"Thou shalt not commit adultery." Ex. 20, 14.

"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife." Ibid. 20, 17.

The sixth precept of the Decalogue explicitly indeed prohibits adultery, or moechia, but implicitly any external lust whatever; but the ninth precept prohibits internal lust, namely that committed by depraved thoughts and desires. Therefore these two precepts, insofar as they are negative, prohibit all lust, both external and internal; but insofar as they are affirmative, they prescribe that chastity be preserved, suitable to each one's state.

In prohibiting moechia, this precept prohibits everything which is contrary to the ordered propagation of the human race: for all these things are reduced to moechia as to the principal act contrary to ordered propagation.

Lust is an inordinate appetite for the pleasure which has its seat in the organs of generation. A wise and provident Creator has taken care that those actions which are most necessary for the individual or for society should be accompanied by great pleasure in order that they may be exercised more certainly and more readily. If there were no pleasure connected with eating and drinking, few men would trouble themselves about those necessary actions. The great pleasure felt in the act of procreation induces men to do what is necessary for the preservation of the race which otherwise would excite only shame and disgust. This, however, can only be done lawfully in wedlock. It is lawful then, according to the rules of married life, for husband and wife to indulge in venereal pleasure; outside marriage it is inordinate and sinful.

Any act of wrongful indulgence in venereal pleasure by those who are not married is grievously sinful if directly sought for or to which deliberate consent is given. But the fuller treatment of this subject must be left till we come to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments.

I. Notion. Lust is the inordinate appetite for venereal things.

II. Division. Lust is distinguished as consummated and non-consummated, according as the act of lust is completed or not completed; in other words, according as it carries with it extreme or non-extreme venereal commotion.

III. Morality. Lust, both complete and incomplete, is a grave sin from its whole genus; nevertheless, if it is only indirectly voluntary, it admits smallness of matter. These points are more fully explained in the treatise on chastity.

IV. The daughters of lust are eight, four on the part of the intellect and four on the part of the will, namely:

1. Blindness of mind: when someone is so addicted to foulness that he does not think about heavenly things.

2. Precipitation: by which someone, from the same cause, i.e., from affection toward pleasures, acts without counsel.

3. Inconsideration: when he sins in the manner, inconsiderately doing things which are unbecoming to his state or person.

4. Inconstancy: when someone, from the same affection for pleasures, soon falls away from pious resolutions.

5. Self-love. For such a man, on account of pleasures, makes himself, not God, the end of his actions.

6. Hatred of God. For the lascivious man is accustomed to abhor divine things, indeed God Himself, as the avenger of sins.

7. Affection for the present age. For love of carnal pleasures so affects the soul that at times it would even be prepared to renounce eternal blessedness, if it were permitted always to enjoy present things.

8. Horror of the future age: "when, immersed in pleasures, one inordinately fears death, and not wishing to think about it, strives to prolong life by illicit means, etc." (St. Alphonsus, V, 71).

(St. Thomas, II-II, qq. 153-154; St. Alphonsus, Theologia Moralis III, nn. 412-485; Homo Apostolicus, treatise 9.)

We shall speak first of lust generally; then of natural consummated lust; next of unnatural consummated lust; finally of non-consummated lust.

I. Notion. Lust is: the disordered appetite and use of venereal things as such (St. Alphonsus III, 412). It is called:

1. Appetite; by this word internal acts concerning venereal things are comprehended.

2. Use; this word regards external acts.

3. Of venereal things; under this name come semen and a certain spermatic fluid distinct from semen. They are called venereal things because they serve generation, over which, according to the gentiles, the goddess Venus presided.

4. As such. Venereal things as such are understood as venereal things considered according to themselves, or insofar as they are of such a nature, and not insofar as they are a part of the body. Moreover, the use of venereal things as such is constituted by venereal acts, both complete and incomplete (n. 10). But the use - if it is permitted to use this word in the present case - of venereal things as they are a part of the body is constituted, for example, by the artificial removal of infected semen. Moreover, if in the course of the treatise there is speech of the use of venereal things, venereal things as such are always understood; let this be said once for all.

