THE SCHOOLMEN
The schoolmen in their adventurous quest after a complete harmony of all
philosophic learning could not neglect the great outstanding problems of
social and economic life. They flourished at the very period of European
history when commerce and manufacture were coming back to the West, and
their rise synchronises with the origin of the great houses of the
Italian and Jewish bankers. Yet there was very little in the past
learning of Christian teachers to guide them in these matters, for the
patristic theories, which we have already described, and a few isolated
passages cited in the Decretals of Gratian, formed as yet almost the
only contribution to the study of these sciences. However, this absence
of any organised body of knowledge was for them but one more stimulus
towards the elaboration of a thorough synthesis of the moral aspect of
wealth. A few of the earlier masters made reference, detached and
personal, to the subject of dispute, but it was rather in the form of a
disorderly comment than the definite statement of a theory.
Then came the translation of Aristotle's _Politics_, with the keen
criticism they contain of the views Plato had advocated. Here at once
the intellect of Europe found an exact exposition of principles, and
began immediately to debate their excellence and their defect. St.
Thomas Aquinas set to work on a literal commentary, and at his express
desire an accurate translation was made direct from the Greek by his
fellow-Dominican, William of Moerbeke. Later on, when all this had had
time to settle and find its place, St. Thomas worked out his own theory
of private property in two short articles in his famous _Summa
Theologica_. In his treatise on Justice, which occupies a large
proportion of the _Secund Secundae_ of the _Summa_, he found himself
forced to discuss the moral evil of theft; and to do this adequately he
had first to explain what he meant by private possessions. Without
these, of course, there could be no theft at all.
He began, therefore, by a preliminary article on the actual state of
created things--that is, the material, so to say, out of which private
property is evolved. Here he notes that the nature of things, their
constituent essence, is in the hands of God, not man. The worker can
change the form, and, in consequence, the value of a thing, but the
substance which lies beneath all the outward show is too subtle for him
to affect it in any way. To the Supreme Being alone can belong the power
of creation, annihilation, and absolute mutation. But besides this
tremendous force which God holds incommunicably, there is another which
He has given to man, namely, the use of created things. For when man was
made, he was endowed with the lordship of the earth. This lordship is
obviously one without which he could not live. The air, and the forces
of nature, the beasts of the field, the birds and fishes, the vegetation
in fruit and root, and the stretches of corn are necessary for man's
continued existence on the earth. Over them, therefore, he has this
limited dominion.
Moreover, St. Thomas goes on, man has not merely the present moment to
consider. He is a being possessed of intelligence and will, powers which
demand and necessitate their own constant activity. Instinct, the gift
of brute creation, ensures the preservation of life by its blind
preparation for the morrow. Man has no such ready-made and spontaneous
faculty. His powers depend for their effectiveness on their deliberative
and strenuous exertions. And because life is a sacred thing, a lamp of
which the once extinguished light cannot be here re-enkindled, it
carries with it, when it is intelligent and volitional, the duty of
self-preservation. Accordingly the human animal is bound by the law of
his own being to provide against the necessities of the future. He has,
therefore, the right to acquire not merely what will suffice for the
instant, but to look forward and arrange against the time when his power
of work shall have lessened, or the objects which suffice for his
personal needs become scarcer or more difficult of attainment. Property,
therefore, of some kind or other, says Aquinas, is required by the very
nature of man. Individual possessions are not a mere adventitious luxury
which time has accustomed him to imagine as something he can hardly do
without, nor are they the result of civilised culture, which by the law
of its own development creates fresh needs for each fresh demand
supplied; but in some form or other they are an absolute and dire
necessity, without which life could not be lived at all. Not simply for
his "well-being," but for his very existence, man finds them to be a
sacred need. Thus as they follow directly from the nature of creation,
we can term them "natural."
