Chapter I — On the things which, first of all, a Director of souls ought to know

I. Question I. Ought the physician of souls to know, first of all, the wounds of human nature? The answer is affirmative. Human nature is here taken for free will — namely, for the intellect and the will, not excluding the imagination, the sensitive appetite, and the other affections which man employs for the exercise of his operations. It is taken also for the body itself, from whose diverse temperament and varying disposition, and from the difference of age and of sex, both the affections of the mind and its diverse motions flow.

II. First of all, then, it is necessary that the curator of souls be thoroughly versed in the powers, the infirmities, the wounds, the depraved inclinations of the nature just described. This is evident in the physician, who, in order to apply the fitting remedies for the healing of the sick man, labors seriously to explore his strength, his temperament, and the gravity of his disease.

III. Question II. What was the first sin of Adam? Answer: The first sin of Adam was pride, whence the rest of his crimes proceeded as from a root, as is found in Ecclesiasticus x: The beginning of the pride of man is to fall away from God: because his heart is departed from him that made him: for pride is the beginning of all sin. St. Thomas proves, in the II-II, q. 163, art. 1, that the first sin of Adam could not have been anything but pride: The first inordinateness of the human appetite could not have been from this, that he desired some sensible good, toward which the concupiscence of the flesh tends beyond the order of reason. It remains, therefore, that the first inordinateness of the human appetite was from this, that he inordinately desired some spiritual good... Whence it is manifest that the first sin of the first man was pride. The object of this pride was a certain likeness to God, the rule which God had prescribed being despised; or it was the appetite of his own excellence, subjection to God being cast off. For he sinned at that time by an excessive complacency and indulgence toward his wife Eve, and by disobedience to the divine command, and by an inordinate appetite for eating the fruit, most beautiful to the sight and sweet to the taste.

IV. Question III. Does the sin of Adam pertain in some manner to his posterity? Answer: It is of faith that all men sinned in Adam, and that the first sin was transfused into Adam's posterity — which sin is on that account called original sin. Wherefore Pelagius with his disciples was condemned as guilty of heresy, because he had denied that original sin is contracted by the children of Adam. Into the opposite extreme fell Luther and Calvin, who, confessing original sin against the Pelagians, blurted out that by such sin the free will of man is utterly extinguished in the moral order. This error the Council of Trent transfixed with anathema, Session 6, canon 5. The free will of man, therefore, is not extinguished, but wounded by original sin with many and indeed grave diseases.

V. Question IV. What are the effects of original sin? Answer: The first effect, or penalty, of original sin is the privation of original justice, adorned with which the soul obeyed God and held dominion over all the inferior faculties. This harmony being disturbed and the yoke shaken off, the soul remained besieged by an intestine tumult of appetites.

VI. The second effect, or wound, is the ignorance of the mind: which most grievous wound St. Augustine, in order to explain it, distributes into four parts. And first, our mind is overspread with ignorance of those very things which are necessary for the preservation of life, says the holy Doctor in Book I of On the Merits and Remission of Sins, chapter 38. The second wound of ignorance is dullness and fatuity of mind, which so clings to some from their birth that they are scarcely able to discern what profits them and what harms them. That very great difficulty of acquiring the sciences torments our mind in the third place. How many lie torpid and wallow in the darkness of ignorance, lest they should bear the trouble and tedium of acquiring the sciences! And what of the fact that those very men who excel in acuteness of talent are blind in very many things which regard either the honesty or the turpitude of actions? On every side our mind is overspread with darkness. Hence that multitude and variety of opinions; hence so great a battle of disputations: things which seem true to me seem false to you — although truth alone is the way which leads to life.

VII. The third effect of original sin is the inordinate love of the will, by which it perversely desires its own good. From this perverse love all evils proceed, as St. Augustine expounds at length in Book 22 of The City of God, chapter 22.

VIII. The fourth effect is the disorder in the sensitive part. This is the deep wound left by original sin, which inverts and disturbs the whole order of nature, and penetrates the inmost recesses of the human heart. The order established for nature demands that the inferior obey the superior — the senses and appetites, reason; and reason, God. Reason having been cast down from her throne by the first sin of Adam, the faction of the senses and appetites usurped a tyranny. This sensitive part is divided into the concupiscible and the irascible. These are the two intimate and domestic enemies whose ambushes, molestations, insults, rebellions, deceits, and machinations we are compelled to endure so long as we are pilgrims away from the Lord. We are by no means able to drive them out of the house of our heart; but against their machinations and assaults we must keep watch, do battle, and conquer, if we would obtain the prize. For our life is a perpetual warfare in this wretched valley of tears. This struggle and intestine war all the Saints have experienced, apart from a special privilege. Of these two enemies the concupiscible prevails, and is more hostile to us than the irascible. Innumerable, finally, are the other calamities which follow upon original sin. This must now be seriously weighed: that actual mortal sin slays the soul of the delinquent, and inflicts upon the mind and the will wounds similar to those with which original sin wounded universal nature: for it inflames rebellious concupiscence, weakens the powers of the will, and binds the captivity of liberty with new chains.

IX. First Corollary. Luther, Calvin, and Jansenius would have the freedom of the will utterly extinguished in the moral order. All Catholics confess that it is wounded with most grievous blows, but deny that it is extinguished. All defend that the human will can by its own powers perform some moral work good in its kind, or from its object. But they dispute whether there presses a precept of always referring this work to God as to a supernatural end. Not a few affirm it; the more common opinion, and to me the more probable, denies it. There presses indeed the divine precept declared by the Apostle, of referring all things to the glory of God; but since that precept is an affirmative one, it does not bind always and for always: wherefore when an Infidel bestows an alms, resting in the honesty of the action without twisting it to his own glory, he performs a good work, which of its own nature tends to an honest end. Yet all confess that this rarely happens. This proposition of Baius — All the works of Infidels are sins, and the virtues of the Philosophers are vices — St. Pius V condemned. Some works of Infidels, therefore, are not sins. This disagreement, however, is of light moment. For it is agreed among all that Infidels commonly sin, in that they direct all their works to a depraved end.

X. Second Corollary. The director of souls must have before his eyes this tragic picture of human infirmity, that he may be able to prescribe for the sick man under his care what dangers he must avoid and what remedies he must apply. He recognizes that the man burns with the thirst both of lust and of money: he will therefore interdict to him the familiar conversation of women, the frequenting of dances and comedies, and contracts suspect of usury. The man is enveloped in the darkness of ignorance, and cannot by his own powers vanquish the grave temptations of the demon, the flesh, and the world: he will therefore prescribe to him the reading of the sacred books, and fervent and assiduous prayers, by which he may implore the divine light, that he may see the truth, and the divine helps, by which the will, raised up, may be able to shun evil and accomplish good.¹

¹ See Tome I, Apparatus, Book 1, Dissertation I.