The title of this paper is very significant. It deals with an attempt to show the
connection between the concepts of «nature», «human nature», and «natural law».
In fact, the latter concept is no more than the result of the two terms which constitute
it: nature and law.
The existence of an intimate relation between nature and natural law is undeniable.
In the first place, natural law takes its name from «nature»: the «natural
justice» of Aristotle, the «naturalis ratio» of Cicero, the «natura rerum. of the
Roman Jurisconsuls, the «naturalis inclinatio» or the «instinctu naturae» of Ulpian,
the «natura ut natura» of Saint Albert the Great, the «natural tendencies» of
Saint Thomas, the «quod est se et natura sua» or «quod est ex se et natura rerum»
of all the authors of the Spanish School of Natural Law, or the more recent «naturalis
conceptio et naturalis inclinatio» of Pizzorni. And, in another sense, although
also in connection with the term «nature»: the natural law -too natural- of
Grotius, Puffendorf and Thomasius, or the «natur der Sache» to be found in the
doctrine of our days.
In -human nature», the properties of natural law are founded : it is one in space
(or universal) and one in time (or immutable), because human nature in all men
and in all times is one and immutable in its essential traits. And in «nature»,
natural law has its foundation: in -human nature» and in the -nature of things»,
from the Roman-Medieval -natura rerum» until the modern -Iog ical-ontological
objectivities». And also in human nature and its «tendencies» must we find the
content of natural law.
The problem of nature is the problem of being and the meaning of reality (its
essence, its substance, its being). Philosophy in its entirety is an answer to the
problem of -What are things?»; that is, -What is it that constitutes the nature of
things?»; the answer for the nature of things is the starting point of philosophizing.
Metaphysics, Theodicy, Anthropology, Cosmology, Ethics, etc ... , are yet another series
of answers to the problem of being as being, God as being, the world, mano
Juridical Philosophy, which is related to Moral Philosophy, and both of these with
Metaphysics, is the supreme rational «knowledge» of the finalities of the juridical
being, of law, of -that which is properly juridical •.
Natural law is part of the Philosophy of Law, a speculative-practical philosophical
knowledge about the very essence of law and of juridical institutions. Now,
natural law derives from human nature, in the same sense that human nature is,
in its constitutive elements, substantiality, animality, rational, being at once
spiritual, free and social. From these essential constitutive elements of the human
person, according to Boethius' definition, there derives -according to the
text in the Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas (11-11, q. 94, a. 2), which the author
of this paper comments extensively- a triple order of -natural» tendencies which
are translated into principies and precepts of social human operation which constitute
the objective «natural law», and which are, in an ensemble of moral faculties,
the «subjective natural laws».
Thus, from the connection between «nature», «human nature», and «natural
law», the following logical consequences derive: 1) Natural law is the ordaining
of human Iife which commands or prohibits that which do es not exceed the natural
forces. 2) Natural law has to be congruent with human nature and with the
nature of things. 3) Every being possesses some essential and permanent qualities and others which are variable (in man, in nature, and in history respectively).
And in law there exist fundamental permanent principies which are applied to
variable cases.
At the same time, from this connection between «nature», "human nature»,
and "natural law» -considering natural law in the context of norms- nature or
.that which is natural» applied to law supposes: 1) A law which is neither arti·
ficial, animal, nor supernatural acquired by revelation, but rather a «rational»
knowledge. 2) That we encounter it in our own nature as an engraved vis insita,
«in conformity» with that nature as it really is in its constitutive elements and in
its social existence.
With all logical rigor we understand that one may well call this law «natural»
and know what the term «natural» as applied to law means. According to this,
natural law beco mes the whole of conditions, principies, and precepts which, derived
from the natural tendencies of man, organize and direct social (familial, economical,
political and juridical) life according to the exigencies of rational and
social human nature.
And within the juridical norms, natural law occupies a preeminent place, and
has a basic function. From this we deduce that if the juridical positive norms have
to regulate human life, they will have to be congruent with natural law, or at
least they must not contradict it, because by so doing they would destroy their
own foundation and binding power, their own fundamentation and justification.