Walter Farrell, O.P., A Companion to the Summa, Volume III

CHAPTER IX -- THE ESSENCE OF ANARCHY II
(Q. 72-80)

1. Universal contempt for pettiness    (a) The fact.    (b) its foundations -- the nature of man.    (c) Pettiness and society.2. Pettiness and anarchy.3. Petty injustice in word:    (a) Limitations of pettiness.    (b) Insult.    (c) Detraction     (1) Thomistic and modern definitions     (2) its nature     (3) its comparative malice.    (d) Whispering.    (e) Derision.    (f) Cursing.4. Petty injustice in act:    (a) In buying and selling:     (1) Unjust price.     (2) Defective goods.     (3) Business as such.    (b) Usury.5. A contrast -- the wide embrace of justice:    (a) Nature of the potential parts of justice    (b) Their number and name: religion, piety, observance, truth, gratitude,          vindication, friendship, liberality.Conclusion:1. Two mistakes on petty injustice:    (a) Too small to matter.    (b) Too big for anything else to matter.2. The conditions of life with others -- strength and largeness of soul:    (a) Life of friendship:     (1) With God.     (2) With men.    (b) Domestic life.    (c) Social life.3. Full essence of anarchy.

CHAPTER IX
THE ESSENCE OF ANARCHY II
(Q. 72-80)

Universal contempt for pettiness

THE normal response of the human soul to pettiness is a kind of nausea. Pettiness in humannature is as revolting as squalor in a hospital or laughter at a funeral. These two, humanity andpettiness, do not belong together; when we see them so we are scornful, contemptuous, evenangry. We shrug off the victim of self-pity impatiently; the misery of the miser moves us to angerrather than pity. And we can fully understand the indignation of the Scots at Sir Harry Lauder'sconstant quips about their penurious caution.

If taken at all seriously, such an accusation is far from comic. We do not have to hold our sides tokeep from bursting with laughter when we see a husband or wife ready to scurry out of marriageat the first wave of misfortune; the victim of envy or jealousy must make a long, long search forsympathy; and the executive who counts the carbon sheets in the stenographer's desk need haveno illusions about the stenographer's opinion of him.

Its foundations -- the nature of man

The fact is that man is too big to enjoy pettiness. Bigness is a part of the very make-up of man. Bythe design of infinite wisdom, he was made to bring all things into his mind and to carry his heartout to all things not to spend his time grubbing in the little plot of his own being. He was born,not to plunge into the swirling waters of the world and drown himself, but to stand aside from theworld, even from himself, as the one spectator of the material universe. He was made for infinitevariety. He was given the mastery of the universe, all other things being the tools by which hecarves out an eternal destiny. He was made to give himself utterly to another, rather than toattempt to gather all things in the pitiful compass of his own hands.

On the other hand, smallness is a part of the irrational world, for that world is fenced in,determined to one narrow path. No creature in that world has an interest, a knowledge, an abilityoutside of itself; it is a world incapable of using the rest of the world as its instrument, incapableof surrendering itself to anyone or anything. It is a small world in spite of its size, its power, itsbeauty and its ruthlessness. Man's nature has set him apart from this small world and given himsomething of the infinity of God. His actions, since he is made in the image of God, should begodlike; one of the divine characteristics that must stand out in the acts of a man, if he is to retainthe respect of his fellows, is that of largeness, of wide horizons and far off goals. Indeed thischaracteristic is a condition for the maintenance of self-respect, for deep in his heart every man isrevolted at pettiness, even though the pettiness be his own.

Pettiness and society

The fundamental notions of society are really an insistence upon this greatness of man; nor is thissurprising, since society is such an exclusively human thing, a thing which only men need and onlymen can have. There is, in the very notion of society, an open admission of our need for help; abig thing to come from a man. For society exists that man might live the full life of which he iscapable, living with others, but incapable, living alone. At the same time, society is a statement ofa willingness to give help to others, to pool capacities in order that all might live a more perfecthuman life. From both angles, pettiness is always an injury, and sometimes a serious threat, to thevery notion of society. To admit the need of help and, at the same time, he willing to help others isthe work of a creature who can get outside himself: he can stand aside from himself and see hisown insufficiency: and he can see the world through the eyes of another, focusing his own visionto an impartial, even a sympathetic view.

