Prima Secundae
228. Acting Outside the Words of the Law and Changing Human Law (ST I-II q.96 a.6; q.97 aa.1-2)
Class of 2015-06-25
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/228-acting-outside-the-words-of-the-law-and-changing-human-law/

[0:00] Goes forward thus, it seems that is not lawful, right, or allowed to the one who's subject to the law that he act outside the words of law. That's what the thing about the Supreme Court today.

[0:20] For Augustine says in the book on the true religion, in temporary laws, right, or temporal laws, although men judge about those things when they what institute them. Nevertheless, when they are instituted and firm, it is not lawful to what judge about them, or to judge according to them.

[0:53] Well, my friend now speaking about John Quincy Adams there when they were admitting missouri into the what yeah it's going on balance the Senate, right? Because then the slave states could have. And the question was, could the federal government prohibit slavery in Missouri, right? And although he was opposed to slavery, right, he didn't think that according to the Constitution they could prohibit it.

[1:29] So they had a real problem there, and then they decided to divide Maine from Massachusetts, and that evened up the states again. And then they had this, you know, line there. Yeah, yeah. Which would say states up here could get slavery, but ones above could not have slavery at all, right? Even though they owned slaves or sold slaves. Yeah, yeah, that's a good. I guess Washington D.

[2:01] C. was was a mess in those early days. It was just a muddy place, you know, and the rats and the pigs were moving around. And there was all these shacks of the slaves, you know, there. It hasn't changed much. No, no. You got rats and pigs, and the slaves are in the city. Yeah. And

[2:25] this this Arthur I was reading, he was he was quoting, you know, the French ambassador. He might say, you know, what did I do to be confined to this city, you know, acting up in this city? It is really a lousy place. And the HBO made a film of about John Adams. I think it was HBO. There was a mini-series that was available. It was very, very well done, very well acted, very modern, out in some not so good ways.

[2:58] But they showed Washington as it was being built. And just the total mess that it was. Oh, it was terrible. and uh four blacks that were sort of sliding away, building parts of it. No comfortable things for people coming down. You know, elected representative of the people. You know, they didn't have much to go by.

[3:19] Okay. Step the second objection, right? Moreover, it pertains to him alone, right, to interpret the laws. To whom it belongs to what constitute the laws, right? But men subject to the law, it doesn't belong to them to what constitute the laws, right? Therefore, it doesn't belong to them to interpret the intention of the legislature, but always they ought to act according to the words of the law.

[4:18] Moreover, everyone who is wise knows how to explain his meaning in words, but those who what establish the laws are regarded as being what? Oh yeah. For it says, for by wisdom in Proverbs eight, through me kings rule, and the givers of laws discern just things. Aristotle gives the example,

[4:51] you know, the silly laws, you know, that the Greeks had sometimes as a sign, you know, the force of custom, you know, but these irrational laws persist, you know, despite reason. And it's kind of a sign he gives there the force of custom. You know, you have to watch out for force of custom. Therefore, it's what. Not to be judged. Yeah, the intention of the lawgiver, except through the words of the law, right?

[5:26] So where the hell do they find the abortion right there in the constitution? You know, it wasn't wasn't there. From the emanations from the penumbra.

[5:37] Yes, very much so much. Yeah, spirit of Vatican two. Against this is what Hilary says in the fourth book about the what Trinity, huh? The understanding of things said right from what causes right should be what. Suppose or assumed to be both under Yeah,

[6:12] because things are not to be subject to what speech, but to the thing the speech ought to be subject to. Thomas often quotes that when he's talking about the Trinity, huh? So there's a question there where thomas was saying, you know, should you say that the son is always being born from the father, or the son is always born of the father? Well, of course, one objection says, you know, isn't the the present tense right?

[6:43] Isn't that most appropriate to eternity, right? So then you want to say that son is always being born of the father, right? But Thomas says when you're talking about something coming to be, right, if you do that in the present, it's not yet complete, and so if you want to symbolize the perfection of God, right? Yeah, you should you should use the past, right? Yeah, and so you could it'd be better to say that the son is always born of the father, right?

