has the potency to become."320 We plume ourselves on the Emancipation Proclamation which flung millions of colored people on their own pathetic resources; nominally we granted them liberty, but practically they have had the problem of acquiring it for themeslves ever since. Medievalism did more for its serfs: not by freeing them with the mouth, but with the truth which makes all men free; not by flinging them aside to whatsoever fate, but in guiding them through the stormy night of transition.

Aquinas admitted inequality. Slavery was but the lower end of the admission. Yet the lowest in his political theory, is not without relation to the highest There is a common fibre of nature in all, which religion accentuates and strengthens. It is to be suspected that the infimi of St Thomas' time were in some respects better circumstanced than our free working-men of today. Certainly when one honestly considers the character of the Middle Age, they were better off. They were in immediate connection with the class which could help them most. Theirs was not the woeful separation which, in modern times, has done so much to retard social progress. The Church, with its constant insistence on the greatest two Commandments, was an incalculably democratic force; and while the surface of medieval society presented more spires and hills than the modern sense approves, popular leaven was steadily at work in the medieval

mass.

Aquinas helps to hasten the passing of the system of slavery with his teaching that it is against the initial decree of nature. He considers it the result of a disorder which sin brought into the world.321 The conclusion is that, accordingly as virtue triumphs and the divine place is repaired, slavery must go. The Fall was tragically real to Aquinas. Minds of a materialistic bias are ready enough to differ from him, and the idea of Adam's

320 Albion W. Small, Pub. of Am. Sociological Society, Vol. XIV, p. 59. 321 Summa Theol., la 2ae, qu. XCIV, a. 5; la, qu. XCVI, a. 4. Aristotle's "natural slave" (phusei doulos) is not of St. Thomas' teaching. As Rahilly well remarks: "The Aristotelian conception of a natural slave is as incompatible with Christianity as the Nietzschian ideal of a super-man." Studies, March, 1920. Art. St. Thomas and Democracy. Vide Sent. II, dist. 44, qu. I, a. 3; Summa, la, qu. XCVI, a. 4; la 2ae, qu. II, a. 4.

So

transgression is widely lampooned as a bit of "theological moonshine." On the other hand, many are repudiating the wholesale demands and extreme conclusions of Evolutionism. modern thought is as ready to consider things from a Thomistic point of view as from any other. The Angelic Doctor is not singular when he traces service to sin. He has more than six thousand years with him in the belief that the outraged Deity's decree, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth, out of which thou wast taken" (Gen. III. 19), is of the most solemn import. His science is all the more solid for being founded on the rock of religion.

He

Slavery is tolerable, to St. Thomas, not in itself, but in the advantages which it brings to its subjects.322 Pufendorf has such an idea, too, when he criticizes the absence of slavery among Christian nations as one of the causes of the great number of thieves, vagabands, and hardy beggars.323 Aquinas is interested in the interests of the servant, as in those of the master.324 quotes from Proverbs: "the fool shall serve the wise" (XI, 29); for it is wisdom in the fool to do so.325 Incidentally, he reveals his belief that a person who stands out from the socially incapable class logically is no slave,326 and that masters have no right to be such, who are not the mental and moral superiors of those beneath them.

The system of slavery, says Thomas, is of human foundation. It is therefore amenable to social conditions, advances in understanding, and growth of sympathy. Human institutions are variable. True, that which is natural to an immutable nature

322 Summa Theol., la 2ae, qu. XCIV, a. 5., et 2a 2ae, qu. LVII, a. III, ad 2: "Utile est hunc quod regatur a sapientiori....."

323 De Jure Naturae et Gentium, Lib. VII, ch. I, 4. Dunning, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 321. Cf. Grotius, De Jure Belli et Pacis (tr), Bk. II, ch. V, par. 27, n. 2: "Now perfect and utter Slavery, is that which obliges a Man to serve his Master all his life long, for diet and other common Necessaries; which indeed, if it be thus understood and confined within the Bounds of Nature, has nothing too hard and severe in it; for that perpetual Obligation to Service is recompensed by the Certainty of being always provided for; which those who let themselves out to daily Labour, are often far from being assured of."

324 Even Aristotle taught the idenity of interest between the master and the slave. Politics, III, 6. St. Thomas seems to go so far as to place the relations of the slave to the master on a par with those of the son to the father. Summa, 2a, 2ae, qu. LVII, a. IV, ad 2. 325 Contra Gentiles, Lib. III, cap. 81, et cap. 78, 3.

326 Com. Polit., Lib. I, lec. 10.

is without change. But human nature is not immutable; and, even that which is natural to man, may sometimes prove an imperfection.327

Looking more deeply into the mind of Aquinas, we find an underlying thought which all but the extreme radicals of today must suspect: the necessity of a service-force in every state. This truth has thrust itself into the modern consciousness as never before, in the industrial stress, with its innumerable strikes, consequent to wartime conditions. The community equally requires brains and bodies. Aquinas is not to be blamed for considering the service of the former nobler than that of the latter. But he was fully alive to the imperativeness and importance of physical labor; and, realizing that the God-man was the foster-son of a carpenter, he must have appreciated the dignity of it too,328

He does not teach that the servant-class is to be so hedged about that no member of it can escape. Each worker is an image of the God to whom all men must tend, and, as such, has potentialities which are not to be repressed. Manual work must be. It is the Lord's mandate; it is the natural need. But if the spark of reason in a humble toiler should grow into greatness, it were unseemly, according to Thomistic principle, that the State should not profit by the erstwhile lowly one's ability, and that he should not be permitted to rise.329 He believes, too, that there can be no true liberty in society, without virtue in its subjects, and that virtue is the occasion of liberty and its warrant. Also, he frowns on class distinctions which are based not on nature but on some artificial standard.330

Aquinas does not consider the slave an active part of the polity.331 For the State is a work of reason; and reason is weak

327 Summa Theol., 2a, 2ae, qu. LVII, a. 2, ad 1. On the merit of the following principle too, the final abolition of slavery is forecast: "Justitia quidem perpetuo est observanda; sed determinatio eorum quae sunt justa, oportet quod varietur secundum diversum hominum statum" -Summa Theol., la 2ae, qu. CIV, a. 3, ad. 1. With the progress of morality in the masters, and of intellectuality in the slaves, the system would pass.

