Article I: Concerning Morose Delight

— Notions and varied morality. Delight is called morose not from a delay of time (for it can be completed in one moment), but from the deliberate assent of the will.

But it can be terminated either to the work itself, or to the thought of it: to the substance of the work, or to some mode of it.

1. Terminated to the thought-of evil work, for example to homicide, morose delight is according to itself mortal or venial, according as it approves a work gravely or venially evil (1, 2, q. 27 art. 3). But moral specification is drawn from the notes in which the complacency is had. For abstract consideration of the object can strip or clothe the object with certain notes.

2. Conditional delight, at least of the rational order, will not be illicit in itself, if the condition removes the disorder.

At least of the rational order, I say: for delight of the sensitive appetite, which follows the phantasm of the represented thing, affects the object as it is in itself. Wherefore, if the object cannot be good except by placing a certain condition which now is lacking, as is carnal intercourse of an unmarried person, the sensitive delight itself will be illicit. Therefore, although, because of the danger of evil commotion, this ought rather to be avoided, intellectual delight concerning carnal intercourse with some person, under that condition "if she were the spouse of the one delighting," objectively is not dishonorable; but delight of the sensitive appetite would be venereal commotion, which is prohibited under grave obligation to those not married. Cf. our De castitate, n. 367, 368.

That evil sensitive delight is had concerning a venereal act, concerning vengeance, concerning theft ¹. Yet this difference is present among the three delights: that the first and third consist rather in the sweet commotion of the subject enjoying, with delights or goods represented, while the other is rather drawn from the person over whom triumph is sought by vengeance. Whence the first and third, but not the other, can easily be without affection to the object.

3. Delight in the thought of an evil thing, but not in the evil work, is not evil according to itself: according to the end, usefulness, and mode, it can be evil or good. Thus a magistrate honorably thinks again about an offense so that he may punish it; a preacher, so that he may rebuke it.

4. Delight in the artful and industrious mode by which an evil thing is conceived to have been done is not about an evil object, and therefore of itself is not to be blamed.

¹ Sanchez, Decal. l. 1, c. 2, n. 35.

— Specification. Morose delight is specified by the object. By the object, I say, as it is apprehended and delights. Yet how, in a venereal matter, that which is accustomed to be accused as morose delight or complacency in shameful phantasms is rather consent into the excited venereal commotion, and therefore marks a sin of solitary action more than morose delight properly so called, cf. De castitate et vitiis oppositis, n. 266. There also we treat of the obligation of avoiding carnal delights or of repressing movements spontaneously arisen.