Question Six: Concerning Internal Lust

I. There are three internal sins of lust: morose delectation, desire, and joy. The first regards the present time, because it is concerned with the object insofar as it is present to us here and now by cognition; desire regards the future, because it is an act of the will wishing for an evil thing; joy regards the past, and is complacency or approval of an evil work formerly perpetrated by oneself or by others. In other words, morose delectation is consent to the thought present pleasure alone, not to the act itself; if the act were present, lust would already be external. Desire is also consent to an act future and to be posited; joy is consent to an act past and posited.

II. Lustful morose delectation (complaisance impure, onkuisch behagen) is nothing other than consent to pleasure concerning a lustful or immodest work; whence it is defined: simple love or voluntary complacency concerning a venereal work exhibited by cognition as present, without the will of carrying it out. For he who takes pleasure feigns to himself the action of sin as present, for example fornication, and concerning it, by deliberate consent, takes pleasure as if he were actually carrying it out and fornicating, yet without desire of carrying it out.

It is called delectation, because the mere thought of an evil thing is not sin, unless per accidens insofar as it includes danger of sinning, but the pleasure concerning a lustful thing thought of is sin. It is called morose, not because it requires a delay of time, for it can be perfected in a single moment, but because deliberating reason, rather than repelling the pleasure, dwells about it insofar as the venereal thing is grateful and pleasant to it.

Lustful morose delectation is sin, and indeed mortal sin. For no one takes pleasure except in that which seems good to him and conformable to his nature; therefore he who takes pleasure in a lustful thing has it as good for himself, and accordingly his affection tends into an evil thing. But since all external lust that is in itself and directly voluntary is mortally evil, voluntary pleasure concerning it is also mortal. For that someone deliberately choose that his affection be conformed to a work which of itself is mortal is already mortal sin. Thus Saint Thomas, I-II, q. 74, a. 8.

This certainly is to be understood of fully voluntary complacency in venereal pleasure, and in acts of true lust, and indeed those gravely evil from their nature; not, however, of complacency in merely sensible pleasure, or in acts of lust from their nature lightly evil, as being voluntary only indirectly or in a cause influencing little, or in mere immodesty, as in the touch and look of the genitals had only from curiosity or levity. This is clear from the general principles explained above, and from the whole course of the argumentation.

III. Morose delectation, although it is less evil than the evil work itself or the proposal of it, nevertheless because it tends to the same thought object, has the specific malice of the work, provided and insofar as that work is thought of as pleasurable or moves to pleasure. Thus delectation concerning sodomy, concerning adultery as adultery, concerning fornication, differ in species. Nevertheless morose delectation does not contract the malice of circumstances which reason represents, but from which in the delectation it abstracts, and about which the delectation is not concerned, or by whose delectability the appetite is not moved. For delectation tends into the object, not as it exists really, but as it exists in the intellect, and accordingly does not tend into circumstances which reason does not represent as pleasurable and which are not the motive of the pleasure. Hence:

1. if the imagined object pleases only as a cause of carnal pleasure in general, only the malice of impudicity or imperfect lust is contracted and is to be accused, unless, however, pollution follows;

2. but if delectation is had concerning a special circumstance, for example concerning an act to be exercised precisely as solitary, or with a woman, with a married woman, with a sacred person, or with a male, and so forth, affection toward this special malice is contracted and one will have to be accused of solitary sin, or fornication, adultery, sacrilege, sodomy, and so forth;

3. if someone takes pleasure concerning a married or sacred person, not insofar as married or sacred, but insofar as beautiful, only the specific malice of fornication, not of adultery or sacrilege, is contracted.

IV. Absolute lustful desire (onkuische begeerte) and joy (onkuisch verheugen) have the same species and gravity of malice which the work has about which they are concerned, to be posited or already posited, with all known circumstances (Matt. V, 28). For desire tends into a work really to be posited, and accordingly not as it is represented abstractly in the intellect as pleasurable, but as it is on the part of the thing; and joy is concerning a past work as it was. Each tends into all the circumstances which are in the work and are not separable from it in the concrete.

On the contrary, in conditioned desire, if the condition excludes all or partial malice of the object, that malice is totally or partially not contracted, for example: I would have copulation with her if she were mine; I would sin with her unless she were married.¹ But if the condition does not exclude the malice, the whole malice is contracted, for example: I would fornicate if it were licit or if I could.

¹ Yet in practice this can be dangerous, as will be said on the following page.

