Chapter IV — On the doubting Conscience

I. Conscience is called doubting, not because the dictate or judgment is in itself doubtful — for doubt is a suspension of judgment — but the conscience is called doubting objectively, or terminatively, inasmuch as concerning the doubtful matter itself a man has various practical judgments on either side, which suspend his sentence upon that same matter.

II. Many divide doubt into positive and negative. They call the doubt positive when equal reasons for doubting present themselves on both sides; negative, when no reason for doubting offers itself. This division is chimerical. When no reason for doubting occurs, it is not doubt, but nescience and ignorance, and is so called. For I do not doubt whether the stars be even or odd in number; I simply do not know. Vain likewise is the division of others, by which they say that negative doubt turns upon light reasons, positive doubt upon grave ones. Light reasons induce not a doubt, but a scruple, or a suspicion; and they are to be spurned. No prudent man is moved to doubt by light indications, but despises them.

III. Positive doubt, therefore, which is true doubt, and of which we now dispute, exists when on both sides equal, or nearly equal, weights of reasons present themselves to the intellect. For then the mind, pressed by equal weights, hangs suspended and undecided, and withholds its judgment. Doubt properly so called, therefore, includes a suspension of assent toward both sides, on account of the equality of the reasons.

IV. Question I. Of how many kinds is doubt? Answer. Twofold: of law, and of fact. There is a doubt of law when someone doubts about a law, about a precept, about a vow, or about any obligation whatsoever — for an obligation, in respect of that thing to which it obliges, has the nature of a Law. There is a doubt of fact when it is doubted whether something has been done: for instance, whether you fasted yesterday, whether you heard Mass, whether you recited the Breviary. The same thing can be the matter of a doubt of law and of fact under a diverse aspect. Doubt is further divided into speculative and practical: the former regards the honesty of the action absolutely; the latter, the exercise of the work. You doubt whether it be licit to paint on a feast day, or whether this garment be yours. These are speculative doubts. These persisting, you doubt whether here and now it is licit for you to paint on this feast day, and to retain the garment which you possess. These are practical doubts. You doubt whether you have incurred a censure, or an irregularity. This doubt is speculative. This doubt persisting, you doubt whether it is now licit for you to celebrate. This doubt is practical.

V. Question II. Is it a sin to act with a conscience in doubt about sin? Answer. All affirm that you sin. You doubt whether that contract be licit; and, the doubt remaining, you celebrate the contract: it is certain that in this case you sin. For so long as you do not lay aside the doubt about the justice or injustice of the contract, the intellect remains undecided; and if the will undertakes the work, it is so disposed that it wills to execute it, whether it be, or be not, against the Law of God. For he who acts while doubting exposes himself to the proximate danger of sinning mortally, since the sin is as probable as the absence of sin.

VI. Question III. What is to be said of the distinction which some establish between a doubt of fact and a doubt of law? Answer. Fr. Cardenas, in his Crisis, treatise 1, disputation 6, chapter 6, article 1, teaches that in a question of fact equal weights of witnesses leave the matter undecided, so that the judge cannot pronounce sentence for either side; but he contends that the opposite happens in a question of law. The first part he proves by invincible weight of reasons, and in confirmation adduces many testimonies of both canon and civil law. But these very arguments prove that the same must be said in a question of Law, as I have proved at length in Tome II of the Apparatus, Dissertation I, chapter 6, sole paragraph.