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Objection 1: It would seem that consanguinity is unfittingly
distinguished by degrees and lines. For a line of consanguinity is
described as "the ordered series of persons related by blood, and
descending from a common ancestor in various degrees." Now
consanguinity is nothing else but a series of such persons. Therefore
a line of consanguinity is the same as consanguinity. Now a thing
ought not to be distinguished by itself. Therefore consanguinity is
not fittingly distinguished into lines.
Objection 2: Further, that by which a common thing is divided
should not be placed in the definition of that common thing. Now
descent is placed in the above definition of consanguinity. Therefore
consanguinity cannot be divided into ascending, descending and
collateral lines.
Objection 3: Further, a line is defined as being between two
points. But two points make but one degree. Therefore one line has
but one degree, and for this reason it would seem that consanguinity
should not be divided into lines and degrees.
Objection 4: Further, a degree is defined as "the relation between
distant persons, whereby is known the distance between them." Now
since consanguinity is a kind of propinquity, distance between persons
is opposed to consanguinity rather than a part thereof.
Objection 5: Further, if consanguinity is distinguished and known
by its degrees, those who are in the same degree ought to be equally
related. But this is false since a man's great-uncle and
great-nephew are in the same degree, and yet they are not equally
related according to a Decretal (cap. Porro; cap. Parenteloe,
35, qu. v). Therefore consanguinity is not rightly divided into
degrees.
Objection 6: Further, in ordinary things a different degree results
from the addition of one thing to another, even as every additional
unity makes a different species of number. Yet the addition of one
person to another does not always make a different degree of
consanguinity, since father and uncle are in the same degree of
consanguinity, for they are side by side. Therefore consanguinity is
not rightly divided into degrees.
Objection 7: Further, if two persons be akin to one another there
is always the same measure of kinship between them, since the distance
from one extreme to the other is the same either way. Yet the degrees
of consanguinity are not always the same on either side, since
sometimes one relative is in the third and the other in the fourth
degree. Therefore the measure of consanguinity cannot be sufficiently
known by its degrees.
I answer that, Consanguinity as stated (Article 1) is a certain
propinquity based on the natural communication by the act of procreation
whereby nature is propagated. Wherefore according to the Philosopher
(Ethic. viii, 12) this communication is threefold. one
corresponds to the relationship between cause and effect, and this is
the consanguinity of father to son, wherefore he says that "parents
love their children as being a part of themselves." Another
corresponds to the relation of effect to cause, and this is the
consanguinity of son to father, wherefore he says that "children love
their parents as being themselves something which owes its existence to
them." The third corresponds to the mutual relation between things
that come from the same cause, as brothers, "who are born of the same
parents," as he again says (Ethic. viii, 12). And since the
movement of a point makes a line, and since a father by procreation may
be said to descend to his son, hence it is that corresponding to these
three relationships there are three lines of consanguinity, namely the
"descending" line corresponding to the first relationship, the
"ascending" line corresponding to the second, and the "collateral"
line corresponding to the third. Since however the movement of
propagation does not rest in one term but continues beyond, the result
is that one can point to the father's father and to the son's son,
and so on, and according to the various steps we take we find various
degrees in one line. And seeing that the degrees of a thing are parts
of that thing, there cannot be degrees of propinquity where there is no
propinquity. Consequently identity and too great a distance do away
with degrees of consanguinity; since no man is kin to himself any more
than he is like himself: for which reason there is no degree of
consanguinity where there is but one person, but only when one person
is compared to another.
Nevertheless there are different ways of counting the degrees in
various lines. For the degree of consanguinity in the ascending and
descending line is contracted from the fact that one of the parties
whose consanguinity is in question, is descended from the other.
