Moral Philosophy: Ethics, Deontology and Natural Law Part 8

One more extract. "From the very nature of an intellectual soul it is proper to man that, as soon as he knows what a whole is, and what a part is, he knows that every whole is greater than its part; and so of the rest. But what is a whole, and what a part, that he cannot know except through sensory impressions. And therefore Aristotle shows that the knowledge of principles comes to us through the senses." (St.

Thos., 1a 2ae, q. 51, art. 1, in corp.)

7. Thus the propositions that _right is to be done, benefactors to be requited_, are self-evident, necessary truths, to any child who has learned by experience the meaning of _right_, of _kindness_, and of a _return of kindness._ "Yes, but"--some one will say--"how ever does he get to know what _right_ and _wrong_ are? Surely sensory experience cannot teach him that." We answer, man's thoughts begin in sense, and are perfected by reflection. Let us take the idea of _wrong_, the key to all other elementary moral ideas. The steps by which a child comes to the fulness of the idea of _wrong_ may be these. First, the thing is _forbidden_: then one gets _punished_ for it. Punishment and prohibition enter in by eye and ear and other senses besides. Then the thing is _offensive_ to those we love and revere. Then it is _bad for us_. Then it is _shameful, shabby, unfair, unkind, selfish, hateful to G.o.d_. All these points of the idea of wrong are grasped by the intellect, beginning with sensory presentations of what is seen and felt and heard said. Again with the idea of _ought_. This idea is sometimes said to defy a.n.a.lysis. But we have gone about (c. vi.) to a.n.a.lyse it into two elements, _nature requiring, nature's King commanding_. The idea of _wrong_ we a.n.a.lysed into a breach of this natural requirement, and this Divine command or law. Primary moral ideas, then, yield to intellectual a.n.a.lysis. They are of this style: _to be done, as I wish to be rational and please G.o.d: not to be done, unless I wish to spoil myself and disobey my Maker_. But primary moral ideas, compared together, make primary moral judgments. Primary moral judgments, therefore, arise in the intellect, by the same process as other beliefs arise there in matters of necessary truth.

8. Thus, applying the principle known as _Occham's razor_, that "ent.i.ties are not to be multiplied without reason," we refuse to acknowledge any Moral Sense, distinct from Intellect. We know of no peculiar faculty, specially made to receive "ideas, pleasures and pains in the moral order." (Mackintosh, _Ethics_, p. 206.) Most of all, we emphatically protest against any blind power being accredited as the organ of morality. We cannot accept for our theory of morals, that everything is right which warms the breast with a glow of enthusiasm, and all those actions wrong, at which emotional people are p.r.o.ne to cry out, _dreadful, shocking_. We cannot accept emotions for arbitrators, where it most concerns reasonable beings to have what the Apostle calls "enlightened eyes of the heart" (Ephes. i. 18), that we may "know to refuse the evil and to choose the good." (Isaias vii.

15.) A judge may have his emotions, but his charge to the jury must be dictated, not by his heart, but by his knowledge of the law. And the voice of conscience, whatever feelings it may stir, must be an intellectual utterance, and, to be worth anything in a case of difficulty, a reasoned conclusion, based on observation of facts, and application of principles, and consultation with moral theologians and casuists. A subjective and emotional standard of right and wrong is as treacherous and untrustworthy as the emotional justification of those good people, who come of a sudden to "feel converted."

9. It would be unnecessary, except for the wrong-headedness of philosophers, to observe that conscience requires educating. As moral virtue is a habit of appet.i.te, rational or irrational, a formation resulting from frequent acts; and as the child needs to be aided and a.s.sisted from without towards the performance of such acts, in order to overcome the frequent resistance of appet.i.te to reason (c. v., s.

ii., n. 4, p. 71): so the springs of conscience are certain intellectual habits, whereby the subject is cognisant of the principles of natural law, and of their bearing on his own conduct, habits which, like the habits of moral virtue, require to be formed by acts from within and succour from without, since merely the rudiments of the habit are supplied by nature. Even the first principles of morality want formulating and pointing out to children, like the axioms of geometry. The mother tells her little one: "Ernest, or Frank, be a good boy:" while the schoolmaster explains to Master Ernest that two straight lines cannot possibly enclose a s.p.a.ce. There is something in the boy's mind that goes along with and bears out both the teaching of his master and his mother's exhortation: something that says within him: "To be sure, those lines can't enclose a s.p.a.ce:"

"Certainly, I ought to be good." It is not merely on authority that he accepts these propositions. His own understanding welcomes and approves them: so much so, that once he has understood them, he would not believe the contrary for being told it. You would not persuade a child that it was right to pull mother's hair; or that half an orange was literally, as Hesiod says, "more than the whole." He would answer that it could not be, that he knew better.

