The Fifth Commandment

The Fifth Commandment is, ‘‘ Thou shalt not kill.”¹

¹ Exod. xx 13.

The crime of homicide is primarily forbidden by this precept, but inasmuch as quarrelling, fighting, wounding, lead up to homicide, these and similar acts are secondarily forbidden. Implicitly, the precept prescribes the preservation of life, since death will follow if care be not taken to preserve life.

SUICIDE, or the killing of one’s self, when one’s own death is the direct and immediate object of the will, is forbidden by the Fifth Commandment and is grievously sinful. It is the same when death is not the direct object of the will, if some act is done of which the only immediate effect is the destruction of one’s own life; for in that case by willing the action I implicitly will the effect. And so if, out of bravado, I jumped from the top of the tower of Westminster Cathedral into the street below, I should be guilty of the grave sin of suicide, even though that was not my direct object.

The reason why suicide is unlawful is because we have not the free disposal of our own lives. God is the-author of life and death, and he has reserved the ownership of human life to himself. We cannot leave the post where he has stationed us without his authority, Moreover, a man belongs to his country, and so suicide is a crime against the commonwealth, and as such is punished. There is a controversy among divines as to whether it would be lawful for a malefactor who had been condemned to death and entrusted by public authority with the execution of the sentence against himself to take his own life. Many hold that it would be lawful, for there seems no conclusive reason why the State might not appoint a man to be his own executioner.

It is not unlawful to do something which will cause one’s own death provided that the action has some other immediate and good effect of great importance, which counterbalances the loss of human life, and this is not intended. This is merely an application of the principle of a double effect which was explained in the Book on Human Acts. The captain of a man-of-war, for example, which in time of war is in danger of falling into the hands of the enemy, might blow up the ship in order to prevent so great a disaster befalling his country, although the act would cause his own death and that of others in the ship. He does not intend the destruction of human life; the immediate effect of his action is to prevent the ship falling into the enemy’s hands. The public advantage counterbalances the loss.

Similarly, for good reason I may undertake dangerous work, go to unhealthy climates, or lead a kind of life which will lessen the number of years that I shall live. Somebody must do such things; they are useful to the community or to myself, and I do not intend the shortening of my life. It would be wrong to expose my life to probable danger merely for the sake of getting money or notoriety; such reasons do not justify us in seriously risking human life.

As we have not the ownership of life, so neither are we the owners of our limbs so as to be able to dispose of them at will. A man is not justified in mutilating himself in order to avoid military conscription, or to excite commiseration, or to gain money. The amputation of a limb is permissible when such an operation is necessary in order to preserve life; for we may sacrifice a part for the safety of the whole.

We are obliged to take ordinary means to preserve our lives, for to do otherwise would be virtually to commit suicide. There is no obligation to take extraordinary, unusual, or very painful or expensive means to preserve our lives. And so one in feeble health, who will probably die if he spends the winter in England, is not bound to expatriate himself and go and live in a milder climate. Nor am I bound to undergo a painful and costly operation in order to save my life; I may if I like choose rather to die, unless my life is of great importance for the common good, for then the public good must be considered first. Except in such a case as this, a superior could not oblige a subject to undergo a very painful operation or to submit to the amputation of a leg; obedience to human authority does not seem to extend to such matters as these.

THE right of the State to punish criminals with the infliction of death is either expressly conceded or clearly supposed in Holy Scripture.¹ It is sufficiently evident, too, from natural reason, for the State should be endowed with all those powers which are necessary to secure its end, the temporal happiness of its citizens. But it would not be possible to keep human passion within bounds and ensure the safety of the lives and property of its peaceful citizens, unless the State had the power of inflicting death on those who have been guilty of great crimes. The practice of the most civilized states confirms this view, and experience seems to demonstrate its truth. If the time should ever come when the infliction of less severe penalties will suffice to punish crime and safeguard life and property, then capital punishment should be abolished, but that time does not seem to be at hand yet.

If the State has the right to deprive a criminal of life, a fortiori it may inflict lesser punishments, such as flogging and imprisonment. Indeed, certain persons who have authority over others, such as fathers of a family, captains of vessels at sea, and schoolmasters, have the power to inflict smaller punishments in moderation on delinquents under their authority. Before capital punishment can be inflicted the essentials of a judicial process by which a grave crime is brought home to the delinquent must be gone through. For the right of capital punishment belongs to the State as such, to the public authority, and so before punishment is inflicted it should be proved that the crime was committed by the person charged, and judicial sentence according to law should be passed upon him. In certain cases when the ordinary process of law cannot be followed, and there is danger in delay, the public authority might empower anyone to kill a notorious criminal, but in settled times and ordinarily this should not be done. It would be a very dangerous remedy for crime if the State empowered its citizens to punish delinquents without previous trial and conviction. 196 ‘The innocent sometimes suffer in spite of the elaborate precautions and delay of modern criminal trials. If these were abolished and every citizen became a judge and executioner for crime, the remedy would be far worse than the disease. The Roman - law and that of some more modern states permitted a father or husband to kill a daughter or wife found in adultery. Such laws were not approved by the Church, and they could not in conscience justify one who took advantage of the immunity they gave to commit so cruel a murder.

¹ Rom. xiii 4.

To take means to safeguard the public welfare, and especially to inflict the punishment of death on criminals, belongs to the public authority and not to private citizens, and so these cannot lawfully arrogate to themselves the power of inflicting capital punishment. Lynch-law, then, is against sound principles of morality. In places where no effective government exists, the people should constitute a government to safeguard the common interests and to punish crime; this duty must not be left in private hands.

I quote the following from the Encyclopedia of the Laws of England, s.v. Escape: ‘‘ Considerable controversy has from time to time arisen on the question whether the officers of the law or persons entitled to apprehend or detain a person accused or suspected of crime are entitled to kill him on pursuit if they cannot otherwise stop him, or to kill him to prevent his escape after arrest. It seems to be agreed that the custodian is not entitled to kill to prevent escape from custody on a civil charge, nor from custody on a charge of misdemeanour. Where the escaped prisoner is accused of a capital offence, the custodian appears to be entitled to kill him if he cannot otherwise retake him; but it is not clear whether the mitigation of the severity of the law as to punishments for felony during this century (the nineteenth) can be regarded as reducing the right of the officers of the law to kill a fugitive from justice. With respect to convicts under sentence of penal servitude escaping from prison, questions arose in 1896 owing to the shooting of an escaping convict on Dartmoor which cannot be regarded as settled, and which have led to a revision of the Convict Prison Rules.”

IN defence of my own life from unjust attack I may use whatever violence is necessary and even go to the length of killing the aggressor, if I cannot otherwise save my life. This right of self-defence all laws, human and divine, concede, as Innocent III declared. Nature herself teaches us that an act which is necessary for self-defence is lawful, and even if it lead to the taking of the life of the unjust aggressor it does not cease to be lawful. A higher value must be set on the life of the innocent than on that of the guilty, especially when the guilty one is the cause of his life being put in jeopardy. No one is justified in using greater violence than is necessary for the purpose of self-defence,so that if by striking or wounding an assailant of my life I can effectually defend myself, I am not justified in killing him. On the same principle no private person can take vengeance for violence which has already been done, by offering violence in return; vindictive justice is reserved for public authority, at any rate in more serious matters. Nor may one whose life is threatened anticipate the attack; defence is only lawful when the attack is practically being made or is at any rate imminent. Unless the attack is practically imminent it is always possible to resort to other means than homicide for the defence of one’s own life; one may invoke the protection of the law or at least fly the intending assailant.

Under the same limitations it is lawful to kill the assailant not only of one’s life, but also of limb, of chastity, and of property. For all these goods belonging to an innocent person may be lawfully defended by him even at the cost of the life of the unjust assailant of them, who is responsible for his own death by his unwarrantable action. When it is said that we may kill an unjust assailant in defence of property, it is supposed that the property which is threatened is of considerable amount. Innocent XI condemned a proposition which asserted that, “As a rule I may kill a thief for the preservation of a gold piece.” This proposition is false, for a rich man would not be justified in shooting a thief whom he saw walking off with one of his silver spoons. If, however, the thief threatens property of considerable value—say, twenty pounds or so—and the only way of saving the money is by taking the life of the thief, this would be lawful. Moreover, when a highwayman demands my purse or my life, I am not bound to hand him my purse, even though it contain little money; I may always defend myself from such unjust attacks, even though it finally involves the death of the aggressor.

It is not lawful to kill another who attacks my honour with insulting words. The contrary used to be held by some theologians, but the doctrine was condemned by Alexander VII and Innocent XI. The reason of the difference between this case and the foregoing is that verbal insults are often not of very serious consequence; they are better and more effectively met by quiet contempt than by being taken seriously, and that would be a perilous doctrine which taught that a man might avenge an insult with the death of the offender. What constitutes an insult is often a very subjective question, and the results of the doctrine would be deplorable.

What one may lawfully do, that, as a rule, another may help him to do; and so I may kill or maim an unjust assailant not only of my own life, limb, chastity, or property, but when any innocent person is similarly threatened I may also do the same in his defence. Although I may lawfully do this, yet there is seldom an obligation of doing it, for the obligation would only arise from charity, and as we saw above, this virtue does not usually bind with such serious inconvenience as would always be involved in taking life in defence of another. Those who have charge of the public peace and security are more strictly bound to perform their duty of protecting life and property even at the sacrifice of the lives of wrongdoers.

It is never lawful directly to kill the innocent, or, in other words, it is never lawful to kill the innocent when the death is intended in itself, or when it is inflicted as a means to the attaining of some other object. Such an act is expressly forbidden by God: “‘ The innocent and just person thou shalt not put to death.”¹ Reason, too, teaches us the same truth; for if ever it were lawful directly to kill the innocent, it would be so when such a death would be of great advantage to the commonwealth. But even to save the State an innocent man’s life must not be taken directly, for the State exists that good men may lead honourable and peaceful lives; the State is for the good citizens, not the good citizens for the State. Not even the good of the State, then, makes it right to take an innocent man’s life, and if that does not justify the act, nothing does.

¹ Exod. xxiii 7.

The death of the innocent may be permitted, not intended, when it follows from some action lawful in itself which also produces an equally immediate and good effect, and when this counterbalances the evil effect. This, again, is but the application of the principle of a double effect, and it is evident from what has been said before. The general of an army who orders the bombardment of a beleaguered town knows that his order cannot be executed without killing perhaps many innocent non-combatants, yet the action is not unlawful.

