treatise on law · aquinas

The questions on law from Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica define law as an ordinance of reason for the common good and distinguish eternal, natural, human and divine law. The treatise founded the natural-law tradition in the West: human law binds only so far as it derives from the natural law, and an unjust law is no law at all.

Thomas Aquinas, Treatise on Law: The Complete Text, translated by Alfred J. Freddoso (St. Augustine's Press, 2009). Read in Junior Spring at Torrey Honors: Questions 90 to 97.