5. Disordered, that is, which either is in no way ordered to the good of the species, as for example pollution, or is indeed ordered to the propagation of the species, that is, to generation, but not to the preservation and education of the one generated, as for example fornication.

II. Division. Lust is distinguished:

1. Into consummated and non-consummated, according as the act of lust is complete or not complete (n. 10).

2. Into natural and unnatural, according as the act of itself is apt for generation, as fornication, or is not apt for it, as pollution.

3. Into directly voluntary and indirectly voluntary, according as it is intended or is not intended, but is foreseen as going to follow from an action and ought to be guarded against.

III. Morality. 1. All lust is sin. This is proved first from Sacred Scripture. "No fornicator, or unclean person, or covetous person, which is the service of idols, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God."¹ "Do not err: neither fornicators, nor those serving idols, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor men who lie with males, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor the rapacious shall possess the kingdom of God."² "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, impurity, lust... of which I forewarn you, as I have foretold, that those who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God."³

Secondly, by reason. The use of a thing which lacks ordination to the natural end of that thing is sin, unless that very thing is ordered to an intermediate end higher than its natural end. But all lust involves the use of a thing, namely of venereal things, which lacks ordination to the natural end of venereal things; and those venereal things themselves are not ordered to an intermediate end higher than their natural end. Therefore all lust is sin.

The major is clear from this, that one who uses some thing contrary to its natural end acts against the ordering of the Author of nature, unless He Himself has furthermore ordered that thing to a higher intermediate end. "It must be said," says St. Thomas, "that sin in human acts is that which is contrary to the order of reason; but this belongs to the order of reason, that it order each thing suitably to its end; and therefore it is not sin if, through reason, man uses certain things for the end for which they are" (II-II, q. 153, a. 2); and these words certainly must also be applied to venereal things. Hence the holy Doctor soon declares that the emission of semen "ought to be done in such a way that it agrees with the end for which it is needed" (II-II, q. 153, a. 3, ad 1; cf. De malo, q. 15, a. 1, ad 4).

The minor contains two things which need exposition or proof. The first is this: Lust involves the use of venereal things which lacks ordination to the natural end of venereal things. For the natural end of venereal things is the perfect good of the human species, that is, generation and the perfection of the one generated through education (n. 33; St. Thomas, Supplement, q. 41, a. 1). But all lust involves the use of venereal things which lacks ordination to the perfect good of the human species. Namely, unnatural lust is ordered neither to generation nor to education; natural lust is not ordered to education; finally, non-consummated lust lacks ordination to a legitimate complete act, and thus is deprived of remote ordination to the good of the species. Each of these points will become clearer from what is to be said.

The other is this: Venereal things themselves cannot be ordered to an intermediate end higher than their natural end; for the good of the human species is ordered immediately to God, that is, to the ultimate end.⁴

Objection 1. Anyone can lawfully use, as he pleases, that which is his own; but in a venereal act man uses nothing except that which is his own, unless perhaps in adultery or rape. Therefore there cannot be sin in venereal use.

¹ Eph. 5:5.

² 1 Cor. 6:9-10.

³ Gal. 5:19, 21.

⁴ Cf. the clear argumentation of Duynstee (cited work, p. 16 sq.), who takes the argument from the fact that an act of lust is opposed to the natural end of the venereal act; this seems to be the proximate reason for its malice.

Response. Man enjoys only useful dominion over his body and its semen; their owner is God Almighty. Hence he is bound to use them according to the norm established by the Author of nature. But the Author of nature, as has been proved, forbids the use which lust involves (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 153, a. 3, ad 2).

Objection 2. "Through the venereal act semen is emitted, which is a superfluity of food; but in the emission of other superfluities no sin is considered; therefore neither can there be any sin concerning venereal acts."