Casual homicide which was not intended in itself, but which was the consequence of doing some dangerous action, as furious driving in a frequented street, is imputable to the agent if he adverted to the probable danger of killing someone, If such probable danger did not exist, or was not adverted to, casual homicide will not be imputable in conscience, although if the action be forbidden by law, even on other grounds than the chance of its causing another’s death, and someone is killed by it, English law punishes it as manslaughter.

It is usual to treat here of abortion, and of certain surgical operations concerned with child-bearing. Abortion is the premature ejection of the living fetus. The human fetus reaches maturity about nine months after conception, but it is capable of living even if born a considerable time before maturity. A child may live when born at seven months or even somewhat earlier, especially if artificial means are taken for preserving its life. When the foetus is ejected at such a time that in the judgement of a skilled medical man it will probably live, this is called acceleration of birth rather than abortion in the strict sense. We are here concerned with the lawfulness of procuring abortion and of performing such operations as craniotomy and embryotomy, which destroy the life of the foetus. There is only question of the living, not of the dead, foetus, as is obvious.

Inasmuch as it is never lawful directly to kill the innocent, it is never lawful directly to procure abortion at a time when there is no probability that the foetus can live outside the mother’s womb. This is clear, for the foetus is a human being, with a human soul, which, as is commonly held by theologians, is infused into it by God at the moment of conception; it has, then, as much right to live as anyone else, and it certainly is innocent of all personal crime. To deprive it directly of the medium in which alone it can live is to kill it directly, just as to deprive a man of air by plunging him under water is to kill him directly. The direct procuring of abortion, then, is never allowed, inasmuch as it is the direct killing of the innocent, and intrinsically wrong. In the same way, anticipated homicide and a grievous sin are committed whenever means of whatever sort are taken to prevent conception.

However, just as the indirect killing of the innocent is lawful for a just cause, as we have seen, so a pregnant woman who is suffering from disease or tumour, or any complication which threatens life, may lawfully adopt the necessary means to save herself, even if what is a remedy for her causes the death of the foetus, In all these cases we have but the application of the principle of a double effect; the mother is not bound to sacrifice her life by abstaining from adopting the remedy indicated, especially as her own death would also involve the death of the child. Thus we may approve of the following solution by Dr. Capellman of the “ case where the uterus with the foetus is locked in the upper strait, as may happen through retroversion, sinking, and prolapsus of the pregnant womb. If all other known means of turning or replacing the uterus fail, I believe it to be allowable to induce abortion indirectly, by procuring the discharge of the waters, or by the perforation of the foetal membranes.”¹ On the same principle P. Antonelli thinks that it is lawful to remove an ulcerated womb which is threatening the life of a pregnant mother though the operation cause the death of the foetus, as also to remove an extrauterine foetus whose further growth would cause the certain death of the mother.²

All who unlawfully procure abortion incur the penalty of excommunication, the absolution of which is reserved to the Bishop by Canon 2350.

¹ Pastoral Medicine, p. 16.

² Medicina pastoralis, p. 220.

Craniotomy, or any other similar operation which has for its immediate and direct effect the destruction of the life of the foetus, is a direct killing of the innocent, and is never allowed. If the child is already dead, there is of course no difficulty in permitting craniotomy or embryotomy, but if it is still alive it is not lawful to kill it, even if otherwise both child and mother were certain to die. Evil must not be done that good may come of it. The end does not justify the means. Some medical men consider the foetus, until it is born, as a portion of the mother which may be destroyed to save her life. This view is not in keeping with Christian principles, according to which the child has a soul of its own, and has its own independent right to live.

Some theologians used to think that such operations were lawful if the mother’s life could not otherwise be saved, because the child might be considered a materially unjust assailant of its mother’s life, and so be lawfully killed; or because when there is a conflict of rights the stronger right should prevail. However, in no sense can it be allowed that the child is an unjust assailant of its mother’s life; it is where nature placed it, through no fault of its own, and it has a right to be there and to be born. If either is an unjust assailant of the other’s life, it is the mother, who voluntarily undertook the obligations of motherhood. In the same way, when the stronger of two conflicting rights prevails, this is due to the fault of the other party, and such fault is out of the question in this case. This doctrine is now theologically certain after the repeated declarations of the Holy See that no operation which tends directly to the destruction of the life of the foetus is lawful.

When the child cannot be born in the natural way, and the life of both mother and child is in danger, Caesarian section or some similar operation may be, and should be, performed, by which the lives of both may very probably be saved. The operation which takes its name from Dr. Porro, and which consists in removing the uterus together with the foetus, requires some special reason to make it lawful, for such mutilation of the mother is only allowed when it is necessary in order to save life.

In all operations which involve danger to the life of the child, Catholic parents should be careful to have the living foetus baptized, which may be done by the doctor or nurse while it is still in the womb. But according to Canon 746 this should not be done as long as there is any hope of the child being born alive.

A DUEL is defined to be a premeditated and prearranged combat between two persons with deadly weapons, and usually in the presence of at least two witnesses, called seconds, for the purpose of deciding a quarrel, avenging an insult, or clearing the honour of one of the combatants or of some third party whose cause he champions.

A duel, then, is a premeditated and prearranged single combat, for if two persons begin to quarrel and then come to blows, it is not a duel even if death be the result. Nor is it a duel if two enemies meet by accident and begin straightway to fight. A duel is a combat with deadly weapons, so that a fight with sticks or with the fists is not a duel. Although seconds are commonly present, yet their absence would not prevent a single combat from being a duel if the other conditions were verified. The duel is for the purpose of deciding a private quarrel, and for such a purpose it is unlawful even if it have the sanction of public authority, for there are other and lawful means of settling such matters. A single combat between champions of hostile nations entered into by public authority for the purpose of terminating the war, or giving courage to the army, would not be a duel, and might be permitted.

It is never lawful to fight a duel by private authority, for it obviously exposes the parties to grave risk of killing or wounding, or of being killed or wounded, and this is never lawful by private authority except under the conditions which justify killing in self-defence, and these are not verified in the duel. The Council of Trent¹ very emphatically condemned duelling as a detestable practice and excommunicated the guilty parties, their seconds and abettors, as well as emperors, kings, and princes who permit it in their territories. This excommunication is renewed by Canon 2351, and the power of granting absolution if it has been incurred is reserved to the Pope. Benedict XIV, by a constitution dated November 10, 1752, condemned the following propositions as false, scandalous, and pernicious: ““(a) A military man who, unless he offer or accept a duel, would be considered cowardly, timid, worthless, and unfit for office in the army, and so would be deprived of his post by which he gains support for himself and his family, or would for ever lose all hope of promotion otherwise due to him, would incur neither fault nor penalty if he offered or accepted a duel.

“‘(b) Those who accept or challenge to a duel for the sake of defending honour or avoiding disgrace may be excused when they know for certain that the combat will not come off, inasmuch as it will be prevented by others. (c) A general or officer in the army who accepts a duel through serious fear of losing reputation or office does not incur the penalties inflicted by the Church on those who fight a duel.”

The contradictory of these false propositions must be held by all who admit the authority of the Church.

¹ Sess. 25, c. 19, de Ref.

Clement VIII, in a constitution dated September 1, 1592, declared that those incurred the penalties of duelling who fought under the stipulation that they would stop after a certain number of blows, or as soon as either was wounded or blood was drawn. Grave sin, then, would be committed by challenging or accepting a duel even under these conditions, at least on account of the scandal and disobedience to authority, if not on account of the danger.

By English and American law duelling is illegal, and if death be the result, it is regarded as murder, and the seconds are liable to punishment as accessories.

War, or an armed struggle between sovereign states, is defensive when it is undertaken to resist attack; otherwise it is offensive when undertaken to avenge an injury, or in vindication of a right.

When a quarrel has arisen between two sovereign states, if it is clear that one of the parties is in the wrong, it is bound to make reparation to the offended party. In national quarrels, however, this is seldom the case; as a rule, international disputes are matters of great complexity, and it is very difficult to say on which side right and justice lie. In ordinary cases, then, defensive war is always lawful, for if individuals have the right of self-defence the same right must a fortiori be conceded to a sovereign state. Even offensive war is lawful, provided that certain conditions be fulfilled. This is the certain teaching of Catholic theology, although the Church constantly prays to be delivered from all wars and from the terrible evils to which they give rise. Although war is a great evil, yet it is sometimes a hard necessity if still greater evils are to be avoided. For there is no higher tribunal to which sovereign states can have recourse to settle their disputed rights, and nothing is left but the final arbitrament of the sword. In modern times arbitration courts have been established, and they have done useful work, but cases arise in which their aid cannot be invoked with effect.

The conditions on which war may be lawfully waged are three:

(a) The public authority of a sovereign state is requisite to declare war, for war, except in just defence, cannot be made on private authority, or by a less than sovereign state; for private persons and subject states can always have recourse to higher authority for the vindication of their rights.

(b) A just and weighty cause is necessary, for the cause should be such as to outweigh the grave evils and risks which always accompany war. Such causes, in the judgement of divines, are: the retaking of a conquered country or rebellious province, the avenging of a grave insult or injury offered to the State, the freeing of the unjustly oppressed, the refusal of infidel states to allow the Gospel to be preached in their dominions. There is considerable difference of opinion as to whether certainty of the existence of a sufficient cause is required or not for the lawfulness of a war. Some divines hold that a probability of right is sufficient, for with such a probable right a private person may commence an action at law, and states should not be in a worse position than private persons in the prosecution of their claims. However, on account of the grave public evils connected with war, and because it is unlawful to deprive another of what he possesses on the ground that it is only probably mine, it would seem that at least a more probable right or even a moral certainty of right is required on the side of the state that begins the war.

(c) There must be an upright intention of advancing the cause of good or preventing evil. Mere delight in the excitement of war, or the desire of showing one’s prowess or obtaining promotion, would not justify war.

When the end of the war has been sufficiently obtained the victorious party should be ready to make peace on proper guarantees being given.

Where conscription exists or soldiers have already enlisted before the outbreak of war, they are not bound to make inquiries about the origin of the war in order to satisfy their consciences of its justice; they may presume that their country is in the right unless it is evident that it is in the wrong, and in doubt they are bound to obey the commands of their lawful superiors. If the war is clearly unjust it only remains for the conscientious soldier to abstain from inflicting unjust damage on the enemy, otherwise he will be a co-operator in injustice. Volunteers who had not enlisted at the outbreak of war are bound to satisfy their consciences as to its lawfulness before they take any part in it, just as they are bound to form a morally certain conscience about the lawfulness of any action that they undertake, as we saw in the Book on Conscience.