Petty injustice is a deliberate campaign of injury, not of help. No matter how great an injury it maydo, it is still petty in itself; it is an admission of defeat, of pique, of envy or jealousy. Violence, ingeneral, is the work of a small soul unable to compete with the talents of another: the violence ofpetty injustice is the work of a craven soul, of a soul not only too small to compete with thetalents of others, but even too small to risk the slightest injury or misfortune to itself in its verycampaign of injustice to others.

We might say that this petty injustice takes two forms, apparently contrary, according to theparticular angle at which a man looks at himself. In one case it puts up a pretense of pride,claiming its own self-sufficiency because a man is unable to stand outside himself and see himselftruly; it is the result of a vision, so short that it never quite reaches to a man's own limitations. Onthe other hand, this petty violence may set up a constant wail for help, when a man looks at theworld and is shocked, aggrieved that the rest of the world can see anything but him, that othermen do not spend their time and energy thinking of him. This small soul is quite blind to the rights(let alone the needs) of others but cannot understand why the world should be so blindly cruel asto neglect him for an instant.

Pettiness and anarchy

It may seem a long jump from pettiness to anarchy. Nor does the gap look smaller when weremember that anarchy, etymologically, means "without a head." It calls up the dismal picture ofjungle law let loose in a civilized community whose government, or head, has been cut off, theincongruous picture of a man thrashing about like a recently beheaded chicken, or the horrifyingpicture of a man who has lost control of himself, who has lost his head and has become a beast ofprey. No, it still seems a long way from pettiness to anarchy; but bring the thing close to humanlife and the distance disappears.

We live in an age where the shambles of domestic groups are taken as much for granted as a shellhole in no-man's-land. This destruction is laid to cruelty, desertion, infidelity, the third angle of thetriangle and so on. Perhaps, in a majority of cases, these alleged grounds are true. But doesanyone seriously believe that the course of home life was running smoothly, peacefully, with loveruling supreme, sacrifice constant and generosity the ordinary thing, when one morning husbandand wife awoke to discover that lightning had hit their home and cruelty, desertion and the restwere pouring through the hole in the roof?

It is conceivable that a home be broken up suddenly; but normally these big things that destroy ahome can be traced back to the constant annoyance of very small things. A man, wrapped up inhis business, forgets that his wife and children are human and need some attention, some thought.A wife, now that the excitement of the hunt is over allows her natural slovenliness to assert itselfas she appears at the breakfast table disheveled, unkempt, in a state that adds nothing to thetastiness of the cold toast. The husband may spend most of his time at home pitying himself: thewife may be addicted to tears; or either side may cultivate its will power by the constant naggingof the born reformer. They are little things but by their constancy the big things come about. It iswell to know the tremendous danger of these small things well too, to realize that they are thefruits of a small soul, the products of thoughtlessness, of selfishness, of discontent and self-pity.But they are at the root of domestic anarchy.

Considering the place the family must hold in society, this alone would be enough to establish theconnection between pettiness and social anarchy. However, the direct connection is close enoughin the purely social sphere. A revolution is not the work of a moment but the result of years.Society prepares for a revolution slowly, as steam is built up in a locomotive but this steam isapplied to terribly destructive purposes when its inevitable explosion rips society to shreds.

Limitations of pettiness

It must be noted that the word pettiness, as descriptive of the type of injustice with which we shalldeal in this chapter, must not be taken for a moral evaluation of this injustice. It expresses thecontempt of men for this injustice; it is not a statement of its insignificance. It can be exceedinglygrave; and its very gravity does not diminish but rather increases the well-earned contempt givenit by men.

There is, for instance, the whole group of sins we include under the term "sins of the tongue;" thesins that we confess as uncharitable in a tone that says we know they were not particularly noble,but they are only offenses against charity; and who could blame us for a lack of love for thesepeople? Out attitude is an implicit ignorance of the fact that we are violating justice by these sinswe have not merely spoken "unkindly", we have spoken unjustly, for we have refused others therights that are theirs. We miss the obvious fact that Christ, commanding the kind word, or at leastthe kind silence, merely demanded that we refrain from molesting others, that for love of Him weleave others alone.

