No More Learning

was the natural development of the fundamental political
conception of mediseval society--that is, that the community
is the source of all political authority.
We are indeed confronted with a certain difficulty when
we endeavour to trace the history of civilisation. There is
a sense in which it is true to say that the civilisation of the
Middle Ages culminated in the thirteenth century, and that
this civilisation is different from the modern. In economic
conditions and structure, in scientific and philosophic thought,
in some aspects of art, in some intellectual forms of religion,
there are certainly great and significant differences between
the mediseval and the modern world. It may be said that in
all these various aspects, the civilisation of the Middle Ages
found its most complete expression in the thirteenth century,
and that, with its close, it began to show evident signs of
decay, and that it was only very slowly and gradually that
the new system of the modern world emerged.
All this is in a measure true, and yet it is also doubtful
whether it is more than a half-truth, and, like all half-truths,
at least as misleading as it is illuminating. We cannot here
deal with the general question, we must confine ourselves to
the political aspect of civilisation. And here the conception
of the existence of some profound gulf between the mediseval
and the modern is a mistake; the history of political prin-
ciples and even institutions was continuous. The Eenaissance
may or may not represent a really new beginning in philosophy
and science, it did not do so in political ideas and forms.
It is no doubt true that there is one apparent contradiction
to this continuity, and that is, that the conception of the
union of Temporal and Spiritual power in one authority has
disappeared. We have in this volume to deal with the final
development of this conception, and we shall consider what
was its real character. We would, however, venture to say
at once and emphatically what we think is evident from the
previous volumes of this work, that even so far as this con-
ception was really important in the Middle Ages--and how
far and in what sense it was so we shall have to consider--
it had little or no relation to the actual character and develop-
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-19 10:47 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3318617 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? CHAP. I. ]
3
INTRODUCTION.
ment of political ideas in general. We venture to say that it
will become clear to any one who considers the actual char-
acter and sources of the political ideas of the Middle Ages
that they were wholly independent of this conception ; that
the principles of the supremacy of law, and of the community
as the source of authority, were substantially unaffected by
the question of the relations of the political and religious
authorities.
We do not mean to undervalue the significance of the rela-
tion of the Temporal and Spiritual powers, nor do we mean
to suggest that the great conflicts of the Middle Ages have
not left behind them a principle of the greatest and most
enduring importance--that is, the principle of the independ-
ence of the spiritual life from the control of the political
authority of society. We do not undervalue this, for, indeed,
we think that it is just here that we find the most profound
of the differences which separate the ancient world from the
mediseval and modern. And yet it remains true that this
conflict did not in any intrinsic way affect the development
of the general political ideas of the Middle Ages, and it is
with these that we are concerned.
In this volume we have to consider the full development
of the political theories whose origins we have endeavoured
to trace in the earlier volumes, and their relation to the
various political experiments of the thirteenth century, and
especially to the system of the representation of the com-
munity. We shall now also find ourselves in a position to
consider the revival of the Aristotelian political ideas, espe-
cially in the works of St Thomas Aquinas, and to ask how
far this influence was of real importance. In the next volume
we shall have to consider how far it was permanent.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-19 10:47 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3318617 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? 4
CHAPTER II.
CONVENTION AND NATURE.
The political theory of the Middle Ages is formally separated
from that of Aristotle and Plato, and from that of the nine-
teenth century, by one great presupposition--that is, that the
institutions of civilised society are founded upon "conven-
tion," not upon "nature. " Not, indeed, that this distinction is
only mediseval, for it continued to dominate European thought
until the latter part of the eighteenth century. It is, indeed,
only with Montesquieu, Eousseau's ' Contrat Social,' and
Burke, that the characteristically modern return to the
Aristotelian and Platonic mode of thought was established.
No detailed discussion of this is necessary, for it is obvious
that the conceptions of Hooker, of Hobbes, and of Locke, are
all in their different ways founded upon the distinction between
" nature " and convention.
