thrive better, he believes, when man keeps guard, and himself alone weathers the tempests without, in order that his loved ones may be exempt from doing so and able to develop the more delicate and beautiful phases of civilization. Saint Thomas does not over-estimate man in giving him the prose of Life, nor underestimate woman by allotting her the poetry. Modern existence, with its ruthless exactions, has perhaps turned his prescription back into an ideal; or, again, what was ideal for the Middle Ages, may in these new and cogent circumstances of today, fall foul of the distinction. Still, the Thomistic doctrine has an insistent appeal, which suggests merit. The Saint does not admire the qualifications of the sex the less, because he perceives the fitness of men for the duties of political life the more. He is not really unkind to woman, because he is keen to her psychology, and honest in his opinion. His is a doctrine which should stimulate woman to her best; for it is frank enough to show her her worst, and Christian enough to accredit her dignity and tender powers. That she should not have her place in the State, Aquinas is far from contending; but he is convinced that that place is in the all-important unit of society, the cradle of its hope, and the measure of its success: the home. She gives most to the State, when she gives all to the home.

Is the Doctor's opinion on woman's political position, or lack of it, a mark against his democracy? Hardly. Or, at least, not formally. For his earnest belief is that her best advantages and her truest individuality are developed within the domestic and not the political circle. She is not the less free in being wholly faithful to her peculiar duties. An up-to-date contention, which would antagonize Aquinas, is that woman could not be free under feudalism, patriarchism, nor priestcraft, but only in an era of democracy. Yet Aquinas, when he wrote, was conscious that the sex was not being exactly retaded. Woman's step from servile inferiority to gleaming stardom, perfected in his own day, was decidedly more important than her trip from domesticity into the humdrum world, accomplished in our modern period of cheap schemes and expensive failures. Aquinas' doctrine is an implicit expression of her right to be relieved of the necessity of encountering the coarser aspects of life with which man is nat

urally more able and fitted, and, therefore, ought, to cope. He would keep her hands free from the outside world, that they may be better prepared to serve in the sheltered domain where she is, in her own peculiar right and duty, indisputably superior. He would enshrine her in the homes of the State as his Church has enshrined the Blessed Mother in the hearts of the faithful. He would have her dear and precious to man as the Church to Christ, and man beneficent and tender to her, as Christ to the Church. The Angel of the Schools, he is also the Angel of the Home. He planned more brilliantly for the woman of all times, than the modern woman has succeeded in planning for herself.

Thomistic principle stimulates political measures to ease woman's conditions. Through no fault nor desire of their own, millions of modern women are compelled to toil outside the home. Now the Angelic Doctor teaches that the State should help each of its children to secure a sufficiency of life-necessities. Decent salaries for men, widows' pensions, and all kindred plans to relieve the economic stress and free woman from baneful necessity, would be quite in line with his doctrine and are its implicit suggestion. Only that Aquinas does not depend too much on laws written on paper; he sets more store on those which are lived and loved in hearts. Again, his great specific is Christianity; and his great confidence is in its administrator, with whom Christ promised to be all days, even to the consummation of the world: the Church.

CONCLUSION

Thomistic politics begins with the individual and its scope is commensurate with the natural expansion of his sympathies and needs. Macksey harks back to Thomistic thought when he writes, "society implies fellowship, company, and has always been conceived as signifying a human relation, and not a herding of sheep, a hiving of bees, or a mating of wild animals. The accepted definition of a society is a stable union of a plurality of persons co-operating for a common purpose of benefit to all. The fullness of co-operation involved naturally extends to all the activities of the mind, will, and external faculties, commensurate with the common purpose and the bond of union; this alone presents an adequate, human working together."835 Aquinas finds the individual not as an egotist, nor an altruist, nor a solitary with the "desolate freedom of the wild ass," but as a being together with others of his kind to whom humanhood and society relate and obligate him.

To the native rights of the individual, the Angelic Doctor adds civil rights for some of the people and civil advantages for all. As regards natural rights, his teaching amounts to this: that the state in no wise assists at their birth, cannot legislate them away, must not attempt to do so, and should ever seek to protect them.836 Still, because of the close relation of individual to individual in society, and the consequent and constant danger of misunderstanding, selfishness, and turmoil, a reasonable limitation of the exercise of natural right is necessary and may be the subject of civil enactment.837 Aquinas demands a "full" life for the individual in the State; but not one full of discords, such as a continual and unregulated encounter with other in

835 Cath. Ency., XIV, p. 74: Art. on Society.

836 Cf. John A. Ryan's Distributive Justice, p. 56: "Since a natural right neither proceeds from nor is primarily designed for a civil end, it cannot be annulled, and it may not be ignored, by the State."