Insult

There are times when we can work up a kind of pride in these sins. when we boldly insult or revilea man, tell him to his face that he is a thief; taunt him with his deafness; upbraid him for hisstupidity, his poverty, or with reminders of the favors we have done him--we claim a doublejustification. The things we said were true, and they were not said behind a man's back but to hisface. As a matter of fact, is there a justification for the wounds left in a human heart, for theshame and embarrassment of another, for the loss of his good name with others, or even for ourrefusal to give the respect to which this image of God has a just claim? All of these sins are directattacks on the honor and respect due to our neighbor. If our intention has been to dishonor him orrefuse him respect, the sins are no less mortal than are theft and burglary, understanding, ofremorse, that they can become venial when the matter of our insults is less grave.

We need not be surprised if, at one time or another, our insults explode in our face. Some peoplejust will not take insults, while others will take just so many as a matter of fact, they do not haveto submit to such reviling, any more than a man has to stand by meekly while his watch is stolenor his children kidnapped. He is within his rights in resisting an unjust aggressor and it may be thebest thing in the world for a novice at the dangerous game of insulting others to discover that it isnot always an easy avocation. If our resistance to insult has that fraternally charitable end ofdiscouraging a too facile tongue, it is not only justified, it is praiseworthy. A man in authority,who must maintain that authority, or a man whose loss of honor would result in grave spiritualloss to others, is not only permitted, he may be obliged to resist insults. In both these cases themotive was not so much defense of one's own rights but the protection of the good of othersnormally we can be much more sure of these stainless motives in protecting the honor of another,than we can in rushing to our own defense.

To see these sins as examples of boldness and courage is to blindfold ourselves as we approach amirror. We are really afraid to look at them closely; if we do we must see them as truly petty.They are an adult version of the little-boy trick of calling names: a gesture of helplessness, ofimpotent anger, of contempt. If we turn these sins to let strong light fall on their faces, we shallimmediately recognize them as the offspring of stupidity they are the product of a mind paralyzedby anger, rushing madly to the handiest means of venting its passion upon another. Pride, ofcourse, helpfully prepares us for sins of the tongue by keeping us well supplied with contempt forothers in the admiration we have for ourselves. But it is really the stupid blindness of anger thatusually turns loose the flood of insults.

Although insulting words cut deep, they are superficial wounds compared to the gashes made bythe words of a backbiter. An insult is an attack on the respect or honor due a person, i.e., on theexternal testimony of a neighbor's character. The backbiter digs deeper to attack the very reasonfor honor: he attacks the reputation or good name of a neighbor. This is a sly, deadly sin, thisbackbiting, and always committed secretly. It is a cowardly knife-thrust in the back, giving itsvictim no chance for self-defense: indeed, it is quite the ordinary thing for a victim of backbitingto be unaware of the attack until his good name is entirely gone.

Detraction Thomistic and modern definitions

Modern theologians distinguish between true and false backbiting, calling the first detraction, andthe second, calumny. But St. Thomas, seeing both as frequenters of the dark alleys of secrecy andassassins of reputations, makes no distinction. As the thing actually works out, backbiting is rarelylimited to the truth, at least by the time it reaches its most deadly stage. I recall a case ofbackbiting that is an excellent illustration of this fact. A disgruntled mother was stopped by acheery neighbor as she came out of Mass, just at the unfortunate moment when her mind wasconsiderably disturbed by thoughts of her own somewhat meanly dispositioned daughter. Theneighbor remarked happily on the attractiveness and popularity of one of the parish girls passingby. In a fit of spite, the disappointed mother remarked acidly: "Well, there are some things muchmore important than popularity." The remark was absolutely true and hopelessly banal: it could bewhispered in the most innocent ears or shouted from the highest pulpits. But it was the startingpoint of a chain of remarks that practically made an outcast of the innocent victim for at eachrepetition, more details were added as to what was more important than popularity and muchmore embroidery was painstakingly added to the original inference that this girl lacked these veryimportant things.

Falsehood, the fitting accomplice of sly secrecy, permeates backbiting as the odor of decaypermeates a swamp. It is true that we can ruin a good name by secretly telling unsavory truths,revealing secrets and so on. But we can also make a boy's theft of a piece of candy sound like abank robbery by a careful inattention to detail. We can declare ourselves actual witnesses of amurderous attack with an automobile when all we have seen is a friendly gesture of help to astalled motorist on a cold morning. This sort of thing may demand some creative imagination anda good deal of craftsmanship: perhaps that is why there is something of an artist's pride in thecompleted masterpiece. But it takes no genius and very little practice to accomplish backbitingwithout bringing our neighbor's sins into the matter at all: by brazenly denying his good points,maliciously guarding a silence on those good points or stopping the whole conversation cold by afrigid trickle of praise that drops from our lips with the slow reluctance of a drop of water from anicicle.

