1. So far as man's duty to God can be traced out on the basis of natural reason, it has no more than two articles: first, to have right notions of God, and secondly, to conform our actions to His will. Hence natural religion consists of theoretical propositions and practical propositions.

2. Of all the notions which everyone must hold about God, the first is a settled conviction that God exists, that is, that there really is a supreme and first being on whom this universe depends. This has been most plainly demonstrated by philosophers from the Subordination of causes which must find an end in some first thing, from motion, from reflection on the fabric of the universe, and by similar arguments. Claiming not to understand these arguments is no excuse for atheism. For since this conviction has been a constant possession of the whole human race, anyone who wished to overthrow it would not only have to produce a solid refutation of all the arguments which prove God's existence, but also come forward with more convincing reasons for his own position. At the same time, since the salvation of the human race has been believed hitherto to depend on this conviction, he would also have to show that atheism would be better for the human race than to maintain a sound worship of God. Since this cannot be done, we must heartily detest and severely punish the impiety of all who make any attempt whatever to shatter that conviction.

3. The second notion is that God is the Creator of this universe. For since it is self-evident that all this world did not come into existence of itself, it must have a cause and that cause is what we call God.

It follows from this that it is an error to prattle about nature (as people do from time to time) as the final cause of all things and all effects. For if the word ‘nature’ is meant to be taken as the causal efiicacy and power of action which is observed in things, it surely gives evidence itself of its author, God; so far is nature's power from lending support to any argument in denial of God. If, however, by ‘nature’ is meant the supreme cause of all things, it is a kind of fastidious profanity to avoid the plain, accepted term, God.

To the benevolent reader - greetings.

It would seem superfluous, if the practice of so many learned men had not made it almost mandatory, to write a preface explaining the purpose of this work. It is immediately clear that I have done no more than expound to beginners the principal topics of natural law in a short and, I hope, lucid compendium. I would not want students to be put off at the beginning by a massive accumulation of difficult questions, as would happen if they were to set out on the wide expanses of this subject without a knowledge of what one might call the elements. I also believe it to be in the public interest to steep their minds in a moral doctrine whose usefulness in civil life is accepted as obvious. In any other case I would naturally take it to be too trivial a task to reduce an extensive work to the form of a compendium, particularly a work of my own; but I think that in this case no sensible person will blame me for spending so much labour on a task which is uniquely useful to young people, particularly as I undertook it at the behest of my superiors. One's Obligation to the young is such that no work undertaken for their benefit should be thought to be below anyone's dignity even if it gives no opportunity for brilliant or profound thought. Besides, no one with even a grain of sense will deny that such basic principles are better suited to the universal discipline of law than are the elements of any particular System of civil law.

So much might have seemed sufficient, but certain people have advised me that it would be pertinent to make some remarks directed towards understanding the character of natural law in general and towards a careful delineation of its boundaries. I am the more happy to do this as I may in this way remove the excuse for men of misplaced subtlety to apply their feverish criticism to the discipline of natural law. It is quite distinct from their province; there is a line of demarcation between them.

Introduction

For each society, the choice of an economic system is affected by that society's relationships with other economic systems. This can be seen clearly in cases of military or political domination, where both the ruler and the ruled adjust their economic systems in accordance with the realities of the domination. The existence of the British Empire in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries meant that, for the many member societies, the choice of economic system was severely circumscribed. The Soviet Union extended its power over Eastern Europe after the Second World War in a manner which limited the options facing societies there. In recent decades, the United States has actively sought to influence the choices of many societies throughout the world, particularly in Central and South America. These cases of military and political intervention illustrate the necessity, when comparing economic systems, to consider each society's choices in the context of that society's relationships with other economic systems.

