CHAPTER X
VARIOUS SPECIES OF LAW
SECTION I
The Natural Law
i. CERTAIN actions are in themselves conformable to right reason, while others are opposed to it. On account of the relation between parent and child, right reason tells us that it becomes a child to show love and reverence toward his parents; on the other hand, hatred and ill-treatment of one's parents are opposed to right reason. Conscience tells us, moreover, that it is our " duty " to love and reverence our parents, that we " ought "to do so, that we are " bound " to do so; thereby making known to us the will and precept of a superior, the will and command of God, the Author of nature, and our Lord and Master. He cannot be indifferent as to whether we follow the dictates of right reason or not; he necessarily, as he is good and holy, wills that right order should be observed by us.
The rules of conduct which right reason manifests to us, and conscience, the voice of God, commands us to follow, constitute the natural law, which is a participation in human reason of the eternal law of God, willing that right order should be observed, forbidding it to be disturbed.
2. The objects, then, of the natural law are all those actions which in themselves are conformable or not conformable to rational human nature. They are actions which are necessarily prescribed, because they are demanded by human nature, or, on the contrary, they are necessarily forbidden, because they are contrary to the demands of human nature. They are good or evil, not merely because they are commanded or forbidden by lawful authority, but because in themselves they are becoming or unbecoming for man to perform because human nature is what it is. This is the ground of the well-known distinction between mala in se and mala quia prohibita.
3. As rational human nature remains substantially the same, and its essential relations do not change, it follows that the