Sometimes an injury to another's name is necessary, as in the doctor's warning against anengagement to a person suffering from a contagious disease; in these cases there is no question ofsin. Very frequently the empty-headedness of the prattler saves him from serious sin, for even sindemands some thought. In fact, there is a saving element in most of these sins of the tongue; theyare so often slips, words that escape from our mouths so quickly that we cannot even grab thetail of the disastrous sentence. This is not something of which we can be proud, but at least itoften indicates a complete lack of malice

Its comparative malice

Yet once the thing is done, injuries to reputation remain unjust, and seriously so, even thoughthere was no malice on our part. Not so serious, perhaps, as murder destroying the life of a man,or adultery attacking his family and the very beginning of life but among the sins aimed against theexternal goods of man, detraction holds a top place. It is, for example, much worse than theft, forit robs a man of a much more valuable and personal thing than his wallet; but like theft, insults andbackbiting demand restitution. They demand that we return to another the most precious oftemporal things, a thing nearly impossible of returning -- a good name.

Whispering

A gossip, to be at her (or his) best, really needs cooperation. There is no more complete exampleof futile effort than a pair of gossips whose alternating silences are not the relaxed, docileattention of a listener, but the tense, eager, unheeding preparation of one waiting to go on the air.It is at least possible that gossip would decline sharply if the quota of listening could be curtailed.But of course there will always be some excellent listeners; nor do they have all the excitement ofmalicious gossip with none of the sin. The listener whose ears actually rise up at the first breath ofgossip gives full consent to the talk and joins in the sin; so too does the person who could andshould stop such unjust remarks. But the timid person, the negligent one, or the man who isashamed to appear in the role of defender of a reputation is normally guilty only of venial sin.

One of the most serious, and certainly one of the most contemptible forms of gossip is what St.Thomas calls "whispering," and what may be called, somewhat vaguely, tale-bearing. It is acomplete campaign whose chief objective is the destruction of friendship. In the eyes of Thomas,this was more serious than insult, detraction or calumny: for it is much more important to us thatwe be loved than that we be honored, while a friend is much more precious than a reputation.Men can live without honor, without a good name, but not without friends; for no man issufficient unto himself.

Derision

In sharp contrast to the magnitude of whispering stands the pettiest of the sins of the tongue, thesin of mockery or derision. Do not be deceived by its air of jollity or its disguise of humor; it is apetty, vicious snob that considers the rights of others as so many coins to buy laughs. It is thesarcastic weapon of the negative wit. Insult and backbiting strip a man of the external rewards ofvirtue, honor and a good name, much as a bandit might strip a man of his clothes. Mockerysaunters lightly into the house of the soul to rob a man of his intrinsic goods, his peace andself-respect. Its aim is to shame a man, to shatter him publicly that others might make sport of hisshame. Christ was a victim of it when the taunts from Calvary echoed back from the walls ofJerusalem; nor has the satanic art been lost through the ages. Its modern masterpieces aregovernment executed Jew-baitings.

The other sins of the tongue treat man's faults and weaknesses, whether real or fictional, withsome degree of seriousness. Mockery makes sport of them, thus adding a stinging note ofcontempt. If the subject matter of our costly joke is only slight, then the sin may be venial; but ifour contempt for our neighbor is so great that his sin and misfortunes strike us as merely materialfor a joke, then our sin is mortal, greater indeed than its fellow public performer -- insult -- for itcontains more of contempt.

Mockery is an agile sin that runs up the ladder of gravity with a light-hearted step; it is rarelycontent to stop short of the top, for it has a reputation for wit to maintain and the strain of theupkeep is terrific. It becomes steadily more grave as its victims have greater claim to reverence.Thus to mock a virtuous man and his virtues is more serious than mockery of a sinner, becausevirtue is man's fundamental claim to honor and a good name. In a society where this iswidespread, a man may be seen at his sins, but he has to be caught at his virtues; he will keepthem secret, or abandon them, for human nature has no relish for mockery. Mockery of parents isa step up the ladder; it is so revolting a robbery of the reverence due them that it is always a shockto spectators. Only in a depraved society does a laughing slash across the face of a parent win alaugh. We reach the heights of this sin when its victim is God; surely when the divine claim toreverence is the butt of jokes, reverence is dead in the world and with it goes all pretence atrespect for the dignity of man.

