God by his absolute power can dispense with the law of nature; 16. Whether an equitable interpretation can ever be admitted in the law of nature; 17. Whether the law of nature is distinguishable from that of nations; 18. Whether the law of nations enjoins or forbids any thing; 19. By what means we are to distinguish the law of nature from that of nations; 20. Certain corollaries; and that the law of nations is both just, and also mutable. Character of of such scholastic 18. These heads may give some slight notion to the reader of the character of the book, as the book itself may serve as a typical instance of that form of theology, treatises, of metaphysics, of ethics, of jurisprudence, which occupies the unread and unreadable folios of the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries, especially those issuing from the church of Rome, and may be styled generally the scholastic method. Two remarkable characteristics strike us in these books, which are sufficiently to be judged by reading their table of contents, and by taking occasional samples of different parts. The extremely systematic form they assume, and the multiplicity of divisions render this practice more satisfactory than it can be in works of less regular arrangement. One of these characteristics is that spirit of system itself, and another is their sincere desire to exhaust the subject by presenting it to the mind in every light, and by tracing all its relations and consequences. The fertility of those men who, like Suarez, superior to most of the rest, were trained in the scholastic discipline, to which I refer the methods of the canonists and casuists, is sometimes surprising; their views are not onesided; they may not solve objections to our satisfaction, but they seldom suppress them; they embrace a vast compass of thought and learning; they write less for the moment, and are less under the influence of local and temporary prejudices than many who have lived in better ages of philosophy. But, again, they have great defects; their distinctions confuse instead of giving light; their systems being not founded on clear principles become embarrassed and incoherent; their method is not always sufficiently consecutive; the difficulties which they encounter are too arduous for them; they labour under the multitude, and are entangled by the discordance, of their authorities. 19. Suarez, who discusses all these important problems of his second book with acuteness, and, for his circum- Quotations stances, with an independent mind, is weighed down of Suarez. by the extent and nature of his learning. If Grotius quotes philosophers and poets too frequently, what can we say of the perpetual reference to Aquinas, Cajetan, Soto, Turrecremata, Vasquius, Isidore, Vincent of Beauvais or Alensis, not to mention the canonists and fathers, which Suarez employs to prove or disprove every proposition? The syllogistic forms are unsparingly introduced. Such writers as Soto or Suarez held all kinds of ornament not less unfit for philosophical argument than they would be for geometry. Nor do they ever appeal to experience or history for the rules of determination. Their materials are nevertheless abundant, consisting of texts of Scripture, sayings of the fathers and schoolmen, established theorems in natural theology and metaphysics, from which they did not find it hard to select premises which, duly arranged, gave them conclusions. eternal law. 20. Suarez, after a prolix discussion, comes to the conclusion, that "eternal law is the free determination of His defithe will of God, ordaining a rule to be observed, nition of either, first, generally by all parts of the universe as a means of a common good, whether immediately belonging to it in respect of the entire universe, or at least in respect of the singular parts thereof; or, secondly, to be specially observed by intellectual creatures in respect of their free operations." * This is not instantly perspicuous; but definitions of a complex nature cannot be rendered such. It is true, however, what the reader may think curious, that this crabbed piece of scholasticism is nothing else, in substance, than the celebrated sentence on law, which concludes the first book of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity. Whoever takes the pains to understand Suarez, will perceive that he asserts exactly that which is unrolled in the majestic eloquence of our country man. * Legem æternam esse decretum liberum voluntatis Dei statuentis ordinem servandum, aut generaliter ab omnibus partibus universi in ordine ad commune bonum, vel immediatè illi conveniens ratione totius universi, vel saltem ratione singularum specierum ejus, aut specialiter servandum a creaturis intellectualibus quoad liberas operationes earum. c. 3. §6. Compare with Hooker: Of Law no less can be said than that her throne is the bosom of God, &c. 21. By this eternal law God is not necessarily bound. But this seems to be said rather for the sake of avoiding phrases which were conventionally rejected by the scholastic theologians, since, in effect, his theory requires the affirmative, as we shall soon perceive; and he here says that the law is God himself (Deus ipse), and is immutable. This eternal law is not immediately known to man in this life, but either "in other laws, or through them," which he thus explains. "Men, while pilgrims here (viatores homines), cannot learn the divine will in itself, but only as much as by certain signs or effects is proposed to them; and hence it is peculiar to the blessed in heaven that, contemplating the divine will, they are ruled by it as by a direct law. The former know the eternal law, because they partake of it by other laws, temporal and positive; for, as second causes display the first, and creatures the Creator, so temporal laws (by which he means laws respective of man on earth), being streams from that eternal law, manifest the fountain whence they spring. Yet all do not