The Sanction of the Natural Law

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.

St. Thomas, Contra Gentiles III, 140-141.

254. Notions. - Sanction, a) on the part of the cause or origin, is internal (and concomitant), which proceeds naturally and by the very fact, from the action itself or from the nature of the thing, and follows observance or violation of the law, for example, tranquility and remorse of conscience, good and bad reputation, bodily indisposition from drunkenness; and external (or inflicted), which comes from an extrinsic cause, or is connected by the disposition of law with observance or violation of law, for example, if a drunkard is punished by a judge with a fine;

b) on the part of the effect, it is perfect or sufficient, which by its nature is able to move all subjects (either absolutely, or relatively for certain circumstances) in every case to observance of the law, and has due proportion with merit and demerit; or imperfect and insufficient.

255. Thesis. An imperfect and internal sanction of natural law exists in the present life; the perfect sanction is in the other life, from the attainment or loss of the ultimate end.

a) The first part is proved. Internal sanction is present, for virtue is the perfect good of this life; and fault is rather often followed by 1) remorse of conscience, because "when the impulse of malice or passion by which they do evil has ceased, according to reason they know that they have acted badly and they grieve"; 2) pain in the soul; 3) sickness in the body. Hence Wis. XI, 17: By the things through which one sins, by these also he is tormented. But it is imperfect, both because it does not sufficiently induce to observance of the law, for sometimes we are bound to expose life itself, and there are many seductions in this life, for overcoming which a sanction more excellent than the goods of this life is required; and because, as experience testifies, it does not repay each one according to justice.

1. St. Thomas, on IX Ethics, l. 4.

b) The second part is proved: 1) from the essential order of things: where there is a due order to an end, it is necessary that order lead to that end, and departure from order exclude the end. But from the disposition and law of God, human acts are essentially ordered to the ultimate end. Therefore it is necessary that those preserving order attain the ultimate end (which is to be rewarded); but that those departing from order be excluded from the end (which is to be punished). This is confirmed:

a) Just as natural things are subjected to the ordination of divine providence, so also human nature; therefore, just as in natural things the order preserved of necessity produces conservation and good in them, so in human things it is necessary that the order of law divinely imposed, when preserved, lead from the disposition of the governor to the good of retribution, but the order of law passed over, to the evil of penalty.

b) For matter does not attain form unless it has been suitably disposed. But the end is the perfection of the will, just as form is the perfection of matter. Therefore the will does not attain the end unless it has been suitably disposed. But it is disposed by the intention and desire and pursuit of the end. Therefore he whose intention is turned away from the end does not attain it.

c) This also holds of the supernatural end. For he who recedes from the natural end also recedes from the supernatural end, because the natural order is the foundation of elevation to the supernatural end; namely, he recedes from God as the principle of all perfection.

2. from the wisdom of the supreme legislator: God, as the most wise and provident legislator, intends that natural law be observed by all. But, as experience testifies, one efficacious and necessary means of inducing free men, moved by depraved desires and pleasures, to this is perfect sanction, which is so proportioned to every virtue and difficulty of the law that, all things considered, it is never truly useful for man to depart from the law. Therefore God established a perfect sanction. But in the present life such perfect sanction is lacking. Therefore perfect sanction pertains to the future life, or to the state of the term and end, so that the human will, which naturally tends to happiness, may be efficaciously moved to observance of the law by hope of attaining this and fear of losing it.

3. from the holiness and justice of the supreme Lord: men are distinguished from one another by their acts, to which imputability and merit belong. But divine holiness demands that this distinction resulting from the imputability of human acts be preserved in the future life; and justice demands that reward be assigned to merit, penalty to demerit. Therefore. For if good and evil were related equally to the essential attainment of the end, there would be no essential distinction of morality, because all morality depends upon relation to the ultimate end; and thus: a) practically the intrinsic difference between good and evil would be destroyed, and God would seem indifferent to good and evil, which contradicts His holiness; b) the law of God would be violated with impunity, and the rebellious creature could escape His will and as it were triumph over Him, which is repugnant to the justice of divine dominion.

