dle Ages. They
require careful explanation in order that their meaning be accurately
understood.[4] Cajetan's gloss on this section of the _Summa_ enables
us to understand its significance in a broad sense, but fuller
information must be derived from a study of other parts of the _Summa_
itself. 'Note,' says Cajetan, 'that the words that community of goods
in respect of use arises from the law of nature may be understood
in two ways, one positively, the other negatively. And if they are
understood in their positive sense they mean that the law of nature
dictates that all things are common to all men; if in their negative
sense, that the law of nature did not establish private ownership of
possessions. And in either sense the proposition is true if correctly
understood. In the first place, if they are taken in their positive
sense, a man who is in a position of extreme necessity may take
whatever he can find to succour himself or another in the same
condition, nor is he bound in such a case to restitution, because by
natural law he has but made use of his own. And in the negative sense
they are equally true, because the law of nature did not institute
one thing the property of one person, and another thing of another
person.' The principle of community of user flows logically from the
very nature of property itself as defined by Aquinas, who taught that
the supreme justification of private property was that it was the
most advantageous method of securing for the community the benefits of
material riches. While the owner of property has therefore an absolute
right to the goods he possesses, he must at the same time remember
that this right is established primarily on his power to benefit
his neighbour by his proper use of it. The best evidence of the
correctness of this statement is the fact that the scholastics
admitted that, if the owner of property was withholding it from the
community, or from any member of the community who had a real need of
it, he could be forced to apply it to its proper end. If the community
could pay for it, it was bound to do so; but if the necessitous person
could not pay for it, he was none the less entitled to take it.
The former of these cases was illustrated by the principle of the
_dominium eminens_ of the State; and the latter by the principle that
the giving of alms to a person in real need was a duty not of charity,
but of justice.[5] We shall see in a moment that the most usual
applic