Whether Cruelty Differs from Savagery or Brutality?
Objection 1: It would seem that cruelty differs not from savagery or
brutality. For seemingly one vice is opposed in one way to one
virtue. Now both savagery and cruelty are opposed to clemency by way
of excess. Therefore it would seem that savagery and cruelty are the
same.
Obj. 2: Further, Isidore says (Etym. x) that "severity is as it were
savagery with verity, because it holds to justice without attending
to piety": so that savagery would seem to exclude that mitigation of
punishment in delivering judgment which is demanded by piety. Now
this has been stated to belong to cruelty (A. 1, ad 1). Therefore
cruelty is the same as savagery.
Obj. 3: Further, just as there is a vice opposed to a virtue by way
of excess, so is there a vice opposed to it by way of deficiency,
which latter is opposed both to the virtue which is the mean, and to
the vice which is in excess. Now the same vice pertaining to
deficiency is opposed to both cruelty and savagery, namely remission
or laxity. For Gregory says (Moral. xx, 5): "Let there be love, but
not that which enervates, let there be severity, but without fury,
let there be zeal without unseemly savagery, let there be piety
without undue clemency." Therefore savagery is the same as cruelty.
_On the contrary,_ Seneca says (De Clementia ii, 4) that "a man who
is angry without being hurt, or with one who has not offended him, is
not said to be cruel, but to be brutal or savage."
_I answer that,_ "Savagery" and "brutality" take their names from a
likeness to wild beasts which are also described as savage. For
animals of this kind attack man that they may feed on his body, and
not for some motive of justice the consideration of which belongs to
reason alone. Wherefore, properly speaking, brutality or savagery
applies to those who in inflicting punishment have not in view a
default of the person punished, but merely the pleasure they derive
from a man's torture. Consequently it is evident that it is comprised
under bestiality: for such like pleasure is not human but bestial,
and resulting as it does either from evil custom, or from a corrupt
nature, as do other bestial emotions. On the other hand, cruelty not
only regards the default of the person punished, but exceeds in the
mode of punishing: wherefore cruelty differs from savagery or
brutality, as human wickedness differs from bestiality, as stated in
_Ethic._ vii, 5.
Reply Obj. 1: Clemency is a human virtue; wherefore directly opposed
to it is cruelty which is a form of human wickedness. But savagery or
brutality is comprised under bestiality, wherefore it is directly
opposed not to clemency, but to a more excellent virtue, which the
Philosopher (Ethic. vii, 5) calls "heroic" or "god-like," which
according to us, would seem to pertain to the gifts of the Holy
Ghost. Consequently we may say that savagery is directly opposed to
the gift of piety.
Reply Obj. 2: A severe man is not said to be simply savage, because
this implies a vice; but he is said to be "savage as regards the
truth," on account of some likeness to savagery which is not inclined
to mitigate punishment.
Reply Obj. 3: Remission of punishment is not a vice, except it
disregard the order of justice, which requires a man to be punished
on account of his offense, and which cruelty exceeds. On the other
hand, cruelty disregards this order altogether. Wherefore remission
of punishment is opposed to cruelty, but not to savagery.
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