Cursing

This same proportional upswing of gravity is found in the sin of cursing, taking cursing, not in thevague, general sense of nasty or irreverent language, but strictly as the expression of evil toanother by way of wish or command. As men have greater claim to our reverence and our love,we do them a greater injustice by cursing them.

As a matter of fact, all men have at least a minimum claim on our love and reverence; so noslightest degree of evil wished to men, precisely under the aspect of evil, is harmless. Obviously itis against charity; and its execution is patently against justice. But notice that the evil must bewilled under the aspect of evil. A judge, damning a man to prison, is not guilty of cursing; nor isthe citizen who wishes for the speedy capture and execution of a notorious public enemy, that thepeace of society might be preserved. The old Irish mother gives effective expression to herimpatience when she exclaims: "I wish the Lord had his soul!" But she is not cursing: rather she isseeing even her tormentors through the eyes of that divinely wise love that has worn smooth thehills of Ireland by its long, steady regard.

Cursing directed against God is blasphemy; against the irrational world it is a waste of breath, forgood or evil have no place where necessity is king; against the devil, it is an attempt to gild thelily. More often than not, cursing is no more than a safety-valve blowing off the steam ofimpatience and anger that have proved too much for a limited vocabulary.

Petty injustice in act: In buying and selling

Some time ago The Saturday Evening Post came out with a cover that brought a chucklefrom the nation. It pictured a tiny, meek, sweet-looking old lady looking across a swinging scale,at a butcher who looked as all good butchers should but rarely do. He was fat, good-natured andruddy, as though he had frequently sampled his own products, all of them, and found them good.He was weighing a piece of meat, resting his hand, meanwhile, gracefully and unobtrusively onthe edge of the scale. Both the butcher and his customer had their eyes fixed on the figures of thescale; the butcher with a look of astonishment and the sweet old lady with a smile of serenepeace, for underneath the scale her index finger was more than offsetting the weight of thebutcher's hand.

This sort of thing never happened; but we feel, somehow, that if it did happen we could enjoy itthoroughly. Our vicarious and fictional satisfaction focuses attention on petty injustice in one ofits commonest forms, cheating, particularly cheating in the contract between buyer and seller.Perhaps it is because the average man is such a constant and gullible victim of the cheat that the"besting" of a swindler evokes such enthusiastic approval.

Unblushing fraud in buying and selling is clearly unjust and is properly and immediatelycondemned. After all this contract is a mutual thing, designed for the good of both parties; menare right in hotly resenting its open violation. But there are many less patent injustices that are notso heavily frowned on, that are even approved by constant practice. It is, for instance, pettyinjustice to charge forty dollars for a ticket to a football game -- yes, even for that game! Thevalue of the ticket is by no means equal to the price demanded; the equality of justice has beendisturbed and must be restored by repairing the damage suffered by the buyer.

Unjust price

It is argued, of course, that the ticket is worth that amount to the buyer here and now; he needsthe ticket and cannot get it anywhere else. That sounds very plausible; but whose need is it? If italready belongs to the buyer, surely he cannot be charged for it, it cannot be sold to him. Theseller cannot sell what is not his own; he can charge for the thing he is delivering to the buyer, buthe cannot charge for the need under which the buyer labors. The case is altogether different if aman insists on buying my rubbers in the midst of a rainstorm. I am justified in adding to the priceof the rubbers the price of a cold in the head which I shall suffer by the sale of the rubbers. I amnot charging the buyer for his need, but for the damage that will come to me as a result of thesale.

A woman who sells a pet parrot worth five dollars for the price of ten, may be acting justly,charging the buyer for the damage done to her affections and the consequent loneliness of her life.A baseball magnate who would sell his franchise just before a world series is right in asking ahigher price, charging to the buyer the loss of gain which was involved in the sale. In all thesecases, the seller is charging for something that is intimately his; not for the need of the buyer.

Defective goods

When we discover that the gold-fish we bought at a fire sale looks something like a smokedherring, we should not feel surprised or indignant. That is why we got it so cheap. Obviously theintrinsic worth of a thing is lessened by its defects; as the worth goes down, so must the price, forthe price is primarily the measure of the intrinsic value of a thing. But there are some defects thatrule out the question of any price at all. The confidence man who sells glass for a diamond offersmaterial with a specific defect; the grocer who gives short weights puts a defect ofquantity in the matter of the sale: the horse-trader who sells a blind horse as sound, sells ahorse who suffers from a defect of quality. But all three agree in selling something thatdoes not exist; they are all bound to restitution, for they have in their possession something that isnot theirs, the money for which they have not given value.

