s common_. For it is the ordinance
and institution of nature itself, that inferior things should be designed
and directed to serve the necessities of men. Wherefore the division of
goods afterwards introduced into the world doth not derogate from that
precept of natural reason, which Suggests, that the _extreme wants of
mankind may be in any manner removed by the use of temporal possessions_."
PUFFENDORF tells us, that PERESIUS maintains, that, in case of extreme
necessity, a man is compelled to the action, by a force which he cannot
resist; and then, that the owner's consent may be presumed on, because
humanity obliges him to succour those who are in distress. The same writer
cites a passage from St. AMBROSE, one of the FATHERS of the church, which
alleges that (in case of refusing to give to persons in extreme necessity)
it is the person who retains the goods who is guilty of the act of wrong
doing, for St. AMBROSE says; "it is the _bread of the hungry_ which you
detain; it is the _raiment of the naked_ which you lock up."

43. Before I come to the English authorities on the same side, let me
again notice the foul dealing of Blackstone; let me point out another
instance or two of the insincerity of this English court-sycophant, who
was, let it be noted, Solicitor-general to the queen of the "good old
King." You have seen, in paragraph 28, a most flagrant instance of his
perversion of the Scriptures. He garbles the word of God, and prefaces the
garbling by calling it a thing "_certified_ by King Solomon himself;" and
this word _certified_ he makes use of just when he is about to begin the
scandalous falsification of the text which he is referring to. Never was
anything more base. But, the whole extent of the baseness we have not yet
seen; for, BLACKSTONE had read HALE, who had quoted the two verses fairly;
but besides this, he had read PUFFENDORF, who had noticed very fully this
text of Scripture, and who had shown very clearly that it did not at all
make in favour of the doctrine of Blackstone. Blackstone ought to have
given the argument of PUFFENDORF; he ought to have given the whole of his
argument; but particularly he ought to have given this explanation of the
passage in the PROVERBS, which explanation I have inserted in paragraph
27. It was also the height of insincerity in BLACKSTONE, to pretend that
the passage from CICERO had anything at all to do with the matter. He knew
well that it had not; he knew that CICER