Concupiscence

In theology concupiscence is used in two distinct senses. It frequently signifies the inclination to evil, which in human nature is a result of the fall of our first parents. In this sense it is called sin by the Apostle.¹ Without any moral or immoral implication the word is used here to denote any passion or any movement of the sensitive appetite towards its proper object. It comprehends, therefore, any movement of love, desire, or hatred, sorrow, anger, or delight.

Concupiscence is antecedent or consequent. The former precedes any action of the will, and so is involuntary. The latter is voluntary, either because it is deliberately and directly excited by the will, or at any rate willed in its cause.

¹ Trent, sess. 5, de pec. orig.

Antecedent concupiscence lessens the malice of an evil action which is done under its impulse. For concupiscence troubles the intellect, so that it cannot dispassionately weigh the moral quality of the object proposed to the will and the motives for rejecting it; moreover, concupiscence paints the object in more than naturally attractive colours, so that it exerts an undue influence on the will. Concupiscence thus disturbs the indifference of the will and renders the act which follows less voluntary and free. It is accordingly less imputable to the agent.

It sometimes happens that antecedent concupiscence renders the subsequent action involuntary, and so in no wise imputable, however wrong it may be. This will be the case when some sudden onslaught of passion deprives the agent of the use of reason and blindly impels him to evil. Strong passions, such as love or anger, especially in impressionable natures, sometimes produce this result, and even when murder or suicide is committed in such circumstances juries are warranted in bringing in a merciful verdict of murder or suicide while temporarily insane. If, however, the passion was not altogether antecedent, but in the early stages of its onslaught there was room for deliberation, the consequent evil will not be altogether involuntary; it will to some extent be voluntary in its cause at least.+

It used to bea matter of dispute among theologians whether a man could be insane and not responsible for his actions in some one category, while he retained his self-control in others. In our days it will hardly be disputed that monomania exists, and if it exists, as, for example, in the matter of intoxicating drink, the monomaniac will not be directly responsible for his actions done under the influence of his madness, although he may be responsible for them in their cause.” ¹ Similarly, those who suffer from illusions may be so demented on the particular point as not to be responsible for actions which they perform under the influence of their illusion. It is a question of fact when this is the case, a fact which it is difficult even for experts to determine.

Natural propensities to evil arising from hereditary taint or from temperament lessen the voluntariness of the action just as passion does, but they are not as a rule so strong as to make what in itself is mortally sinful only venial.

¹ St Thomas, 1-2, q. 77, a. 7, can. 2206.

Consequent concupiscence increases the malice of a bad action if it is wilfully excited, because the tendency of the will to evil is voluntarily made more intense. If the passion is voluntary only in its cause, it is rather a sign of the great intensity of the perverse will from which it flows, but which it does not cause.

The evil motions of anger, impurity, rash judgement which precede all advertence and deliberation of the mind, cannot of course be sinful, as they are not voluntary. They become sinful when consent is yielded to them after advertence to their malice. The question is discussed among theologians, whether it be sinful, and in what degree, to remain neutral under an evil motion of concupiscence, neither giving consent to it nor positively resisting it. If the question is raised concerning a vehement temptation to impurity, it may reasonably be denied that it is ordinarily possible to remain neutral; the danger of consenting would be too great. In such a case there will usually be a grave obligation to resist positively for fear of being drawn into giving consent. Positive resistance does not mean direct and physical effort, which would be worse than useless; but it means that we must, under temptation, avert our minds from the evil suggestion and occupy them with other thoughts. If, however, the question be put, whether sin is committed by remaining neutral under temptation to evil, not deliberating about committing it, but simply neither consenting to it nor rejecting it, the correct answer would seem to be that a venial but not a mortal sin is thereby mortally sinful only venial. The struggle against vice is more difficult for those who are subject to such propensities, but as long as they are in their right senses with the help of God’s grace they can resist, if only they take the necessary means. The same must be said of those who have strengthened their passions and weakened their will by long indulgence in a habit of sin. V. Frins, De Act. Hum. 1, n. 236. ‘“‘ ' There is not, and there never has been, a person who labours under partial delusion only, and is not in other respects insane.” C. Mercier, Criminal Responsibility, 1905, p. 174.

However, on p. 203 the same author writes: ‘‘ The majority of insane persons are sane in a considerable proportion of their conduct; and when in this part of their conduct they commit offences they are rightly punishable.” Perhaps the explanation of this apparent contradiction lies in a sentence which immediately follows the last. It is this: “‘ Since the limits between the sane and the insane areas of conduct of insane persons are ill defined, no insane person should be punished with the same severity that would be awarded to a sane person for the same offence.” committed. There is some sin, because we are commanded to rule the lower appetites and keep them in subjection to reason, which is not done in the case supposed. But the sin cannot be mortal, for there is no consent of the will, by which alone mortal sin can be committed. This is the teaching of St Thomas and of St Alphonsus.¹

¹ Theol. Mor. 5, n. 6.

We shall first treat the passions in general, then the passions which especially regard practice, namely concupiscence and fear in particular.

I. Notion. Passion is usually defined: a more vehement motion of the sensitive appetite from the imagination of good or evil, with an unusual transmutation of the body. It is said:

1. Motion, that is, an act, not a faculty or a habit. More vehement is added because although all motions of the sensitive appetite can be called passions, by usage only the more vehement motions are designated by this name.

2. Of the sensitive appetite. Therefore passion is a motion of the appetitive faculty, not of the cognitive faculty, and indeed of the sensitive appetitive faculty, not of the rational faculty or will.

3. From the imagination of good or evil. By these words the mode by which passion is excited is indicated.

4. With an unusual transmutation of the body. By these words the effect of passion is assigned. It is called an unusual or graver transmutation because the graver motions, which alone come under the name of passions, produce graver bodily transmutations (cf. St. Thomas, I-II, q. 22).

Note. Motions of the rational appetite or will are called affections, not passions, because of themselves they do not produce a bodily transmutation, which is a kind of passion.

II. The principle eliciting passion, as follows from the definition, is the sensitive appetite, that is, the faculty which pursues sensible good or flees sensible evil. The sensitive appetite is twofold: concupiscible and irascible. The concupiscible appetite pursues sensible good or flees sensible evil taken simply. The irascible appetite pursues sensible good as arduous, or difficult to attain, or flees sensible evil as arduous, or difficult to avoid (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 23, a. 1).

III. Enumeration of the passions. Eleven are enumerated, namely:

1. On the part of the concupiscible appetite:

a) Love, which is the complacency of the concupiscible appetite in sensible good, abstracting from its absence and presence (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 26, aa. 1 and 2).

b) Desire, which is the motion of the concupiscible appetite tending toward an absent sensible good (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 30, a. 2).

c) Joy, which is the complacency or rest of the concupiscible appetite in an attained sensible good (cf. St. Thomas, I-II, q. 31, a. 1).

Each is clarified by these words of St. Thomas: "The first change of the appetite by the appetible is called love, which is nothing other than complacency in the appetible; and from this complacency there follows motion toward the appetible, which is desire; and finally rest, which is joy" (I-II, q. 26, a. 2).

d) Hatred, which is the motion of the concupiscible appetite by which it turns away from sensible evil, abstracting from its absence and presence (cf. St. Thomas, I-II, q. 30, a. 1).

e) Flight, which is the motion of the concupiscible appetite by which it turns away from an absent sensible evil (cf. St. Thomas, I-II, q. 30, a. 2, ad 3).

f) Sadness, which is the motion of the concupiscible appetite by which it turns away from sensible evil that is present or joined to it (cf. St. Thomas, I-II, q. 35, aa. 1-3).

2. On the part of the irascible appetite:

a) Hope, which is the motion of the irascible appetite by which it tends toward a future sensible good that is arduous and possible to attain. "Concerning the object of hope," says Aquinas, "four conditions are considered. First, indeed, that it be good; and by this hope differs from fear, which concerns evil. Second, that it be future; for hope does not concern a present thing already had, and by this hope differs from joy, which concerns a present good. Third, it is required that it be something arduous, attainable with difficulty; for someone is not said to hope for something minimal which is immediately in his power to have, and by this hope differs from desire, which concerns future good absolutely. Fourth, that that arduous thing be possible to attain; for no one hopes for that which he cannot attain at all" (I-II, q. 40, a. 1).

b) Despair is the motion of the irascible appetite by which it turns away from an arduous sensible good which seems impossible to attain. "Now the object of hope, which is an arduous good, has the character of something attractive insofar as it is considered with the possibility of attaining it; but insofar as it is considered with the impossibility of obtaining it, it has the character of something repulsive; and thus despair regards this object, whence it implies a motion of a certain withdrawal; and for this reason it is contrary to hope, as withdrawal is contrary to approach" (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 40, a. 4).

c) Daring is the motion of the irascible appetite by which it rises up against a terrible sensible evil in order to overcome it. Now daring follows upon hope. For from the fact that someone hopes to overcome the terrible thing threatening him, from this he boldly pursues it (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 45, a. 2).

d) Fear is the motion of the irascible appetite by which it is cast down because of a sensible evil that is arduous, threatening, and scarcely possible to overcome. It is called threatening, for on the one hand it does not concern present evil, but future evil, in which respect it differs from sadness (cf. St. Thomas, I-II, q. 42, a. 3, ad 2); on the other hand, it does not concern a remote and distant future evil: "for because of its distance we imagine this as not going to happen, and therefore we either do not fear it or fear it little. For as the Philosopher says in Rhetoric II, chapter 5, number 1, things very far away are not feared; for all know that they will die, but because it is not near, they care nothing" (St. Thomas, same place, a. 2).

e) Anger is the motion of the irascible appetite by which it seeks vengeance against something harmful, because of harm inflicted. "For whoever is angry seeks to be avenged against someone, and thus the motion of anger tends toward two things: namely, toward the vengeance itself, which it desires and hopes for as a certain good, whence it is also delighted in it; it tends also toward the one against whom it seeks vengeance, as toward something contrary and harmful, which pertains to the character of evil" (St. Thomas, same place).

No passion is opposed to anger. "The Philosopher says in his Rhetoric, book 2, chapter 3, number 1, that becoming mild is opposed to being angry; and this is not a contrary opposite, but a negative or privative one" (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 45, a. 2).

Love is the cause of all passions, for "there is no other passion which does not presuppose some love. The reason for this is that every other passion of the soul implies motion toward something or rest in something. But every motion toward something, or rest in something, proceeds from some connaturality or fittingness, which pertains to the character of love" (I-II, q. 27, a. 4).

IV. Influence on the free.

1. The passions exercise influence on the free will. "According to the order of nature, because of the binding together of the powers of the soul in one essence, and of soul and body in one being of the composite, the higher and lower powers, and also soul and body, mutually influence one another with what abounds in any of them" (St. Thomas, De veritate, q. 26, a. 10).

2. The passions influence the will through the imagination. Namely, this faculty, through the image of sensible good or evil, excites motions in the sensitive appetite; and by presenting the same image to the intellect, it supplies matter to it for presenting the same object to the will. But since the soul according to the sensitive appetite is inclined toward the object or turns away from it, the will too easily freely admits or turns away from that same object.

3. As to the efficacy of this influence, take this: the passions generally do not remove the free, but only lessen it. The reason is that the passions generally do not remove deliberation, but only lessen it (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 77, a. 8; St. Alphonsus, V, III). These matters are developed more where concupiscence and fear are treated in particular.

Note. As we noted in n. 32, in the rational appetite or will there are also, not indeed passions properly so called, but spiritual motions or affections, such as of love, desire, joy, hatred, etc. Now if a similar motion of the sensitive appetite corresponds to a motion of the will, peace is said to be had. If a motion of the sensitive appetite resists a motion of the will, there is conflict, concerning which St. Paul says: "I see another law in my members, resisting the law of my mind."¹ If a motion of the sensitive appetite neither corresponds to nor resists a motion of the will, there is aridity.²

¹ Rom. 7:23.

² Cf. Potters, Compendium Ethicae generalis, numbers 112 and 113.

I. Notion. Concupiscence is sometimes taken for the tinder of desires following from original sin in fallen man; sometimes for one of the passions of the concupiscible appetite, namely desire. Here, however, it is taken somewhat more broadly and is understood as any motion whatever of the concupiscible appetite toward some sensible good (St. Alphonsus, V, XXIII).

II. Division. Concupiscence is usually distinguished as antecedent and consequent.

Antecedent concupiscence is that which "precedes the consent of the will and draws and inclines it to acting" (St. Alphonsus, V, XXIII).

Consequent concupiscence is that which "follows the consent of the will; indeed, it arises from a previous consent of the will already given to some matter, as when, for example, a man vehemently desires something, a vehement passion of concupiscence is excited in him" (St. Alphonsus, V, XXIII); "for the will cannot be intensely moved toward something without some passion being excited in the sensitive appetite" (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 77, a. 6).

III. Influence on the free.

1. Antecedent concupiscence, which is chiefly considered here, generally does not remove the free, but lessens it. The reason is that generally it does not remove but only lessens the indifference of judgment, on which the free is founded. I said:

a) Generally it does not remove the free, "because sometimes passion is indeed so great that it totally takes away the use of reason, as is plain in those who become insane because of love or anger" (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 77, a. 7; St. Alphonsus, V, XXV).

b) It lessens it; nevertheless concupiscence for the most part leaves enough deliberation to suffice for perfect freedom and therefore, if the required conditions are present, for mortal sin (cf. St. Thomas, I-II, q. 77, a. 8). Sometimes, however, because of the defect of full deliberation, only imperfect freedom is had, which does not suffice for mortal sin.

2. Consequent concupiscence "does not diminish sin, but rather increases it, or rather is a sign of its magnitude, insofar namely as it demonstrates the intensity of the will toward the sinful act" (St. Thomas, same place, a. 6; St. Alphonsus, V, XXIII).

IV. Practical question. Having set forth the influence of the passions on liberty, we add a sufficiently practical question: namely, whether there is an obligation of positively resisting the passions, or whether it suffices to behave negatively, that is, not to consent. Concerning this, note:

1. Temptation to sin ordinarily proceeds thus:

a) In the imagination there occurs the image of a delectable thing, which is followed by a motion of the sensitive appetite, or a sense of delight. This motion in itself is indifferent.

b) The intellect adverts to the motion, first as delectable, then as moving toward an evil act.

c) The will either positively consents, whether to the evil act or only to the sense of delight; or positively resists the motion; or behaves negatively toward the motion. Positive resistance can be made directly or indirectly: directly, for instance, by attacking the motion either through a contrary act or through an act of simple displeasure; indirectly, for example, by praying, thinking about other things, performing an external work, etc.

2. The question regards all passions, that is, all motions of the sensitive appetite which tend toward an illicit object. Now one who behaves negatively toward sensual motions:

a) Generally sins by not resisting. The reason is that generally there is danger of consenting. Namely, when the soul according to the sensitive part has been moved toward an illicit object, the will easily freely embraces that same object unless the disordered motion is positively resisted.

b) Sins gravely if the sensitive appetite is borne toward an object gravely evil, and, unless it is resisted, the danger of consenting is grave. Otherwise he sins only lightly. Now the danger of consenting is especially grave when the matter concerns a venereal and vehement motion, as will be said more fully in the treatise on chastity (St. Alphonsus, V, 6-9; Homo Apostolicus, tract III, nn. 41, 42, 44). Besides, note that indirect resistance is often practically to be preferred to direct resistance, especially if the motions of the sensitive appetite toward illicit things are lighter, more frequent, or longer-lasting.

II. Concupiscence - by which here is understood every passion or motion of the sensitive appetite - is the cause of sin according to these words of St. James: "Each one is tempted by his own concupiscence, drawn away and enticed. Then concupiscence, when it has conceived, brings forth sin."¹ Sins which are perpetrated from concupiscence are called sins of weakness (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 77, a. 3). Such commonly are self-pollutions, morose delectations, drunkenness, hatred of neighbor, blasphemies, which nevertheless by others are also uttered from malice (St. Alphonsus, VI, 463).

¹ James 1:14.

Obstacles to Consent.—The obstacles to consent are all those factors that take away or lessen the voluntariness of an act. (a) Thus, the actual obstacles that affect the intellect are reduced to ignorance, spoken of above; those that affect the will are passion and fear, and that which affects the external powers is coercion. (b) The habitual obstacles are habits and abnormal mental states.

Passion is a movement of the sensitive appetite towards its object through love, desire, hope, or its repose therein through delight. It tends towards good, as fear tends away from evil (see 117 sqq.). Passion is an obstacle to consent in the following ways: (a) it takes away voluntariness (i.e., the quality of proceeding from an internal principle with knowledge of the end of the act), whenever it is so intense as to prevent knowledge; (b) it diminishes liberty (i.e., the quality of being perfectly voluntary, or indifferent as between many acts), even when it does not prevent knowledge.

Antecedent passion makes an act more voluntary, since it makes the will tend with greater inclination to its object; but it likewise makes an act less free, since it impedes deliberation and disturbs the power of choice. Example: A man who takes extreme delight in sports, plays voluntarily, but is less free than if he were not so immoderately inclined that way.

Consequent passion which results naturally from an intense act of the will does not increase the voluntariness of the act, since it is not its cause; but it does show that the act of the will is intense, for it is only that which is willed vehemently that overflows from the will and affects the emotions.

(Summa Theologica, I-II, qq. 22-48.)

Having discussed the acts proper to man, we shall now speak of the passions, which are common to both man and beast.

Definition.—The passions—also called the emotions, affections, or sentiments—are acts of desire; but, unlike the acts of the will, they are directed, not to good apprehended by the higher knowing power of the intellect, but to good apprehended by the lower knowing power of sense and imagination. They are defined as: acts or movements of the sensitive appetite which arise from the representation of some good in the sense faculties, and which produce some transformation in the body, such as palpitation of the heart, increased circulation of the blood, paleness, blushing, etc.

Division.—There are two classes of passions; (a) the concupiscible, which have as their object sensible good considered as delightful, or sensible evil considered as unpleasant, and which are love and hatred, desire and flight, delight and sadness; (b) the irascible, which have as their object sensible good or sensible evil considered as difficult to attain or to avoid, and which are hope and despair, boldness and fear, anger.

The concupiscible passions are defined as follows: (a) love, the first of the passions and the cause of all the others, tends to sensible good considered as desirable, abstracting from its presence or absence; while hatred is the aversion from sensible evil considered precisely as unsuitable and abstracting from its presence or absence; (b) desire tends to sensible good that is absent, and flight turns away from sensible evil apprehended as future; (c) delight is the affection produced in the sensitive appetite by the presence and possession of the object desired; (d) sadness is the passion which dejects the soul on account of the presence of an evil.

The irascible passions are explained as follows: (a) hope reaches out towards a future good whose attainment is difficult, but not impossible; despair turns away from a good that seems impossible of attainment; (b) bravery goes out to attack an evil that seems difficult and imminent, but not unconquerable; fear falls back before a future difficulty that seems irresistible; (e) anger is the desire of vengeance for an injury received.

Moral Value of the Passions.—The Stoics held that all the passions are diseases of the soul, and that one is perfect when one arrives at the condition of being passionless or apathetic. Lucretius, on the contrary, taught that all the impulses of passion are good. The truth is that the passions are good or evil according to the way they are considered. (a) Physically, the passions are good, since they are the acts of natural powers, or the perfection and complement of something good in itself. (b) Morally, they are indifferent, if they are viewed in themselves, as the product of the sensitive appetite. For this appetite is an irrational power of the soul, similar to that of the beasts, and acts are not moral unless rational—i.e., an act is good or evil only from its relation to reason. (c) Morally, the passions are good or bad, if commanded by reason and will, for thus they partake of the good or evil that is in the acts from which they proceed, just as the acts of the external members of the body are moral in so far as they execute the commands of the will. The passions are voluntary if commanded by the will, or not forbidden by it. Examples: Our Lord looked about Him with anger, being grieved at the blindness of His enemies who watched Him in the synagogue (Mark, iii. 5); He wept over the destruction of Jerusalem (Luke, xix. 41); He was sad at the approach of His passion (Mark, xiv. 34).

Though the passions are physically good and in their nature morally indifferent, they may have physical reactions or moral consequences that are harmful or evil. These dangers may be physical, mental or moral.

(a) Physical Dangers of the Passions.—It is a well-known fact that there is a close connection between the passions and the nerves, heart, and bodily organism in general, and that strong or persistent emotion can work great detriment to the health, producing disease, unconsciousness, or even death.

(b) Mental Dangers of the Passions.—It is admitted by all that the passions disturb the judgment, and can even take away the use of reason. For they act upon the body or the senses, and these in turn affect the mind in a way similar to what happens in sleep or intoxication. Thus, love makes one blind to the defects of the object of one’s love; fear makes one magnify the evil of what is dreaded; melancholy unbalances the mind, etc.

(c) Moral Dangers of the Passions.—It is likewise a matter of common experience that the passions are a source of many temptations and sins. Often they are antecedent (i.e., not premeditated or willed), as when they arise from bodily states over which one has no control or from imaginations strongly fixed in the mind, and at the same time tend to that which is not according to right reason, rebelling against the law of the mind. Thus, a person whose health is bad is easily dispirited, and this feeling occasions temptations to despair; one whose memory is haunted with the image of a lost parent becomes a prey to sadness, which makes it difficult to perform duties with zest and diligence.

Antecedent or involuntary passions, as well as other involuntary acts of imagination, thought and will, tending to evil, are sometimes called “first motions of the soul,” as distinguished from consequent or voluntary passions and acts, which are known as “second motions of the soul.” The first motions are of two kinds: (a) those that precede all deliberation and consent, actual or virtual (motus primo-primi), and these are free from all sin; (b) those that precede full deliberation and consent, but follow on partial deliberation (motus secundo-primi). These latter are venial sins.

Most theologians since the Council of Trent maintain that the inordinate movements of passion which precede the advertence of reason, such as lust, envy, sloth, etc., are not sins. The Council of Trent defined that the fomes peccati has never been understood by the Church to be truly a sin in the baptized, but has been called sin by St. Paul in the sense that it is from sin and inclines to sin (Council of Trent, fifth session). On the basis of this text some authors argue that it is of faith that the inordinate motions called primo-primi are not sins for the baptized. The condemnation of both the fiftieth proposition of Baius: The evil desires to which reason does not consent, and which man endures unwillingly (invitus), are prohibited by precept; and his fifty-first: Lust, or the law of the members, and evil desires of it, which men suffer unwillingly, are true disobedience of the law; is interpreted as establishing as certain the non-sinfulness of such movements in infidels. (See Merklebach, O.P., Summa Theol. Mor., Vol. I, n. 448).

St. Thomas taught otherwise that such inordinate movements of passion are venial sins (Summa. Theol. I-II, q. 74, a. 3, ad 2um; de Malo q. 7, a. 6. ad 4m; de Veritate, q. 25, a. 5). Although they precede the deliberation of reason, they attain to the order of moral acts, however imperfectly, insofar as sensuality in man by its nature is made to be subject to reason. Reason can and ought to control these motions, but fails to do so owing to the great number of them possible to occur. Hence they are not involuntary, but indirectly voluntary as sins of omission (II Dist. 24, q. 3, a. 2; de Veritate, q. 25, a. 5; Quodlib. IV, q. 11, a. 1). Since these movements are indirectly voluntary, St. Thomas’ teaching does not conflict with the Council of Trent which speaks of the fomes as habitual dispositions and not of its acts which St. Thomas considers. Clearly, too, his teaching does not fall under the condemnation of the propositions of Baius; with Baius the motions are involuntary, but for St. Thomas indirectly voluntary.

St. Thomas distinguishes the motions of sensuality differently from modern manualists. For him the motions-primo-primi arise from corporal dispositions which are not under the control of reason and hence can not be sins. Motions-secundo-primi arise from some apprehension of the internal senses proper to the passions and can, at least if taken singly, and ought to be ruled by reason. Thus, they are moral acts (de Malo, q. VII, a. 6, ad 8um; II Dist. 24, q. 3, a. 2).

Though the passions are good in themselves, they are often morally dangerous. The regulation of the passions through the virtues of fortitude and temperance will be treated later on, but we shall indicate here some natural means by which, God helping, their first motions may be controlled. (a) Thus, if a passion is not strong, it may be repressed directly by command of the will. Example: The impulse to anger may sometimes be checked by the command of silence. (b) If a passion is strong, it may be combated through other activities which are its opposites or which, through the amount of energy they call for, will diminish proportionately the force of the passion. Examples: In time of fear one can fall back on thoughts of confidence; in time of mourning one can seek joy or alleviation in the society of friends or in the repose of sleep. Study or other strenuous occupation is an excellent means to overcome impetuous passion.

(c) If a passion is persistent, it may be diverted to some lawful object vividly represented and held in the imagination and thoughts. Examples. Those who are inclined to love immoderately the world or the things that are in the world should direct their love to divine goodness. Those who are inclined to be too fearful of men should think how much more God is to be feared.

Habits and Morality.—The importance of habits in man’s moral life is very great. (a) Habits are an index to a man’s past career, for the ease and facility he now possesses through them is the result of many struggles and efforts and difficulties overcome, or of defeats and surrenders and neglected opportunities. (b) Habits constitute a man’s moral character. Morally, a person is the sum of his moral habits and dispositions grouped around the central interest or idea of his life. He who would know himself, therefore, cannot do better than to examine what are his habits, and which is the predominant one among them. (e) Habits are a prophecy of the future. Habits are not irresistible and do not destroy freedom, but they produce such ease and readiness for acting in one particular way that the probabilities are, when habits are strong, that a person will continue to follow them in the future as he has done in the past, thus progressing or deteriorating, as the case may be.