The same holds true of a buyer who, by some strange accident, buys a real diamond at a ten-centstore for the usual dime; or who gets too much change from a cab-driver. In these cases the defectis not in the goods; it is on the other side of the contract, a defect in price. Of course restitution isstrictly obligatory. It may happen that the seller of poor goods does so innocently; the butcher, forexample, who sells corrupt meat thinking it is good has committed no sin, no deliberate injustice.Yet the thing is unjust; he has money that does not belong to him and it must be returned to itsrightful owner.

The advance of science might easily confuse the issue here. Science has been able to produce asubstitute that looks like butter, acts like butter and produces the effects of butter; then too thereis the abundance of synthetic fruit flavors dispensed at soda fountains, flavors of such delicacy asto move chemists to choose the poetic name of "ester" for them. St. Thomas and the men of histime gave no thought to synthetic butter nor synthetic fruit flavors; but they gave much thought tosynthetic gold and silver. St. Thomas' answer on the matter of the alchemist's gold and silver, ananswer of common sense, still stands for any synthetic product. If science produces real butter, asit has produced real sugars and real alcohols, the product can be sold as real: the synthetic ornatural character of its origin is unimportant, it has no interest in a pedigree or a coat-of-arms.What is important is that it have all the qualities of natural butter: that is, that it really be butter,not a substitute for butter.

Let us take the case of a business man with a stock of defective goods on hand. What will he dowith them? In a responsible firm, the ordinary thing would be to sell the goods as defective and ata lower price, not only from considerations of justice, but as a protection for the reputation of thefirm. But what if this particular business man has no established name to protect, and the defectsin the goods are hidden, i.e., they can be detected only by an expert: strict defects for instance asflaws in a diamond or faults in the barrel of a pistol? It is clear that he cannot demand the price hewould for a perfect product. Is it enough for him to cut down the price and to say nothing?Hardly. The drop in price will take care of any damage that might otherwise have come to thebuyer in the sale itself; but it will not take care of the gun later exploding in the buyer's face, norof the explosion of wrath from his fiancee who happens to be a jeweler's daughter.

Lowering the price to a proportionate level is sufficient when the defects are evident, when theyshould be seen easily and quickly by an ordinary purchaser. Hidden defects, however, must berevealed. In fact there are times when even manifest defects must be explicitly pointed out; butthis is quite accidental, a matter of protecting a particularly simple-minded buyer, such as the manwho might have drowned on the lot he had just purchased if he had not been warned of the tide.

Business as such

We come now to an article of the Summa that is a ringing challenge to themodern world, for it is an article that questions the unquestionable. It demands that business itselfgive the password that will identify it as belonging to the army of acts properly human, thepassword of morality. How moral is business? How legitimate is trade for the sake of profit?Business is business, but does it need no other references than it can furnish for itself, can it standon its own feet? Thomas' questions are a challenge, a challenge that comes as a surprise andbrings a surprise with it; for business does not answer these questions too brilliantly.

To get at the heart of the question it is necessary to distinguish between trade for the necessitiesof life and trade for the sake of gain. Trade of the first type is undeniably praiseworthy in itself asserving the very ends of nature. This trade does not belong in the hands of private individuals butrather to those in charge of the domestic or social groups, to housekeepers and to governments;in other words, it is the proper act of those responsible for the necessities of life.

Trading for gain, which is business strictly so-called, i.e., buying for the sake of selling at a profit,has the type of face that is automatically cast in gangster roles. When business comes to the houseof human acts, it must have its hat in hand, references ready, and perhaps even the company of apolice officer to prove that it is not nearly so tough as it looks; as a matter of fact, it is not evil.But it has an air of baseness about it. It is ordered to earthly profit, is often accompanied by sinsof speech and injustice, and frequently put to work to serve cupidity. To put the objections inplain language, let it be said that business has for its end the making of money; and this is a meremeans, a mere tool for a man. Unless it is ordered further, to some such virtuous and necessaryends as to support a family, to the public good, to help the poor and so on, it has no justificationin human affairs. When it is ordered to these further ends, it is no longer an end in itself but ratherit is the price a man exacts for his labor.

