(d) Civil obedience is necessary to human nature.
(e) God commands whatever is necessary to human nature.
(f) God commands obedience to the civil power.
(g) God commissions the civil power to rule.
15. If any one asks how the State and the civil power is of God any
otherwise than the railway company with its power, or even the fever
with its virulence, a moment's reflection will reveal the answer in
the facts, that railway communication, however convenient, is not an
essential feature of human life, as the State is: while diseases are
not requirements in order to good, but incidental defects and evils of
nature, permitted by God. Why God leaves man to cope with such evils,
is not the question here.
_Readings_.--Ar., _Pol_., I., ii.; III., i.; III., ix.: nn. 5-15.
SECTION IV.--_Of the Variety of Polities_.
1. _One polity alone is against the natural law; that is every polity
which proves itself unworkable and inefficient: for the rest, various
States exhibit various polities workable and lawful, partly from the
circumstances, partly from the choice, of the citizens: but the sum
total of civil power is a constant quantity, the same for all States_.
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