Relationships that are not military or political can also affect a society's choices. Of special importance are trade and investment. The development of trade relationships can strongly influence a society's economic system, particularly as the domestic structure adjusts to the provision of exports. The characteristics of a principal export, and its production requirements, may affect many features of the economic system and its decision modes, including the nature of employment relationships. The staple theory, for example, describes the reliance of some colonial societies in the nineteenth century on exports of wheat, timber, and cotton, and it explains how their economic systems were shaped by these exports. Even in recent decades, many societies continue to rely on the export of a narrow range of natural resources, with significant repercussions on their economic system.

As earlier chapters have indicated, the New World economy has facilitated the mobility of labour and capital, and this has also restricted each society's options. People and corporations may move away from a particular society if its economic system becomes significantly different.

1. We must next inquire into the duties which fall to man to perform as a result of the different states in which we find him existing in social life. By ‘state’ [status] in general, we mean a condition in which men are understood to be set for the purpose of performing a certain class of actions. Each State also has its own distinctive laws [jura].

2. Men's State is either natural or adventitious. Natural State may be considered, in the light of reason alone, in three ways: in relation to God the Creator; or in the relation of each individual man to himself; or in relation to other men.

3. Considered from the first point of view, the natural State of man is the condition in which he was placed by his Creator with the intention that he be an animal excelling other animals. It follows from this State that man should recognize and worship his Creator, admire His works, and lead his life in a manner utterly different from that of the animals. Hence this State is in complete contrast with the life and condition of the animals.

4. From the second point of view, we may consider the natural State of man, by an imaginative effort, as the condition man would have been in if he had been left to himself alone, without any support from other men, given the condition of human nature as we now perceive it. It would have been, it seems, more miserable than that of any beast, if we reflect on the great weakness of man as he comes into this world, when he would straight away die without help from others, and on the primitive life he would lead if he had no other resources than he owes to his own strength and intelligence. One may put it more strongly: the fact that we have been able to grow out of such weakness, the fact that we now enjoy innumerable good things, the fact that we have cultivated our minds and bodies for our own and others’ benefit - all this is the result of help from others. In this sense the natural State is opposed to life improved by human industry.

1. An oath is held to lend conspicuous support to our speech and to all acts which involve speech. For it is a religious affirmation, by which we give up our claim to God's mercy or call down divine punishment if we shall not speak truth. An oath raises a presumption of truth by invoking an omniscient and omnipotent witness and avenger, because we find it hard to believe that anyone would be so impious as boldly to call down upon himself God's most heavy wrath. This is the reason why the duty of those who swear is to take the oath with reverence and to observe scrupulously what they have sworn.

2. Now the most important use and purpose of swearing is to bind men more strongly to tell the truth or to keep a promise or agreement, through fear of God who is omniscient and omnipotent. If they knowingly deceive Him, they invoke His vengeance upon themselves by swearing, when otherwise the fear that threatens them from men would not have been effective, since they would expect to be able to disregard or deflect men's devices or elude detection.

3. Since God alone is omniscient and omnipotent, it is absurd to take an oath by any object which is not believed to be divine in the sense of invoking it as witness and avenger of perjury. It often happens, however, that in taking an oath a certain object is named by which one will swear in the sense that if the swearer breaks his oath, God is to take particular vengeance on that object, since it is something very dear and valuable to the swearer.

4. In oaths, the formula by which God is described in the invocation to Him as witness and avenger must be adapted to the conviction or religious belief which the oath-taker has of God. For there is no compulsion in an oath by a god in whom he does not believe and therefore does not fear. But no one believes he is swearing by God except in the formula or under the name contained in the precepts of his own religion, which is in his view the true one.

1. The first of the adventitious states in which a man is set by some prior human act is marriage. Marriage may be called the first example of social life and at the same time the seed-bed of the human race.

2. And first of all it is a settled point that the burning attraction of the sexes to each other has not been designed by the Creator in His great wisdom for the satisfaction of empty pleasure; for taken by itself it was bound to generate extreme nastiness and disorder in the human race. But it has been given to enhance relations between man and wife and to encourage them to put themselves to the trouble of having children and of bearing the difficulties which attend their birth and upbringing.