10. On one ground there is greater need of education for the conscience than for any other intellectual formation: that is because of the power of evil to fascinate and blind on practical issues of duty. Cicero well puts it:

"We are amazed and perplexed by variety of opinions and strife of authorities; and because there is not the same divergence upon matters of sense, we fancy that the senses afford natural certainty, while, for moral matters, because some men take one view, some another, and the same men different views at different times, we consider that any settlement that can be arrived at is merely conventional, which is a huge mistake. The fact is, there is no parent, nor nurse, nor schoolmaster, nor poet, nor stage play, to corrupt the judgments of sense, nor consent of the mult.i.tude to wrench them away from the truth. It is for minds and consciences that all the snares are set, as well by the agency of those whom I have just mentioned, who take us in our tender and inexperienced age, and ingrain and fas.h.i.+on us as they will, as also by that counterfeit presentment of good, which lurks in the folds of every sense, the mother of all evil, pleasure, under whose seductive blandishments men fail to recognise the moral good that nature offers, because it is unaccompanied by this itching desire and satisfaction." (Cicero, _De Legibus_, i, 17.)

_Readings_.--St. Thos., 1a, q. 79, art. 11-13; Plato, _Protagoras_, 325, 326; John Grote, _Examination of Utilitarian Philosophy,_ pp.

169, 207, 208; Cardinal Newman, _Grammar of a.s.sent_, pp. l02-112.

SECTION II.--_Of the invariability of Primary Moral Judgments_.

1. The following narrative is taken from Grote's History of Greece, c.

81.:

"It was a proud day for the Carthaginian general [Footnote 12] when he stood as master on the ground of Himera; enabled to fulfil the duty, and satisfy the exigencies, of revenge for his slain grandfather.

Tragical indeed was the consummation of this long-cherished purpose.... All the male captives, 3,000 in number, were conveyed to the precise spot where Hamilkar had been slain, and there put to death with indignity, as an expiatory satisfaction to his lost honour. No man can read the account of this wholesale ma.s.sacre without horror and repugnance. Yet we cannot doubt, that among all the acts of Hannibal's life, this was the one in which he most gloried; that it realized in the most complete and emphatic manner, his concurrent _aspirations of filial sentiment, religious obligation, and honour as a patriot_; [Footnote 13] that to show mercy would have been regarded as a mean dereliction of these esteemed impulses.... Doubtless, the feelings of Hannibal were cordially shared, and the plenitude of his revenge envied, by the army around him. So different, sometimes so totally contrary, is the tone and direction of the moral sentiments, among different ages and nations."

[Footnote 12: Hannibal, B.C. 409, therefore not the victor of Cannae.]

[Footnote 13: Italics mine.]

We may supplement this story by another from Herodotus (iii., 38):

"Darius, after he had got the kingdom, called into his presence certain Greeks who were at hand, and asked, 'What he should pay them to eat the bodies of their fathers when they died.' To which they answered, that there was no sum that would tempt them to do such a thing. He then sent for certain Indians, of the race called Callatians, men who eat their fathers, and asked them, while the Greeks were standing by, and knew by the aid of an interpreter all that was said--'What he should give them to burn the bodies of their fathers, at their decease?' The Indians exclaimed aloud, and bade him forbear such language. Such is the way of men; and Pindar was right in my judgment, when he said, 'Convention is king over all.'"

2. If any one held that the natural law of conscience was natural in the same way as the sense of temperature: if one held to the existence of a Moral Sense in all men, settling questions of right and wrong, as surely as all men know sweet things from bitter by tasting them: these stories, and they could be multiplied by hundreds, abundantly suffice to confute the error. There is no authentic copy of the moral law, printed, framed, and hung up by the hand of Nature, in the inner sanctuary of every human heart. Man has to learn his duties as he learns the principles of health, the laws of mechanics, the construction and navigation of vessels, the theorems of geometry, or any other art or science. And he is just as likely to go wrong, and has gone wrong as grievously, in his judgments on moral matters as on any other subject of human knowledge. The knowledge of duties is _natural_ (as explained in the previous section, n. 2), not because it comes spontaneously, but because it is necessary to our nature for the development and perfection of the same. Thus a man _ought_, so far as he can, to learn his duties: but we cannot say of a man, as such, that he _ought_ to learn geometry or navigation. If a man does not know his duties, he is excused by ignorance, according to the rules under which ignorance excuses (c. iii., s. i., nn. 3-5, p. 27). If a man does not know navigation, there is no question of _excuse_ for what he was not bound to learn, but he may suffer _loss_ by his want of knowledge.

