§ II. On the Voluntary in Particular

Since in the other species of the voluntary no special difficulty occurs, we shall say only:

7. Preliminary Notes. - The indirect voluntary, or voluntary in cause, as has been said, is not intended in itself, but is discerned as about to follow from another thing directly willed, as an effect from a cause. Nevertheless it is a true object of the will, although indirect; for he who wills the cause also wills the effect following from it, if he foresees this effect. Hence the saying: He who is the cause of the cause is the cause of the thing caused. Thus when someone sins before others, the scandal coming from his sin is imputed to him by reason of indirect voluntary.

But cause is distinguished manifoldly, namely:

1. Physical, or moral. The former is that which produces the effect by acting physically, as fire produces burning, the sun light. The latter is that which effectively moves another free cause to acting. Thus one commanding a homicide is a moral cause of the killing.

2. Immediate, or mediate. The former is that which produces an effect with no other cause intervening, for example if someone pierces the breast of another, he will be the immediate cause of his death. The latter, which does not produce the effect unless another cause is interposed. Hence moral cause is always a mediate cause.

3. Proximate, or remote. That is called proximate which has a necessary or ordinary connection with the effect. But remote is that which, although it is able to produce the effect, nevertheless does not have great force, and does not influence it notably; or it is that from which the effect for the most part does not come.

4. Cause per se, or per accidens. The former is that which by its nature tends and is ordered to producing the effect. Thus excessive drink is a cause per se of drunkenness. But the latter is that which, although it is not ordered by its nature to some effect, nevertheless sometimes, some circumstance intervening, can produce it. Thus homicide can follow from drunkenness. For the most part this last division falls back into the preceding one.

8. Principles. - I. Principle. A threefold condition is required so that an effect can be imputed to the agent, or to the one positing the cause, namely:

1. That the agent has foreseen the effect, at least in confusion. The reason is that an effect in no way foreseen can in no way be voluntary; for nothing is willed unless it has been foreknown. Hence drunkenness is not voluntary, nor to be imputed to him who becomes drunk from a little wine, whose force he did not know. Therefore, as some have contended, it is not sufficient for fault that the evil effect could or ought to have been foreseen; for the supposition must be denied, namely, that the effect can be foreseen if in fact it is not foreseen, at least in confusion; for the first idea of some thing is not in the power of man.

2. That the agent could have not posited the cause, or could have removed it once posited; for otherwise, liberty being lacking, the voluntary necessarily is lacking. Moreover an obligation cannot be given when this cannot be fulfilled. Hence the axiom: No one is held to the impossible. Hence also Augustine, On Free Choice, book III, ch. 18: For who sins in that which can in no way be guarded against?

3. That the agent, lest such an effect follow, is held not to posit the cause, or to remove it once posited. For if there is not given an obligation of avoiding the cause, the effect following from it cannot be imputed, because the agent uses his own right, and holds himself only permissively as regards the effect. Hence inordinate motions are not imputed to a physician or surgeon in the exercise of his art as if voluntary; because these are not bound to omit their art for the purpose of guarding against this effect, but on the contrary have a just reason for exercising it, as will be declared more from the following principle. - St. Thomas, I-II, q. 20, art. 5.

9. • II. Principle. It is lawful to posit a good or indifferent cause from which immediately follows a twofold effect, one good and the other evil, if there is present a proportionately grave cause, and the end of the agent is upright, namely, he does not intend the depraved effect. - St. Thomas, II-II, q. 64, art. 7.

The reason of this principle is that if this were not lawful, the agent would sin either from the intention of the depraved effect, or from the positing of the cause, or from the foreseeing of the evil effect. But none of these can be said.

For 1. this is not illicit by reason of the end, since it is supposed upright; 2. nor by reason of the apposition of the cause, since it is supposed good, or at least indifferent, or even if it is evil, nevertheless it is not evil on account of that effect about to follow; 3. nor from foreseeing the depraved effect, for in the hypothesis this is not intended, but merely permitted; and for permitting it there is present a proportionately grave and just cause.

But four conditions which are enunciated in this principle are altogether required, namely: 1. that the end of the agent be upright; 2. that the cause be good, or at least indifferent; 3. that the good effect be immediate; and 4. that there be present a grave reason for positing the cause, and that the agent not be held from justice, or from office, or from charity to omit it.

Therefore 1. a good end is required, that is, the agent ought not to intend the evil effect, because otherwise the evil effect would be voluntary in itself. For this reason neither ought he in any way to take complacency for himself concerning the depraved effect.

2. A good cause is required, or at least an indifferent one, namely, that the act be opposed to no law ¹. The reason is evident. For if the cause were evil in itself, it would introduce guilt per se.

¹ This statement extends more broadly than is proper. And indeed, he who unjustly kills a man posits a cause, on account of which creditors suffer harm, evil, indeed most evil; nor nevertheless is he therefore held to restitution, unless he intended that harm, according to the common opinion of the Doctors. Therefore the guilt to be considered here is not that which inheres in the cause in itself on account of opposition to any law whatever, but that which arises from the obligation of guarding against that effect.