St. Thomas then proceeds in his second article to enter into the
question of the rights of private property. The logical result of his
previous argument is only to affirm the need man has of some property;
the practice of actually dividing goods among individuals requires
further elaboration if it is to be reasonably defended. Man must have
the use of the fruits of the earth, but why these rather than those
should belong to him is an entirely different problem. It is the problem
of Socialism. For every socialist must demand for each member of the
human race the right to some possessions, food and other such
necessities. But why he should have this particular thing, and why that
other thing should belong to someone else, is the question which lies at
the basis of all attempts to preserve or destroy the present fabric of
society. Now, the argument which we have so far cited from St. Thomas is
simply based on the indefeasible right of the individual to the
maintenance of his life. Personality implies the right of the individual
to whatever is needful to him in achieving his earthly purpose, but does
not in itself justify the right to private property.
"Two offices pertain to man with regard to exterior things" (thus he
continues). "The first is the power of procuring and dispensing, and in
respect to this, it is lawful for man to hold things as his own." Here
it is well to note that St. Thomas in this single sentence teaches that
private property, or the individual occupation of actual land or capital
or instruments of wealth, is not contrary to the moral law. Consequently
he would repudiate the famous epigram, "_La Propriété c'est le vol_."
Man may hold and dispose of what belongs to him, may have private
property, and in no way offend against the principles of justice,
whether natural or divine.
But in the rest of the article St. Thomas goes farther still. Not merely
does he hold the moral proposition that private property is lawful, but
he adds to it the social proposition that private property is necessary.
"It is even necessary," says he, "for human life, and that for three
reasons. Firstly, because everyone is more solicitous about procuring
what belongs to himself alone than that which is common to all or many,
since each shunning labour leaves to another what is the common burden
of all, as happens with a multitude of servants. Secondly, because human
affairs are conducted in a more orderly fashion if each has his own duty
of procuring a certain thing, while there would be confusion if each
should procure things haphazard. Thirdly, because in this way the peace
of men is better preserved, for each is content with his own. Whence we
see that strife more frequently arises among those who hold a thing in
common and individually. The other office which is man's concerning
exterior things, is the use of them; and with regard to this a man ought
not to hold exterior things as his own, but as common to all, that he
may portion them out to others readily in time of need." (The
translation is taken from _New Things and Old_, by H. C. O'Neill, 1909,
London, pp. 253-4.) The wording and argument of this will bear, and is
well worth, careful analysis. For St. Thomas was a man, as Huxley
witnesses, of unique intellectual power, and, moreover, his theories on
private property were immediately accepted by all the schoolmen. Each
succeeding writer did little else than make more clear and defined the
outlines of the reasoning here elaborated. We shall, therefore, make no
further apology for an attempt to set out the lines of thought sketched
by Aquinas.
It will be noticed at once that the principles on which private property
are here based are of an entirely different nature from those by which
the need of property itself was defended. For the latter we were led
back to the very nature of man himself and confronted with his right and
duty to preserve his own life. From this necessity of procuring supply
against the needs of the morrow, and the needs of the actual hour, was
deduced immediately the conclusion that property of some kind (_i.e._
the possession of some material things) was demanded by the law of man's
nature. It was intended as an absolute justification of a sacred right.
But in this second article a completely different process is observed.
We are no longer considering man's essential nature in the abstract, but
are becoming involved in arguments of concrete experience. The first was
declared to be a sacred right, as it followed from a law of nature; the
second is merely conditioned by the reasons brought forward to support
it. To repeat the whole problem as it is put in the _Summa_, we can
epitomise the reasoning of St. Thomas in this easier way. The question
of property implies two main propositions: (_a_) the right to property,
_i.e._ to the use of material creation; (_b_) the right to private
property, _i.e._ to the actual division of material things among the
determined individuals of a social group. The former is a sacred,
inalienable right, which can never be destroyed, for it springs from the
roots of man's nature. If man exists, and is responsible for his
existence, then he must necessarily have the right to the means without
which his existence is made impossible. But the second proposition must
be determined quite differently. The kind of property here spoken of is
simply a matter not of right, but of experienced necessity, and is to be
argued for on the distinct grounds that without it worse things would
follow: "it is even necessary for human life, and that for three
reasons." This is a purely conditional necessity, and depends entirely
on the practical effect of the three reasons cited. Were a state of
society to exist in which the three reasons could no longer be urged
seriously, then the necessity which they occasioned would also cease to
hold. In point of fact, St. Thomas was perfectly familiar with a social
group in which these conditions did not exist, and the law of individual
possession did not therefore hold, namely, the religious orders. As a
Dominican, he had defended his own Order against the attacks of those
who would have suppressed it altogether; and in his reply to William of
St. Amour he had been driven to uphold the right to common life, and
consequently to deny that private property was inalienable.
