Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/661

 L I G L I G 039 away, for his maintenance, with property due to his creditors, may affirm to the judge that he has nothing. (4) A witness asked by the judge whether he has had any conversation with the accused may deny it, meaning that he has not talked with him so as to co operate in the crime. (5) An adulteress, questioned by her husband as to her guilt, may deny it in any of these four ways : that she has not broken the marriage-tie, because it is not voided by adultery ; (b) if she have gone to confession, she may say that she is innocent of the crime, because it has been remitted in confession ; (c) that she has not committed adultery, using the word in its fre quent Biblical sense of &quot;idolatry &quot; ; (d) that she has not committed it so as to be bound to tell him of it (Theol. Mor., iv. 153-162). Promises are no safer than assertions under this code. As usual with Liguori, a broad statement of their binding character is pre fixed to the qualifications which leave nothing but the outer shell remaining. For we are told (a) that &quot;the whole obligation is com monly understood as depending on the intentions of the promisors, and not binding unless that be confirmed with an oath or a formal document, in the absence of which it may be considered a mistake or a jest&quot; ; and (b) that &quot;it is certain that every promise, even an accepted one, does not bind, if after the date of the promise it be comes impossible, or very hurtful, or unlawful, or useless, and generally speaking, when there has been a serious change of circum stances, which, if foreseen, would have prevented the promise ; such a promise is always presumed to have been made under some such tacit condition&quot; (Thcol. Mor., iv. 720). Theft is treated in a very similar fashion. A broad general rule is laid down as to its sinfulness, and this is at once traversed by the following doctrine : &quot; It is certain that a man who is in extreme necessity may purloin other people s goods, enough to relieve him self from such necessity. So the doctors in common say, agree ing with St Thomas.&quot; Extreme necessity is defined as meaning risk of loss of life, or of some limb or other important bodily member, peril of perpetual captivity, or of any serious disease or discredit. And Liguori, contradicting the stricter casuists, in cludes under the same heading the case of a man of rank ashamed to work or to beg, who may then lawfully steal to maintain himself. Then the case is put whether a poor man in extreme need is free to steal before asking. One rigorist lays down that it is a mortal sin to do so, because no man can be held to be in extreme necessity who can get what he wants by asking. But the laxer casuists rule that, though he is bound to ask first, he sins only venially by omitting to do so ; and Liguori solves the difficulty by saying that the robber sins mortally if what he takes is not absolutely necessary to relieve his want, but that, if he does so need it that the owner, if aware of the fact, would be bound by the laws of charity to give it him, then he does not sin even venially by stealing it, because he has in that case an absolute right to take it (Thcol. Mor., iv. 520). Some of these rulings are contrived so as to evade the condemna tion passed by Innocent XI. on the proposition that &quot;it is allowable to steal, not only in extreme necessity, but also in grave necessity.&quot; But a more direct conflict with the papal ruling appears in respect of another censured proposition, that &quot;men and women servants may secretly pilfer from their employers to compensate themselves for their work, which they account as of more value than the wages they receive. &quot; This is explicit enough, but it is at once set aside by the casuists, who allege that the rule holds good only in the case of a servant who has of his free will contracted to accept a low salary, as he thereby bars himself from compensation ; but if he has made the bargain under any sort of constraint, as, for instance, being in great poverty, and thus glad to take any situation, he is at liberty to steal to the amount of what he considers his just additional wages. Some casuists do, indeed, question the servant s right to be judge and assessor in his own cause, but the point is ruled practically in his favour (Theol. Mor., iv. 522, 523, 524). Again, servants may purloin such eatables and drinkables as are not locked up, provided they do so for their own consumption, and not to sell out of doors, and so long as each such theft is singly trifling (Ibid., iv. 54). Even when restitution is enjoined, there is a notable provision in favour of the thief. If he is uncertain who it is he has robbed, he is to make restitution in one or other of certain ways, one of which is that if he be poor he may apply the proceeds of the theft to him self or to his family (Prax. Confess., ii. 44). In addition to these glosses on the decalogue, there is one element of doubtfulness introduced into nearly all questions of theft, which is, as to the &quot;gravity of matter,&quot; constituting the offence mortal or venial according to the degree of this factor, and a comparison of the various places where Liguori employs the term &quot;gravitas materiffi &quot; shows that in all cases where numerical expression can apply he