Internal Right is divided into

Signorial, Political, and Communal Right.

236.

Internal Right naturally divides itself into three parts, which treat respectively of (1) Signorial Right as connected with governing right; (2) Political, or governing, Right, that is, the rights and obligations of those who govern a society and administer its affairs; and (3) Communal Right, or the rights and obligations common to all the members of a society.

Particular Social Right arises from the appli

cation to

particular societies of the principles of universal social right. Three societies necessary to the human

race.

237.

This same division applies to Particular Social Right, since these three kinds of rights and obligations belong to every society. And there may be innumerable societies, each of which has its own right, resulting from an application of the principles set forth in Universal Social Right; but there are three societies necessary for the existence and organization of the human race, societies which, when perfected, must restore the human race to its primitive unity and render it one great, well-ordered family. These societies are (1) the Theocratic, or natural-divine; (2) the Domestic, which is based on human nature alone, and divides itself into the Conjugal and the Parental; and (3) the Civil, which is artificial, indeed, but necessary for the well-being of the human species. The particular rights belonging to these three societies furnish subjects for three treatises of the highest importance.*

Cf. the first chapters of Aristotle's Politics.

238.

Right

initial or

Theocratic Society is either initial, binding Theocratic men together through natural morality and natural either religion, or perfect, appearing in the form of the perfect. Catholic Church, and binding men more closely together by the positive bonds of a revealed, supernatural morality and religion. Here also there are three forms of right-Signorial, Governmental, and Communal.

239.

Right

Parental.

Domestic Right is, as we have said, twofold, Domestic Conjugal and Parental. The former treats of the twofold, Conjugal relations between husband and wife, the nature and and conditions of matrimony, and the mode of contracting it, as well as of the rights and obligations of the contracting parties. The latter deals with the reciprocal rights and corresponding obligations of parents and children, with special regard to their moral bearings.

240.

may be a

well as a

parts, general as assigning special theory of Inasmuch civil

Civil Right sets forth the nature and origin There of civil society, and, hence, of its three lordship, government, and citizenship, to each its rights and obligations. as civil society may be constituted in forms and furnished with various organs and

various

society.

functions, there may be formed a general theory of natural right for all civil societies, taking account only of that which is essential and common to them all, and a theory of right for each different form that the civil body may assume.

Rosmini attempted to define the limits of civil right in his famous political pamphlet, Constitution according to Social Justice. His Five Wounds of Holy Church had a similar purpose.

The supreme

problem
of the

Science of
Right.

241.

But a still higher question is raised when it is asked, Supposing a multitude, not yet organized into a civil society, should commission a philosopher to frame a constitution for them, what sort of constitution ought he, having regard only to principles of justice and leaving entirely out of view all political considerations, give them? Such are the virtue and fertility of the principles of justice, that if we should deduce from them their natural consequences (to do which would certainly require a master mind), these alone would supply us with all the political laws even necessary for the organization of a nation in such a way as to give it the best chance of concord and prosperity. And here comes in the connection between the judicial and political sciences.

242.

consists

Finally, External Right, whether universal or Wherein particular, is only an application of individual External right to societies, considered as so many individuals.

Right.

Doctrine of Means.

243.

cetics.

Ascetics cannot form a science apart from (y) AsEthics, for the reason that the subject of Ethics is moral obligation and virtue, not merely in their universal concepts, but also in their more special acts. Hence, it is obvious that the means and aids to virtue are matters of obligation, and that the acquisition and proper use of them are virtuous acts-acts to which certain virtues have reference.

244.

cation.

Pedagogics treats of the art of human education. (8) EduMan is educated partly by himself, partly by the institution of the family, whose duties are sometimes in part assumed by special instructors cooperating with the parents, partly by the influence exercised upon him by the civil society in which he is born, and partly by the influence of theocratic society. Hence this science has many branches, such as Self-Education, Domestic Education, Pro

fessional Education, Civil Education, and Ecclesiastical Education. These various branches of Education must be supplemented by another which has a very grand subject. We mean Providential Education, that process whereby God, ordering and disposing events, has educated, and is still educating, the human race and the individuals that compose it.

Rosmini has left an excellent work on Education, entitled, On the Supreme Principle of Method and Some of its Applications to the Purposes of Human Education. There hardly exists a work which offers to the practical teacher more valuable hints than this, or that would better repay a careful study. One of its chief merits lies in the fact that it devotes special attention to the order in which intelligence, beginning with intuition and sensation, naturally developes itself.

Three parts of Education.

245.

Each of these branches naturally divides itself into three parts, corresponding to the three parts of man susceptible of education-the moral, the intellectual, and the physical.

Physical

and intellectual must be made subordinate to

moral education.

246.

But the education of the individual must have a perfect unity, and it is a great mistake to believe that physical, intellectual, and moral education are three separate and independent things. Hence the first law of education is that of unity. The human good to which education must tend is one