Some Causes That Remove or Diminish Theological Culpability.—(a) Mental derangement or passion (e.g., great fear or anger) may make an injurious act unintentional and so take away natural liability for restitution (see 40 sqq.), but the civil law does not always admit the excuse, and after sentence the offender is bound to pay.

(b) According to some authorities, error about the extent of the harm that is being done, if invincible, excuses from restitution for damage that was not apprehended, as when a thief throws a gem into the ocean, thinking that it is only an imitation gem. But the offender would be held for the entire loss, if sentenced.

(e) Error about the person injured, even though invincible, probably does not excuse from restitution, if the intention was to harm a class (e.g., Sempronius intends to kill Balbus, because the latter is a policeman, but by accident he kills another policeman) or an individual (e.g., Caius intends to kill Titus and by mistake kills Claudius, the twin-brother of Titus).

(d) Error about the thing injured, even though invincible, probably does not excuse from restitution, if the intention was to do damage (e.g., Julius puts poison in a plate in order to kill his neighbor’s dog, but the cat takes the poison and is killed).

What are the acts of the will which consist in the pursuit of good and in flight from evil? - These acts of the will can be distinguished according as the passions of the sensitive appetite, to which they correspond, are distinguished. S. Th. 1. 2. q. 22. Now the passions are: love, to which hatred is opposed; desire or concupiscence, to which flight or abomination is opposed; delight, to which sadness is opposed; hope, to which despair is opposed; daring, to which fear is opposed; finally anger, which has no opposite.

S. Th. 1. 2. q. 23. The first three are passions of the concupiscible; the four latter are passions of the irascible. Love is the simple complacency of good, which proceeds from the connaturality and coaptation of the one appetizing with regard to the thing suitable to him. Dilection adds to love a preceding election; charity adds to love a certain perfection, insofar as that which is loved is esteemed of great price. One love is of friendship, another of concupiscence. For to love is to will good to someone. Toward that good which someone wills to someone there is love of concupiscence. Toward that to which someone wills good there is love of friendship. S. Th. 1. 2. q. 26.

Hatred is the simple displeasure and detestation of evil, which arises from a certain dissonance of the appetite toward that which is apprehended as repugnant and harmful. S. Th. 1. 2. q. 29. One hatred is of abomination, another of enmity. The former is the detestation of some evil of a person; the latter is also the detestation of the person himself, to whom one wills evil. Concupiscence or desire is the movement of the appetite into an absent good. Flight or abomination is the detestation of an absent evil. S. Th. 1. 2. q. 30.

Delight is a certain repose of the appetite from the presence of a delighting good. Sadness is a certain pain from the presence of evil. S. Th. 1. 2. q. 31, 35. Hope is the movement of the appetite into a future good, arduous, possible to obtain, and according to this possibility or impossibility hope differs from despair. Hence it is that hope imports a certain approach to an arduous good; despair, on the contrary, imports withdrawal from it. S. Th. 1. 2. q. 40. a. 1, 4. "Fear flees future harm because of its victory over the one fearing; but daring attacks imminent danger because of its victory over the danger itself." S. Th. 1. 2. q. 45. a. 1. For fear "does not regard evil absolutely, but with a certain difficulty or arduousness, so that it can scarcely be resisted." S. Th. 1. 2. q. 41. a. 2 ad 3. "According to the opposition of good and evil, fear is contrary to hope; according to the opposition of approach and withdrawal, daring is contrary to fear, but despair to hope." S. Th. 1. 2. q. 45. a. 1 ad 3.

Anger is the appetite of vengeance, as possible to itself. It seeks evil itself under the notion of vindictive justice. Hence it regards one object according to the notion of good, namely the vengeance which it seeks, and another according to the notion of evil, namely the harmful man, against whom it wills to be avenged through the infliction of punishment. S. Th. 1. 2. q. 46. a. 2, 6. It has no contrary either according to approach and withdrawal, or according to the opposition of good and evil. For it is a movement toward attacking the injurious evil already lying upon one. Hence neither can there be a movement toward fleeing evil; nor can there be a movement toward good: for when this has been obtained, there is repose and joy of the appetite. S. Th. 1. 2. q. 23. a. 3.

Does concupiscence cause the involuntary? - The sensitive appetite is distinguished into the concupiscible and the irascible. The concupiscible is that by which it reaches after or flees from those things which are represented through imagination as good or evil. The irascible is that by which it strives to remove those things which stand in its way as it reaches after the former things or flees from the latter. S. Th. 1. 2. q. 23.

By the name concupiscence is understood here any movement whatever of the sensitive appetite which is borne toward the good or flees from the evil proper to itself. But those things which are said concerning the affection of the sensitive appetite can easily be applied to the affection of the will; for just as the movement of the will can be caused from sensitive concupiscence, so one affection of the will can be caused from another affection of the will itself. And thus from love of children, of God, of honor, someone voluntarily undertakes dangers, and that will will be the more fervent, the greater that affection was.

One concupiscence is antecedent, another consequent. The former precedes the free act of the will, and consequently is excited merely naturally. The latter follows upon the free act of the will. The former draws and inclines reason and the will. The latter redounds from the will. The former is not voluntary; the latter is voluntary, either in itself, if the will deliberately wills and excites it, or in the cause, if it naturally results from a free act of the will. "The sensitive appetite," says S. Th. 1. 2. q. 77. a. 6, "can have itself to free choice both antecedently and consequently. Antecedently indeed, according as the passion of the sensitive appetite draws or inclines reason or the will. But consequently, according as the movement of the higher powers, if they are vehement, redounds into the lower powers. For the will cannot be moved intensely into something without some passion being excited in the sensitive appetite."

Antecedent concupiscence diminishes the voluntary both under the notion of voluntary and under the notion of free. Therefore an act proceeding from it is the less voluntary under both notions, the more intense it is. The reason for the first part is that an act is voluntary insofar as it is from an intrinsic principle. But concupiscence is extrinsic to the will. Therefore an act proceeding from its impulse is less voluntary under the notion of voluntary. Hence S. Th. 1. 2. q. 77. a. 6 ad 3 says: "It must be said that, although the movement of the will is more intense when incited by passion, nevertheless it is not so proper to the will as if it were moved by reason alone to sin." And ibid. in the body: "An act is sin insofar as it is voluntary and existing in us. But something is said to be in us through reason and will. Hence the more reason and will do something from themselves, not from the impulse of passion, the more it is voluntary and existing in us."

The reason for the second part is that an act is the less voluntary under the notion of free, the less dependence it has on the part of free will and advertence on the part of reason. But when a preceding passion is more vehement, so much less is the dependence of this consequent act upon the will freely determining itself and upon reason considering. For the more the free will finds the soul already inclined by passion, the less it itself influences the determination of the consequent act. Then, although passion cannot directly influence judgment, nevertheless it can indirectly influence it in three ways: 1. Through a certain distraction, for the sense is less attentive to individual things when it is intent upon many. 2. Through a certain contrariety, insofar as it inclines to the contrary of what ought to be judged, and the soul becomes weak and feeble. 3. Through bodily alteration; for it perverts the phantasy, which does not present itself to the right operations of the intellect, as is seen in the insane and in those raging from the vehemence of passions.

But although from antecedent concupiscence the act of the will is less voluntary, nevertheless it becomes more intense and easier, because it inclines the will to willing. And according as the passion is greater, it renders the effort of the will easier. And thus soldiers from hope of glory, parents and friends from love of children and friends, gladly endure all kinds of burdensome things. S. Th. 1. 2. q. 6. a. 7 ad 3; q. 10. a. 3; q. 33. a. 3; q. 48. a. 3; q. 73. a. 6 ad 2; q. 77. a. 1, 2, 3, 6, 7; 2. 2. q. 154. a. 3 ad 1; q. 158. a. 3 ad 2; Suarez, tr. 2, d. 3, s. 3, 4.

Consequent concupiscence presupposes an act the more voluntary the more intense it is. The reason is that consequent concupiscence is excited in us consequently upon an act of the will freely determining itself. Therefore whether it is excited naturally, through a certain redundancy into the lower part from the higher; or whether it is excited voluntarily, either indirectly through voluntary negligence and omission of repressing rising motions, or directly, deliberately and studiously, by exciting motions in the lower part; concupiscence, as consequent and not preceding the free act of the will from which it proceeds, cannot exercise any causal influence upon that act, but presupposes the same act of the will, which rather exercises influence upon it. And, if the discussion again is of concupiscence which is excited from the very act of the will, whether voluntarily or naturally, since an effect must be proportioned to its cause and cannot surpass it, consequent concupiscence does not diminish the voluntary, but rather increases it, insofar as it signifies and demonstrates a greater propensity and inclination of the will to the act. S. Th. 1. 2. q. 24. a. 3 ad 1; q. 73. a. 6 ad 2; q. 77. a. 6.

Consequent concupiscence which arises from a merely natural resulting and redundancy of the superior part into the inferior, renders that which proceeds from it voluntary and more voluntary in the cause, the more interior it is, by the very fact that it proceeds from the will. But it renders that less voluntary in itself, since it always somehow clouds reason and somehow impedes the free exercise of the will.

But consequent concupiscence directly excited for acting, for example if someone deliberately excites hatred in himself against an enemy by turning over received injuries in his mind, so that he may seek vengeance more obstinately and execute it with greater daring, renders that which proceeds from it more voluntary simply, because that passion directly and voluntarily excited is a sign that the movement of the will is stronger. S. Th. de Malo, q. 3. a. 10, 11; 1. 2. q. 24. a. 3 ad 1, 3; E. M.

Does passion diminish sin? - Passion is here called a movement of the sensitive appetite, as if by a certain force and impetus carrying off the soul, so that the soul seems as if to suffer under its influence. "It must be said that sin essentially consists in an act of free choice, which is the faculty of will and reason. But passion is a movement of the sensitive appetite. Therefore if passion is taken according as it precedes the act of sin, then it is necessary that it diminish sin. For an act is sin insofar as it is voluntary.... And according to this passion lessens sin insofar as it lessens the voluntary. But consequent passion does not diminish sin, but rather increases it, or rather is a sign of its magnitude, insofar namely as it demonstrates the intensity of the will toward the act of sin. And thus it is true that the more someone sins with greater lust or concupiscence, the more he sins." S. Th. 1. 2. q. 79. a. 6; q. 24. a. 3. Cf. preceding n.; L. 1. 5. n. 23.

You will resolve: Hence it follows that sin is diminished the more vehement the antecedent passion is. "It must be said that it belongs to the notion of sin that it be voluntary, but that is called voluntary whose principle is in the agent himself. And therefore the more its principle is increased, the graver the sin also becomes; but the more an exterior principle is increased, the lighter the sin becomes. But passion is a principle extrinsic to the will, while the movement of the will is an intrinsic principle. And therefore the stronger the movement of the will has been toward sinning, the less" [the sin becomes]. S. Th. de Malo, q. 1. a. 11 ad 3.

But an act proceeding from consequent concupiscence is the more voluntary and the greater sin, the greater that concupiscence is. "If under concupiscence is included also the very movement of the will, then where there is greater concupiscence there is greater sin." S. Th. 1. 2. q. 73. a. 6 ad 2.

Does passion totally excuse from sin? - "It must be said that an act which of its genus is evil is totally excused from sin according to this alone, that it is rendered totally involuntary. Hence, if there is such a passion which renders the following act totally involuntary, it totally excuses from sin; otherwise not totally.... Passion sometimes indeed is so great that it totally takes away the use of reason, as is clear in those who become insane because of love or anger. And then, if such passion was voluntary from the beginning, the act is imputed as sin, because it is voluntary in its cause.... But if the cause was not voluntary, but natural, for example when someone from sickness or some cause of this kind falls into such a passion that totally takes away the use of reason, the act is rendered altogether involuntary, and consequently totally excused from sin. But sometimes passion is not so great that it totally interrupts the use of reason; and then reason can exclude the passion by turning to other thoughts, or impede it from attaining its effect, because the members are not applied to the work except through the consent of reason. Hence such a passion does not totally excuse from sin." S. Th. 1. 2. q. 77. a. 7; q. 6. a. 7 ad 3; q. 10. a. 3.

Are the first motions of evil concupiscence always sins, and of what kind? - There can be no doubt that the first motions of evil concupiscence are sins, and mortal sins, for there is question of a grave matter, if, when they arise, the will consents in the following time, and by consenting morosely delights in them, whether with a long, or short, and very brief delay. For the act is concerning a gravely base matter and is fully deliberate; and that first motion of concupiscence, although it was excited entirely independently of the will, once the consent of the will accedes, now begins to be a commanded act in its delay and permanence.

Likewise there is no doubt that the first motions of evil concupiscence naturally excited and independently of the will, which afterward dissents from and resists them according to its powers, are in no way sins. For the acts are altogether involuntary, and without the voluntary there is no sin. Indeed, merit is thence had for the will resisting. "The first motion," says S. Th. 2. d. 40. q. 1. a. 4 ad 3, "does not have the notion of fault except according as it is in some way in the power of the will. Hence, when the will does not resist, it has the notion of sin. But when the will already begins to resist, then man merits."

If finally, when the first motion of concupiscence arises, the will neither consents nor dissents, but permits it, not prohibiting it, such a motion already has the notion of sin, because in some way it is in the power of the will. For that motion is now not against and outside the will, which certainly does not intend it, but at least permits it. But the sin is not mortal, but light. For mortal sin is in aversion from God, which cannot be had without reason turning itself away from God through deliberation, which aversion is not had here. Therefore that sin is not mortal, but venial. For it is sin, since it is a certain disorder against natural honesty. S. Th. 2. D. 24. q. 3. a. 2; Quodl. 4. a. 21; E. M.

"Does he sin gravely who behaves negatively, and does not positively resist a movement of the sensitive appetite concerning an object prohibited under mortal sin? - There are three opinions. The first affirms that one sins gravely, even when the danger of consent ceases... The second opinion says that such a one does not sin even venially, with danger of consent removed...

The third and true opinion holds that, when the danger of consent ceases, it is venial not to resist illicit movements positively, but not mortal. And this seems expressly confirmed by St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 74, a. 4, where he says: mortal sin cannot be in sensuality, but only in reason. Therefore the reason is, both because consent to sinning gravely does not arise from the sensible appetite, but from the will, and when it does not positively consent, mortal sin is not committed; and therefore venial sin is committed insofar as man ought to beware lest the appetite draw the will after itself; but this obligation, when the danger of consent is not proximate, is only light. And also because, if under grave obligation we were held positively to repel all disordered movements, we would be held to the impossible; for it is impossible positively to coerce all these movements taken collectively." L. 6, 29; Diana, vol. 8, tr. 6, de aliq. cas. circa mat. lux., r. 8; S. Th. 1. 2. q. 74, a. 8, ad 3; q. 79, a. 1; La-Croix, l. 5, n. 111.

"Note: There is no obligation to resist carnal movements positively, if there is a just cause of not resisting, namely if someone has experienced that by resisting the movements are more excited and increased; or if the movements have their origin from a necessary or useful action;... if it is not an easy business to repel them. It is enough, therefore, then to behave negatively, with the firm purpose of never consenting; for the actual care of not consenting itself then suffices to free a man from fault, at least mortal fault, although not from venial fault, if the resistance is tepid." L. 9. Therefore when temptation lasts long, and it would be too troublesome continually to repel its movements positively, it is no sin to permit them by behaving negatively. And to do thus is counseled to those who are of timorous conscience. L. 9.

How is resistance made positively? - Positive resistance can be furnished in two ways: 1. Directly, by repelling those movements; and indeed there is no obligation to employ this direct resistance, which, as regards carnal movements, often excites them more; much less is there an obligation to material resistance, which itself also often, as regards those carnal movements, is harmful. 2. Indirectly, by diverting the mind to other things. As regards movements against chastity and against faith and charity, this indirect resistance is more to be counseled than any direct resistance or attack; and if the movements are slight, it is better to despise them. L. 8; S. Th. 1. 2. q. 74, a. 3, ad 2.

Is someone bound by positive effort to impede depraved motions of concupiscence involuntarily arisen? R. Negatively; nor indeed is this expedient, since then the imagination itself grows hot by the very strain, and by the natural sympathy of faculty with faculty excites the genital spirits more and more. The more suitable remedy will be to invoke God and turn the mind and imagination away from obscene images, and by serious application to apply them to other things, especially to exterior affairs.

"But this holy Synod confesses and perceives that concupiscence, or the fomes, remains in the baptized; and since it has been left for combat, it cannot harm those who do not consent, but who resist manfully through the grace of Christ Jesus; indeed, he who shall have contended lawfully shall be crowned. This concupiscence, which the Apostle sometimes calls sin, the holy Synod declares that the Catholic Church has never understood to be called sin because it is truly and properly sin in the regenerate, but because it is from sin and inclines toward sin. But if anyone shall think the contrary, let him be anathema." Council of Trent, sess. 5, Decree on Original Sin, penultimate paragraph.

"74. Concupiscence in the regenerate who have relapsed into mortal sin, in whom it now dominates, is sin, just as are other vicious habits. - 75. The evil movements of concupiscence are, for the state of corrupted man, prohibited by the precept: Thou shalt not covet; whence a man who feels them and does not consent transgresses the precept Thou shalt not covet, although the transgression is not imputed as sin. - 76. As long as anything of carnal concupiscence is in one who loves, he does not fulfill the precept: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart." Condemned propositions of Michael Baius, condemned by St. Pius V.

"19. That neither the work, nor the will, nor concupiscence, nor pleasure, when it moves the soul, is sin, nor ought we to will to extinguish it." Chapters of Abelard condemned by the Council of Sens and by Innocent II.

"17. Free will having been handed over to God, and the care and thought of our soul having been left to Him, no further account is to be taken of temptations; nor must any resistance be made to them other than a negative one, with no industry employed; and if nature is moved, it is necessary to allow it to be moved, because it is nature. - 37. On occasions of even furious temptations, the soul must not elicit explicit acts of the opposite virtues, but must remain in the aforesaid love and resignation." Condemned propositions of Michael de Molinos, condemned by Innocent XI.

Titius, a fervent Catholic, having received a grave injury from Sempronius, blazing up in anger, considers in his mind killing Sempronius. But, adverting to the grave sin in such a deed, he removes such a thought from himself. But behold, seeing Sempronius again, he again forms the purpose of killing him, and now in his mind devises means for accomplishing the matter, and remains for a long time in this thought. Meanwhile a funeral meets him, and the thought of death, judgment, and hell preoccupies his mind; and thus, as if spontaneously, he dismisses every memory of the injury received and of vengeance.

Q. 1. Do concupiscence and anger render an act involuntary? 2. What as to the case?

R. To the first: concupiscence and anger can render an act involuntary only when they are so vehement that they entirely snatch away the use of reason. For then, and then only, can it be verified that the act is against the will, that is, against the rational and deliberate will. Indeed, if the use of reason is not totally snatched away, then, when concupiscence and anger incline to the act, the voluntary is necessarily present, although in that act the voluntary is diminished according to the intensity of concupiscence and anger, if it is antecedent; for if it is consequent, then, on the contrary, it is increased. But this difference intervenes between concupiscence and anger, that anger is accustomed far more easily to snatch away the use of reason, while concupiscence brings this about far more with difficulty. I. M. 54-57.

To the second: a fervent Catholic does not so easily consent to grave sin, and to a sin so grave as homicide. But the thought of homicide arises in Titius from the grave injury received and from the blazing up of anger. Therefore the aforesaid thought can easily be judged involuntary by that defect of advertence and deliberation. And indeed, as is said in the case, Titius, soon adverting to the grave sin, repelled that thought from himself. Therefore before that he had not adverted, or at least had not adverted sufficiently, to the grave sin. But as to the fact that he again conceived the will of killing the enemy, this thought indeed naturally entered his mind from the presence of the enemy; struck by that presence, the purpose formed easily lacked due deliberation. Whence, looking upon the funeral, he spontaneously dismissed every memory of the injury received and of vengeance. Nor indeed is there difficulty from the fact that he remained for a long time in that purpose. For this perhaps happened either from the continued presence and sight of the enemy in the middle of the road until the funeral met him, or from the very passion of anger vehemently stirred up. Elbel 228.

1. In the preceding Commentary there was discussion of the first impediment of the human act, namely of ignorance, which holds itself on the part of the intellect, which is the first principle of the human act. It must now be said in the present Commentary concerning concupiscence, the other impediment of the human act. For concupiscence holds itself chiefly on the part of the will, which is the second principle of the human act. Indeed ignorance takes away cognition of the intellect; but concupiscence chiefly affects the inclination of the will, at the same time affecting the cognition itself of the intellect.

2. By the name of concupiscence in this place is not understood that depraved tinder of cupidity by which we flee honorable things and are borne into illicit pleasurable things, Rom. 7:8, 23; but generally, any passion whatever of the sensitive appetite is understood, which is borne into pursuing the good proper to itself and into avoiding evil. Let us explain the several elements of this definition in a few words.

3. It is called any passion whatever; for concupiscence here is not taken for the special passion of the sensitive appetite, but generally for any motion of the sensible appetite. For concupiscence, properly speaking, is a special passion, and St. Thomas treats of it in 1. 2. qq. 30 and 31. After he treated of the passions of the soul in general, qq. 22-25, he then begins to treat of the passions of the soul in particular, namely of the passions of the concupiscible and irascible powers, qq. 26-48. But the special passion of the concupiscible power is concupiscence, according as it is distinguished from the other passions of the concupiscible power, namely from love and delight, and from their opposites, that is, hatred and sadness. “The pleasurable good,” says St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 30. a. 2., “according to sense, is commonly the object of the concupiscible power; whence according to its differences the diverse passions of the concupiscible power are distinguished... But there is another account of the moving power of the end itself or good, according as it is really present and according as it is absent: for according as it is present it makes one rest in itself; according as it is absent it makes one be moved toward itself. Whence the pleasurable thing itself according to sense, insofar as it in some way adapts and conforms the appetite to itself, causes love; but insofar as being absent it draws to itself, it causes concupiscence; but insofar as being present it gives rest in itself, it causes delight. Thus therefore concupiscence is a passion differing in species both from love and from delight... The pleasurable good is not absolutely the object of concupiscence, but under the account of absent... For particular conditions of this kind diversify the species of passions, or even of the powers of the sensitive part, which regards particulars.”

4. Of the sensitive appetite, generally, according as it includes the concupiscible and irascible power; the distinction of which is from the object itself, according as namely it is either absolutely a sensible good, or a difficult and arduous good. “The object of the concupiscible power,” says the Angelic Doctor, 1. 2. q. 23. a. 1., “is sensible good or evil accepted simply, which is pleasurable or painful. But because it is necessary that sometimes the soul suffer difficulty or struggle in obtaining some such good, or in fleeing some such evil, insofar as this is in some way elevated above the easy power of the animal; therefore the good or evil itself, according as it has the account of arduous or difficult, is the object of the irascible power. Therefore whatever passions regard absolutely good or evil pertain to the concupiscible power, as joy, sadness, love, hatred, and the like; but whatever passions regard good or evil under the account of arduous, according as it is something obtainable or fleeable with some difficulty, pertain to the irascible power, as daring and fear, hope and things of this sort... The good insofar as pleasurable moves the concupiscible power. But if the good has a certain difficulty for obtaining it, from this very fact it has something repugnant to the concupiscible power. And therefore it was necessary that there be another power which would tend into it; and the account is the same concerning evils. And this power is the irascible. Whence consequently the passions of the concupiscible and irascible powers differ in species... To this end the irascible power has been given to animals, that the impediments may be removed by which the concupiscible power is prohibited from tending into its object, either on account of the difficulty of obtaining the good, or on account of the difficulty of overcoming evil. And therefore all passions of the irascible power are terminated at the passions of the concupiscible power. And according to this also the passions which are in the irascible power follow joy and sadness, which are in the concupiscible power.”

5. Of the sensitive appetite. For “there is a twofold delight: one which is in intelligible good, which is the good of reason. Another, which is in good according to sense. The first delight indeed seems to be of the soul only. But the second is of soul and body, because sense is a power in a bodily organ. Whence also good according to sense is the good of the whole composite. But the appetite of such delight seems to be concupiscence, which pertains at once both to the soul and to the body, as the very name of concupiscence sounds. Whence concupiscence, properly speaking, is in the sensitive appetite, and in the concupiscible power, which is denominated from it.” Hence it is clear that concupiscence is not the same as desire. “It must be said that desire can pertain more, properly speaking, not only to the lower appetite, but also to the higher. For it does not import some association in desiring as concupiscence does, but a simple motion into the thing desired.” St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 30. a. 1.

6. Into the good proper to itself, namely the pleasurable, sensible good apprehended by imagination. “To seek something under the account of a good pleasurable according to sense, which is properly to desire concupiscently, pertains to the concupiscible power.” St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 30. a. 1. ad 3. “Concupiscence is appetite of a pleasurable good. But something is pleasurable in two ways: in one way, because it is fitting to animal nature, as food and drink and other things of this kind. And concupiscence of a pleasurable thing of this kind is called natural. In another way something is said to be pleasurable because it is fitting according to apprehension: as when someone apprehends something as good and fitting, and consequently is delighted in it. And concupiscence of a pleasurable thing of this kind is called non-natural, and is more accustomed to be called cupidity. Therefore the first natural concupiscences are common to men and other animals, because to each there is something fitting and pleasurable according to nature; and in these all men agree... But the second concupiscences are proper to men, to whom it is proper to devise something as good and fitting beyond that which nature requires.”