Response. "Semen is a superfluity which is needed; for it is called superfluous from the fact that it is a residue of the operation of the nutritive power; yet it is needed for the work of the generative power. But the other superfluities of the human body are those which are not needed, and therefore it does not matter howsoever they are emitted, provided the decency of human society is preserved. But it is not the same in the emission of semen, which ought to be done in such a way that it agrees with the end for which it is needed" (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 153, a. 3, ad 1).

Instance. At least in those whose semen is not generative, its emission will lack sin.

Response. "Moral precepts attend to that which is according to nature, and not to that which is found accidentally in this constitution or age. But of itself semen is ordered by nature to the generation of offspring; otherwise it would not be semen. And therefore, concerning any emission of semen, the common precepts, which are taken chiefly from the end, which is generation, must be observed, however much by accident generation cannot then follow."¹ (Cf. St. Thomas, De malo, q. 15, a. 2, ad 14.)

2. All lust is grave sin. This is clear first from the texts of Sacred Scripture adduced in n. 27. Then, all lust, as we have just said, is sin because it involves the use of venereal things deprived of ordination to the good of the species. But the said privation in the individual species of lust is grave, or contains a grave disordering. Therefore all lust is grave sin.

The minor is proved in parts. a) The privation of consummated unnatural lust consists, if the discussion is of a man, in this: that the act is neither of itself apt for generating a man nor ordered to the education of the one generated; these privations are grave. It consists, if the discussion is of a wife, likewise in this: that the act is not ordered to education; this privation is likewise grave. It also consists, as regards the wife, in this: that the act is not ordered to generation. But since the seminal emission of the wife is neither necessary nor proved to be very useful for each individual generation, the gravity of this privation is not established.

b) The privation of natural consummated lust consists in this: that the act is not ordered to the education of the one to be generated (n. 33); this privation is grave.

c) The privation of non-consummated lust consists in this: that the act is not a proximate and natural preparation for a legitimate consummated act; this privation is likewise grave.

Others argue from the fact that all lust involves an act deprived of an essential relation to the species.² I confess that I do not see the force of this argument without the addition of the proposed point, perhaps because the very sense of the argument has remained inaccessible to me. For it remains, as it seems, to prove that the privation of that relation is grave. But if this is supplied, the argument seems to fall into our proof.

St. Thomas reasons thus: "It must be said that the more necessary something is, the more necessary it is that the order of reason be preserved concerning it; hence consequently it is more vicious if the order of reason is set aside. But the use of venereal things, as was said in the preceding article, is very necessary for the common good, which is the preservation of the human race; and therefore in this matter the order of reason must especially be attended to; and consequently, if anything is done concerning this besides what the order of reason has, it will be vicious. But this belongs to the nature of lust, that it exceed the order and mode of reason concerning venereal things; and therefore without doubt lust is sin" (II-II, q. 153, a. 3). By these words, as is clear from what is set down at the beginning of the question, the holy Doctor intends to establish the grave malice of lust. Moreover, compare what is to be said concerning the individual species of lust (nn. 32-61), and likewise concerning non-consummated lust (nn. 62-64).

3. Lust cannot be rendered honorable by any end. For in order that it could be rendered honorable, there would be required an intermediate end to which the good of the human species is subordinated, so that it would be lawful to pursue that intermediate end while neglecting the good of the species. But the good of the human species is subordinated to no intermediate end, but is immediately ordered to the ultimate end, which is God (St. Alphonsus III, 478).

Objection 1. Just as it is lawful, for preserving life, to amputate genital members and even directly to remove semen, so likewise pollution seems lawful if it is supposed necessary for protecting life.

Response. The difference is in this: that the said operations do not involve, as pollution does, the use of venereal things as such, but a disposition concerning them insofar as they are part of the body and, as such, ordered to the whole.