The normal political theory of the Middle Ages was not
Aristotelian, but was derived from the post-Aristotelian
philosophy mainly through the Eoman Law and the Christian
Fathers. It was not till the thirteenth century that mediseval
thinkers became acquainted with the Aristotelian political
theory. In this chapter we shall consider the effects of this
discovery in the attempt made by St Thomas Aquinas to
restate some fundamental conceptions of political theory in
the terms of Aristotle.
The post-Aristotelian political thinkers regard " nature "
as primarily expressing the original or primitive condition
of the world and of human life, a condition of innocence and
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-19 10:47 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3318617 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? CHAP. II. ]
5
CONVENTION AND NATUEE.
felicity, out of which men passed owing to the appearance
of vice or sin in man.
The Stoics, at least as represented by Posidonius in Seneca's
account, looked back to a golden age in which men were
uncorrupt in nature, lofty of soul, and but newly sprung
from the gods, and in which they lived together in peace
and happiness, requiring no coercive government, and seek-
ing for no individual property. Out of this happy and inno-
cent life they passed, because evil appeared in the world.
They became ambitious, and were possessed by the lust of
authority; they became avaricious, and would not be satisfied
with the common enjoyment of the good things of the world. 1
This conception of the difference between the natural
state and the conventional is implied in the treatment of
" Natural Law " in the Roman jurisprudence both of the
second century and of the sixth, and, indeed, it is in some of
the phrases which belong to these that the conception is most
dramatically embodied. As far as the natural law is con-
cerned, all men are equal, by natural law all men should
be born free, says Ulpian ; slavery, says Florentines, is con-
trary to nature. 2 The treatment of the subject of "nature "
in the Eoman Jurists is not indeed free from ambiguities,
and in our first volume we have endeavoured to disentangle
these, but the general conclusion is clear.
When, therefore, we find the same conceptions in the
Christian Fathers, there is no doubt as to their source. They
were not specifically Christian ideas, but they fitted without
difficulty into the Pauline interpretation of the story of the
original innocence of man and his fall. And these were the
conceptions of all the Fathers from St Irenseus in the second
century and St Augustine in the fifth to St Gregory the Great
in the sixth. They all present one and the same view of the
original conditions of human life, and of the origin of the
institutions of political society. Government, says Irenseus,
was made necessary because men departed from God, and
hated their fellow-men and fell into confusion and disorder
1 Seneca, * Epistles,' xiv. 2. (Cf. vol. 2 ' Digest,' i. 17, 32 ; L t, A | i. 5, 4.
i. p. 23. ) (Cf. vol. i. p. 47. )
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-19 10:47 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3318617 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? 6
[PABT I.
POLITICAL PRINCIPLES.
of every kind. 1 God, said St Augustine, made the rational
man to be the master of other animals, not of his fellow-men,
and the lust of power of man over his fellows, who are his
equals, is an intolerable arrogance of the soul. 2 St Gregory
the Great bade men who are placed in authority to consider
not their power and rank, but the equality of their nature,
for man was by nature set over the irrational animals, not
over his fellow-men. 3 All this represents, not the desire to
depreciate the dignity or importance of the political order, as
some writers have tended to think, not being fully aware of
the post-Aristotelian theory of society, but only the assertion
of the artificial or conventional character of organised society
and its institutions, as contrasted with the happy anarchy
of the primitive world.
It is true that we should be glad if we could see more
clearly how these curiously unhistorical and infelicitous in-
terpretations of human institutions should have replaced the
sane and penetrating conceptions of Aristotle, and his appre-
hension that the social and political order was not the result
of vice, but rather the method of the progress of man towards
the attainment of his true nature. Unfortunately, the philo-
sophic literature of the last centuries of the pre-Christian era
has perished, or survives only in fragments, and we cannot
do more than conjecture the causes which lay behind this
change.
It is, however, reasonable to say that one explanation of
the change was that, with all its merits, the Aristotelian
theory of society did not take account, or at least did not take
sufficient account, of some aspects of human nature which
were apprehended during the centuries between Aristotle and
the Christian era, and that also a certain undue conservatism
of thought in Aristotle brought about an intelligible reaction.