256. Sanction does not harm morality.

For to do good on account of reward and to avoid evil on account of penalty can happen in two ways: a) so that reward or penalty is the sole motive of the act, without any respect to its goodness or malice, and such a mode is bad because it perverts order, since the means is put before the end; b) so that man uses hope of reward or fear of penalty for pursuing good more efficaciously and avoiding evil more efficaciously, and such a mode is conformable to the order intended by the legislator, who adds sanction as a means for urging the obligation of law. This is confirmed by the universal practice of parents and teachers in educating children (n. 133, 3).

Hence Kantian ethics, which asserts the sole motive of obligation, is not more perfect than Christian ethics, which they say is founded on fear and hope. For on the one hand Christian ethics does not teach that morality depends upon fear and hope, but that these are helps; on the other hand Kant refuses to admit that rational human nature and the essential order of things are the foundation of morality. And yet it does not pertain to ethics to correct nature, but to accept it as it is in fact and so to direct human actions that they be conformable to rational nature.

1. Cf. Lehu, op. cit., n. 27; and D'Hulst, Conferences de N. D., 1891.

1. The sanction of a law is the punishment for breaking it. The punishment for final, persistent breach of the natural law is failure to attain the perfect state and last end of the human soul, which is happiness. If existence be prolonged under this failure, it must be in the contrary state of misery. This failure and misery is at once a natural result and a divine infliction. It is the natural result of repeated flagrant acts of moral evil, whereby a man has made his nature hideous, corrupted and overthrown it. (c. vi., s. i., nn. 4, 5, p. 111.) For an end is gained by taking the means, and lost by neglect of the means thereto. Now, as we have seen, happiness is an intellectual act, the perfection of an intellectual or rational nature (c. ii., s. ii., p. 6); and the means to it are living rationally: for a reasonable being, to do well and fare well, must live by that reason, which is the form of his being. (c. vi., s. i., n. 4, p. 111.) Whoever therefore goes about contradicting the reason that is within him (c. v., s. iii., n. 3, p. 74) is not in the way to attain to happiness. Happiness the end of man, the creature of all others the most complex, is not to be stumbled upon by chance. You may make two stones lean upright one against the other by chance, but otherwise than by a methodical application of means to the end you could not support the spire of Salisbury Cathedral.

2. Man's is a progressive nature (c. vi., s. i., nn. 2,3, p. 109), himself being the director of his own progress. Other progressive natures may be spoilt by their requirements being denied, and contrary things done to them. Man has his requirements. It depends mainly on himself whether he acts up to them or against them. If he acts against them, he so far spoils himself; and once he is thoroughly spoilt by his own doing, the final perfection of humanity is gone from him for ever. It is the natural result.

3. I have spoken (n. 1) of repeated flagrant acts: not that I would ignore the evil set of the will that results from one gross and deliberate evil deed (see c. ix., s. ii., n. 6, p. 168): but because the case is clearer where the acts have been multiplied. However we must not omit to observe, that it is not any vice, or evil habit, that formally unfits a man for his final happiness, but an actual evil set of the will, coming of actual sin unrepented of, which set is more decided, when that uncancelled sin is the last of many such, and the outcome of a habit. But supposing an habitual sinner to have repented, and his repentance to have been ratified by God, and that he dies, not actually in sin, but before the habit of sin has been eradicated (c. v., s. ii., n. 1, p. 69),—we may say of him, that his "foot is set in the right way," that is, his will is actually right, and the obstacle to happiness is removed. The evil habit in him is not an actual adhesion of his will to evil, but a proneness to relapse into that state. It is only remotely and potentially evil. It is a seed of evil, which however will not germinate in the good and blissful surroundings to which the soul has been transplanted, but remain for ever sterile, or rather, will speedily decay.

