Article Third. On Morose Delectation.

333. Notions. 1. Delectation, as it is taken here, is the complacency of the will in an apprehended good. Delectation receives morality from the object in which the will takes complacency for itself.

By reason of the object, delectation is distinguished: a. concerning a thing thought and represented to the will, e.g. concerning the killing of an enemy, concerning fornication; b. concerning the knowledge of a thing, namely if not the thing itself, but the knowledge of it pleases, e.g. the knowledge of homicide, of fornication. It is indeed one thing to be delighted concerning homicide exhibited through imagination, and another thing to be delighted concerning the knowledge of homicide.

2. Morose delectation is free complacency in an evil thing exhibited through thought or imagination as present, without desire of doing it. Therefore he who is morosely delighted feigns to himself an act of sin, e.g. theft, a base touch, and takes complacency for himself concerning that act so represented, as if someone were executing it, yet without a will to execute it. This delectation is called morose not from the duration of the complacency, but because the will tarries in it after advertence, even for a single instant; therefore morose delectation is the same as voluntary delectation.

334. Principles. 1. Morose delectation concerning an evil thing is a sin of the same gravity and species as the evil thing itself represented through imagination or thought. The reason is that morose delectation receives both theological and specific morality from the object about which it is occupied. Wherefore morose delectation is grave or light according as the thing thought, in which the will is delighted, is gravely or lightly evil, and delectation concerning theft differs in species from delectation concerning homicide or concerning fornication.

And here again the distinction between delectation and thought concerning an evil thing appears: for delectation concerning prohibited carnal intercourse is always a grave sin, but not likewise thought and imagination concerning the same thing. For if this is done from an honorable end, e.g. for teaching, it is good, and if it is done from curiosity, it is a venial sin. But thoughts of this kind concerning obscene things are always dangerous, because they easily provoke the venereal sense; and if there is added delectation, that is, free complacency, concerning the venereal sense which is excited from the obscene thought or imagination, it is not spiritual morose delectation, concerning which the discussion here is, but venereal delectation, concerning which it is spoken elsewhere.

2. Morose delectation contains the malice which the thing thought, which pleases, has from circumstances, if the delectation is occupied about those circumstances themselves; wherefore delectation concerning the killing of a priest is mental sacrilegious homicide, and delectation concerning intercourse with a nun is mental sacrilegious fornication, if the will also is delighted concerning the circumstance of priesthood and consecration.

If therefore the will is not formally delighted concerning the circumstances which are found in the evil object thought, it does not contract the malice of the circumstances: for since there is no question of an evil thing already accomplished or to be accomplished by deed, but only of a thing thought, precision being made from its execution, the malice of the circumstances toward which the will is not explicitly borne is not contracted. Therefore he who, in the example posited above, is not delighted concerning the circumstance of the object does not contract it, and therefore in confession satisfies by saying: I was delighted concerning homicide; I was delighted concerning fornication.