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transmission; (3) of the changes which take place in the rights of others, and of the obligations and modifications of reciprocal rights which follow therefrom.

233.

Right

Individual

Social Right has its origin in Individual Right. Social It springs from the fact of association, and the free- based on dom to form honourable associations is the natural Right. right of every individual. individual. It is limited only by the principle that a new association must not interfere with an old one already in possession.

234.

Social Right is universal or particular.

Social

Right universal

or particular.

235.

Social

either

external.

Universal Social Right considers the duties Universal and rights which have their origin in the fact of Right is association generally. This right is of two kinds, internal or internal and external. The first regards those rights and duties that exist between the members of any society; the second, those that exist between one society and another, or between a society and individuals outside of it.

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 application 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.

1

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

Conjugal

Parental.

Domestic Right is, as we have said, twofold, Domestic Conjugal and Parental. The former treats of the twofold, 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
Kight.

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 indi

viduals.

Right.

Doctrine of Means.

243.

cetics.

Ascetics cannot form a science apart from (7) 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

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