Chapter II: How Widely Morality Extends

No human act is morally indifferent. Although, as to the genus of the work, several acts contain nothing which pertains to the order of reason and therefore are indifferent, nevertheless no deliberate act in the individual, or as it is placed, can be morally indifferent. For it proceeds from reason either ordinately or inordinately: if ordinately, it will be morally good; if inordinately, it will be evil. Cf. St. Thomas, 1, 2, q. 19, art. 9. But if there has been no attention to the moral order, the act will not be moral; but, in our opinion, then neither will it be human or free.

Whether there are good acts which are supernaturally indifferent will be said below, where merit is treated.

1. An external act, just as denominatively it is human and free, so denominatively it is moral. And it is such from the will by which it is done and sustained. But does the external act add anything to the morality of the interior act of the will from which it depends, or which is terminated at it? This is disputed not lightly between Scotists and Thomists; but it seems to us that it must be solved in this way. Because the external act is not moral except from the will by which it is informed, in itself, as external, it has nothing whence it formally contributes anything to morality ¹. Yet it supplies matter to be informed by the act of the will; and, in order that the external act itself follow, there is need of a persevering and therefore more intense act of the will. Whence, on account of the external act, there is had a morality more extended and intense. Wherefore the external act materially and specifically adds to the morality of the interior act.

2. And if you ask whether an action efficaciously proposed but impeded and an action completed in execution are of the same value in the same moral subject, this, strictly speaking, must be denied. For the will itself, while it executes the purpose, endures, is repeated, and is perfected in various commands. At the end of the act it is other than it was at the beginning. Wherefore the external act adds to the interior act of purpose the morality which it possesses from the will; nor can we fully approve what Noldin has, Princ., n. 78, 79, insofar as he seems there to equate the act completed by external action and the internal act, if the omission is involuntary. Indeed nothing is taken away from the act internally commanding; but there is lacking the external act informing the interior act.

Thus man is from the soul; yet the separated soul is one thing, man another.

It is indeed true that, into the action which is done, merit is derived from intention; but intention strictly does not supply for the action which is not done ². Besides, often the acceding merit of good example is proper to the exterior act.

Thus far concerning acts which can be included in the power of one purpose. But one purpose, one will, does not avail for many things. Thus by an efficacious desire of leading the life of a missionary or religious, a long series of difficult actions and sacrifices certainly cannot be commanded: this would be angelic power, not human. Therefore let us not judge that the merits of such a life belong to us from the fact that we were truly prepared to embrace it; but let us highly value the very faculty of carrying out the good things which we proposed, as a new divine grace.

3. Much less shall we equate with acts ineffectual desires, such as are often exhibited in formulas of oblations and consecrations: I would wish to repair scandals everywhere, to be present at all Masses. In these protestations there is present the value of a good affection, which will have to be estimated according to its varied intensity. Say the same concerning several pious but arbitrary agreements which are sometimes commended: as often as I shall have touched my breast, I intend to express an affection of love. That intention operates nothing in touches which cannot virtually be referred to it.

4. Finally, a pious will can in no way supply the efficacy ex opere operato which belongs to the sacraments and also in some way to martyrdom.

¹ Cf. St. Thomas, in 1, 2, Sent., d. 40, q. 1, art. 3.

² It could be said: intention defines the action which is done; but it does not supply the action which is not done.

An act which, with attention to the disposition of the will, would be done, but has not been done, confers no morality, whether good or evil, upon the subject. We are to be judged from a present will, not from an interpretative will.

The internal act is moral, and also the external act. The latter formally contributes no morality; materially, however, it produces morality more extended and intense. Wherefore by an intention, even an efficacious one, much less by an inefficacious intention and by formulas of oblations, an external action or effect ex opere operato can be supplied.

But an act which would be done confers no morality.