Appendix I. On Internal Sins Against Chastity

(St. Thomas, I-II, q. 74, a. 8; St. Alphonsus, Theologia Moralis V, 12-28.)

Internal sins are distinguished as three: morose pleasure, desire, and joy, according as the will is borne toward an act as such, with abstraction made from its present, past, or future execution; toward an act to be committed, or toward an act committed. And so joy regards the past, desire regards the future, while morose pleasure abstracts from both, indeed also from the present, because pleasure concerning a present act coincides with the act itself. We shall speak singly about morose pleasure, then about desire and joy, and indeed about the latter in one treatment, because they are governed by almost the same rules. Pleasure concerning a present work we pass over, because, as we have said, it coincides with the work itself.

I.