7. Into pursuing the good proper to itself, and into avoiding evil. For the object of the concupiscible power according to the Angelic Doctor is good and evil; from appetite of good flight from evil is caused. “The objects of the concupiscible power are good and evil. But naturally good is prior to evil, because evil is the privation of good; whence also all passions whose object is good are naturally prior to passions whose object is evil: for because good is sought, therefore the opposite evil is rejected.” Moreover concupiscence, in the present question concerning its influence on the voluntary, as has already been said, is taken not in the stricter sense for the appetite of sensible good alone, but in the broader sense for any motion whatever of the sensible appetite, or for any passion whatever of this appetite, and insofar as generally it is “a motion of the appetitive sensitive power, which is from the imagination of good or evil.” St. Thomas, 3. D. 26. q. 1. a. 1.

8. The question is moved in the first place: whether concupiscence causes the involuntary? — Concupiscence does not cause the involuntary. For concupiscence rather does this, that something is voluntary, than that it is involuntary. “For something is called voluntary from this, that the will is borne into it. But through concupiscence the will is inclined to willing that which it desires.” St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 6. a. 7.

9. But concupiscence is one thing antecedent, another consequent. The former precedes the free act of the will, and consequently is stirred up merely naturally. The latter follows the free act of the will. The former draws and inclines reason and will. The latter overflows from the will. The former is not voluntary; the latter is voluntary either in itself, if the will deliberately wills and stirs it up, or in the cause, if it results naturally from a free act of the will. “The sensitive appetite,” says St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 77. a. 6., “can have itself to free choice both antecedently and consequently. Antecedently indeed, according as passion of the sensitive appetite draws or inclines reason or will. Consequently, however, according as the motions of the higher powers, if they are vehement, overflow into the lower. For the will cannot be moved intensely into something without some passion being stirred up in the sensitive appetite.” Therefore concupiscence can be at once antecedent and consequent: antecedent in its beginning and consequent in its continuation, insofar as namely the consent of the will comes to it, fostering it. But since concupiscence by its own nature always inclines and impels to act, there is no consideration and distinction of concupiscence causing and concomitant.

10. Antecedent concupiscence diminishes the voluntary both in the account of the voluntary and in the account of the free. Wherefore an act proceeding from it is less voluntary under each account, the more intense that concupiscence is. The reason of the first part is that an act is voluntary insofar as it is from an intrinsic principle. But concupiscence is extrinsic to the will. Therefore an act proceeding from its impulse is less voluntary in the account of the voluntary. Hence St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 77. a. 6. ad 3., says: “It must be said that although the motion of the will is more intense when stirred up by passion, nevertheless it is not so proper to the will as if it were moved to sin by reason alone.” And in the body of the same article: “An act is sin insofar as it is voluntary and existing in us. But something is said to exist in us through reason and will. Whence the more reason and will do something from themselves, not from the impulse of passion, the more it is voluntary and existing in us; and according to this passion diminishes sin, insofar as it diminishes the voluntary.”

11. The reason of the second part is that an act is less voluntary in the account of the free, the less dependence it has on the part of the free will and advertence on the part of reason. But when the preceding passion is more vehement, the less is the dependence of this consequent act upon the will freely determining itself and upon reason considering. For the free will, the more it finds the soul already inclined by passion, the less it itself influences the determination of the consequent act. Then, although passion cannot directly influence judgment, nevertheless it can indirectly influence it in three ways: 1.º through a certain distraction, for sense is less attentive to individual things when it attends to many; 2.º through a certain contrariety, insofar as it inclines to things contrary to that which ought to be judged, and the soul becomes weak and feeble; 3.º through bodily alteration, for it perverts the phantasy, which does not furnish itself for the right operations of the intellect, as is seen in the insane and the furious from the vehemence of passions. St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 6. a. 7. ad 3., q. 10. a. 3., q. 73. a. 6. ad 2., q. 77. a. 1. 2. 3. 6. 7.; Suarez D. 3. S. 3. 4.

12. But although from antecedent concupiscence an act of the will is less voluntary, because it is not so proper to the will as if the will were moved by reason alone, nevertheless it becomes more intense and easier. And according as the passion is greater, by that much it renders the effort of the will easier. And thus soldiers from hope of glory, parents and friends from love of children and friends, bear any burdensome things pleasantly. St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 77. a. 6. ad 3.

13. Consequent concupiscence presupposes an act more voluntary in proportion as it itself is more intense. The reason is that consequent concupiscence is stirred up in us consequently to the act of the will freely determining itself. Wherefore, whether it is stirred up naturally through a certain overflowing from the higher part into the lower, or is stirred up voluntarily, either indirectly through voluntary negligence and omission of repressing rising motions, or directly, with effort applied and studiously stirring up motions in the lower part, concupiscence, as consequent and not preceding the free act of the will whence it proceeds, cannot exercise any influence of causality upon it; nor can it increase or lessen the voluntary of which it is the effect, but it presupposes that same act of the will, which rather exercises influence upon it. And if the discussion again is of concupiscence which, whether voluntarily or naturally, is stirred up from the very act of the will, since an effect ought to be proportioned to its cause and cannot surpass it, consequent concupiscence does not diminish the voluntary, but rather increases it, insofar as namely it signifies and demonstrates a greater propensity and inclination of the will to the act. St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 73. a. 6. ad 2., q. 77. a. 6.

14. “It must be said that the passions of the soul can have themselves to the judgment of reason in two ways: in one way antecedently; and thus, since they cloud the judgment of reason, upon which the moral goodness of the act depends, they diminish the goodness of the act. For it is more praiseworthy that someone do a work of charity from the judgment of reason than from the passion of mercy alone. In another way they have themselves consequently, and this in two ways: in one way by way of overflow, because namely when the higher part of the soul is moved intensely into something, the lower part also follows its motion; and thus passion existing consequently in the sensitive appetite is a sign of a more intense will; and thus it indicates a greater moral goodness. In another way by way of election, when namely man from the judgment of reason chooses to be affected by some passion, so that he may operate more promptly, with the sensitive appetite cooperating; and thus the passion of the soul adds to the goodness of the action.... It must be said that passion tending into evil, preceding the judgment of reason, diminishes sin; but consequent passion in one of the aforesaid ways increases it, or signifies its increase.” St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 24. a. 3. ad 1. 3. Therefore consequent concupiscence which arises from a merely natural resulting and overflowing of the higher part into the lower, renders, as is clear, that which proceeds from it voluntary, and more voluntary in the cause, the more intense it is, by this very fact that it depends upon the will. But it renders that less voluntary in itself, since it always in some way clouds reason and in some way impedes the free exercise of the will. St. Thomas, On Evil, q. 3. a. 10. But consequent concupiscence directly stirred up for acting, for example if someone deliberately stirs up hatred in himself against an enemy by turning over in his mind injuries received, so that he may desire vengeance more pertinaciously and execute it with greater boldness, renders that which proceeds from it more voluntary simply, because that passion directly and voluntarily stirred up is a sign that the motion of the will is stronger. “But this,” as St. Thomas observes, On Evil q. 3. a. 11., “is not to do good or to sin from passion, but rather to suffer passion from the election of good or evil.”

15. Whether concupiscence diminishes merit and demerit? — One must answer affirmatively concerning antecedent concupiscence; for it diminishes the voluntary in the account of the free, whence merit and demerit are taken. “Passion,” says St. Thomas, On Evil q. 3. a. 11., “preceding the motion of the will, diminishes the account of merit and demerit, because merit and demerit consist in election proceeding from reason. But passion clouds or binds the judgment of reason. But the purer the judgment of reason has been, the more perspicacious the election is for meriting or demeriting.” And 1. 2. q. 77. a. 6. ad 2: “Good passion, consequent upon the judgment of reason, increases merit. But if it precedes, so that namely man is moved to acting well more from passion than from the judgment of reason, such passion diminishes the goodness and praise of the act.” — But negatively one must answer concerning consequent concupiscence, since it is a sign of the magnitude of the affection of the will, and demonstrates its intensity. And thus St. Thomas, On Evil q. 3. a. 11., says “that he who gives alms with greater compassion merits more, and he who commits sin with greater lust sins more, because this is a sign that the motion of the will is stronger.” Cf. n. 10. 11. 13. 14.

16. It follows from what has been said that, if the discussion is of a will not obeying but resisting depraved concupiscence, the magnitude of concupiscence proceeding from a merely natural cause increases merit, and on the contrary the weakness of concupiscence from the same natural cause lessens merit; for a greater effort of the will is required against the former, a lesser against the latter. “Magnitude of concupiscence or weakness.... sometimes proceeds from a bodily cause; for certain persons from natural complexion are more prone to desiring concupiscently than others, and again certain persons have opportunities of delights inflaming concupiscence more ready than others. And such weakness of concupiscence diminishes merit, but magnitude increases it.” St. Thomas, 2. 2. q. 155. a. 4. ad 2. But if the magnitude of concupiscence proceeds from the will itself, namely from its lesser effort and labor in the exercise of self-mortification and of virtues, and on the contrary the weakness of concupiscence proceeds from the great effort and labor of the will in acquiring holiness, then the greater concupiscence diminishes merit, and the lesser concupiscence increases merit, by reason of the aforesaid cause, namely of the lesser or greater labor and effort of the will. “But sometimes,” St. Thomas adds in the cited place, “weakness or magnitude of concupiscence proceeds from a praiseworthy spiritual cause, for example from the vehemence of charity or the strength of reason, as is in a temperate man. And in this way weakness of concupiscence increases merit by reason of its cause, but magnitude diminishes it.”

17. Whether passion diminishes sin? — R. “It must be said that sin essentially consists in an act of free choice, which is the faculty of will and reason. But passion is a motion of the sensitive appetite.... If therefore passion is taken according as it precedes the act of sin, thus it is necessary that it diminish sin. For an act is sin insofar as it is voluntary and existing in us. But something is said to exist in us through reason and through will. Whence the more reason and will do something from themselves, not from the impulse of passion, the more it is voluntary and existing in us. And according to this passion diminishes sin, insofar as it diminishes the voluntary. But consequent passion does not diminish sin, but rather increases it, or rather is a sign of its magnitude, insofar namely as it demonstrates the intensity of the will toward the act of sin. And thus it is true that the greater the lust or concupiscence with which someone sins, by so much the more he sins.” St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 77. a. 6.

18. Hence it follows that sin is diminished the more, the more vehement the preceding passion is. “It must be said that it belongs to the account of sin that it be voluntary. But that is called voluntary whose principle is in the agent himself. And therefore the more the interior principle is increased, by so much also sin becomes graver; but the more the exterior principle is increased, by so much sin becomes lighter. But passion is a principle extrinsic to the will; but the motion of the will is an intrinsic principle. And therefore the stronger the motion of the will has been for sinning, by so much the sin is greater; but the stronger the passion has been impelling to sinning, by so much the sin becomes less.” St. Thomas, On Evil q. 3. a. 11. ad 3. Cf. n. 10. 11. 12.

19. But an act proceeding from consequent concupiscence is more voluntary and a greater sin, the greater that concupiscence is. “If under concupiscence there is also included the motion itself of the will, thus where there is greater concupiscence there is greater sin.” St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 73. a. 6. ad 2. Likewise concupiscence directly stirred up increases sin. For since it is voluntary, the greater it itself is, the greater was the voluntary from which it arose. And for the same reason greater merit is had in the voluntary restraining of concupiscence and in its lessening. Cf. n. 13. 14. 16.

20. Whether passion totally excuses from sin? — “It must be said that an act which from its genus is evil is totally excused from sin only according to this, that it is rendered totally involuntary. Whence if the passion is such as to render the following act totally involuntary, it totally excuses from sin; otherwise not totally.... Sometimes indeed passion is so great that it totally takes away the use of reason, as is clear in those who become insane on account of love or anger. And then, if such passion was voluntary from the beginning, the act is imputed to sin, because it is voluntary in its cause.... But if the cause was not voluntary, but natural, for instance when someone from sickness or from some cause of this kind falls into such passion, which totally takes away the use of reason, the act is wholly rendered involuntary, and consequently is totally excused from sin. But sometimes passion is not so great that it totally intercepts the use of reason; and then reason can exclude passion by turning aside to other thoughts, or prevent it from following its effect, because the members are not applied to work except through the consent of reason. Whence such passion does not totally excuse from sin.” St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 77. a. 7., q. 6. a. 7. ad 3. Cf. also q. 10. a. 3.

21. But the reason is that the will in its mode of acting depends upon the intellect. But the intellect can propose something to the will in two ways. First, from a sudden and simple apprehension, which then happens when, by means of the phantasy and the sensitive appetite, it suddenly apprehends some pleasurable good by which the appetite is affected, and proposes this to the will under the account only of a pleasurable good, and in no way under the account of evil. For then the will is determined to seeking this, and it is not in its power to seek and reject, because the intellect determinately proposes to it a good which it may seek, and does not at the same time propose to it an evil which it may reject. Secondly, from previous deliberation or use of reason, which then happens when the intellect not only apprehends some object, but at the same time sees in it the account of good and evil, and besides judges and discourses concerning the whole matter. For then the will can indifferently either seek that object on account of the account of good, or reject it on account of the account of evil, or finally cease from every act, because neither the good mixed with evil can necessitate it to seeking, nor the evil mixed with good can necessitate it to rejecting. Becanus, Tr. 1. C. 2. q. 10. n. 34. 35.

22. Whether the first motions of depraved concupiscence are always sins, and of what kind? — There can be no doubt that the first motions of depraved concupiscence are sins, and mortal sins, for the matter is grave, if, when they arise, the will in the subsequent time consents to them, and by consenting is morosely delighted in them, whether with a long delay, or a brief and very brief delay. For the act concerns a gravely base matter, and is fully deliberate; and that first motion of concupiscence, although it may have been stirred up wholly independently of the will, with the consent of the will coming to it, now begins to be a commanded act in its delay and permanence. Wherefore that delay is a voluntary delay.

23. Likewise there is no doubt that the first motions of depraved concupiscence naturally stirred up and independently of the will, which then according to its powers dissents from and resists them, are in no way sins. For the acts are wholly involuntary, and without the voluntary there is no sin. Indeed merit then belongs to the will resisting. “The first motion,” says St. Thomas, 2. Dist. q. 1. a. 4. ad 3., “does not have the account of fault except according as in some way it is in the power of the will. Whence as long as the will does not resist, it has the account of sin. But when the will now begins to resist, then man merits.”

24. Finally, if the will, when the first motion of concupiscence arises, neither consents nor dissents, but permits it, not prohibiting it, then a motion of this kind now has the account of sin, because in some way it is in the power of the will. For that motion is now not against and beyond the will, which indeed does not intend it, but at least permits it. But the sin is not mortal, but slight. For mortal sin consists in aversion from God, which cannot be had without reason turning itself away from God through deliberation, which aversion is not had here. Therefore that sin is not mortal, but venial. It is venial sin because it is disordered, with no excusing cause, to cease from all resistance and to do nothing in so dangerous a matter; and since this is not mortal, nevertheless it cannot be exempted from venial fault. “The first motion is a motion of sensuality preceding the deliberation of reason.... But it pertains to the nature of sensuality and of reason that a motion of sensuality which is without deliberation of reason cannot be mortal sin, because mortal sin is that which consists in aversion from God, to whom man cannot be converted except through reason; and consequently aversion from God, which constitutes mortal sin, cannot be except in reason.” St. Thomas, Quodl. 4. a. 22. Moreover the disorder which constitutes mortal sin is in the will, which wills evil. But here the will does not truly will, but permits; and to permit evil per se is not sin, or certainly is not mortal sin. For to will evil is from the perfect dominion of the will; to permit evil is only from its imperfect dominion, since it is only not to prohibit evil. “The will has complete dominion in some things, but incomplete in others. It has complete dominion in those acts which proceed from the command of the will, and these are acts following deliberation, which are ascribed to reason. But it has incomplete dominion in those acts which do not proceed through the command of reason, but nevertheless the will could impede them, so that thus in some way they are subject to the will, as to being impeded or not impeded; and therefore the disorder which happens in these acts causes the account of sin, yet of incomplete sin, and therefore in these acts sin is very slight and venial.” St. Thomas, 2. Dist. 24. q. 3. a. 2.

25. The doctrine of St. Thomas is the same in Quodl. 4. a. 21: “It must be said that motion imports a certain inclination to a term; and this inclination pertains to appetite in human acts. But in man there is a threefold appetite. One indeed is natural, according as the appetitive power pertains to the vegetative soul, as also the digestive, expulsive, and retentive power do. The second appetite is of sensuality, which is moved according to apprehension of sense. The third appetite is of the will, which is moved according to the judgment of reason. Sin which has the account of fault, of which we are now speaking, cannot exist except in a voluntary act, which namely is in some way in the power of the one sinning. But the act of the natural appetite is not subject to the command of reason, just as neither is the act of the other powers of the vegetative soul; and therefore fault cannot consist in the act of such an appetite, just as that a man hungers or thirsts is without fault; and the same must be said in other things of this kind. But an act of the sensitive appetite is subject to the command of reason, because reason, preceding it, can command it or also impede it; and therefore such a motion can now have the account of fault; and if it follows the judgment of reason, it will also be able to be mortal sin, just as the motion of the exterior members commanded by reason. But if it precedes the judgment of reason, it is indeed sin, if it tends into something illicit, because it was in the power of man to restrain it; yet it is venial sin and very slight.... and this is called the first motion of sin. But the motion of the higher appetite, that is, of the will, following the judgment of reason, can now be mortal sin.”

26. But, practically speaking, grave sin is also present if, positive resistance having been omitted, someone is manifestly exposed to the danger of voluntary approval and consent; which can easily happen in a matter especially alluring. And as regards those who are not of fearful conscience, and who in so dangerous a temptation do nothing against it, it is greatly to be feared lest in reality they sin gravely. But it is one thing to resist positively, another to fight directly. To positive resistance belongs the mere dissent of the will, which indeed is not to be continually repeated if the temptation remains for a long time; but it suffices to flee to God with humble prayer. Direct attack consists in eliciting contrary acts of the contrary virtue; but indirect attack is had by turning the soul away from the thought of base things, and seriously occupying it with other honorable things. This indirect attack is especially to be applied in depraved thoughts and in temptations of luxury. For by turning the soul away from the thought of base things there is had an efficacious remedy for repelling those thoughts and temptations. Directly to will to attack them detains the soul in those things, which easily, far from driving away the temptation, can increase it, “because where there is greater solicitude, the imagination is fixed more upon such an object, and through imagination” depraved motions “are especially increased.” La-Croix, l. 5. n. 111.

27. Whether custom or habit increases the voluntary or the free, or diminishes it; and consequently whether it increases fault or merit, or diminishes it? — “It must be said that from custom and the habit acquired through it, it happens that the will is borne with greater promptness, because it operates from habit with greater facility and delight than without it, other things being equal. But indeed with greater effort we operate those things which we accomplish more easily and pleasantly; therefore in this way habit increases the voluntary, because an increase of the voluntary consists in this, that the will is borne with greater impulse. But concerning the free, it must be said, as a little before we were saying concerning the affection of the will, or concerning consequent concupiscence, that habit indeed per se and formally diminishes liberty, because by inclining the will more to the other part it diminishes its indifference; nevertheless morally and in order to moral effects it is not judged to diminish it, as long as that custom is free and voluntary, on account of the same reason, because a free disposition, as such, does not diminish the free. Whence it becomes probable, if custom and habit become involuntary through a contrary act, efficacious as much as is on the part of man, who repents that he has acquired such a custom or habit, and proposes to do as much as is in him to conquer it, then, I say, it is very probable that custom diminishes liberty and consequently fault, because such custom has been turned in some way into nature, and now it is not in the power of man to conquer it so quickly, and otherwise it is now involuntary, and therefore is not reputed as a free supposition, but as necessary.” Suarez D. 3. S. 3.; St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 78. a. 2. 4. Cf. Commentary Fifth n. 30. 31.

28. Whether grace increases the voluntary or the free, or diminishes it? — “It must be said, speaking per se, that it increases the voluntary, because it moves and inclines the will to willing; and although grace is accustomed to be called an extrinsic principle, nevertheless, speaking per se, it moves either on the part of the object, drawing the will much more sweetly than concupiscence is accustomed to draw it... or on the part of the power through a habit infused in it, or through a vital motion of it, and proceeding intimately from it. But concerning the free, it can happen that grace sometimes diminishes it by inclining the will more to the other part; nevertheless this is not always necessary, for in this there is much difference between grace and concupiscence: for concupiscence moves to one thing under some account, by hiding or diminishing cognition of the same object under other accounts; but grace, speaking per se, illuminates and shows in the object every account of good and evil which can be considered in it, and inclines to pursuing it under the most perfect and supreme account of good, which it makes one weigh and esteem as it is worthy. And thus from the force of grace it is not necessary that liberty be diminished, although, as I have said, sometimes it can be diminished.” Suarez D. 3. S. 3. Cf. also Tr. 3. D. 5. S. 3. n. 18. Therefore in no way does grace take away liberty, but it perfects it.

29. Aptly Leo XIII, Encyclical Letter Libertas, 20 June 1888: “The power of divine grace, since it enlightens the mind and impels the will, strengthened with salutary constancy, always toward moral good, makes the use of native liberty more ready and at the same time more secure. And it is far removed from the truth that, when God intervenes, voluntary motions are less free; for the force of divine grace is inward in man and congruent with natural propensity, because it flows from him who is the author of our soul and will, by whom all things are moved fittingly to their nature. Indeed divine grace, as the Angelic Doctor warns, for this reason, that it proceeds from the maker of nature, is wonderfully born and apt for guarding each nature, and for preserving the habits, force, and efficacy of each.” And already before the same Leo XIII skillfully observed: “If to be able to fall away from good according to nature were the perfection of liberty, then God, Jesus Christ, the Angels, the Blessed, in all of whom that power is not, either would not be free, or certainly would be less perfectly free than man as wayfarer and imperfect. Concerning this matter the Angelic Doctor often disputes many things, from which it can be effected and compelled that the faculty of sinning is not liberty, but servitude. Most subtly that saying upon the words of Christ the Lord, John 8:34: He who commits sin is the servant of sin. Each thing is that which befits it according to nature. Therefore when it is moved by something foreign, it does not operate according to itself, but from the impression of another, which is servile. But man according to his own nature is rational. Therefore when he is moved according to reason, he is moved by his own motion and operates according to himself, which belongs to liberty; but when he sins, he operates beyond reason, and then he is moved as if by another, held by alien limits, and therefore: ‘he who commits sin is the servant of sin.’”

15. • DEFINITION. Concupiscence is a motion of the sensitive appetite, by which the will is borne toward a sensible good ¹.

¹ Namely, by the name concupiscence here is understood not indeed that perpetual tinder of depraved desires inborn in us, concerning which the Apostle says (Rom. 7. 23): I see another law in my members fighting against the law of my mind, etc., but, as St. Thomas says after Damascene (3, Dist. 26, q. 1, art. 1): A motion of the sensible appetitive power, which is from the imagination of good or evil.

DIVISION. A twofold concupiscence is distinguished: one antecedent, and another consequent. The former is that which, in the order of causality, precedes any deliberation or consent of the will, and entices and draws it to consent. But the latter is that which, in the order of causality, follows an act of the will, either because a vehement motion of the will overflows into the inferior appetite, or because the will directly and deliberately excites this very appetite ².

² A twofold consequent concupiscence must namely be distinguished; for one is, as it were, indirect from overflow, insofar as the motion of the will overflows into the appetite; but another is directly stirred by the will. The former must be called voluntary rather in the cause than in itself; otherwise, however, where someone excites the appetite, or studiously fosters and continues it once excited, as for example when someone purposely thinks about an enemy and injuries received, so that he may kindle hatred in himself or increase the desire of revenge. Thus (says Suarez on I-II, Treatise 2, Disputation 3, Section 3, no. 1) studious men excite in themselves similar affections for exercising actions better, and concerning this (concupiscence) Aristotle said (3 Ethics, ch. 8) that to operate from anger is not of a brave man, but to excite anger in oneself through the virtue of fortitude, so that one may operate better: he adduces Homer saying: send fury into virtue; and concerning this Augustine (City of God, book 14, ch. 9) says that the wise man cannot live in this life without affections. And to this indeed pertains that someone who is going to rebuke those whom he loves with tender affection ought in some manner to stir himself to applying rebuke seriously.

Principles. - I. Antecedent concupiscence, and therefore concupiscence not voluntary, the greater and more vehement it is, the more it lessens sin; indeed it can excuse from sin entirely. The reason is that the motion of the sensible appetite disturbs, lessens, or even impedes the judgment of reason; but causes which diminish the judgment of reason diminish also the voluntary. Therefore, since an act is sin insofar as it is voluntary, by that very fact concupiscence, while it lessens the voluntary, also lessens sin; and thus where concupiscence is more intense and stronger, there is less sin; indeed the account of sin will utterly cease if the motion of concupiscence totally impedes the use of reason. St. Thomas, I-II, q. 73, art. 6; and q. 77, art. 2, 6, and 7 ³.

³ St. Thomas: Passion is sometimes so great that it totally takes away the use of reason, as is clear in those who become insane because of love or anger. And then, if such passion... was not voluntary... the act is rendered entirely involuntary, and consequently excuses totally from sin. But sometimes passion is not so great that it totally intercepts the use of reason. And then reason can exclude passion... Whence such passion does not totally excuse from sin. I-II, q. 77, art. 7.