3. It was furthermore observed above (l.c.), that the _natural_ law was so called as being found expressed more or less perfectly in the minds of all men, and therefore being a proper element of human nature. It remains to see how much this universal natural expression amounts to. That is at once apparent from our previous explanation of _synderesis_. (s. i., nn. 5, seq., p. 139.) Not a complete and accurate knowledge of the natural law is found in all minds, far from it; but _synderesis_ is found in all. This is apparent from Mr.

Grote's own phrases, "aspirations of filial sentiment," "religious obligation," "honour as a patriot," _Parents are to be honoured, we must do our duty to G.o.d and to our country_: there Hannibal was at one with the most approved teachers of morality. Callatian and Greek agreed in the recognition of the commandment, _Honour thy father and thy mother_. That was the major premiss of them both, in the moral syllogism (s. i., n. 3, p. 135), which ruled their respective consciences. Their difference was upon the _applying minor_, as it is called; the Greek regarding the dissolution of the body into its elements by fire, and so saving it from corruption, as the best means of honouring the dead: the Callatians preferring to raise their parents as it were to life again, by making them the food of their living children. Hannibal, again, had before his mind the grand principle of retribution, that wrongdoing must be expiated by suffering. But he had not heard the words "Vengeance is Mine;" and mistakenly supposed it to rest with himself to appoint and carry out his own measure of revenge. Whether he was quite so invincibly ignorant on this point, as Grote represents, is open to doubt. At any rate he was correct in the primary moral judgment on which he proceeded.

_Reading_.--St. Thos., 1a 2ae, q. 94, art. 6.

SECTION III.--_Of the immutability of the Natural Law_.

1. Besides printing, many methods are now in vogue for multiplying copies of a doc.u.ment. Commonly the doc.u.ment is written out with special ink on special paper: the copy thus used is called a _stencil_; and from it other copies are struck off. We will suppose the stencil to be that page of the Eternal Law written in the Mind of G.o.d, which regulates _human acts_, technically so called. The copies struck off from that stencil will be the Natural Law in the mind of this man and of that. Now, as all who are familiar with copying processes know too well, it happens at times that a copy comes out very faint, and in parts not at all. These faint and partial copies represent the Natural Law as it is imperfectly developed in the minds of many men. In this sense, and as we may say _subjectively_, the Natural Law is mutable, very mutable indeed. Still, as no one would say that the doc.u.ment had been altered, because some copies of it were bad, so it is not strictly correct to say that the Natural Law varies with these subjective varieties. Appeal would be made to a full and perfectly printed impression of the doc.u.ment, one that rendered the stencil exactly. The Natural Law must be viewed in like manner, as it would exist in a mind perfectly enlightened concerning the whole duty of man, and exactly reproducing in itself that portion of the Eternal Law which ordains such duty. Were such a mind to discern a natural obligation to lie differently at two different times, all the relevant circ.u.mstances being alike in both cases, and the moral solution different, then only could the Natural Law be held to have changed.

2. But this is clearly impossible. The conclusion of a geometrical theorem is a truth for all time. There is no difference here between a complicated theorem, having many conditions, and a simpler theorem with fewer. It is indeed easier for a few than for many conditions to be all present together: but the enunciation of the conclusion supposes _all_ the conditions, whatever their number. The same in a practical manner, as in the stability of a bridge. The bridge that would stand in England, would stand in Ceylon. If it would not, there must have occurred some change in the conditions, as the heat of the tropical sun upon the girders. A point of casuistry also, however knotty, once determined, is determined for ever and aye, for the circ.u.mstances under which it was determined. The Natural Law in this sense is absolutely immutable, no less in each particular application than in the most general principles. We must uniformly pa.s.s the same judgment on the same case. What is once right and reasonable, is always right and reasonable, in the same matter. Where to-day there is only one right course, there cannot to-morrow be two, unless circ.u.mstances have altered. The Natural Law is thus far immutable, every jot and t.i.ttle.

