 Though he never openly confronts them, Aquinas sets aside the sayings at the end of Aristotle’s Ethics which seem to mean that the polis has the responsibility and role of coercively leading all its citizens, of every age, towards all-round virtue. Aquinas plainly rejects the idea that the state is a surrogate for paternal authority, or has God’s authority over morally significant conduct. Though he frequently states that the political rulers have a proper concern to lead people to virtue, these statements turn out to refer to the appropriate aspirations of rulers, not to their coercive jurisdiction or authority. In the context of the surrounding argument, the statements do not commit him to any wider governmental or legal authority than to require and foster the public good and the virtue of justice, that is, the willingness to perform one’s duties to others: 6.1(iii) above. The other virtues can be legally required of citizens only so far as they impact on justice: ST I-II q. 96 a. 3. Moreover, he holds the classic position that doing justice does not require that one’s motivations and character be just. And when it comes to coercive measures, he holds that they can bear only upon conduct that is external and immediately or mediately affects other people unjustly or disturbs the peace of the political community: ST I-II q. 98 a. 1. Really private vices are outside the coercive jurisdiction of the state’s government and law. Though political authority is ultimately derived from divine authority, it is not to be exercised in the same all-encompassing way as God does when directing one (like every other human individual) to the complete and heavenly fulfillment gratuitously and supernaturally offered to us all by God. Absolute political authority of the kind later claimed by rulers such as James I of England is contrary to Aquinas’ constant teaching.