conclusions, deduced from the first principles with moderate consideration, such as most of the precepts of the Decalogue. Concerning these there is not given invincible ignorance, except among the uncultivated and for a brief time, or unless a circumstance apparently rendering honest has been added, for example, as to an officious lie. The reason is that such things become known to all by the very light of nature and do not require an intricate reasoning, which nevertheless can fail in a case, for example among uncultivated peoples. The third extends itself to mediate or remote conclusions, which, through a subtler discourse, are deduced from the precepts of the Decalogue; such as are the precepts concerning not entering into usurious contracts

usurious, concerning avoiding certain scandals, and similar things. These indeed can be invincibly and inculpably unknown, and often are unknown even by holy and learned men, as is clearly proved from so many and so great controversies which have existed, and still exist, among the doctors themselves in every matter, where definitions of the Church either are desired or are not known.

Everyone knows the text of St. Augustine (de Serm. Dom. in monte, l. 1, c. 16, n. 50), where he doubts whether a wife, with the consent of her husband, in certain circumstances, ought to commit adultery. Thus also many could, at least for a time, believe that civil divorce dissolves the bonds of matrimony, or, in places where public prostitutes are permitted, come to this, that they admit fornication is not so great a crime. Cf. Genicot, I, p. 113; Cathrein, Philos. mor., n. 178.

126. THE RIGORISTS OBJECT. God is faithful; he has promised to hear the one praying. If therefore we do not obtain light, we are at fault.

Resp. If we do not obtain light for avoiding formal sin, we are at fault, I concede; if we do not obtain light for avoiding material sin, we are at fault, I deny. Just as there is given a twofold sin, one material, the other formal, so two kinds of light must be distinguished. One light, by which material sin is avoided, is the cognition of the individual things which God commands or forbids. This light God has by no means promised to the one praying, as not necessary for salvation, since material sin does not involve an offense of God. The other light, by which formal sin is avoided, is an illumination of divine grace, by which we know the foulness of sin and the price of divine friendship, and are inclined to carry out that which conscience dictates has been commanded by God. This light God has promised to the one praying, and will never deny it (I, n. 174; ed. G., I, p. 156).

127. PRINCIPLES. I. Natural law is subject to no change properly so called.

And indeed, a change of law is made either from within or from without: it is made from within when a law, previously reasonable and useful to the common good, afterward becomes unreasonable and harmful; but it is made from without when a legitimate Superior either derogates from it, or abrogates it totally, or finally dispenses subjects from it.

Now, natural law can be changed in none of these ways. 1. It cannot be changed from within; for by natural law those things are prescribed which necessarily flow from the essential relations of man, and those things are forbidden which are altogether opposed to the same essential relations. But the essential relations of man are immutable, as are the essences of things. Therefore.

2. It cannot be changed from without, not even by the authority of God the Supreme Legislator. For God cannot will the nature of things and not will those things which necessarily follow from it, because "he cannot deny himself" (2 Tim. 2:13). Therefore natural law, in those things which it prescribes or forbids, is absolutely immutable (Tongiorgi, Philos. mor., n. 179).

128. II. Natural law is subject to change improperly so called.

This change is made either by addition, namely when a new law is superadded to a law; or by subtraction of matter, namely when that which was the matter of a law ceases to be the object of the same law, on account of some supervening circumstance which changes it.

1. Natural law can improperly, or indirectly, be changed by addition. And in truth, many precepts have been added to it through positive laws, whether divine or human.

Thus, by natural right, the suretyship of a woman is valid, likewise marriage without witnesses is valid, etc.; and nevertheless by force of positive law they can be invalid. The reason is that these pertain only negatively to natural right, since natural law establishes nothing positively concerning them, but permits the same things to be done in this or that way.

2. It can also be changed indirectly by subtraction of matter, or rather by change of matter, namely in those precepts whose matter is subject to the dominion of God or of man.

Thus, for example, matter was subtracted from natural law when God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son, or granted to the Hebrews the spoils of the Egyptians, or gave a precept of exterminating all the Canaanites. The same is done when God, or the Church in the name of God, dispenses in vows or oaths. For, when a just cause is present, God is judged to remit to man his debt as his proper lord, and thus to take away the vow by taking away the matter of the vow (Billuart, de Leg., Diss. 2, a. 4; Theol. Mechlin., de Leg., n. 38).

129. From these things you will gather: It is less rightly said that natural law ceases, has an exception, admits an excusing cause or interpretation, when, circumstances having changed, it no longer brings forth the same obligation (I, 174). Thus, for example, the obligation of fraternal correction does not cease, although it does not oblige here and now, if no fruit of amendment is hoped for; the obligation of returning a deposit and preserving a secret always urges, although, if grave harm to an innocent person or to the republic threatens from this, such and such a person becomes immune from this obligation. Cf. n. 216.

56. The laws of morals by no means need divine sanction, nor is it at all necessary that human laws conform to the law of nature or receive the force of obliging from God.

Alloc. Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862.

57. The science of philosophical matters and morals, and likewise civil laws, can and ought to decline from divine and ecclesiastical authority.

Alloc. Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862.

58. No other powers are to be recognized except those which are placed in matter, and every discipline and honesty of morals ought to be placed in accumulating and increasing riches in whatever way and in satisfying pleasures.

Alloc. Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862. - Encyclical letter Quanto conficiamur, August 10, 1863.

59. Right consists in material fact, and all duties of men are an empty name, and all human facts have the force of right.

Alloc. Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862.

60. Authority is nothing other than the sum of number and material forces.

Alloc. Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862.

61. The fortunate injustice of a fact brings no detriment to the sanctity of right.

Alloc. Jamdudum cernimus, March 18, 1861.

62. The principle which they call non-intervention is to be proclaimed and observed.

Alloc. Novos et ante, September 28, 1860.

63. It is lawful to refuse obedience to legitimate Princes, and even to rebel.

Encyclical letter Qui pluribus, November 9, 1846. - Alloc. Quisque vestrum, October 4, 1847. - Encyclical letter Noscitis et Nobiscum, December 8, 1849. - Apostolic Letters Cum catholica, March 26, 1860.