arrive even at this degree of knowledge, for all are not able to infer the cause from the effect. And thus, though all men necessarily perceive some participation of the eternal laws in themselves, since there is no one endowed with reason who does not in some manner acknowledge that what is morally good ought to be chosen, and what is evil rejected, so that in this sense men have all some notion of the eternal law, as St. Thomas, and Hales, and Augustin say; yet nevertheless they do not all know it formally, nor are aware of their participation of it, so that it may be said the eternal law is not universally known in a direct manner. But some attain that knowledge, either by natural reasoning, or, more properly, by revelation of faith; and hence we have said that it is known by some only in the inferior laws, but by others through the means of those laws." * Whether God is a legislator ? 22. In every chapter Suarez propounds the arguments of doctors on either side of the problem, ending with his own determination, which is frequently a middle course. On the question, Whether natural law is of itself preceptive, or merely indicative of what is intrinsically right or wrong, or, in other words, whether God, as to * Lib. ii. c. 4. § 9. this law, is a legislator, he holds this middle line with Aquinas and most theologians (as he says); contending that natural law does not merely indicate right and wrong, but commands the one and prohibits the other on divine authority; though this will of God is not the whole ground of the moral good and evil which belongs to the observance or transgression of natural law, inasmuch as it presupposes a certain intrinsic right and wrong in the actions themselves, to which it superadds the special obligation of a divine law. God therefore may be truly called a legislator in respect of natural -law.* 23. He next comes to a profound but important inquiry, closely connected with the last, Whether God could whether have permitted by his own law actions against natural reason? Ockham and Gerson had resolved this in God could permit or commend wrong ac. tions ? the affirmative, Aquinas the contrary way. Suarez assents to the latter, and thus determines that the law is strictly immutable. It must follow of course that the pope cannot alter or dispense with the law of nature, and he might have spared the fourteenth chapter, wherein he controverts the doctrine of Sanchez and some casuists who had maintained so extraordinary a prerogative. This, however, is rather episodical. In the fifteenth chapter he treats more at length the question, Whether God can dispense with the law of nature? which is not, perhaps, decided in denying his power to repeal it. He begins by distinguishing three classes of moral laws. The first are the most general, such as that good is to be done rather than evil; and with these it is agreed that God cannot dispense. The second is of such as the precepts of the decalogue, where the chief difficulty had arisen. Ockham, Peter d'Ailly, Gerson, and others, incline to say that he can dispense with all these, inasmuch as they are only prohibitions which he has himself imposed. This tenet, Suarez observes, is rejected by all other theologians as false and Hæc Dei voluntas, prohibitio aut præceptio non est tota ratio bonitatis et malitiæ quæ est in observatione vel transgressione legis naturalis, sed supponit in ipsis actubus necessariam quandam honestatem vel turpitudinem, et illis adjungit specialem legis divinæ obligationem. c. 6. § 11. Nulla potestas humana, etiamsi pontificia sit, potest proprium aliquod præceptum legis naturalis abrogare, nec illud proprie et in se minuere, neque in ipso dispensare. § 8. absurd. He decidedly holds that there is an intrinsic goodness or malignity in actions independent of the command of God. Scotus had been of opinion that God might dispense with the commandments of the second table, but not those of the first. Durand seems to have thought the fifth commandment (our sixth) more dispensable than the rest, probably on account of the case of Abraham. But Aquinas, Cajetan, Soto, with many more, deny absolutely the dispensability of the decalogue in any part. The Gordian knot about the sacrifice of Isaac is cut by a distinction, that God did not act here as a legislator, but in another capacity, as lord of life and death, so that he only used Abraham as an instrument for that which he might have done himself. The third class of moral precepts is of those not contained in the decalogue, as to which he decides also, that God cannot dispense with them, though he may change the circumstances upon which their obligation rests, as when he releases a vow. English 24. The Protestant churches were not generally attentive to casuistical divinity, which smelt too much of the opposite system. Eichhorn observes that the first book of that class, published among the Lutherans, was by a certain Baldwin of Wittenberg, in 1628.* A few books of casuistry were published in England during this period, though nothing, as well as I remember, that can be reckoned a system, or even a treatise, of moral philosophy. Perkins, an eminent Calvinistic divine of the reign of Elizabeth, is the first of these in point of time. His Cases of Conscience appeared in 1606. Of this book I can say nothing from personal knowledge. In the works of Bishop Hall several particular questions of this kind are treated, but not with much ability. His distinctions are more than usually feeble. Thus usury is a deadly sin, but it is very difficult to commit it unless we love the sin for its own sake; for almost every possible case of lending money will be found by his limitations of the rule to justify the taking a profit for the loan. His casuistry about selling goods is of the same description: a man must take no advantage of the scarcity of the commodity, unless there should be just rea • Vol. vi. part is p. 346. + Hall's Works (edit. Pratt), vol. viii. p. 375. |