Objection 2. Theologians formerly conceded the expulsion of corrupt semen, even if, beyond the intention, some emission of non-corrupt semen were to follow.

Response. Theologians conceded the expulsion of corrupt semen when produced by means of medicine and without libido (St. Alphonsus III, 478); such an expulsion does not involve, as pollution does, the use of venereal things as such. Moreover, corrupt semen is no longer true semen.³

Question: whether he sins gravely who consents to the venereal pleasure of pollution or of venereal commotion, to which libidinous distillation is equivalent, when it follows beyond the intention.

Response. Affirmatively, and this holds even if it is a question of a merely natural venereal motion, for example pollution. The reason is that all venereal things, even venereal pleasures, in order to be rightly admitted by the will, must be ordered to the good of the species; for this is the supreme intermediate end of all venereal things. But the venereal pleasure of which we are speaking is not ordered, indeed cannot be ordered, to the good of the species; and this privation is grave. Therefore the will must not admit that pleasure, or consent to it. It is added that consent to the pleasure of a venereal motion fosters and increases the venereal motion itself.

4. Consummated and non-consummated lust differ in species. This is commonly admitted by authors and seems to be deduced from the fact that the non-consummated act of itself prepares for, or leads to, the consummated act. But that which prepares for an act is morally diverse from the act itself. These things hold only if one stops at the non-consummated act; but if the non-consummated act is ordered to the consummated act, and the consummated act follows, with this it constitutes one sin in number and species.⁴ If the consummated act, although intended, does not follow, there is a consummated act in affection, but a non-consummated act in effect.

¹ Cajetan on II-II, q. 153, a. 3.

² Cf. Vermeersch, De castitate et de vitiis contrariis, nn. 352-354; Merkelbach, Quaestiones de castitate et luxuria, pp. 22-23.

³ This question concerning the expulsion of corrupt semen today seems no longer practical. For according to modern physicians, semen is not corrupted, because the part of the semen that has gone outside its internal place either flows out spontaneously or is expelled with urine. Moreover, physicians have found no medicine by which, apart from libidinous pollution, even the smallest part of the semen may be expelled (Gaude, edition of St. Alphonsus's Theologia Moralis III, 448, note).

⁴ To this case can be applied what St. Thomas declares concerning a similar case: "A sin of the heart and of the mouth are not distinguished from a sin of deed when they are joined with it, but as any of these is found in itself; just as also a part of a motion is not distinguished from the whole motion when the motion is continuous, but only when the motion stops in the middle" (Ethics, l. 10, c. 4).

IV. Effects. 1. Lust is a capital vice. For a vice which has an end that is very appetible, so that from its appetite a man proceeds to commit many sins, is capital. But lust has an end that is very appetible, from the appetite of which a man proceeds to commit many sins. Therefore lust is a capital vice.

The minor is proved from the fact that the end of lust is the pleasure of venereal things, which is the greatest; and for that reason pleasure of this kind is especially appetible according to the sensitive appetite, both because of the vehemence of the pleasure and also because of the connaturality of this kind of concupiscence.¹

2. Lust causes not only many sins but also other moral evils which lead to sins, namely blindness of mind, thoughtlessness, rashness, inconstancy, love of self, hatred of God, affection for the present age, and horror of the future; these are called the daughters of lust. That they are produced by lust St. Thomas proves in this way: when the lower powers are vehemently affected toward their objects, it follows that the higher powers are impeded and disordered in their acts. But through the vice of lust the lower appetite tends vehemently toward its object because of the vehemence of passion and pleasure. Therefore through lust the higher powers, namely reason and will, are especially disordered in their acts. Now four acts of reason are distinguished, and two acts of the will concerning things to be done; each of these is corrupted by lust.

The first act of reason is simple understanding, which apprehends some end as good; and this act is impeded by lust, and in this respect there is posited blindness of mind, by which it happens that the lustful man does not apprehend as his due ultimate or intermediate end the one which truly is such, but goes astray and sets up for himself another, undue end.