In a just war all means that conduce to the end of gaining victory over the enemy are lawful, provided that they are not against the law of nature and international law or agreement. International agreements are only binding if they are faithfully adhered to by the adverse party. In modern war it is the practice to spare the persons and property of non-belligerents as far as possible. In naval warfare not only the enemy’s ships of war may be attacked and taken, but his merchantmen, and any British vessel or vessel of an ally trading with or acting in the service of the enemy at war with England, or any neutral vessel engaged in the same way or in the carriage of contraband, and blockade runners, may be captured and made lawful prize by duly commissioned British ships. war on land is restricted to arms, ammunition, Booty of and military provisions and stores. Private property on land is no longer liable to capture and confiscation, but requisitions and contributions of men for labour, money, victuals, etc., are still levied on the invaded territory by duly qualified officials of the invading army. Beyond these limits, or at least beyond what is permitted by lawful authority, it is not allowed to appropriate private property belonging to the enemy.

(St. Thomas, II-II, q. 64; St. Alphonsus, Theologia Moralis, book III, n. 363-411; Homo Apostolicus, tract 8, n. 1-32.)

By the fifth precept there is prohibited "the unjust killing, mutilation, beating, and other similar affliction" of oneself and of one's neighbor (St. Alphonsus, III, 363).

Killing is distinguished:

1. Into direct and indirect. It is direct when the act of killing, as such, is intended as an end or is assumed as a means by which another end is obtained. Otherwise it is indirect.

2. Into simple and qualified, according as circumstances which contain a special malice are not joined or are joined to it. Qualified killing is again distinguished:

a) Into parricide, by which name the killing of some relative is designated. In parricide there is added a sin against piety, if the killing concerns parents or other blood-relatives. Moreover, the killings of the aforesaid persons quite probably do not differ from one another in species.

b) Into regicide, which is the killing of a king, pope, or prince. In regicide, which is also called the crime of lese-majesty, there is added a sin against observance.

c) Into robbery-killing, which is killing done with the intention of plundering. Another species of injustice is added.

d) Into sacrilegious killing, which is the killing either of a sacred person or one done with profanation of a sacred thing or place. The sin of sacrilege is added.

Civil laws for the most part distinguish killing or voluntary homicide, and homicide that is voluntary and perpetrated with deliberate purpose.

With these things noted beforehand, we shall speak first about the killing of an innocent person, then about the killing of a criminal, finally about the killing of an unjust aggressor. About the killing of oneself, something was said in the treatise on charity (n. 523).

We shall treat first of the killing of an innocent person in general, then of the killing of a fetus in particular.

"Whether it can be safely taught in Catholic schools that the surgical operation which they call craniotomy is lawful, namely, when, if it is omitted, mother and child will perish; but, if it is admitted, the mother will be saved, the infant perishing? - Resp. After all things had long and maturely been weighed, account also having been taken of those things which in this matter were written by expert Catholic men and transmitted by Your Eminence to this Congregation, they judged that response should be made: It cannot be safely taught.

Which response, since Our Most Holy Lord fully confirmed it in the audience of the same feria and day, I communicate to Your Eminence..." S. O. 11 May 1884.

“Concerning the secular power we assert that it can exercise judgment of blood without mortal sin, provided that in inflicting punishment it proceeds not from hatred but by judgment, not incautiously but advisedly.” Profession of Faith of the Waldensians.

“19. A husband who by his own authority kills his wife caught in adultery does not sin.” Proposition condemned by Alexander VII.

“The Catholics of this diocese are inexorable in vengeance, and this is because there is no one in those regions who administers justice to them. It is therefore asked: 1. Whether, every other means of obtaining redress for their wrongs being excluded, the Christians can, with respect to this point, consider themselves as if they were in the state of nature. 2. Whether they are capable of receiving the Sacraments so long as they persist in this desire of theirs for vengeance. The reason which they bring forward to prove the necessity under which they are of avenging themselves is that the killer and his supporters would become fiercer and more intolerable against the relatives of the one killed, and would commit new homicides, if these relatives did not resist and oppose force to force. Resp. In the negative to both parts.” Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, 21 May 1759.

“It is a custom among the independent Gallas that, if anyone is killed or afflicted with a grave wound, from that very moment all and each of his relatives and fellow tribesmen are bound to swear mortal hatred against all and each of the killer’s relatives and fellow tribesmen, and to pursue them to extermination; and no one can exempt himself from this obligation without losing his social rights in his own tribe and being expelled from it as an enemy. But this right and duty of avenging blood lasts until a certain sum of money, to be determined by the judgment of arbitrators, is paid for the homicide, and thus the tribe to which the one killed belonged receives satisfaction. This satisfaction would be hoped for in vain if an obligation of this kind to undertake the aforesaid hostility or vengeance were removed, because among the independent Gallas there is a complete absence of public magistrates who watch over the punishment of crimes and the protection of rights. Therefore it is asked:

“1. Whether hostilities exercised in the aforesaid manner can be regarded as a just war of one tribe against another. — 2. Whether one can be admitted to the sacraments who on the one hand protests that he fosters no hatred or animosity whatsoever in his soul against the men of the enemy tribe, but rather shows himself ready and desirous of exhibiting to them the customary signs of friendship as soon as satisfaction has been made for his right; but who on the other hand promises that he will never seek an occasion of quarreling with his enemies, but will avoid encountering them, lest he be cast into the danger either of accepting a fight or, if he refuses it, of incurring the displeasure of his own people.

“Resp. Of the three conditions required for a just war, namely, legitimate authority, a just cause, and a suitable manner, it is manifest that the third is entirely lacking in the case of fact to which the first doubt refers. For a suitable manner especially demands that war be waged neither with the cruelty of taking vengeance nor with a desire to do harm, but with the right intention of obtaining due satisfaction, and that the innocent be in no way harmed, insofar as this can be done. But the Gallas, as soon as anyone from their family or tribe has been killed, swear mortal hatred against all and each of the blood relatives of the killer, and, without discrimination, if they meet them, attack, strike, and slaughter them, looking only to this: that by a barbarous rite they expiate blood with blood, until the satisfaction customary among them is furnished. Nor do they take vengeance under the guidance of public authority, to which alone it belongs to declare and direct war, but private persons rise up against private persons in the manner of wild beasts. Nor do they examine beforehand whether the homicide might have been committed accidentally or from the necessity of lawful defense and without fault. Nor, before they rush to arms, do they try every way through common friends by which they might peacefully obtain the satisfaction due to them; but, as the same Vicar Apostolic reports in another letter, from the very moment at which any homicide or lethal wounding occurs, all the blood relatives of both the killer and the one killed immediately separate themselves in such a manner that they are bound not only to break off every intercourse of speech and life with one another but also, if they meet, to fight even to extermination. Certainly no one fails to understand how greatly all these things are abhorrent to a suitable manner of waging war, indeed to the very notion of a true war. Therefore let the Vicar Apostolic take care, and let all the missionaries dwelling in those regions take care, that they utterly root out from their midst so barbarous and pernicious a custom, from which incredible slaughters of men and devastations of goods arise.

“But in the meantime will he be able to admit to participation in the sacraments one who is disposed in soul as is explained in the second doubt? The response depends upon the best-known principles of moral theology concerning the love of enemies, restitution on account of homicide, and the dispositions necessary for receiving the sacrament of Penance. That rule which the Vicar Apostolic relates that he gave to the missionaries subject to him is in no way opposed to these principles: namely, that the sacraments are not to be denied to one who protests that he has no personal hatred in his soul and wishes nothing else through the external hostility than what belongs to him by right according to the laws of his country, and who at the same time promises that he will accomplish by every means that he abstain from killing any of his enemies. The missionaries will therefore be able to follow this rule with respect to those who belong to the family or tribe of the one killed. But if there is question of those who are from the family or tribe of the unjust killer, it is required in addition that, insofar as it lies within them, they be prompt and prepared to furnish due satisfaction, and to undergo the displeasure of their own tribe rather than attack and injure anyone from the opposing tribe if perhaps they meet him, with the exception of the right of self-defense with the moderation of blameless defense.” Holy Office, 20 June 1866.

“According to the custom of this kingdom, every chief, even the least, although placed over only ten men, has full judicial and coercive power over his subjects, so that he can even pronounce a capital sentence against them according to his pleasure. Likewise a master has this power over his slaves. Nor would they permit their delinquent subjects to be brought before another tribunal. The customary form of judgment, moreover, is very summary. It is asked: — 1. Whether a Christian chief or master, with a safe conscience and with natural and divine law preserved, can exercise this power over his subjects or slaves and even decree capital punishment against them for an enormous crime; for example, if some subject wishes to destroy him or another, or to hand him over to persecutors for death on account of religion or another cause? — 2. Insofar as the answer is affirmative, when the chief himself questions the missionary concerning his right, can the missionary advise him concerning his right either in general or in a particular case? — Resp. To the first and second, that it can be tolerated until an exact form of judicial proceedings is introduced, with justice preserved and provided that in graver causes, especially capital ones, the procedure is as mild as possible and follows the counsel of upright men.” Holy Office, 27 January 1892; C. 2098.

“31. As a rule, I can kill a thief for the preservation of one gold coin. — 32. It is lawful to defend with a lethal defense not only the things which we actually possess, but also those to which we have an inchoate right and which we hope that we shall possess. — 33. It is lawful both for an heir and for a legatee to defend himself in this manner against one who unjustly prevents either the inheritance from being entered upon or the legacies from being paid; likewise also for one having a right to a chair or prebend against one who unjustly prevents possession of them.” Propositions condemned by Innocent XI.

“17. It is lawful for a religious or cleric to kill a slanderer who threatens to spread grave crimes concerning him or his religious order, when another manner of defending himself is not available; as it does not appear to be available if the slanderer is prepared publicly and before most eminent men to charge the aforesaid things against the religious himself or his religious order unless he is killed. — 18. It is lawful to kill a false accuser, false witnesses, and even a judge from whom an unjust sentence certainly threatens, if the innocent person cannot avoid harm in another way.” Propositions condemned by Alexander VII.

“30. It is lawful for a man of honor to kill an assailant who endeavors to inflict slander upon him, if this ignominy cannot otherwise be avoided; the same is also to be said if anyone strikes him with an open hand or with a club and, after inflicting the blow of the hand or the stroke of the club, flees.” Proposition condemned by Innocent XI.