4. If we leave God out of morality, and take account only of the philosophical aspect of sin (c. vi., s. ii., n. 6, p. 119), we have nothing further to say of the sanction than this, which has been said: "Act against nature, and you will end by ruining your nature, and fail of your final perfection and happiness." But now God comes in, the giver of the law of nature; and the failure, already a natural result, must henceforth be viewed also as a Divine chastisement. There is no law without a sanction. There is no law, the giver of which can allow it to be broken with impunity. A legislator who dispensed with all sanction, would rightly be taken by young and old not to be in earnest in his command. If then God must give a law to man whom He has created (c. vi., s. ii., n. 9, p. 120), He must attach a sanction to that law; and if the law is according to the exigency of human nature (c. vi., s. ii., n. 11, p. 122), so will the sanction also be the natural outcome of that exigency set at naught and that law broken.

5. Our position gains by the consideration, that the object, in the contemplation of which man's soul is to be finally and perfectly blessed in the natural order, is the Creator seen through the veils of His works. (c.ii., s.iv., p. 21.) This mediate vision of God, albeit it is to be the work of a future existence, needs practice and preparation in this life. God will not be discerned by the man who has not been accustomed to look for Him. He will not be seen by the swine, who with head to earth has eaten his fill of sensual pleasures, and has cared for nothing better. He will not be seen by the covetous man and the oppressor, who never identified His image hidden away under the labour-stained dress of the poor. He will not be seen by the man, who never looked up into His face in prayer here below. He will not be seen by the earth-laden spirit, that cared nothing at all for God, that hated the mention of His name, that proclaimed Him, or at least wished Him, not to be at all.

6. It will be said that this argumentation supposes the habits of vice, contracted on earth, to remain in the soul after departure: but there is no proof of that: nay of some vices—those that have more to do with the body, as drunkenness—the habits cannot possibly remain, seeing that the appetite wherein they were resident has perished with the body. First, as regards the instance cited, I reply that we may consider drunkenness in two ways, on the one hand as a turning to the creature, on the other as a turning away from reason and the Creator. The craving for liquor cannot remain in the soul after death exactly as it was before, though it probably continues in some analogous form, as a thirst for wild and irregular excitement: but the loathing and horror of the ways of reason and of God, engendered by frequent voluntary intoxication, still continues in the soul. And from this observation we draw the general answer, that whereas in every sin, whether sensual or spiritual, the most important part is played by the will, and the will is a spiritual, not an organic faculty, a faculty which is a main element of the soul whether in or out of the body,—therefore the evil bent and inclination of the will, which sin involves, must remain even in the departed spirit. Lastly, we may ask: To what purpose is our free-will given us, if all souls, good and bad alike, users and abusers of the liberty they had on earth, enter into their long home all of one uniform and spotless hue?

7. Thus then it comes to be, by order of nature and good consequence, that the man who has abandoned God, goes without God; and he who has shunned his last end and final good, arrives not unto it; and he who would not go, when invited, to the feast, eats not of the same: and whoso has withdrawn from God, from him God withdraws. "A curse he loved, and it shall come upon him; and he would not have a blessing, and it shall be far from him. He put on the curse like a garment, and it has gone in like water into his entrails, and like oil into his bones,—like a garment which covereth him, and like a girdle wherewith he is girded continually." (Psalm cviii. 18, 19.)

8. Conversely, we might argue the final happiness which attaches to the observance of the law of nature. (c. ii., s. v., p. 26.)

Readings.—St. Thos., Cont. Gent., iii., cc. 140, 141, 143, 145.