II. Consequent concupiscence, and therefore voluntary, does not diminish sin, but rather increases it; or rather (as St. Thomas says, I-II, q. 77, art. 6) it is a sign of its magnitude, insofar as it demonstrates the intensity of the will toward the act of sin. St. Thomas, I-II, q. 77, art. 6.

The first part is proved, because sin consists in the act of the rational will, which by hypothesis precedes the motion of concupiscence, just as cause precedes effect. Therefore the later disturbance of reason which concupiscence introduces cannot affect the act of sinning which has already preceded, and therefore cannot lessen the account of the voluntary and of sin.

The second part is proved, because, as St. Thomas has it (On Evil, q. 3, art. 11): When from a strong motion of the will the sensitive appetite is moved to passion, passion adds merit or demerit, because it is a sign that the motion of the will is stronger: and in this way it is true that he who gives alms with greater compassion merits more ⁴, and he who sins with greater lust sins more: because this is a sign that the motion of the will is stronger.

⁴ From these things it is clear that what is said here about the motions of the sensitive appetite pertains equally to evil and good acts. Hence St. Thomas applies the whole doctrine thus to good acts (I-II, q. 77, art. 6, ad 2): A good passion consequent upon the judgment of reason augments merit; but if it precedes, so that he is moved more from passion than from the judgment of reason toward acting well, such passion diminishes the goodness and praise of the act.

16. • Thus far concerning concupiscence, insofar as it is a passion of the sensitive appetite toward good or evil indifferent, and is considered by Theologians as lessening or even utterly taking away the voluntary. Now some other things must be said concerning concupiscence, insofar as by this name the tinder of depraved desires is designated, about which the Apostle often treats, and which is a propensity toward evil residing not only in the inferior, but also in the superior appetite ⁵.

⁵ The more suitable place for disputing about these things commonly, and indeed deservedly, is reserved in the Treatise On Sins. For they in no way pertain to the present question about those things which lessen the voluntary or altogether take it away.

Principles. - I. However much the soul is struck by the goads of the depraved tinder, there will never be any stain of sin, unless in some way the will either consents to them, or does not impede them when it can and ought to impede them. Common and certain. - See St. Thomas, 2, dist. 34, q. 3, art. 1; and Quodlib. 4, art. 21.

II. First-first motions of the will, namely those which forestall any deliberation of reason, and are elicited before advertence is given to the object's agreement with the rule of morals, are altogether without fault. The reason is that insofar as they forestall deliberation of reason and advertence to moral malice, they are neither voluntary nor free, and consequently are without formal sin. Thus all Theologians.

III. Second-first motions of the will, namely those which follow upon some use of reason, yet are elicited with only slight, obscure, and imperfect advertence to the rule of morals, are in any grave matter also only venial sin. The reason is that acts of this kind are imperfectly free and only semi-deliberate; and thus on account of the imperfection of the act they are excused from grave fault. Thus likewise the Common opinion of Theologians.

You Will Resolve. - 1. Motions, however depraved, as long as they displease the will, even after advertence to the rule of morals, are free from every fault. The reason is that where there is displeasure of this kind, there is no consent. For concupiscence is not able to harm those not consenting, but manfully resisting through the grace of Christ, as the Synod of Trent teaches, session 5.

2. Motions of concupiscence, after advertence of reason, must be resisted at least through virtual displeasure, namely by distracting the mind to other things; nor is it sufficient then to hold oneself negatively or neutrally, even if the danger of consent seems absent. Thus commonly the Theologians.

3. But especially this holds regarding motions of concupiscence in venereal matter, which must not be retained even under the pretext of struggle and exercise of virtue.

4. Nevertheless there is no obligation of resisting carnal motions positively, since such resistance sometimes excites them more; and much less is material resistance necessary.

5. Not only regarding carnal motions, but also regarding motions against faith and charity, merely indirect resistance by distraction of the mind is to be counseled, rather than any direct resistance or opposition. - St. Alphonsus, book 5, no. 6.

6. Nor likewise are we held to positive resistance against any temptation which is prolonged for a long time; for this would be too troublesome and liable to innumerable scruples.

7. When the danger of consent is absent, in motions of concupiscence to hold oneself merely negatively, according to the truer opinion, is only a venial sin, although it concerns a grave object, and no other cause excusing from resistance is present. - St. Alphonsus, book 5, no. 9.

YOU WILL ASK: What are the remedies against motions of concupiscence?

I answer. Generally those which are opposed to their causes. Hence if they arise from imagination, this is to be restrained, or turned to other things; if from external objects, or occasions, these are to be fled, unless just reasons demand the contrary, or one is moved by all objects; if from temperament, or an abundance of humors, mortification is to be applied; if from fear, this must be conquered, or the motions must be despised. - See Cases, no. 21.

99. 1. Notion and division of the passions. (A) In a broad sense, passions are called any affections whatsoever of the soul, even merely internal ones. Among the common people, passion denotes any inordinate or excessive propensity of the will: in which sense avarice is called a passion.¹ Philosophically, passions commonly are called affections of the soul which arise from the sensitive appetite with some organic commotion of the body; thus love, hatred, anger, etc., move not only the sensitive appetite, but also the body; for example, the heart is dilated by joy, contracted by sadness.

¹ Certain modern philosophers make this notion their own, such as Rabier, Psychologie, 6th ed., Paris, 1898, p. 516.

100. Concerning the division of the passions, which by many moderns are also called emotions, philosophers do not agree.

The more common division is that which St. Thomas hands down, after Aristotle. Eleven are distinguished, six of which look to the concupiscible appetite and pursue delight: love and hatred, desire (or concupiscence) and horror or flight, joy and sadness; but five are referred to the irascible appetite, which tend toward arduous good and toward battle against obstacles: hope and despair, daring and fear (or dread), and also anger, to which there is no contrary.

The reason of the division is this: in man, as in animals, there are two kinds of inclinations, by which we are moved toward sensible good, according as it is simply delightful or arduous. By the concupiscible appetite we tend toward good insofar as it is delightful; namely by love we are inclined toward good, abstracting from whether it is present or absent; by desire we pursue good insofar as absent, and by joy we are delighted in present good; on the contrary, by hatred we absolutely turn away from evil, by horror we flee absent evil, and by sadness we grieve over present evil. But when it is a question of sensible arduous good, which we are able to attain only with strenuous effort, by the irascible appetite we pursue it: if the good, although arduous, is possible to obtain, hope arises; if it appears impossible, despair is born; if it is a question of future evil easily to be fled, daring arises; but if it appears difficult to repel, fear creeps in; finally if a present evil pressing for vengeance is present, anger blazes forth.

Bossuet shows brilliantly how all passions proceed from love and are caused from love;¹ St. Thomas and St. Augustine had already gone before him; for the latter says:² "Love longing to have what is loved is cupidity; but having this and enjoying it is gladness; fleeing what is adverse to it is fear; and feeling it if it should happen is sadness."

¹ Bossuet, Connaissance de Dieu et de soi-meme, ch. I, n. 6.

² St. Augustine, De Civ. Dei, lib. XIV, c. 7, apud Migne, P.L. XLI, 410.

101. Other divisions have been proposed by moderns, without nevertheless explaining the matter more clearly. Thus Descartes³ lists six original passions: admiration, love, hatred, desire, joy, and gladness. According to Hume,⁴ there are two species of passions: some direct: desire, aversion, sadness, joy, hope, fear, despair, and security; others indirect: pride, humility, ambition, vanity, love, hatred, envy, commiseration, malice, generosity. According to Ribot,⁵ there are five original ones, namely fear, anger, sensitive love (tendresse), love of oneself, sexual love: from which others are derived by a certain evolution.⁶

³ Descartes, Les passions de l'ame, 2nd part.

⁴ Hume, Tr. on human nature, B. II, p. I, sect. I.

⁵ Ribot, La psychologie des sentiments, Introduction.

⁶ Other divisions are set forth apud A. Bain, op. cit., pp. 68-75 and 568-581.

102. (B) In moral matters, a careful distinction must be made between voluntary and non-voluntary passions. (a) They can be voluntary in a diverse degree: directly and in themselves, 1) when they are deliberately excited, 2) when, having arisen spontaneously, they are freely admitted, 3) when they redound from a vehement voluntary affection; - sometimes they are indeed actually voluntary, but only indirectly, as if someone reads a book from mere curiosity, foreseeing that evil thoughts will arise from it; sometimes they are previously voluntary, but not actually, namely because the cause formerly freely posited has been retracted. (b) They are called involuntary when neither formerly nor actually, neither in themselves nor in the cause, were they willed, but they arise spontaneously either from a fortuitous occasion or from a disposition of the body, without deliberation and consent.

According to the manner of speaking of theologians, passions are called antecedent when they precede the will and allure it to the act; consequent, when they are excited by the will itself, and therefore follow the consent of the will.

103. 2. The influence of the passions on a free act.⁷ (A) Antecedent passion indeed increases the intensity of the act, but diminishes the free, and sometimes takes it away.

⁷ Concerning this theologians discuss where they treat of concupiscence; for often by this name they designate all the passions of the concupiscible appetite.

(a) The reason for the first assertion is that, under the influence of passion, we apprehend sensible good more vividly, so that it appears greater than before, and our will is borne toward it with a more vehement propensity, as each one can gather from an attentive consideration of himself.

(b) But from this the free is diminished; for liberty is less the more reason is impeded from deliberating quietly and wisely, and the more the will is inclined toward one part; but the antecedent movement of passion more or less disturbs reason and impedes it from considering opposed motives attentively and perseveringly; it also vehemently solicits the will to consenting, and while it increases the powers for pursuing the proposed good, it diminishes not a little the force of resisting.¹ This indeed is established psychologically from the fact that, when the movement of passion has been calmed, the matter is now perceived by reason in a diverse way, and often the will vehemently grieves concerning the consent given.

¹ Which St. James (I, 14) indicates: "But everyone is tempted by his own concupiscence, drawn away and allured."

(c) Indeed sometimes, although rarely, passion is so vehement that it wholly disturbs the mind and impedes the judgment of reason concerning the morality of the act: then the agent is not properly in possession of himself, but for some time is, as it were, insane. Now where no deliberation is present, the action is not truly free.² Thus especially in those who suffer from hysteria, as will be said below, or who are inflamed by anger vehemently.

² "If concupiscence totally took away cognition, as happens in those who become mad because of concupiscence, it would follow that concupiscence would take away the voluntary." (St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 6, a. 7, ad 3.)

Usually, however, passion does not wholly take away the use of reason; and then liberty is only diminished. Wherefore, in practice, if penitents say that they could not resist a vehement passion, they must be asked whether they employed means or not for conquering it, and from all the adjuncts it will be judged whether and to what extent they were free and culpable.

104. (B) Consequent passion, which arises from the command of the will, does not diminish the free, but is a sign of intense volition.

(a) The reason for the former is that the passion was freely willed; for example, if someone deliberately recalls an injury done to him so that from this he may conceive anger, he now freely wills to consent to anger.

(b) Indeed such a manner of acting is a sign of intense volition; for someone excites passion in himself for this reason, that he may attain the intended object more efficaciously and vehemently.

Nevertheless it can happen that, once a vehement passion has been excited, the agent is less in possession of himself and proceeds further than he had previously foreseen, for example, that he kills one whom he wished to wound; in which case the aforesaid passion, insofar as it moves to acts not foreseen nor intended, can be called, as it were, antecedent in relation to those acts.

105. Especially concerning fear. (A) Among the passions which disturb the mind and lessen the powers of the will, fear is deservedly numbered; but in moral matters fear is not only a passion, but also a certain spiritual affection, which is customarily defined as trepidation of mind, by reason of an impending or future danger. It arises indeed from the apprehension of an evil perceived by the intellect, but it affects the will, and indeed in a twofold way: it depresses its powers, and at the same time moves it to flee strenuously the imminent evil;¹ wherefore the will, under the influence of fear, often chooses what otherwise it would not have willed; thus a sailor, from fear of shipwreck, casts into the sea those things which otherwise he would have wished to preserve; a sick man, on account of fear of death, chooses the amputation of an arm, although reluctantly.

¹ A. Bain describes the psychological notion, nature, and effects of fear, Les emotions et la volonte, p. 147-167.

By reason of intensity, fear is grave or light, according as it disturbs the mind much or not. Generally for grave fear two things are required: apprehension of a grave evil, with a truly probable danger of incurring it; for we do not greatly fear evils which are possible, but not probable. Nevertheless, for judging concerning the gravity of fear, attention must also be given to the character of the person; for evils which move one person only lightly can gravely disturb another; whence in moral matters fear absolutely grave is distinguished, which can seriously disturb even a strong and constant man, such as fear of death or exile; and fear relatively grave, which, all circumstances of sex, age, character, etc. being considered,

can gravely disturb the person concerning whom there is question. Hence also reverential fear, by which the indignation of parents or superiors is feared, can sometimes be judged grave from the adjuncts. - By reason of influence on the act, fear is called antecedent when it truly is the cause of the act, which consequently is elicited from fear; or concomitant, which is not the cause of the action but nevertheless coexists with it, so that this is done with fear. Thus a traveler who gives his purse to a robber acts from fear of death; but a robber who despoils a traveler sometimes acts with fear lest he be seized by guards.

106. (B) Concerning the influence of fear on a free act. (a) Fear which is so vehement that it altogether disturbs the use of reason takes away the free. For where there is no deliberation on the part of the intellect, there is no liberty; but he who is so vehemently disturbed acts not deliberately but under the influence of a vivid impression. - Yet this rarely happens; for generally fear does not take away every faculty of deliberating, but only impedes it somewhat.

(b) An act posited from fear, even grave fear, does not take away the free, but ordinarily diminishes it. For one operating from fear deliberately chooses the action as a means for avoiding a greater evil and therefore truly wills what he does, although he retains affection toward the opposite; thus the merchant who, from fear of death, throws goods overboard does this freely, although reluctantly, because he deliberately places life before riches.¹

¹ But when fear excuses from the obligation of observing the law and from sin will be declared below, where we treat concerning Sins, concerning Faith, concerning Contracts, concerning Marriage, etc.

Nevertheless fear diminishes liberty, and indeed the more so the graver it is; for it diminishes the indifference of the will, and moves it toward eliciting what otherwise it would not have chosen. - It is said ordinarily, because sometimes an act begun from grave fear is completed without any repugnance; for example, someone can, from fear of hell, withdraw from an occasion of sin, and afterward altogether freely detest sin.

(c) Light fear, whether in itself or relatively, indeed diminishes the free, but much less than grave fear, since it by no means impedes the use of reason and deliberation; wherefore in the external forum it is not attended to, because a little is reputed as nothing.

107. Concerning the right use of the passions.¹ The passions, considered in themselves, bear nothing dishonorable before them, since they arise from man's sensitive-rational nature, namely from the intimate union of the organic body with the spiritual soul, and moreover were placed in us by the author of nature Himself; in reality they add powers and constancy to human activity, so that a man wholly deprived of these appears, as it were, unarmed, and given over to apathy. Often, however, when they are not rightly ordered, they allure us to sin, against the dictate of reason. Wherefore no less faith than reason commands us to conquer them and subject them to the command of the will: "But they who are Christ's have crucified their flesh with its vices and concupiscences; if we live by the spirit, let us also walk by the spirit."² For since reason excels the body and the sensible appetite, the passions ought to obey reason.

¹ Mystics discuss this matter, such as Schram, Instit. Theologiae mysticae, Paris, 1868, t. I, § 90; and also philosophers, such as Payot, L'education de la volonte, p. 66-108, where he, although a positivist, borrows not a few things from Catholic ascetics; also physicians, such as Descuret, La medecine des passions, 3rd ed., Paris, 1860; and Surbled, La Morale dans ses rapports avec la Medecine, t. III, p. 16-56.

² Galat., V, 24-25.

But the means by which we can rightly order the passions are: (a) immediately and strenuously to turn the mind away from the delightful object which sense or imagination proposes to us, and indeed not only negatively, but also positively, by thinking attentively about an honorable thing and by revolving in the soul those motives of a superior order which dissuade us from dishonorable delights.³ (b) Carefully to abstain from external acts to which passion provokes, and to exercise contrary acts: for since internal acts of the same kind are excited through external acts, he who externally behaves lasciviously indulges lust much more easily than he who cultivates modesty.⁴ (c) To flee external occasions which, from what commonly happens, are accustomed to move the passions;¹ thus the irascible ought to be silent concerning those matters by which they are more easily and vehemently provoked to anger. (d) Finally, the best means is to order the passions to better goods: for since they add powers to the will, the will will profit much if it uses them for pursuing good strenuously. Thus those who are more easily captured by sensible love should turn themselves to Christ, hiding under the Eucharistic species, and sweetly recline in His bosom; let the ambitious promote the glory of God and the salvation of souls with flaming zeal; let the fearful fear not men and their vain judgments, but "Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell";² and thus let them prudently flee occasions of sin; let the daring cultivate fortitude; let envy be turned into noble emulation; sadness into penance, and so concerning the rest.

³ To the point even the agnostic Payot, op. cit., p. 87: "One must even often renounce direct struggle, and for example calm sensual disturbance by getting up, by going out to walk, by going to pay a visit, etc.; in a word, by trying to eliminate the fixed idea, to wear it out, to disturb it, or at least to oblige it to share consciousness with other states introduced thus artificially."

⁴ Payot illustrates this thus, op. cit., p. 80: "A desire, a tendency, are absolutely separated from the external world; they can be satisfied only by muscular acts: anger satisfies itself by insults or blows; love by embraces, kisses, caresses; but our muscles depend in large measure on our will: and since we all can momentarily refuse the ministry of our members to a passion, it is clear that we will be able to develop our power and succeed in burying the emotion within ourselves."

¹ More fully concerning these in the moral part of the treatise concerning Penance, n. 451-469.

² Matt., X, 28. - Cf. Feuchtersleben, Hygiene de l'ame, Paris, 1904, p. 188-247; Senault, op. cit., p. 132-140.

In order we shall speak about concupiscence, then about the added force of habit; then about certain supplementary observations.

We shall hand down the notion and divisions of concupiscence, then its effects.

I. Notion. In this place, concupiscence will be understood to be a movement of the appetitive sensible power which is from the imagination of good ¹.

Therefore it comprises the passions of the lower appetite. By that appetite we are inclined to pursue sensible good and consequently to flee sensible evil. It is an aid to us; and, in our present condition, also an impediment. It is an aid insofar as it joins attraction to the various necessities of the body, which must be served, and to various duties; insofar as, by a consonant movement, it confirms the will and obeys it. It is an impediment when, anticipating the judgment of reason, it is borne by blind impulse into the delightful even when forbidden. And then there is had concupiscence in the stricter signification, which is that tinder, deplored by the Apostle, of depraved desires and the stimulus of sins. The will has the duty and noble pursuit of coercing this and of ruling the passions.

¹ Cf. St. Thomas, 1, 2, q. 30, art. 1; and in I. 3 Sent., d. 20, q. 1, art. 1.

Divisions. Therefore antecedent concupiscence is distinguished, which precedes the consent of the will and draws it to consenting; and consequent concupiscence, which, in the order of causality, follows the act of the will, and that in two ways: by mere resultance, by which higher acts overflow into the lower powers, as when we are sensibly moved by affection toward God or Christ; or by studious excitation, as when St. Ignatius, in the contemplation on the Passion of the Lord, exhorts us to excite ourselves with great effort to sorrowing, sadness, and weeping. (Spiritual Exercises, Third Week, on the Last Supper.)

I. Effect on the voluntary. There can be so great a force of concupiscence that it permits no deliberation to exist. What we do thus cannot be voluntary or free in itself (1, 2, q. 77, art. 7), but only in the cause, if we voluntarily approached the occasion.

This case excepted, the act toward which we are borne by antecedent concupiscence is less wholly from the will; and consequently, the greater and stronger the concupiscence is, the less per se is the act voluntary. Yet because concupiscence exercises no efficiency upon intellect and will, but merely strikes the intellect by the allurements of the object and intentionally snatches the will, both these faculties remain intact and preserve free choice. Wherefore in the struggle they can resist and seek helps for themselves.

Certainly the act contrary to concupiscence is fully voluntary; but since it is wholly freed from the influence of concupiscence, this is not the proper place concerning it.

Consequent concupiscence by resultance is accustomed to demonstrate an intense will, and thus is said to increase the voluntary. Although sensibility, according to temperament itself and the condition of the body, is readier for act in one person, slower in another.

Finally, consequent concupiscence by direct intention increases the voluntary, since it makes the very movement of concupiscence voluntary.

II. Effect on merit and sin.

Antecedent concupiscence per se does not remove but diminishes the merit of a good act to which we are sensibly enticed, and the sin to which we are drawn, by the same account by which it diminishes the voluntary.

Consequent concupiscence by resultance strictly increases merit or sin only when we consent to it, as we are accustomed to consent when concupiscence conspires with the will; consequent concupiscence by direct intention necessarily increases merit or sin.

Habit, just as through facility of acting it begets inconsiderations and forgetfulnesses, so also it generates a propensity for repeating similar acts. Hence, once habit has been strengthened, virtue sometimes brings it about that even in sleep we repel depraved suggestions. On the contrary, an evil propensity sometimes seems to have become so great that, for some time, persons habituated seem to labor through their own fault under a certain moral impotence of avoiding every grave sin.

Moral impotence is that which indeed leaves sufficient liberty for acting rightly in individual acts, yet in such a way that, if the whole series is considered, that is, in the case, if the series of temptations unfolds itself, in moral estimation it is certain that man will fail or sin in some things. Pious perseverance then will either obtain a greater grace, or gradually restore normal conditions, so that there is no longer need of special aid.

Medicinal grace. So great is the present infirmity that for overcoming grave temptations we need grace which is called medicinal, insofar as it makes man unimpeded for conquering temptations. Yet that grace, at least in the just and the faithful, is actual grace itself of the supernatural order. And we greatly doubt whether purely medicinal graces should ever be admitted.

1. On depraved movements and phantasms. Since deliberation concerning the end of man can be established only in the higher faculties, disorder concerning the end, or mortal sin, cannot per se be had in the sensitive part. Wherefore if someone experiences depraved movements or lustful phantasms of which he is not the cause, and behaves passively, that is, neither repels nor admits them, per se he is not gravely blameworthy. Yet if they are graver or incentive, he will have to elicit at least an act of displeasure, lest he incur proximate danger of consent, or even turn his attention to other things. This indirect and quiet resistance is often more efficacious and useful than direct resistance through even exterior acts, which disturbance is accustomed to accompany. Yet he is to be praised who physically restrains or, by inflicted pain, extinguishes a shameful movement, although this is not commanded per se. Indeed, to oppose continuous resistance to a lasting temptation, even by the mere dissent of the will, is not necessary. And for those who are accustomed to be troubled by temptations, this counsel will often be more useful: that outside temptation, for example in the morning barely awake, they strengthen the mind by purpose and prayer, diligently guard the senses, and then, in temptation, attempt to apply the mind, without anxiety, to honorable things, customary studies, and business. It will also be especially useful to foster the love of charity by meditation and by devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and to exercise acts of humility and mortification of the senses. Even when the danger of consent has been shut off, he who permits inordinate movements which he can easily impede seems to sin venially on account of that tolerated inordination.

Catholic authors agree more practically than speculatively. Cf. Laymann, l. 1, tr. 3, c. 6, n. 8; La Croix, l. 5, n. 109-112.

2. One must not speak in the same way about movements of the will toward an evil thing: not to break them off after full advertence would be to continue those same movements and consequently render them deliberated; which in grave matter would be grave. Cf. Lehmkuhl, I, 83.

Passive Resistance or Not. In carnal temptations and in those against faith, a certain kind of positive resistance is utterly to be rejected, namely, that the temptation be voluntarily excited in order then to repel it strongly. Nor, where there is graver danger of mortal fault, is a voluntary quasi-repetition of any temptation to be advised. But in less dangerous matters of impatience, moderate aversion, anger, envy, gluttony, etc., it will be lawful to excite concupiscences and, as it were, provoke them to battle, in order to defeat them more strongly, until full victory is won. It will also help to oppose contrary acts to the passions. (Cf. the book Il combattimento spirituale, c. 13.)

Consequent affections are not fictitious. Today there are not lacking those who think that the sensible affections which are obtained by voluntary effort toward good and holy things are artificial and almost fictitious, as though the spontaneous movement of the senses alone were natural. But if the natural unity and perfection of man subjects the lower appetites to the higher, nothing is more natural in man than that sense should follow the command of reason and will. Only then will the excitation be fictitious, if it has been effected by false reasons or by an insincere will.

422. - 1. In the higher or rational psychic life, right philosophy, departing from Cartesian tenets, recognizes only a twofold faculty: intellect and will, or rational cognition and appetite; but the third, which was called the affective faculty or affection (le sentiment), some judge to pertain to the intellect and others to the will.

Moreover, in the lower psychic life, three things occur which are observed distinctly: sensations or sensitive apprehensions; affections, agreeable or disagreeable, resulting therefrom; and appetite, or tendencies of pursuit or aversion. Modern authors also reduce these three to two. But, inquiring more into what appears simple or irreducible and what composite, they are accustomed to exhibit both of the former things as simple: sensations and affections, while they contend that appetite can be resolved into each of the two preceding elements. Classical philosophy, however, looking more to active faculties, instead refers all things to apprehension and appetite. In pleasure or the contrary affection there intervene: a) conjunction with good or evil, as the proximate cause of an agreeable or disagreeable affection; b) perception of this conjunction; c) the consequent complacency or displeasure. But whether pleasure or the contrary affection is formally in apprehen- sion or in appetite: concerning this matter the Scholastics dispute, and St. Thomas himself seems to have varied. Cf. De veritate, question 26, article 4, reply to objection 4; In tertium Sententiarum, distinction 15, question 2, article 3, solution 2; Summa theologica, I-II, question 35, article 1. Concerning this matter cf. Froebes, Lehrbuch der experimentellen Psychologie, vol. 1, pp. 24, 197, 198; vol. 2, p. 425, no. 2.