64. Both the violation of any most holy oath whatsoever and any wicked and shameful action repugnant to the eternal law, not only is by no means to be disapproved, but is even altogether lawful and to be extolled with the highest praises when this is done for love of country.

Alloc. Quibus quantisque, April 20, 1849.

166. • Natural law is the divine will, manifested by natural light, prescribing those things which are necessary for preserving right order.

Hence natural law is nothing other than eternal law intimated to rational nature through natural light, whether habitually through right reason, or actually through its dictate.

The object of natural law is everything which so agrees or disagrees with rational nature that it must necessarily be prescribed or forbidden by the Founder of that nature: namely, it embraces all those things which are conformable to eternal law. - Hence natural law is concerned 1° with the first principles of morals, for example, good is to be done; evil is to be avoided; do not do to another what you do not wish to be done to you; 2° with the secondary principles of morals, or the immediate conclusions of the first principles, such as generally are the precepts of the Decalogue; 3° with mediate, or more remote, conclusions.

167. Questions. - Quaer. 1° Can the object of the law of nature sometimes be ignored?

Resp. 1° The primary principles of morals can be ignored by no one. - 2° Likewise proximate conclusions, so that in these invincible ignorance cannot be given, except in children or the rude and for a brief time, or unless some circumstance apparently making the act honorable is added. - 3° But remote conclusions can be ignored, and often are ignored. Hence concerning these so many controversies among the Doctors are still agitated.¹

Quaer. 2° Can invincible ignorance be given concerning the malice of depraved desires in him who knows the malice of the act?

Resp. Negatively, at least as to efficacious desires. The reason is that to will what is evil, and indeed known as such, is to will what is known to displease God, and therefore is to will to displease him.

Quaer. 3° Is natural law mutable?

Resp. Negatively, and cases which seem contrary are of such a kind that either their matter is withdrawn from natural law by the will of God, or natural law does not obtain.

I said: 1) in which either their matter, etc. Namely, a twofold order of things must be distinguished. One is so founded in the very natures of things that not even God can change it, unless he were said to be able to deny himself. Therefore blasphemy, perjury, etc., cannot fail to be evil, and God would deny himself if he inverted this order. But the other order is one which, by reason of the dominion which belongs to God over all creatures, lies subject to divine power; and therefore, since it is not absolutely necessary, God can change it. Hence, since God is Lord both of the life and rights of man, and of all creatures which he has conceded to men for use, he can dispose concerning the life, rights, and things of men by taking away, transferring, etc., as it pleases him; therefore every malice will cease in taking away the life or goods of someone, if God has given this right and power to another. And this indeed is what some say: by the will of God it happens that matter is withdrawn from natural law. In this way matter was withdrawn from natural law when God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son, or conceded to the Hebrews the spoils of the Egyptians, or gave them the precept of exterminating all the Canaanites. Say the same if a judge condemns a guilty person to supreme punishment; for he does this from power given to him by God; or if ecclesiastical power dispenses in a vow or oath; for it does this in the place of God (n. 158).

I said: 2) or natural law does not obtain. Thus a secret is to be kept by the law of nature, which nevertheless must be revealed if, when it is kept, grave damage threatens an innocent person or the republic; for the law of nature prescribes that a secret be kept only in that case in which it can be kept without grave damage to an innocent person or to the republic. Thus also the obligation of fraternal correction does not obtain where no fruit is hoped from it.

St. Thomas, I-II, q. 91, a. 2.

244. Thesis. In the rational creature there is given a natural law, which is implanted with nature and essentially joined to it, and is known by the natural light of reason.

The first part is certain by faith, since the ordinary magisterium of the Church clearly teaches it from Scripture itself (Ps. IV, 6-7 according to the LXX and Vulgate) against atheists, materialists, defenders of moral positivism, and evolutionists; the other is certain against the traditionalists who asserted that natural law, in the present state of fallen man, becomes known to us only by the light of supernatural revelation or tradition.

It is proved: 1) In Scripture the Apostle teaches (Rom. II, 14-15) that the Gentiles who do not have the law (namely, the positive Mosaic law) naturally (that is, under the guidance of the light of natural reason) do the things which are of the law (which are prescribed by the Mosaic law), are a law to themselves (that is, it is in them), have it written in their hearts; that it is a true law, for whose violation or observance they are accused or defended by conscience; that the law was borne by God, because conscience accuses before God, who according to this will judge them.

2. The Fathers say that natural law is in all; that it is not written but inhering, innate, inserted; that it is inscribed in hearts; that nature is the teacher of good work, etc. Thus Justin, Dialogue 93; Origen, on Romans, l. II, n. 7, 8, 9; Tertullian, Against Marcion V, 13; Jerome, ep. 121 to Algasia, q. 8; Chrysostom, hom. 12 and 13 to the people of Antioch; Gregory Nazianzen, or. 28, n. 16; Ambrose, ep. 73; Augustine, on Ps. 57, n. 1; on Ps. 118, serm. 25, n. 5; Gregory the Great, on the Gospels, hom. 31, n. 3; Origen, on Numbers, hom. 10, n. 3; Augustine, Confessions II, 4; Sermon on the Mount II, c. 9; Jerome, ep. 121; Ambrose, De fuga saeculi 3, n. 15; ep. 73; Tertullian, De corona 6; Basil, on the Hexaemeron, hom. 9, n. 3 and 4; Cyril of Alexandria, Against Julian, l. 3; etc.

1. Cf. Bouquillon, Theologia Moralis Fundamentalis, n. 68; Leo XIII, encyclical Libertas.

3. Intimate sense and conscience testify that some actions are good, others evil; that these stand in the way of attaining the end or perfect good, while those are necessary to the end and obligatory, so that one who obeys the command attains peace of soul, while one who transgresses the same is agitated by the stings of conscience; from these arises the consensus of peoples in the existence of a law independent of human power.

