Third Article. On The Principles Of Human Acts

45. What they are. The principles of human acts are called those things which must concur for producing a human act in the individual. Now three things must concur for effecting a human act: the object, the intellect, and the will.

1. The object of a human act, which is some particular good, as a final cause allures and moves the will to acting and by its influence gives it a certain and determinate tendency, or affection. Therefore acts of the will have from the object that they are acts of such a species, that is, the object specifies the acts of the will.

2. On the part of the intellect there must be present: a. advertence to the act itself. For a human act must be in the power of the one operating, to such a degree that he can place it or not place it. But this is impossible unless, adverting to the act itself, he knows that he is going to place the act.

For this reason thoughts, imaginations, or appetitions which immediately upon the proposal of the object arise in the intellect, in the imagination, in the will, or in the sensitive appetite without any advertence of the mind cannot be human acts, and therefore neither good nor evil.

b. Advertence to the object and its qualities. Since the object of a human act must be freely willed and therefore previously known, the act is human insofar as its object is known.

In order that the act of one who, killing his father, commits parricide, be a human act, he must know that he is killing his father; it would be homicide if he thought he was killing a man; it would not even be homicide if he thought he was killing a beast.

c. Deliberation, by which we inquire whether some object represented by the intellect is to be embraced or rejected by the will.

Those are not human acts which are not determinate in the concrete and surrounded by various circumstances. Therefore the intellect, having considered all the circumstances, must judge whether the action is to be embraced or rejected. Moreover, the object which we desire rarely exhibits itself to us as a mere good or as a mere evil, but frequently as a good joined with a defect or evil, whether true or apparent. In this case deliberation is needed as to whether that is good or evil, lawful or unlawful, and therefore to be embraced or rejected by the will.

d. The dictate or practical judgment, by which we decide that something is good or evil, to be embraced or to be rejected.

a. The will cannot elicit a human act, whether of pursuit or aversion, unless a judgment has preceded concerning the suitability or unsuitability of the object, with which the act is concerned, with the nature of the agent; and specifically it cannot elicit a morally good act unless a judgment has preceded concerning the moral goodness or lawfulness of the object and act. But this judgment is called the practical dictate or judgment.

b. Frequently by a simple glance it is known that the thing proposed by the intellect is good and therefore to be embraced, or evil and therefore to be rejected; in which case deliberation and practical judgment are contained in a single act.

3. On the part of the will there is required: a. the exercise of liberty, in that the will determines itself to acting or to acting in this way.

Since a human act by its nature is a free act, it is clear that a human act cannot be done without the exercise and use of this perfection, namely liberty.

b. A free tendency into the object, insofar as it is proposed by the intellect.

After the will has determined itself to acting, it elicits in itself an act which by its nature is a vital and affective tendency by which it embraces the object and adheres to it, or is a vital aversion which rejects the proposed object.

46. On advertence. a. Advertence is defined as the act by which the mind attends to something. It is divided:

a. By reason of the act itself into full advertence, if nothing impedes the mind so that the act of adverting is perfect, as when someone perfectly awake, self-possessed, and not distracted adverts to things; and into half-full advertence, if something impedes the mind so that the act of adverting is not perfect, as when someone thinks about a matter while not yet fully awake, or not fully self-possessed, or distracted by other things.

b. By reason of the thing to which the mind adverts into distinct advertence, if the thing is apprehended clearly or certainly, and confused advertence, if the thing is apprehended obscurely or doubtfully. Thus one who steals a sacred thing, thinking that the theft of a sacred thing is sacrilege, distinctly adverts to sacrilege; one who steals a sacred thing, knowing only that the theft of a sacred thing is graver than simple theft, adverts confusedly to sacrilege. Likewise one who throws a tile from a roof into the street with the plan of killing an enemy passing by, adverts distinctly to the death of the enemy; and one who does the same suspecting indeed that a man perhaps passing by could be killed, but not knowing whether in fact someone is passing by and is killed, adverts confusedly to the death of a man.

b. According to the diverse advertence of the mind to an act, whether of the will or of other powers, threefold diverse acts, or as they are usually called, movements, are distinguished. There are: a. first-first acts or movements, which precede every advertence of the mind, for example movements of aversion, anger, revenge in the sensitive appetite or in the will; b. second-first acts or movements, which precede full and perfect advertence of the mind; c. second acts or movements, which are elicited with full and perfect advertence and knowledge.