1. War, a science by itself, has no interest for the philosopher
except as an instance on a grand scale of self-defence. When the
theory of self-defence has been mastered (c. ii. s. ii., p. 208),
little further remains to be said about war. In a State, the
self-defence of citizen against citizen is confined to the moment of
immediate physical aggression. But in a region where the State is
powerless and practically non-existent, self-defence assumes a far
greater amplitude. (S. ii., n, 2, p. 309.) When the Highland chief
lifted the cattle of the Lowland farmer, and the King of Scotland lay
unconcerned and unable to intervene, feasting at Holyrood, or fighting
on the English border, then, if there were a fair hope of recovering
the booty without a disproportionate effusion of blood, the farmer did
right to arm his people, march after the robber, and fight him for the
stolen oxen, as the gallant Baron of Bradwardine would fain have done.
(_Waverley_, c. xv.) Here is the right of self-defence in its full
development, including the right of private war. But in a private
individual this is an undesirable, rank, and luxuriant growth; and
when the individual comes to live, as it should be his aim to live, in
a well-organized State, the growth is pruned and cut down: he may then
defend himself for the instant when the State cannot defend him; but
after the wrong is done, he must hold his hand, and quietly apply to
the State to procure him restitution and redress. But there is no
State of States, no King of Kings, upon earth; therefore, when of two
independent States the one has wronged, or is about to wrong the
other, and will not desist nor make amends, nothing is left for it;
Nature has made no other provision, but they must fight. They must
fall back upon the steel and the shotted gun, the _ratio ultima
regum_.
2. The Lowland farmer above mentioned might be spoken of as
_punishing_ the Highland robber, _chastising_ his insolence, and the
like. This is popular phraseology, but it is not accurate. Punishment,
an act of _vindictive justice_, is from superior to inferior.
(_Ethics_, c. v., s. ix., n. 4, p. 104.) War, like other self-defence,
is between equals. War is indeed an act of authority, of the authority
of each belligerent State over its own subjects, but not of one
belligerent over the other. We are not here considering the case of
putting down a rebellion: rebels are not properly belligerents, and
have no belligerent rights.
3. The study of Civil and Canon Law flourished in the Middle Ages,
while moral science, which is the study of the Natural Law, was still
in its infancy. No wonder that the mediaeval jurists occasionally
formulated maxims, which can only be squared with the principles of
Natural Law by an exceeding amount of interpretation,--which are in
fact much better dropped, quoted though they sometimes be by moralists
of repute. One such maxim is this, that _a wrong-doer becomes the
subject of the injured party by reason of the offence_. Admit this,
and you can hardly keep clear of Locke's doctrine of the origin of
civil power, (s. ii., _per totum_, p. 307; cf. Suarez, _De Caritate_,
d. xiii., s. iv., nn. 5, 6).
4. We have only to repeat about war what we said of self-defence, that
all the killing that takes place in it is _incidental_, or _indirect_.
The cannon that you see in Woolwich Arsenal, the powder and torpedoes,
have for their end what St. Thomas (_De Potentia_, q. 7, art. 2, ad
10) declares to be the end and object of the soldier, "to upset the
foe," to put him _hors de combat_. This is accomplished in such rough
and ready fashion, as the business admits of; by means attended with
incidental results of extremest horror. But no sooner has the bayonet
thrust or the bullet laid the soldier low, and converted him into a
non-combatant, than the ambulance men are forward to see that he shall
not die. If indeed even in the dust he continues to be aggressive,
like the wounded Arabs at Tel-el-Kebir, he must be quieted and
repressed a second time. Probably he will not escape with life from a
second repression: still, speaking with philosophic precision, we must
say that "to quiet, not to kill him," is, or should be, the precise
and formal object of the will of his slayer in war. St. Thomas indeed
(2a 2æ, q. 64, art. 7, in corp.) seems to allow the soldier fighting
against the enemy to mean to kill his man. But by _enemy_ in this
passage we should probably understand _rebel_. The soldier spoken of
is the instrument of the feudal lord bringing back to duty his
rebellious vassal. In the Middle Ages, till the end of the fifteenth
century, the notion of independent nations scarcely found place.
In war, as all cases of self-defence, the killing is indirect. In
capital punishment, on the other hand, the killing is direct: it being
_chosen as a deterrent means_, that the offender be "hanged by the
neck" till he is "dead, dead, dead." This disposes of the error, that
capital punishment is an act of self-defence on the part of the State
against evildoers. We may observe finally that by the right of the
sword, and by that alone, not in self-defence, not in war, but by the
hand of public justice raised against a guilty subject, can human life
ever be taken _directly_.
_Reading_.--St. Thos., 2a 2æ, q. 40, art. 1.