4. Reason teaches the same, which St. Thomas shows thus:

Law can be in something in two ways: in one way in the legislator as in the one regulating and measuring, in another way in the subject as in the thing regulated and measured, because insofar as something participates in a rule and measure, thus it is regulated and measured. But all things which are subjected to divine providence are regulated by eternal law. Therefore all things participate in eternal law in some way, insofar as they have an inclination into their own acts and ends. But the rational creature is subject to providence in a more excellent way, insofar as it is made a participant of providence itself, providing for itself and for others. Therefore in it there is a special participation of eternal law insofar as it has an inclination to the due act and end known to it; and this participation is natural law.

It can be defined: the ordination of the rational creature to the ultimate end, founded in its very nature and perceived by the natural light of reason; or the participation of eternal law in rational nature, the ordination impressed upon the created mind by which eternal law is participated in it.

St. Thomas, I-II, q. 91, a. 2 and q. 94, a. 1.

245. Thesis. The participation of eternal law in the rational creature is true law. - For it is:

1. an ordination of reason: the rational creature participates in law intellectually and rationally, and therefore the participation of eternal law in it is properly called law, because it is something of reason: a dictate constituted by reason; in other creatures it is not participated rationally, whence in them a proper inclination is not called law except by similitude;

2. promulgated by God to a community: for although promulgation is made in individuals, by the impression of reason, nevertheless it is made by reason not indeed as it is particular, but as it is common and the same in all, proceeding from the author of nature;

3. it is made for moral honesty, not of one person, but of the whole of humanity.

1. "The common voice of the whole of nature, or rather of its author, who, although He speaks to individuals, speaks as a public person, because He speaks as author of nature itself." Suarez, De Legibus, l. I, c. II, n. 4.

246. Essence of natural law. - Natural law is not law insofar as it is in the legislator as in the one regulating, and accordingly it is not eternal law itself; but it is law as it is in subjects as in those regulated, and accordingly it is the participation, manifestation, passive promulgation of eternal law in us.

And indeed:

1. It is not the will of God, whether necessary or free: for actions are not good or evil because they are commanded or prohibited by the willing God, but they are commanded or prohibited as intrinsically good or evil in themselves; and indeed good things which are required as necessary by order cannot fail to be commanded, and evil things cannot fail to be prohibited. Whence, if per impossible God did not will natural law, nevertheless it would become known to us and obligate us in the same way, because human nature would be constituted in the same way by commanding divine reason, and it, as also our acts, would be ordered to the ultimate end. Law, namely, essentially is an ordination of reason, not of will.

2. The Nominalists, such as Ockham, Pierre d'Ailly, Gerson; likewise Descartes and Pufendorf, say: the free will of God. Suarez speaks in the same way. Liberatore, De Bie, and Gutberlet say: necessary will; Meyer: hypothetically necessary will. Cathrein says: will, without further determination.

3. Billuart notes, diss. 1, a. 1: "For law it suffices that it be directive of human actions, and that it have the power of obligating. But eternal law (as to necessary precepts) and natural law have these two independently of every act of will. Concerning the first there is no doubt; concerning the second it is also clear, because, by the very fact that the reason of the divine mind dictates and intimates that God is to be worshiped, parents are to be honored, etc., and that theft, lying, etc. are evil and therefore to be avoided, there arises in man an obligation to do those things in their time and to avoid these things, even if, per impossible, there were no will obligating to these, because from their intrinsic things or from their nature they are either to be done or to be avoided, by the very fact that through the dictate of reason they are intimated as such."

2. Nor does the will or power of God necessarily seem to have to be attended to in order that natural law become known. For moral necessity or obligation is the absolute necessity of a means to an absolutely necessary end (Q. D. De Veritate 17, a. 3), so that the means is necessary not only under the condition, if someone wills the end, but absolutely, because the end also is absolutely necessary and altogether imposed upon us. Whence, in order to know law or obligation, it suffices that there be present the absolute necessity of an end which is altogether imposed, and that the necessary connection of means to the end be known, and consequently the obligation to those means. Now the end is imposed upon us by the physical necessity of nature: the highest good of rational nature and highest happiness, so that we cannot fail to will it; and reason a) can know that certain particular goods fitting to rational nature pertain to that end (as a necessary condition of true perfection and ultimate happiness), while certain others do not pertain to it, and b) thus can perceive the necessary connection of certain acts, as means, with that end. Therefore the absolute moral necessity of means and obligation arising from nature, or natural law, can be known while abstracting from God, namely, without attending to the will or authority of God. This nevertheless does not exclude that natural law remotely and ultimately depends upon God, and that obligation, once God is known, is perceived more fully and perfectly.

1. Thus Vasquez, Gerdil, D'Hulst, Mercier (in an autograph course of moral philosophy); Manuel de philosophie neo-scolastique (of the Louvain school); Gillet, Du Fondement intellectuel de la Morale d'apres Aristote; Lottin, Le Probleme des Fins en morale, p. 164; Loi Naturelle et positive, p. 20; L'Ordre moral et l'ordre logique, p. 331; Du Rousseaux, Philosophie morale, p. 200 and 227; Garrigou-Lagrange, Dieu, p. 309; Fonsegrive in Revue de Philosophie, 1910; Vie diocesaine, 1923, p. 383; Collectanea Mechliniensia, 1928, p. 330.

3. Yet it is not the categorical imperative of autonomous reason or will (Kant and the Rationalists). For autonomy cannot be reconciled with the idea of true obligation, because human reason cannot obligate itself. Whence obligation is not constituted by human reason, but is imposed from the necessary inclination of our nature, which cannot be changed by us and which always persists immutable. Furthermore, this opinion rests upon the false foundation that man is an end to himself, or an end in himself (cf. Syllabus, prop. 3 and 50), while nevertheless he is essentially a creature of God, depending upon Him and ordered to Him. The ultimate end, namely, is not constituted by reason but by the author of nature.

