§ I. On the Object

26. - The object is everything (thing or person) about which some action is morally¹ concerned. Hence in theft the object is another's thing which has been unjustly taken away; in an act of justice, another's thing which has been restored; in detestation of sin, an evil action which has been perpetrated. - Now this object can be something either good, as to venerate parents; or evil, as to steal another's goods; or indifferent, as to walk, to speak, to sleep. Again something can be either evil from its own nature, as drunkenness; or evil only because it is prohibited, as to eat meat on Friday without permission. But things evil from their own nature, or intrinsically evil, are of a threefold class, namely:

1° Certain things are such absolutely, or independently of every circumstance, because of themselves they involve repugnance with an absolutely necessary right order, as is hatred of God, blasphemy, etc.

2° Other things are intrinsically evil, not precisely in themselves, but by reason of some adjunct or condition which depends on the dominative power of God or man; such are the taking away of another's thing, the injuring of body or reputation, and similar things, which sometimes become lawful.

3° Finally, other things are evil only by reason of the danger which is ordinarily joined to them, as the sight of a base object, the reading of a wicked book, etc. ... These, when a just cause has been given and the proximate danger of sinning removed, can become lawful.²

That a human act derives its distinct morality from the object is clear from this, that from the object it has that it is such a moral action and not another, that is, good or evil; justice or religion; lust or blasphemy. And indeed from the object the act derives its first and essential morality. First, because it belongs to the act before any other morality (arising from circumstances or end); essential, because it cannot be absent from the act, although others (arising from circumstances

or end) were absent. Thus theft of a sacred thing in order to make oneself drunk is primarily conceived as evil by reason of the object, insofar as it is the unjust taking away of another's thing; and this injustice cannot be absent from theft, even when the end, which is drunkenness, and the circumstance of the sacred thing, are absent. Haine, ib. p. 19. q. 44.