means quantity. Accordingly, he, in common with many other casuists, constructs a sliding tariff of guilt, depending, as a rule, on the amount stolen (Thcol. Mor., iv. 526-528). A few brief citations from other decisions will show that the same principles applied to questions of lying and theft extend to the remaining forms of sin. (1) A man of high position may lawfully kill any one who attempts to slap his face, if there be no other way of warding off the insult (Thcol. Mor.. iv. 38). (2) He who kills A, meaning to kill B, is not bound to make compensation, because the homicide is casual and inadvertent as regards A ; and similarly if a man burns down the house of his friend, meaning to burn that of an enemy (Ibid., iv. 628, 629). (3) Though we are bound to love our enemies, we are not bound to salute them, to speak to them, to visit them if sick, to comfort them in any trouble, to receive them into our house, or to hold any kind of familiar inter course with them (Ibid., v. 3, 28). (4) A servant may help his master, by lifting him on his shoulders, or by providing him with a ladder, to enter a house, even forcibly, for immoral purposes ; for the act is innocent and colourless in itself, nay, even an act of charity or good-will, and the servant is not responsible for the subsequent conduct of his employer (Ibid., iii. 3, 66). For all practical purposes, the probabilisrn which is at the base of all this casuistical method, and which is simply the substitution of an external authority for the dictates of conscience, is now in absolute possession throughout the Latin obedience, having finally conquered the resistance it has encountered at intervals since its first formulation as a working theory. Although it owes its chief development to the Jesuits, yet some of its ablest opponents were members of that company, such as Comitolus, Rebellus, Gisbert, and even two of the generals, Mutio Vitelleschi and Tirso Gonzales; while the Sorbonne and the Dominicans were also engaged in fre quent controversy against its upholders, and in censuring the teaching of several of Liguori s favourite authorities, such as Lessius, Escobar, Tamburini, Bauny, Viva, Busembaum, and Diana. Authorities. Glattini, VHm (H Liguori, Roma, 1815; Life of St Alphonsa Maria dr Liguori, edited by F. W. Faber, 4 vols., London, 1848-49 ; Tluologia, Moralis S. Alphons i de Ligort, 10 rols., Mechlin, 1845; Homo Apostolieus, * vols., Mechlin, 1849; Scavini, Theologia Moralis Unitersa, 4 vols., Paris, 1855; Gury, Compendium Theologix iloralis, 3 vols., Pal-ma, 1852, and Cafiit Con- tcientix, 2 vols, Lyons, 1864; The Provincial Letters of Pascal, edited by John de Soyres, Cambridge, 1880 ; Article &quot; Probabilisme,&quot; in Richard and Giraud. ibliothi(/ue Sacre e, vol. six., 29 vols., Paris, 182-2-27 ; Bcsombes, Moralis Christiana, 2 vols., Toulouse, 1745 (the best of the anti probauilist treatises) ; Meyrick, Moral and Devotional Theology of the Church of Home, according to the Teaching of S. Alfonso de Liguori, London, 1857; Charge of Archdeacon Sinclair. in 1867. (R. F. L.) LIGURIA, in ancient geography, was the name given to a portion of the north-west of Italy, including the districts, on both sides of the Maritime Alps and the Apennines, which border on the Tyrrhenian Sea from the frontiers of Gaul to those of Etruria. Along the sea-coast it extended from the river Varus or Var, which separated it from Gaul, to theMacra (Magra), which formed its limit on the side of Etruria, thus comprising the whole district between the mountains and the sea, now known as the Riviera of Genoa. But besides this it comprehended a broad tract to the north of the same range, formed by the underfalls of the Apennines and the hilly tract adjoining them, extending to the plains of the Padus or Po, that river itself constituting its northern limits under the Roman administration. But at an earlier period the term had a much wider signification, all the tribes on the south slopes of the Alps, in the north-west of Italy, being apparently of Ligurian origin. This we are expressly told by ancient authors in the case of the Taurini, who dwelt around Turin, and of the Lsevi and Libici, who extended from thence to the Ticinus ; arid there can be little doubt that it was true also of the Salassi, who occupied the modern Val d Aosta. But to the west of the Maritime Alps also the Ligurians were undoubtedly widely spread in ancient times, and occupied a considerable extent of what was afterwards included in Gaul. Thus the Salyes, who held all the southern part of Provence from the Var to the Rhone, are distinctly termed a Ligurian tribe, as i well as the minor tribes of the Oxybii and Deciates, near Frejus and Nice. All the early Greek writers speak of the important colony of Massilia as founded in Liguria. Of the origin or affinities of the Ligurians (or Ligyans, nothing. All ancient writers concur in representing them as a distinct people from the Gauls on the one hand, and from the Iberians on the other ; and the attempts of some modern writers to assign them to a Celtic stock rest upon no adequate foundation. In the absence of all remains of their language, all such speculations must be matters j of mere conjecture. They appear in the historical period
 * as they are termed by Greek writers) we know absolutely
 * as a rough and hardy race of mountaineers, cultivating a