Wherefore according to the canonical as well as the legal reckoning,
the person who occupies the first place, whether in the ascending or in
the descending line, is distant from a certain one, say Peter, in
the first degree---for instance father and son; while the one who
occupies the second place in either direction is distant in the second
degree, for instance grandfather, grandson and so on. But the
consanguinity that exists between persons who are in collateral lines is
contracted not through one being descended from the other, but through
both being descended from one: wherefore the degrees of consanguinity
in this line must be reckoned in relation to the one principle whence it
arises. Here, however, the canonical and legal reckonings differ:
for the legal reckoning takes into account the descent from the common
stock on both sides, whereas the canonical reckoning takes into account
only one, that namely on which the greater number of degrees are
found. Hence according to the legal reckoning brother and sister, or
two brothers, are related in the second degree, because each is
separated from the common stock by one degree; and in like manner the
children of two brothers are distant from one another in the fourth
degree. But according to the canonical reckoning, two brothers are
related in the first degree, since neither is distant more than one
degree from the common stock: but the children of one brother are
distant in the second degree from the other brother, because they are
at that distance from the common stock. Hence, according to the
canonical reckoning, by whatever degree a person is distant from some
higher degree, by so much and never by less is he distant from each
person descending from that degree, because "the cause of a thing
being so is yet more so." Wherefore although the other descendants
from the common stock be related to some person on account of his being
descended from the common stock, these descendants of the other branch
cannot be more nearly related to him than he is to the common stock.
Sometimes, however, a person is more distantly related to a
descendant from the common stock, than he himself is to the common
stock, because this other person may be more distantly related to the
common stock than he is: and consanguinity must be reckoned according
to the more distant degree.
Reply to Objection 1: This objection is based on a false premise:
for consanguinity is not the series but a mutual relationship existing
between certain persons, the series of whom forms a line of
consanguinity.
Reply to Objection 2: Descent taken in a general sense attaches to
every line of consanguinity, because carnal procreation whence the tie
of consanguinity arises is a kind of descent: but it is a particular
kind of descent, namely from the person whose consanguinity is in
question, that makes the descending line.
Reply to Objection 3: A line may be taken in two ways. Sometimes
it is taken properly for the dimension itself that is the first species
of continuous quantity: and thus a straight line contains actually but
two points which terminate it, but infinite points potentially, any
one of which being actually designated, the line is divided, and
becomes two lines. But sometimes a line designates things which are
arranged in a line, and thus we have line and figure in numbers, in so
far as unity added to unity involves number. Thus every unity added
makes a degree in a particular line: and it is the same with the line
of consanguinity: wherefore one line contains several degrees.
Reply to Objection 4: Even as there cannot be likeness without a
difference, so there is no propinquity without distance. Hence not
every distance is opposed to consanguinity, but such as excludes the
propinquity of blood-relationship.
Reply to Objection 5: Even as whiteness is said to be greater in
two ways, in one way through intensity of the quality itself, in
another way through the quantity of the surface, so consanguinity is
said to be greater or lesser in two ways. First, intensively by
reason of the very nature of consanguinity: secondly, extensively as
it were, and thus the degree of consanguinity is measured by the
persons between whom there is the propagation of a common blood, and in
this way the degrees of consanguinity are distinguished. Wherefore it
happens that of two persons related to one person in the same degree of
consanguinity, one is more akin to him than the other, if we consider
the quantity of consanguinity in the first way: thus a man's father
and brother are related to him in the first degree of consanguinity,
because in neither case does any person come in between; and yet from
the point of view of intensity a man's father is more closely related
to him than his brother, since his brother is related to him only
because he is of the same father. Hence the nearer a person is to the
common ancestor from whom the consanguinity descends, the greater is
his consanguinity although he be not in a nearer degree. In this way a
man's great-uncle is more closely related to him than his
great-nephew, although they are in the same degree.
Reply to Objection 6: Although a man's father and uncle are in the
same degree in respect of the root of consanguinity, since both are
separated by one degree from the grandfather, nevertheless in respect
of the person whose consanguinity is in question, they are not in the
same degree, since the father is in the first degree, whereas the
uncle cannot be nearer than the second degree, wherein the grandfather
stands.
Reply to Objection 7: Two persons are always related in the same
degree to one another, although they are not always distant in the same
number of degrees from the common ancestor, as explained above.
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