[7:15] But not that the son is always being born, because he's not quite born, right? It's not there yet Yeah, being delivered. He's always being generated, right? And there's to be something imperfect there, right?

[7:30] So you know, Christ says, "Before Abraham was, I am." You know, that was more appropriate for him to use the present, right? He says that's the most appropriate to eternity, but sometimes you have to use another case because the defect of our language, right, it's adapted to talking about things like we're you're being born, you know, it's you're not quite there, not quite out.

[8:00] I answer it should be said that has been said above. Every law is ordered to the common what safety of men, right? And to that extent, it obtains both the force and the what definition of law, right? According as it falls short of this, right, it does not have the notion of what binding. Binding Okay, Whence jurisperitus, whoever he is,

[8:37] Justinian. Okay, so it's probably Antonius here, right? Huh? Justinian. Okay, that no what law or equity does what benevolence suffer. That those things which are what safely right or healthfully or usefully for the usefulness of men are reduced, that they do not what by a more more durior or more stubborn interpretation against the common what usefulness commodium would lead to what severity right. That's kind of what the Supreme Court's trying to say today, right?

[9:33] That you know, it's a make things not work. You know, if we don't uphold this, machine, right? yeah, yeah. I guess the IRS, I guess, pays those things out those those things, and they did on their own. You know, it's not in the law.

[9:57] It happens many times. that something. what. that to observe something for the common, what salvation is useful, ut in pluribus, right? Which nevertheless, in some cases, is more what? Yeah.

[10:12] When Aristotle is talking about the way of the see ethics, and he always speaks of it in one place as roughly right. And Thomas says that is applying universal and simple things to singular and complex things.

[10:26] Okay. Because therefore the lawgiver cannot what look upon all singular cases, he proposes a law according to those things which happen in pluribus, huh? Keeping its intention, right? Keeping its intention, common usefulness. Whence, if there come forward, if there emerge cases in which the observation of such a law is harmful to the common what salvation, it should not be what observed.

[11:05] So there are times when you should drive on the left side of the street. Yeah, when the right side is called, yeah, or there are electric wires there or something, right? And now you have to, now you have to go around that, right? It would be harmful to go through the electric wire. The store.

[11:25] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just as in a what city is being what besieged, there is statute of law that the goats that the gates of the city should remain closed, right? Because this is useful to common salvation, ut in pluribus, right? But if it happens in case that the enemy, right, huh, pursues some civilians through whom the city is conserved, it would be harmful to the city unless the what?

[12:07] Yeah. And therefore, in such a case, the doors should be opened against the words of the what law that there might be observed the common usefulness which the legislature in fact intends. Yeah.

[12:24] But nevertheless, this should be considered that if the observation of the law according to the words does not have a sudden danger to which it is necessary at once to what act does not pertain to just anyone to interpret what should be useful to the city and what useless, right? But this only pertains to the what princes who, in account of cases of this sort, have authority for dispensing in the laws, huh?

[13:08] So. Shakespeare does that one of the plays, right? huh? Of course, my friend, my friend, he had read about six or eight plays of Shakespeare by the age of ten. John Quincy Adams, right? Oh yeah.

[13:30] Oh yeah. Because his father insisted his sons learn Greek, you know, the best language there is. He says. You're so well read, you know, even in world's literature, you know, that he could get along very well as a diplomat. He's very fluent in languages too. One of the few men, Americans at the time, who could speak French, Dutch, German, Russian. He went with his father when his father was an ambassador.

[14:03] Yeah, he went to France. Son, yeah. And then went to Russia as secretary to the ambassador to Russia. So, I guess when he and his wife, you know, came to Germany, now he spoke fluent French and German, so on. Kind of shut right away to the, can we expect these Americans not to be able to speak the languages? Which, as they say, is true even of our ambassadors nowadays.