“1. Will acceleration of delivery be lawful whenever the emergence of the fetus at its natural time would become impossible because of the narrowness of the woman? — 2. And if the narrowness of the woman is such that even premature delivery is judged impossible, will it be lawful to procure an abortion or to perform a Caesarean operation at its proper time? — 3. Is laparotomy lawful when there is question of an extrauterine pregnancy, or of ectopic conceptions? — Resp. To 1. Acceleration of delivery is not unlawful in itself, provided that it is performed for just causes and at that time and by those methods through which, according to ordinary contingencies, provision is made for the life of the mother and of the fetus. — To 2. As regards the first part, in the negative, according to the decree of Wednesday, 24 July 1895, concerning the unlawfulness of abortion. But as regards the second part: nothing prevents the woman in question from being subjected to a Caesarean operation at its proper time. — To 3. When necessity compels, laparotomy for extracting ectopic conceptions from the womb of the mother is lawful, provided that serious and opportune provision is made, insofar as this can be done, for the life both of the fetus and of the mother.” Holy Office, 4 May 1898.

“34. It is lawful to procure an abortion before the animation of the fetus, lest a girl who has been discovered to be pregnant be killed or defamed. — 35. It appears probable that every fetus, so long as it is in the womb, lacks a rational soul, and begins to have it only when it is born; and consequently it will have to be said that homicide is committed in no abortion.” Propositions condemned by Innocent XI.

“Can it safely be taught in Catholic schools that the surgical operation which they call craniotomy is lawful, namely, when, if it is omitted, the mother and child will perish, but if it is admitted, the mother will be saved while the infant perishes? Resp. After all matters had been considered for a long time and maturely, account also having been taken of those things written on this matter by expert Catholic men and transmitted by Your Eminence to this Congregation, they judged that the response must be: It cannot safely be taught. The Most Holy Lord fully confirmed it.” Holy Office, 28 May 1884.

“It cannot safely be taught in Catholic schools that the surgical operation which they call craniotomy is lawful, as was declared on 28 May 1884, nor that any surgical operation directly destructive of the fetus or of the pregnant mother is lawful.” Holy Office, 19 August 1889.

“When the physician Titius was called to a pregnant woman who was gravely ill, he commonly observed that there was no other underlying cause of the lethal disease apart from the pregnancy itself, that is, the presence of the fetus in the womb. Therefore, in order that he might save the mother from certain and imminent death, one way was available to him, namely, to procure an abortion or the expulsion of the fetus. He customarily entered upon this way, but employed means and operations not indeed tending of themselves and immediately toward killing the fetus in the mother’s womb, but only toward bringing it forth alive into the light, if this could be done, although it would soon die, since it was still altogether immature.

“Now, after reading what the Holy See wrote in response to the Archbishop of Cambrai on 19 August 1889—‘it cannot safely be taught that any operation directly destructive of the fetus is lawful, even if this were necessary to save the mother’—Titius remains doubtful concerning the lawfulness of the surgical operations by which he had not rarely procured abortion up to this time, in order to save gravely ill pregnant women.

“Therefore, in order to provide for his conscience, Titius suppliantly asks whether he can safely undertake the stated operations again in the circumstances repeatedly described. — Resp. In the negative, according to the other Decrees, namely, those of 28 May 1884 and 19 August 1889.” Holy Office, 24 July 1895.

“Whether it is sometimes lawful to extract from the womb of the mother ectopic (extrauterine) fetuses which are still immature, before the completion of the sixth month after conception? — Resp. In the negative, according to the decree of 4 May 1898, by force of which serious and opportune provision must be made, insofar as this can be done, for the life of the fetus and of the mother; but as regards the time, according to the same decree, let the petitioner remember that no acceleration of delivery is lawful unless it is performed at a time and by methods through which, according to ordinary contingencies, provision is made for the life of the mother and of the fetus.” Holy Office, 5 March 1902; Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, 20 March 1902. Cf. no. 742.

Apostolic Letter to the Ordinaries in the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires:

“Moved by the consciousness of your pastoral office and by charity toward your neighbors, you judged it necessary, in letters sent to Us last year, to report the frequency among your people of single combats which they call duels. You indicated with sorrow that this kind of fighting, as though a right established by custom, prevails even among Catholics; and at the same time you requested that Our voice also endeavor to deter men from an error of this kind.

“This error is certainly exceedingly pernicious, and indeed it is not confined within the borders of your states, but extends much more widely, so that scarcely any nation is found free from the contagion of this evil. Therefore We praise your zeal; and although it is known and thoroughly understood what Christian philosophy, with natural reason certainly agreeing, prescribes in this matter, nevertheless, since the depraved custom of dueling is especially nourished by forgetfulness of Christian precepts, it will be expedient and useful that this very matter be recalled briefly by Us.

“Namely, both divine laws—that which is natural from the light of reason, and that which has been promulgated in writings composed by divine inspiration—strictly forbid anyone to kill or wound a man apart from a public cause, unless, compelled by necessity, it is for the sake of defending his own safety. But those who challenge another to a private combat or accept one offered act for this purpose and direct their mind and strength toward this: although constrained by no necessity, to take away the life of their adversary or at least to inflict a wound upon him. Moreover, both divine laws forbid anyone rashly to cast away his own life, exposing it to grave and manifest danger, when no consideration of duty or magnanimous charity urges it; but this blind rashness, contemptuous of life, plainly inheres in the nature of a duel. Therefore it can be obscure or doubtful to no one that upon those who privately engage in single combat there fall both the crime of another’s destruction and the voluntary endangerment of their own life. Finally, there is scarcely any plague which is more abhorrent to the discipline of civil life and more subversive of the just order of the state than the permission granted to citizens that each man should become the defender of his own right by private force and hand, and the avenger of honor which he thinks has been violated.

“For these reasons the Church of God, which is guardian and vindicator both of truth and of justice and uprightness, by the union of which public peace and order are maintained, has always vehemently condemned the practice and has taken care that those guilty of private combat be restrained by the graver penalties which she could impose. The Constitutions of Alexander III, Our predecessor, inserted in the books of canon law, condemn and execrate these private combats. The Council of Trent punished with singular severity of penalties all who enter into them or participate in them in any manner; for, besides other things, it also branded them with the mark of infamy and, having cast them from the bosom of the Church, judged them unworthy, if they died in the combat, of ecclesiastical burial. Our predecessor Benedict XIV enlarged and explained the Tridentine sanctions in the Constitution issued on 10 November 1752, whose beginning is Detestabilem. But in the most recent period Pius IX, of happy memory, in the Apostolic Letter whose beginning is Apostolicae Sedis, by which latae sententiae censures are limited, openly declared that ecclesiastical penalties are incurred not only by those who fight in a duel, but also by those whom they call seconds, and likewise by witnesses and accomplices.

“The wisdom of these laws shines forth the more clearly, the more evident it is how foolish are those things customarily brought forward to defend or excuse the savage custom of dueling. For what is spread among the common people—that combats of this kind are adapted by their nature for washing away the stains which another’s slander or insult has placed upon the honor of citizens—is such as can deceive no one but a man bereft of judgment. For although the one who, having received an injury, declared the combat should depart from it victorious, the judgment of all sensible men will be that by such an outcome of the combat the challenger is proved better indeed in strength for fighting or in handling arms, but is not thereby proved superior in uprightness. But if that very man should fall, to whom in turn would this manner of defending honor not appear inconsiderate and altogether absurd? Indeed, We think that there are few who undertake this crime because they have been deceived by an error of opinion. It is altogether the desire for vengeance which impels proud and fierce men to seek punishment. If they were willing to restrain their haughty spirit and to obey God, who commands men to love one another with fraternal love and forbids anyone to be violated, who most gravely condemns the lust of taking vengeance in private men and reserves to Himself alone the power of exacting punishments, they would easily depart from the savage custom of dueling.

“Nor do those who accept an offered combat have available a just excuse of fear, because they fear that they will be considered cowardly by the common people if they refuse the fight. For if the duties of men were to be measured according to the false opinions of the common people and not according to the eternal norm of right and justice, there would be no natural and true distinction between upright actions and deeds shamefully committed. The wise pagans themselves both knew and taught that the fallacious judgments of the common people are to be despised by a brave and constant man. Rather, it is a just and holy fear which turns a man away from unjust slaughter and makes him solicitous for his own safety and that of his brethren. Indeed, he who disdains the empty judgments of the common people and prefers to undergo the lashes of insults rather than to abandon duty in any matter is clearly of a far greater and loftier spirit than one who, when provoked by an injury, rushes to arms. Indeed, if the matter is judged rightly, he alone is the one in whom solid fortitude shines forth—that fortitude, I say, which is truly called virtue and whose companion is a glory neither counterfeit nor deceptive. For virtue consists in a good consonant with reason, and unless glory rests upon the judgment of an approving God, all glory is foolish.

“Finally, the baseness of the duel is so manifest that even the legislators of our age, although it is supported by the votes and patronage of many, have judged that it must be restrained by public authority and by prescribed penalties. In this matter, however, it is most perverse and pernicious that written laws are nearly eluded in deed and fact, and this not rarely while those whose office it is to punish the guilty and to provide that the laws be obeyed know of it and remain silent. Thus it comes about that everywhere it is possible with impunity to descend to single combats, the majesty of the laws having been spurned.

“Foolish also and unworthy of a wise man is the opinion of those who, although they think that civilians are to be restrained from this kind of combat, nevertheless judge that it is to be permitted to soldiers, because they say that military virtue is sharpened by such exercise. First, honorable and base things differ by nature and can in no manner be changed into their contraries on account of the diverse state of persons. All men, in whatever condition of life, are altogether bound in an equal manner by divine and natural law. Furthermore, the reason for such indulgence toward soldiers would have to be sought from public utility, which can never be so great that under its pretext the voice of natural and divine right may be silenced. What if the very reason of utility is manifestly lacking? For the incentives of military virtue aim at this: that the state be better instructed against enemies. But will that be able to be effected with the aid of that custom which by its own nature aims at this: that, when a quarrel arises among soldiers, causes of which are not rare, one or the other of the defenders of the fatherland, on either side, is harmed?

“Lastly, the recent age, which boasts that it excels earlier centuries by far in a more humane culture and elegance of manners, is accustomed to make little of more ancient institutions and all too often to reject whatever is at variance with the complexion of more recent refinement. What is it, therefore, that, amid so great a zeal for humanity, it does not repudiate these ignoble remnants alone of a ruder age and of foreign barbarism—We mean the custom of the duel?

“It will be your office, Venerable Brethren, diligently to inculcate in the minds of your peoples these things which We have briefly touched upon, lest they rashly accept false opinions concerning this matter or allow themselves to be carried along by the judgment of lighter men. Take care in particular that young men become accustomed early to think and judge concerning the duel that which, with natural philosophy agreeing, the Church judges and thinks; and let them constantly take from that judgment their rule of action. Indeed, just as in some places it has been received by custom that Catholics, especially those of flourishing age, spontaneously and perpetually forbid themselves to enroll in disreputable societies, in like manner We deem it opportune and very salutary that they should make among themselves something like a covenant, pledging their word that at no time and for no cause will they fight a duel.