3. No power in heaven above nor on earth beneath can dispense from any portion of the Natural Law. For the matter of the negative precepts of that law is, as we have seen, something bad in itself and repugnant to human nature, and accordingly forbidden by G.o.d: while the matter of the positive precepts is something good and necessary to man, commanded by G.o.d. If G.o.d were to take off His command, or prohibition, the intrinsic exigency, or intolerableness, of the thing to man would still remain, being as inseparable from humanity as certain mathematical properties from a triangle. Pride is not made for man, nor fornication, nor lying, nor polygamy [Footnote 14]: human nature would cry out against them, even were the Almighty in a particular instance to withdraw His prohibition. What would be the use, then, of any such withdrawal? It would not make the evil thing good. An evil thing it would still remain, unnatural, irrational, and as such, displeasing to G.o.d, the Supreme Reason. The man would not be free to do the thing, even though G.o.d did not forbid it. It appears, therefore, that the Divine prohibition, and similarly the Divine command, which we have proved (c. vi., s. ii., nn. 10, 11, p. 121) to be necessarily imposed in matters of natural evil and of naturally imperative good, is imposed as a hard and fast line, so long as the intrinsic good or evil remains the same.

[Footnote 14: There is a theological difficulty about the polygamy of the patriarchs, which will be touched on in _Natural Law_, c. vi., s.

ii., n. 4. p. 272.]

4. There is, therefore, no room for Evolution in Ethics and Natural Law any more than in Geometry. One variety of geometrical construction, or of moral action, may succeed another; but the truths of the science, by which those varieties are judged, change not. There is indeed this peculiarity about morality, distinguis.h.i.+ng it from art, that if a man errs invincibly, the evil that he takes for good is not _formally_ evil, or evil as he wills it, and the good that he takes for evil is _formally_ evil to him. (c. iii., s. ii., n. 7, p. 33.) So there is variation and possible Evolution in bare _formal_ good and bare _formal_ evil, as ignorance gradually changes into knowledge; and likewise Reversion, as knowledge declines into ignorance. Even this Evolution and Reversion have their limits: they cannot occur in the primary principles of morality, as we saw in the last section. But morality _material_ and objective,--complete morality, where the formal and material elements agree, where real wrong is seen to be wrong, and real right is known for right--in this morality there is no Evolution. If Hannibal offered human sacrifices to his grandfather because he knew no better, and could not have known better, than to think himself bound so to do, he is to be excused, and even praised for his piety: still it was a mistaken piety; and the act, apart from the light in which the doer viewed it, was a hideous crime. An incorrupt teacher of morals would have taught the Carthaginian, not that he was doing something perfectly right for his age and country, which, however, would be wrong in Germany some centuries later, but that he was doing an act there and then evil and forbidden of G.o.d, from which he was bound, upon admonition, instantly to desist.

[Footnote 15]

[Footnote 15: The author has seen reason somewhat to modify this view, as appears by the Appendix. (Note to Third Edition.)]

5. There are Evolution and Reversion in architecture, but not in the laws of stability of structure, nor in the principles of beauty as realized in building. A combination, ugly now, was not beautiful in the days of Darius. Tastes differ, but not right tastes; and moral notions, but not right moral notions. It is true that questions of right and wrong occur in one state of society, that had no relevance in an earlier state, the conditions of the case not having arisen. But so it is in architecture; there are no arches in the Parthenon. The principle of the arch, however, held in the age of Pericles, though not applied.

6. The progress of Moral Science is the more and more perfect development of the Natural Law in the heart of man, a psychological, not an ontological development. And Moral Science does progress. No man can be a diligent student of morality for years, without coming to the understanding of many things, for which one would look in vain in Aristotle's _Ethics_ and _Politics_, or in Cicero, _De Officiis_, or even in the _Summa_ of St. Thomas, or perhaps in any book ever written. New moral questions come for discussion as civilization advances. The commercial system of modern times would furnish a theme for another De Lugo. And still on this path of ethical discovery, to quote the text that Bacon loved, "Many shall pa.s.s over, and knowledge shall be multiplied." (Daniel xii. 4.)

_Readings_.--St. Thos., Supplement, q. 65, art. 1, in corp.; _ib_., q.

65, art. 2, in corp., and ad 1; Hughes, _Supernatural Morals_, pp. 67, 68, reviewed in _The Month_ for August, 1891, pp. 542, 543.

SECTION IV.--_Of Probabilism_.