It follows from this that any employment of the genital members which deviates from these purposes is repugnant to natural law. Under this heading come forbidden lust directed towards a different species or towards persons of the same sex; any kind of filthy impurity; and all extra-marital intercourse, whether by mutual consent or against the woman's will.

3. The Obligation to contract marriage may be considered either with respect to the human race as a whole or with respect to individuals.

In the first respect the Obligation is that the propagation of the human race must absolutely not proceed by way of casual and promiscuous intercourse. It should always be bound by the laws of matrimony and therefore only practised within marriage. Without this a decent and well-ordered society among men and the development of civil life are inconceivable.

In the second respect individuals are obliged to enter into marriage when a suitable opportunity occurs. This is determined not only by age and the capacity to beget, but also by the chance of a suitable match and the capacity to support the wife and any children there may be; also by whether the man is fit to take on the role of head of the family. An exception is made for anyone who has the temperament to lead a chaste life as a Single person, and feels that he can achieve more good for the human race or for his country by not marrying than by marrying, especially when there is no fear of a shortage of children.

1. After ownership of things had been introduced, the custom of exchange soon followed. For then as now all things were not of the same nature nor had the same usefulness to human needs, and no one individual had as much for his own use as he desired. Hence it often happened that things of different nature or use needed to be passed from one person to another. To prevent either party suffering in an exchange of that kind it was necessary to assign, by agreement between men, some quantity in terms of which things could be compared and equated with each other. This was also the case with actions which one was unwilling to do for others’ benefit for nothing. This quantity usually goes by the name of ‘value’ [pretium].

2. Value is divided into common value and eminent value. Common value is found in things and actions, or Services, which enter into commerce because they give us use and pleasure. Eminent value is seen in money, since it is accepted as virtually containing the value of all goods and Services and as providing them with a common measure.

3. The foundation of common value in itself is the suitability of the thing or Service to make a direct or indirect contribution to the needs of human life and to render it fuller and more agreeable. Hence things that have no use at all are normally said to have no value. There are, however, some things which are very useful to human life on which no definite value is understood to be set. This is because either they are and must be without ownership, or because they are incapable of being exchanged and therefore excluded from commerce, or because in commerce they are regarded only as appendages to something else. Again, human or divine law has set certain actions apart from commerce or has forbidden them to be done for pay, and so is understood to have withdrawn them from the sphere of value.

1. It is the condition of the human body that it needs to take in its sustenance from without and to protect itself from anything that would destroy its integrity; there are also many things which relieve and enrich our lives. We may therefore safely infer that it is clearly the will of the supreme governor of the world that man may use other creatures for his own benefit, and that he may in fact in many cases kill them. This is true not only of vegetable species and such creatures as have no sense of their own destruction, but also of harmless animals which it is not wrong for men to kill and consume, even though they die in pain.

2. But in the beginning all these things are thought to have been made available by God to all men indifferently, so that they did not belong to one more than to another. The proviso was that men should make such arrangements about them as seemed to be required by the condition of the human race and by the need to preserve peace, tranquillity and good order. Hence while there were as yet few men in the world, it was understood that whatever a man had laid hold upon with the intention of making use of it for himself should be his and no one should take it from him, but the actual bodies [corpora] which produced those things should remain available to all without relation to anyone in particular. In the course of time, however, men multiplied and began to cultivate things which produce food and clothing. To avoid conflicts and to institute good order at this stage, they took the Step of dividing the actual bodies of things amongst themselves, and each was assigned his own proper portion; a convention [conventio] was also made that what had been left available to all by this first division of things should henceforth be his who first claimed it for himself. In this way, property in things [proprietas rerum] or ownership [dominium] was introduced by the will of God, with consent [consensus] among men right from the beginning and with at least a tacit agreement [pactum].