Usury

Usually these extrinsic ends are the ends of the business man and because of them the ordinaryprofit of business can be justified; but there is one profit that defies justification, that is always andeverywhere wrong, and that is the profit of the usurer. For quite a while after the break-up ofChristian unity, the question of usury was soft-pedaled, receiving nothing like the constantattention it had during the middle and later middle ages. One might have suspected that theunclean thing had disappeared from the face of the earth; but of course it had not. Today moreand more is being written on it, more and more questions being asked about it, serious, dangerousquestions; for usury today is being pointed out by men who do not speak lightly as the power thatmakes modern wars possible, modern depressions universal and calamitous, and as the mostserious threat to capitalistic civilization which it attacks in the disguise of credit.

At any rate, wherever usury is found it is wrong; and its evil is manifest. It is absurdly simple tounderstand that to charge a man twice for the same thing is always unjust; yet that is preciselywhat usury does, it sells the same thing twice. The trick is possible only when the thing sold orloaned is consumed in its very first use, things like wine or sandwiches, or money. When wedemand, over and above the return of the original sum of money loamed, an added amount for theuse of the money, our act is the same as selling a man a glass of wine and then charging him forthe privilege of drinking it.

If we keep this simple statement of usury in mind, it will not be difficult to understand theabsolutely necessary distinction between usury and legitimate interest. The latter is charged, notfor the mere use of the money as in usury, but on some extrinsic title; this doctrine of interest isnot something new to Catholic theologians, there has been no softening of the condemnations ofusury, for there has never been a question of the legitimacy of a charge on grounds extrinsic to themoney itself. Among such extrinsic grounds for legitimate interest we might mention: positivedamage caused to the creditor by making the loan; a special danger to the capital loaned, whichjustifies a man demanding payment for his risk; the cessation of profit proximately hoped for: orthe legal premium (necessarily small) allowed to facilitate exchange.

These two, usury and legitimate interest must not be confused: nor must usury be allowed tomasquerade as legitimate interest. For the one, usury, is evil and forbidden; the other is indifferentor even good and certainly permitted. The evil of the one is clear to reason and positively declaredby the Church the other is permitted by all the theologians. The difference between the two seems,quite clearly, to be the difference between a loan's intrinsic and extrinsic title to a larger return.Thus, for instance, a loan for productive purposes has a certain claim to a larger return, that is toa share in the profits but by the same token a consequent loss should also be shared. On the otherhand, a loan for unproductive purposes certainly seems to have no such title to a larger return. Ademand for a larger return because of delayed payment does not seem unreasonable, for it is in thenature of a fine, where the original contract has not been kept, or because of increased loss as aresult of the longer term of the loan. Stockholders who are really partners in a business are notguilty of injustice when they receive a dividend, for they share in the losses as well as in the gainsof a business.

A contrast -- the wide embrace of justice: Nature of the potential parts of justice

We are not used to such a concentration on the anti-social vice of injustice: consequently theresult of these last two chapters is a somewhat embarrassed discomfiture not unlike that of astudent nurse at her first operation or a young priest's first call to a nasty accident. This is one ofthe difficulties faced by officials who must deal with injustice constantly. The anti-social characterof the thing creates such a stifling, unwholesomely artificial atmosphere that these officials face adouble danger: they may be increasingly uncomfortable in that atmosphere, irritated with anirritation that gradually rises to a climax of disgust, brutality and ruthless condemnation of theperpetrators of injustice or, acclimating themselves to that atmosphere, they may become asanti-social as those with whom they are dealing.

Perhaps a realization of this is at the bottom of St. Thomas' method of treating the virtues and thevices together, never dallying very long at any one vice; but rather giving us, side by side with thatvice, the perfect respite had by examining a virtue. Here, coming to the end of this first treatise onjustice itself and its opposite vice, he throws open the door to let in a gust of fresh air and toreveal to us the wide, inspiring country which comes under the sovereignty of justice.

Their number and name

You will probably have noticed, in our earlier treatment of justice, the three outstandingcharacteristics of that virtue: its regard for others, its note of equality and its note of debt. All themembers of the family of justice bear prominently stamped on their very nature one absolutelyuniversal family trait: all of these lesser virtues that come under justice deal with another. They arein some sense social, rather than personal, virtues. A glance at these virtues introduces us to thesources of the harmony, unity, smoothness and efficiency, the joy that has entered human lifethrough man's existence in society. All these lesser parts of justice will fall short of that absolutelyessential social virtue itself. Some will lack the note of equality; others that of debt. But all haveessentially the happy end of bringing man to a fuller life by giving him an integral part in a socialbody.