1. By a final, as distinguished from an eternal state, is here meant the last state of existence in a creature, whether that state go on for ever, in which case it is final and eternal, or whether it terminate in the cessation of that creature's being, which is a case of a state final, but not eternal. Whether the unhappy souls of men, who have incurred the last sentence of the natural law, shall exist for eternity, is not a question for philosophy to decide with certainty. The philosopher rules everything a priori, showing what must be, if something else is. Of the action of God in the world, he can only foretell that amount which is thus hypothetically necessary. Some divine action there is, of which the congruity only, not the necessity, is apparent to human eyes: there the philosopher can tell with probability, but not with certainty, what God will do. Other actions of God are wholly beyond our estimate of the reasons of them: we call them simply and entirely free. In that sphere philosophy has no information to render of her own; she must wait to hear from revelation what God has done, or means to do. Philosophers have given reasons of congruence, as they call them, for the reprobate sinner not being annihilated, and therefore for his final punishment being eternal. Those reasons go to evince the probability of eternal punishment, a probability which is deepened into certainty by revelation. We shall not enter into them here, but shall be content to argue that a term is set to the career of the transgressor, arrived at which he must leave hope behind of ever winning his way to happiness, or ever leading any other existence than one of misery.

2. The previous question has shown that some punishment must attend upon violation of the natural law. Suppose a trangressor has suffered accordingly for a certain time after death, what shall be done with him in the end? If he does not continue to suffer as long as he continues to be, then one of three things: he must either pass into happiness, or into a new state of probation, or his very punishment must be a probation, wherein if he behaves well, he shall be rewarded with happiness at last, or if ill, he shall continue in misery until he amend. All this speculation, be it understood, lies apart from revelation. If then the sufferer passed out of this world, substantially and in the main a good man, it is not unreasonable that, after a period of expiatory suffering for minor delinquencies, he should reach that happiness which is the just reward of his substantial righteousness. But what of him who closed his career in wickedness exceeding great? Mere suffering will never make of him a good man, or a fit subject for happiness. But the suffering may be probationary, and he may amend himself under the trial. Against that hypothesis philosophers have brought a priori arguments to show that the period of probation must end with the separation of the soul from the body. But waiving all such arguments, let us suppose that there might be probation after probation even in the world to come. But some human souls would continue obstinately and unrepentingly set in wickedness, age after age, and probation after probation: for the possible malice of the will is vastly great. What is to become of such obstinate characters? It seems against the idea of probation, that periods of trial should succeed one another in an endless series. It would be a reasonable rule in a university, that an undergraduate who had been plucked twenty-five times, should become ineligible for his degree. Coming after so many failures, neither would the degree be any ornament to him, nor he to the university. A soul cannot look for seasons without end of possible grace and pardon to shine upon it. The series of probations must end somewhere. And then? We are come round to where we began. When all the probation is over, the soul is found either in conformity with the natural law, which means ultimate happiness, or at variance with the law, and becomes miserable with a misery that shall never terminate, unless the soul itself ceases to be.

3. It may be asked, how much conformity to the natural law is requisite and sufficient, to exempt a person at the end of his trial from a final doom of misery, or to ensure his lasting happiness? The question resolves itself into three:—how do sins differ in point of gravity? is grave sin ever forgiven? is the final award to be given upon the person's whole life, a balance being struck between his good and evil deeds, or is it to be simply upon his moral state at the last moment of his career of trial?

4. It was a paradox of the Stoics, that all offences are equal, the treading down of your neighbour's cabbage as heinous a crime as sacrilege. (Horace, Satires, i., 3, 115-119.) But it is obvious that there is a vast difference, as well objectively in the matter of the offence, e.g., in the instance just quoted from Horace, as also subjectively in the degree of knowledge, advertence, and will, wherewith the offender threw himself into the sin. Thus offences come to be distinguished as grave and light: the latter being such as with a human master would involve a reprimand, the former, instant dismissal. Final misery is not incurred except by grave offending.

5. The second question, whether grave sin is ever forgiven, cannot be answered by philosophy. Of course the sinner may see by the light of reason his folly and his error, and thereby conceive some sort of sorrow for it, and retract, and to some extent withdraw his will from it on natural grounds. This amendment of sin on its moral and philosophical side may deserve and earn pardon at human hands. But the offence against God remains to be reckoned for with God. Now God is not bound to forgive without receiving satisfaction; and He never can receive due satisfaction from man for the contempt that a deliberate, grave, and flagrant violation of the moral law puts upon the Infinite Majesty of the Lawgiver. The first thing that revelation has to teach us is whether, and on what terms, God is ready to pardon grievous sin.

