Article I: Notions and Divisions of the Voluntary and the Involuntary

I. The notion of the voluntary. The voluntary is "that whose principle is in the agent himself, he knowing the particulars in which the action is" ¹; or, as St. Thomas says more briefly (2), "that whose principle is within, with the addition of knowledge."

Moreover this voluntary is divided: from the object, from the mode by which it attains the object, from its figure or subjective account of being, from its manifestation, and finally from its objective perfection.

¹ Aristotle, Ethic., 3, c. 3. - (2) 1, 2, q. 6, art. 1.

II. Divisions. 1. From the object. Since the will is a rational appetite, it follows the formal presentation of end and means, so that an act has some acts concerning the end, others concerning the means.

a) Concerning the end there can be: simple willing, or complacency in an object which is apprehended as fitting to the subject, or lovable in itself (St. Th., 1, 2, q. 8).

Then intention, in some way prosecutive of the thing. For an end is "that for the sake of which something is done."

Then fruition, that is, rest in the end obtained or the good possessed ¹. In its fruition, the will approves, and holds as ratified, the pursuit of the end (or the efforts made) and its attainment.

b) Concerning a means or means there can be: consent, by which one adheres to a judgment proposing what has seemed useful for attaining the end (1, 2, q. 15);

or election, by which, from several means, one is preferred (1, 2, q. 13);

and active use, by which powers are applied to acting.

Therefore we have voluntary complacency, intention, fruition, consent, election, execution.

And so not only acts of the will can be voluntary, but also acts of other powers, or effects; yet formally only acts of the will are voluntary; the rest are voluntary denominatively.

Moreover these things are to be observed about those acts. Use pertains to the order of execution; all the rest to the order of intention ². If use has been lacking, there will not be a voluntary external deed, for example the death of an enemy. Yet this death can be the object of complacency, fruition, and thus terminate the will. If it has thus terminated it, formerly more than today, that death was called willed, although not voluntary ³.

Intention is distinguished as perfect or efficacious, and inefficacious. The efficacious is of itself connected with the existence of the object, because the means are in the power of the will and the will admits or chooses all the necessary things. If, on the contrary, it neglects to admit the necessary means, it is called velleity.

¹ 1, 2, q. 11.

² Therefore let us not confuse the order of intention, which comprises intention, election, and consent, with intention strictly so called.

³ Thus in Italian volita is said of rain desired by farmers.

2. From the mode by which the object is attained. a) The will, as it is appetite, has, without organic transmutation, prosecutive and aversive acts, by which the eleven passions of the sensitive appetite are denominated: love and hatred, desire and flight, hope and despair, fear and daring, anger, delight and sadness ¹. Therefore, insofar as these proceed knowingly from the will, all these can be voluntary.

b) The object can be attained in itself or in another object. In itself is attained that toward which the will is immediately affected. In another the will attains what it wills only as connected with the object which it wills in itself. Moreover it can be connected as a part: as the obligation of support is part of conjugal life; as an accessory: as the vow of chastity is added to the subdiaconate; as an effect (strictly or broadly so called) foreseen together with the thing toward which the will is affected: as quarrels and blasphemies which are foreseen as going to follow from drunkenness.

If the question concerns an effect which is foreseen as going to follow but which is not loved, the voluntary is more strictly said to be in the cause only, and the effect is called merely permitted. Therefore, what must be well held, the will neither intends nor chooses what it merely permits; but permission means mere foresight without affection. Permission is active when it flows from an action on account of the concurrence of another cause which cannot be impeded; it is passive when the effect is merely not impeded.

¹ St. Thomas, 1, 2, q. 22, art. 3, ad 3; and q. 23, art. 2, c.

3. From the subjective account of being, or the figure of the voluntary, there is distinguished:

a) The voluntary on account of action, or the positive voluntary, and the voluntary on account of omission, or the negative voluntary, as when someone omits to impede what he ought to impede: for example, damage through an animal possessed by him ¹.

And while we act, our act itself can be called positively voluntary; while we do not wish to act, our non-acting will be negatively voluntary.

N.B. Concerning the signification and use of several words, not all agree: this must be attended to when reading writers. Thus some call direct voluntary what is from the will positively operating; indirect, what is from the will insofar as it passes over an obligation of acting. While others call direct the voluntary in itself, but indirect the voluntary in another.

b) The explicit voluntary, which in itself is present before the mind, and the implicit, which is contained in the former. Thus the will of sorrow for sin contains the purpose of not sinning; the will of loving all contains the will of loving enemies. Thus the will of the legislator implicitly wills the law according to the true sense. This division is sufficiently akin to the distinction of the voluntary in itself and in another; but here there is more regard to attention than to intention.

¹ That which follows an omission will be called voluntary when it follows per se; permitted, when it follows per accidens.