2. In order that we may say a few things concerning the individual elements: sensations are distinguished into three genera, according to physiologists: external sensations, so called from their object or cause by which they are determined, for example by contact; kinesthetic sensations, that is, those by which we are chiefly informed concerning the position and movement either of the body itself or of the members in their mutual relation (cf. Froebes, in the cited work, vol. 1, p. 145); organic sensations, which are excited by a change in the internal organs and teach us the state of the organism, but especially warn us concerning disturbed functions of vegetative life, as concerning poorly digested foods, visceral obstruction, hunger, thirst, and fatigue.

3. Affection or affective state designates the state and condition of the subject within himself, or the manner in which he experiences himself to be, whence we say: I am - or, I feel - well or ill.

Affection is accustomed to be joined with sensations, whether it accompanies them or results from them: thus a healthy man experiences the sense of agreeable satiety if, within the limits of temperance, he consumes good and pleasant foods. Nevertheless, it can sometimes subsist independently of sensations. Thus, with the will commanding, or with a cause of great joy dominating, someone in the midst of sensible pain can judge himself to be well or well affected, just as, on the contrary, moral sorrows can impede the efficacy of agreeable sensations. Therefore, between affection and sensations there prevail laws of association and mutual influence.

Most authors today, at least when there is discussion of lower psychology, distinguish only two specifically diverse affections: that of pleasantness or that of discomfort (jouissance, bien-être, ou malaise, indisposition). Nevertheless, not a few, with Wundt, recognize several pairs of affections: of excitation and quiet; of tension and relaxation.

The more vehement affections produce physiological changes of the internal organs, which changes in turn produce sensations and partial affections connected with them. Thus sadness of soul removes hunger and brings indigestion of the stomach, which itself also changes our affection.

Several partial affections - according to not a few physiologists, even if they are contrary - are accustomed to flow together into a resultant sum which is called the total affection. But the total affection arising from the cooperation of all organic sensations, or the affection of our body taken as a whole, is called the general or common affection.

4. Appetite is the act by which the subject is borne toward an apprehended good, whether present or absent. In the lower appetite the tendency is spontaneous; upon it, from instinct, there follows, likewise spontaneously, an exterior pursuit or flight: instinctive directions are less defined in man.

428. - 1. Sexual instinct is also present in man, but is less defined. For a twofold instinct can be distinguished: one, strictly so called, which is borne immediately toward carnal pleasure to be obtained through copulation: it moves body toward body in order to obtain venereal pleasure. The other moves person toward person, or seeks a person of the other sex because of secondary sexual characters, that is, because of the psychic and somatic qualities of the other sex, whose company is thereby rendered agreeable. But this interest in the person remotely disposes one toward venereal pleasure. Together with the person, the body is near; familiar association soon excites the carnal appetite itself. All these things have been wisely ordered so that matrimony among men would truly be not a mere conjunction of bodies, but would dispose and lead toward bodily enjoyment through a more universal union.

429. - On sexual instinct strictly so called. The stimuli of sexual instinct strictly so called are distinguished into normal or customary stimuli common to men, and abnormal stimuli which are proper to certain persons. They are further specific if they have almost no other use than to actualize sexual instinct; while those are called common which also possess some other utility.

Normal and specific stimuli are psychic or nonpsychic, that is, merely material. The latter affect the nerve centers by a chemical influence and operate independently of every consciousness of the subject: thus aphrodisiac drugs, and especially the "hormones" secreted internally, to whose influence nocturnal pollution seems chiefly to be ascribed. Some add the very pressure (la pression) of a gland which abounds in elements to be excreted.

A psychic stimulus does not move unless it is known. In order that it exert its power, besides an object suitable for exciting the appetite, or savory, and that object known, there is required in the subject an aptitude for undergoing that incitation, and then for acting upon the object, or for being acted upon, which we can call sensibility: it is called "receptivity and reactivity."

These subjective aptitudes vary considerably. There are some who are affected in no way by a whole particular class of stimuli, while for others the stimulus must be furnished with certain peculiar notes: some are excited by nudity, others by colors; some, besides nudity, require definite forms of the body from which others shrink. Stimuli, therefore, are relative, yet not to such a degree that there are none to which a common excitatory power can be assigned, which, before experience, is to be presumed capable of being effective. Such are, when perceived by external sensation or represented internally, the sexual functions, the sexual parts, a certain nudity of the body, and the acts preliminary to copulation.

2. Once the stimuli have been received, there follows a certain affective state, sufficiently complex, composed of the agreeable elements of sexual sensations and of the disagreeable elements of the excited and distended organ and of the unsatisfied venereal appetite: the excited and distended organ physiologically, and the unsatisfied appetite psychologically, induce an affective state in which discomfort and unpleasantness prevail.

3. Hence there arises an appetite for full satiety, which will be obtained when the agreeable affections are completed and the others removed. To this end, through instinct they appear to the phantasy, and through experience to reason, as manipulations to be performed about the sexual organs, especially those of the other sex; the subject is vehemently impelled to perform them (the appetite of manipulation). Excitation then increases with the addition of new stimuli, and the akme, or apex of excitation, is reached. Then the greatest pleasure of the lower order is obtained, and at the same time, with the outpouring of semen or quasi-semen, the orgasm is resolved, by which name is meant the whole process of the greatest carnal commotion, consisting of sensations, affections, and physiological changes. But the natural impulse to remove the tension of the organs is called the appetite of detumescence: it is satisfied in the orgasm itself.

430. - 4. You should therefore observe that, as such, venereal instinct is borne not toward procreating offspring but toward experiencing one's own pleasure.

But the nexus between stimuli, sensations, affections, appetite, and the impulse toward execution or exterior acts is not from human choice but from a natural connection and the instinct's innate associations.

5. Venereal instinct in man is variously subject to the command of the rational faculties. Led by intellect and will, which, because of the unity of the human composite, are also inclined toward seeking these things, man can deliberately seek sexual stimuli, retain them, increase them even artificially, preserve them longer, and excite himself in unusual ways for which there is no desire in brute animals. For man, unlike a brute animal, at the same time senses how unequal even complete carnal satisfaction is to procuring happiness. Therefore, the stimulus to perceive the sensation is received in him with the desire of increasing satiety itself. And he can also deny assent to the stimuli and to the affections themselves, call the mind away to higher things, diminish the efficacy of the stimuli by antecedent thought, and deliberately flee occasions of excitation.

431. - On sexual instinct broadly so called. Persons of different sex can also be bound together by a noble friendship: thus the strictly sexual consideration is ordinarily very far removed from the affection of children toward both parents and of parents toward offspring. But when the other sex is formally sought, then love founded upon sexual characters is necessarily, at least in part, sensual. (And even into a noble affection toward a person of the other sex who is not closely related by blood, something sensual easily enters.)

Sexual instinct broadly so called also becomes active with the aid of stimuli which are chiefly psychic (which do not act unless known).

These stimuli induce an affective state similar to that which exists in venereal instinct. There is agreeableness if the person toward whom the subject is borne is present and place is given to the desired association. If either one is missed, an affection of tension and discomfort will prevail, with an inclination toward seeking full satisfaction. A more vehement affection brings about physiological changes, sensations with connected affections; not, however, in the genital organs, at least of itself. But if it begins to pass into carnal appetite, changes will at once be present in these organs. Yet you should observe that this carnal propensity can be involuntary and repudiated.

The appetite tends, as we have said, toward obtaining a common and total affection of agreeableness; toward retaining and completing it, if it is present. It therefore impels toward interior and exterior acts by which union with the beloved person is perceived. But the more the proximity of persons becomes a proximity of bodies, the more attention is directed toward typical bodily qualities (the secondary criteria of sex), and the more the union between persons manifests itself by bodily signs such as kisses, prolonged embraces, caresses, etc. Conversely, the more one withdraws from carnal instinct, the more attention is given to psychic qualities, and bodily signs of familiarity are more or less neglected.

These things prepare the way for not a few prudent counsels.

Nothing special need be added concerning the action of the higher faculties. When the matter advises it, these can prudently prevent the propensity from becoming carnal; prevent carnal movements which may happen to arise from being accepted; lead persons to renounce every satisfaction of the senses; and prudently break off the association itself when it is not very useful.

72. Notion. Passion can be taken in diverse ways.⁷⁵ For our purpose it is enough to indicate two acceptations:

1. According to Aristotle, passion is a motion of the sensitive appetite arising from the imagination of good or evil with a bodily transmutation. It is called a) motion, that is, act or operation, because in the Aristotelian sense passions are not habits, but commotions or acts, which nevertheless are called passions because they are produced by imagination and bring in bodily disturbances,⁷⁶ as will be said at once. It is called b) of the sensitive appetite, because neither the intellect nor the will properly elicits these acts, but the appetite, either concupiscible or irascible. It is called c) from the imagination of good or evil, because passions arise through some good or evil object vividly represented by the imagination. It is called d) with a bodily transmutation; Aristotle adds: "especially about the heart," because passions are vehement bodily commotions, which are especially felt in the heart: palpitations of the heart, a swifter flow and reflux of the blood, heat or cold, etc. For experience establishes that a man under the influence of passion has most intense bodily commotions. - Passions accepted in this Aristotelian sense are purely sensitive acts (Regungen des sinnlichen Strebevermögens, Gemütsbewegungen, émotions); they are neither good nor evil and are found in every man.⁷⁷ Therefore even in Christ there were passions, who said: "My soul is sorrowful even unto death,"⁷⁸ and of whom the evangelist narrates: "He looked round about with anger."⁷⁹ Passions can be very useful in performing arduous acts; hence the zeal and indignation of Phinees is praised.⁸⁰

2. According to the Stoics, Plato, and the common usage of modern authors, passions are disordered acts or habits of the sensitive appetite. Hence they are called diseases of the soul and entice men to many sins.⁸¹ Such passions would better be called vices;⁸² thus, for example, excessive love of riches is called avarice, excessive inclination to anger is called irascibility.

Concupiscence is taken in a threefold sense: 1. insofar as it is a special passion, namely, desire; 2. insofar as it is the same as passion in general; in this second sense we speak here of concupiscence; 3. insofar as it is the depraved inclination of the appetite (inferior and superior) vitiated by original sin. In this sense St. Paul says: "Sin (original) wrought in me all concupiscence" (Rom. 7:8). St. James (1:14) says: "Every one is tempted by his own concupiscence, being drawn away and allured."

⁷⁵ Cf. S. theol. I-II, q. 22, a. 1.

⁷⁶ Hence St. Augustine (De civ. Dei 9, 4) says: "The motions of the soul which the Greeks call πάθη, but among us some, as Cicero, call disturbances; some, affections or affects; but some, as is held in the Greek, more expressively call passions." Cf. S. theol. I-II, q. 22, a. 2.

⁷⁷ S. theol. I-II, q. 24, a. 1.

⁷⁸ Mark 14:34.

⁷⁹ Mark 3:5.

⁸⁰ Num. 25:7 sqq.

⁸¹ Cf. S. theol. I-II, q. 24, a. 3.

⁸² S. theol. I-II, q. 45, a. 1 ad 1.

73. Divisions. Following Aristotle,⁸³ St. Thomas⁸⁴ distinguishes eleven passions, of which six pertain to the concupiscible appetite and five to the irascible appetite.

Since all the passions are motions, as was said above, they vividly seek or flee either good or evil; and this motion is signified by the small arrows here placed next to each passion.

A few things must be said about each:

⁸³ Ethic. Nicom. l. 2, c. 5.

⁸⁴ S. theol. I-II, q. 23, a. 4.

⁸⁵ By Plato, Aristotle, and the scholastics two powers were distinguished in the sensitive appetite, namely, the concupiscible (τὸ ἐπιθυμητικόν), whose object is sensible good or evil taken simply; and the irascible (τὸ θυμοειδές), whose object is good or evil insofar as it is arduous. Cf. S. theol. I-II, q. 23, a. 1.

74. 1. Love (insofar as it is a passion, but not insofar as it is an act of the will or a virtue) is the first propensity or inclination toward good according to itself, abstracting from whether it is present or absent; or it is mere complacency in good represented by the imagination. Hence it is briefly defined by the Angelic Doctor⁸⁶ as "complacency in the appetible" (Wohlgefallen). For the appetible effects a threefold immutation in the appetitive power: first, it causes in it a certain complacency of good, which is love itself strictly taken; second, it causes motion toward obtaining this good, which is desire; third, rest in the possessed good, which is joy or delectation.⁸⁷ Love, therefore, is the father of all the other passions, just as the desire for happiness in general is the father of all human acts. Wherefore St. Thomas⁸⁸ says: "From love are caused both desire, and sadness, and delectation, and consequently all the other passions; whence every action which proceeds from any passion whatever also proceeds from love as from a first cause." The passion of love can be concerned with any sensitive good whatever. Thus, for example, there is given love of riches, of carnal delectation, etc. And this passion of love, if it is well ordered, offers to the soul the best and strongest assistance; but if it is disordered, it also produces the worst effects and utterly reduces the soul into servitude. There will be discussion below about the causes of love and its effects in the treatise on charity. Hatred is opposed to love.

⁸⁶ Ibid. q. 26, a. 2.

⁸⁷ S. theol. I-II, q. 25, a. 2 and q. 26, a. 2.

⁸⁸ Ibid. q. 28, a. 6 ad 2.

75. 2. Hatred, insofar as it is a passion, is an aversion from evil, as from something unfitting and harmful (Mißfallen). Hatred is a very vivid passion and is vehemently felt,⁸⁹ and if it is well regulated it assists the soul excellently, because it makes a man abhor every true evil with all his strength; but if this passion is inordinate, it brings forth every wicked crime. For as love is strong as death, so hatred is hard as hell. There will be discussion of depraved hatred when sins against charity and disordered vengeance are treated.

⁸⁹ Ibid. q. 29, a. 3.

76. 3. Desire is a tendency toward absent good. Wherefore it differs both from delectation, which is about present good, and from love, which is about good according to itself, as it abstracts from present or absent.⁹⁰ St. Thomas does not name this passion desire, but concupiscence;⁹¹ modern authors, however, under the name concupiscence are accustomed to understand the whole appetite corrupted through original sin, as has already been said.

⁹⁰ Ibid. q. 30, a. 2.

⁹¹ Ibid. q. 31, a. 3 ad 2.

77. 4. Flight, which is also called horror (Abscheu, Schauder), is aversion and withdrawal from future evil. For example, bodily punishments are imminent for a boy, and he immediately flees them. If someone abhors almost every bodily fatigue and every strong exertion in the exercise of religion and the labors of his state, this flight is an inordinate passion easily inducing the capital sin of sloth or acedia.

78. 5. Delectation (Lust), as it is taken here, is the rest of the appetite in sensible good possessed and present. But rest here is not understood privatively, or as a mere cessation from work, but positively, or as that pleasant sensation which is had if the good loved and desired has finally at some time been obtained. Delectation is not the same as joy, but extends more broadly than it. For delectation is concerned with objects both sensible and spiritual; but joy is rather concerning a spiritual object, and therefore is not found in brutes, which nevertheless are capable of delectation. Indeed delectation and joy can be opposed according to diverse respects. "For sometimes someone feels delectation according to the body, concerning which, however, he does not rejoice according to reason."⁹² The passion of delectation is very easily disfigured by disorder and induces to very many sins; for inordinate sensible delectations are most frequent and most vehement. But well-ordered delectation contributes much both to working strenuously and to bravely overcoming all onrushing evils or at least tolerating them.⁹³ Sadness is opposed to delectation.

⁹² Ibid. I-II, q. 31, a. 3.

⁹³ Ibid. q. 33, a. 4.

79. 6. Sadness (Trauer) is an affection caused in the sensitive appetite from the apprehension of present evil. Therefore the passion of sadness is a certain internal pain and is rarely good, unless it lasts briefly. For sadness lasting a long time is accustomed to have the worst effects: it renders a man, as they say, apathetic and unfit for strenuous labor, it weighs down the soul, impedes the motions of the soul and even, sometimes, the motions of the body, and often harms bodily health.⁹⁴ But if sadness lasts briefly, it is excellent; for it restrains a man from inordinate concupiscence and delectation. -

What St. Thomas discusses about the remedies of sadness⁹⁵ is conformable to experience and worthy of note. The Angelic Doctor assigns as efficacious remedies against sadness: 1) fitting delectations, 2) weeping, sighs, and other outward signs of sadness; for interior pain is diminished when it is poured forth outwardly, 3) the compassion of friends, 4) contemplation of truth, 5) sleep and baths.

These six passions are in the concupiscible appetite; but in the irascible appetite are found five passions, which regard good and evil not simply, but as arduous, which we are able to attain not without strenuous appetite, once difficulties have been overcome.

⁹⁴ Ibid. q. 37, a. 1-4.

⁹⁵ S. theol. q. 38, a. 1-5.

80. 1. Hope is a tendency toward future good, difficult and arduous, yet possible of attainment. St. Thomas⁹⁶ briefly assigns the difference between hope and the other passions: "Concerning the object of hope four conditions are considered: first, indeed, that it be good; for properly speaking there is no hope except concerning good; and through this hope differs from fear, which is concerning evil; second, that it be future; for hope is not concerning a present good already had; and through this hope differs from joy, which is concerning present good; third, it is required that it be something arduous, attainable with difficulty; for one is not said to hope for some very small thing which is at once in his power to have; and through this hope differs from desire⁹⁷ or cupidity, which is concerning future good absolutely; whence it pertains to the concupiscible appetite, but hope to the irascible; fourth, that that arduous thing be possible of attainment; for no one hopes for that which he is altogether unable to attain; and according to this hope differs from desperation." - Hope is ordinarily a good passion, which assists our operations much; for it causes a certain delectation and sharpens our powers.⁹⁸ Desperation is opposed to hope.

⁹⁶ Ibid. q. 40, a. 1.

⁹⁷ Suarez (De passion. disp. 1, sect. 8) thinks that hope and desire do not differ except accidentally; the opinion of St. Thomas is truer.

⁹⁸ S. theol. I-II, q. 40, a. 8.

81. 2. Desperation is a motion of the sensitive appetite withdrawing from an arduous good which appears impossible of attainment. Thus, for example, a sick man, knowing that the illness is incurable, despairs of recovering health. Desperation is a very dangerous passion and causes many evils. There will be discussion below, n. 548, about desperation insofar as it is a sin against the theological virtue of hope. As man can sin by defect, so also by exaggeration of hope. St. Thomas⁹⁹ aptly notes that in youths and in drunkards and others who do not use great deliberation, hope not rarely abounds, because, when difficulties have not been sufficiently considered, they easily judge themselves able to attain what they will.

⁹⁹ Ibid. a. 6.

82. 3. Daring is an act rising up against a terrible evil, present, for the sake of overcoming it. Daring is not indeed a part of hope, but its effect,¹⁰⁰ and it increases and decreases with it. Sometimes daring arises from a bodily disposition; wherefore St. Thomas, citing Aristotle, says:¹⁰¹ "Those who have a small heart according to quantity are more daring; and animals having a large heart according to quantity are timid, because the natural heat cannot warm a large heart as much as a small one.... Those having a blood-filled lung are more daring because of the heat of the heart consequently arising from it.... Lovers of wine are more daring because of the heat of wine."

¹⁰⁰ Ibid. q. 45, a. 2 ad 3.

¹⁰¹ Ibid. a. 3.

83. 4. Fear is a motion of the sensitive appetite following upon the apprehension of a future difficult evil which cannot be resisted; or more briefly: it is the dejection of a mind conquered by the gravity of danger. Fear is accustomed to effect great bodily changes, for example, pallor of the face, trembling of the voice and limbs, erection of the hairs, dryness of the throat, indeed sometimes sudden canities, disturbance of the mind, and death. Several species of fear are assigned, for example, blushing and shame, bashfulness, stupor, etc.¹⁰² Moderate fear is very good and leads to true humility; excessive fear can cause desperation and impedes man from performing great works. Those things which were said above concerning fear in order to its influence upon the voluntary can also be applied to the passion of fear (at least in some measure).

¹⁰² Ibid. q. 41, a. 4.

84. 5. Anger is an appetite of vengeance with a heat of blood around the heart. Anger differs from hatred. For he who hates wills evil to another as such, but an angry man wills evil to another in vengeance for an injury received.¹⁰³ Hatred of neighbor, that is, hatred of enmity, is never licit, since it is directly opposed to the virtue of charity;¹⁰⁴ but anger is sometimes licit, namely, when it is an appetite of just vengeance. Likewise hatred, insofar as it is a passion, can be licit, namely, if it is an ordered aversion from a true harmful evil. - Contemptuous estimation and despising are the principal motives of anger;¹⁰⁵ for a man is accustomed to be very angry when his neighbor knowingly and deliberately offends him, since this arises from contemptuous estimation and despising; on the contrary, he more easily forgives an offense done from inadvertence or from a passing passion. Anger can produce baneful effects in the body and also disturb the soul. On this matter St. Gregory says:¹⁰⁶ "The heart inflamed by the goads of its anger palpitates, the body trembles, the tongue trips itself, the face grows fiery, the eyes are made fierce, and known persons are not recognized at all; with the mouth indeed it forms a cry, but the sense does not know what it is saying." Anger is the most vehement passion, and therefore greatly needs the direction of reason. - Anger does not have an opposed passion as do the other passions enumerated up to this point. For the object of anger is a present arduous evil. Therefore the opposed passion would have to be concerned with a present arduous good. But a present good cannot be arduous, and therefore no passion can be concerned with it.

These are all the passions enumerated by the Angelic Doctor. But if modern authors add other passions, those are either not true passions or are reduced to the eleven enumerated.

Influence of Passions upon the Voluntary

¹⁰³ Ibid. q. 46, a. 6.

¹⁰⁴ Cf. below n. 564.

¹⁰⁵ S. theol. I-II, q. 47, a. 2.

¹⁰⁶ Lib. Moralium 5, 45. - Below in the treatise on the capital vices there will be discussion of anger and its remedies.

85. Preliminary Note. Before the influence of passions upon voluntary acts is determined, it is useful to observe that passions can stand in two ways toward the will and reason: antecedently and consequently.¹⁰⁷ An antecedent passion arises from causes independent of the will, for example, from bodily disposition, from natural heredity, from sudden and unforeseen commotion, etc. But a consequent passion arises in two ways: a) By way of redundance; for when the will vehemently seeks something, motions arise at once in the sensitive appetite; "for the will cannot be moved intensely toward something without some passion being stirred up in the sensitive appetite";¹⁰⁸ for example, saints most intensely loving God have experienced ecstasies and other bodily changes; a bridegroom loving his bride more intensely feels carnal motions. - b) By way of election, when a man deliberately chooses to be affected by some passion, so that he may be able to act more promptly and fervently, the passion itself cooperating. For example, someone wishing to take vengeance upon his enemy first recalls to memory every injury endured, vividly presents to himself joy over the enemy humbled, and, to stimulate the blood more, drinks generous wine; by all these things a vehement passion of anger is produced by way of election. For this way of election there is not always required a positive act of the will, as in the example brought forward, but voluntary permission also suffices, as if a man voluntarily permits, for example, venereal delectation.

¹⁰⁷ S. theol. I-II, q. 24, a. 3 ad 1.

¹⁰⁸ Ibid. q. 77, a. 6.

86. Principle 1. Antecedent passion diminishes the perfect and free voluntary;¹⁰⁹ indeed, if it is so vehement that it takes away the use of reason, it takes away every voluntary.

The reason is that antecedent passion in some measure clouds reason, vehemently impels toward action, and therefore in some measure diminishes the perfect and free voluntary, and consequently also sin. Hence sins which are committed under the influence of passion are (other things being equal) lesser and are customarily called sins of infirmity. - But if passion is so vehement that it absorbs the use of reason, it also destroys the voluntary. For where the use of reason is lacking, the voluntary also is lacking. In practice passion is rarely so vehement that it totally takes away the use of reason, unless, however, it arises from a diseased quality of the body.

¹⁰⁹ As is said more broadly below n. 89, concupiscence or desire of sensitive good does indeed increase the voluntary simply so called (because, assisting and impelling it, the will is borne with greater impetus toward the object), but diminishes the perfect and free voluntary, because it diminishes the indifference of the will. Cf. S. theol. I-II, q. 6, a. 7, and Billuart, De act. hum. diss. 1, a. 8.

87. Principle 2. Consequent passion by way of election increases the voluntary.

The reason is obvious; for the will acting from consequent passion not only wills the act, but also commands the sensitive appetite to assist it in acting by means of the passion. But just as the will is more intense when it produces not only the internal act but also the external act, so also it is in this case.

88. Principle 3. Consequent passion by way of redundance does not indeed increase the voluntary, but is a sign of a more intense will.

The reason is again obvious; for if the act of the will is so vehement that it not only moves the soul but also overflows into the sensitive appetite, this surely shows that the object is sought most intensely.