[14:27] They don't know the the language of the country they're going to. So. Okay. So I guess I guess when when Jefferson was given this opportunity to buy the

[14:48] Napoleon, right? Yeah, yeah. And then he he got kind of, when he had the authority to do so, right? And then John Quincy stepped in, justified it,

[15:04] but it's partly by you know the old trick, you know, saying that it's that it's. It's a treaty, you know, which is under the authority of the president. You need

[15:17] a lot of things that you didn't know, you know, but you realize how ignorant you are. Your own countries, you know, they don't they don't, Chris. School, they don't learn much of these things at all.

[15:37] I guess after after the second thing of Monroe, the second thing, Monroe announced he's not going to try for a third term right now. So everybody in his in his cabinet is trying to be an ex-president, right? So they're all, you know, fighting among themselves and so on. And I guess the Secretary of Defense there, he had some of his cronies there in the army, right? Now Monroe had cut back on the, you know, the pay of the army, so he was very indignant that some of his cronies were not being kept, right?

[16:14] So he came to the White House, you know, and he yelled at the president, and he took up his cane like he was going to whack him one, and so Monroe picked up the things in the fireplace, you know, and ordered a servant help. That's the last time the guy appeared in the White House, you know, the rest of the thing. But he realized, you know, all these little stories, you know, that tell you what things are like in those days, huh?

[16:39] See, when he became, when he was elected president himself, John Quincy, and he's the sixth president, and that would be in twenty four, I guess, eighteen twenty four. Nobody could ever get enough electoral votes on those days to be president, right? So I guess according to the Constitution, goes into the House of Representatives, right? Well, anyway, Jackson, of course, at that time was running for a thing and so on, and he had the most popular votes, but he didn't have the majority, right?

[17:16] Well, then Clay was running too. He's hoping that he'd be appointed Secretary of State, right? Because that was a stepping stone to the presidency in those days, and so he switched his votes anyway to John Quincy, right? Well,

[17:34] then everybody was yelling, you know, this is a deal, you know, that Quincy had done this, which he hadn't done, you know, to with Clay, right? When Clay was made Secretary of State, right? So he was hamstrung his whole thing. He couldn't accomplish anything because Jackson and the people had the majorities in the House or Senate, and they, you know, they stopped everything.

[18:00] He had been, you know, for six years in the Senate, you know, and then later on he was in the House after he retired from the presidency, yeah, yeah, so he was in the Senate for six years, and then he was president for four years, and then he was, you know, for a long number of years there, He died in the House, you know, you know, for a number of long years.

[18:27] Okay, but if there be a sudden danger, right? Huh? One undergoing such a what? Not, not, not allowing. except delay against the Yeah. Yeah. Have recourse to the spirit. Yeah. Then the necessity, what, has it dispensed annexation? Because necessity is not subject to the law. This is the thing, the thing about about Andrew Jackson, right? He was our general there, you know, in Florida, right? And the it still belonged to Spain, right?

[19:06] But the Indians there and runaway slaves were coming over into Georgia, you know, stealing and killing people and running back again and doing violent things. So he went in there and cleaned up the place, right? And question was was he doing was this law for or not, right? No, it's his self defense. And

[19:28] then he finally kind of forced the Spain to cede, you know, Florida to them. They were afraid of the Napoleon of the woods, meaning Jackson, right? So Jackson gets to be popular, right? So he to be president.

[19:54] Okay. This necessity has. an extra dispensation right? Because necessity is not subject to the law. There goes the necessity again, right? Yeah. Okay. Now, to the first objection. To the first, therefore, it should be said that the one who, in the case of necessity, acts apart from the words of the law, does not judge of the law itself, right? But he judges about a singular case which he sees that the words of law ought not to be what observed.

[20:43] To the second, it should be said that the one who follows the intention of the lawgiver does not interpret the law simply, but in a case in which it is manifest, and through evidence of what harm that legislator intended something other, right?

