Section — Vermeersch, Theologia Moralis
§ 3. On Circumstances
Notions. 1. Circumstances are as it were accidents of human acts; for they are any conditions whatsoever which, while situated outside the substance of the act, touch it in some way.
- Already seven in number were indicated by Cicero 1, which are contained in this little verse:
Who, what, where, by what aids, why, how, when.
In this verse, who designates a special quality of the agent: he is a cleric, a child, married.
What designates a special quality either of the object or of the effect. (There are those who call the circumstance of the object "about what," reserving the circumstance "what" for effects.) The quality of the object will be had, for example, in the love of an enemy; in an injury done to a sacred person, a relative; in theft of such or such a quantity. But the quality of the effect will accede if there has been a special good or evil force of example; if the action has given place to blasphemies.
Where notes a special quality of place, for example, in a church.
By what aids is referred to the means employed, to instrumental causes, to accomplices: I pursued the end by mortifications, lies, frauds; a sacred or married person cooperated.
Why recalls the end: of this we have already treated.
How names the manner of action: for example, cautiously, imprudently, with great intensity.
When asks about the time at which the thing was completed, and also about the space of time through which the action lasted, for example, an office was omitted during a time prefixed for censure or reservation.
Cf. on these circumstances St. Thomas, 1, 2, q. 7, art. 1.
- According to the varied intention or ordering of reason, the same thing can be an object or a circumstance. Thus one person will commit a sacrilegious theft, another a thievish sacrilege, by the removal of the same chalice. Cf. 1, 2, q. 18, art. 10.
1 De inventione, l. I and II; and Topica.
Effect of circumstances. Circumstances:
a) Sometimes increase or diminish goodness or malice within the same species: five thousand or one hundred thousand francs have been taken by theft;
b) Sometimes transfer malice to another theological species, that is, sin from grave becomes light, or conversely: an injury done to the Pontiff or to the King will be grave which would be light if done to an equal;
c) Sometimes add a new moral species, for example, a vow of chastity in the matter of purity;
d) Sometimes give the first moral species: the eating of flesh on a day of abstinence. (A circumstance which adds or constitutes a species is now not properly a circumstance, says St. Thomas, 1, 2, q. 88, art. 5.)