ART. I. -- THE FOUNDATION OF MAN'S DUTIES TO HIMSELF.
13. The foundation of man's duties to himself is in the excellence and perfectibility of his nature. -- God has given man a nature of great excellence; therefore man is bound, in order to conform to order, to respect the excellence and dignity of his nature. And since God has made this nature capable of perfection, man is bound to tend to perfection.
14. The supreme principle of all man's duties to himself is, Love thyself with a well regulated love. -- Man should love himself, but with a love that conforms to order. This precept of well-ordered love of self may be expressed thus: Man is bound to preserve and perfect himself in order to his last end.
ART. II. -- MAN'S DUTIES TO HIS SOUL.
15. Man is bound to cultivate his intellect, to apply himself to the study of those truths the knowledge of which is necessary to him for attaining his last end. -- Man is made to know truth; but he cannot attain truth without labor and the cultivation of his intellect; therefore he is bound to this labor and cultivation. There are some truths that every man should know in order to reach his end; there are others more abstract and more difficult, which are necessary under certain conditions. Every man is bound to the acquisition of the former; the latter must be known so far as is required by one's employment or duties. The obligation of cultivating the intellect also imposes the duty of cultivating the sensitive faculties, the concurrence of which is necessary for the development of the intellect itself. From the obligation of man to cultivate his intellect we conclude that it is false to hold with J. J. Rousseau that the progress of the arts and sciences naturally leads to the depravity of man. But it is equally absurd to look to the progress of the arts and sciences for the remedy of all the evils of humanity. Experience and reason show, on the contrary, the fatal consequences of intellectual development without equal moral development.
16. To the duty of cultivating the intellect correspond the rights of being instructed and of teaching. -- Intellectual culture is acquired only by instruction, which is gained chiefly from teaching. Therefore the right of teaching is derived from that of being instructed, and this in turn springs from the duty of cultivating the intellect. But these, like all rights, should be kept within the limits of order. If they pass these limits they degenerate into pretended liberties, such as the so-called liberty of thought, liberty of the press, liberty of examination, liberty of conscience, liberty of worship, etc., which, in the sense intended by several modern philosophers, constitute not a right, but a veritable violation of right, and therefore should be punished by civil magistrates as soon as they manifest themselves in any overt act prejudicial to the good of society.{1}
17. Man is bound so to perfect his will as to render it strong and constant in the practice of duty. -- The will should always act conformably to order, whatever it may cost, because order is absolute and immutable. But it is evident that the will can remain inflexible in the practice of duty only in so far as it is endowed with strength and constancy, in a word, as it is perfected by virtue. And since there are four kinds of moral virtue necessary to the perfection of the will, man should strive to acquire them, so that by prudence he may judge justly what should be done or avoided, and this is an intellectual operation; by justice he may give every one his due; by fortitude he may strengthen the sensitive appetite to overcome difficulties; by temperance he may hold it in check and regulate its tendencies. The pretension of such modern reformers as Fourier (1772-1837) and Saint-Simon (1760-1825), that man may freely follow all his inclinations, is as immoral as it is contrary to reason.
ART. III. -- MAN'S DUTIES TO HIS BODY.
18. Man is bound to watch over the preservation of his body. -- Man cannot fulfil his destiny in this life without his body; therefore he should watch over its preservation. And since health of body is necessary for the development of the soul's faculties and the fulfilment of many of man's duties, it follows that man should have a prudent care of his health, that he should preserve it by conforming to the rules of temperance and sobriety, and restore it when it has been impaired.
19. Suicide is a crime against nature, against society, and against God. -- Every creature naturally shrinks from death. This dread of death is, therefore, a universal instinct. Man consequently violates the laws of nature when he takes his life. At the same time he injures the rights of society, which he deprives of the help afforded by one of its members, and he trespasses on the domain of justice, to which alone the punishment of crime pertains. Lastly, suicide violates the rights of God, who is the sole master of life and has constituted it a means of attaining man's destiny. Therefore the man who destroys his life subverts the designs of God in his regard, and arrogates to himself the supreme dominion of the Master of life.
20. The arguments in favor of suicide are groundless. -- Some philosophers, and among them J. J. Rousseau (1712-1778) and d'Holbach (1723-1789), have attempted to offer an apology for suicide. They say that at times life is such a misfortune that instinct prompts us to make away with it; that society is not injured when he who takes his life is a useless member; that invariably it loses its right over the wretch who is weary of life; and that God Himself provides a remedy against misfortune in the possibility for each man to take his own life. Passing over the absurdities contained in these assertions, we may refute them by saying (1) Life is never a misfortune, since even in the greatest adversities man can always tend to the sovereign good and increase the sum of his merits and their corresponding rewards; (2) Conceding to one unfortunate the right to take his life is conceding a like power to all; and thus all order would be destroyed by the natural law itself.
21. The natural law does not always forbid an action that leads indirectly to death, for in certain cases this is an act of virtue and even of duty.{2} -- The natural law forbids any action that leads indirectly to death, when the action is willed positively as destroying one's life. But when such an action is willed in view of a good superior to life, then one does not so much will to take his life as allow it to be taken, and he does not break the natural law. Moreover, to expose one's self to death is often a duty imposed by justice, or at least an act of heroism inspired by charity, and redounds to the glory of its author.
22. It is in conformity with the natural law to practise mortification in order to repress the passions and facilitate the control of reason over the senses. -- Some philosophers have stigmatized the austerity of life and the mortification of the saints as contrary to the natural law. But this is false, for experience proves that moderate austerities do not injure health; on the contrary, they help greatly to preserve it. Again, even though austerities should shorten life, they would still be commendable, because they enable man to attain a greater moral perfection, and because life is but a means that should be referred to man's last end.
{1} Cf. Russo, De Philosophia Morali Praelectiones, pp. 272, 278.
{2} In these cases man does not dispose of his life against the will of God, who must approve what is nobler. If one cannot fulfil his duty otherwise than at the sacrifice of his life, then duty must be preferred to life but if duty requires one to preserve his life, then is it unlawful for him to lay it down.