The Angelic Doctor¹¹⁰ thus embraces the doctrine proposed in these principles: "The passions of the soul can stand in two ways toward the judgment of reason: in one way antecedently; and thus, since they cloud the judgment of reason, upon which the moral goodness of the act depends, they diminish the goodness of the act. For it is more praiseworthy that someone do a work of charity from the judgment of reason than from the passion of mercy alone. In another way they stand consequently, and this in two ways: in one way by way of redundance, because, namely, when the higher part of the soul is moved intensely toward something, the lower part also follows its motion; and thus passion existing consequently in the sensitive appetite is a sign of a more intense will; and thus it indicates a greater moral goodness. In another way by way of election, when, namely, a man from the judgment of reason chooses to be affected by some passion, so that he may act more promptly, the sensitive appetite cooperating; and thus passion of the soul adds to the goodness of the action." - The Code of Canon Law also introduced the same doctrine into canonical practice, establishing in c. 2206 concerning the influence of passion: "Passion, if it was voluntary and deliberately excited or nourished, rather increases the imputability of the action; otherwise it diminishes it more or less according to the diverse heat of the passion; and it entirely takes it away if it precedes and impedes every deliberation of the mind and consent of the will."

¹¹⁰ S. theol. I-II, q. 24, a. 3 ad 1; cf. q. 77, a. 6 and 8.

89. Scholion 1. On antecedent concupiscence. The things which have been said hold good concerning all passions. But concerning concupiscence, insofar as it is a passion of the sensitive appetite pursuing good, and insofar as it is distinguished from a sensitive motion fleeing evil, such as fear, certain special things must be noted. For there is often discussion of concupiscence of the flesh, of concupiscence of the eyes, etc. But the question is only about antecedent concupiscence, since it is plain that consequent concupiscence does nothing with respect to the voluntary or involuntary, because it follows upon the voluntary itself, but is only a sign of an intense voluntary.¹¹¹ But antecedent concupiscence increases the voluntary, yet is accustomed to diminish the free, and consequently also the sin committed from concupiscence. This proposition, considered at first sight, seems to be paradoxical, but nevertheless is most true. For antecedent concupiscence causes the apprehended good to appear greater and the will to seek it more intensely. And this is proved by daily experience. Therefore we see that those who pursue some object with love are borne toward it with greater impetus than if they were not affected by this passion; for example, a man under the influence of carnal concupiscence acts most intensely to satisfy lust. But the freedom of acting is diminished by antecedent concupiscence. For the free voluntary proceeds from an intrinsic principle with cognition of the end placed under indifference. But antecedent concupiscence greatly diminishes this indifference, because it darkens reason by exaggerating the appetibility of the object and by diminishing the evil perhaps joined to the object. Hence this concupiscence as it were gilds things vile in themselves, and everyone is said to be tempted by his own concupiscence, drawn away and allured.¹¹² But since sin essentially consists in an act of free choice and not in the voluntary alone, antecedent concupiscence is accustomed to diminish the sin committed from it.¹¹³

¹¹¹ Billuart, De act. hum. diss. 1, a. 8.

¹¹² James 1:14.

¹¹³ Cf. S. theol. I-II, q. 77, a. 6. Because many authors do not sufficiently distinguish the voluntary from the free, nor the diverse meanings of the word concupiscence, hence disagreements and confusions arise.

90. Scholion 2. On the influence of habits upon the voluntary. The things which have been said up to this point concerning the influence of passions upon the voluntary can be asserted in almost the same way concerning the influence of habits. But a habit, as it is taken here, is a constant inclination, acquired by repeated acts, toward producing similar acts.

a) A voluntary habit, that is, one caused and foreseen from free acts and not yet efficaciously retracted, increases the voluntary and does not diminish the free. The reason is that it offers to the will facility and propensity for acting; but the will freely consents to its influence. Hence good habits produce very good acts, for example, acts of virtues; but bad habits not retracted produce very bad acts; for which reason the Angelic Doctor¹¹⁴ asserts that he who sins from a voluntary habit sins from certain malice. From these things it appears, for example, that the sins of some man blaspheming from an inveterate and never retracted habit are not light from the fact that this man now thinks nothing while uttering blasphemies of this kind. For he freely retains the habit which is the cause of so many sins. Therefore all the sins which actually follow are imputed to him.

b) An involuntary habit, that is, one indeed caused from free acts, but retracted by a sincere act of contrition, diminishes or even takes away the voluntary. It diminishes the voluntary if actual advertence to the act is imperfect; it takes away the voluntary if this advertence is totally removed. And this is plain, for example, in a man who contracted a habit of making himself drunk or of blaspheming. If this man, aided by the grace of God, has elicited an act of true contrition, so that he again is in the state of sanctifying grace and has retracted all his depraved habits, but nevertheless because of the acquired propensity again falls back into the same sins, these sins are less voluntary and consequently less grave; indeed, if they anticipate every advertence of reason, they are only material sins. - It is plain of itself that a habituated or customary sinner is strictly bound to employ efficacious remedies for the extirpation of the depraved habit, as will be explained below in the treatise on penance.

¹¹⁴ Ibid. q. 78, a. 2: "A sin is said to be from certain malice when it is from the election of evil. But that to which one is inclined through his own habit is electable to each one. Therefore a sin which is from habit is from certain malice."

St. Thomas, 1.2, q. 22-48; St. Alphonsus, V, n. XXIII; ed. G., II, p. 694; Frins, I, n. 295; Surbled, La Morale dans ses rapports avec la Medecine, III, p. 16; Descuret, La Medecine des Passions.

290. DEFINITION. Concupiscence, in the stricter sense, sounds the same as the tinder of sin, and is defined: A motion of the sensitive appetite rebelling against the spirit and tending toward the delectable good. But in the broader signification, insofar as it is considered here, it sounds the same as passion, and is defined: A motion of the sensitive appetite toward the delectable good, arisen from the imagination of good or evil, with some bodily transmutation (H. Ap., III, 15).

Passion of itself is indifferent: and it becomes good or evil according to the nature of the object which is sought according to or beyond the order of reason. But since passions conduce much to increasing the powers of the will, it will be worthwhile to use them rightly, to coerce their disordered impulses, and to order them to a good end.

DIVISION. Antecedent and consequent passion are distinguished.

1. Antecedent passion is said to be that which anticipates the consent of the will, and rises up from the apprehension alone of the object; as if someone, from the fortuitous sight of a base thing, is enticed to carnal delight; or on account of an injury received is moved to revenge. Of the motions of the passions, some are first-first: these arise in us without us, that is, without any consent of the will; others are called second-first, namely those which are produced with half-full advertence and half-full consent; lastly, others are second motions, or fully deliberate; these are excited with full advertence and with perfect consent.

2. Consequent passion is said to be that which arises from a previous act of the will; either by redundancy, because a vehement motion of the will overflows into the inferior appetite and moves passion, as is accustomed to happen in those who have the habit of some sin, for example, lust; or by direct excitation, because the will industriously moves the inferior appetite, by stopping, for example, the object before the eyes or the imagination, as if someone turns over in mind an injury received in order to provoke anger (V, n. XXIII, XXV).

Passions are generally numbered as eleven, of which six are in the concupiscible appetite: love and hatred, desire and flight, delight and sadness; but five in the irascible: hope and desperation, fear and daring, anger. Concerning these the Scholastics treat at length, and indeed usefully, because such treatment serves much both to the acquisition of virtues and to the governance of souls. See Schram, Inst. Theol. Myst., § 90.

291. PRINCIPLES. I. Concupiscence or antecedent passion, although it increases the inclination of the will, nevertheless lessens the free voluntary; indeed, if it is most vehement, it can entirely take it away. Thus commonly with St. Thomas (1.2, q. 6, a. 7, ad 3, and q. 10, a. 3).¹

It is said: 1. It increases the inclination of the will; for the more passion burns, the more vehemently the will breaks out into act.

2. It lessens the free voluntary, and therefore imputability. For it weakens the notion of the voluntary insofar as it obscures the mind and turns it away from consideration of the end, by impeding the intellect, enticed by the sensible object, from weighing the baseness of the act and the offense of God.

3. It can entirely take it away; which happens when passion is so vehement that it anticipates every judgment of reason and consent of the will; as is clear by the example of those who, on account of love or anger, become insane. Yet this happens comparatively rarely, especially as regards external acts; for regularly, as St. Thomas observes (1.2, q. 17, a. 9), members are not applied to work except through the consent of reason (V, n. XXIV, XXV). St. Alph., V, 3, says: "The intellect can be so seized by the delectability of the object offered that it adverts nothing of moral malice in it." Concerning this Berardi (I, n. 408) writes: Let Confessors note these things well, lest they cast some miserable souls into desperation.

Hence it is gathered: 1. First-first motions of concupiscence are not sins, but an occasion either of sins or of virtues. Second-first motions, in every illicit matter, are venial sins. Finally, second or deliberate motions, in a gravely illicit matter, are mortal sins, although their gravity, on account of the vehemence of passion, is somewhat lessened (cf. n. 322). See St. Alph., Op. dogm. (ed. Walter, II, p. 413).

2. Good passion, if it precedes the judgment of reason, so that man is moved more by passion than by reason to acting well, diminishes the goodness and praise of the act. You have an example in a father of a family who chastises his children more from anger than from the judgment of reason; in a merciful man who relieves the poor rather from compassion than from the impulse of reason and faith (St. Thom., de Malo, q. 3, a. 11).

II. Concupiscence or consequent passion sometimes increases the voluntary, sometimes is a sign of its magnitude. 1. It increases the voluntary if it proceeds from direct excitation; for then the motion of the will is more vehement, and the obscuration of reason, as being voluntary, does not take away in the effect the notion of the voluntary. 2. It is a sign of its magnitude if it arises from the redundancy of the aroused will into the inferior part: then it is compared to the will as effect to cause; but an effect demonstrates the cause. St. Thomas aptly to the matter (de Malo, as above): "and thus consequent passion adds to merit or demerit, because passion is a sign that the motion of the will is stronger; and in this way it is true that he who gives alms with greater compassion merits more, and he who commits sin with greater lust sins more." Cf. 1.2, q. 77, a. 6.

Note. As regards the question: Whether we are held to resist the motions of passion, see what will be said below, n. 322.

292. It is helpful here to add a few things concerning habit, which influences the voluntary in almost the same way as concupiscence.

DEFINITION. Habit is a firm disposition for acting, caused for the most part from repeated acts. It is said for the most part; for sometimes it happens that habit is generated even from one act, namely if the active thing, as St. Thomas speaks (1.2, q. 51, a. 3), was of great power, as when strong medicine immediately induces health. Cf. St. Thom., 1.2, q. 49-54; Suarez, Disp. metaph., disp. XLIV; Ami du Clerge, 1899, p. 529-593.

DIVISION. Since habit always supposes an act of the will, it cannot be divided into antecedent and consequent.

Habit is therefore either admitted by the will, or attacked by the will. It is admitted by the will if it is caused with advertence, that is, with foresight of its generation from the repetition of acts, or also if, although caused without advertence, it afterwards is no longer efficaciously extirpated. But it is attacked by the will if apt means are applied for putting away the habit.

PRINCIPLES. I. A habit admitted by the will sometimes increases, sometimes lessens, but never takes away the voluntary.

1. It increases the voluntary insofar as it gives greater alacrity to the will, without the attention of the mind being lessened in the agent. 2. It lessens the voluntary insofar as man, the slave of custom, is so drawn by it that tranquil consideration of mind is prevented or impeded. 3. It never takes away the voluntary, since man, from the fact that he does not will to cast off the habit, by that very fact has willed in the cause the effects flowing from the cause. See St. Thomas, 1.2, q. 49 ff.

II. A habit attacked by the will always lessens the voluntary, sometimes also takes it away.

1. It lessens the voluntary insofar as the powers of the will and the deliberation of reason are more or less impeded by the habit. 2. It takes away the voluntary in the case in which the habit so vehemently dominates the executive powers that it anticipates the judgment of reason, as is clear among those who are agitated by bile.

Therefore let the human will be constant in repressing habits; for custom is conquered by custom. Yet let it not neglect to apply the physical means prescribed by physicians, by which the powers of nature can increase.

II. On the impediments which remotely influence the voluntary.

293. Among men there are numbered some who not only have obtained a good soul (Wis. 8:19), but also, with God so ordering, obtain a bodily constitution more apt for the exercise of virtue (St. Thom., 1.2, q. 51, a. 1). But others are given who from the cradle are inclined to evil, are infected with the poison of depraved propensities, and direct heart and will upward with the greatest difficulty.

Among all these we can consider three things which most greatly influence the will: heredity, temperament, certain pathological states.

I. On heredity. No one can deny that certain qualities of body and propensities of soul are transmitted, as are: kleptomania, impulse to suicide, etc.; which nevertheless do not pass from parents to children in the same mode, nor according to a constant rule. Although the laws of transmission are explained most difficultly, as being since the whole matter furnishes almost nothing for investigation, nevertheless there is no doubt concerning the fact of transmission.

Heredity without doubt has influence upon liberty, because in reality, as is clear among the children of drunkards, a body more or less apt for operating is transmitted. Sometimes also natural propensities can overturn the judgment of the intellect, so that liberty ceases. But in no way is it lawful to affirm with Determinists that free choice is taken away by the law of heredity, because, with the case excluded in which the will is suddenly drawn under the influence of natural propensity, the mind can remain conscious of its imputability. Considered historically, our affirmation obtains great weight from the fact that it is discovered that children shining with great virtue have had origin from parents given to vice, while, conversely, God-fearing parents have begotten children given to every nefarious crime. And thus it is clear how empty is the argument taken from moral statistics (cf. Lehmk., I, 63), and at the same time how grave a wound they inflict upon society, whoever before judges excuse any guilty persons whatever, as if from the law of heredity they were not conscious of their crimes.²

II. On temperament. The complex of diverse propensities of body and soul, by which a special disposition is conferred on such a man, is called temperament. If those propensities become firm by efforts of the will, character is had.

Whatever may be the case concerning the diversity of opinions between the ancients and moderns, whether namely four or only two foundations of distinction among temperaments are present, it is certain that in all something dominates, which impresses a special mark on operation.

Temperament in no way takes away, but only lessens THE VOLUNTARY. The reason is, because from constitution there indeed arises an influence upon the will (St. Thom., Contra Gent., l. II, c. 63), but not such that the rational part as if necessarily follows the inferior propensities. Indeed, the rational part, through repeated acts, can so change natural inclinations that someone becomes as it were a new man, as is clear by the example of certain Saints who, choleric by nature, with grace favoring and the will striving, shone forth as a form of meekness.³

III. On pathological states. Especially in our times there are given various diseases by which either the will or the center of the nerves is affected; the will indeed, insofar as because of dullness of mind it appears as if impotent to will anything efficaciously; but the center of the nerves, insofar as the nerves are so exhausted or weakened that the agent, although remaining master of himself, labors under great inconstancy or is shaken and depressed by great passions.

1. WEAKNESS OF WILL is called aboulia. This so affects men otherwise robust that liberty is always lessened, sometimes also, but most rarely, taken away. It is necessary that friends furnish help to the miserable, so that they may again learn efficaciously to will or not to will.⁴

2. WEAKNESS OF THE NERVES brings with itself neurasthenia, if the disorder is sufficiently grave, or hysteria, if the disorder is graver. Sometimes also not constantly, but with some delay interposed, this disorder breaks into a man, and epileptic disease is had. But who can measure, who would dare to measure, the influence of the disease upon the free exercise of the will among those who are situated in this miserable condition? The voluntary is always indeed lessened, and sometimes altogether taken away. Let the sick flee to God, let them hope against hope, let them commit themselves plainly to be ruled by a prudent physician and by a long-suffering and patient confessor. But let the Confessor himself, although it is his part to judge all things rightly, know that in many things he ought to suspend judgment and commit the whole matter to the judgment of God.⁵

Note. A very useful question pertaining to this matter regards the hypnotic state, into which many cast themselves either for the sake of experiment or of recovering health. It is evident that liberty of the will is much affected through suggestions to be fulfilled afterwards, but from this do not conclude that the agent lacks all responsibility. Cf. what Tanquerey teaches, II, p. 76. Read what will be said below, n. 570, concerning hypnotism.

S. Th. I-II, q. 6, a. 7; q. 73, a. 6; q. 77, a. 5 and 7; q. 78, a. 2 and 4.

76. Concupiscence: 1) in the broadest sense is either a) habitual disorder, that is, the privation of rectitude left by original sin in the sensitive appetite, especially when it tends toward sensible good, and consequently in reason and will; or b) any passion or disordered movement of the appetite, preceding deliberation, especially when it tends toward evil or rises up against reason (a first-first movement);

2. In the strictest sense, it is the special passion by which the concupiscible appetite tends toward an absent sensible delectable good, and is opposed to fear, which is the movement of the appetite fleeing evil;

3. In a less strict sense, here it is taken not indeed for every passion, but for any affection or movement of the sensitive appetite or of the will tending toward a delectable good in order to pursue it.

1. Many modern authors think concupiscence is to be understood only as passion, and indeed every passion. Yet this is not true, for fear is also a passion, and St. Thomas teaches precisely the opposite about it and about concupiscence. They err because they confuse two very diverse questions: 1) whether any passion whatever (even fear) diminishes the free, concerning which we shall speak later, n. 93; 2) whether concupiscence diminishes the voluntary. In this question, concupiscence is understood not only as a movement of passion, but also of the will, as is clear from I-II, q. 73, a. 6, ad 2; and from II Sent. d. 22, q. 2, a. 2, ad 5.

By reason of the act of the deliberate will, concupiscence is antecedent, which (in the order of causality) precedes the free consent of the will and causes it: then something is done from concupiscence, as when, having seen a beautiful woman, lust draws the will so that it takes delight in her. And it is consequent, which (in the order of causality) follows the free consent of the will and proceeds from it, as if one, willing to sin with a woman, excites concupiscence for perpetrating the sin: then something is done with concupiscence. It is plain that consequent concupiscence, since it follows upon the voluntary, in no way impedes it nor causes the involuntary, but is only a sign and effect of the voluntary. Therefore the question concerns only antecedent concupiscence, how it is related to the voluntary and involuntary.

77. Principle I. Antecedent concupiscence causes the voluntary rather than the involuntary. - For something is called voluntary from the fact that the will is borne toward it. But by concupiscence the will is inclined to willing that which it desires. Therefore concupiscence rather makes toward this, that something be voluntary, than involuntary.

Therefore, unlike fear, concupiscence per se never makes the involuntary simply or in a certain respect, because in him who acts from fear there remains a prior will repugnant to that which he does, but in him who acts from concupiscence there does not remain a prior will which was rejecting that which he desires; and therefore the concupiscent person acts against what he was willing, while the fearful person acts against what even now, according to itself, he wills. Yet concupiscence makes the involuntary by accident when some evil is joined to the object which is desired, for example when a lustful man is at the same time avaricious and wills fornication, for procuring which he must spend money.

78. Principle II. Antecedent concupiscence increases the voluntary, diminishes the freely voluntary; whence that which is done from concupiscence is more voluntary, less free. - For such concupiscence:

1. Ballerini and his disciples, such as Bucceroni, Genicot, and Noldin, on account of the confusion spoken of in the preceding note, teach that antecedent concupiscence simply diminishes the voluntary, and not only under the aspect of freedom. Yet they do not speak rightly in this way. Whence Schmitt, in the more recent editions of Noldin's work, I, n. 53, corrected this somewhat, writing: antecedent concupiscence diminishes freedom. And Salsmans, in the very recent edition of Genicot's work, changed one word, and in place of concupiscence put passion; but for that reason the doctrine is not more adequate nor less ambiguous.

1. Always increases the improperly so called voluntary, because concupiscence itself, as an indeliberate movement of the appetite, is voluntary in this way from its nature.

2. Generally it increases the properly so called voluntary as to inclination or propensity, because our will is borne more into the object which we desire, since the intellect proposes it as more desirable and to be pursued with greater efficacy; nevertheless it diminishes it as to the indifference of judgment and therefore as to deliberation. For it makes the intellect perceive less the reason of evil in the object and propose it as more lovable; hence it also diminishes freedom, and consequently the goodness of the act and the sin.

3. Sometimes, if it is very vehement, it takes away knowledge and deliberation and the use of reason, and therefore the properly so called voluntary and the free; yet it does not make the involuntary: for in him who does not use reason, there is neither the properly voluntary nor the involuntary.

79. Observation. - Consequent concupiscence in no way diminishes the voluntary properly so called, nor the free, nor consequently goodness or sin, because it itself is the effect of the free will. Whence what is done with concupiscence is not less voluntary nor free. Nevertheless it can diminish deliberation and freedom as to the act following from it; but as to that act it is antecedent.

12. Definition. - Concupiscence is commonly defined: a motion of the sensitive appetite, or a motion which operates not only in the soul, but also in some sensible part of the body, at least in the heart, namely moving it more intensely toward a real or apparent good, or drawing it back more intensely from that which is represented as evil. In order that this may be understood more fully, it must be known that often we suffer in our body certain commotions, which vehemently impel and excite us toward something; these, moreover, are called passions, which are far from being evil in themselves. For they are from the author of nature, and can be incentives of virtues: thus, for example, a soldier inflamed with desire of true glory fights more bravely. Yet because in the present state of corrupted nature the passions snatch man beyond the limits within which virtue stands, therefore in ordinary usage the passions themselves, just as also concupiscence, are regarded as evil movements; and therefore concupiscence, insofar as it is opposed to the voluntary and to the free, is defined: an inordinate motion of the sensitive appetite, by which the will is borne toward sensible good.

13. Division. - A twofold concupiscence is distinguished: one antecedent, another consequent. The former is that which, in the order of causality, precedes any deliberation or consent of the will, yet allures and draws it to consent; thus, for example, when an enemy has been seen, at once the appetite of vengeance is aroused. But the latter is that which, in the order of causality, follows an act of the will: either because a vehement motion of the will overflows into the inferior appetite, as is wont to happen in those who have a habit of some sin, for example of lust; or because the will directly and deliberately excites this very thing, as, for example, when someone reads obscene books in order to excite lust, - or deliberately thinks about an enemy or about injuries received, in order to kindle hatred in himself or increase the desire for vengeance, - or, when about to rebuke those whom he loves with tender affection, he in some way excites himself to applying himself seriously to the rebuke.

14. Principles. - I. Antecedent concupiscence, and therefore non-voluntary concupiscence, the greater and more vehement it is, the more it diminishes sin; indeed it can excuse entirely from sin. The reason is that the motion of the sensitive appetite disturbs, diminishes, or even impedes the judgment of reason; but causes which diminish the judgment of reason also diminish the voluntary. Since therefore an act is sin insofar as it is voluntary, by that very fact concupiscence, while it diminishes the voluntary, diminishes also the sin; and therefore where concupiscence is more intense and stronger, there the sin is less. Indeed the notion of sin will entirely cease if the motion of concupiscence totally impedes the use of reason (first-first acts).¹

II. Consequent concupiscence, and therefore voluntary concupiscence, does not diminish sin, but rather increases it; or rather it is a sign of its greatness, insofar as it demonstrates the intensity of the will toward the act of sin.²

The former part is proved, because although physically, nevertheless not morally, it diminishes the voluntary, since the very diminution of the judgment of reason proceeds from the will of the agent himself; for he who wills the cause, by that very fact also wills the effect. Haine, ib. p. 15. q. 33.

The latter part is proved, because, as St. Thomas has it:³ "When from a strong movement of the will the lower appetite is stirred to passion, ... passion adds to merit or demerit, because the passion is a sign that the movement of the will is stronger; and in this way it is true that he who does alms with greater compassion merits more, and he who commits sin with greater lust sins more, because this is a sign that the movement of the will is stronger."

By the name of concupiscence here there comes, not indeed that inborn tinder of depraved desires concerning which the Apostle complains, Rom. vii, 23, but a movement of the sensitive appetite, by which we tend toward a sensible good; or, as St. Thomas says after Damascene, 3, dist. 26, q. 1, art. 1: "a movement of the sensitive appetitive power which is from the imagination of good or evil."

But concupiscence so understood is distinguished as twofold, for one is antecedent, and another consequent. The former is that which, in the order of causality, precedes any deliberation or consent of the will, and allures and draws it to consenting. But the latter is that which, in the order of causality, follows an act of the will, either because a vehement movement of the will overflows into the lower appetite, or because the will directly and by design excites this appetite itself. That which is produced from mere overflowing is voluntary only in cause; that which is directly and by design excited is voluntary in itself. Cf. Baller., note (b), p. 14.

Antecedent concupiscence does not remove, but rather increases, the voluntary, insofar as by this name the inclination of the will is signified; but it diminishes, and even wholly removes it, insofar as the judgment of reason and the indifference of the will are signified. The reason for the first is that through concupiscence the will is inclined to willing that which it desires, and from another side the mind is not impeded from knowing at least the sensible qualities of the thing; indeed it is more occupied in considering them. Therefore the act proceeding from it is done through itself from a fuller and more intrinsic propensity of the will. But the reason for the second is that concupiscence turns the mind away from considering the inconveniences and defects of the object, and diminishes the indifference of the will. But when the passion is so great that it wholly removes the use of reason, as happens in those who are driven mad on account of love or anger, the act is indeliberate, and for that reason is rendered wholly involuntary. Cf. St. Thomas, 1-2, q. 6, art. 7; q. 73, art. 6; and q. 77, arts. 2, 6, and 7.