1. Sometimes conscience returns a clear, positive answer as to the morality of an act contemplated. True or false the answer may be, but the ring of it has no uncertain sound. At other times conscience is perplexed, and her answer is, _perhaps_, and _perhaps not_. When the woman hid Achimaas and Jonathan in the well, and said to Absalom's servants, "They pa.s.sed on in haste" (2 Kings xvii. 17-21), did she do right in speaking thus to save their lives? A point that has perplexed consciences for centuries. A man's hesitation is sometimes subjective and peculiar to himself. It turns on a matter of fact, which others know full well, though he doubts; or on a point of law, dark to him, but clearly ruled by the consent of the learned. In such cases it is his duty to seek information from people about him, taking so much trouble to procure it as the importance of the matter warrants, not consulting ten doctors as to the owners.h.i.+p of one hen. But it may be that all due enquiries fail. The fact remains obscure; or about the law, doctors differ, and arguments conflict indecisively. What is the man to do? Take the _safe_ course: suppose there is an obligation, and act accordingly? This principle, put as a command, would make human life intolerable. It is, moreover, false, when so put, as we shall presently prove. Take the _easy_ course, and leave the obligation out of count? This principle is more nearly correct than the other: but it needs interpretation, else it may prove dangerously lax.

2. To return to Achimaas and Jonathan and their hostess. Some such reckoning as this may have pa.s.sed through her mind: "Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord: but is it a lie to put murderers off the scent of blood?" To that question finding no answer, she may have made up her mind in this way: "Well, I don't know, but I'll risk it." If that were her procedure, she did not walk by the scientific lines of Probabilism. The probabilist runs no risk, enters upon no uncertainty, and yet he by no means always follows what is technically termed the _safe_ course, that is, the course which supposes the obligation, _e.g._, in the case in point, to have said simply where the men were.

How then does the probabilist contrive to extract certainty out of a case of insoluble doubt? By aid of what is called a _reflex_ principle. A _reflex_ is opposed to a _direct_ principle. A direct principle lays down an obligation, as it would bind one who had a perfect discernment of the law and of the facts of the case, and of the application of the one to the other, and who was perfectly able to keep the law. By a _reflex_ principle, a man judges of his own act, taking account of the imperfection of his knowledge and the limitations of his power. Probabilism steps in, only where a case is practically insoluble to an agent upon direct principles. The probabilist thereupon leaves the direct speculative doubt unsolved. He relinquishes the attempt of determining what a man should do in the case in question, who had a thorough insight into the lie of the law.

He leaves that aside, and considers what is his duty, or not his duty, in the deficiency of his knowledge. Then he strikes upon the principle, which is the root of Probabilism, _that a doubtful law has no binding power_. It will be observed that this is a _reflex_ principle. For objectively nothing is doubtful, but everything is or is not in point of fact. To a mind that had a full grasp of the objective order of things, there would be no doubtful law: such a mind would discern the law in every case as holding or not holding. But no human mind is so perfect. Every man has to take account of his own limitations of vision in judging of his duty. The question for me is, not the law absolutely, but the law as far as I can make it out. Our proposition, then, states that when an individual, using such moral diligence of enquiry as the gravity of the matter calls for, still remains in a state of honest doubt as to whether the law binds, in that mental condition it does not bind _him_.

3. What the law does not forbid, it leaves open. Aristotle indeed (_Eth_., V., xi., 1) says the contrary, that what the law does not command (he instances suicide), it forbids. All that he seems to mean is, that if there be an act which at times might appear advantageous, and yet is never commanded, there is a presumption of the legislator being averse to that act. Again, there are special occasions, in view of which the legislator undertakes to regulate the whole outward conduct of a man by positive enactment, as with a soldier on parade: what is not there commanded, is forbidden. But these instances do not derogate from our general proposition, which is proved in this way.

The office of law is not to loose, but to bind. It declares, not what the subject may do, but what he must or must not. It does not bring liberty, but restriction. Therefore, if any one wishes to a.s.sert a restriction, he must go to a law to prove it. If he can find none, liberty remains. The law is laid on liberty. Liberty is not the outcome of law, but prior to it. Liberty is in possession. The burden of proof rests with those who would abridge liberty and impose an obligation. It is an axiom of law itself, a natural, not an arbitrary axiom, that _better is the condition of the possessor_: which amounts in this matter to another statement, also axiomatic, _that a law binds not till it is promulgated_. But a law of which I have serious outstanding doubts whether it exists at all, or, if existent, whether it reaches my case, is for this occasion a law not duly promulgated to me. Therefore it binds me not, and my liberty remains.

