5. To do good to those who have done us neither good nor harm. This is what is called charity, which is a degree above the preceding, for in the preceding case we scarcely do more than give back what we have received; in this case we put in something of our own. But to characterize this new degree of virtue, it is necessary to well explain that the question relates to a good that is not due. For justice, we have seen, does not always mean to abstain from evil; it even does good sometimes. To restore a trust to one not expecting it; to do good to him who deserves it; to elect to a position one worthy of it; or, what is still more heroic, to give one’s own position up to him, this evidently is doing good to others, and to those who have not done us any; but these are goods due, which already belong in some respects to those upon whom we confer them. It is not so with the goods which charity distributes. The gifts I make to the poor, the consolations I give to the afflicted, the care I bestow upon the sick, all of which take from my time, my interests, and my life which I endanger to save a fellow-being, are also goods which are my own and not his. I do not return to him what he would otherwise legitimately possess, whether he knows it or not. I give him something of my own; it is a pure gift. This gift is suggested to me by love, not by justice. The contrary of charity or devotion to others is selfishness.
Finally, there is a last degree above all other preceding degrees, namely, to return good for evil. This kind of virtue, the highest of all, has no particular name in the language. Charity, in fact, consists in doing good generally, and comprises the two degrees: to do good to the unfortunate, and return good for evil. Clemency may consist in simply pardoning; it does not necessarily go so far as to return good for evil.
Corneille might as well have called his tragedy of Cinna, the Clemency of Augustus, even if Augustus had merely pardoned Cinna, and not added: “Let us be friends!” Thus has this great and magnificent virtue no name, and as science is powerless in creating words suitable for every-day language, it must rest satisfied with periphrases. Nevertheless, this sublime virtue finds nowhere a grander expression than in those maxims of the Gospel: “You have been told that it was said: Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thy enemy: But I say to you: Love your enemies; do good to those that hate you, and pray for those that despitefully use you and persecute you.”
20. Different kinds of social duties.—After the preceding division, which answers to the different degrees of obligation which may exist among men, there is another classification which rests on the various species or kinds of duties which we may have to perform towards our fellow-beings. Let us first briefly state what will be developed at greater length in the following chapters.
1. Duties relating to the life of others.—According to the two maxims cited above, these duties are of two kinds: 1, not to attempt the life of others; 2, to make efforts to save the life of others. All attempt at the life of others is called homicide. When accompanied by perfidy or treason, it is assassination. The murder of parents by children is called parricide; of children by parents (especially at the tenderest age), infanticide; of brothers by brothers, fratricide. All these crimes are most odious, and most repugnant to the human heart. Murder is never permitted, even when the highest interest and the greatest good is at stake. Thus did the ancients err in believing that the murder of a tyrant, or tyrannicide, was not only legitimate, but also honorable and beautiful. However, there is to be excepted the case of legitimate self-defense; for we cannot be forbidden to defend ourselves against him who wishes to deprive us of life. But the duel should not be considered an act of legitimate self-defense: that is evident in the case of the aggressor; and, on the other side, there is only the defense that there has been the consent to be put in peril. As to the question whether an attack on honor is not equivalent to an attack on life, it cannot be said that it is false in all cases; but the abuse of the thing is here so near the principle, that it is wiser to condemn altogether a barbarous practice, of which so deplorable an abuse has been made. Finally, homicide in war, within the conditions authorized by international law, is considered a case of legitimate self-defense.[10]
If murder is the most criminal of actions, and the most revolting to our sensibilities, the action, on the contrary, which consists in saving the life of others is the most beautiful of all. “The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.”
With the fundamental duty not to attempt the life of other men, is connected, as corollary, the duty not to injure them bodily by blows or wounds, or by dangerous violence done to their health, and, conversely, to assist them in illness.
2. Duties relating to property.—It is evident[11] that man cannot preserve his life and render it happy and comfortable without a certain number of material objects which are his. The legitimate possession of these goods is what is called property.[12] The right of property rests in one respect on social utility, and in the other on human labor. On the one hand, society cannot subsist without a certain order that settles for each what is his own; on the other, it is but right that each should be the proprietor of what he has earned by his work; the right of possession carries with it the right of economizing, and, consequently, the right of forming a capital, and, moreover, the right of using this capital in making it bear interest. Again, the right of preserving implies also the right of transmission; hence the legitimacy of inheritance.
Property once founded upon law, it becomes our duty not to transgress the law. The act of taking what belongs to another is called theft. Theft is absolutely forbidden by the moral law, whatever name it may assume, or under whatever prestige it may present itself. “Thou shalt not steal.” Theft does not consist merely in putting one’s hand into a neighbor’s pocket; it includes all possible ways whereby the property of others may be appropriated. For example, to defraud in regard to the quality of the thing sold; to practice illegal stock-jobbing; to convert to one’s own use a deposit entrusted to one’s care; to borrow without knowing whether one can pay, and after having borrowed, to disown the debt, or refuse to pay it; there are as many forms of theft as there are ways of appropriating the property of others.
Regarding the property of others, the negative duty then consists in not taking what belongs to others. The positive duty consists in assisting others with one’s own property, in relieving their misery. This is called benevolence, which benevolence may be exercised in various ways, either by gift, or by loan. It may also be exercised in kind, that is in giving to others the objects necessary to their maintenance or support, or in money, that is, in furnishing them the means of procuring them; or in work, which is the best of all gifts; for in thus relieving others we procure them the means of helping themselves.