[De veritate dicenda aut tacenda]

And thus Augustine is understood in his rule. Indeed, if one alone were to correspond, with others ignorant, and he were to argue against or defame another, the corrected person could have an action against the corrector for defamation, since there are no witnesses by whom the crime can be proven. Here, therefore, it is asked among men: Whether someone uses it as is fitting, when yet it is in the precept according to the doctors in certain cases, so that one who fails to emit it does not doubt that he sins mortally. Therefore, it is to be described, and it is to be considered more authentically. Which Saint Thomas describes thus: "It is the admonition of a brother and the amendment of crimes proceeding from fraternal charity." In which the act is touched upon when it is called "the admonition of a brother," the end when it says "the amendment of crimes," and the principle when it is said "proceeding from fraternal charity," whose end is the brother's amendment from fault. A person is reduced from fault in two ways, according to the philosopher in the first book of the Ethics: One way is through the fear of shame, or hatred of the shameful, as when someone abhors the shamefulness of sin from the confusion consequently following. Another way is through the fear or hatred of some sadness, namely when someone, through the fear of punishment, is illicitly withdrawn from sin. Therefore, sin can be considered in two ways: One way, in so far as it is harmful only to him who sins. Another way, as it tends to the harm of others or of the common good, whose good or justice is perturbed by the sin. Thus, therefore, the correction of the delinquent is twofold. One, in so far as a remedy is applied to him in so far as it is an evil of the sinner, and that is ordered toward the amendment of the brother, and is properly called fraternal correction, as it is an act of charity, because through it we repel the evil of the brother. Another correction applies a remedy to the sin, in so far as it is an evil of others, and in so far as it inflicts harm upon the community or upon others living together. And such is an act of justice, whose task is to conserve the rectitude of justice of one toward another.