“We suppliantly ask God to strengthen our common endeavors with heavenly power and graciously to grant that which We desire for the public welfare, for integrity of morals, and for the Christian life. And as a pledge of divine gifts and likewise a witness of Our benevolence, We most lovingly impart to you, Venerable Brethren, the Apostolic blessing in the Lord.

“Given at Rome at Saint Peter’s, on 12 September 1891, the fourteenth year of Our Pontificate. LEO PP. XIII.”

“The Bishop of Breslau explained to the Holy See that at that University the very evil custom prevails among the young students of fighting duels very frequently; indeed, societies have been established there in which the young men do not obtain the higher ranks without having sustained a great and fixed number of duels. Nevertheless, combats of this kind among the said students are not so dangerous that there is reason to fear for life or the mutilation of any member. For the most part they take place with a short knife, with which the face alone is aimed at, and the contest very often ends with a small wound, curable within a few days, which leaves no trace whatsoever.

That Bishop, having to admit certain young men to ecclesiastical tonsure and orders, who had been students of that University and who at that time had themselves also been duelists or seconds in duels, asked the Sacred Congregation whether, and from what irregularities, they had to be dispensed: whether from that which arises ex homicidio, or from the other which arises ex defectu lenitatis, or finally from that ex infamia iuris imposed by the Council of Trent.

Hence the following doubt was proposed: Whether, by whom, and under what title an irregularity is contracted when a duel is committed in the manner in which it is customary for one to be conducted in these times among the students of a German University, as in the case. — Resp. In the affirmative: by the duelists and their seconds, from infamy of law.” Sacred Congregation of the Council, 9 August 1890.

“1. A military man who, unless he should offer or accept a duel, would be regarded as fearful, timid, abject, and unfit for military offices, and hence would be deprived of the office by which he supports himself and his family, or would have to lack perpetually the hope of a promotion otherwise due to and merited by him, would be free from guilt and penalty whether he offers or accepts a duel. — 2. Those accepting a duel or challenging another to it can also be excused for the sake of defending honor or avoiding human contempt, when they know with certainty that the fight will not follow, since it will be prevented by others. — 3. A commander or officer of the military who accepts a duel from grave fear of the loss of reputation and office does not incur the ecclesiastical penalties imposed by the Church against duelists. — 4. In the natural state of man, it is lawful to accept and offer a duel in order to preserve one’s fortunes with honor, when their loss cannot be averted by another remedy. — 5. The license asserted for the state of nature can also be applied to the state of a badly ordered commonwealth, in which, namely, through either the negligence or the malice of the magistrate, justice is openly denied.” Propositions condemned and prohibited as false, scandalous, and pernicious by Benedict XIV in the Constitution Detestabilem, 10 November 1752.

“2. A gentleman challenged to a duel can accept it, lest he incur among others the mark of cowardice.” Proposition condemned by Alexander VII.

“34. To fight against the Turks is to resist God visiting our iniquities through them.” Proposition of Martin Luther condemned by Leo X.

“62. The principle which they call non-intervention is to be proclaimed and observed.” Proposition condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus.

1100. 1. It is not prohibited: (a) to kill animals, "because they are not associated with us by any reason,"⁸ and to eat them has been granted by God to men; (b) to inflict capital punishment upon wicked and criminal men, by which the life of men may be kept safe; (c) to take life from enemies, with only the aim of public utility; (d) to kill another for the sake of defending one's safety; (e) nor is he guilty of this precept who by chance kills a man; in this, however, one can sin for two reasons: 1) if someone, occupied in an unjust matter, kills a man; 2) if, not having examined all things, he negligently and incautiously kills someone.

⁸ St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, I, 20, P. L., XLI, 35.

2. What is forbidden. (a) But other killings are prohibited, whatever be the difference either of the killer, or of the one killed, or of the killing. All, namely even the rich, even the powerful, even parents, ought to abstain from killing; all, even those of humble and abject condition, are defended by the force of this law; nor is it lawful for anyone to kill himself; every manner also of accomplishing killing is interdicted, namely physical perpetration and moral cooperation. (b) It is also prohibited to indulge anger without just cause, by which a way can be prepared for killing.

3. But we are commanded to have peace and charity with all, even enemies and those causing troubles;⁹ and consequently to cultivate patience,¹⁰ beneficence, meekness, and forgiveness of injuries.

⁹ Matt. 5:23.

¹⁰ 1 Cor. 13:4.

4. Indeed, for the perfect observance of the precept we receive from the Lord the counsel of not resisting evil, of offering the other cheek to one striking the right, and of letting go cloak and coat to one seeking them.¹¹

¹¹ Matt. 5:39.

Concerning these things we discuss in the Treatise on Justice, namely: concerning suicide and self-mutilation, n. 289-308; concerning the killing of the innocent, of malefactors, and of an unjust aggressor, 311-333; concerning duel, 334-344; concerning war, 345-363.

Thou shalt not kill. - Exod. xx, 13.

This precept is expressly negative and virtually positive. Insofar as it is positive, it commands the preservation of life; and insofar as it is negative, it prohibits primarily the unjust killing of a man, and secondarily every unjust lesion, wounding, or mutilation of the body, whether one's own or another's. But those things which will be established concerning killing, whether licit or illicit, will have to be applied to mutilation or to any bodily lesion, with due proportion preserved.

Caia, the wife of Caius and of infirm health, heard from a physician that at her next delivery the next offspring would very probably be death to her. Hence she was placed in distress, for she does not wish to deny the debt to her husband, but if she grants it, she will bring death upon herself. Therefore she goes to a physician of certainly not the best reputation and buys a medicine by which, taken once each month, she will be rendered safe, as the physician says, from the danger of future offspring. An outcome happy from her point of view proves the physician’s knowledge, but nevertheless also casts scruples into Caia as to whether it is lawful to take such a medicine, and she approaches her confessor to resolve them. Hence it is asked:

1. How are the direct and indirect killing of a human being distinguished? And is it lawful to kill an innocent person?

2. In a case in which either the mother or the fetus or both are certainly going to perish, is it ever lawful to procure abortion? Even of an inanimate fetus?

3. What is to be said of the case?

1. How is direct distinguished from indirect homicide, and is it ever allowable to kill the innocent? Homicide is direct when it is intended, and it may be intended either explicitly or implicitly. It is intended explicitly when the homicide wishes to cause death; it is intended implicitly when an action is intentionally put which can not but cause death. Thus one would directly cause death who kept another under water for some time, though his primary intention might have been not to kill him, but to prevent him from calling out. On the other hand, homicide is indirect when it is not intended, though it is foreseen that it will follow from some act which is put for another purpose. It is never allowed to kill the innocent directly; it is allowed to do so indirectly, for a great and proportionate cause.

2. In a case where either the mother or the fetus, or both, must necessarily perish, is it allowable to procure abortion at least, if the fetus has as yet no soul?

Following the common opinion, we may put aside, as antiquated, the hypothesis of a living fetus not yet informed by a human soul. The human soul is infused into the fetus at the moment of conception, according to the common opinion. The answer, then, to the question proposed will be that it is never allowed to procure abortion of the immature fetus directly, since it is never allowed to kill the innocent directly. If the fetus, though not quite mature, may probably be saved, as it may be after about the seventh month or even earlier, by artificial means, it will be lawful to bring it to the birth for a reason grave in proportion to the danger incurred. Indirect abortion, like indirect killing of the innocent, is allowable for a sufficiently grave reason.

3. The case. Caia did wrong in taking medicine to prevent having another child. If the medicine acted so as to prevent conception, she sinned mortally; for as St. Alphonsus teaches (III, no. 394): “It is never lawful for a mother, on account of any danger whatsoever, to take a potion to impede conception.” If the medicine acted on the fetus after conception, Caia was guilty of infanticide. Her confessor should tell her that she is justified in refusing her husband, supposing the danger to life to be real, but that she may also allow him marital rights and commit herself to God’s providence. The latter course may be adopted with greater security than the advice of some doctors would lead one to suppose.¹

1 See Génicot, Theol. Mor., vol. ii, nn. 551, 553.

Caia, a Catholic mother of a family and already four months pregnant, was suffering from almost continual vomiting. The physician summoned to her declared that the indicated remedy for the vomiting was abortion, and that unless she procured it, she herself with the fetus would most certainly die within one or two months. If abortion were procured in time, the fetus could be baptized, and the mother herself would very probably be saved. Caia asked her confessor whether in the stated circumstances she could bring about abortion. Hence it is asked:

1. By what principal arguments is it defended that abortion is lawful in order to save the mother?

2. How is it proved that abortion is always intrinsically evil?

3. What is to be said of the case?

1. What were the chief arguments by which it was argued that abortion is allowed in order to save the mother’s life?

We are not concerned here with the arguments used by materialists, who look upon the child before birth as a portion of the mother which may be destroyed if it threatens her life, and see no difficulty in killing one in order that the other's life may be preserved when both can not be saved. We are only concerned with theologians, some of whom thought that in such cases as we are now discussing medical abortion may be permitted. They defended this view on the following grounds: Abortion is usually caused by puncturing the membranes, and this may be done to relieve the mother when pregnancy is threatening her life, though the puncturing also causes abortion and the consequent death of the fetus. In a collision between the right to life of the mother and that of the fetus, the fetus may be said to cede its right in favor of the mother, especially as otherwise both would perish, and the fetus would not be baptized; whereas if aborted, it can be baptized.

2. How is it shown that abortion is always intrinsically wrong?

Direct abortion is always intrinsically wrong because it is direct killing of the innocent. For to cause abortion is to deprive the fetus of the medium in which alone its life can be preserved, which is to kill it directly just as much as thrusting a man under water or into a chamber exhausted of oxygen is killing him directly. As, then, the puncturing of the membranes is the direct killing of the fetus, it is not allowable, even when necessary to save the life of the mother; for evil may not be done that good may come. Nor can the fetus renounce its right to life in favor of the mother, and permit itself to be killed directly ; for not man but God alone is the Lord of life and death. In a collision of rights the owner of the better right takes something to himself which is his; his better right gives him no title to take away that which is another's, and so collision of rights can not be applied to justify direct abortion; it takes away the life of the innocent victim.