[21:02] If, however, it be doubtful, he ought either to act according to the words of law or consult the spiritus. To the third, it should be said that the wisdom of no man is so great that he can what think out all the singular cases, right? And therefore he is not able sufficiently through his own words to express those things which are suitable to the end intended. And if the legislator were able to consider all cases, it would not be necessary that what

[21:44] all. Yeah. But the law ought to be what carried according to those things which happen. There a guy is Thomas's name. isn't he. So you're reading Thomas carefully, frequently, and with reverence. No, Cajetan says about Thomas there. He so reverenced the what fathers of the church that he seemed to have inherited the mind of what all of them, right? So Thomas then, you know, did the other things too, huh?

[22:31] He read carefully, frequently, and with reverence the church fathers, and therefore you might say he's rewarded by inheriting the mind of all that, right?

[22:43] You see that in Aristotle when he reads the early Greeks too, huh? Even though he's quite superior to them, you know, with logic and everything, right? He's the father of logic. He has this great reverence, respect for the early men, huh? They call it some kinds of golden age of Greek philosophy, you know, the age from Thales to, Aristotle. See,

[23:12] it's kind of fun to read David Hume, you know, he talks about Aristotle, you know. His reputation's all kind of, you know, it's all evaporated, you know.

[23:24] Yeah, yeah. Hume's always coming out these things, you know. You get to involve this life of Johnson, you know, because you hear things about Hume, and they're talking about death, you know. And it doesn't bother you, Mister Hume, you know that you're not going to be anymore after you die. Well, no more than it bothers me that I was not born. All kinds of things, you know.

[23:58] Johnson has no has no sympathy with these absurd statements, you know, that Hume has. I guess Hume is a pretty long history, though. I think that, huh? That's kind of a poor relation to send to the level of history, huh? When I go and read this history of John Quincy, I just kind of relaxes me, you know. You go from this tough stuff; it's universal stuff. You realize the singular is kind of proportioned to because of your senses and so on, but you realize history is not.

[24:44] That thoughtful thing. The best description of history, you know, is one damn thing after another. That's what I think Rousseau said. It was just it's a bag of tricks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whoever writes it, it's a bag of tricks. I think it's just one damn thing after another. It's amazing. I mean, I mean. I worry about my little grandchildren. You know,

[25:15] remember my uncle Allen? I said, I'm not, you know, too worried about myself. I said, don't worry about my children. You know what? What the future's going to hold for them? You know.

[25:26] It's a good thing. There's a little old lady in South Dakota. Her name was Marie Schwartz. She was kind of crazy, kind of like a bag lady. Yeah, yeah. She's coming to church and she's praying. She's really thick. She's really crazy. And one day I was praying in church and she came up and she says, "You know what? " I said, "What, Marie? " She says, "God is still in charge.

[25:50] " Thank you for reminding. Thanks for reminding, Marie. I appreciate it. Okay. Now, on the mutation of laws. Then we ought to consider about the change of laws.

[26:19] And about this, four things are asked. First, whether human law is changeable. Second, whether it should always be changed when something better occurs. The new and improved.

[26:41] Third, whether it is abolished by what custom, Custom. And whether custom obtains the power of law right now. Remember, remember one time this guy was being interviewed. You know, a physician, at Assumption in political science, right? Huh. And so, and they talk, and you kind of see them. So, they're talking about they're talking to students about the policy. What is the policy? You know, with the state troopers, right?

[27:13] In other words, there is a speed limit, right? Let's say the speed limit is 60, let's say, out there. Will they stop if you go sixty-five, or do they wait till you're going seventy? What is the policy? You know, is it customary, right? You know, to you know observe a certain you know going beyond the speed limit. You know, if you go beyond this one, you're you're bound to stir them into activity, right?

[27:42] Huh. But. Yeah. Yeah. You speak inter- Yeah. These big international conferences, uh, by the UN, on women, on children. They're all attempts to establish a body of custom, which will be transformed into international law. Yeah. Ideally, according to the alleged promulgators, binding on all you know all the nations, and as far as whether such insidious kind of things.

[28:18] Yeah. I worked out for those guys. Yeah. This is a big, They're trying to get a woman picture on the ten dollar bill now. You know. This is VFA, right? Well, the question is who's going to be, you know, because all kinds of ridiculous stuff. Cher. Put Cher. Someone, someone suggested that this guy would turn himself into a woman. You know, kind of. You know, and he tried to do so.