Aristotle's conception of political society as the necessary
condition of human life and progress, and of the political order
as founded upon the conception of a moral justice, were pro-
1 St Irenseus, 'Adv. Haer. ,' v. 24. 9 St Gregory the Great, 'Exp.
(Cf. vol. i. p. 129. ) Moralis,' xxi. 15. (Cf. vol. i. pp. 126-
a St Augustine,' De Civ. Dei,' xix. 15. 128. )
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-19 10:47 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3318617 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? chat, n. ]
7
CONVENTION AND NATURE.
found and permanent. But he failed to understand the com-
plementary truth of the equal and free personality of men ;
and he accepted the actually existing inequality of the Greek
and the Barbarian as though it were a final reality, instead of
what it proved itself to be, merely a phase in the historical
process.
It was not unreasonable when Aristotle recognised the gulf
which lay between the Greek with his highly developed in-
tellectual and political civilisation, and the crude barbarism
of the Oriental world as he knew it; but a few generations
of the Hellenistic civilisation were enough to show that he
had taken the existing fact to be a perpetual and necessary
truth. And in the same way, in his profound apprehension
of the meaning of the social and political order of human life,
he failed to take sufficient account of the fact that though,
in his own phrase, the State is prior to the individual, the
State exists for the individual, and not the individual for the
State. The truth is that it was the apprehension of the
equality of human personality which for the time being seemed
to undermine the whole Aristotelian conception of society, and
provoked a reaction in which, for the time, men could only
think of the actual world as representing the result of some
primseval catastrophe. For the equality of human personality
was not a speculation but an observation of fact; it was
Aristotle's attempt to distinguish between the natural master
and the natural slave which proved itself to be a merely
speculative theory. The Greeks went out into the world,
and though a mere handful of men, the crazy empires of the
East crumbled into dust before them ; but as they settled
down among the conquered peoples, they found them capable
of learning all they had to teach. And presently a greater
empire than the Macedonian found itself first puzzled and
then conquered by an assertion of the independence of person-
ality which refused to submit even to the majestic authority
of Eome. The words attributed to the Apostles, " whether
it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you rather
than unto God, judge ye,"1 represented an immense change
1 Acts of the Apostles, iv. 19.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-19 10:47 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3318617 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? 8
[PAST I.
POLITICAL PRINCIPLES.
in the relation of the individual personality to society. We
do not mean that this movement was peculiar to Christianity ;
the claim that man is amenable through his own reason and
conscience to some greater authority than that of the State
had been expressed many centuries before with a profound
and moving eloquence in the ' Antigone,' and Sophocles was
only anticipating the movement of thought and feeling of
which the philosophical conception of the equal individual
personality is the form.
It was perhaps no great wonder that in the first clash of
the yet unsolved antinomy of the freedom of the individual
and the authority of society, men should have found the
explanation in the poetic tradition of that catastrophe by
which, as they thought, the innocent liberty of the primseval
world, in which men were good and happy, had been lost,
and a harsher and sterner order had been required to preserve
at least some relics of the gracious past. For this is also the
meaning of that law of nature of which philosophers and
jurists and Christian Fathers spoke; it expressed principles
which might not be wholly realised, but which should at
least limit and direct and control the authority of human
society, while the positive law and order of society embodied
the disciplinary measures which the faults and vices of human
nature, as it actually is, required.
Such, at any rate, was the theory of the nature of the
institutions of society which the Middle Ages inherited from
the post-Aristotelian philosophy through the Eoman Law
and the Fathers, and we have endeavoured in previous volumes
to show how these conceptions were expressed both in the
legal and general literature of those ages. It is not necessary
to add much by way of illustrating the continuance of the
same conceptions in the thirteenth century. We have in the
second and third volumes of this work illustrated this from
the works of the Civil and Canon Lawyers, and even from the
Feudal Jurists, and here, therefore, we only cite one or two
further examples.