4. From manifestation, you have the voluntary that is expressed, tacit, presumed (for the present). Expressed is what is manifested by speech or another sign ordered to this; tacit, what is gathered from an expressed concession or from some deed or omission of a deed. A superior, permitting a journey, tacitly consents that in the customary manner you seek money for yourself; an owner, who can easily dissent, tacitly consents to someone, observed by him, using his thing. Presumed for the present is what, from an inclination or disposition of the mind, is conjectured to be truly present now. A friend of the bishop from whom by letter he asked jurisdiction to be sent to him at once, after the letters have been received, conjectures that the jurisdiction has been sent.

Presumed for the future is the same as interpretative, concerning which see n. 46, c.

On the adage "He who is silent seems to consent". (R.I., 43 in 6°). In doubt, provided no reason suggests the opposite, "he who is silent seems to consent" ¹: a) in a matter which benefits the silent person without a burden; b) when some necessity of contradicting is joined with a ready faculty of contradicting. Here belongs the saying: "Knowledge and sufferance are held for expressed consent" ². This at least is valid in matters of slight prejudice. - c) Where several come together to deliberate about a common opinion. Those who are silent will be judged, per se, to add their assent to those consenting.

¹ The Rule of Law (142 Dig. L, 17) has this: "He who is silent certainly does not confess; but nevertheless it is true that he does not deny."

² Marginal note to the Gloss on § Caius, law 25, De legatis (D. 31, 1).

5. Division of the voluntary from its objective perfection.

a) The voluntary can be perfectly and imperfectly deliberated. The former, which is also called perfect, requires full knowledge and deliberation. Knowledge is called full insofar as, morally, all the notes of the thing are known and the mind is not subjectively impeded. The imperfectly deliberated is had in sudden movements, in a great heat of passion, in partial wakefulness.

b) The voluntary simply and according to something. The former is estimated from the object as it exists; the latter from a peculiar note which is in it. Marriage, besides the common life of spouses, is wont to bring association with parents. This can be pleasing or displeasing. If it has been appetible, marriage will be voluntary simply and according to something (that is, according to that note); if displeasing, it will be voluntary simply, but not according to something.

Quite often they call something voluntary according to something when consent to the thing is denied, although some note of it is pleasing: as if you should be unwilling to possess a thing which you would acquire as precious, because it belongs to another; but this use seems to us less correct. For since nothing proceeds from the will, nothing voluntary is had except complacency concerning that note.

c) Formal and interpretative voluntary. The former is present when the will truly adheres to a thing proposed by the intellect. The latter is present when, indeed, no consent either was or is, but from the inclination of the mind, from the fittingness of the thing with the rational appetite now perceived, it is conjectured that consent would have been future if the object had been proposed. The interpretative will is sometimes called presumed for the future. Since this is not and was not at all in act, it can effect nothing. Wherefore a dispensation, which must loose the bond of law, can never be presumed in this way; but a permission can be presumed, with which an act, valid in other respects, obtains the due mode of subordination to the will of the superior.

d) Actual, virtual, habitual voluntary. Actual denotes assent which is now deliberately present; virtual shows itself in the effect of a prior actual will; habitual denotes a past and not retracted will, although it perseveres in no effect.

Thus, from the will of going on foot to St. Peter's, someone who knows the way well, without a conscious choice of roads, turning over many things in his mind, converses with a companion, and makes the journey: he virtually wills to visit the basilica. He who formally asked for extreme unction and then is deprived of the senses has the habitual will of the sacrament.

The virtual will possesses the same efficacy as the actual. The habitual can suffice for certain juridical or spiritual effects which do not require action.

Lugo ¹ (De Sacr. in genere, d. 8, 15; De Paenit., d. 7, n. 40) thought that the virtual will was present, but confused and scarcely perceptible, or, as we would say, subconscious. But another explanation seems preferable. The association of ideas and images brings us this facility, that by one act of command we can determine a whole series of partial actions which we have done often enough. Under a given command, every series which has been foreseen and has been effected by that command is voluntary in a manner similar to that in which the explosion will be called voluntary which is determined in a deep cavern by one who, placed outside the cavern, causes an electric contact. This alone differs: that it remains in our power consciously to break off the commanded series. Therefore, although actual willings are easily mixed in the series to be executed, nevertheless the series is virtually voluntary, insofar as it derives from the first command; and, according to the law of human action, this voluntariety is entirely sufficient.

¹ Frins still adheres to him, De actibus humanis, I, 53.

On the involuntary. At the same time we know what the involuntary is, and how it is divided. We shall observe this one thing: strictly, that is called involuntary which is done against the will; non-voluntary, that which is done apart from the will, insofar as the thing does not depend on the will, although it can be pleasing to it. In the broader signification, both are called involuntary.