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sane persons, wha have not the actual use of their
reason and cannot therefore know the law, are not
responsible for their failure to comply with its de-
mands, (b) The natural law is immvlable in itself and
also extrinsically. Since it is founded in the very
nature of man and his destination to his end — ^two
bases which rest upon the immutable ground of the
eternal law — it follows that, assuming the continued
existence of human nature, it cannot cease to exist.
The natural law commands and forbids in the same
tenor everywhere and always. We must, however,
remember that this immutability pertains not to those
abstract imperfect formulsB in which the law is com-
monly expressed, but to the moral standard as it
applies to action in the concrete, surrounded with all
its determinate conditions. We enunciate, for in-
stance, one of the leading precepts in the words: "Thou
shalt not kill "; yet the taking of human life is some-
times a lawful, and even an obligatory act. Herein
exists no variation in the law; what the law forbids is
not all taking of life, but all unjust taking of life.
With regard to the possibility of any cnange by
abrogation or dispensation, there can oe no ques-
tion of such being introduced by any authority except
that of God Himself. But reason forbids us to think
that even He could exercise such power; because, given
the hypothesis that He wills man to exist. He wills him
necessarily to Uve conformably to the eternal law, by
observing in his conduct the law of reason. The Al-
mighty, then, cannot be conceived as willing this
and simultaneously willing the contradictory, that man
should be set free from the law entirely through its
abrogation, or partially through dispensation from it.
It is true that some of the older theologians, followed
or copied by some later ones, hold that God can dis-
pense, and, in fact in some instances, has dispensed
from the secondary precepts of the natmtil law, while
others maintain that the bearing of the natural law is
changed by the operation of positive law. However,
an examination of the argimients offered in support of
these opinions shows that the alleged examples of dis-
pensation are: (a) cases where a change of conditions
modifies the application of the law, or (b) cases con-
cerning obligations not imposed as absolutely essential
to the moralorder, though their fulfilment is necessary
for the full perfection of conduct, or (c) instances of
addition made to the law.
- As examples of the first category are cited God*s
permission to the Hebrews to despoil the Egyptians, and His command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. But it is not necessary to see in these cases a dispensation from the precepts forbidding theft and murder. As the Sovereign Lord of all things, He could withdraw from Isaac his right to life, and from the Egjrptians their right of ownership, with the result that neither would the killing of Isaac be an unjust destruction of life, nor the appropriation of the Egyptians* goods the unjust taking of another's property. The classic instance al- leged as an example of (b) is the legalization of polyg- amy amon^ the Hebrews. Polygamy, however, is not under all circumstances incompatible with the essen- tial principles of a rationally ordered life, since the chiei ends prescribed by nature for the marital union — the propagation of the race and the due care and ed- ucation of offspring — may, in certain states of society, be attained in a polygamous union. The theory that God can dispense from any part of the law, even from tJie secondary precepts, is scarcely compatible with the doctrine, whicn is the common teaching of the School, that the natural law is founded on the eternal law, and, therefore, has for its ultimate ground the immu- table essence of God himiself. As regards (c), when positive law, human or Divine, imposes obligations which only modify the bearing of the natural law, it cannot correctly be said to change it. Positive law may not ordain anything contrary to the natural law, from which it draws its authority; but it may — and
this is one of its functions — determine with more pre-
cision the bearing of the natural law, and for good rea-
sons, supplement its conclusions. For examine, in the
eyes of the natural law mutual verbal agreement to a
contract is sufiicient; yet, in many kincb of contract,
the civil law declares that no agreement shall be valid,
unless it be expressed in writmg and signed by the
parties before witnesses. In estaolishing this rule the
civil authority merely exercises the power which it de-
rives from the natural law to add to the operation of
the natural law such conditions as the common good
may call for. Contrary to the almost universaUy re-
ceived doctrine, a few theologians held erroneously
that the natural law depends not on the essential neces-
sary will of God, but upon EKs arbitrary poGiitive will,
and taught consistently with this view, that the nat-
ural law may be dispensed from or even abrogated by
God. The conception, however, that the moral law is
but an arbitrary enactment of the Creator, involves
the denial of any absolute distinction between right
and wrong — a denial which, of course, sweeps away
the very foundation of the entire moral order.
III. Our Knowledge of the Law. — Founded in our nature and revealed to us by our reason, the moral law is known to us in the measure that reason brings a knowledge of it home to our understanding. The question arises: How far can man be ignorant of the natural law, which, as St. Paul says, is written in the human heart (Rom., ii, 14)? The general teaching of theologians is that the supreme and primary principles are necessarily known to every one naving the actual use of reason. These principles are really reducible to the primary principle which is expressed by St. Thomas in the form: "Do good and avoid evil'*. Wherever we find man we find him with a moral code, which is foimdcd on the first principle that good is to be done and evil avoided. When we pass from the universal to more particular conclusions, the case is different. Some follow immediately from the primary, and are so self-evident that they are reached without any com- plex course of reasoning. Such are, for example: " Do not commit adultery "; " Honour your parents ". No person whose reason and moral nature is ever so little developed can remain in ignorance of such pre- cepts except through his own fault. Another cla^ of conclusions comprises those which are reached only by a more or less complex course of reasoning. These may remain unknown to, or be misinterpreted even by persons whose intellectual development is consid- erable. To reach these more remote precepts, many facts and minor conclusions must be correctly appre- prcciated, and, in estimating their value, a person may easily err, and conse(|uently, without moral fault, come to a false conclusion.
A few theologians of the seventeenth and eij^hteenth centuries, following some older ones, maintained that there cannot exist in anyone practical ignorance of the natural law. This opinion however has no weight (for the controversy see Bouquillon, *'Theologia Fun- damentalist, n. 74). Theoretically speaking, man is capable of acquiring a full knowledge of the moral law, which is, as we have seen, nothing out the dictates of reason properly exercised. Actually, taking into con- sideration the power of passion, prejudice, and other influences which cloud the understanding or pervert tiie will, one can safely say that man, unaided by su- pernatural revelation, would not acquire a full and correct knowledge of the contents of the natural law (cf. Vatican Council, Sess. Ill, cap. ii). In proof we need but recall that the noblest ethical teaching of pagans, such as the systems of Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics, was disfigured by ita approbation of shockingly immoral actions and practices.
As the fundamental and all-embracing obligation imposed upon man by the Creator, the natural law is the one to which all his other obligations are attached. The duties imposed on us in the supernatural law come
