Whether It Belongs to the Human Law to Repress All Vices?
Objection 1: It would seem that it belongs to human law to repress
all vices. For Isidore says (Etym. v, 20) that "laws were made in
order that, in fear thereof, man's audacity might be held in check."
But it would not be held in check sufficiently, unless all evils were
repressed by law. Therefore human laws should repress all evils.
Obj. 2: Further, the intention of the lawgiver is to make the
citizens virtuous. But a man cannot be virtuous unless he forbear
from all kinds of vice. Therefore it belongs to human law to repress
all vices.
Obj. 3: Further, human law is derived from the natural law, as stated
above (Q. 95, A. 2). But all vices are contrary to the law of nature.
Therefore human law should repress all vices.
_On the contrary,_ We read in _De Lib. Arb._ i, 5: "It seems to me
that the law which is written for the governing of the people rightly
permits these things, and that Divine providence punishes them." But
Divine providence punishes nothing but vices. Therefore human law
rightly allows some vices, by not repressing them.
_I answer that,_ As stated above (Q. 90, AA. 1, 2), law is framed as
a rule or measure of human acts. Now a measure should be homogeneous
with that which it measures, as stated in _Metaph._ x, text. 3, 4,
since different things are measured by different measures. Wherefore
laws imposed on men should also be in keeping with their condition,
for, as Isidore says (Etym. v, 21), law should be "possible both
according to nature, and according to the customs of the country."
Now possibility or faculty of action is due to an interior habit or
disposition: since the same thing is not possible to one who has not
a virtuous habit, as is possible to one who has. Thus the same is not
possible to a child as to a full-grown man: for which reason the law
for children is not the same as for adults, since many things are
permitted to children, which in an adult are punished by law or at
any rate are open to blame. In like manner many things are
permissible to men not perfect in virtue, which would be intolerable
in a virtuous man.
Now human law is framed for a number of human beings, the majority of
whom are not perfect in virtue. Wherefore human laws do not forbid
all vices, from which the virtuous abstain, but only the more
grievous vices, from which it is possible for the majority to
abstain; and chiefly those that are to the hurt of others, without
the prohibition of which human society could not be maintained: thus
human law prohibits murder, theft and such like.
Reply Obj. 1: Audacity seems to refer to the assailing of others.
Consequently it belongs to those sins chiefly whereby one's neighbor
is injured: and these sins are forbidden by human law, as stated.
Reply Obj. 2: The purpose of human law is to lead men to virtue, not
suddenly, but gradually. Wherefore it does not lay upon the multitude
of imperfect men the burdens of those who are already virtuous, viz.
that they should abstain from all evil. Otherwise these imperfect
ones, being unable to bear such precepts, would break out into yet
greater evils: thus it is written (Ps. 30:33): "He that violently
bloweth his nose, bringeth out blood"; and (Matt. 9:17) that if "new
wine," i.e. precepts of a perfect life, "is put into old bottles,"
i.e. into imperfect men, "the bottles break, and the wine runneth
out," i.e. the precepts are despised, and those men, from contempt,
break into evils worse still.
Reply Obj. 3: The natural law is a participation in us of the eternal
law: while human law falls short of the eternal law. Now Augustine
says (De Lib. Arb. i, 5): "The law which is framed for the government
of states, allows and leaves unpunished many things that are punished
by Divine providence. Nor, if this law does not attempt to do
everything, is this a reason why it should be blamed for what it
does." Wherefore, too, human law does not prohibit everything that is
forbidden by the natural law.
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