[28:41] No, put him on the 3 dollar bill. Put him on the 3 dollar. Yeah. Someone else is proposing a 25 dollar bill. you know, because 4 25s would make 100, right? And we need a 25 dollar bill.

[28:57] Hate to see Alexander Hamilton get knocked off the ten dollar bill. He's a handsome guy, you know. You know Lincoln is kind of ugly, you know, and. All the other guys are kind of ugly, and some of the bills are, you know. But you hear that famous remark of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, where Douglas says you are two-faced, you know, and Lincoln turned the eyes and says, "Now I ask the audience, if I had another face, would I wear this one?"

[29:28] Preferably ugly, you know. Put Ronald Reagan on it Yeah. And about this, four things are asked. Okay, what can we ask them? You know, up to three and not four. Whether the use of the human law should be changed through the disposition of the what rulers? Whatever that means exactly.

[30:05] Okay. To the first, then one goes forward thus. It seems that human law in no way ought to be changed. That's kind of a strange argument, huh? So these are the theorists out there

[30:19] For human law is derived from the what natural law, right? As has been said above. It's the day for knocking things over. I went to church to pray a little bit. Frank came in here, you know. I sit this thing down next to my pew. For some reason, I I didn't sit down properly because far, and this thing is heavy, you know. And bang, you know, because the two guys in there praying, you know.

[30:43] I said, "What kind of a person is coming to the chapel now?" You know. Setting a bomb off, a terrorist in church. Yeah. Yeah. Went to mass this morning, and and the these kinds of alarms, you know, for some reason they were they were set off, you know, with the with the light, and it's a bright light, you know, it's flashy, so they can stop that before they start mass, you know, because it was just you know it's kind of blinding you, you know, just just they need to stop it before.

[31:13] Anyway. Okay, for human laws derived from the natural law, as has been said above, but the natural law remains what immobile. Therefore, human law ought to what remain what. Yeah.

[31:36] Moreover, as the philosopher says in the fifth book of the ethics, a measure ought most of all to be what permanent. So my example is you shouldn't use a rubber binder as your measure, right? It keeps on changing, right? If you stretch it, you know, it's not. So you need something that's a wooden or a metal.

[32:00] But the human law is the measure of human acts. Therefore, it ought to remain what. Yeah. Yeah. What's the name of that thing in Paris? There, the. Oh the meter Yeah, yeah, it's kept there very sacred, yeah. Just the whole country's going, the whole world's going to be discombobulated if that if that loses its permanence, right?

[32:27] Moreover, it's of the notion of law that it be just and right, but that which is once right is always right. Therefore, that which is once a law ought always to be the law. Are you all convinced by this? The author of that objection has to be German.

[32:52] Yeah, Warren Murray tells me about traveling in Germany. There, you know, and the landlady lays down the laws. You know, when you when you come there, you know, this this this this this this this you know, it's really the difference between renting a room there in Germany and renting a room in Paris or someplace.

[33:16] A law, a temporal law, although it is just, right? Augustine says in the book on free judgment, should be what is able to be changed, right? Two times, Juste, right, justly, right. Augustine doesn't buy into these three objections, but that's three against one anyway. Just the authority of Augustine, right? But because you're a great reverence for Augustine, you you better think twice, or thrice. Okay.

[33:51] When the Pope said, "Whoever disagrees with Thomas is always suspect." I answer: It should be said, as has been said above, that human law is a certain what dictate of reason, right? That related to the word dictator is that related to the word dictator? By which human acts are directed, right? And according to this, there is a what twofold cause that human law be justly what changed.

[34:32] One on the side of reason itself, and the other on the side of what men, whose acts are what ruled by law. Now, on the side of reason, because what

[34:51] reason that it proceeds gradually, step by step, from the imperfect to arrive at the what perfect, huh? Paulatim as said, Roland Thomas Once we see in the looking sciences, huh? That those who first philosophied, right, treated some things imperfect, which afterwards, through those who came afterwards, were what more perfected, huh? So also it is in things to be done. For the first who intended to find something useful to the what community of men, not being able to consider all things from themselves, by themselves, or by themselves, they instituted some things that were imperfect, failing in many what ways.