Of course it was perfectly obvious that for St. Thomas himself the idea
of the Commune or the State owning all the land and capital, and
allowing to the individual citizens simply the use of these common
commodities, was no doubt impracticable; and the three reasons which he
gives are his sincere justification of the need of individual ownership.
Without this division of property, he considered that national life
would become even more full of contention than it was already.
Accordingly, it was for its effectiveness in preventing a great number
of quarrels that he defended the individual ownership of property.
Besides this article, there are many other expressions and broken
phrases in which Aquinas uses the same phrase, asserting that the actual
division of property was due to human nature. "Each field considered in
itself cannot be looked upon as naturally belonging to one rather than
to another" (2, 2, 57, 3); "distinction of property is not inculcated by
nature" (1_a_, 2_ae_, 94, 5); but again he is equally clear in insisting
on the other proposition, that there is no moral law which forbids the
possession of land in severalty. "The common claim upon things is
traceable to the natural law, not because the natural law dictates that
all things should be held in common, and nothing as belonging to any
individual person, but because according to the natural law there is no
distinction of possessions which comes by human convention" (2_a_,
2_ae_, 66, 2_ad_ 1_m_.).
To apprehend the full significance of this last remark, reference must
be made to the theories of the Roman legal writers, which have been
already explained. The law of nature was looked upon as some primitive
determination of universal acceptance, and of venerable sanction, which
sprang from the roots of man's being. This in its absolute form could
never be altered or changed; but there was besides another law which had
no such compelling power, but which rested simply on the experience of
the human race. This was reversible, for it depended on specific
conditions and stages of development. Thus nature dictated no division
of property, though it implied the necessity of some property; the need
of the division was only discovered when men set to work to live in
social intercourse. Then it was found that unless divisions were made,
existence was intolerable; and so by human convention, as St. Thomas
sometimes says, or by the law of nature, as he elsewhere expresses it,
the division into private property was agreed upon and took place.
This elaborate statement of St. Thomas was widely accepted through all
the Middle Ages. Wycliff alone, and a few like him, ventured to oppose
it; but otherwise this extremely logical and moderate defence of
existing institutions received general adhesion. Even Scotus, like
Ockham, a brilliant Oxford scholar whose hidden tomb at Cologne finds
such few pilgrims kneeling in its shade, so hardy in his thought and so
eager to find a flaw in the arguments of Aquinas, has no alternative to
offer. Franciscan though he was, and therefore, perhaps, more likely to
favour communistic teaching, his own theory is but a repetition of what
his rival had already propounded. Thus, for example, he writes in a
typical passage: "Even supposing it as a principle of positive law that
'life must be lived peaceably in a state of polity,' it does not
straightway follow 'Therefore everyone must have separate possessions.'
For peace could be observed even if all things were in common. Nor even
if we presuppose the wickedness of those who live together is it a
necessary consequence. Still a distinction of property is decidedly in
accord with a peaceful social life. For the wicked rather take care of
their private possessions, and rather seek to appropriate to themselves
than to the community common goods. Whence come strife and contention.
Hence we find it (division of property) admitted in almost every
positive law. And although there is a fundamental principle from which
all other laws and rights spring, still from that fundamental principle
positive human laws do not follow absolutely or immediately. Rather it
is as declarations or explanations in detail of that general principle
that they come into being, and must be considered as evidently in accord
with the universal law of nature." (_Super Sententias Quaestiones_, Bk.