The first occurs, in that oddly irrelevant and rhetorical
/
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-19 10:47 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3318617 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? CHAP. IL]
9
CONVENTION AND NATURE.
manner which is characteristic of the Fathers and of most
of the mediseval writers, in the introduction to a Constitution
of the Emperor Frederic II. of the year 1239, in which he
appointed his son Henry Vicar-General of Tuscany. The
Constitution represents Justice as establishing the authority
of princes in order to restrain the insolence of transgressors,
for men would gladly have avoided the yoke of lordship,
and would never have surrendered that liberty which they
had received from nature if it had not been that the license
of wicked men was actually inflicting grave injuries on the
human race, and this compelled nature to submit to justice
and liberty to obey judgment. 1 The rotundity of the phrases
is sufficiently absurd, though it is characteristic of the Bologna
Jurists when they were in a rhetorical mood, but they repre-
sent the contrast between the natural and the conventional
conditions of human life.
The other example which we cite is even more significant,
for it is to be found in the works of Albert the Great, the
teacher of St Thomas Aquinas, and with him we are on the
verge of the recovery of the Aristotelian political theory. In
his ' Summa Theologica' he cites the contention that the
subjection of man to man is either actually slavery or has
something of its character, and was established on account
of sin, as is evident from the curse of Noah upon Canaan.
For Gregory the Great had said that nature brought forth
all men equal, and therefore that pride which leads a man
to desire to be set over his fellow-men is contrary to nature. 2
As we have said, it is needless to multiply examples of
what had been for many centuries the accepted tradition,
that the institution of coercive government was regarded as
a convention, which did not arise from nature, but was due
to the appearance of evil in the world. The pre-Thomist
writers of the thirteenth century did not, as far as we have
observed, add anything material to the tradition.
It is not our part in this work to deal with the history of
1 M. G. H. , ' Const. ,' vol. ii. 216. logics,' ii. Quattt. 26, Memb. i. 1.
* Albert the Great, ' Summa Theo-
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-19 10:47 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3318617 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? 10
[PART L
POLITICAL PRINCIPLES.
the recovery of the Aristotelian writings ; the subject has
been discussed in various works. And we are not here con-
cerned with the far-reaching effects of this in the development
of the general philosophic system of the Middle Ages.
That
is again a large and important subject, with a literature of
its own. It is enough for our purpose to observe that St
Thomas Aquinas was in possession of the whole range of the
work of Aristotle, including the Politics and the Ethics, and
that he not only studied him carefully, but that his own
work on politics represents the results of this study.
It was with St Thomas that the Stoic and Legal and
Patristic traditions, which had hitherto dominated the more
abstract aspects of the Political Theory of the Middle Ages,
began to be crossed by a new influence. In the traditional
theory the great institutions of human society, coercive
government, slavery, and property, are the results of the
vicious desires and impulses of men, not of the original char-
acter of their true nature; but they were also the means
by which these vicious impulses might be restrained or limited.
In the terms of the Christian Fathers, they were at the same
time the results of sin, and the divine remedies for sin.
St Thomas does not in all respects directly and categorically
contradict these conceptions, but under the influence of
Aristotle he does very carefully and clearly set out a con-
ception of human society and its institutions which is funda-
mentally different. In order, however, that we may properly
appreciate his position, we must consider separately his
treatment of government, of property, and of slavery. We
begin by considering the terms in which he describes human
nature in its relation to government. If man could live alone,
he says in his treatise, 'De Eegimine Principum,' he would
require no ruler, he would be king over himself under God,
directing his actions by that reason which God has given to
him. But this is not possible, for it is natural to man to be
a social and political animal. He is driven to society by his
own weakness in physical powers as compared with other
animals ; but in place of these, nature has given him reason
and the power of speech, by which he can communicate with
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-19 10:47 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3318617 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? chap, n. ]
11
CONVENTION AND NATURE.
other men. Man must therefore live in society with other
men, and by the use of his reason render and receive mutual
help ; and this society must be a political society, for without
some system of rule it could not hold together. 1
In the ' Summa Theologica ' he sets out the same principles,
but with rather more precision, and in contrast with the older
view. He was confronted with the dogmatic statement of
St Augustine, to which we have often referred, that in the
state of innocence man was not under the lordship of man.