3. The case. From what has been said it is clear that Caia may not consent to abortion, as the fetus is not viable. She must ask the doctor to prescribe some other remedy or palliative which will at least save her conscience if not her life. This solution is confirmed by the decree of the Holy Office, July 24, 1895, which declared that such medical abortion as is described in this case is not lawful.¹

1 See Lehmkuhl, Theol. Mor., vol. i, n. 844, ed. 9.

Anna, a Catholic and married, because of deformity of the body is unable to bring forth offspring by the natural way. Hence the first was extracted by craniotomy, the second was brought forth alive by a Caesarean operation, and the third will come forth into the light after a short space of time; the surgeon wishes to extract it and at the same time to prevent future dangers by the operation which is called after Porro or Tait-Porro, by which the infant together with the uterus and appendages is removed by abdominal section. Anna therefore consults her confessor whether it is lawful or necessary to undergo the said operation. Hence it is asked:

1. Is a mother bound to lose temporal life in order to procure eternal salvation for her offspring?

2. Is the mutilation of a human being lawful?

3. Does Anna lawfully engage in married life?

4. What is to be said of the case?

1. Is a mother bound to give her life for the eternal salvation of her child?

Yes; per se it is a general rule of charity that we must be prepared to sacrifice our temporal life for the eternal salvation of our neighbor, as St. John teaches: “We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”¹ This obligation, however, does not arise frequently, because in ordinary circumstances the necessity for doing so is not certain, nor is the expected result certain.

1 1 John iii. 16.

2. Is it lawful to mutilate a man?

No; except in so far as it is necessary to preserve the man’s life, or unless it is commanded by competent authority in punishment of crime, according to the law of the country. Otherwise as man is not the owner of his life or limbs, but the ownership of them belongs to God, man can not dispose of life or limb, because he can not dispose of what does not belong to him.

3. Does Ann lawfully lead a married life?

As she cannot bring forth children in the ordinary way it would have been better if she had never married, and even now that she is married it would be better if, by mutual consent, husband and wife abstained from marital intercourse. However, there is no strict obligation to abstain, as if children are conceived, they can absolutely be delivered either by Cesarian section, or perhaps after the seventh month by bringing on premature labor, without killing either mother or child.

4. The case. The operation of craniotomy on the first child was unlawful if the child were alive, for it is the direct killing of the innocent. Cesarian section, of course, is lawful in such cases of necessity. The operation called Tait-Porro is also lawful if it is necessary in order to save the mother's life, “provided that serious and timely provision be made, as far as possible, for both the life of the fetus and that of the mother.” If it is not necessary, and if ordinary Cesarian section would suffice, then it is unwarrantable mutilation of a human being.

Titius, a young Catholic physician, asked Paul, his confessor, whether he could safely follow the doctrine commonly handed down in medical schools concerning the manner of treating ectopic fetuses. For sometimes a fetus is conceived outside the uterus and begins to grow, and it cannot always be distinguished from a tumor. Its growth, however, constitutes a grave danger to the mother, especially when the enclosing membrane is ruptured. According to the doctrine handed down in medical schools, an electric fluid is introduced into the cyst, and thus the fetus, if any is present, is deprived of life, ceases to grow, and the mother’s life is saved. Titius therefore wished to know whether it is lawful to act thus, and, if it is not lawful, what must be done when the mother’s life is endangered by a tumor which probably is an ectopic fetus, or which certainly is an ectopic fetus. Hence Paul asks:

1. What is an ectopic fetus, and why is it dangerous?

2. How are the direct and indirect killing of a human being distinguished, and when is it lawful?

3. What is to be said of the case?

1. What is an ectopic fetus and why is it dangerous? The proper place for the fecundated ovulum to settle and grow to maturity is the uterus, but sometimes it remains in the ovaries, sometimes in the Fallopian tubes, sometimes it falls into the abdominal cavity, and in these cases it is c called ectopic or extrauterine. An ectopic fetus can not be delivered in the ordinary way, and its growth becomes a serious danger to the life of the mother, chiefly on account of blood vessels being ruptured in the mother’s body by the continual growth of the ectopic fetus.

2. The first part of this question is answered above, p. 226.

Direct homicide is lawful by public authority in punishment of crime, or in a just war, and by private authority in self-defence. Indirect homicide may be permitted for some object of great importance.

3. The case. It is obvious that if an ectopic fetus is living, it will be direct and unlawful homicide to kill it with electricity. If it is uncertain whether a cause of danger to a woman is an ectopic fetus, or a tumor, or some other growth, laparotomy may be performed and the cause of danger removed as soon as the danger becomes imminent. For in that case the certain danger of the woman must be considered and guarded against in preference to the danger to the life of a fetus which is only probable and perhaps non-existent. Even when the danger certainly comes from the presence of an ectopic fetus, the same operation may probably be performed when its growth causes the danger to the mother to be imminent and the fetus is already viable.¹

1 See Antonelli, Medicina pastoralis, vol. i, n. 338; Lehmkuhl, Theol. Mor., vol. i, n. 1011, ed. 11.

On the other hand, when abortion is procured directly, the fetus is killed directly, and this is never lawful.

1. In a hilly country, two or three steps sometimes measure all the interval between the basins of two rivers, whose mouths are miles apart. In the crisis of an illness the merest trifle will turn the scale between death and recovery. In a nice point of law and intricate procedure, the lawyer is aware that scarcely more than the thickness of the paper on which he writes lies between the case going for his client or for the opposite party. To rail at these fine technicalities argues a lay mind, unprofessional and undiscerning. Hair-splitting, so far as it is a term of real reproach, means splitting the wrong hairs. The expert in any profession knows what things to divide and distinguish finely, and what things to take in the gross. Moral Science in many respects gives its demonstrations, and can give them, only "in the way of rough drawing," as Aristotle says. ([Greek: pachulos kai tupo], Ethics, I., iii., 4.) But there are lines of division exceeding fine and nice in natural morality no less than in positive law. The student must not take scandal at the fine lines and subtle distinctions that we shall be obliged to draw in marking off lawful from unlawful action touching human life.

2. It is never lawful directly to kill an innocent man. Understand innocent in the social and political sense, of a man who has not, by any human act (Ethics, c. i., n. 2, p. 1) of his own, done any harm to society so grievous as to compare with loss of life. To kill, or work any other effect, directly, is to bring about that death, or other effect, willing the same, either as an end desirable in itself, as when a man slays his enemy, whose death of its own sheer sake is to him a satisfaction and a joy, or as a means to an end, as Richard III. murdered his nephews to open his own way to the throne. We must then in no case compass the death of the innocent, either intending it as an end, or choosing it as a means. The assertion is proved by these considerations. To kill a man is to destroy the human nature within him: for, though the soul survives, he is man no more when he is dead. Now to destroy a thing is to subordinate that thing entirely to your self and your own purposes: for that individual thing can never serve any other purpose, once it is destroyed. The man that is killed is then subordinated to the slayer, wholly given up, and as we say, sacrificed, to the aims and purposes of him who slays him. But that ought not to be, for man is a person. Body and soul in him make one person, one personal nature, which human personality is destroyed in death. Now it is the property of a person to be what we may call autocentric, referring its own operations to itself as to a centre. Every person—and every intelligent nature is a person¹⁷—exists and acts primarily for himself. A thing is marked off from a person by the aptitude of being another's and for another. We may venture to designate it by the term heterocentric. A person therefore may destroy a thing, entirely consume and use it up for his own benefit. But he may not treat a person as a thing, and destroy that, either for any end of pleasure that he finds in destroying it, or in view of any gain or good, whereunto that destruction serves him as a means.

¹⁷ The exception apparent in the Incarnation is not relevant here.

3. In the above argumentation account has not been taken of God, to whom for His sovereign dominion all created personalities stand in the light of things, and may be destroyed at His pleasure. But account has been taken of the State, to which the individual is subordinate as a citizen, but not as a man and a person. It is permitted no more to the State than to the individual ever to destroy the innocent directly.

4. An effect is brought about indirectly, when it is neither intended as an end for its own sake, nor chosen as a means making towards an end, but attaches as a circumstance concomitant either to the end intended or to the means chosen. The case of a circumstance so attaching to the means chosen is the only case that we need consider here in speaking of indirect, concomitant, or incidental effects. The study of these incidents is of vast importance to the moralist. Most cases of practical difficulty to decide between right and wrong, arise out of them. They are best illustrated in the manner of killing. That one matter, well worked out, becomes a pattern for other matters in which they occur. (Ethics, c. iii., s. ii., p. 31.)

5. A man is killed indirectly, or incidentally, when he perishes in consequence of certain means employed towards a certain end, without his death being willed by the employer of those means, or in any way serving that agent to the furtherance of the end that he has in view. If a visitor to a quarry were standing on a piece of rock, which a quarryman had occasion to blast, and the man fired the train regardless of the visitor, the latter would be incidentally killed. Now incidental killing, even of the innocent, is not under all circumstances unlawful. Where the end in view is in the highest degree important, the means may be taken thereto, provided always that such an issue as the shedding of innocent blood be not itself the means discerned and elected as furthering the end: for no end however urgent can justify the employment of any evil means. (Ethics, c. iii., s. ii., nn. 3, 13, pp. 32, 36.) Suppose in the instance just given the quarryman saw that, unless that piece of rock where the visitor stood were blown up instantly, a catastrophe would happen elsewhere, which would be the death of many men, and there were no time to warn the visitor to clear off, who could blame him if he applied the explosive? The means of averting the catastrophe would be, not that visitor's death, but the blowing up of the rock. The presence or absence of the visitor, his death or escape, is all one to the end intended: it has no bearing thereon at all.

6. We must then distinguish between means and circumstances. The means help to the end, the circumstances of the means do not. When the end is of extreme urgency, circumstances may be disregarded: the means become morally divested of them. So I have seen an island in a river, a nucleus of rock with an environment of alluvial soil. While the stream was flowing placidly in its usual course, the island remained intact, both rock and earth. But when the water came rushing in a flood, which was as though the island itself had gone speeding up the river, the loose matter at its sides was carried away, and only the central rock remained. The ordinary flow of the river past the island, or the gentle motion of the island up-stream, keeping all its bulk, represents a man acting for an end to which reason attaches no great importance. He must then take a diligent review of all the circumstances that have any close connection with his action, to see if there is any that it would be wrong for him to will directly. And if there is, he must abstain from willing it even indirectly: that is, he must abstain from doing the action, which cannot be done without that objectionable circumstance attending it. On the other hand, the floating island being towed rapidly up-stream, with its loose sides falling away, portrays the condition of one acting for a purpose of imperative urgency: he considers the means to that end, and if they are good, he concentrates his will upon them and uses them, disregarding, or even deploring, but nowise willing or being responsible for, the evil concomitants which go with those means, but do not make for his end. Thus it is, that a circumstance which in ordinary cases goes to make the adoption of certain means reasonable or unreasonable, comes, in a case of great urgency, to weigh for nothing in the balance of reason, owing to the extreme and crying reasonableness of the end in view. Nor is this the end justifying the means, for that unhappy circumstance is never a means to the end. (Ethics, c. iii., s. ii., n. 8, p. 34.)