We shall see them all in detail, one by one. For the present we must be satisfied merely to namethem. These potential parts of justice are: religion, piety, observance, truth, gratitude, vindication,friendship and liberality.

Two mistakes on petty injustice: Too small to matter

By way of summary of this chapter, we might point out that there are two mistakes to be noticedin this matter of petty injustice: one of under-estimation and the other of over-estimation. Tothose with a good grasp of the serious and important things of life, with a scale of valuesaccurately balanced, the pettiness of this injustice is quite clear: but its very clarity may movethem to dismiss these things as trifling, as they concentrate on the bigger, more important things.In this same vein, a man might shrink in horror from beating his wife, but have no qualmswhatever of being niggardly with her; while as far as the stability of marriage and the peace of thehome is concerned, this niggardliness may do more damage than an annual beating. These thingsare small; but precisely because they are so small, they can accumulate almost unnoticed untilthey are an overwhelming force, until they have undermined the structure of society. Then we areastonished at thc catastrophe and, belatedly, search for a cause, a big cause, a cause asmomentous as the damage that has been done. It will be a very human thing if we pick the wrongcause, or finding nothing proportionate, if we create a cause to satisfy our minds, while we go onblithely indulging ht the petty injustice that is behind it all.

Too big for anything else to matter

The other mistake, not uncommon in our day, is made by those who have lost or inverted theirscale of values. There are men and women today to whom lying, cheating, petty thievery,backbiting, mockery and so on are so revolting as to be unthinkable as a personal vice. Yet thesesame people are not seriously perturbed by such things as abortion, euthanasia, suicide. Theystrain at the gnat, while the camel slides down as easily as a sip of wine.

The conditions of life with others -- strength and largeness of soul
Life of friendship with God and men

Both these mistakes are socially, as well as individually fatal. The absolute condition for our lifewith others is one of justice. There is no place in social life for either violence or pettiness.Certainly life with others seems to demand a strength and largeness of soul. There are no stingysaints; for life with God demands surrender, not concessions. In human friendship no selfishfriends are true friends: selfishness knows only one loyalty. In domestic life, there is no marriagefor long on a basis of self-defense, whether that defense be thrown up before a career, a"developing personality", freedom or such trifles as convenience, taste, relaxation or shape. Andin society there is no social life for long without regard for others, without justice. For generosity,for surrender, for unselfishness, for justice it is demanded that we have the strength and largenessof soul to get out of ourselves, to give ourselves, to forget our point of view in seeing the worldthrough the eyes of others, even through the eyes of God. We must not only see with the eyes ofothers, we must work for their good as well as for our own.

Domestic life

In the last chapter we saw the basic attack on man's rights in the great injustices, in the socialinsanity directed at the rights of man's person, his life, his integrity, his dignity, his freedom,against his property. In this chapter we have been examining the small, nagging attacks in thehome of society; the kind of attack that completely usurps peace and harmony and eventuallydestroys society as nagging eventually destroys the home. This petty injustice is the injustice of ashrew of society. While it is effective in exploding peace, harmony and cooperation, it is yet sosmall as hardly to merit our notice let alone our determined opposition. Its pettiness, in otherwords, is one of its greatest dangers.

Full essence of anarchy

Consequently this petty injustice plays almost as important a part as violent injustice in bringingabout the destruction of society, in accomplishing anarchy, in depriving man of his social head.These petty injustices are the contributions of the small souls, the sneak-thieves of society; violentinjustices are the contributions of the pirates of society. Both work for the same end: thedestruction of the social structure by denying in act and in word the rights of man, refusing himhis fundamental rights on the one solid ground on which he can lay claim to them, on the groundof his humanity. Both work to the same end of self destruction, destroying their own rights bydenying their own obligations which are at the root of those rights. Both work for an isolation, asolitary confinement of man they commit social suicide, but, unfortunately, social suicide is not acrime that can be committed alone. Those who destroy society pull it down upon their own heads,but it also comes down on the heads of all the thousands of innocent men and women who havebeen big enough and brave enough to make the adventure of life in society.

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A Companion to the Summa - Vol. III

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