837 Cf. Williamson, Art. Democ. and Revolution, Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Jan., 1921, p. 55: "The crux of the discussion today is as to the possibility of restriction of individual liberty leading untimately to liberty all round."

dividuals would mean. Even Fichte, with all his "ego," taught that the individual's liberty should be so limited that others might be free along with him. The individual is enlarged by his social relations. This is the compensation for whatever limitation civil society may be compelled to impose. And the individual, despite Kropotkine, has obviously the better part of the bargain.838

As regards civil rights, e. g. voting or holding office, the Doctor would have the State grant them to those who are intellectually, ethically, and otherwise fitted to exercise them. He saw slaves withheld from such rights because of their mental or moral lack; women, because of their domestic encumbencies. But civil rights are only accidental perfections of the individual; and Aquinas escapes blame because of his consistent claim for essential, i. e. natural, rights for all. He does not stultify the value of civil society like Rousseau; for, even though it places certain circumscriptions on all its members and denies civil rights to some, on the other hand it supports the natural rights of all and affords inestimable opportunity for the development of each with its discipline, peace, aid, economy, and purposiveness.

The power in the State rests in no individual but is primarily an attribute of the whole body, and derivatively the possession of the ruler. Thus the people as the corpus communitatis are highly reputed in Thomistic politics; and in this appraisement, the subject is enriched as an integral part of a powerful whole, while the ruler is seen to be but the official and trusted servant of the body politic, the ultimate power.

The right of revolt, within rational and prudential confines, is championed; in suggestion that power, despite alienation, is ever related to the people, and, if arrogant sovereigns stretch it too far, it may snap back to its source. Power rightly shifts to the side of justice; otherwise it is illegitimate force or tryan

ny

838 Quaestiones Disputatae, De Caritate, qu. I, a. 4, a. 2: "Est quoddam bonum proprium alicujus hominis in quantum est singularis persona; ...est autem quoddam bonum commune quod pertinet ad hunc vel illum in quantum est pars alicujus totius: sicut ad militem in quantum est pars civitatis." Cf. Kropotkine, L'anarchie, sa philosophie son idéal, pp. 58-59.

Right is might. The people are mightiest when most guided by the principles of morality which are founded on man's rational nature and reflect the nature of the God of all power.

The amount of popular morality is but the total of individual morality. St. Thomas did not see society mechanically drifting into the millenium. It must be propelled from within; and, within, there are only individuals. The success of the State therefore, lies with them; and these are no better nor worse than their morals. Whatever beauteous mantles of law, project, or theory the State chooses to fling around herself, she will be, underneath, much the same as before. "Planning a perfect State," declares Dr. E. T. Shanahan, "is not so much like novel-writing that one may manage the characters at will, and make all the future citizens of Altruria automatically good and moral, merely by the literary expedient of arranging all the circumstances to that end beforehand, and by killing off the marplots and undesirables before the last and crowning chapter is reached. .Morality is not transferred to the individual from the external conditions under which he lives. It does not exist ready made in any surroundings.............Custom and circumstances may indeed modify morality for good or ill, but it is beyond their power to create it. Character is something we have to work for in any institution, not a magically bestowed gift. And until the social optimist of the day can show that custom and circumstance may create morality, as well as modify it, he has not advanced a single step in the direction of proving his Utopian thesis."839 Aquinas would approve this modern expression of his own conviction.

The external form of government is not nearly so important as the spirit within. Every polity, to be just, must grant civil rights to all who qualify for them. The greater the number of able and active citizens, the less powerful personally the presiding officials need be, and the nearer would be the approach to popular rule.840 Accordingly as the members of civil society

839 Art., The Unconsidered Remainder, Catholic World, Feb., 1914, p. 585.

840 Cf. Hooker, Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Bk. VI, ch. 18: "Authority is a constraining power; which power were needless, if we were all such as we should be, willing to do the things we ought to do without constraint."