we may use it for a falsehood with good intention, why not any other member?

S. Thomas Aquinas (see page 381 et seq.) shows that mendacium officiosum is always a sin, even if it be a venial one. If so, like other venial sins, it aids in forming a character; and it is an easy step downwards to mendacium perniciosum; e.g., in detraction.

(Qu. 1. May another be allowed to deceive himself through your words, actions, or silence, when he has no right to the truth-e.g., in the case of lawyers, physicians, confessors, confidential secretaries, ambassadors, commanders in time of war?

Qu. 2. Compliments in "good society"? "Not at home" may not be a lie, though servants may so understand it. Qu. 3. May an advocate assert that his client's cause is just ?)

"Lies of necessity"-e.g., to save life-must stand or fall with other compulsory acts. It is said that " "necessity knows no law." But constraint of liberty or threats are not necessity, for there is always more or less constraint of fear or force. It is sin to have cowardly fear. Only such fear as destroys the freedom of a well-governed man constitutes necessity, or such force as makes compulsion. Heroic virtue rises above the common standard of compulsion.

Another's necessity, a father's, husband's, etc., stands on the same plane with one's own. But antecedent rules are not serviceable for such cases, since formal sin is avoided when they are left to the emergency which is supposed to be outside of the law.*

On libel and slander, see Chapter on Injury, § 6.

In fiction the question of mendacium officiosum is very forcibly presented in Scott's Heart of Mid-Lothian (c. xviii.). Yet Jeanie Deans acted a lie (c. xxix.) in order to save her life. Coöperation, also, in the form of silence, not denouncing crime, will be found in c. xxxii.; perhaps, in another form, in c. li.

Detraction, secret and unjust injury of another's good name (see Part III., page 314), is (a) simple detraction when the offence charged is true; it is (b) calumny when it is false. It is (a) direct when, if the charge be not absolutely false, yet the truth is amplified injuriously, or what is entitled to secrecy is manifested, or bad motives are imputed to a good or an indifferent act. It is (b) indirect, when good acts are denied, or diminished, or silence kept while others applaud, or praise is coldly given. The gravity of the sin is measured by the gravity of the intention and of the injury. But it is worse than theft. "Who steals my purse," etc. Revealing wrong becomes a duty only when grave injury is effected by not doing so, or when another is entitled to know the facts.

Caution: The priest among his people is but too apt to be made the hearer of detraction, and needs the greatest care in distinguishing what he is entitled to know from idle or malicious tale-bearing.

It is sin against charity, not against justice, if a notorious offence be related to those who are ignorant of it.

Listening to detraction is sin against justice, if thus inducement to it be offered; otherwise it is sin against charity.

(Qu.: Talking of injury done to one's self?)

Restitution is obligatory after these sins, so far as is possible; and usually the confessor will defer absolution until it is made. The good name is to be repaired or restored, and compensation is due for loss, if any there were, even if the fault revealed were actually committed. (Without enunciating or implying falsehood one can say, "I ought not to have said that respecting him.") Public restitution is due for public detraction, private for private. Even inadvertent detraction has the same claim.

Excuses. Restitution may be excused (a) if the fault have been otherwise revealed, or the good name otherwise restored.

(b) An old charge may have been forgotten; then to apologize for it would be to recall it.

(c) Restitution may be morally impossible, a good name being utterly lost.

(d) The detraction may have been unheeded; e.g., the speaker being perceived to be angry.

(Qu.: Suppose that the injured party has been guilty in the same way?)

Satisfaction for insult may recall the offence, and it is therefore not usually to be offered.

CHAPTER IV.

RIGHT AND JUSTICE.

THE subject of the next three chapters-viz., Right and Justice, their violations through injury, and contracts based on justice-might here be considered as questions of Moral Theology alone, and no reference might be made to civil law except when it conflicts, which it rarely does, with the principles of our science.

But, even with all the rudeness necessary in general laws, which, as such, cannot recognize the inevitable exceptions occurring and recognized in morals, the civil and the common law are in large measure so admirable an application of justice to human life, and the practical use of some acquaintance with the first principles of common law as thus applied is so great, that it seems best to consider our topics both from the point of view of Moral Theology and of the laws of civil society.

§ 1. Definitions and divisions.

Justice, as we have seen (Part III., page 274), is a moral virtue inclining the will to render to every one what is right, i.e., his due. Our Lord gives the law and its criterion (S. Matt. vii. 12), although His law, no doubt, extends beyond the natural virtue of justice to the domain of supernatural charity. Duty, the obligation of giving what is due, is correlative with right.

Divisions. (1) Legal justice was defined (page 275) as the form of justice which gives to society its rights. But if we take the narrower definition of it-sc., civil justice ex

pressed in written law-the supremacy of moral over legal justice is emphatically presented in Blackstone's remark (iii. page 392), that "a second trial is not granted in cases of strict right or summum jus, where the rigorous exaction of strict legal justice is hardly reconcilable to conscience." Summum jus summa injuria.

The same principle will be illustrated, also, by the case of "accident;" special inconvenience of general law from unusual circumstances will warrant equitable jurisdiction from a court of chancery (Blackst. iii. 431). It will rectify some mistakes, some frauds, which may not be cognizable by common law; it will issue injunctions to prevent invasion of rights.

(2) Distributive justice gives honours and imposes burdens in due and just proportions (Part III., page 285). (3) Commutative justice regulates exchange between private individuals.

(4) Retributive justice is a form of (2), exacting penalties for wrong-doing.

Note that in particular matters of justice, ordinarily and regularly, lawyers are the most competent judges; in matters of justice which are to be conducted by general rules, as, also, in religion and charity, theology is supreme (Duct. Dubitant. I. iv. rule 10).

Jus, right, is the lawful claim to do, to keep, or to obtain anything whatsoever for one's own benefit. It is the object of the virtue justice.

Divisions are (1) right in things already possessed ("things real"); (2) right to things not so possessed ("things personal"); i.e., jus in re, and jus ad rem. These give rise to real and personal actions in law.

Property is rights in things (Blackst. ii. c. ii.). This, as jus in re, is either real or personal, the former being lands, tenements, and hereditaments. But the last divis