He meets this by pointing out that the word "dominium "
may be taken in two senses, as signifying the lordship of a
man over his slave, or as the rule exercised by one man over
other free men. In the first sense he admits that there would
have been no lordship of man over man in the state of inno-
cence, but in the second sense the rule of man over man would
have been lawful even in that state. And, he goes on to say,
1 St Thomas Aquinas, ' De Regimine
Principum,' i. 1 ; " Et si quidem
homini conveniret singulariter vivere,
sicut multis animalium, nullo alio
dirigentc indigeret ad finem, sed
ipse sibi unusquisque esset rex sub
Deo summo rege, in quantum per
lumen rationis, divinitus datum sibi,
in suis actibus se ipsum dirigeret.
Naturale autem est hommi ut sit
animal sociale et politicum, in multi-
tudine vivens, magis etiam quam omnia
animalia : quod quidem naturalis
necessitas declarat. Aliis enim ani-
malibus rjatura preparavit cibum, tegu-
menta pilorum, defensionem, ut dentes,
oornua, ungues, vel saltem velocitatem
ad tugam. Homo autem institutus est
nullo horum sibi a natura preparato,
sed loco omnium data est ei ratio, per
quam sibi hsec omnia officio mamium
posset preparare, ad quse omnia pre-
paranda, unus homo non sufficit. Nam
unus homo per se sufficienter vitam
transigere non posset. Est igitur
homini naturale quod in societate
multorum vivat. . . . Est igitur news,
sarium homini, quod in multitudino
vivat, ut unus ab alio adjuvetur et
diversi diversis inveniendis per rationem
oecuparentur. . . . Hoc etiam eviden-
tissime declaratur per hoc, quod est
proprium hominis locutione uti, per
quam unus homo aliis suum conceptum
totaliter potest exprimere. Alia quidem
animalia exprimunt mutuo passiones
suas in communi, ut canis in latratu
iram, et alia animalia passiones suas
diversis modis. Magis igitur homo est
communicativus alteri, quum quod-
cunque aliud animal quod gregale
videtur, ut grus, formica, et apis. . . .
Si ergo naturalis est homini quod in
societate multorum vivat, neoesse est
in hominibus esse per quod multitudo
regatur, multis enim existentibus homi-
nibus, et uno quoque id quod est sibi
congruum providente, multitudo in
diversa dispergeretur, nisi etiam esset
aliquis do eo, quod ad bonum multi-
? ? tudinis pertinet, curam habens : sicut
Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-19 10:47 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3318617 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? 12
[PABT I.
POLITICAL PRINCIPLES.
this would have been so for two reasons : first, because man
is naturally a social animal, but social life is impossible unless
there is some authority to direct it to the common good ;
and secondly, because it would have been " inconveniens "
if any one man excelled the others in knowledge and justice,
that this superiority should not be used for the benefit of
the others. 1
The correspondence between St Thomas' conception of
the relation of man to political society and that of Aristotle
requires no discussion. The relation of these two passages
to the first chapters of the first book of Aristotle's Pontics
is evident, and it is also evident that the principles which
St Thomas was setting out were really contradictory to the
Stoic and Patristic tradition which till this time dominated
the Middle Ages. To St Thomas the State, or Political
Society, was a natural, not a conventional institution.
As we have already said, the question of the permanence
of this recovery of Aristotelianism is one which we shall
have occasion to consider in the next volume. It is enough
for us to observe that the immense influence of St Thomas
had almost immediate effect, and we shall find the best illus-
1 Id. , ' gumma Theologica,' i. 96, 4 :
" Ad quartum sic proceditur. Videtur
quod homo, in statu innocentise homini
non dominabatur : dicit enim August.
'De Civ. Dei' (jrix. 15). 'Hominem
rationalem ad imaginem suam factum,
non voluit Deus nisi irrationabilibus
dominari, non hominem homini, sed
hominem pecori. ' . . . Rospondeo di?
cendum, quod dominium accipitur
dupliciter. Uno modo, secundum quod
opponitur servituti: et sic dominus
dicitur, cui aliquis subditur, ut servus.
Alio modo accipitur dominium, secun-
dum quod communiter refertur ad
subjectum qualitercumque: et sic
etiam ille, qui habet officium guber-
nandi et dirigendi liberos, dominus
dici potest: primo ergo modo accepto
dominio, in statu innocentia? homo
homini non dominaretur : sed secundo
modo accepto dominio, in statu inno-
centiie homo homini dominari potuisset.