V. Corollaries. Let morose delectation concerning a thought lustful work not be confused:

1. with delectation concerning the very thought itself, which can be good, for example to take pleasure in theological science concerning base things;

2. with delectation concerning the mode by which the lustful thing is done. For this is good, venially evil, or mortally evil, according as the mode itself is good or lightly or gravely evil. Examples are: to take pleasure in an ingenious or new mode of perpetrating lust, in matrimonial copulation had beside the natural mode, in a mode of exercising lust against nature;

3. with delectation concerning only the good effect following from lust, for example concerning offspring conceived from fornication or concerning concupiscence calmed from pollution. This is licit, provided it is not also had concerning the lustful work itself on account of the good effect;

4. with delectation concerning a work as licit at another time or in another state. For this is licit, not indeed if it is done concerning the work absolutely and as concerning the present, for example for the betrothed concerning copulation now to be had, but if it is done under the condition of the time or state in which it will be licit, because this condition removes the malice from the work, for example concerning copulation to be had in future marriage. This is to be understood of the delectation of the rational appetite, which can tend to the object as proposed by reason, and accordingly under a condition concerning the future or concerning the past and thus abstracted from malice; it is not valid of the delectation of the sensitive appetite, which tends into the object proposed by sense, and accordingly always absolutely and as concerning the present. Hence for practice:

a. by rational appetite, but not carnal appetite, the betrothed can take pleasure concerning future copulation and desire it; likewise widowers and widows can take pleasure concerning past copulation and rejoice in it;

b. but for other unmarried persons, although the same of itself is not illicit, ordinarily it is illicit per accidens, because it will not happen without motions of concupiscence, which they cannot excite, and for permitting which they can have no reason;

c. on the contrary, spouses, even when the partner is absent, can take pleasure carnally concerning copulation had or to be had, provided it is not done principally on account of pleasure but on account of an honorable end, and there is no danger of pollution, because here and now copulation is licit for them, although per accidens it is impossible.

It should be noted, however, that all the aforesaid delectations in practice are to be avoided, both because they are often idle and therefore venial sins, and because they are very dangerous, since a transition easily occurs to delectation concerning the lustful work itself. Nevertheless, in this matter, there will be greater liberty for married persons.

VI. Observation. The cause or occasion of internal lust is base conversations and writings, and the hearings and readings of them. Concerning these, let it be noted:

1. When someone speaks base things from libidinous affection, to excite venereal pleasure either in himself or in others, it is always mortal sin. The same must be said when someone, by speaking base things, exposes himself or another by such speech to the proximate occasion of mortal sin.

Hence they easily sin gravely:

a. who mingle conversations concerning the conjugal act, concerning things licit and illicit between spouses, concerning modes of impeding generation, of procuring pollution, or concerning young men and girls, especially if this is done among younger persons of different sex;

b. who out of boasting recount their own base sins, both because they often give great scandal and because they easily take complacency in the sins perpetrated;

c. who say base things because of pleasure taken from those things thought of, or with danger of such pleasure, or with danger of grave scandal.

2. To speak base things from levity or curiosity or for mere recreation, in such a way that the pleasure does not pass to the things which are expressed by the words, but stops in the artifice of the words, provided scandal is absent and the danger of the speaker falling into mortal sin is absent, is not mortal sin; for the affection of the will is not borne into lust. Thus often among the uneducated and workers, or among women gathered together. Yet because this recreation is inordinate, there is venial sin.

3. The same is to be said, as in the two prior principles, concerning the hearing, reading, and singing of base things.

4. To write base things on account of doctrine, on account of history, on account of informing superiors or due reprehension, is no sin. The same is to be said in the same cases concerning speech, hearing, and reading.

5. To write base things for the pleasure to be taken by oneself or to be provoked in others is mortal sin. Likewise to write such things without this intention, but with at least confused foresight of this effect, unless, however, some necessity or utility excuses.

6. To write base things out of levity or pleasantness, without danger of scandal even of the little ones, is only venial sin.

7. In words or writings, by invitation or counsel or approval, to induce another to a sin of lust is mortal sin, which participates in all the specific malices of the work advised.

VII. Warning. In order that in practice it may more easily be discerned whether someone has voluntarily admitted internal sins of lust, it is better in temptation to distinguish three stages:

The first is suggestion, or the mere representation of evil in the imagination;

the second is sensible and organic delectation, or pleasure in the sensitive appetite, arising from the suggestion if it was vivid: it is the feeling of temptation;

the third is voluntary complacency, or consent of the will to the delectation, after advertence of reason.

In the last alone is sin present. Hence they are accustomed to say: to feel temptation is not sin, but to consent is; not the feeling or pleasure, but the consent and complacency.