Therefore, considered in first act, natural law is the habitual inclination of rational nature to its own acts, namely, to knowing and desiring the end or perfect good, and the means necessarily leading to it, or honorable acts to be chosen; whence nature truly is a law to itself, in this sense, that from the necessary and ineluctable inclination of nature to the end there arises obligation to employ the means. In other words, natural law is the light of natural reason by which we are able to discern what is good to be done or evil to be avoided; this light shows goodness and malice and is the rule of our acts, insofar as it is derived from the divine light and is an impression of the divine light in us. Considered in second act, law is the actual dictate or judgment of reason prescribing in a general mode what is good to be done, what evil is to be avoided. Hence:

a) although natural law is not a habit, since it is not that by which reason acts, but that which it dictates, nevertheless the precepts of the law of nature are not always actually considered by reason, and then they are in it habitually, and thus natural law can be called a habit, because it is held by habit;

b) it differs from synderesis, which is not the innate light of reason or its actual dictate, but is a habit (or facility, not strictly innate but flowing spontaneously from the intellect) by which we easily enunciate not all but the first moral principles; whence it contains these principles virtually;

c) it differs from conscience, which is not a general norm of acting but a judgment concerning things to be done in particular.

247. Foundation of natural law. - One must ask not only about the essence, but also about the foundation of natural law or natural obligation, and consequently of every obligation; for positive obligation is founded upon the obligation of natural law, insofar as this commands that superiors are to be obeyed.

Now from what has been said it is clear:

1. That the sole, sufficient, or ultimate foundation is not the will of God, whether free or necessary: not free, because the question is of necessary law; not necessary, because it depends upon something prior from which it has necessity, namely, upon divine wisdom and essence (Q. D. De Veritate 23, a. 6); and therefore it is not the ultimate, sole, and sufficient foundation. Adversaries indeed say that no law is given without a legislator, and that no precept can be conceived without the will and authority of one prescribing. But:

a) this is true of positive law, which is not necessary, not of natural law, whose obligation arises from the nature of things and from the necessary tendency of our nature to the end;

b) besides, by saying that natural law is obligatory because reason dictates that the will of God prescribing is to be obeyed, they will with difficulty free themselves from contradiction, because the said principle, as prescribed by reason alone, is known as obligatory and does not ultimately depend on knowledge of the will of God; otherwise there would be a vicious circle;

c) finally, the first principles of natural law, for example, good is to be done, etc., are known before knowledge of God, just as the knowledge itself of the terms of which they consist and by which, once known, they are immediately enunciated, precedes this knowledge. Whence, although God in the ontological order is the necessary foundation of natural law, He is not so in the logical order of knowledge.

1. Cf. I-II, q. 94, a. 2 and 4; q. 58, a. 5; II-II, q. 47, a. 6; Q. D. De Veritate 16, a. 1 and 2.

2. Nor is the foundation human reason alone, because just as an effect depends more upon the first cause than upon the second cause, so obligation depends more upon the author of nature and eternal law than upon nature and human reason participated from God: for the essential order of things is not from reason nor from itself, but is derived from eternal law.

The foundation seems to be distinguished as twofold:

a) One secondary and proximate: human nature itself regarded completely with its essential and necessary relations, or its ultimate end absolutely imposed upon it, or the essential order of things according to which certain things have a necessary connection with the ultimate end; and this is sufficient for conceiving true and properly so-called natural obligation, as we have said.

b) The other primary, remote, and ultimate: the intellect of God itself, or eternal law with its root, the divine essence. For eternal law is the fountain of human nature and reason, and this is not the rule of our acts except from divine reason, of which it is also a participation. In the same way the foundation of the principles of speculative reason and of eternal truths is twofold: namely, the proximate foundation, the nature of things and the relations which hold among them (which suffices for conceiving necessary truths), and the ultimate foundation, which is the essence and intellect of God. And just as we are able to know the truth of the first principles of speculative reason from the proximate foundation alone, the nature of things, without knowing their ultimate foundation, the divine intellect, so we are able to know the truth and obligation of the first principles of practical reason without knowing their ultimate foundation: the divine intellect and eternal law.

248. Corollary: the system of secular morality, or, as they say, of obligation independent of God, must therefore be refuted, by saying that it is:

Natural law, according to St. Thomas, is "the participation of the eternal law in the rational creature." If you unfold this definition a little, you will be able to say that natural law is a necessary divine command, manifested by natural light, commanding that right order be preserved, forbidding that it be disturbed. - For there exist essential relations of man to God, to himself, and to his neighbor; the complex of these constitutes the essential order, to the preserving of which God cannot not oblige the rational creature, because otherwise He would contradict Himself. Wherefore the author of natural law is God; the subject is the rational creature; the herald is the light of reason; the object, insofar as the law is prohibiting, is intrinsically evil actions, or actions which directly overthrow those relations; but insofar as it is commanding, the object is intrinsically good actions. The former, however, fall under precept at individual moments; the latter only then when, if they were not placed, that essential order would be violated. - Cf. St. Thomas, 1-2, q. 91, art. 2.

Question. Can the object of the law of nature sometimes be unknown?

Response. The primary principles of this law, for example, good is to be done, evil is to be avoided, do not do to another what you do not wish to be done to you, cannot be unknown by anyone. Likewise proximate conclusions, such as most precepts of the Decalogue, likewise cannot be unknown except either rarely or for a short time among the rude and children. But remote conclusions can be unknown, and often are unknown, as is clear from so many controversies which have always been agitated among the Doctors. Cf. St. Thomas, 1-2, q. 94, art. 4. - St. Alphonsus, nn. 170 and seq.; and de Consc. n. 8.

D. Thomas, q. 94.

[You will ask 1° whether natural law be given in us.

I answer. in the affirmative.