4. It remains to consider what const.i.tutes a _serious outstanding doubt_. The word _outstanding_ has been already explained. It means that we have sought for certain information, and cannot procure it.

Now what is a _serious_ doubt? It is a doubt founded on a _positive_ opinion against the existence of the law, or its applicability to the case in point, an opinion fraught with probability, _solid, comparative, practical probability_. The doubt must not be mere negative doubt, or ignorance that cannot tell why it doubts; not a vague suspicion, or sentimental impression that defies all intellectual a.n.a.lysis; not a mere subjective inability to make up one's mind, but some counter-reason that admits of positive statement, as we say, _in black and white_. It is true that many minds cannot define their grounds of doubt, even when these are real. Such minds are unfit to apply the doctrine of Probabilism to themselves, but must seek its application from others. The opinion against the law, when explicitly drawn out, must be found to possess a _solid_ probability.

It may be either an intrinsic argument from reason and the nature of the case, or an extrinsic argument from the word of some authority: but the reason or the authority must be grave. The opinion is thus said to be _intrinsically_ or _extrinsically_ probable. The probability must also be _comparative_. There is many an argument, in itself a very good one, that perishes when we come to consider the crus.h.i.+ng weight of evidence on the other side. An opinion is _comparatively_ probable, when after hearing all the reasons and all the authorities on the other side, the said opinion still remains _not unlikely_, which is all that we mean to say of an opinion here, when we call it _probable_. In ordinary English, the word _probable_ means _more likely than otherwise_, which is not the signification of the Latin _opinio probabilis_. Lastly, the probability must be _practical_: it must take account of all the circ.u.mstances of the case. Practical probability is opposed to _speculative_, which leaves out of count certain circ.u.mstances, which are pretty sure to be present, and to make all the difference in the issue. Thus it is speculatively probable that a Catholic might without sin remain years without confession, never having any grievous sins to confess, grievous sin alone being necessary matter for that sacrament. There is no downright cogent reason why a man might not do so. And yet, if he neglected such ordinary means of grace as confession of venial sin, having it within reach, month after month, no one, considering "the sin which surrounds us," would expect that man to go without grievous scathe. In mechanics, there are many machines that work prettily enough in speculation and on paper, where the inventors do not consider the difficulties of imperfect material, careless handling, climate, and other influences, that render the invention of no practical avail.

5. The safest use of Probabilism is in the field of property transactions and of positive law. There is greatest risk of using it amiss in remaining in a false religion. All turns upon the varying amount of trouble involved in _moral diligence_ of enquiry, according as the matter at issue is a point of mere observance or of vital interest.

6. The point on which the probability turns must be the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the action, not any other issue, as that of the physical consequences. Before rolling boulder-stones down a hill to amuse myself, it is not enough to have formed a probable opinion that there is no one coming up. That would be Probabilism misapplied. The correct enquiry is: Does any intrinsic reason or extrinsic authority make the opinion probable, that it is lawful for mere amus.e.m.e.nt to roll down rocks with any belief short of certainty that no one will be crushed thereby? The probability, thus turned on to the lawfulness of the action, breaks down altogether. This explanation, borne in mind, will save much misapprehension.

CHAPTER IX.

OF THE SANCTION OF THE NATURAL LAW.

SECTION I.--_Of a Twofold Sanction, Natural and Divine_.

1. The sanction of a law is the punishment for breaking it. The punishment for final, persistent breach of the natural law is failure to attain the perfect state and last end of the human soul, which is happiness. If existence be prolonged under this failure, it must be in the contrary state of misery. This failure and misery is at once a _natural result_ and a _divine infliction_. It is the natural result of repeated flagrant acts of moral evil, whereby a man has made his nature hideous, corrupted and overthrown it. (c. vi., s. i., nn. 4, 5, p. 111.) For an end is gained by taking the means, and lost by neglect of the means thereto. Now, as we have seen, happiness is an intellectual act, the perfection of an intellectual or rational nature (c. ii., s. ii., p. 6); and the means to it are living rationally: for a reasonable being, to do well and fare well, must live by that reason, which is the _form_ of his being. (c. vi., s. i., n. 4, p.

111.) Whoever therefore goes about contradicting the reason that is within him (c. v., s. iii., n. 3, p. 74) is not in the way to attain to happiness. Happiness the end of man, the creature of all others the most complex, is not to be stumbled upon by chance. You may make two stones lean upright one against the other by chance, but otherwise than by a methodical application of means to the end you could not support the spire of Salisbury Cathedral.