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home to us, because the natural law and its exponent^
consdencei tell us that, if God has vouchsafed to us a
supernatural revelation with a series of precepts, we
are bound to accept and obey it. The natural law is
the foundation of all human law inasmuch as it ordains
that man shall live in society, and society for its con-
stitution requires the existence of an authority, which
shtkll possess the moral power necessary to control the
members and direct them to the common good. Hu-
man laws are valid and equitable only in so far as they
correspond wi^, and enforce or supplement the nat-
ural law; the^ are null and void when they conflict with
it. The Umted States system of equity courts, as dis-
tinguished from those engaged in the administration
of the common law, are founded on the principle that,
when the law of the legislator is not in harmony with
the dictates of the natural law, equity (cequitaSf em-
keia) demands that it be set aside or corrected. St.
Tliomas explains the lawfulness of this procedure.
Because human actions, which are the subject of laws,
are individual and innumerable, it is not possible to
establish any law that may not sometimes work out
unjustly. Legislators, however, in passing laws, at-
tend to what commonly happens, though to apply the
conunon rule will sometimes work injustice and defeat
the intention of the law itself. In such cases it is bad
to follow the law; it is ^ood to set aside its letter and
follow the dictates of justice and the common good
(II-II, Q. cxx, a. 1). Logically, chronologically, and
ontolo^cally antecedent to all human society for
which it provides the indispensable basis, the natural
or moral law is neither — as Hobbes, in anticipation of
the modern positivistic school, taught — a product of
social agreement or convention, nor a mere congeries
of the actions, customs, and ways of men, as claimed by
the ethicists who, refusing to acknowledge the First
Cause as a Personality with whom one entertains per-
sonal relations, deprive the law of its obligatory basis.
It is a true law, for through it the Divine Mmd im-
poses on the subject minds of His rational creatures
their obligations and prescribes their duties.
On this subject consult Eh'Hics; Conscience; Good: Dvtt; 8umma Theol.. I-II. <^. xci, xciv; I. Q.. Ixxix, a. 12; Suarss, De Legibta, II, v-xvn; METBRt Inatitutiones Juris NcUuralia, II. The natural law is treated in^ all Catholic text-books of ethics. A good exposition in English will be found in Rickabt, Moral Phiia9ovhy (London, 1888): Hill, Ethxca or Moral Phi- lo9ophy ^Baltimore, 1888). Consult also: Robinson. Elements q/Amertean Jurisprtidence (Boston, 1900); Liixy, Right and Wrong (London. 1880): Ming, The Data of Modern Ethics iSxamined (New York, 1897): Bouquillon, Theologia Moraiis FundameniaUs (Ratisbon ana New York. 1890); Blackstone, Commemiaries, 1, intiod.t sec. i.
James J. Fox.
Law, Roman. — In the following article this subject is briefly treated under the two heads of: I. Principles; II. Histoiy. Of these two divisions, I is subdivided into: A. rersons; B. Things; C. Actions. The sub- divisions of II are: A. Development of the Roman Law (again divided into periods) and B. Subs^uent bifluence.
I. Principles. — ^The characteristic of the earlier Ro- man law was its extreme formalism. From its first secret administration as the law of the privileged classes it expanded until it became the basis of all civilized le^ systems. The Roman law in its matu- rity recognized a definite natural-law theory as the ultimate test of the reasonableness of positive law, and repudiated the concept that justice is the creature of positive law. Cicero (De leg., I, v) tells us "Nos ad justitiam esse natos, neque opinione sed natura con- stitutum esse jus" (i. e. Justice is natural, not the effect of opinion). Justice was conformity with pjer- fect laws, and jurisprudence was the appreciation of things human and divine — the science of the just and the unjust, but always the science of law with its just applTcation to practical cases. Law was natural or positive (man-made); it was natural strictly speak- ing (instinctive) t or it was natutal under the' Roman
concept of the jv^ gentium (law of nations) — natural
in itself or so universally recognized b^ all men that a
presumption arose by reason of universality. The
Romans attributed slavery to the jus gentium because
it was universally practised, and therefore implied the
consent of all men, yet the definition of slavery ex-
pressly states that it is contra naturam, '^ against na-
ture". The precepts of the law were these: to live
honestly; not to in lure another; to give unto each one
his due. Positive law wad the jus civile, or municipal
law, of a particular state.
Gains says that all law pertains to persons, to things, or to actions.
A. Persons. — Man and person were not equivalent terms. A slave was not a person, but a tiling; a per- son was a human being endowed with civil status. In other than human beings personality might exist by a fiction. Status was natural or civil. Natural status existed by reason of natural incidents, such as post- humous or already bom (jam nati), sane and insane, male and female, infancy and majority. Civil status had to do with liberty, citizenship, and family. If one had no civil status whatever, he had no personal- ity and was a mere thing. Men were either free or slaves: if free they were either free bom or freedmen. Slaves were bom such or became slaves either by the law of nations or by civil law. By the law of nations they became slaves by reason of captivity; by civil law, by the status of their parents or in the occasional case where they permitted themselves to be sold in order to participate in the price, if they were over twenty years of age. An ungrateful freedman, again, might become a slave, as mignt one condemned to in- voumtary servitude in punishment for crime. Free- bom, in the later law, were such as were bom of a mother who was free at conception, at birth, or at any time between conception and birth. Freedmen were former slaves who had been emancipated under one of several forms. They owed obseguium — i. e., respect and reverence — to their former masters. The Lex iElia Sentia placed restrictions on emancipation by minors and m fraud of creditors. The Lex Fusia Caninia restricted the right of manumission propor- tionately to the number of slaves owned.
Men were either citizens or foreigners (peregrini), perhaps more accurately ' * denizens ' ' . Assuming that one had civil status, he might be either sui juris (his own master) or alieni juris (subject to another) . The power to which he was subject was termed a potestas: slaves were under the dominical power, and children were under the pairia potestas exercised by a male ascendant; the marital power was termed manus (i. e., "the hand", signifying force).
Slaves were at first insecure in their lives, but later the master's power of life and death was taken away. They were in commerce and might be sold, donated, bequeathed by legacy, alienated by testament, or manumitted. They had nothing of their own, and whatever was acquired through them accrued to the masters. Only very rarely could they bring their masters into legal relations with third persons.
The patemalpower over children (descendants) was a close patriarcnal relationship, dating from remote antiquity and at first extending to life and death. Be- tween paterfamilias and filius familias (father and son), no obligation was legally enforceable (see Pre- judicial action below^). During his lifetime the pater-- /amilias was the owner of accessions made by the filius familias. The later law, however, reco^zed a quasi-partnership of blood and conceded an mchoate ownership in the paternal goods, which was ^iven ex- pression m the system of successions. A child untler power might have the administration of separate goods called his peculium. The paterfamilias did not part with the ownership. The military and quasi-military peculium became a distinct , separate property. Even the slave at his master's sufferance might enjoy a