[35:50] Which afterwards they what changed, instituting some things which only in small smaller cases, fewer things, affect or fail short of the common usefulness. huh So that's one way, huh? Said a reason, right, huh? Because reason takes time, right, to see what's correct, huh? And it says things that are imperfect at first, right?

[36:24] True, the father laying down the law in the house. Say, Rosie, you didn't hang up the keys. You violated house rule Say we have a law. We have a law that you come in the house, you put the keys in a little key box there, so that you go. Always be safe Yeah, sometimes I forget too, Chris. But kind of joke about that.

[36:57] But surprisingly, many people can't find the keys, huh? The older you get the more common it is Yeah. Now, in the part of men, huh, whose acts are ruled by law, right, huh? Law can rightly be changed in account of the changing condition of human conditions, huh, the conditions of men, by which, according to the diverse conditions, diverse things are what. Expedient, yeah. Just as Augustine lays down the example in the first book on free what judgment, where that quote came, and they said Contra came from the same work, that the people or populace is well moderated and grave, huh?

[37:49] Uh, diligent what? Well, the most diligent guardian, I guess you'd say. Of the common utility. Rightly, a law is laid down by which, for such a people, it is listed to create for itself a what? Yeah, through which the republic administered. But now, if paulatim, the same people becomes what depraved, huh? Having a what? How do they translate that Become so corrupt as to sell their votes and entrust the government to scoundrels and criminals.

[38:33] Perfect. Yeah. They talk now about like this phrase is low information voters, and there's a hell of a lot of low information voters, right, around, you know, and they shouldn't really have the vote, right? Now, I was reading this this thing about the life of John Quincy Adams. You know, the some states still had this property requirement, right, huh? You had to have property to a certain amount to be able to what vote, huh?

[39:05] But then, in the Western states who were admitted, you know, beyond the original, they were letting people in—anybody, any male, right? Full suffrage, you know, without any property, right? They wouldn't put up with this aristocratic thing. Of course, John Quincy—he was back in the time we grew up, grew up where there was, you know, property thing, and wasn't until the 1820s, at least, you know, that they started to, you know, in Connecticut, things like that, do away with those laws, right?

[39:38] But they're getting in more rough electors, huh? But now you got the what they call today, though I call today, I heard this phrase of the low information voters. Yeah, anything you can get breath on the mirror is Yeah yeah. One of the friends of my brother-in-law there, you know, was helping out in a governorship race in the state of Massachusetts many years ago now. I remember telling him he's all going all over the state.

[40:05] You know, he says, he says, it's amazing the ignorance, you know, of the people, you know, and and when they support a candidate who's, you know, who actually stands for the opposite of what they want, they don't even realize it, you know, and they just so obviously even going around the state, you know, that people just don't know what's what's what, you know, they don't even know what what what in accordance with what they want, they don't know what's what's right for the you know the state, huh?

[40:31] You realize how ignorant people are, so. They kind of confused about something, but they're not even sure what it is. Yeah. Because the swing voters, those who are uninformed, don't decide until the very day of the election. Are so key these days. Yeah. The way they're portrayed in the media is kind of humorous. They're portrayed as almost Solomonic, you know, sort of on the one hand or on the other.

[40:53] Who should I vote for? The election's so tomorrow, I've decided. But the way they're portrayed is they're very wise and prudent, but of course they're portrayed that way by the New York Times and others that are trying to push them in that direction. Now,

[41:16] right, the one takes away from such a people, I guess, the power of giving honors, and what return judgment to the what? Few. Yeah. Judgment of the few good, yeah. That's what John Quincy Adams thought, you know, and he was not going to, you know, go out and campaign for the presidency, huh?

