rebellious vassal. In the Middle Ages, till the end of the fifteenth
century, the notion of independent nations scarcely found place.

In war, as all cases of self-defence, the killing is indirect. In
capital punishment, on the other hand, the killing is direct: it being
_chosen as a deterrent means_, that the offender be "hanged by the
neck" till he is "dead, dead, dead." This disposes of the error, that
capital punishment is an act of self-defence on the part of the State
against evildoers. We may observe finally that by the right of the
sword, and by that alone, not in self-defence, not in war, but by the
hand of public justice raised against a guilty subject, can human life
ever be taken _directly_.

_Reading_.--St. Thos., 2a 2a, q. 40, art. 1.


SECTION X.--_Of the Scope and Aim of Civil Government_.


1. I beseech the pious reader not to be shocked and scandalised by the
conclusions of this section. He will find them in the end a valuable
support to theology. The most religious mind can have no difficulty in
allowing that cookery, as such, is a business of this world only: that
you retain your cook, not to save your soul, but to prepare palatable
and wholesome nourishment for your body; that honesty, sobriety, and
good temper are officially requisite qualifications, simply inasmuch
as the contrary vices would be the plague of your kitchen and the
spoiling of your dinner. In a Catholic house the soup on a Friday is
made without meat. That restriction is observed, not as a point of
culinary art, but because, whereas eternal salvation is the main end