Consequent concupiscence neither increases nor diminishes the voluntary, but rather, as St. Thomas says, 1-2, q. 77, art. 6, "is a sign of its magnitude, insofar as it demonstrates the intensity of the will toward the act." The reason for the first is that the act of the rational will in that hypothesis precedes the movement of concupiscence, as a cause precedes an effect. Therefore the later disturbance of reason, which concupiscence induces, cannot affect the act which has already preceded, and therefore neither diminish nor increase the account of the voluntary. But the reason for the second is that, as St. Thomas has it, De Malo, q. 3, art. 11: "when from a strong movement of the will the sensitive appetite is moved to passion, passion adds merit or demerit, because it is a sign that the movement of the will is stronger; and in this way it is true that he who gives alms with greater compassion merits more, and he who sins with greater lust sins more, because this is a sign that the movement of the will is stronger."

You Will Resolve. 1st. Antecedent concupiscence diminishes the merit or demerit of an act; for it diminishes the free element, from which an act has that it is worthy of praise or blame, capable of merit or demerit.

2nd. Consequent concupiscence contributes nothing through itself and formally to the moral goodness or malice, merit or demerit, of an act, but rather takes on the morality, merit, or demerit of this act; although, as has been said, it is a sign and indication of greater or lesser merit or demerit.

3rd. Concupiscence which so follows an act of the will that it has been excited and willed is good and praiseworthy in itself, if it is not inordinate or immoderate, and is referred to an honest end. Cf. Suarez, in 1-2, tract. 2, disp. 3, sect. 3, n. 1.

Note. - Concerning concupiscence, insofar as it is the tinder of depraved desires and inclines the will to sin, we shall treat below, where we treat of sins.

I say 1°: Antecedent concupiscence rather causes a thing to be voluntary than involuntary¹. For a thing is said to be voluntary from the fact that the will is borne toward it. But through concupiscence the will is inclined to will what concupiscence desires. Therefore concupiscence contributes more to making a thing voluntary than involuntary. ¹ Here q. 7, a. 4, c.

I say 2°: Antecedent concupiscence increases absolute voluntariness, and diminishes perfect and free voluntariness.

The first part is proved. Absolute voluntariness is that which proceeds from an intrinsic principle with knowledge of the end materially, such as belongs to brutes. But antecedent concupiscence causes the will, with prior knowledge of the end materially, to be borne toward the object with greater force and inclination than if there were no concupiscence. Therefore. — The minor is proved: 1° By reason; for, concupiscence impelling, the intellect proposes to the will the object as more desirable, and therefore to be pursued with greater efficacy. 2° By experience; for we see that those who pursue an object with love are carried toward it with greater force than if they were not affected by this passion. Therefore.

The second part is proved. Perfect voluntariness is that which proceeds from an intrinsic principle with knowledge of the end formally as end, that is, with knowledge of the dignity of the end and of the proportion of the means to it. But concupiscence diminishes, nay sometimes takes away this knowledge. Therefore. — The minor is proved. For it diminishes the judgment of reason, nay sometimes destroys it and causes madness, as experience shows. But knowledge of the end formally as end pertains to the judgment of reason. Therefore.

The third part is proved. Free voluntariness is that which proceeds from an intrinsic principle with knowledge of the end under indifference concerning the thing proposed. But antecedent concupiscence diminishes this indifference. Therefore. — The minor is proved: 1° Because it diminishes the judgment of reason, as I was just saying. 2° Because concupiscence causes the intellect to propose to the will, in pursuing the object, all the aspects of the desirable and deficient good, and to attend less to the aspects of the honest good by which the will would be withdrawn from that object. Therefore it diminishes indifference.

Hence you will infer that antecedent concupiscence diminishes sin, insofar as it disturbs the judgment and diminishes liberty, nay sometimes exempts from all sin, when it is so violent that it altogether takes away the judgment of reason and indifference, and renders one mad.

Prooemium.

[After St. Thomas, I. IIae, from q. 22 to q. 48, had discussed the acts proper to man whereby the last end can be attained, from q. 22 to q. 48 he discusses the acts common to man and other animals, which are called passions; for inasmuch as they are subject politically to the empire of reason, they participate something of its regulation and of morality, and can conduce to the last end or turn away from it: whence the governing of them occupies a great part of the virtues, and from their disordination many vices spring up. Because however there are no grave controversies about this matter, and it is scarcely treated in the schools, although it matters greatly that tyros of theology not be ignorant of it, therefore we shall run through it summarily, yet sufficiently. Likewise of the virtues, of which the holy Doctor treats from q. 55 to 70, we shall say little, for the same reasons. Therefore all things which we shall say of the passions and virtues we shall embrace compendiously in a twofold dissertation.]

{ Question is asked 1° what passion is.

I answer. Common is the sense of all, that passion is an act of sensitive appetite whereby one is affected toward something or flees from it. But why, since it is an act, is it called passion? The reason is, because that act is apt to cause a transmutation in the natural disposition of the body, which transmutation inflicts passion, insofar as the subject suffers by losing something.

For the understanding of this it must be observed that to suffer is said in a threefold way. In one mode, commonly and widely, according as every receiving is suffering, even if nothing be cast off from the thing, as if it be said that air suffers while it is illuminated: and in this sense intellect and cognitive sense, receiving species, can be said to suffer. In another mode it is said properly to suffer when something is received with the casting off of another. And this happens in a twofold way. For sometimes there is cast off what is unfitting to the thing, and received what is fitting: thus, when the animal body is healed, it is said to suffer, because it receives health, sickness being cast off. Sometimes, conversely, it happens while there is cast off what is fitting to the thing, and received what is unfitting: thus to be sick is said to suffer, because infirmity is received, health^{1 1} Here q. 22, a. 1, o.

cast off. And this third mode is the most proper mode of passion.

Whence Augustine says, lib. IX de Civit., c. 4, n. 1: « Those motions of soul which the Greeks call πάθη, but some of ours, as Cicero, perturbations, some affections or affects, others truly, as this one [Apuleius] more expressively from the Greek, call passions. » Such motions therefore are most rightly called passions, and passion is defined by the Angelic Doctor¹ from Damascene in lib. II de Fide orthod., c. 22: « Motion of the sensible appetitive power, upon imagination of good and evil; » that is: Motion of sensitive appetite from imagination of good and evil, with bodily transmutation. ¹ Here q. 22, a. 3, in arg. Sed contra et o.

It is called motion, that is act or operation, and holds the place of genus; of sensitive appetite, because that appetite is its subject; from imagination of good or evil, whereby its principle is signified; with bodily transmutation, which distinguishes such motion from the motions of the will, which since it is not affixed to a corporeal organ, moves not itself with bodily transmutation, and from the motion of the sensitive cognitive part, which, although affixed to a corporeal organ, does not per se transmute the body physically, but only intentionally. But passion transmutes the body physically, at least the heart²; for in every passion something is added to or diminished from the natural motion of the heart, insofar as the heart is moved more intensely or more remissly according to systole and diastole. ² Here q. 24, a. 2, ad 2

Passion therefore imports two things³, namely the act of the soul, which stands as it were formal, and the bodily transmutation, which stands as it were material, from which nevertheless passion is named. If the first be wanting, there will be purely bodily passion; if the second be wanting, there will be no passion, but simply a motion or operation of the soul. ³ Q. 6 de Veritate, a. 2, ad 5.

Question is asked 2° how many passions there are.

I answer. There are eleven passions, six in the concupiscible appetite and five in the irascible appetite.

In the concupiscible appetite are: love, or inclination into good apprehended simply, whose contrary is hatred, or aversion from evil simply; desire, or inclination into good apprehended as absent, but future, having as contrary flight, or aversion from evil apprehended as absent, but future; joy, which is also called pleasure or delight, or repose in good apprehended and really possessed, and it has as contrary sadness, or disquietude and languor of mind from evil apprehended and actually pressing.

In the irascible appetite truly are found: hope, or motion into good apprehended as arduous, but possible of attainment, whose contrary is despair, or motion away from good apprehended as arduous and impossible of attainment; daring, or motion into good apprehended as terrible and imminent, but as surmountable, having as contrary fear, or dejection of mind from evil apprehended as terrible and imminent, and not avoidable; anger, or vehement inclination to vindicate, that is to inflict harm upon the cause by which the evil unto which we are subjected was inflicted, and of this passion there is no contrary.

The reason of this distinction¹. Since passion is an act of sensitive appetite, it is divided according to the division of appetite. Sensitive appetite is twofold, concupiscible and irascible; for in animals, as in other natural things, there is not only inclination to pursue what is convenient, but also to resist contraries and impediments. The first inclination in an animal is called concupiscible appetite, the second irascible appetite. The object of the concupiscible is sensible good or evil precisely as such, the object of the irascible is arduous good or evil. If therefore the concupiscible appetite tend toward good or evil simply, abstracting whether it be present or absent, in respect of good it is love, in respect of evil hatred; if it tend toward absent good or evil, in respect of good it is desire, in respect of evil flight; if it be occupied about present good or evil, in respect of good it is joy, in respect of evil sadness. But if the irascible appetite tend toward arduous and difficult good, either that good is possible of attainment, and hope is born, or it is impossible of attainment, and despair arises; if it flee arduous evil, either that evil is easy to repel, and daring rises up, or it is difficult to repel, and fear appears; or finally it is occupied about present evil to be avenged, and anger is provoked, to which no passion is opposed. ¹ Here q. 23, a. 1, o; 1° p., q. 81, a. 2, o.

Hence you have that passions of the concupiscible differ from passions of the irascible in this, that passions of the concupiscible bear upon opposite objects; for they tend into good or recede from evil: but passions of the irascible bear upon the same object with contrary motions.

Question is asked 3° for what reason anger has not, like the rest, an opposite passion.

I answer. Passions of the concupiscible are mutually opposed according to the contrariety of objects, namely good and evil; but in passions of the irascible there is held a twofold contrariety: one indeed, as in the passions of the concupiscible, of good and evil, as between hope and fear; but the other contrariety is according to access and recess relative to the same term, as between hope and despair, between daring and fear. Of anger says St. Thomas here q. 23, a. 3, o: « It is singular in the passion of anger that it cannot have a contrary, neither according to access and recess, nor according to the contrariety of good and evil. » And the holy Doctor brings this reason: « For anger is caused from difficult evil now pressing, at whose presence it is necessary that either the appetite succumb, and so sadness does not issue forth beyond its terms, which is a passion of the concupiscible, or it have motion toward invading the harmful evil, which pertains to anger. But it cannot have motion toward fleeing, because the evil is already posited present or past. And thus to the motion of anger no passion is contrary according to the contrariety of access and recess. Likewise also nor according to the contrariety of good and evil, because to evil already pressing is opposed good already attained, which can no longer have the reason of arduous or difficult, nor after the attainment of good does there remain any other motion than the quieting of appetite in the good attained, which pertains to joy, the passion of the concupiscible contrary to sadness; nor is merely cessation from motion opposed to it, as the Philosopher says in his Rhetoric, that to grow mild is opposed to being angry; which is not a contrary opposition [as motion is opposed to motion], but negative or privative [as cessation of motion is opposed to motion]. »

Question is asked 4° whether passions can be good or bad.

I answer. 1. Passions of the soul can be considered in a twofold way: in one mode, in themselves; in another mode, insofar as they lie under the empire of reason and will. If therefore they be considered in themselves, namely as certain motions of irrational appetite, thus there is not in them moral good or evil, which depends upon reason; but if they be considered insofar as they lie under the empire of reason and will, thus there is in them moral good or evil. For sensitive appetite is nearer to reason itself and will than the exterior members, whose motions and acts nevertheless are morally good or bad, insofar as they are voluntary. Whence much more the passions themselves, insofar as they are voluntary, can be called morally good or bad. But they are voluntary, either from this that they are commanded by the will, or from this that they are not prohibited by the will.

But then they are good when they are moderated by reason; bad, when they are beyond the order of reason². Hence Christ, having no sin, employed passions where he judged according to reason that they should be employed, thus Marc., III, 5, he looked round about with anger; ibid., XIV, 34, his soul was sad even unto death; Luc., XIX, 41, he wept over Jerusalem; Joann., XI, 33 and 34, he troubled himself and wept. And the Apostle, Rom., XII, 15, commands to rejoi- ² Ibid., a. 2, o.

^{1 1} Here q. 24, a. 1, o.

ce with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. And that is the common sense of men, that punishment can rightly be feared, good loved, evil fled, and deservedly; since sensitive appetite is from God as author of nature, there cannot fail to be some acts of it good, if they be regulated and commanded by reason.

But the rule and moderation of reason is attended to, not precisely according to intension or remission of passion, but according as, object and circumstances considered, right reason demands it intensified or remitted. Therefore not always does he sin who vehemently grows angry, or grieves, or fears, but he who exceeds what right reason demands in these or those circumstances. Whence Moses, Exod., XXXII, 19, is read to have been greatly angered on account of the adoration of the calf; Num., XXV, 11, the zeal and indignation of Phinees is praised; I Reg., II and IV, Heli is reprehended because he was not sufficiently indignant at his sons; finally Christ himself, as we already said, was saddened even unto death.

Question is asked 5° whether passion, while cooperating with reason and will, diminish or augment the goodness of the moral act.

Before the response, note that passions of the soul can stand in a twofold way toward will and reason, namely antecedently and consequently, and this latter in a twofold way¹: 1° by way of redundancy; for when the superior part of the soul is intensely moved into something, the inferior part follows her motion; 2° by way of election, namely when man from judgment of reason elects to be affected with some passion, that he operate more promptly and fervently, the sensitive appetite cooperating. This noted, ¹ Ibid., a. 3, ad 1.

I answer. 1° Passion antecedent to reason and will diminishes the goodness of the act, because it obscures the judgment of reason, whence depends the goodness of the moral act; for it is more laudable that one do the work of charity from judgment of reason than from mere passion of mercy². ² Ibid.

2° Passion consequent upon will by way of redundancy is a sign of intenser will, and thus indicates greater moral goodness, yet does not augment it¹. ¹ Ibid.

3° Passion consequent by way of election augments the goodness of the act²; because, since the good of man consists in reason as in root, so much the more perfect is that good, the more widely it extends to the many things that suit man: whence no one doubts that to the perfection of moral good pertains that the acts of exterior members be directed by rule of reason. But sensitive appetite can obey reason, as was said. Therefore to perfection of moral good pertains that even the passions themselves of the soul be regulated by reason. Therefore as it is better that man both will good and do it by exterior act, so also is it better that man be moved toward good according to will and according to sensitive appetite, according to that of Psal. LXXXIII, 3: My heart and my flesh exulted in the living God; which is to be understood thus, that we take heart for the intellective appetite, flesh however for the sensitive appetite.] ² Ibid. et o.

St. Thomas, from q. 26 to q. 48.

§ I

On the passions of the concupiscible appetite.

St. Thomas, from q. 26 to q. 39.

[I. LOVE. — 1° Love, as such, is « complacency in good »³. Understand a firm and robust complacency domineering the appetite; for if it be yet recent and weak, it will rather be the rudiment and beginning of love than love. Or otherwise: ³ Here q. 26, a. 1, o.

« Love is propensity or inclination unto good according to itself, abstracting whether it be present or absent. »

Philip, a seventeen-year-old student in a certain Catholic college, confesses before his confessor that he has suffered depraved motions. The confessor asks whether he consented to them, which Philip denies. Then, when the confessor asks whether perhaps he has posited a cause of them and what cause, he replies that sometimes they arise as if spontaneously, sometimes from the reading of books, sometimes from association with other boys toward whom perhaps he cherishes a carnal affection, and sometimes from the fact that he has kissed them. Hence it is asked:

1. What is concupiscence?

2. Can any order of the acts by which sin is usually committed be distinguished?

3. Is there sin in the motions which are called first-first and second-first?

4. What is to be said concerning the case, and what counsel is to be given to Philip concerning each point?

1. What is concupiscence?

Concupiscence is commonly used in different senses by dogmatic and by moral theologians. Dogmatic theologians use it to signify the inclination to evil and the inordinate motions which we all experience within us, and which, as the Council of Trent teaches, are the effects of original sin.¹ In moral theology concupiscence is used in a wider sense to signify any movement of passion, or any movement of the sensible appetite toward its own proper good. Thus it is a general term used to signify emotions of love, hatred, joy or gladness, desire, sorrow, and anger. Such emotions are not in themselves either good or evil; their moral quality depends on their object, on whether they are voluntary or not, and on whether they are duly moderated. Thus, regulated love of what is good is praiseworthy, love of what is evil is wrong and blameworthy.

1 Sess. 5, Decree on Original Sin.

2. Can any order be traced in the acts by which sin is usually committed?

Yes, the first promptings of sin usually come through the senses. I see a beautiful piece of jewelry; by its beauty and luster it naturally attracts me. I can not help feeling this impulse; it is the necessary movement of the appetite toward an object which promises satisfaction. It is the motus primo-primus of the moralists. When such an emotion is excited, it attracts the notice of the intellect. The intellect begins to consider whether the incipient desire for the jewelry is right or wrong. If I have money to buy it and am willing to pay the price, the intellect sees nothing in the series of acts which conscience can condemn. But if I have not the money or I have no intention of parting with it, then it behooves me to put a curb on my desire. No harm is done if it stops at a mere velleity — “I should like to have that pretty thing if I could afford it.” But such an imperfect desire if not kept under control is apt to issue in a definite purpose — “I like that and I will have it, by theft if need be.” In this deliberate act of the will sin is first committed; the seeking for means and opportunity and the actual execution of the purpose only belonging to the accidental perfection of the sinful act.

3. Is there any sin in the movements of the sensible appetite called by theologians primo-primi and secundo-primi?

Those movements which are called primo-primi are antecedent to the exercise of the deliberative reason and therefore are not free, and so can not be sinful. Those called secundo-primi follow upon imperfect advertence to the morality of the movement in question, and so if the object or circumstances are bad, the movement will be bad also, and inasmuch as to some extent it is voluntary and free, to that extent it will be imputable to the agent. However, as the act is imperfect, and for mortal sin a perfect and consummated act is required, a secundo-primus movement can not be mortally sinful.

4. Philip, a boy of seventeen, confesses that he has had movements of impurity. His confessor asks him whether he consented to them, and he answers “No.” Then the confessor asks him whether he caused them, and the boy answers that sometimes they arose spontaneously, sometimes from reading novels, sometimes from talking with other boys for whom he entertains a feeling of softness, and occasionally he has kissed these. The confessor should tell Philip to pay no attention to the impure movements which arise spontaneously, and to turn his mind away from them by thinking of something else. If the novels are lascivious and obscene, Philip commits a grave sin by reading them, inasmuch as he voluntarily and without justification puts the cause of strong temptations to impurity which will frequently be the cause of sin. If Philip has any such books, he should destroy them. If they are not lascivious, there will not be grave sin in reading them, and they may be permitted even to young people like Philip in moderation, for the sake of cultivating the imagination and style, and gaining a knowledge of literature. The confessor, however, should warn his penitent against wasting too much time in such reading and against the dangers which frequently arise from it.

Philip should be told not to touch, fondle, much less to kiss the boys for whom he feels a sensual attraction. If such acts on his part have not hitherto led to grave disorder and sin, they will certainly do so before long. By such conduct he is developing passions which are very difficult to keep in order. He should be told to act in a manly and Christian manner towards his companions, and to treat them with respect — Great reverence is owed to a boy.

1. A passion is defined to be: A movement of the irrational part of the soul, attended by a notable alteration of the body, on the apprehension of good or evil. The soul is made up of intellect, will, and sensible appetite. The first two are rational, the third irrational: the third is the seat of the passions. In a disembodied spirit, or an angel, there are no senses, no sensible appetite, no passions. The angel, or the departed soul, can love and hate, fear and desire, rejoice and grieve, but these are not passions in the pure spirit, they are acts of intellect and will alone. So man also often loves and hates, and does other acts that are synonymous with corresponding passions, and yet no passion is there. The man is working with his calm reason: his irrational soul is not stirred. To an author, when he is in the humour for it, it is a delight to be writing, but not a passionate delight. The will finds satisfaction in the act: the irrational soul is not affected by it. Or a penitent is sorry for his sin: he sincerely regrets it before God: his will is heartily turned away, and wishes that that sin had never been: at the same time his eye is dry, his features unmoved, not a sigh does he utter, and yet he is truly sorry. It is important to bear these facts in mind: else we shall be continually mistaking for passions what are pure acts of will, or vice versa, misled by the identity of name.

2. The great mark of a passion is its sensible working of itself out upon the body,—what Dr. Bain calls "the diffusive wave of emotion." Without this mark there is no passion, but with it are other mental states besides passions, as we define them. All strong emotion affects the body sensibly, but not all emotions are passions. There are emotions that arise from and appertain to the rational portion of the soul. Such are Surprise, Laughter, Shame.

There is no sense of humour in any but rational beings; and though dogs look ashamed and horses betray curiosity, that is only inasmuch as in these higher animals there is something analogous to what is reason in man. Moreover passions are conversant with good and evil affecting sense, but the objects of such emotions as those just mentioned are not good and evil as such, common parlance notwithstanding, whereby we are said to laugh at a bon mot, or "a good thing."

3. Love is a generic passion, having for its species desire and delight, the contraries of which are abhorrence and pain. Desire is of absent good; abhorrence is of absent evil; delight is in present good; pain is at present evil. The good and the evil which is the object of any passion must be apprehended by sense, or by imagination in a sensible way, whether itself be a thing of sense or not.

4. Desire and abhorrence, delight and pain, are conversant with good and evil simply. But good is often attainable only by an effort, and evil avoidable by an effort. The effort that good costs to attain casts a shade of evil or undesirableness over it: we may shrink from the effort while coveting the good. Again, the fact of evil being at all avoidable is a good thing about such evil. If we call evil black, and good white, avoidable evil will be black just silvering into grey: and arduous good will be white with a cloud on it. And if the white attracts, and the black repels the appetite, it appears that arduous good is somewhat distasteful, to wit, to the faint-hearted; and avoidable, or vincible, evil has its attraction for the man of spirit. About these two objects, good hard of getting and evil hard of avoidance, arise four other passions, hope and despair about the former, fear and daring about the latter. Hope goes out towards a difficult good: despair flies from it, the difficulty here being more repellent than the good is attractive. Fear flies from a threatening evil: while daring goes up to the same, drawn by the likelihood of vanquishing it. Desire and abhorrence, delight and pain, hope and despair, fear and daring, with anger and hatred (of which presently), complete our list of passions.

5. Aristotle and his school of old, called Peripatetics, recommended the moderation of the passions, not their extirpation. The Stoics on the other hand contended that the model man, the sage, should be totally devoid of passions. This celebrated dispute turned largely on the two schools not understanding the same thing by the word passion. Yet not entirely so. There was a residue of real difference, and it came to this. If the sensitive appetite stirs at all, it must stir in one or other of nine ways corresponding to the nine passions which we have enumerated. Such an emotion as Laughter affects the imagination and the sensitive part of man, and of course the body visibly, but it does not stir the sensitive appetite, since it does not prompt to action. To say then that a man has no passions, means that the sensitive appetite never stirs within him, but is wholly dead. But this is impossible, as the Stoic philosopher was fain to confess when he got frightened in a storm at sea. Having no passions cannot in any practical sense mean having no movements of the sensitive appetite, for that will be afoot of its own proper motion independent of reason: but it may mean cherishing no passions, allowing none to arise unresisted, but suppressing their every movement to the utmost that the will can. In that sense it is a very intelligible and practical piece of advice, that the wise man should labour to have no passions. It is the advice embodied in Horace's Nil admirari, Talleyrand's "No zeal," Beaconsfield's "Beware of enthusiasm." It would have man to work like a scientific instrument, calm as a chronometer, regulated by reason alone. This was the Stoic teaching, this the perfection that they inculcated, quite a possible goal to make for, if not to attain. And it is worth a wise man's while to consider, whether he should bend his efforts in this direction or not. The determination here taken and acted upon will elaborate quite a different character of man one way or the other. The effort made as the Stoics direct, would mean no yielding to excitement, no poetry, no high-strung devotion, no rapture, no ecstasy, no ardour of love, no earnest rhetoric spoken or listened to, no mourning, no rejoicing other than the most conventional, to the persistent smothering of whatever is natural and really felt, no tear of pity freely let flow, no touch of noble anger responded to, no scudding before the breeze of indignation,—all this, that reason may keep on the even tenour of her way undisturbed.

6. The fault in this picture is that it is not the picture of a man, but of a spirit. He who being man should try to realize it in himself, would fall short of human perfection. For though the sensitive appetite is distinguished from the will, and the two may clash and come in conflict, yet they are not two wholly independent powers, but the one man is both will and sensitive appetite, and he rarely operates according to one power without the other being brought into corresponding play. There is a similar concomitance of the operations of intellect and imagination. What attracts the sensitive appetite, commonly allures also the affective will, though on advertence the elective will may reject it. On the other hand, a strong affection and election of the will cannot be without the sensitive appetite being stirred, and that so strongly that the motion is notable in the body,—in other words, is a passion. Passion is the natural and in a certain degree the inseparable adjunct of strong volition. To check one is to check the other. Not only is the passion repressed by repressing the volition, but the repression of the passion is also the repression of the volition. A man then who did his best to repress all movements of passion indiscriminately, would lay fetters on his will, lamentable and cruel and impolitic fetters, where his will was bent on any object good and honourable and well-judged.

7. Again, man's will is reached by two channels, from above downwards and from below upwards: it is reached through the reason and through the imagination and senses. By the latter channel it often receives evil impressions, undoubtedly, but not unfrequently by the former also. Reason may be inconsiderate, vain, haughty, mutinous, unduly sceptical. The abuse is no justification for closing either channel. Now the channel of the senses and of the imagination is the wider, and in many cases affords the better passage of the two. The will that is hardly reached by reason, is approached and won by a pathetic sight, a cry of enthusiasm, a threat that sends a tremor through the limbs. Rather I should say the affective will is approached in this way: for it remains with the elective will, on advertence and consultation with reason, to decide whether or not it shall be won to consent. But were it not for the channel of passion, this will could never have been approached at all even by reasons the most cogent. Rhetoric often succeeds, where mere dry logic would have been thrown away. God help vast numbers of the human race, if their wills were approachable only through their reasons! They would indeed be fixtures.

