Summus
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence · Benjamin Vaughan Abbott · 1879
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence
Highest; greatest. The initial or most emphatic word of several Latin maxims.
Summa ratio est quae pro religione facit
An argument which is favorable to religion is of great weight. Where the laws of God and those of man directly and positively conflict, the former are to be obeyed in derogation of the latter. Thus a statute prohibiting the giving of alms to any person, however necessitous, would be void. So, of a law authorizing the commission of murder. Summum jus, summa injuria. The extreme of right becomes extreme wrong. Right pushed to extremes becomes wrong.