7. To illustrate by a diagram:

[Illustration:

C
( )
U
|
|
A—————————————————-E( )V
]

A, the agent, a bead on a wire, can move only on the line AE, that alone being the line of means to the end.

EV, reasonableness of end in view, attracting A.

UC, the amount of moral evil which the untoward circumstance would involve, if it were willed directly. This UC repels A, tending to jam it on the line AE, which is absolutely rigid.

AE, remoteness, difficulty, and uncertainty of the end in view.

AU, remoteness of untoward circumstance from means chosen, which A is just in the act of taking. Then, for lawful action, the reasonableness required in the end in view is represented by the variation—

[Illustration:
UC . AE
EV varies ———-
AU
]

We observe that when AU is zero, while UC . AE remains a finite quantity (representing an appreciable evil), then EV becomes infinite: that is to say, when the distance, difference, or distinction between the evil circumstance and the means comes down to nothing at all, and the evil thing actually is the very means taken, then an infinite urgency of end in view would be requisite to justify the using of that means: in other words, no end possible to man can ever justify an evil means.

Readings.—St. Thos., 2a 2æ, q.64, art. 6; Cardinal de Lugo, De Justitia et Jure, disp. 10, n. 125.

1. On the question, whether it is lawful for one man to kill another in self-defence, St. Thomas writes (2a 2æ, q. 64, art. 7):

"There is nothing to hinder one act having two effects, of which one only is within the intention [and election] of the doer, while the other is beside his intention [and election, that is, is neither intended as an end nor elected as a means]…. From the act therefore of one defending himself a twofold effect may follow, one the preservation of his own life, the other the killing of the aggressor. Now such an act, in so far as the preservation of the doer's own life is intended, has no taint of evil about it, seeing that it is natural to everything to preserve itself in being as much as it can. Nevertheless, an act coming of a good intention may be rendered unlawful, if it be not in proportion to the end in view. And therefore, if any one uses greater violence than is necessary for the defence of his life, it will be unlawful. But if he repels the violence in a moderate way, it will be a lawful defence: for according to the Civil and Canon Laws it is allowable to repel force by force with the moderation of a blameless defence. Nor is it necessary to salvation for a man to omit the act of moderate defence in order to avoid the killing of another; because man is more bound to take thought for his own life than for the life of his neighbour. But because to kill a man is not allowable except by act of public authority for the common good, it is unlawful for a man to intend [that is, elect and choose as a means] to kill another man in order to defend himself, unless he be one who has public authority, who intending [electing] to kill a man in order to his own defence, refers this to the public good."

2. The right then of self-defence even to the shedding of blood involves a mere exercise of indirect killing for a proportionably grave cause. The cause in question is the defence of your own life, or your friend's, or of some other good or possession that can weigh with life, as the honour and inviolability of your person, or a large sum of money. This must be in present danger of being taken away otherwise than in due course of justice. The danger must be present, and even imminent, not prospective. The right of self-defence even to the grievous harming of the aggressor, endures only while the danger from him is imminent, not when it is past, or the evil is already done. The right supposes no moral obliquity, no formal injustice on the part of the aggressor: he may be a madman making for you with a drawn sword. Nay further, not even material injustice—that is, the quality of an act which would be formally unjust, if only the agent knew what he was about—is required. All that is requisite is that your life, or something equivalent to life, be threatened, not in due course of law.

3. The essential idea of self-defence is that of stopping a trespasser, one who, however innocently, is going about to trench on that good which you have a right to maintain and reserve to yourself. It is then no act of authority that you perform, but the dealing of one private person with another. Indeed, the party stopped is hardly regarded as a person: no account is taken of his demerits: he is regarded simply as an abridger and diminisher of what you have a right to preserve intact. You stop a man as you stop a horse, only with more regard to the moderation of a blameless self-defence, not using more violence than is necessary here and now to preserve what you have to preserve.

4. The stopping, unfortunately, has often to be done in a hurry: there is no time to wait: for the next moment, unless you act promptly, it will be all too late, or all to no purpose, to act at all. Being done in a hurry, it has to be done in a rough-and-ready way, with such instruments as are to hand: you cannot afford to be nice about the means, carefully purifying them, and shaking off the dust of objectionable circumstances. Now to stop a man in mid career all on a sudden, to render him powerless where he was about to strike, motionless in the direction whither he was about to go, and that in an instant, is of common necessity a rude treatment, very dangerous to him who experiences it, and under some conceivable circumstances hopelessly fatal. Still the fatality—in plain words, the death of the aggressor—is not directly willed. It is neither intended as an end, nor chosen as a means to an end. It is not welcomed as an end and desirable consummation: on the contrary, it is put up with most reluctantly as coming from your act: for you, a private individual, have no right to will and effect the death of any man, however guilty, as will be proved hereafter. It is not chosen as a means: for, formally as his death, it is no means to your end, which was the averting of all present danger to your right. For that it was enough to stop the trespasser; and you chose the means as a stopping means, not as a killing means. True, in stopping him you killed him, but you did not kill him to stop him. You struck him to stop him: that your blow was a mortal blow, was a circumstance which you did not choose and could not help. All killing then in self-defence is indirect.

5. By this explanation, resting on St. Thomas—in opposition to Cardinal de Lugo (De Just. et Jure. 10, 149) and others, who allow killing in self-defence to be the actual means chosen, and therefore directly willed—we save four grand positions in Moral Science:

(a) The axiom, that it is never lawful directly to take the life of an innocent man. For the person who perishes by occasion of your defending yourself, may be innocent formally, and even materially also.

(b) Likewise the axiom, that it is never lawful for a private individual to kill any one whatever. We say, from a technical standpoint, that he does not kill but arrests the onset of the aggressor.

(c) We are in hearty accord with the positive law of all civilized countries, which views with extreme suspicion all deaths said to be done in self-defence, the law being jealous of the blood of its citizens, and reserving the shedding thereof to itself. We teach that only by process of law can a man ever be directly slain, his death made a means of, and the person, who strikes him, really willing and seeking, exactly speaking, to kill him.

(d) The initial error is revealed of a theory that we shall have to combat at length hereafter, the theory of Hobbes and Locke, that the power of the State is the mere agglomeration of the powers of the individuals who compose it. It appears by our explanation that the individual has no power strictly to take life in any case, or ever to kill directly, as the State does when it executes a criminal.

As a fifth point gained, we may mention the efficacious argument afforded, as will presently be shown, against the acceptance of a duel under any conceivable circumstances, a thesis otherwise not easy to establish by reason.

6. In view of the question of the origin of civil government, we must carefully collect the differences between self-defence and punishment. Death occasioned in self-defence is indirect: death inflicted as punishment is direct. Punishment is an act of authority, of distributive justice, which lies from ruler to subject (Ethics, c. v., s. ix., n. 4, p. 104): self-defence is of equal against equal. Punishment is medicinal to him who suffers it, or deterrent on behalf of the community, or retributive in the way of vengeance. (Ethics, c. ix., s. iii., n. 4.) Self-defence is not on behalf of the community, still less for the good of the aggressor, but for the good of him who practises it and for the preservation of his right: neither is it retributive and retrospective, as vengeance is, but simply prospective and preventive of a harm immediately imminent. Finally, the right to punish abides day and night: but the right of self-defence holds only while instant aggression is threatened.

7. These two diverse ideas of self-defence and vengeance were confounded by the Greeks under the one verb [Greek: amunesthai]. They are confounded by Mill, On Utility, in the fifth chapter where he speaks (p. 77) of the "instinct of self-defence," which nine lines below he converts into "the natural feeling of retaliation or vengeance." It is a common but a grave mistake, and the parent of much bad philosophy.

Reading.—St. Thos., 2a 2æ, q. 64, art. 7.

1. By suicide we shall here understand the direct compassing of one's own death, which is an act never lawful. There is no difficulty in seeing the unlawfulness of suicide for ordinary cases. The world could not go on, if men were to kill themselves upon every slight disappointment. But neither are they likely so to do. It is the hard cases, where men are apt to lay violent hands on themselves, that put the moralist on his mettle to restrain them by reasons. Why should not the solitary invalid destroy himself, he whose life has become a hopeless torture, and whose death none would mourn? Why should not a voluntary death be sought as an escape from temptation and from imminent sin? Why should not the first victims of a dire contagion acquiesce in being slaughtered like cattle? Or if it be deemed perilous to commit the departure from life to each one's private whim and fancy, why not have the thing licensed under certificate of three clergymen and four doctors, who could testify that it is done on good grounds?

2. To all these questions there is one good answer returned by Paley on the principle of General Consequences. (Ethics, c. x., n. 3, p. 178.)

"The true question of this argument is no other than this: May every man who chooses to destroy his life, innocently do so? Limit and distinguish the subject as you can, it will come at last to this question. For, shall we say that we are then at liberty to commit suicide, when we find our continuance in life becomes useless to mankind? Any one who pleases, may make himself useless; and melancholy minds are prone to think themselves useless when they really are not so…. In like manner, whatever other rule you assign, it will ultimately bring us to an indiscriminate toleration of suicide, in all cases in which there is danger of its being committed. It remains, therefore, to enquire what would be the effect of such a toleration: evidently, the loss of many lives to the community, of which some might be useful or important; the affliction of many families, and the consternation of all: for mankind must live in continual alarm for the fate of their friends, when every disgust which is powerful enough to tempt men to suicide, shall be deemed sufficient to justify it." (Moral Philosophy, bk. iv., c. iii.)

A word in confirmation of Paley on the plan of the medico-clerical certificate. There would be doctors, and I fear clergymen too, who would get a name for giving these certificates easily: under their hand many a patient might be smothered by his attendants with or without his own consent. Many another wretch would consider, that if the learned and reverend gentlemen empowered to license his departure from life only felt what he had to endure, there would be no difficulty about the certificate: so he would depart on presumed leave. The whole effect would be to make men less tender of their own lives, and by consequence of those of others, to the vast unsettling of society.

