As I said last night, my task over the next few days is to lead you in discussion of the

contribution that Aquinas makes to the question that we're looking at this week, the person

and the polis. And really, the goal I've set for myself is just to convey to you this week that

there is nothing more natural, you know, for Augustine, then for the person to belong to the polis,

or the person, the human creature, to be part of a political community. That idea itself

is seminal for Aquinas because it does shape his entire discussion, especially in the

suma, on the question of justice. And I, just as a way of introduction, just want to introduce

something to you as an illustration of why for Aquinas there's nothing more natural than for

the person to be part of a political community.

This illustration is drawn principally from the Secunda Secundi question 61.

There Aquinas talks about justice in general,

but in particular why and how it is that there are particular kinds of justice

that we can look at and examine what he calls species of justice,

that if justice is the virtue by which we render the other his due, there are different

kinds of others to whom the due is rendered. And because there are different kinds of others

to whom the do is rendered,

we can distinguish then between different kinds of justice. When Aquinas talks about the three

kinds of parts of the three species of justice, what he's really doing is illustrating

that the human creature the human person finds himself

always within an intricate network of relations in which justice unfolds so if we

can talk about individual the political community the individual is part of the political

community this is what he has in mind when he's talking about the three kinds of

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