6. The balance between deeds good and evil is not struck merely at the instant of death. It is being struck continually; and man's final destiny turns on how that balance stands at the close of his time of probation. So long as he keeps the substance of the moral law, the balance is in his favour. But one downright wilful and grievous transgression outweighs with God all his former good deeds. It is a defiance of the Deity, a greater insult than all his previous life was a service and homage. It is as though a loyal regiment had mutinied, or a hitherto decent and orderly citizen were taken red-handed in murder. If however God deigns to draw the offender to repentance, and to pardon him, the balance is restored. Thus everything finally depends on man being free from guilt of grievous transgression at the instant of death, or at the end of his period of probation, whenever and wherever that end may come.

Reading.—Lessius, De perfectionibus divinis, 1.xiii., c. xxvi., nn. 183, seq.

1. The doctrine of the last section might stand even in the mind of one who held that all punishment is probational, and destined for the amendment of him who undergoes it, to humble him, to awaken his sense of guilt, and to make him fear to transgress again. On this theory of punishment, the man who in his last probational suffering refuses to amend, must be let drop out of existence as incorrigible, and so clearly his final state is one of misery. The theory is not inconsistent with final punishment, but with eternal punishment, unless indeed we can suppose a creature for all eternity to refuse, and that under stress of torment, a standing invitation to repentance. It is however a peculiar theory, and opposite to the common tradition of mankind, which has ever been to put gross offenders to death, not as incorrigible, not simply as refuse to be got rid of, but that their fate may be a deterrent to others. Punishment, in this view, is medicinal to the individual, and deterrent to the community. Eternal punishment has been defended on the score of its deterrent force. Both these functions of punishment, the medicinal and the deterrent function, are prospective. But there is asserted a third function, which is retrospective: punishment is said to be retributive. It is on this ground that the justification of eternal punishment mainly rests. We are however here concerned, not with that eternity, but in an endeavour to give a full and adequate view of punishment in all its functions.

2. If punishment is never retributive, the human race in all countries and ages has been the sport of a strange illusion. Everyone knows what vengeance means. It is a desire to punish some one, or to see him punished, not prospectively and with an eye to the future, for his improvement, or as a warning to others, but retrospectively and looking to the past, that he may suffer for what he has done. Is then the idea of vengeance nothing but an unclean phantom? Is there no such thing as vengeance to a right-minded man? Then is there an evil element, an element essentially and positively evil, in human nature. No one will deny that the idea, and to some extent the desire, of vengeance, of retaliation, of retrospective infliction of suffering in retribution for evil done, of what we learn to call in the nursery tit for tat, is natural to mankind. It is found in all men. We all respond to the sentiment:

Mighty Fates, by Heaven's decree accomplish,
According as right passes from this side to that.
For hateful speech let speech of hate be paid back:
Justice exacting her due cries this aloud:
For murderous blow dealt let the murderer pay
By stroke of murder felt.
Do and it shall be done unto thee:
Old is this saying and old and old again.

Nor must we be led away by Mill (Utilitarianism, c.v.) into confounding retaliation, or vengeance, with self-defence. Self-defence is a natural idea also, but not the same as retaliation. We defend ourselves against a mad dog, we do not retaliate on him. Hence we must not argue that, because self-defence is prospective, therefore so is vengeance. ¹⁶ Æschylus, Choephori, 316, seq. These lines embody the idea on which the dramas of the Shakespeare of Greece are principally founded. But when was a work of the highest art based upon an idea unsound, irrational and vicious?