3. An argument from general consequences, however, does not go down into the depths of things. There is always something morally crooked and inordinate in an action itself, the general consequences whereof are bad. It remains to point out the moral crookedness, inordination, and unreasonableness, that is intrinsic to the act of suicide, apart from its consequences. We find the inordination in this, that suicide is an act falling upon undue matter, being an act destructive of that which the agent has power over only to preserve. It is natural to every being, animate and inanimate, to the full extent of its entity and power, to maintain itself, and to resist destruction as long as it can. This is the struggle for existence, one of the primary laws of nature. Man has intelligence and power over himself, that he may conduct his own struggle well and wisely. He may struggle more or less, as he sees expedient, looking to higher goods even than self-preservation in this mortal life: but he may not take that power of managing himself, which nature invests him with for his preservation, and use it to his own destruction. Should he do so, he perverts the natural order of his own being, and thereby sins. (Ethics, c. vi., s. i., nn. 1-5, p. 109.)

4. It may be objected, that man is only bound to self-preservation so long as life is a blessing; that, when the scale of death far outweighs that of life in desirableness, it is cruelty to himself to preserve his life any longer, and a kindness to himself to destroy it; that in such a plight, accordingly, it is not unnatural for a man to put himself, not so much out of life as out of misery. To this argument it is sometimes answered that, whereas death is the greatest of evils, it is foolish and wicked to resort to dying as a refuge against any other calamity. But this answer proves too much. It would show that it is never lawful even to wish for death: whereas under many conditions, such as those now under consideration, death is a consummation devoutly to be wished, and may be most piously desired, as a gain and by comparison a good: as Ecclesiasticus says (xxx. 17): "Better is death than a bitter life, and everlasting rest than continual sickness." The truth seems to be, that there are many things highly good and desirable in themselves, which become evil when compassed in a particular way. The death of a great tyrant or persecutor may be a blessing to the universe, but his death by the hand of an assassin is an intolerable evil. So is death, as the schoolmen say, in facto esse, and everlasting rest, better than a bitter life, but not death in fieri, when that means dying by your own hand. There the unnaturalness comes in and the irrationality. A mother, watching the death agony of her son, may piously wish it over: but it were an unmotherly act to lay her own hand on his mouth and smother him. To lay violent hands on oneself is abidingly cruel and unnatural, more so than if the suicide's own mother slew him.

5. But though a man may not use actual violence against his own person, may he not perhaps cease to preserve himself, abstain from food, as the Roman noble did, in the tortures of the gout, and by abstaining end them? I answer, a man's taking food periodically is as much part of his life as the coursing of the blood in his veins. It is doing himself no less violence to refuse food ready to hand, when he is starving, on purpose that he may starve, than to open a vein on purpose to bleed to death. This, when the food is readily accessible: the case is otherwise when it is not procurable except by extraordinary means.

6. Another consideration. To destroy a thing is the exclusive right of the owner and master of the same. If therefore man is his own master, in the sense that no one else can claim dominion over him, may he not accordingly destroy himself? The metaphysician will point out that master denotes a relation, that every relation has two terms, that consequently a man cannot be his own master any more than he can be his own father; and that, not owning himself, he may not destroy himself. But, leaving this metaphysical argument for what it is worth, we observe that man has a Master, Owner, Proprietor, and Sovereign Lord, God Almighty. To take your own life is to usurp the dominion of God. It is wronging the Lord of life and death. But none is wronged against his will: God is willing that murderers should be hung, may He not also be willing that men in misery should hang themselves? To this query suffice it for the present to reply, that God governs us for our good; and that capital punishment makes for the good of the community, but never suicide. (c. viii., s. viii., n. 7, p. 349.)

7. It was the doctrine of Aristotle and the Greeks, that the citizen belongs to the State, and that therefore suicide was robbing the State and doing it a formal injury. But no modern State takes this view of its subjects. No modern mind would place suicide in the same category of crime with robbing the Exchequer.

8. The great deterrent against suicide, in cases where misery meets with recklessness, is the thought,

In that sleep of death what dreams may come!—

above all, the fear of being confronted with an angry God. Away from belief in God's judgments and a future state, our arguments against suicide may be good logic, but they make poor rhetoric for those who need them most. Men are wonderfully imitative in killing themselves. Once the practice is come in vogue, it becomes a rage, an epidemic. Atheism and Materialism form the best nidus for the contagion of suicide. It is a shrewd remark of Madame de Stael: "Though there are crimes of a darker hue than suicide, yet there is none other by which man seems so entirely to renounce the protection of God."

Readings.—Ar., Eth., III., vii., 13; ib., V., xi., nn. 1-3; St. Thos., 2a 2æ, q. 64, art. 5; St. Aug., De Civitate Dei, i., cc. 26, 27; Paley, Mor. Phil., bk. iv., c. iii.

1. A duel may be defined: A meeting of two parties by private agreement to fight with weapons in themselves deadly. The meeting must be by agreement: a chance meeting of Montagues and Capulets, where the parties improvise a fight on the spot is not a duel. The agreement must be private; anything arranged by public authority, as the encounter of David with Goliath, that in the legend of the Horatii and Curiatii, or the wager of battle in the Middle Ages is not a duel. It is enough that the weapons be in themselves deadly, as swords or pistols, though there be an express stipulation not to kill: but a pre-arranged encounter with fists, with foils with buttons on, or even perhaps with crab-sticks, is not a duel.

2. The hard case in duelling is the case of him who receives the challenge. Let us make the case as hard as possible. In a certain army, every challenge sent to an officer is reported to a Court of Honour. If the Court decide that it ought to be accepted, accept the officer must, or lose his commission and all hope of military distinction. In this army, say, there is an officer of high promise who is believed to object to duels on conscientious grounds. An enemy pretends to have been insulted, and challenges him, on purpose to see him refuse and have to go down into the ranks, his career spoilt. The Court of Honour rules that the duel must come off. Of this very case, Reiffenstuel, a canonist of repute, about the year 1700, writes:

"The answer is, … that they who in such cases are so necessitated and constrained to offer, or accept, a duel, as that unless they offered, or accepted it, they would be held cowardly, craven, mean, and unfit to bear office in the army, and consequently would be deprived of the office that they actually enjoy, and support themselves and their family by, or would for ever forfeit all hope of promotion, otherwise their due and desert,—these I say in such a case are free from all fault and penalty, whether they offer or accept a duel." (In lib. v. decret., tit. 14, nn. 30, 31.)

The author protests in his Preface that he wishes his opinions "all and each to be subject to the judgment, censure, and correction of the Holy Catholic Church." The opinion above quoted was condemned, word for word as it was uttered, by Pope Benedict XIV. in 1752.

Now for Reiffenstuel's reason. "The reason," he says, "is, because in such a case as is supposed the acceptance and offering of a duel is an absolutely necessary, and thereby a just and lawful, defence of your reputation, or goods of fortune, and, by equivalence, even of your life, against an unjust aggressor, who we suppose does you an injury, and thereby gives you no choice but to call him out, or calls you out, and accordingly assails you in words, &c. Hence, as for the needful defence of reputation, or of goods of fortune of great consequence, it is lawful, with the moderation of a blameless defence, to kill an unjust aggressor, so it will be also lawful to offer and accept a duel, and therein slay the other party." Reiffenstuel here evidently supposes that killing done in self-defence is direct. Those who agree with him on that point, proceed to draw differences between self-defence and accepting a challenge. Of course the two are not the same. The true difficulty for them lies in making out how the reasons which justify self-defence in their view of it, do not also justify the acceptance of a duel: how, if I may make another man's death a means to the preservation of my vital right, I may not as well make another man's risk of death and my own, which is all that a duel amounts to, also a means, none other being at hand, to the preserving of my no less vital right. This grave objection does not touch us. We have denied that killing in self-defence is direct. On the lines of that denial we meet Reiffenstuel's argument simply as follows.

3. In self-defence, the aggressor is slain indirectly. In a duel, not indeed the death itself, or mutual slaughter of the combatants, is directly willed, but the risk of mutual slaughter is directly willed. But we may not directly will the risk of that which we may not directly do. And the combatants may not directly do themselves or one another to death. Therefore they may not directly risk each his own and his antagonist's life. But this risk is of the essence of a duel. Therefore duelling is essentially unlawful.

4. Such is the clenched fist, so to speak, of our argument. Now to open it out, and prove in detail the several members. In self-defence, neither the death of the aggressor nor the risk of his death is directly willed, whereas the risk of death is directly willed in a duel, which difference entirely bars the argument from self-defence to duelling. For a duel is a means of recovering and preserving honour, which is effected by a display of fortitude, which again consists in exposing yourself to the risk of being killed, and, as part of the bargain, of killing the other man. The risk to life is of the essence of a duel: it only attains its end—of establishing a man's character for courage—by being dangerous to life. Fortitude essentially consists in braving death. (Ethics, c. v., s. viii., n. 1, p. 94.) Deadly weapons, chosen because they are deadly and involve a risk of life in fighting with such arms, are the apt and express means for showing readiness to brave death. If the weapons were not deadly, there would be no point in the duel. As a matter of fact, where our definition of duel is verified, and weapons in themselves deadly are used, the encounter cannot be other than dangerous, especially between foes and where the blood is up. In the French army, where the regimental fencing-master stands by, sword in hand, ready to parry any too dangerous thrust, serious results still have occurred. If any man will have it that short smooth-bore pistols at forty paces in a fog are not to be counted dangerous weapons, all we can say is that MM. Gambetta and De Fourton, the one being nearly blind, and the other having lost an eye, did not fight a duel. In a duel then the danger of being killed and of killing is directly willed; it is the precise means chosen to the end in view.

5. We have proved already that it is not lawful directly to procure one's own death, nor the death of another innocent man. If any one contends that his antagonist is not innocent, not even in a political sense (c. ii., s. i., n. 2, p. 203), we must here assume against him, what we shall afterwards prove, that the guilty are not to be directly put to death except by public authority. But what we may not directly bring about, we may not directly risk the occurrence of. As I may not throw myself down a cliff, so neither may I walk along the edge precisely for the chance of a fall. I may often walk there with the chance of falling, but not because of the chance. It will be said that the English love of fox-hunting and Alpine climbing is largely owing to the element of danger present in those amusements. But it is not the danger pure and simple, that is chosen for amusement: it is the prospect of overcoming danger by skill. The same may be said of Blondin on the tight-rope: it was his skill, not his mere risk, that was admired. There are some risks that no skill can obviate, as those of Alpine avalanches. We may face a mountain slope where avalanches occur, but we must not hang about there because of the avalanches, making our amusement or bravado of the chance of being killed. That would be willing the risk of death directly, as it is willed in duelling.

Readings.—Paley, Mor. Phil., bk. iii., p. 2, c. ix.; St. Thos., 2a 2æ, q. 72, art. 3.