4, Dist. 15, q. 2. Venice, 1580.)
Here again, then, are the same salient points we have already noticed in
the _Summa_. There is the idea clearly insisted on that the division of
property is not a first principle nor an immediate deduction from a
first principle, that in itself it is not dictated by the natural law
which leaves all things in common, that it is, however, not contrary to
natural law, but evidently in accord with it, that its necessity and its
introduction were due entirely to the actual experience of the race.
Again, to follow the theory chronologically still farther forward, St.
Antonino, whose charitable institutions in Florence have stamped deeply
with his personality that scene of his life's labours, does little more
than repeat the words of St. Thomas, though the actual phrase in which
he here compresses many pages of argument is reproduced from a work by
the famous Franciscan moralist John de Ripa. "It is by no means right
that here upon earth fallen humanity should have all things in common,
for the world would be turned into a desert, the way to fraud and all
manner of evils would be opened, and the good would have always the
worse, and the bad always the better, and the most effective means of
destroying all peace would be established" (_Summa Moralis_, 3, 3, 2,
1). Hence he concludes that "such a community of goods never could
benefit the State." These are none other arguments than those already
advanced by St. Thomas. His articles, already quoted, are indeed the
_Locus Classicus_ for all mediaeval theorists, and, though references
in every mediaeval work on social and economic questions are freely made
to Aristotle's _Politics_, it is evident that it is really Aquinas who
is intended.
Distinction of property, therefore, though declared so necessary for
peaceable social life, does not, for these thinkers, rest on natural
law, nor a divine law, but on positive human law under the guidance of
prudence and authority. Communism is not something evil, but rather an
ideal too lofty to be ever here realised. It implied so much generosity,
and such a vigour of public spirit, as to be utterly beyond the reach of
fallen nature. The Apostles alone could venture to live so high a life,
"for their state transcended that of every other mode of living"
(Ptolomeo of Lucca, _De Regimine Principio_, book iv., cap. 4, Parma,
1864, p. 273). However, that form of communism which entailed an
absolutely even division of all wealth among all members of the group,
though it had come to them on the authority of Phileas and Lycurgus, was
indeed to be reprobated, for it contradicted the prime feature of all
creation. God made all things in their proper number, weight, and
measure. Yet in spite of all this it must be insisted on at the risk of
repetition that the socialist theory of State ownership is never
considered unjust, never in itself contrary to the moral law. Albertus
Magnus, the master of Aquinas, and the leader in commenting on
Aristotle's _Politics_, freely asserts that community of goods "is not
impossible, especially among those who are well disciplined by the
virtue of philanthropy--that is, the common love of all; for love, of
its own nature, is generous." But to arrange it, the power of the State
must be called into play; it cannot rest on any private authority. "This
is the proper task of the legislator, for it is the duty of the
legislator to arrange everything for the best advantage of the
citizens" (_In Politicis_, ii. 2, p. 70, Lyons, 1651). Such, too, is the
teaching of St. Antonino, who even goes so far as to assert that "just
as the division of property at the beginning of historic time was made
by the authority of the State, it is evident that the same authority is
equally competent to reverse its decision and return to its earlier
social organisation" (_Summa Moralis_, ii. 3, 2, Verona, 1740, p. 182).
He lays down, indeed, a principle so broad that it is difficult to
understand where it could well end: "That can be justly determined by
the prince which is necessary for the peaceful intercourse of the
citizens." And in defence he points triumphantly to the fact that the
prince can set aside a just claim to property, and transfer it to
another who happens to hold it by prescription, on the ground of the
numerous disputes which might otherwise be occasioned. That is to say,
that the law of his time already admitted that in certain circumstances
the State could take what belonged to one and give it to another,
without there being any fault on the part of the previous owner to
justify its forfeiture; and he defends this proceeding on the axiom just
cited (_ibid._, pp. 182-3), namely, its necessity "for the peaceful
intercourse of the citizens."
