6. This then being the exact obligation, the same is easily established. We must love our enemies, because the reasons given for loving all mankind (nn. 1, 2) are not vitiated by this or that man having treated us shamefully. The human nature in him still remains good actually, and still more, potentially; and if good and hopeful, to that extent also lovable. Nor is this lovableness a mere separable accident. Rather, it is the offensive behaviour of the man that is the separable accident. At that we may well be disgusted and abominate it. But the underlying substance remains good, not incurably tainted with that vicious accident. We must attend to the substance, which is, rather than to the accident, which _happens_, and may be abolished. Let us endeavour to abolish the accident, still so that we respect and regard the substance. Let us seek for redress under the guidance of prudence according to the circumstances of the case, but not for the ruin of our enemy. Let us not render evil for evil, but even in exacting a just satisfaction, make it of the nature of that compensatory evil, which is by consequence good. Let us _be angry_ with our enemy, but _sin not_ by hating him. (_Ethics_, c. iv., s. iv., n. 3.) We may seek satisfaction for any _wrong_ we have suffered: in grave cases we must have recourse to the State for that: but the _sin_, if any, of our adversary is not our concern to punish or to seek vengeance for. (_Ethics_, c. ix., s. iii., n. 4.) 7. The same reasoning holds good even of _public enemies_, tyrants, persecutors, anarchists, assassins. We must include them in our prayers, wish for their conversion, and, though their case appear hopeless, we must not damn them before their time. If we found one of them dying by accident of cold or asphyxia, we should be bound by a grave obligation to use all ordinary efforts to bring him round and recover him. Still we may use our best efforts to bring them to justice, even to capital punishment, according to the procedure of public law established in the country, and not otherwise. We may also with an _inefficacious_ desire, that is, a desire that finds no vent in action, desire their death under an alternative thus, that either living they may cease to do evil, or that God may call them away to where the wicked cease from troubling. But we must not desire, nor be glad of, their death by any unlawful means, for that were to sympathise with crime. 8. Real charity shows itself in action, succouring a neighbour in need, which is sometimes a counsel, sometimes a duty. It is an axiom, that _charity is not binding with grave inconvenience_. The gravity of the inconvenience in prospect must be measured against the urgency of the need to be relieved. A neighbour is technically said to be in _extreme need_, when he is in imminent peril of deadly evil to soul or body, and is unable to help himself. We are under severe obligation of charity to succour any whom we find in this plight.