It is proved. 1° from the Apostle, Rom., II, 14 and 15: The nations who have not the law, namely the Mosaic or Evangelical law, naturally do those things that are of the law. Such as have not the law are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts. From St. Ambrose, lib. IX, epist. 71: « That law is not written but innate, nor is it perceived by any reading, but is expressed in each one by a flowing fountain of nature; » from St. Augustine, lib. II Confess., c. 4, n. 9: « Thy law, O Lord, law written in the hearts of men, which not even iniquity itself erases, » and lib. II de Sermone Domini in monte, c. 9, n. 32: « Who wrote in the hearts of men the natural law, save God? »

It is proved. 2° by reason¹. « Law, says St. Thomas, since it be a rule and measure, can be in someone in a twofold way: in one mode, as in the ruler and measurer; in another mode, as in the ruled and measured, because insofar as it participates something of rule or measure, so is it ruled or measured. Whence, since all things which are subject to divine providence are regulated and measured by the eternal law, it is manifest that all things participate after a manner in the eternal law, namely insofar as from its impression they have inclinations into their proper acts and ends. — But among other things the rational creature is subject to divine providence in an excellent manner, insofar as it itself becomes a partaker of providence, providing for itself and for others. Whence also in it is participated eternal reason, whereby it has a natural inclination to its due act and end. And such participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called natural law. » ¹ Here q. 91, a. 2, o.

It is confirmed by the intimate sense and testimony of everyone. For there is no one who does not experience in himself some dictate intimating and commanding that good must be done, evil avoided, God adored, parents honored, lying not committed, stealing not done, etc., in all of which, as the Apostle says, Rom., II, 15, their conscience rendering testimony to them. But this dictate is called natural law.]

You will ask 2° what natural law is.

I answer. Among various opinions, it seems truer that natural law is nothing else than the natural light as impressed upon and participated from reason or the eternal law¹; because thus are had all things which are wont to be attributed to natural law. 1° It is inborn in us, and found in children and the insane. 2° It is not only demonstrative of good, but also preceptive, because it is impression and participation of the eternal law, consequently empire of superior over inferior. 3° It binds by divine right, because it is immediately from God. ¹ Ibid.

You will ask 3° whether natural law contain more precepts, or only one.

I answer. that it contains more precepts, which nevertheless are founded upon this one: « Good must be done, evil must be avoided »². ² Here q. 94, a. 2, o.

[Precepts of a triple kind are natural, according as there is in man a triple grade of inclination: 1° According to common nature with all beings, there is in him inclination toward conservation of his being, according to which the law of nature commands that sleep, food be taken, destructive things resisted. 2° According to common nature with all animals, there is in him inclination toward conservation of species, according to which there pertain to the law of nature the precepts of temperance concerning acts tending to this end and the education of offspring. 3° According to the nature of reason, which is proper to man, there is in him inclination to truth about God to be known, to immortality, to communication with other intellectual beings: and to this respond the precepts of adoring God, honoring parents, and similar things of religion and justice.]

They are distinguished. again, the precepts of the law of nature into those per se known to all, such as are the first and universal ones: « Good must be done, evil avoided; what thou wilt not have done to thyself, do thou not to another, etc.; » and into those which are more determined and are drawn immediately from the first, such as the precepts of the Decalogue; at length into remoter ones, which are drawn from the first only mediately, such as many which concern contracts¹. ¹ Ibid.

[Precepts of the law of nature can moreover be distinguished by order to the persons about whom they are concerned; for some are about God, some about neighbor, some about ourselves.

Therefore the law of nature can be said to be manifold and one: manifold, because it contains many and diverse precepts; one, because all precepts are founded on one, as was said, and are ordered to one last end.]

You will ask 4° whether natural law bind all men, even children and the insane.

I answer. in the affirmative. Yet it binds children and the insane only imperfectly and in first act, not perfectly and in second act.

The reason of the first part, because natural law is innate in all, even children and the insane, from nature itself, as was said, so that what children and the insane do against the law of nature is base and unseemly, as if they blaspheme, defile themselves, or do anything like, and no one may induce them to these; which is an open sign that they are comprehended under natural law and bound by it at least in first act.

The reason of the second part is, that children and the insane are not so bound by natural law that, if they transgress it, they sin and incur guilt of punishment, but are excused from sin and punishment, inasmuch as that law is not promulgated to them; for it is promulgated through actual dictate or discourse, whereof they are not capable: consequently it does not bind them perfectly and in second act.

You will ask 5° whether every obligation be an effect of natural law.

I answer. that not every obligation is a proximate effect of natural law, yet that it is a remote effect.

The reason of the first part is, that positive laws, divine as well as human, bind per se immediately, nor will anyone say that the obligation of fasting in Lent, confessing annually, communicating at Easter, believing, hoping, etc., arise proximately and per se from natural law.

The reason of the second part is: Positive law binds therefore, because natural law dictates and prescribes that obedience be rendered to one legitimately commanding, and hence theologians teach that no one turns away from God as supernatural author without turning away from him as natural author; which cannot be verified except because, transgressing the supernatural law, he at once transgresses natural law.

Whether and how natural right is distinguished from the right of nations, you have in the tract. on Right, dissert. I, art. 3.

Again, whether invincible ignorance of natural right could occur? The affirmative solution and ample proof seek in the preceding tract. dissert. V, art. 4.

There remains one question alone, likewise celebrated, although perhaps more of name than of thing is treated in it, namely whether natural law admit dispensation. Whence

1. Besides printing, many methods are now in vogue for multiplying copies of a document. Commonly the document is written out with special ink on special paper: the copy thus used is called a stencil; and from it other copies are struck off. We will suppose the stencil to be that page of the Eternal Law written in the Mind of God, which regulates human acts, technically so called. The copies struck off from that stencil will be the Natural Law in the mind of this man and of that. Now, as all who are familiar with copying processes know too well, it happens at times that a copy comes out very faint, and in parts not at all. These faint and partial copies represent the Natural Law as it is imperfectly developed in the minds of many men. In this sense, and as we may say subjectively, the Natural Law is mutable, very mutable indeed. Still, as no one would say that the document had been altered, because some copies of it were bad, so it is not strictly correct to say that the Natural Law varies with these subjective varieties. Appeal would be made to a full and perfectly printed impression of the document, one that rendered the stencil exactly. The Natural Law must be viewed in like manner, as it would exist in a mind perfectly enlightened concerning the whole duty of man, and exactly reproducing in itself that portion of the Eternal Law which ordains such duty. Were such a mind to discern a natural obligation to lie differently at two different times, all the relevant circumstances being alike in both cases, and the moral solution different, then only could the Natural Law be held to have changed.