The second act is deliberation concerning means; and this too is impeded by lust, and in this respect there is posited rashness, by which it happens that a man does not use sufficient deliberation concerning the means and the end.

The third act is judgment concerning things to be done, which is also impeded by lust, and in this respect there is posited thoughtlessness, by which it happens that someone fails in selecting, among several means, those more apt for the end.

The fourth act is the command of reason concerning things to be done, which is also impeded by lust, and in this respect there is posited inconstancy, by which it happens that the lustful man does not carry out what he determines must be done; hence Terence in the Eunuch says of someone who was saying that he would withdraw from friendship: "One little false tear will restrain these words."

The first act of the will is the appetite of the end, which is impeded by lust, and in this respect there is posited love of self, by which the lustful man not only loves himself inordinately - for that is common to every sin - but by which he loves his flesh and its pleasures, so that he constitutes his ultimate end in them. And by opposition there is posited hatred of God, who forbids and punishes the pleasure desired.

The other act of the will concerns the means to the end, and in this respect there is posited affection for the present age, to which the lustful man adheres because of his pleasures in such a way that he would always wish to remain in it; and by opposition, horror and despair of the future age: horror, because the lustful man knows that through death he must be deprived of his pleasures and undergo most grave torments for them; likewise despair, because the lustful man, while he is too much detained by carnal pleasures, does not care to arrive at spiritual ones, but is disgusted by them (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 153, a. 5).

¹ Hieronymus de Medicis, on II-II, q. 153, a. 4.

Natural consummated lust is an act of lust which of itself is apt for generation. Six species are distinguished, namely: fornication, adultery, seduction, rape, incest, and sacrilege.

The said sins differ specifically, since their objects are specifically diverse, or have a specifically diverse repugnance to right reason; St. Thomas explains this as follows: The matter or object of natural lust can fail to agree with right reason in two ways:

I. "In one way because it has repugnance to the end of the venereal act," namely insofar as "the due education and promotion of the offspring born is impeded; this is simple fornication, which is of an unmarried man with an unmarried woman."

II. "In another way the matter in which the venereal act is exercised can be unsuitable to right reason by comparison with other human beings. And this in two ways:

1. "First, indeed, on the part of the woman herself with whom someone has intercourse," because the honor due to her is not preserved, either because of kinship, and this is incest; or because of a vow, and this is sacrilege.

2. "Secondly, on the part of him in whose power the woman is; and if she is in the power of a husband, it is adultery; but if she is in the power of her father, it is seduction, if violence is not brought to bear; but rape, if violence is brought to bear" (II-II, q. 154, a. 1).¹

Moreover, they are called species of lust, both because the enumerated sins are committed from an affection of libido rather than from an affection of injustice, and the moral species is taken primarily from the end; and also because in them there is a special repugnance to chastity, situated in the fact that one commits lust with some person notwithstanding the circumstance that that person is joined to another, or is consanguineous, or is sacred, and so forth (cf. St. Thomas, De malo, q. 15, a. 3, ad 3).

¹ Cf. Billuart, De temperantia, diss. 5, art. 3. Note that seduction and rape are not taken by all in the same sense as by St. Thomas (nn. 43, 45).

I. Unnatural consummated lust is: a completed venereal act which is unsuited for generation. Moreover, in order that an act be of itself apt for generation, there are required: 1. the carnal union of two; 2. the union of two of the same species; 3. the union of two of diverse sex; 4. union in the due vessel of the diverse sex. Hence there are four species of lust against nature, namely: pollution, which excludes the union of two; bestiality, which excludes the union of two of the same species; sodomy, which excludes the union of two of diverse sex; finally, intercourse which excludes union in the due vessel of the diverse sex (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 154, a. 11; St. Alphonsus III, 412).