[41:48] Okay, now what about these wonderful objections? To the first, therefore, it should be said that the natural law is a partaking of the eternal law, and therefore it remains what. Yeah.

[42:05] And it has its immobility and perfection of the what divine reason instituting what nature yeah. But human reason is changeable and imperfect, and therefore his law or its law is changeable.

[42:28] And moreover, the natural law contains certain universal precepts which always remain. huh? But the law laid down by men contains precepts that are particular, according to what diverse cases that emerge.

[42:53] When can kids buy liquor? You know. Yeah. Some states have some states at eighteen, some at twenty-one. You know. I think in this state they're trying to bring the age for a girl to get an abortion down to sixteen now and so on. It's just.

[43:14] They're very defective in the law sometimes. Very defective Often so complex that our legislatures don't have the time or inclination to read them all because they have thousands of pages of documentation. I remember.

[43:34] Yeah. Remember Cardinal Wright came back, you know, to in establishing Rome, you know, came back and gave some talk. Just the way he spoke about abortion, what it's going to do to this country, you know, and I just did. Tis the devil's all evil's going to do. It was kind of dramatic the way he said it.

[43:59] I heard somebody say commenting about the Pope's encyclical. Oh, it's really long, and nobody's going to have time to read that. Bishop out in Wisconsin said, "It's not as long as the Affordable Care Act."

[44:24] Okay. Yeah, our senator Markey is his name. Yeah. Our senators. He commented on the Pope's encyclical. Oh, I'm glad to see that the Pope thinks that science and technology are the answer to our prayers.

[44:43] The Pope says exactly the opposite. Remember, he's part of the greatest, the world's greatest, deliberative body. That's right. To second should be said that a measure ought to be what permanent quantum est possibile possibile, right, as much as is possible. But in changeable things, it cannot be altogether what permanent, unchangeable. And therefore, the human law cannot be entirely right. To the third, should be said: what is right in bodily things is said absolutely, and therefore always, as far as as of itself, remains right.

[45:29] But the rectitude or rightness of the law is said in order to the common utility, to which is not always what suitable one and the same thing right. This has been said above, and therefore such a rectitude is what changed.

[45:50] Okay time for the article Sure The second one proceeds thus: It seems that always human law, when something better occurs, should be what changed.

[46:06] Well, human laws are found through human reason, just as the other arts. But in other arts, it changed that which was before held. If something better occurs, so we always find something better in medicine, right? Therefore, the same also ought to be done in what human laws.

[46:31] Moreover, from those things which are what past, we can provide about future things. But unless human laws were changed, when better things come along, found many inconveniences would follow. In that the ancient laws found many what are found to contain many rudities, rude things,

[47:01] right? And what about the law of the prohibition there, right? Yeah. So no one observed it really. One thing, right, and then it got all the gangs going, you know. They became

[47:17] my politician friend back home. So that's why Roosevelt appointed to the old Kennedy, right, To check over these things. because. It takes a thief to catch a thief.

[47:32] But if you couldn't change the law, right? Yeah. Well, it was. I know Dr. Warren Carroll he says historically speaking, that led to great contempt for law. Yeah, yeah. Because not only was nobody observing, but then just after a few years they changed it. Mm-hmm. You got this absolute prohibition, and then what we changed a few years later. What does law mean to anybody anyway? Anyway. Yeah.

[47:53] Absurd. Yeah. Just a bag of tricks Knock at the door. Come in. Get a drink. Yeah. Remember Eliot Ness, who was yeah helping to support the prohibition laws. Yeah. He was not a proponent of all that. And when prohibition was ended, one of his friends said, "Well, Eliot, what are you going to do now that prohibition is ended?" He said, "I think I'm going to go out and get a beer."

[48:32] It seems the laws ought to be changed whenever something better occurs. Moreover, human laws are established about singular acts of men. But in singular things, perfect knowledge can be obtained except through experience, right? Which requires time, right? As is said in the Second ethics. That's why the Senate is named from senex, right? From being old, right? Men who have a lot of experience. Therefore, it seems that through succession of times, something better occurs to be established.