3. A thing is essentially evil, when there is no possible use of it which is not an abuse. Not far different is the conception of a thing positively evil, evil, that is, not by reason of any deficiency, or by what it is not, but evil by what it is in itself. Such an essential, positive evil in human nature would vengeance be, a natural thing for which there was no natural use, unless punishment may in some measure be retributive. We cannot admit such a flaw in nature. All healthy philosophy goes on the principle, that what is natural is so far forth good. Otherwise we lapse into Manicheism, pessimism, scepticism, abysses beyond the reach of argument. Vengeance undoubtedly prompts to many crimes, but so does the passion of love. Both are natural impulses. It would scarcely be an exaggeration to set down one third of human transgressions to love, and another third to revenge: yet it is the abuse in each case, not the use, that leads to sin. If the matrimonial union were wicked and detestable, as the Manicheans taught, then would the passion of love be an abomination connatural to man. Such another enormity would be the affection of vengeance, if punishment could never rightly be retributive.

4. Aristotle, Rhetoric, I., x., 17, distinguishes two functions of punishment thus: "Chastisement is for the benefit of him that suffers it, but vengeance is for him that wreaks it, that he may have satisfaction." Add to this the warning given to the commonwealth by the example that is made of the offender, and we have the three functions of punishment, medicinal, deterrent, and retributive. As it is medicinal, it serves the offender: as it is deterrent, it serves the commonwealth: as it is retributive, it serves the offended party, being a reparation offered to him. Now, who is the offended party in any evil deed? So far as it is a sin against justice, an infringement of any man's right, he is the offended party. He is offended, however, not simply and precisely by your violation of the moral law, but by your having, in violation of that law, taken away something that belonged to him. Consequently, when you make restitution and give him back what you took away, with compensation for the temporal deprival of it, he is satisfied, and the offence against him is repaired. If you have maliciously burnt his house down, you bring him the price of the house and furniture, together with further payment for the fright and for the inconvenience of being, for the present, houseless. You may do all that, and yet the moral guilt of the conflagration may remain upon your soul. But that is no affair of his: he is not the custodian of the moral law: he is not offended by your sin, formally viewed as sin: nor has he any function of punishing you, taking vengeance upon you, or exacting from you retribution for that. But what if his wife and children have perished, and you meant them so to perish, in the fire? Your debt of restitution still lies in the matter which you took away. Of course it is a debt that cannot be paid. You cannot give back his "pretty chickens and their dam" whole and alive again. Still your inability to pay one debt does not make you liable to that creditor for another debt, which is part of a wholly different account. He is not offended by, nor are you answerable to him for, your sin in this case any more than in the former.

5. We may do an injury to an individual, commit a crime against the State, and sin against God. The injury to the individual is repaired by restitution, not by punishment, and therefore not by vengeance, which is a function of punishment. There is no such thing as vengeance for a private wrong, and therefore we have the precept to forgive our enemies, and not to avenge ourselves, in which phrase the emphasis falls on the word ourselves. The clear idea and strong desire of vengeance, which nature affords, shows that there is such a thing as vengeance to be taken by some one: it does not warrant every form of vengeance, or allow it to be taken by each man for himself. It consecrates the principle of retribution, not every application of the principle. It is a point of synderesis, not of particular conduct. The reader should recall what was said of the vengeance of Hannibal at Himera. (c. viii., s. ii., p. 144.)

6. It belongs to the State to punish political sin, or crime, and to God to punish theological sin, which is sin properly so called, a breach of the Eternal Law. The man who has burnt his neighbour's house down, though he has compensated the individual owner, may yet be punished by the State. The owner, acting in his capacity as citizen, even when he has been compensated as an individual, may still hand him over to the State for punishment. The arson was a violation, not only of commutative, but of legal justice (c. v., s. ix., nn. 3, 6, pp. 103, 106), a disturbance of the public peace and social order, an outrage upon the majesty of the law. For this he may be punished by the State, which is the guardian of all these things, and which has jurisdiction over him to make laws for him, and to enforce their sanction against him. Civil punishment, besides being deterrent, is retributive for the breach of social order. It is the vengeance of the commonwealth upon the disturber of the public peace. Whether the State can punish on pure grounds of retribution, away from all hope or need of deterring possible imitators of the crime, is a question irrelevant to our present enquiry. Probably a negative answer should be returned.