II. The enumerated sins differ in species, because in morally diverse ways they are repugnant to right seminal emission (St. Alphonsus III, 464). There is added proposition 24 condemned by Alexander VII: Softness, sodomy, and bestiality are sins of the same lowest species, and therefore it is enough to say in confession that one has procured pollution.

III. Concerning the relative gravity of the said sins, take these words of St. Thomas: "Gravity in sin is considered more from the abuse of some thing than from the omission of due use; and therefore among the vices which are against nature, the sin of uncleanness holds the lowest place, which consists in the mere omission of intercourse with another (pollution); but the gravest is the sin of bestiality, because the due species is not preserved; hence on that verse of Genesis 37, 'He accused his brothers of a most wicked crime,' the Gloss says that they were mingled with beasts. After this is the vice of sodomy, since there the due sex is not preserved; after this is the sin from the fact that the due manner of lying together is not preserved; but more if there is not the due vessel, than if there is disorder according to some other things pertaining to the manner of intercourse" (II-II, q. 154, a. 12, ad 4).

With these things having been noted generally, we shall speak specifically about the individual unnatural sins.

Scholion II

I. Notion. Non-consummated lust is the disordered use of venereal things which does not reach a completed act. Of this sort are: in a man, a motion of the genital organs prior to effusion; likewise distillation which is joined with venereal commotion; in a woman, non-extreme venereal commotion (n. 10). To this also belong acts, for example touches and looks, insofar as they are placed with venereal commotion, whether sought or voluntarily admitted.

II. Morality. 1. Non-consummated lust is intrinsically evil, because it involves the use of venereal things which is not ordered to the natural end of venereal things, that is, to the good of the species (n. 27).

2. Non-consummated lust is in itself gravely evil. It is proved first by authority. The Holy Office, to the question whether smallness of matter is given in the crime of solicitation, responded on February 11, 1661: "Negative, because in venereal matters there is not given smallness of matter, and if it were given, it is not given in the present matter." Then Clement VIII and Paul V commanded that those be denounced to the Inquisitors of the faith who assert that kisses, embraces, and touches had for pleasure are not mortal sins. Add proposition 40 condemned by Alexander VII: "The opinion is probable which says that a kiss had for carnal and sensual pleasure which arises from the kiss, with the danger of further consent and of pollution excluded, is only venial." Now, considered according to the obvious sense of this proposition, at least some venereal commotion must be held as grave by reason of itself. But if you admit this concerning some commotion, it is scarcely seen why it should not be affirmed concerning others. For all venereal commotions seem to differ only as more and less, so that, if some one of them is gravely evil by reason of itself, this ought to be said of all.

Objection. The proposition could have been condemned because every venereal pleasure voluntarily sought or admitted carries with it the proximate danger of further consent and of pollution. "Observe," says Billuart, "that that proposition sins, not because it says that such a kiss is venial if the danger is excluded, but because, says Steyaert, in order to cover its own shamefulness, it supposes that which is impossible, or certainly of metaphysical rarity, namely, that in such a case the danger of further consent can be excluded."¹

¹ De temperantia, diss. 5, art. 2.

Response. I deny the assertion, both because that explanation is in no way congruent with the obvious sense, and because it is scarcely admitted that to every voluntary venereal commotion there is annexed a proximate danger of further consent and of pollution. Who would say this, for example, of married persons?

Next, the proposition is proved from the fact that a non-consummated act is not - what it ought to be - a proximate and natural preparation and way to a legitimate consummated act, but rather a proximate and natural preparation and way to an illegitimate consummated act; these things are grave (St. Alphonsus III, 415; n. 28).