2. But this is clearly impossible. The conclusion of a geometrical theorem is a truth for all time. There is no difference here between a complicated theorem, having many conditions, and a simpler theorem with fewer. It is indeed easier for a few than for many conditions to be all present together: but the enunciation of the conclusion supposes all the conditions, whatever their number. The same in a practical manner, as in the stability of a bridge. The bridge that would stand in England, would stand in Ceylon. If it would not, there must have occurred some change in the conditions, as the heat of the tropical sun upon the girders. A point of casuistry also, however knotty, once determined, is determined for ever and aye, for the circumstances under which it was determined. The Natural Law in this sense is absolutely immutable, no less in each particular application than in the most general principles. We must uniformly pass the same judgment on the same case. What is once right and reasonable, is always right and reasonable, in the same matter. Where to-day there is only one right course, there cannot to-morrow be two, unless circumstances have altered. The Natural Law is thus far immutable, every jot and tittle.

3. No power in heaven above nor on earth beneath can dispense from any portion of the Natural Law. For the matter of the negative precepts of that law is, as we have seen, something bad in itself and repugnant to human nature, and accordingly forbidden by God: while the matter of the positive precepts is something good and necessary to man, commanded by God. If God were to take off His command, or prohibition, the intrinsic exigency, or intolerableness, of the thing to man would still remain, being as inseparable from humanity as certain mathematical properties from a triangle. Pride is not made for man, nor fornication, nor lying, nor polygamy [Footnote 14]: human nature would cry out against them, even were the Almighty in a particular instance to withdraw His prohibition. What would be the use, then, of any such withdrawal? It would not make the evil thing good. An evil thing it would still remain, unnatural, irrational, and as such, displeasing to God, the Supreme Reason. The man would not be free to do the thing, even though God did not forbid it. It appears, therefore, that the Divine prohibition, and similarly the Divine command, which we have proved (c. vi., s. ii., nn. 10, 11, p. 121) to be necessarily imposed in matters of natural evil and of naturally imperative good, is imposed as a hard and fast line, so long as the intrinsic good or evil remains the same.

¹⁴ There is a theological difficulty about the polygamy of the patriarchs, which will be touched on in Natural Law, c. vi., s. ii., n. 4. p. 272.

4. There is, therefore, no room for Evolution in Ethics and Natural Law any more than in Geometry. One variety of geometrical construction, or of moral action, may succeed another; but the truths of the science, by which those varieties are judged, change not. There is indeed this peculiarity about morality, distinguishing it from art, that if a man errs invincibly, the evil that he takes for good is not formally evil, or evil as he wills it, and the good that he takes for evil is formally evil to him. (c. iii., s. ii., n. 7, p. 33.) So there is variation and possible Evolution in bare formal good and bare formal evil, as ignorance gradually changes into knowledge; and likewise Reversion, as knowledge declines into ignorance. Even this Evolution and Reversion have their limits: they cannot occur in the primary principles of morality, as we saw in the last section. But morality material and objective,—complete morality, where the formal and material elements agree, where real wrong is seen to be wrong, and real right is known for right—in this morality there is no Evolution. If Hannibal offered human sacrifices to his grandfather because he knew no better, and could not have known better, than to think himself bound so to do, he is to be excused, and even praised for his piety: still it was a mistaken piety; and the act, apart from the light in which the doer viewed it, was a hideous crime. An incorrupt teacher of morals would have taught the Carthaginian, not that he was doing something perfectly right for his age and country, which, however, would be wrong in Germany some centuries later, but that he was doing an act there and then evil and forbidden of God, from which he was bound, upon admonition, instantly to desist.¹⁵

¹⁵ The author has seen reason somewhat to modify this view, as appears by the Appendix. (Note to Third Edition.)

5. There are Evolution and Reversion in architecture, but not in the laws of stability of structure, nor in the principles of beauty as realized in building. A combination, ugly now, was not beautiful in the days of Darius. Tastes differ, but not right tastes; and moral notions, but not right moral notions. It is true that questions of right and wrong occur in one state of society, that had no relevance in an earlier state, the conditions of the case not having arisen. But so it is in architecture; there are no arches in the Parthenon. The principle of the arch, however, held in the age of Pericles, though not applied.

6. The progress of Moral Science is the more and more perfect development of the Natural Law in the heart of man, a psychological, not an ontological development. And Moral Science does progress. No man can be a diligent student of morality for years, without coming to the understanding of many things, for which one would look in vain in Aristotle's Ethics and Politics, or in Cicero, De Officiis, or even in the Summa of St. Thomas, or perhaps in any book ever written. New moral questions come for discussion as civilization advances. The commercial system of modern times would furnish a theme for another De Lugo. And still on this path of ethical discovery, to quote the text that Bacon loved, "Many shall pass over, and knowledge shall be multiplied." (Daniel xii. 4.)

Readings.—St. Thos., Supplement, q. 65, art. 1, in corp.; ib., q. 65, art. 2, in corp., and ad 1; Hughes, Supernatural Morals, pp. 67, 68, reviewed in The Month for August, 1891, pp. 542, 543.

107. The sanction of a law is the provision of reward for the observance of the law and of punishment for its violation. That sanction is called perfect, which is sufficient to make it a matter of every one's highest interest to observe the law. If the sanction falls short of this, it is said to be imperfect.

108. Thesis XVII. The sanction appertaining to the natural law, though imperfect in this life, is perfect in the life to come.

Part I. There is an imperfect sanction in this life. Proof We know from the experience of mankind that the observance of the natural law usually brings with it certain forms of happiness, such as peace of mind, friendship, honor, a fair supply of earthly possessions, health and longevity; and that frequent violation of the law entails all of life's miseries, such as disquiet of mind, dishonor, poverty, disease, and often an early death. Hence it is evident that the natural law has some sanction in this life. Yet this sanction is very imperfect. Oftentimes the virtuous endure great misery in this life, while, on the other hand, evil doers are often comparatively prosperous and apparently triumphant in their wickedness. Moreover, the perfect sanction of the law requires that the rewards held out for its observance should exceed as recompense all inconvenience and suffering that may be incurred by observing the law, and that the penalties threatened should be greater than any emoluments or advantages that may be obtained by violating the law. Now, what reward, for example, can be given in this life to a man that dies for the truth? Is it the renown of a noble deed? But death makes the enjoyment of renown on earth an impossibility for him. Or again, does the weak remorse of the apostate match the advantage which his base denial of the Faith has gained in the preservation of his life? Therefore, the rewards and punishments of this life do not form a perfect sanction of the natural law.

