to act by some one in whose place they transact affairs with another to the same effect as though they had been handled by the same person himself. Such are ambassadors, vicegerents, plenipotentiaries, and likewise syndics. Among private persons trustees and guardians occupy an equivalent position.
As for the ecclesiastical persons, to the extent to which any one has been brought up in some religion, it will be easy for him to take cognizance of their variety; nor can scholastic persons fail to be recognized by the learned.
2. Among private persons distinctions are drawn from (1) sex, whence are male, female, and hermaphrodite. Although these distinctions are properly physical, they nevertheless belong here because of a certain moral respect, in so far as the sexes are differently treated in civil life. For we both regard most women as beneath the dignity of a man’s wrath, and we treat their insults as of less account than those of men, nor do we set so high a value upon their judgement and testimony, and, as a general thing, we do not admit them to public office, however capable otherwise they may be. And as for the hermaphrodite we turn away from one as from a monstrosity of nature.
(2) Distinctions are drawn also from moral status in time, whence it comes that the treatment of a young man is different from that of an old man, and an old man may do what does not become a young man, and vice versa. So also the authority [autoritas] of an old man is different from that of a young man.
(3) They are drawn also from the moral position in the state. Hence one man is a citizen, another a sojourner, another a resident, another an alien. As these men are bound in different ways to the state, so also they are not rated in the same way in regard to the distribution of advantages and the imposition of burdens.
(4) Distinctions are drawn also from the moral position in the family, whence we have husband, wife, father, children, master, slave, who are as it were ordinary members; to their number the guest is sometimes added, outside the regular order.
(5) Also from lineage, whence we have the nobleman who may be descended from an illustrious or a less illustrious family, or the plebeian. These are differently distinguished in different states.
(6) Also from occupation, that to which each individual devotes his efforts. This is either liberal or illiberal. Here belong merchants, who make their living by the exchange of goods. In this class hucksters bring up the rear. Here likewise belong all those who attend to land, plants, or domestic animals; such as countrymen, vine dressers, market gardeners, herdsmen, &c. <20>
3. Considered collectively persons constitute a society or an association when several persons are so united that both their action and their will are regarded as the action and will of a single individual, and not of several. It is understood that this takes place when individuals coming together into a society so subject their will to the will of a single individual who is the head of that society, or to the whole association, that they are willing to recognize and have regarded as their own will and action whatever the head, or the majority of the society, has decided or done in matters concerning the society.1 Hence it results that, whereas before, whatever several desired or did was regarded as the desires and actions of as many as was the number of physical persons there, now that they have been united in a society, but one will is ascribed to them, and whatever action proceeds from them as such is adjudged to be the action not of many but of one, even though a number of physical individuals have concurred in it. Hence also a society acquires its special rights and goods, which cannot at all be claimed by individuals, as such. Here must be made the further observation, that, just as individual persons remain the same, although in the passage of time the body undergoes marked changes through various additions and losses of particles, so through the particular succession of individuals a society does not change but remains the same, unless at a single time such a change befall that it utterly destroys the true character of the former body or society.2
4. We can divide societies or moral persons, furthermore, like individual persons, into public and private. The former, again, are either sacred and ecclesiastical, or political. Among sacred societies some are general, as the Catholic Church, so likewise particular churches bounded by the definite limits of regions and states, or distinguished by public formulae of confessions. Some are special, as a council, either oecumenical, national, or provincial, a diocesan synod, a consistory, the gathering of a cathedral chapter, or a presbytery.
In the same way a political society is either universal, as a state which is divided into different species, for example monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, according to whether supreme sovereignty is in the hands of an individual, or a council composed of a few citizens, or of all the citizens; or particular, as a senate, a cabinet, a tribe, &c. A scholastic society exhibits the same diversity. A society in military uniform is called an army, and its parts are the legion, the troop, the cohort, the decury, the maniple, &c. Private societies are not merely families, but also what are called guilds of merchants, and of craftsmen, and the like. It would be a long task to enumerate these one by one. Let it suffice us to have touched merely upon the most salient features. <21>
A moral thing is a thing regarded in respect of its pertinence to persons.
1. How manifold is the respect of the pertinence of actions?
2. Eminent domain, and direct ownership both ordinary and for purposes of utilization.
3. Plenary ownership, and limited.
4. What is one’s own, and what is common property.
5. The proper goods of societies.
6. Whether it be possible for a state to exclude outsiders from things of innocent utility.
7. Is the sea subject to claims of proprietorship?
8. The sea which is very close to the coasts is private property.
9. The wide spaces of ocean seem to have been regarded by the nations as derelict.
10. How navigation and commerce upon the ocean are free.
11. Possession is a complement of proprietorship.
12. The origin of ownership over things from the divine law.