7. We come now to the punishment of sin by God, the Living Reasonableness, the Head of the Commonwealth of Creation, the Legislator of the Eternal Law, the Fountain of all Jurisdiction, Him in whose hands rests the plenitude of the power to punish. An evil deed may be no wrong to any individual man, no crime against the State, but it must ever be an offence against God. It is a departure from the order of man's progress as a reasonable being (c. v., s. iii., n. 3, p. 74: c. vi., s. i., nn. 1-5, p. 109), which is founded on the nature of God Himself (c. vi., s. i., n. 7, p. 113), of which order God is the official guardian (c. vi., s. ii., nn. 8-10, p. 119), and which is enjoined by God's Eternal Law. (c. vii., n. 3, p. 129.) This law extends to all creation, rational and irrational, animate and inanimate. It bids every creature work according to his or its own nature and circumstances. Given to irrational beings, the law is simply irresistible and unfailing: such are the physical laws of nature, so many various emanations of the one Eternal Law. Given to rational creatures, the law may be resisted and broken: sin is the one thing in the universe that does break it. (c. vii., nn. 5-7, p. 130.) A man may act in disregard of the Eternal Law on one or other of its physical sides, and so much the worse for him, though he has not broken the law, but merely ignored its operation, as when one eats what is unwholesome. Much more shall he suffer for having broken the law, in the only possible way that it can be broken, by sin. This peculiar violation draws after it a peculiar consequence of suffering, penal and retributive. If a man gets typhoid fever in his house, we sometimes say it is a punishment on him for neglecting his drains, even when the neglect was a mere piece of ignorance or inadvertence. It is an evil consequence certainly,—the law, which he thought not of, working itself out in the form of disease. But it is not properly punishment: no natural law has been really broken: there has been no guilt, and the suffering is not retributive and compensatory. It does not go to restore the balance of the neglect. It is a lamentable consequence, not a repayment. As, when man wrongs his fellow-man, he makes with him an involuntary contract (c. v., s. ix., n. 6, p. 106), to restore what he takes away: so in sinning against God, man makes another involuntary contract, to pay back in suffering against his will what he unduly takes in doing his own will against the will of the Legislator. As St. Augustine says of Judas (Serm. 125, n. 5): "He did what he liked, but he suffered what he liked not. In his doing what he liked, his sin is found: in his suffering what he liked not, God's ordinance is praised." Thus it is impossible for the Eternal Law, which bears down all so irresistibly in irrational nature, finally to fail of its effect even upon the most headstrong and contumacious of rational creatures; but, as St. Thomas says (1a 2æ, q. 93, art. 6, in corp.), "The defect of doing is made up by suffering, inasmuch as they suffer what the Eternal Law prescribes for them to the extent to which they fail to do what accords with the Eternal Law." And St. Anselm (Cur Deus homo, nn. 14, 15): "God cannot possibly lose His honour: for either the sinner spontaneously pays what he owes, or God exacts it of him against his will. Thus if a man chooses to fly from under the will of God commanding, he falls under the same will punishing." Punishment is called by Hegel, "the other half of sin." Lastly, they are God's own spoken words (Deut. xxxii. 35): "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay."

Readings.—St. Thos., Cont. Gent., iii. 140, n. 5, Amplius; ib., iii., 144, nn. 8, Per hoc, and 9, Est autem.

For Plato's views on punishment see Protag. 324 A, B; Gorgias, 525; Rep. 380 B, 615; Phaedo, 113 E; Laws, 854 D; 862 D, E; 934 A; 957 E. Plato recognizes only the medicinal and the deterrent functions of punishment, and ignores the retributive. This is not to be wondered at in one who wrote: "No one is wicked voluntarily; but it is an evil habit of body and a faulty education that is the cause of every case of wickedness" (Timaeus, 86 E; cf. Laws, 731 C, D), which error receives a masterly confutation in Aristotle, Ethics, III, v.

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.