The Schoolmen can therefore be regarded as a consistent and logical
school. They had an extreme dislike to any broad generalisation, and
preferred rather, whenever the occasion could be discovered, to
distinguish rather than to concede or deny. Hence, confronted by the
communistic theory of State ownership which had been advanced by Plato,
and by a curious group of strange, heterodox teachers, and which had,
moreover, the actual support of many patristic sayings, and the strong
bias of monastic life, they set out joyfully to resolve it into the
simplest and most unassailable series of propositions. They began,
therefore, by admitting that nature made no division of property, and in
that sense held all things in common; that in the early stages of human
history, when man, as yet unfallen, was conceived as living in the
Garden of Eden in perfect innocency, common property amply satisfied his
sinless and unselfish moral character; that by the Fall lust and greed
overthrew this idyllic state, and led to a continued condition of
internecine strife, and the supremacy of might; that experience
gradually brought men to realise that their only hope towards peaceful
intercourse lay in the actual division of property, and the
establishment of a system of private ownership; that this could only be
set aside by men who were themselves perfect, or had vowed themselves to
pursue perfection, namely, Our Lord, His Apostles, and the members of
religious orders. To this list of what they held to be historic events
they added another which contained the moral deductions to be made from
these facts. This began by the assertion that private property in itself
was not in any sense contrary to the virtue of justice; that it was
entirely lawful; that it was even necessary on account of certain evil
conditions which otherwise would prevail; that the State, however, had
the right in extreme cases and for a just cause to transfer private
property from one to another; that it could, when the needs of its
citizens so demanded, reverse its primitive decision, and re-establish
its earlier form of common ownership; that this last system, however
possible, and however much it might be regretted as a vanished and lost
ideal, was decidedly now a violent and impracticable proceeding.
These theories, it is evident, though they furnish the only arguments
which are still in use among us to support the present social
organisation, are also patent of an interpretation which might equally
lead to the very opposite conclusion. In his fear of any general
contradiction to communism which should be open to dispute, and in his
ever-constant memory of his own religious life as a Dominican friar,
Aquinas had to mark with precision to what extent and in what sense
private property could be justified. But at the same time he was forced
by the honesty of his logical training to concede what he could in
favour of the other side. He took up in this question, as in every
other, a middle course, in which neither extreme was admitted, but both
declared to contain an element of truth. It is clear, too, that his
scholastic followers, even to our own date, in their elaborate
commentaries can find no escape from the relentless logic of his
conclusions. Down the channel that he dug flowed the whole torrent of
mediaeval and modern scholasticism.[2] But for those whose minds were
practical rather than abstract, one or other proposition he advanced,
isolated from the context of his thought, could be quoted as of moment,
and backed by the greatness of his name. His assertion of the absolute
impracticable nature of socialistic organisation, as he knew it in his
own age, was too good a weapon to be neglected by those who sought about
for means of defence for their own individualistic theories; whereas
others, like the friars of whom Wycliff and Langland spoke, and who
headed bands of luckless peasants in the revolt of 1381 against the
oppression of an over-legalised feudalism, were blind to this remarkable
expression of Aquinas' opinion, and quoted him only when he declared
that "by nature all things were in common," and when he protested that
the socialist theory of itself contained nothing contrary to the
teaching of the gospel or the doctrines of the Church.
Truth is blinding in its brilliance. Half-truths are easy to see, and
still easier to explain. Hence the full and detailed theory elaborated
by the Schoolmen has been tortured to fit first one and then another
scheme of political reform. Yet all the while its perfect adjustment of
every step in the argument remains a wonderful monument of the
intellectual delicacy and hardihood of the Schoolmen.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] _Cf._ Coutenson, _Theologia Mentis et Cordis_, iii. 388-389, Paris,
1875; and Billnart, _De Justitia_, i. 123-124, Liège, 1746.