. . . Tunc vero dominatur aliquis alteri
ut libero, quando dirigit ipsum ad
proprium bonum ejus qui dirigitur, vel
ad bonum commune: et tale domi-
nium hominis ad hominem in statu
innocentise fuisset, propter duo. Primo,
quia homo naturaliter est animal
sociale : undo homines in statu inno-
centise socialiter vixisseut: socialis
autem vita multorum esse non posset,
nisi aliquis presideret, qui ad bonum
commune intenderet : multi enim per
se intendunt ad multa, unus vero ad
unum: et ideo Philos dicit, in princ.
Politic: quod quandocumque multa
ordinantur ad unum, semper invenitur
unum ut principale et dirigens. Se-
cundo, quia si unus homo habuisset
super alum supereminentiam scientise,
et justitise, inconveniens fuisset, nisi
? ? hoc exequeretur in utilitatem aliorum. "
Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-19 10:47 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3318617 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? OHAP. EC]
13
CONVENTION AND NATURE.
tration of this in the work of Egidius Colonna in the latter
years of the thirteenth century.
Egidius' treatise, ' De Eegimine Principum,' is obviously
and explicitly related to the Aristotelian Politics, to which
he constantly refers, and it was directly or indirectly from
St Thomas that he had learned to know Aristotle. He gives
an account of the reasons why the State (civitas) was created
which is founded immediately upon the " Politics "--namely,
that men might live and have enough, and that they might
live well and virtuously. 1 He asks why, if this is so, if man
is naturally political (civilis), there are some who do not live
thus, and he answers, some because they are too poor (mean-
ing by this, presumably, a pastoral or hunting people), some
because they are vicious and criminal, and some because
they seek a more perfect life of contemplation. And it is in
this sense that he interprets Aristotle's saying that he who
is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is
sufficient in himself, must be either a beast or a god. 2 In
the following chapter he explains the statement that the
State is natural, first, by contending that it is the proper
development of the family and the village, and secondly, by
an appeal to Aristotle's principle that the nature of a thing
lies in its end or perfection. 3
We can then trace very clearly the development in the
latter part of the thirteenth century of a new conception
in political theory, and can recognise in St Thomas Aquinas
and Egidius Colonna the effect of the recovery of the
Aristotelian philosophy and its conception of the State, not
as a conventional institution arising out of the vicious or
sinful condition of human nature, but rather as the natural
1 Egidius Colonna, ' De Rcgimino
Principum,' iii. 1,2: " Constitute
autem jam civitate et homines per-
spicaciores intuentes et videntes quod
non satis est habere sufficientiam in
vita nisi vivant bene et virtuose. Cum
sine lege et justitia constitute civitas
stare non posset, ordinarunt communi-
tatem politicam quse facte erat ad
vivere et ad habendam sufficientiam
in vita et ad bene vivere et ad vivere
secundum legem et virtuose. "
> Id. id. , iii. 1, 3.
3 Id. id. , iii. 1, 4: " Nam finis
generationis est forma quod per auto-
nomasiam est quidem naturale et est
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-19 10:47 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3318617 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? 14
[PAET I.
POLITICAL PRINCIPLES.
expression and embodiment of the moral as well as the
physical characteristics of human nature. In order, how-
ever, to complete our appreciation of the nature of this
change, we must consider how far we find the same principles
in the treatment of the other great institutions of society,
and especially of property and slavery.
We have in previous volumes set out the principles of the
Fathers and the Canon Lawyers with regard to these, and
have seen that to them it was clear that private property
did not belong to the primitive order, but arose from the
vicious and greedy appetities of men. 1
It is interesting to observe that these were still the prin-
ciples of Aquinas' great Franciscan predecessor in systematic
theology, Alexander of Hales, who seems to be unaffected,
at least in this matter, by the Aristotelian influence; but,
as we shall see, both he and some of the Canonists of the
middle of the thirteenth century were drawn by their study
of the Eoman Law to another interpretation of the " natural
law. " In one passage he discusses carefully the meaning of
natural law, and asks whether it can be changed. He
cites St Isidore of Seville as saying that by the natural
law all property is common, and says that if now a man
may lawfully possess a thing as his own, it would appear
that the Lex Naturale is mutable. He replies to this that
when it is said that by natural law all things are common,
this refers to the condition of man before he sinned, but
when man had sinned private property became lawful by
natural law. 2 In another part of the same discussion he
1 Cf. vol. i. chap. 12 ; vol. ii. part ii.
chap. 6.