Part II. A perfect sanction in the next life. Proof Since God wills the observance of the law which He has impressed upon the hearts of men, His wisdom requires Him to use the proper means to secure that observance. But the only means proper to secure this end without destroying human liberty is to propose adequate rewards and punishments, that is, to establish a perfect sanction of the law. Therefore a perfect sanction of the law exists. But since the sanction in this life is imperfect, it follows that there must be a perfect sanction in the next life.

109. We know that all men can attain the perfect happiness for which their nature longs insatiably. (Thesis IV.) It is clear, also, that this happiness, our summum bonum, or greatest good, the possession of God Himself (Thesis VI.), is the chief sanction of the observance of the moral law: it is the highest, the most complete, the most appropriate reward of the virtue practised in this life. Can any form of happiness be higher or more complete than the everlasting possession of God? The appropriateness of such a reward is apparent from the nature of virtue, which consists in the observance of the moral law, and is the direct means to the attainment of our last end. What then could be more appropriate than that virtue's reward should be the perfect possession of that towards which its endeavors tend?

110. Since vice consists essentially in a willful turning away from our last end, it becomes evident, by a process of reasoning similar to that followed above, that the privation of the possession of God is the natural and chief punishment of the wicked. Now, two ways are possible by which the wicked might be deprived of their last end, and so be disappointed of the only object that can satisfy the insatiable craving of their nature. One way is by the soul's utter annihilation after death; the other is by a future life of despair, in which the soul must evermore be tormented by vain yearnings for the Good which it despised and rejected in the days of its trial on earth. We know from Revelation that the wicked who die impenitent shall be condemned to eternal sufferings. Natural reason, however, could not, of itself, give us certainty on this point. Yet it belongs to Moral Philosophy to show that this doctrine, far from being unreasonable, is in perfect accord with rational principles. Omitting the arguments adduced in our Psychology (Ment. Phil., No. 215), we shall merely disprove the possibility of the soul's annihilation, the only other way of depriving man of the last end which he has forfeited. If annihilation were possible, the perfect sanction of the natural law would be impossible. A sanction is not perfect that does not make it every man's highest interest to choose, in the face of the greatest temptation, the right rather than the wrong. Now, surely, annihilation would not be, on many occasions and for many persons, a perfect sanction. Are there not many persons in the world around us who would choose annihilation after death, rather than deny themselves unlawful gratifications? Besides, what retribution would then be in store for the crime of suicide?

111. Some have pleaded for the existence of another state of probation after death. But such a theory only shifts the difficulty without solving it. For, if at the end of the second probation some souls should persevere in their wickedness, shall there be a third trial, — and a fourth, and so on, forever? As the series of trials cannot go on without end, and as it is likely that some souls would persist in malice through multiplied probations, these souls must at last enter upon a fixed state of disappointment and despair. Hence, if this state must be entered upon finally, there is no reason why the first trial should not be decisive. In the second place, such an arrangement would take from the punishment sanctioning the law its deterrent force. If, despite the present widespread belief of immediate retribution after death, so many are hopelessly wicked, how much more grievous and wicked would be the violations of the law if men were convinced that, in the next life, they should have an opportunity of averting the everlasting doom of sin!

112. Moreover, since the soul by its nature is immortal (Ment. Phil., No. 213 et seq.), it would be unreasonable to admit the possibility of the soul's annihilation.

Should it be objected against us, that eternal punishment is repugnant to the infinite mercy of God, we should answer that the justice of God is infinite as well as His mercy. Besides, eternal punishment is not only a vindication of right order, it is also deterrent and remedial. The consideration of that terrific retribution is calculated to keep to the narrow path of virtue many who are sorely tempted to stray therefrom, and to call back those who have left it for the perfidious ways of iniquity.

A suspicion may sometimes lurk in the mind that eternal punishment, though God has an absolute right to inflict it, is after all an excess of rigor and therefore unjust, because there would be no proportion between an eternity of suffering and the temporal duration of man's evil deeds. The difficulty arises from our failure to comprehend the malice of sin. The gravity of an offense is to be measured not by its duration only, but especially by the dignity of the person offended. Now the dignity of God is infinite; accordingly, an offense against His Sovereign Majesty is objectively infinite, and demands an infinite compensation. This a creature cannot give, because it is essentially finite; the nearest approach to an equivalent is an everlasting retribution.

SOME time ago the place of honour in the Literary Supplement of The Times was given to an article on the Variousness of Man. According to the writer of the article, it used to be thought that man is endowed with a faculty called Reason. This faculty, it was said, is in all men, and in all men it is the same. By its help man comes to the knowledge of certain necessary truths which are valid for all mankind and, indeed, for God and his angels as well. Reason also manifests certain moral truths, it was said, which are also valid for all mankind. In order to acquire any plausibility, this theory was compelled to admit that all men did not possess this faculty of reason in an equal degree. The variety of opinions held by men on the most ordinary subjects obliged philosophers to admit that. But in recent years the theory has lost all the plausibility which it once possessed. Non-Euclidean geometry has shown the true status of the necessary truths or axioms on which Euclid’s geometry rests. Sincere examination of the way in which men do actually think has revealed the fact that they think in a great variety of ways. A French writer has shown this to be true of the simplest concepts. He takes the idea of a triangle and shows that Euclid, Schopenhauer, Duns Scotus, Spinoza, and Goethe had quite different notions about so simple a concept as that of a triangle. No wonder that men’s judgements and theories differ widely when their thoughts are not the same about so elementary a thing as a triangle. The old psychology split up man’s mind into separate and distinct faculties, which it named the intellect, the emotions, and the will. It is more true to say that man thinks as a whole, that his conclusions are the product of the whole of his being, but as such they must only be given a personal and local validity. This is true of the moral as well as of the intellectual order.

