an innocent man may not be done to death for reasons of State, _e.g._,
as a sanitary precaution.

(2) That the State must come to a conclusion about inward dispositions
by presumption from overt acts, arguing serious moral guilt before
proceeding to capital punishment. To this extent the State is remotely
a judge of sin. But it does not punish sin _retributively_ as sin, nor
even _medicinally_. It punishes the violation of its own laws, to
_deter_ future offenders. (_Ethics_, c. ix., s. iii., nn. 4-6, pp.
171-174.)

_Readings_.--St. Thos., 2a 2a, q. 64, art. 2, 3; 2a 2a, q. 108, art.
3.


SECTION IX.--_Of War_.


1. War, a science by itself, has no interest for the philosopher
except as an instance on a grand scale of self-defence. When the
theory of self-defence has been mastered (c. ii. s. ii., p. 208),
little further remains to be said about war. In a State, the
self-defence of citizen against citizen is confined to the moment of
immediate physical aggression. But in a region where the State is
powerless and practically non-existent, self-defence assumes a far
greater amplitude. (S. ii., n, 2, p. 309.) When the Highland chief
lifted the cattle of the Lowland farmer, and the King of Scotland lay
unconcerned and unable to intervene, feasting at Holyrood, or fighting
on the English border, then, if there were a fair hope of recovering
the booty without a disproportionate effusion of blood, the farmer did