2 Alexander of Hales, ' Summa
Theologise,' iii. Q. 27, M. 3, Art. 2:
" ' An lex naturalis mutabilis sit quan-
tum ad prsecepta juris naturalis ? '. . .
Isidores : ' Jus naturale commune
est omnium nationum : hoc jure com-
munis est omnia possessio, et omnium
una libertas. ' Si ergo sanctio ista
mutate est, ita ut meo jure sit aliquid
proprium ; patet quod mutabilis est
lex naturalis quantum ad suas sane-
tiones et mandate. . . . Item in Decretis
distinct. 8 (Gratian, Decretum D. , viii.
part L). ' Differt jus naturale a con-
suetudine, nam jure naturali omnia
sunt communia omnibus: jure vero
consuetudinis et constitutionis, hoc
meum est, illud vero alterius. ' . . .
Resolutio. Ad primam ergo rationem,
quse ostendit quod sit mutabile in se :
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-19 10:47 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3318617 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? chap, n. ]
15
CONVENTION AND NATURE.
maintains that the natural law prescribes some things as of
obligation, some things as good, and some as equitable. It
is of obligation that in case of necessity all things are common.
It is good that in the state of nature, when all things were
well ordered, all things should have been common, but that
in a corrupt state some things should be the property of
particular persons, otherwise the wicked would take all and
the good would be in want. It is equitable that some things
should never be appropriated, while others which belong
to no one should belong to the person who " occupies "
them. 1
Alexander of Hales very clearly represents the patristic
and normal mediseval view that private property did not
belong to the primitive condition of innocence, but was the
result of sin. It is to the influence of some phrases of the
Eoman Law 2 and to the recognition by some of the Bologna
Civilians like Azo that the term " jus naturale " could be
used in different senses,8 that we may trace Alexander's con-
ception that in one sense private property may be related to
natural law. His assertion that in the case of necessity all
dicendum, quod jure naturali essent
omnia communia, et omnium una
lihertas, hoc fuit ante peccatum, et
post peccatum quse dam sunt quibusdam
propria, et hue duo sunt per legem
naturalem. "
1 Id. id. id. , Q. 27, M. 4, Art. 3 :
' Hoc habito quseritur propter illud,
quod dicitur in definitiono lsidor:
' Communis omnium possessio. ' Utmm
do lege naturali siut omnia communia.
. . . Sol: Dicendum, quod lex naturalis
circa communionem et proprietatem
dictat differenter. Dictat enim aliquid
quia debitum, et aliquid quia bonum,
aliquid quia suquum. Quia debitum
dictat, quod in statu necessitatis sint
omnia communia : in statu enim isto
sunt omnia communicanda; et hoc
modo in precepto est communicatio :
hoc est dictamen respectu rerum ad
sustentationem personarum, et inde
sumitur. . . . Alitor dictat circa com-
munionem et proprietatem aliquid
quia bonum quia in statu nature bene
institute dictabat omnia esse com-
munia : in statu vero naturse cor-
ruptse dictabat, quod bonum est esse
aliqua propria : alioquin boni egerent,
et non staret societas humana, quia
mali rape rent omnia : et in secundum
diversos status dictat bonum esse, quod
omnia siut communia, et quod aliqua
sint propria. Dictat enim circa pro-
prietatem et communionem aliquid
quia iequum, et secundum dictamen
aquitatis dictat, qusedam esse in-
appropriabilia, ut serem, mare, littora :
dictat etiam, quod ea quse siut appro-
priabilia, si in nullius sint bonis,
occupanti concedantur : . . . Et bine
est acquisitio eorum, quse coelo, terra,
marique capiuntur; ut captio avium et
piscium : si cut dicunt leges humanse. "
a Cf. vol. i. pp.