328 Com. Polit., Lib. I, lec. 3. 329 Com. Polit., Lib. I, lec. 4. link "freedom" with "virtue."

330 Com. Polit., Lib. I, lec. 4. 331 De Reg., Lib. I., cap. 14.

It is significant that Aquinas should Com. Polit., Lib. III, cap. 14.

in a slave, else he is not rightly one.

Thomas does not exclude

him from the polity. His incompetence is the bar. He is better served by the reason of others than by his own.332 The Angelic Doctor discerns that the common-good can be secured only by the most intelligent enactments, and that the required intelligence is not found in the lower levels of the State. He could not utterly ignore Aristotle's mention that the very worst form of democracy is "that which gives a share to every citizen -a thing which few cities can bear."333

He was doubtless impressed, too, with the effort of Aristotle to place slavery on a rational basis; for he himself uses the Philosopher's arguments on the inequality of human nature and the utility of service. But he Christianizes them, and thus prepares them to blend into the larger concept of liberty which we claim to-day. He softens the Philosopher's harsh idea that the slave is a living possession (res possessa animata) or instrument for practical purposes, like the statutes of Daedalus or the tripods of Vulcan.334 He will not forget the soul which is in each one and which cannot be transgressed by another 335 If St. Thomas did not regard slaves as persons, in reference to civil rights, it was because he felt that they were better represented in the wisdom of their masters. He accredits their psychological and ethical personality. And he is refreshingly far advanced from the Aristotelian persuasion that they have no rights against their masters, and that, though they ought not be treated cruelly, the wanton lord does not really violate their rights at all. A man may sell his muscles to another, but no more.336 Any measures on the part of masters, contrary to

332 Com. Polit., Lib. I, lec. 3.

333 Pol., VI, 4.

334 Politics, I, 4. Com. Polit., Lib. I, lec. 3; Com. in Epist. ad Titum, cap. III, lec. 2.

335 Summa Theol., 1a. 2ae, qu. CIV. a. 5. Cf. Dubray's remarks on Human Personality, Introductory Philosophy, pp. 509-10. "Some men are not persons with regard to certain rights (e. g., outlaws)."

336 Such sentences in Thomas' doctrine as "quia quidquid servus habebat, et etiam ipsa persona servi, erat quaedam possessio domini" (1a 2ae, qu. CV, a. IV, ad 3), are to be interpreted by his doctrine that souls are ever free and bodies, too, in their natural requirements. (2a 2ae, qu. CIV, a. 5). Slavery, violating these liberties, would lack all justification. Summa, 2a 2ae, qu. CXXII, a. IV, ad 3: "est autem homo alterius servus, non secundum mentem, sed secundum corpus."

this fact, are unjust. And inequalities, to the mind of Aquinas, are not static, so far as individuals are concerned.

He manages to view the subject of slavery democratically. He teaches that, absolutely, there is no natural cause why one should be a slave more than another. The strongest justification he offers for it is the one, which, if observed in this era of freedom, might have prevented the present social upheavals. He finds rationality in the system insofar as, by it, he who needs a guide gets one. The master must take a personal interest in his slave; else he is unworthy of him.3 337 The relation between the former and the latter must be on a truly Christian basis; intimate, cordial, and beneficial,338 The word "slave" has been so be-smirched, rolling down the centuries, that we veer from it; forgetting that intrinsically it is not so formidable after all, and that, on the lips of Aquinas, it is almost as innocuous as our own word "servant" to-day. His is a concession of service and of dependence, rather than of slavery. He will not allow the personality of the slave to be destroyed. He remembers that all men are equal. He recalls the old Hebrew law which required that slaves be treated as human beings.339 He demands that they have their weekly day of rest and devotion.340

He

He does not forget the natural law in which every human being has a share and from which natural rights flow. vindicates all the natural rights of the lowly.341 On this point Rahilly remarks: "We have here a clear doctrine of equal natural rights, which, while it is fruitful in social and political applications, is not based on any impossible or utopian hypotheses. Every man has the same inalienable right to spiritual freedom

337 Cf. Phillips, American Negro Slavery, p. 307: "There was clearly no general prevalence of severity and strain in the régime. There was, furthermore, little of that curse of impersonality and indifference which too commonly prevails in the factories of the present day world where power-driven machinery sets the pace, where the employers have no relations with the employed, outside of work hours, where the proprietors indeed are scattered to the four winds, where the directors confine their attention to finance, and where the one duty of the superintendent is to produce a maxim output at a minimum cost."

338 Com. Polit., Lib. I, lec. 4.

339 Summa Theol., 1a. 2ae, qu. CV, a. 4.

340 Summa Theol., 2a 2ae, qu. CXXII, a. 4, ad. 3.

341 Summa Theol., Supplementum qu. LII, a. 2.