A uniform code of morality ignores individual and specific differences as much as a uniform diet would do. In order to be judged fairly the conduct of each man should be judged with reference to the nobility of which he is capable. The points of a prize pig are not the same as the points of a prize dog. There is no one ideal of moral conduct, no one ideal of artistic achievement, no one ideal of thinking. Everyone should aim at being true to himself, and for the rest—tolerance.

And so, according to the writer whose article I have summarized, if there be such a thing as universal, objective truth, man’s faculties do not enable him to attain to it. As each one is differently constituted, each one thinks differently, the conclusions at which each one arrives are different. It would be the height of presumption for anyone to claim that his own particular opinions were true.

Universal scepticism, intellectual, moral, and artistic, is the only sound philosophy. This is the view taken by many modern philosophers. In a recent book on Contemporary British Philosophy, Mr. Bertrand Russell writes:

“If we could hope for certainty in philosophy, the matter would be otherwise, but as far as I can see such a hope would be chimerical.”

Mr. Carveth Read writes:

“Every student of the history of philosophy must have learnt that whatever he thinks, it is probably wrong.”

Mr. Schiller affirms:

“No truth is eternal; every truth has its day. But this does not matter so long as sufficient for the day is the truth thereof.”

This universal scepticism is the only possible philosophy if the current theories of evolution are true. According to those theories the whole universe is in a perpetual process of change. If our minds for an instant could grasp the whole process, they would no sooner have succeeded in the task than the perception would have ceased to correspond with the facts. It would no longer be true, the facts would have changed. But not only the facts change, the observing mind of man changes, too. It, too, is subject to the process of evolution. And thus we are incapable of attaining to universal, objective truth because it does not exist, and because our faculties are perpetually changing, and giving us perpetually different views of things.

All this adds greatly to the significance of the views expressed by the writer in the Literary Supplement of The Times. It shows that those views are in harmony with modern thought and with modern science, that they are the outcome and the expression of modern thought and modern science. The splendid philosophic achievements of ancient Greece and Rome ended in Scepticism.

Scepticism sapped the springs of effort, chilled the mind and heart with doubt, and led the nobler minds to sullen despair. The people interpreted the conclusion otherwise; they said: “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” It looks as if the modern world were faced with similar conclusions.

Jesus Christ did not base his teaching on human reason. He claimed to be the truth, he came to give testimony to the truth, and he demanded absolute, unflinching faith in his person and on his word. Still Christian faith cannot ignore reason, nor is Christian faith indifferent to the claims of human reason.

Reason keeps the outworks of the faith, and Christian writers have ever shown themselves valiant defenders of the legitimate claims of human reason. They refuted scepticism with this simple but adequate argument. You sceptics, they said, strive to show that no certainty can be attained in anything, that everything is doubtful. Then, your arguments and your conclusion are doubtful, and we refuse to accept them.

The theory of evolution that man is of animal origin and only differs accidentally from the lower animals is responsible for much of the modern scepticism. Instead of concentrating the attention on what man is supposed to have been a hundred thousand years ago, it is better to consider what he is now. We have within ourselves and under our eyes undeniable facts of the greatest significance. We may concede to the writer in the Literary Supplement of The Times that men differ much among themselves. It is probable that as no two leaves in the forest are precisely alike, so there are no two men precisely alike. One man differs from another in capacity, in experience, in knowledge, in quickness, and in many other ways. Still, in spite of individual differences, men are alike in some things. All men have a language by means of which they can communicate to each other their thoughts and judgements. No - animals have a language like those of men. To have a language by which we can communicate to others our thoughts and judgements implies the power of forming concepts or universal ideas. The concept or universal idea of a triangle is not different in different men, as the writer quoted above maintains. Euclid and Goethe may indeed have looked at the triangle from different points of view. Euclid probably knew more about the triangle than Goethe did. But both Euclid and Goethe agreed that a triangle is a three-sided figure with three angles. And when they agreed that such a figure is a triangle, they both had the same and the true concept of what a triangle is. They formed a phantasm in their imaginations when they mentioned a triangle. But the concept of a triangle was not the same thing as the phantasm of the triangle. The concept was of no definite size; it was neither plane nor spherical; it had angles, but the angles were neither acute, nor obtuse, nor right angles; it was simply a figure enclosed by three sides and having three angles. Every figure that had those characteristics was a triangle, and no figure could be a triangle without them. In spite of his mysticism Goethe was as clear about that as Euclid was. In other words, Euclid and Goethe had the same concept of a triangle in spite of what the recent French writer quoted in the Literary Supplement of The Times says to the contrary.

Different men, then, form essentially the same universal ideas, and they could not communicate to each other their thoughts and judgements by means of language unless they did, for they would not understand one another. What appeared to one to be true, would not be true to another.

The power of forming universal ideas which are the same for all men shows that man has a faculty called intellect, common to all men, but not shared by the brutes.

Before taking the next step in our demonstration it should be observed that by a triangle Euclid did not understand a mere abstraction expressed by its definition, as the writers quoted above suppose. For Euclid geometry was a practical science. He did not think that universals exist in the concrete, but he knew that in all real triangular figures there is something which more or less corresponds with the universal idea; that all triangular figures have the essential characteristics expressed in the idea.

Having the same concept of a triangle as Goethe, Euclid could deduce certain properties of the figure and convince Goethe of their truth. He could show him, for instance, that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles. In doing so he would deduce one truth from another, he would use reason, and Goethe would readily assent to the validity of the demonstration. He would say, Yes, it must be so. The conclusion is true, in fact it is a necessary truth. And all men who are normal would say the same. Even the sceptics would agree in their lucid intervals. Hence a conclusion of no slight importance. Man is an animal endowed with reason quite different from the irrational brute. Man by using his reason rightly can arrive at the knowledge of certain necessary truths of the intellectual and moral order. On them he can raise an enduring structure; he cannot build on the quicksands of scepticism.