8. Another fact to notice is the liability of reason's gaze to become morbid and as it were inflamed by unremitting exercise. I do not here allude to hard study, but to overcurious scanning of the realities of this life, and the still greater realities and more momentous possibilities of the world to come. There is a sense of the surroundings being too much for us, an alarm and a giddiness, that comes of sober matter-of-fact thought over-much prolonged. Then it happens that one or more undeniable truths are laid hold of, and considered in strong relief and in isolation from the rest: the result is a distorted and partial view of truth as a whole, and therewith the mind is troubled. Here the kindlier passions, judiciously allowed to play, come in to soothe the wound and soreness of pure intellect, too keen in its workings for one who is not yet a pure spirit.

9. Moral good and evil are predicable only of human acts, in the technical sense of the term. (c. i., nn. 2—4, p. 41.) As the passions by definition (c. iv., s. i., n. 1, p. 41) are not human acts, they can never be morally evil of themselves. But they are an occasion of moral evil in this way. They often serve to wake up the slumbering Reason. To that end it is necessary that they should start up of themselves without the call of Reason. This would be no inconvenience, if the instant Reason awoke, and adverted to the tumult and stir of Passion, she could take command of it, and where she saw fit, quell it. But Reason has no such command, except in cases where she has acquired it by years of hard fighting. Passion once afoot holds on her course against the dictate of Reason. True, so long as it remains mere Passion, and Reason is not dragged away by it, no consent of the will given, no voluntary act elicited, still less carried into outward effect,—so long as things remain thus, however Passion may rage, there is no moral evil done. But there is a great temptation, and in great temptation many men fall. The evil is the act of free will, but the pressure on the will is the pressure of Passion. But Passion happily is a young colt amenable to discipline. Where the assaults of Passion are resolutely and piously withstood, and the incentives thereto avoided—unnatural and unnecessary incentives I mean—Passion itself acquires a certain habit of obedience to Reason, which habit is moral virtue. Of that presently.

10. In a man of confirmed habits of moral virtue, Passion starts up indeed independently of Reason, but then Reason ordinarily finds little difficulty in regulating the Passion so aroused. In a certain high and extraordinary condition of human nature, not only has Reason entire mastery over Passion wherever she finds it astir, but Passion cannot stir in the first instance, without Reason calling upon it to do so. In this case the torpor of the will deprecated above (n. 7) is not to be feared, because Reason is so vigorous and so masterful as to be adequate to range everywhere and meet all emergencies without the goad of Passion. This state is called by divines the state of integrity. In it Adam was before he sinned. It was lost at the Fall, and has not been restored by the Redemption. It is not a thing in any way due to human nature: nothing truly natural to man was forfeited by Adam's sin. It is no point of holiness, no guerdon of victory, this state of integrity, but rather a being borne on angel's wings above the battle. But one who has no battle in his own breast against Passion, may yet suffer and bleed and die under exterior persecution: nay, he may, if he wills, let in Passion upon himself, to fear and grieve, when he need not. So did the Second Adam in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Readings.—St. Thos., 1a, q. 81, art. 2, in corp.; id., 1a 2æ, q. 23, art. 1, in corp.; ib., q. 23, art. 2, in corp.; Cicero, Tusc. Disp., iv., cc. 17-26; St. Aug., De Civitate Dei, ix., cc. 4, 5; Ar, Eth., III., v., 3, 4; ib., I., xiii., 15-17; St. Thos., 3a, q. 15, art. 4; id., 1a 2æ, q. 59, art. 5; Plato, Timaeus, 69, B, E: 70, A.

1. Desires are either physical cravings, by moderns called appetites; or physical desires or tastes, called desires proper. The appetites have their beginning in bodily uneasiness. They are felt needs of something required for the animal maintenance of the individual or of the race. The objects of the several appetites are Meat and Drink, Warmth or Coolness, Exercise and Repose, Sleep, Sex. The object of mere appetite is marked by quantity only, not by quality. That is to say, the thing is sought for in the vague, in a certain amount sufficient to supply the want, but not this or that variety of the thing. The cry of a hungry man is, "Give me to eat," if very hungry, "Give me much:" but so far as he is under the mere dominion of appetite he does not crave any particular article of food, vegetable or animal: he wants quantity merely. So of thirst, so of all the appetites, where there is nothing else but appetite present.

2. But if a thirsty man cries for champagne, or a hungry man fancies a venison pasty, there is another element beyond appetite in that demand. On the matter of the physical craving there is stamped the form of a psychical desire. The psychical element prescribes a quality of the objects sought. The thirsty man thus prompted no longer wants drink but wine: the man mewed up within doors no longer calls for exercise, but for a horse or a bicycle. It is obvious that in man the appetites generally pass into the further shape of psychical desire. It is when the appetite is vehement, or the man is one who makes slight study of his animal wants, that pure appetite, sheer physical craving, is best shown. Darius flying before his conqueror is ready to drink at any source, muddy or clear, a drink is all that he wants: it is all that is wanted by St. Paul the first Hermit. But your modern lounger at the clubs, what variety of liquors are excogitated to please his palate!

3. Not all psychical desires are on the matter of appetite; they may be fixed on any good whatsoever of body or of mind. Many psychical desires are not passions at all, but reside exclusively in the superior part of the soul, in the will prompted by the understanding, and do not affect the body in any sensible way. Such for instance is the great desire of happiness. Those desires that are passions are prompted, not by the understanding, but by the imagination or fancy, imaging to itself some particular good, not good in general, for that the understanding contemplates. Fancy paints the picture; or if sense presents it, fancy appropriates and embellishes it: the sensitive appetite fastens upon the representation: the bodily organs sensibly respond; and there is the passion of psychical desire.

4. Physical cravings, or appetites, have limited objects: the objects of psychical desires may be unlimited. A thirsty man thirsts not for an ocean, but for drink quantum sufficit: give him that and the appetite is gone. But the miser covets all the money that he can get: the voluptuary ranges land and sea in search of a new pleasure: the philosopher ever longs for a higher knowledge: the saint is indefatigable in doing good. Whatever a man takes to be an end in itself, not simply a means, that he desires without end or measure. What he desires as a means, he desires under a limitation, so far forth as it makes for the end, so much and no more. As Aristotle says of the processes of art, "the end in view is the limit," [Greek: peras to telos] (cf. c. ii., s. iii., n. 3, p. 15) Whatever is desired as an end in itself, is taken to be a part of happiness, or to represent happiness. Happiness and the object that gives happiness is the one thing that man desires for itself, and desires without end or measure. Unfortunately he is often mistaken in the choice of this object. He often takes for an end what is properly only a means. They "whose god is their belly," have made this mistake in regard of the gratification of appetite. It is not appetite proper that has led to this perversion, but psychical desire, or appetite inflamed by the artificial stimulus of imagination. For one who would be temperate, it is more important to control his imagination than to trouble about his appetite. Appetite exhausts itself, sometimes within the bounds of what is good for the subject, sometimes beyond them, but still within some bounds; but there is no limit to the cravings bred of imagination.

5. By this canon a man may try himself to discover whether or not a favourite amusement is gaining too much upon him. An amusement is properly a means to the end, that a man may come away from it better fitted to do the serious work of his life. Pushed beyond a certain point, the amusement ceases to minister to this end. The wise man drops it at that point. But if one knows not where to stop: or if when stopped in spite of himself, he is restless till he begin again, and never willingly can forego any measure of the diversion that comes within his reach, the means in that case has passed into an end: he is enslaved to that amusement, inasmuch as he will do anything and everything for the sake of it. Thus some men serve pleasure, and other men money.

6. Hence is apparent the folly of supposing that crimes against property are preventible simply by placing it within the power of all members of the community easily to earn an honest livelihood, and therewith the satisfaction of all their natural needs. It is not merely to escape cold and hunger that men turn to burglary or fraudulent dealing: it is more for the gratification of a fancy, the satisfaction of an inordinate desire. Great crimes are not committed "to keep the wolf from the door," but because of the wolf in the heart, the overgrown psychical desire, which is bred in many a well-nourished, warmly clad, comfortably housed, highly educated citizen. There is a sin born of "fulness of bread."

Readings.—St. Thos., 1a 2æ, q. 30, art. 3, in corp.; ib., q. 30, art. 4, in corp.; Ar., Eth., III., xi., 1-4: Ar., Pol., I., ix., 13; ib., II., vii., 11-13.

N.B.—The division of desires into physical and psychical is first suggested by Plato, who (Rep. 558 D to 559 C) divides them as necessary and unnecessary. Unnecessary desires he treats as evil. What Plato calls a necessary, Aristotle calls a physical, and St. Thomas a natural desire. Unfortunately, Aristotle and St. Thomas had but one word for our English two, physical and natural. Desires that are not physical, not natural nor necessary to man in his animal capacity, may be highly natural and becoming to man as he is a reasonable being, or they may be highly unbecoming. These psychical desires, called by St. Thomas not natural, take in at once the noblest and the basest aspirations of humanity.

1. Delight like desire may be either physical or psychical. All that has been said above of desire under this division applies also to delight, which is the realization of desire. This division does not altogether fall in with that into sensual delights and intellectual delights. A professional wine-taster could hardly be said to find intellectual delight in a bottle of good Champagne, real Veuve-Clicquot: yet certainly his is a psychical delight, no mere unsophisticated gratification of appetite. Sensual delights then are those delights which are founded on the gratification of appetite, whether simple—in which case the delight is physical—or studied and fancy-wrought appetite, the gratification of which is psychical delight. Intellectual delights on the other hand are those that come of the exercise of intellect, not unsupported by imagination, but where appetite enters not at all, or only as a remote adjunct, albeit the delight may turn upon some sight or sound, as of music, or of a fine range of hills. Or the object may be a thing of intellect, pure and removed from sense as far as an object of human contemplation can be, for instance, the first elements of matter, freewill, the immensity of God. The study of such objects yields a purer intellectual delight than that of the preceding. But this is a high ground and a keen upper air, where few can tread and breathe.

2. A man has more complacency in himself upon attaining to some intellectual delight than upon a sensual satisfaction: he is prouder to have solved a problem than to have enjoyed his dinner. Also, he would rather forego the capacity of sensual enjoyment than that of intellectual pleasure; rather lose his sense of taste than his science or his scholarship, if he has any notable amount of either. Again, put sensual delight in one scale, and in the other the intellectual delight of honour, no worthy specimen of a man will purchase the pleasure at the price of honour. The disgrace attaching to certain modes of enjoyment is sufficient to make men shun them, very pleasant though they be to sense. Again, sensual delight is a passing thing, waxing and waning: but intellectual delight is steady, grasped and held firmly as a whole. But sensual delight comes more welcome of the two in this that it removes a pre-existing uneasiness, as hunger, weariness, nervous prostration, thus doing a medicinal office: whereas no such office attaches in the essential nature of things to intellectual delight, as that does not presuppose any uneasiness; and though it may remove uneasiness, the removal is difficult, because the uneasiness itself is an obstacle to the intellectual effort that must be made to derive any intellectual delight. Sensual enjoyment is the cheaper physician, and ailing mortals mostly resort to that door.

3. "I will omit much usual declamation on the dignity and capacity of our nature: the superiority of the soul to the body, of the rational to the animal part of our constitution; upon the worthiness, refinement, and delicacy of some satisfactions, or the meanness, grossness, and sensuality of others: because I hold that pleasures differ in nothing but in continuance and intensity." (Paley, Moral Philosophy, bk. i., c. vi.)

In opposition to the above it is here laid down that delights do not differ in continuance and intensity, that is, in quantity, alone, but likewise in quality, that is, some are nobler, better, and more becoming a man than others, and therefore preferable on other grounds than those of mere continuance and intensity. I wish to show that the more pleasant pleasure is not always the better pleasure; that even the pleasure which is more durable, and thereby more pleasant in the long run, is not the better of the two simply as carrying the greater cumulus of pleasure. If this is shown, it will follow that pleasure is not identical with good; or that pleasure is not happiness, not the last end of man.

4. Delight comes of activity, not necessarily of change, except so far as activity itself involves change, as it always does in mortal man. Delight sits upon activity, as the bloom upon youth. Bloom is the natural sign of maturity; and the delight that we come to take in doing a thing shows that we are at least beginning to do it well: our activity is approaching perfection. In this sense it is said that delight perfects activity. As the activity, so will be the delight. But the activity will be as the power of which it is an exercise. Powers like in kind will supply like activities, and these again will yield delights alike in kind. There is no difference of quality in such delights, they differ in quantity alone. Thus taste and smell are two senses: the difference between them can hardly be called one of kind: therefore the delights of smelling and of tasting fall under one category. We may exchange so much smell for an equal amount of taste: it is a mere matter of quantity. But between sight and hearing on the one hand, and taste and smell and touch on the other, there is a wider difference, due to the fact that intellect allies itself more readily to the operation of the two former senses.

5. Widest of all differences is that between sense and intellect. To explain this difference in full belongs to Psychology. Enough to say here that the object of sense is always particular, bound up in circumstances of present time and place, as this horse: while the object of intellect is universal, as horse simply. The human intellect never works without the concurrence either of sense or of imagination, which is as it were sense at second hand. As pure intellectual operation is never found in man, so neither is pure intellectual delight, like that of an angel. Still, as even in man sense and intellect are two powers differing in kind, so must their operations differ in kind, and the delights consequent upon those operations. Therefore, unless Paley would have been willing to allow that the rational and animal parts of our nature differ only as more and less—which is tantamount to avowing that man is but a magnified brute—he ought not to have penned his celebrated utterance, that pleasures differ only in continuance and intensity: he should have admitted that they differ likewise in kind; or in other words, that pleasures differ in quality as well as in quantity. The goodness of a pleasure, then, is not the mere amount of it. To repeat St. Augustine's reflection on the drunken Milanese: "It makes a difference what source a man draws his delight from."² As in man reason is nobler than sense, preferable, and a better good to its possessor—for reason it is that makes him man and raises him above the brute—so the use of the reason and the delight that comes thereof is nobler, preferable, and a better good to him than the pleasure that is of the mere operation of his animal nature. A little of the nobler delight outweighs a vast volume of the baser: not that the nobler is the pleasanter, but because it is the nobler. Nor can it be pretended that the nobler prevails as being the more durable, and thereby likely to prove the pleasanter in the long run. The nobler is better at the time and in itself, because it is the more human delight and characteristic of the higher species. I have but to add that what is better in itself is not better under all circumstances. The best life of man can only be lived at intervals. The lower operations and the delights that go with them have a medicinal power to restore the vigour that has become enfeebled by a lengthened exercise of the higher faculties. At those "dead points" food and fiddling are better than philosophy.

² Interest unde quis gaudeat. (S. Aug., Confess., vi., 6.)

6. This medicinal or restorative virtue of delight is a fact to bear in mind in debating the question how far it is right to act for the pleasure that the action gives. It is certainly wrong to act for mere animal gratification. Such gratification is a stimulus to us to do that which makes for the well-being of our nature: to fling away all intention of any good other than the delight of the action, is to mistake the incentive for the end proposed. But this is a doctrine easily misunderstood. An example may save it from being construed too rigidly. Suppose a man has a vinery, and being fond of fruit he goes there occasionally, and eats, not for hunger, but as he says, because he likes grapes. He seems to act for mere pleasure: yet who shall be stern enough to condemn him, so that he exceed not in quantity? If he returns from the vinery in a more amiable and charitable mood, more satisfied with Providence, more apt to converse with men and do his work in the commonwealth, who can deny that in acting in view of these ends, at least implicitly, he has taken lawful means to a proper purpose? He has not been fed, but recreated: he has not taken nourishment, but medicine, preventive or remedial, to a mind diseased. It is no doubt a sweet and agreeable medicine: this very agreeableness makes its medical virtue. It is a sweet antidote to the bitterness of life. But though a man may live by medicine, he does not live for it. So no man by rights lives for pleasure. The pleasure that a man finds in his work encourages him to go on with it. The pleasure that a man finds by turning aside to what is not work, picks him up, rests and renovates him, that he may go forth as from a wayside inn, or diverticulum, refreshed to resume the road of labour. Hence we gather the solution of the question as to the lawfulness of acting for pleasure. If a man does a thing because it is pleasant, and takes the pleasure as an incentive to carry on his labour, or as a remedy to enable him to resume it, he acts for pleasure rightly. For this it is not necessary that he should expressly think of the pleasure as being helpful to labour: it is enough that he accepts the subordination of pleasure to work as nature has ordained it; and this ordinance he does accept, if he puts forth no positive volition the other way, whether expressly, as none but a wrong-headed theologian is likely to do, or virtually, by taking his pleasure with such greediness that the motion of his will is all spent therein as in its last end and terminus, so that the pleasure ceases to be referable to aught beyond itself, a case of much easier occurrence. Or lastly, the natural subordination of pleasure to work may be set aside, defeated, and rendered impossible by the whole tenour of an individual's life, if he be one of those giddy butterflies who flit from pleasure to pleasure and do no work at all. Till late in the morning he sleeps, then breakfasts, then he shoots, lunches, rides, bathes, dines, listens to music, smokes, and reads fiction till late at night, then sleeps again; and this, or the like of this is his day, some three hundred days at least in the year. This is not mere acting for pleasure, it is living for pleasure, or acting for pleasure so continuously as to leave no scope for any further end of life. It may be hard to indicate the precise hour in which this man's pleasure-seeking passes into sin: still this is clear, his life is not innocent. Clear him of gluttony and lust, there remains upon him the sin of sloth and of a wasted existence.

7. Even the very highest of delights, the delight of contemplation, is not the highest of goods, but a concomitant of the highest good. The highest good is the final object of the will: but the object of the will is not the will's own act: we do not will willing, as neither do we understand understanding, not at least without a reflex effort. What we will in contemplating is, not to be delighted, but to see. This is the subjective end and happiness of man, to see, to contemplate. Delight is not anything objective: neither is it the subjective last end of humanity. In no sense then is delight, or pleasure, the highest good.

Readings.—Ar., Eth., X., iv., 8; ib., X., iii., 8-13, ib., X., v., 1-5; Plato, Gorgias, pp. 494, 495; Mill, Utilitarianism, 2nd. edit., pp. 11-l6; St. Thos., la 2æ, q. 31, art. 5; id., Contra Gentiles, iii., 26, nn. 8, 10, 11, 12.

1. Anger is a compound passion, made up of displeasure, desire, and hope: displeasure at a slight received, desire of revenge and satisfaction, and hope of getting the same, the getting of it being a matter of some difficulty and calling for some exertion, for we are not angry with one who lies wholly in our power, or whom we despise. Anger then is conversant at once with the good of vengeance and with the evil of a slight received: the good being somewhat difficult to compass, and the evil not altogether easy to wipe out. (Cf. s.i., n.4, p. 43.)

2. Anger is defined: A desire of open vengeance for an open slight, attended with displeasure at the same, the slight being put upon self, or upon some dear one, unbefittingly. The vengeance that the angry man craves is a vengeance that all shall see. "No, ye unnatural hags," cries Lear in his fury, "I will do such things,—what they shall be yet I know not, but they shall be the terror of the earth." When we are angry, we talk of "making an example" of the offender. The idea is that, as all the world has seen us slighted and set at naught, so all the world, witnessing the punishment of the offending party, may take to heart the lesson which we are enforcing upon him, namely, that we are men of might and importance whom none should despise. Whoever is angry, is angry at being despised, flouted to his face and set at naught, either in his own person, or in the person of one whom he venerates and loves, or in some cause that lies near to his heart. Anger is essentially a craving for vengeance on account of a wrong done. If then we have suffered, but think we deserve to suffer, we are not angry. If we have suffered wrong, but the wrong seems to have been done in ignorance, or in the heat of passion, we are not angry, or we are not so very angry. "If he had known what he was about," we say, or, "if he had been in his right mind, he could not have brought himself to treat me so." But when one has done us cool and deliberate wrong, then we are angry, because the slight is most considerable. There is an appearance of our claims to considerations having been weighed, and found wanting. We call it, "a cool piece of impertinence," "spiteful malevolence," and the like. Any other motive to which the wrong is traceable on the part of the wrong-doer, lessens our anger against him: but the motive of contempt, and that alone, if we seem to discover it in him, invariably increases it. To this all other points are reducible that move our anger, as forgetfulness, rudely delivered tidings of misfortune, a face of mirth looking on at our distress, or getting in the way and thwarting our purpose.

3. Anger differs from hatred. Hatred is a chronic affection, anger an acute one. Hatred wishes evil to a man as it is evil, anger as it is just. Anger wishes evil to fall on its object in the sight of all men, and with the full consciousness of the sufferer: hatred is satisfied with even a secret mischief, and, so that the evil be a grievous one, does not much mind whether the sufferer be conscious of it or no. Thus an angry man may wish to see him who has offended brought to public confession and shame: but a hater is well content to see his enemy spending his fortune foolishly, or dead drunk in a ditch on a lonely wayside. The man in anger feels grief and annoyance, not so the hater. At a certain point of suffering anger stops, and is appeased when full satisfaction seems to have been made: but an enemy is implacable and insatiate in his desire of your harm. St. Augustine in his Rule to his brethren says: "For quarrels, either have them not, or end them with all speed, lest anger grow to hatred, and of a mote make a beam."

4. Anger, like vengeance, is then only a safe course to enter on, when it proceeds not upon personal but upon public grounds. And even by this maxim many deceive themselves.

Readings.—Ar., Rhet., ii., 2; ib., 4, ad fin.; St. Thos., 1a 2æ, q. 46, art. 2, in corp.; ib., q. 46, art. 3, in corp.; ib., q. 46, art. 6; ib., q. 47, art. 2.

68. We have just explained how the passions of concupiscence and fear may affect our responsibility. It will be useful at this stage to consider the passions in general, the various kinds, the nature of each, the purpose for which they exist, and the use we should make of them.

Passions are movements of the irrational part of the soul attended by a notable alteration of the body, on the apprehension of good or evil. In the strict meaning of the word, passions are organic affections aroused by sensible good or evil. As such, they are common to man and brute, but impossible in an angel. Nevertheless, the names of various passions are often used analogically to denote affections of the will, that are entirely, or at least chiefly, due to intellectual cognition, as when we are said to love science, to hate ignorance, to desire honor, to enjoy a joke, etc. To this latter class belong the moral emotions, such as admiration of virtue, detestation of vice, etc. Owing, indeed, to the substantial union of our soul and body, the one cannot be strongly affected without, as a general rule, reacting on the other. For both sensitive and intellectual knowledge are accompanied with phantasms, by means of which the sensitive and, indirectly, the rational appetites are aroused to action. Besides, in man there is really only one will; which is called affective to denote the impulse of the sense-faculty, and elective to denote the free choice of the rational faculty, and it scarcely ever acts powerfully in either faculty without acting also in the other.

69. Our passions are of two kinds, concupiscible and irascible.

1. The concupiscible passions are those affections of the sensible faculties which regard their object as simply good or evil. They are six in number: good or evil in general excites love or hate respectively; desire is roused by good apprehended as absent, aversion by an approaching evil; when the good is attained, joy is excited, whilst, on the other hand, present evil causes sadness.

2. The irascible passions, which are five in number, arise when good or evil is apprehended as associated with difficulties or obstacles to be overcome. Difficulty or even danger in connection with a desired good is not always displeasing. If the attainment of a desired good which is difficult to acquire is apprehended as within our power, hope is aroused; if it seems to be quite beyond our reach, despondency follows. In the case of a coming evil, we are animated by courage if we feel that we can avert it, but we experience fear on perceiving that we cannot easily escape. Anger is roused by the presence of an evil to which we are unwilling to submit (St. Thomas, 1ma 2æ, q. 23). These eleven may be called the primary passions. All others are modifications or combinations of these.

70. The passions are intended by the Creator to assist us in attaining our last end. Hence in themselves they are not evil, but good. Yet they must be subject to the careful control of the will enlightened by reason. Generally their first impulses arise by a kind of physical necessity when the senses apprehend good or evil. However, as these first impulses are not free, they are not imputable to us. But as soon as the intellect perceives their presence, the will can act; and it must assert its control to regulate or suppress their movement, according as reason judges it to be right or wrong. If the will fails to do this, we become accountable for the consequences. The moral perfection of a man consists, to a great extent, in his power to control his passions and to direct their energies aright. Persevering efforts thus to regulate the passions beget good habits, which are invaluable aids for attaining our last end.

71. Zeno and the Stoics totally misconceived the relation of the passions to morality; they pronounced them to be moral disorders, which a virtuous man was bound to uproot from his heart. He was not to allow the sensitive appetite even to stir. Now, it is impossible to suppress all movement of passion; indeed, to check passion when it is conducive to true happiness, would be very unwise. It would make all impassioned eloquence and poetry impossible; it would cut off all high-spirited devotion to duty, all unselfish spontaneity, and banish generous pity and noble enthusiasm. The ideal of human nature fancied by the Stoics would be a mere calculating machine. A man's father and mother might be slain before his eyes, whilst he would be busy stifling his heart's natural impulse to fly to the rescue. The true doctrine which we have here outlined was formulated by Aristotle and his followers, the Peripatetics; but in its stead the Stoics attempted to substitute their strange misconceptions of the truth.