in its infancy. No wonder that the mediaeval jurists occasionally
formulated maxims, which can only be squared with the principles of
Natural Law by an exceeding amount of interpretation,--which are in
fact much better dropped, quoted though they sometimes be by moralists
of repute. One such maxim is this, that _a wrong-doer becomes the
subject of the injured party by reason of the offence_. Admit this,
and you can hardly keep clear of Locke's doctrine of the origin of
civil power, (s. ii., _per totum_, p. 307; cf. Suarez, _De Caritate_,
d. xiii., s. iv., nn. 5, 6).

4. We have only to repeat about war what we said of self-defence, that
all the killing that takes place in it is _incidental_, or _indirect_.
The cannon that you see in Woolwich Arsenal, the powder and torpedoes,
have for their end what St. Thomas (_De Potentia_, q. 7, art. 2, ad
10) declares to be the end and object of the soldier, "to upset the
foe," to put him _hors de combat_. This is accomplished in such rough
and ready fashion, as the business admits of; by means attended with
incidental results of extremest horror. But no sooner has the bayonet
thrust or the bullet laid the soldier low, and converted him into a
non-combatant, than the ambulance men are forward to see that he shall
not die. If indeed even in the dust he continues to be aggressive,
like the wounded Arabs at Tel-el-Kebir, he must be quieted and
repressed a second time. Probably he will not escape with life from a
second repression: still, speaking with philosophic precision, we must
say that "to quiet, not to kill him," is, or should be, the precise
and formal object of the will of his slayer in war. St. Thomas indeed
(2a 2a, q. 64, art. 7, in corp.) seems to allow the soldier fighting
against the enemy to mean to kill his man. But by _enemy_ in this
passage we should probably understand _rebel_. The soldier spoken of
is the instrument of the feudal lord bringing back to duty his