§ II. On Circumstances

Circumstances are accidental determinations of an act, without which the act could exist as to substance, and which nevertheless in some way touch its morality. Seven classes of circumstances are numbered, expressed in this little verse:

Who, what, where, by what aids, why, how, when?

Namely: Who, or what sort the agent is, married, cleric, etc.? What, or what is the accidental quality or quantity of the object? Where, or in what place, whether sacred or profane, etc.? By what aids, that is, what means, instruments, etc., the agent has used? Why, or from what end, namely extrinsic? How, namely whether maliciously or in good faith, whether in an intense or remiss manner, whether advertently, or not? When, that is, at what sort of time or for how much time? Cf. St. Thomas, 1-2, q. 7, arts. 3 and 4.

I say. A human act takes true morality from circumstances. The reason is that circumstances, which cannot together with the object not be intended directly or indirectly, by that very fact affect the act insofar as it is a human act and lies under the rules of morals; but often they have a relation of agreement or disagreement with reason and right order. Therefore they affect the act in the being of morals, or as to morality; indeed sometimes the circumstances alone introduce agreement or disagreement of this kind into the act, as happens in acts indifferent from the object.

Hence, 1st, some circumstances are those which pertain to the morality of an act, others which contribute nothing to it, and which therefore are to be held wholly indifferent. 2nd. Some leave the object in the same moral species, and others change the species itself, or add a new species. 3rd. Of the former, some aggravate malice, but others diminish it, and they do this gravely or lightly. If they so aggravate that they render a sin mortal from venial, or so diminish that they render it venial from mortal, the act, remaining in the same moral species, is said to be changed as to its theological species.

Ordinarily a circumstance is said notably to aggravate malice either when to this malice, grave in itself, it adds an excess which alone would itself be a lethal sin, which in quantitative things is obvious to anyone, as if someone steals ten horses; or when one sinning notably exceeds the mode of delinquency in things not quantitative, as if a murderer cuts an enemy limb by limb.