Whether violence causes the involuntary?

Four causes of the involuntary are commonly assigned: violence, fear, concupiscence and ignorance. But note, once for all, that when it is said that violence, or fear, or concupiscence, or ignorance cause the involuntary, the sense is not that violence, fear, concupiscence, or ignorance physically influence the act of will, upon its very involuntariness so to speak, but that they move physically or morally toward an act which simply or relatively is contrary to the inclination of the will; whence that involuntariness is caused by love of some opposite good. Thus, e.g., while one is moved by fear of shipwreck to cast goods overboard, that casting is involuntary in a certain respect [secundum quid], because it repugns to the affection which the one casting has for preserving his goods; whence the involuntary found in that casting is not caused by fear, but by love of his goods.

The proper sense, therefore, of these questions is, that acts from violence, fear, concupiscence and ignorance are involuntary simply or in a certain respect, inasmuch as they suppose in the agent an inclination simply or in a certain respect contrary to the present act toward which they move. I suppose that violence cannot be inflicted upon the will as to elicited acts, well indeed as to commanded acts.

The first part stands, because the violent, which is from an extrinsic principle with the patient resisting, is against the inclination of the patient. But an act elicited by the will is not from an extrinsic principle but intrinsic, namely from the will, nor against the inclination of the patient, since it is nothing else than the very inclination of the will toward its object. Whence St. Anselm rightly said, de Lib. arbit., cap. 6: « No one unwilling can will anything, because he cannot will, unwilling to will. »

Plain also is the second part, because the members, or exterior powers, can be moved by force from without or impeded against the command of the will ¹, as if, e.g., the will wished to see, one could forcibly close the eyes, and if it wished not to see, one could force open the eyes: and so of the rest. Therefore. ¹ Here q. 6, a. 4, c.

Of these commanded acts the question is whether violence causes the involuntary in them. Wherefore

I say: Violence causes the involuntary simply, or the act done under violence is involuntary simply.

Understand the conclusion of absolute violence, which one cannot overcome with all legitimate effort employed, not of violence in a certain respect, which one could conquer if he resisted as much as he morally can.

It is proved of the conclusion. The voluntary is from an intrinsic principle and consequently according to inclination; the violent is from an extrinsic principle and against the inclination of the patient; for we defined it « that which is from an extrinsic principle with the patient resisting ». Therefore what is violent is not voluntary.

From these authors commonly gather that a woman oppressed by violence from a man, resisting him both within and without as much as she morally can, sins nowise; because this violence destroys altogether the voluntary, without which there is no sin.

But if you ask what and how much the woman ought to do, that she be held to resist as much as she morally can, and thus suffer absolute violence simply so called,

I answer. First that she cannot kill the oppressor; because, as we say de Jure et Just., dissert. X, a. 6, § 2, chastity is a good of lower order than the life of man. She can however resist with cries, blows, slaps, wounding of the oppressor, yet not lethally, and the like; and to these she is bound, short nevertheless of danger to her own life and reputation; because, if such danger be present, and elsewhere there be absent danger of interior consent to lust, she is not bound to resist externally at so great loss of higher goods; because external resistance is an affirmative precept which does not bind always, and at so great cost. I said, « provided danger of consent to interior lust be absent »; which since it rarely is absent, rarely also is she bound to employ these at peril of life or reputation.

[Too absolutely does our Author deny that, in the case proposed, it is licit for the woman even to kill the oppressor.

Theologians commonly hold it licit to kill an unjust invader of goods of fortune, « if they be of great moment, and cannot otherwise be defended or recovered than by the death of the despoiler, » as Sylvius says, in IIam IIae, q. 64, a. 7.

And the same many cited by St. Alphonsus hold, lib. IV, n. 383; and this card. Gousset holds at least as more probable, n. 617, and Gury, n. 397. But chastity, and especially virginity, considered in itself, far surpasses goods of fortune. Therefore much more is it licit to kill the aggressor, if no other way be at hand for preserving chastity. So say the authors just named.

Moreover everyone is bound to turn away proximate danger of mortal sin. But in the case the woman is placed in proximate danger of consenting to another's lust, which consent would be mortal sin. Therefore she not only can but is bound to turn away that danger, even by killing of the aggressor.

If you say that everyone is bound to prefer the eternal salvation of his neighbor to his own temporal good, I answer:

1° The aggressor freely and knowingly casts himself into danger of salvation, and cannot require that the woman renounce a good, even temporal, which far surpasses other goods of the same order, to turn away from a criminal such danger as is willed at least in its cause.

2° The woman, if she repel not the force by every possible means, is herself constituted in danger of the same kind, namely of consenting to lust and losing through mortal sin the supernatural life of the soul. But not only is she not bound, she cannot even licitly prefer the salvation of another to her own salvation. Therefore. Whence St. Antoninus says in Summa, part. III, tit. 4, c. 3, § 2: « The woman uses her natural right, whereby she may repel force with force, and she is bound rather to provide for her own salvation than for another's; for she exposes herself to danger of consenting to an act of sin by suffering herself to be oppressed, on account of the difficulty of the pleasure. »

It must therefore be concluded, against our Author, that this violence does not destroy the voluntary altogether; for that cannot be judged altogether involuntary which is not removed by all possible and licit means.]