3. It is required that the good effect follow at least equally immediately from the cause. The reason is that if the cause directly and immediately has a depraved effect, and the good effect comes only by means of that depraved effect, then good is sought from evil: but it is never lawful to perpetrate evil, however slight, for procuring any good whatsoever; for according to the very common axiom drawn from the Apostle, Rom. 3:8: Evil things must never be done that good things may come. Thus it is not lawful for you to lie, even to save the life of a man.

4. It is required that there be present a proportionately grave reason for positing the cause; because natural equity obliges us to avoid evils and to guard against harms to our neighbor, when we can do this without proportionately grave harm ².

² Here, however, one must not weigh only the harm or inconvenience of the agent at that time, but also and much more the common inconvenience of all, if this were generally required.

Now in these cases, the greater the reason required for acting, the more nearly the cause touches the evil effect, the more probable the evil effect is, and the less right one has to the action considered in itself.

10. You Will Resolve. - 1. An evil effect which follows per accidens from a voluntary cause is not imputable unto fault, unless there is present an accidental circumstance from which the effect necessarily to be guarded against is foreseen: for example, to sell weapons per se is no evil; although it is evil to sell them to someone mad. The reason of the former part is that the evil effect, if perhaps it follows, unless it is intended, is not properly voluntary, since it is not contained in the cause through a necessary connection, nor is the cause ordered to an effect of this kind. Therefore the one positing the cause does not effectively influence the effect; and therefore the effect is not imputable. - Reuter, no. 15. - The reason of the other part is that you are held both from charity and from justice to avert harm which you can easily foresee from weapons handed over to a madman.

2. Blasphemies, impurities, quarrels, or injustices which are done in drunkenness are voluntary when they can be foreseen; but they are sufficiently foreseen from a custom of perpetrating such things in this state, and therefore they are voluntary in cause, and imputable unto sin.

3. A commander in war does not sin who, in time of siege, burns fields, etc., to ward off the enemy, although innocent inhabitants suffer per accidens. Likewise if he burns a tower in which, together with enemies, perhaps pilgrims foreign to the war are enclosed; because the cause of this harm is upright in itself; but the harm of the innocent follows merely per accidens, and is not intended, but only permitted.

4. A Priest does not sin who offers Communion to a hidden sinner publicly asking for it; because although sacrilege is a great evil, nevertheless the public harm about to follow from such a denial of the Eucharist is more to be avoided.

5. He does not sin who, needing money and not able to have it elsewhere, seeks a loan from a usurer who is going to exact unjust gain; because the petition for money per se is not the cause of the evil will of exacting unjust usuries, but his own depraved mind is to be imputed to the usurer alone.

6. A girl who, pregnant from a crime, procures an abortion to avoid infamy, sins gravely; the reason is that there is not present a sufficient cause for inflicting harm of this kind upon the offspring ³.

³ You will seek the reason better from the things said at Principle II, no. 3, as may also be seen below at no. 403, in Resolution 1.

7. An advocate is not held to omit a just defense from which the death of an unjust aggressor is about to follow. The reason is that the condemnation which the evildoer ought to undergo does not follow from the just defense of the one attacked, but from the malice of the attacker, which was voluntary and free to him ⁴.

⁴ It hardly appears why a question should be moved about this. For if it is lawful to accuse a guilty man, indeed if it is lawful also to desire from a right end the punishment of the guilty, what doubt can arise concerning the case proposed here?

8. If a cause remotely and lightly influences an evil effect, and from it there also follows some good effect, although it would not preponderate or would not be equivalent to the evil, there is no obligation of removing the cause; because a lesser reason is required for positing a cause that influences evil only lightly and remotely than if it influenced gravely and proximately. Hence you are not held to abstain from an honest and useful conversation on account of carnal motions arising from it. So Billuart, diss. 1, art. 1.

9. But if the cause remotely and lightly influencing is in itself venially evil, or if from it no good effect follows, there will be an obligation of removing it, but slight, and only under venial sin, unless there is question of grave harm to one's neighbor. The reason is that this obligation is to be estimated according to the quantity of the influence of the cause. For since the effect is not voluntary except in the cause, and is contained in the cause lightly and remotely, it is lightly voluntary in it, and therefore lightly imputable unto fault, and for this reason there is a slight obligation of removing the cause on account of that effect. Billuart, ibid.

10. The omission of acts about which a man in no way thinks is not even indirectly voluntary, because those acts entirely escape the advertence of the agent. Nevertheless such an omission can be voluntary and imputable in cause, if forgetfulness or inadvertence comes from preceding negligence ⁵.

⁵ The authors of the Vindiciae Alphonsinae (p. 906) present these things as dissonant from the doctrine of St. Alphonsus (Book 4, no. 143), where he establishes that as many sins are committed as there were foreseen omissions, etc.; concerning which doctrine the discussion will return in the Treatise on Sins. He will be a great Apollo, whoever knows how to divine where in these matters there is disagreement. To indicate these Authors, we shall henceforth use the sign VV.

11. He who knowingly posits the cause of an action or omission contracts malice before God in that instant, although the action or omission in reality does not follow; and therefore he is bound to confess it as willed. See Casus, t. 1, no. 7 and following.

On the same principles concerning the indirect voluntary and voluntary in cause, innumerable other resolutions depend, especially where there is question of scandal and of cooperation both toward another's sin and in harm to one's neighbor.