[49:17] But against this is what is said in the decrees: Ridiculum est et satis abominabile, right? That the traditions which we've taken down from our what forefathers that we allow them to be infringed. huh?

[49:37] Sounds pretty strong, huh? Yeah, tell that to the gay marriage people. I mean, it's, so absurd, you know. But I mean, but some people, you know, when they speak against this, they speak about all these years that we've taken for granted, you know. We've been ignorant all these years, you know. That that's old enough, you know, to be applied to this what's said here, right? There's a distinction between law and customs and moral traditions.

[50:16] Burke wrote about this. Chesterton talked about, I guess, traditions, the democracy of the dead, is the way he described it. And one reason why it has value, according to these men, is because it's withstood the test of time. Yeah, yeah. Unlike a lot of the new fangled ideas. Yeah.

[50:41] I answer it should be said that it has been said above. Human law, to that extent, is rightly changed, right? In so far as through its changed, it provides for the common what usefulness, huh?

[51:00] But the what change itself of the law, right? As regards in itself, has some detriment of the common salvation. And what's the reason for that? Because for the observance of the law, much important is what custom, consuetudo.

[51:23] In so far as those things which come about against common custom, right? Even if they are more what light of themselves, they seem more what grave.

[51:37] Whence, when the law is changed, the power of restricting of the law is diminished, huh? In so far as custom is what taken away, huh?

[51:54] And therefore, never ought one to change, but human law, except because in some respect, right? So much is what one recompensed for the common salvation, as one is what. From that part,

[52:22] which happens from this that either some very great and evident utility comes about from the new thing being laid down, right? Or from this that there is the greatest necessity for the that the law that is a custom either contains what some manifest iniquity, or its observation is to much extent harmful. I suppose the law of drinking, right? Whence it is said by juris perito that in new things constituted there ought to be what.

[53:00] Evident usefulness Yeah, that one recede from that law which long was seen to be what just or right. To the first, therefore, it should be said that those things which are of art have efficacy from reason alone, and therefore wherever some better reason occurs, it should be changed. What was held before, right?

[53:33] So you got a better medicine or something, right? To make it change it right away. But laws have their power most of all from what? Yeah, grace, custom, as the philosopher says, in the second book of the Politics, and therefore they should not be what easily changed. You know, when people start changing a lot of things, you know, everything can be changed, right? They get very. to Vatican 2, you know?

[54:04] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's what. what priests taught us philosophy years ago? Father Alma Bennett was uh, he was an advisor to one or more bishops sometimes and they consult them on things. He told the story after the council, something happened. the bishop came to him and says, "are they going to throw out causality now too? " He says, they can't change that, can they?

[54:34] The spirit of Vatican II, you know, was thought to be changed. You know, for the sake of change, yeah. Can't can't do things the way they always been done. Obama told us when he was running for the presidency, it's time for change.

[54:53] Yeah. I saw Jindal's announcement to, he's running, you know? I think He's a Catholic, yes. He became Catholic, I guess. He did. yeah. Who? Bobby Jindal. Oh right, yes, he's a convert, yeah. Yeah.

[55:15] But you- you- you mentioned one page in the speech to protect the unborn, you know. He's very strong for life. as far as I know. Yeah. Pray there's any chance, but Probably not. Yeah, but... He was incredibly effective working with bureaucracies, even bureaucracies staffed by people quite, uh, against his views. Yeah. This is just a very fine administrator, and brilliant. I guess, I guess he shrunk the government down there, you know, and increased the private sector and so on, and Louisiana's much better off.

[55:42] He took over after Katrina or right after. After Right. After. So he had a lot of work to do. Yeah. He had a very nice address, you know, in his his announcement there. Okay. Laws have their greatest power from what? Have their great greatest power from custom, as the philosopher says.

[56:20] The second should be said that that argument concludes that laws should be changed, but not nevertheless for just any amelioration, right? But for magna utilitate vel necessitate, and similar, it should be said to the third argument. huh?

[56:40] So time for another article or not? We'll stop there. Stop there. Okay.