Q. How is property a physical attribute of man?

A. Inasmuch as all men being constituted equal or similar to one another, and consequently independent and free, each is the absolute master, the full proprietor of his body and of the produce of his labor.

Q. How is justice derived from these three attributes?

A. In this, that men being equal and free, owing nothing to each other, have no right to require anything from one another only inasmuch as they return an equal value for it; or inasmuch as the balance of what is given is in equilibrium with what is returned:  and it is this equality, this equilibrium which is called justice, equity;* that is to say that equality and justice are but one and the same word, the same law of nature, of which the social virtues are only applications and derivatives.

     * Aequitas, aequilibrium, aequalitas, are all of the same
     family.

CHAPTER XII.

Development of the social virtues.

Q. Explain how the social virtues are derived from the law of nature.  How is charity or the love of one’s neighbor a precept and application of it?

A. By reason of equality and reciprocity; for when we injure another, we give him a right to injure us in return; thus, by attacking the existence of our neighbor, we endanger our own, from the effect of reciprocity; on the other hand, by doing good to others, we have room and right to expect an equivalent exchange; and such is the character of all social virtues, that they are useful to the man who practises them, by the right of reciprocity which they give him over those who are benefited by them.

Q. Charity is then nothing but justice?

A. No:  it is only justice; with this slight difference, that strict justice confines itself to saying, “Do not to another the harm you would not wish he should do to you;” and that charity, or the love of one’s neighbor, extends so far as to say, “Do to another the good which you would wish to receive from him.”  Thus when the gospel said, that this precept contained the whole of the law and the prophets, it announced nothing more than the precept of the law of nature.

Q. Does it enjoin forgiveness of injuries?

A. Yes, when that forgiveness implies self-preservation.

Q. Does it prescribe to us, after having received a blow on one cheek, to hold out the other?

A. No; for it is, in the first place, contrary to the precept of loving our neighbor as ourselves, since thereby we should love, more than ourselves, him who makes an attack on our preservation.  Secondly, such a precept in its literal sense, encourages the wicked to oppression and injustice.  The law of nature has been more wise in prescribing a calculated proportion of courage and moderation, which induces us to forget a first or unpremediated injury, but which punishes every act tending to oppression.