Finally, a non-consummated act is commonly gravely sinful also by reason of the danger of pollution. Wherefore especially as regards the unmarried these words of Billuart hold: "For since nature from its corruption is most fragile in this matter, and wholly inclined to these pleasures, and moreover this untaught passion, once voluntarily admitted, blinds the mind and seizes the will with such force that to set bounds to it is most difficult, not to say impossible, it can scarcely, or not even scarcely, happen that someone directly consents to carnal pleasure in itself without there being proximate danger of consenting to something further and more shameful. But that which of itself would be venial becomes mortal by reason of the proximate danger of falling into mortal sin."¹

Concerning the opinion of St. Thomas, one can compare I-II, q. 74, a. 8; II-II, q. 154, a. 4; Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, XV, a. 4; Quaestiones disputatae de Malo, XV, a. 2, ad 18.

Corollary I. Even for betrothed persons an incomplete venereal act, or venereal commotion, is unlawful not only by reason of the danger of pollution, but also gravely unlawful in itself. A few teach that this is of itself only lightly unlawful for them, among whom are Cajetan² and Sanchez.³ But this opinion must be altogether rejected, since the reason on which it rests is destitute of all value. They say: "Betrothals are the beginning of marriage; therefore they confer a right to an incomplete venereal act." To these things the response is: 1. Betrothals are the beginning of marriage in this sense, that they confer the right of entering marriage with the betrothed person, or of receiving a right in the use of the body of the betrothed. But the right of receiving at some time a right in the use of the body in no way carries with it a right here and now - even initially, as they say - of using the body (St. Alphonsus VI, 854). 2. If the argument had force, it would prove too much, namely that betrothals cause a non-consummated act to become lawful, just as marriage causes a consummated act to become lawful.

The things said do not prevent touches, looks, and kisses which are not immodest from being lawful for betrothed persons, even if perhaps some commotion follows from them, provided that they neither intend it, nor consent to it, nor that there is grave danger of consenting to it. Namely, the fostering of betrothal love is a sufficient reason for permitting the evil effect in question; this reason indeed is not similarly present for others.

Corollary II. One who, when venereal commotion has arisen beyond the intention, does not positively, directly or indirectly,⁴ dissent, but behaves merely passively, sins gravely, at least if the commotion is graver. The reason is that, considering the vehemence of the pleasure, he exposes himself to grave danger of consenting. Nevertheless indirect resistance is not rarely to be preferred to direct resistance, especially if the motions are lighter, more prolonged, or more frequent (cf. St. Alphonsus V, 7, 8).

Corollary III. This corollary concerns sensible carnal pleasure (n. 11), concerning which, because of the connection of the matter, I judge it practical to add certain things. Now one who seeks or consents to sensible carnal pleasure places an act which in itself is indifferent. But if pleasure of this sort is directly and fully deliberately sought or admitted, especially by persons apt for intercourse, and especially if those acts are had with some affection and with delay, according to St. Alphonsus a grave sin is regularly, that is, for the most part, committed, because of the proximate danger of falling into and consenting to venereal commotion (III, 416).⁵

¹ De temperantia, dissert. 5, a. 2.

² On II-II, q. 154, a. 4.

³ De Matrimonio, l. IX, disp. 46, nn. 48 and 55.

⁴ Directly, for example by fighting the motion through an act of displeasure; indirectly, for example by praying, by thinking about other things, by continuing the work begun.

⁵ Several authors report the opinion of St. Alphonsus less accurately.

I. Notion. Indirectly voluntary lust, or lust voluntary in its cause, is understood as a venereal effect, whether pollution or venereal commotion, which is not intended, but which is foreseen as going to follow from an action and ought to be guarded against. It is said:

1. Which is not intended; for if the venereal effect is intended, it is directly voluntary.

2. Which is foreseen as going to follow from an action. A venereal effect which does not follow from an action, but flows from nature alone, is merely natural and is so called, as if diurnal or nocturnal pollution arises from superabundance of semen, from temperament, from weakness of the nerves, from the natural warmth of the body, or even from the action of the demon (II-II, q. 154, a. 5; III, q. 80, a. 7; St. Alphonsus III, 480; V, 20).¹

3. And ought to be guarded against. But to what extent it ought to be guarded against, or to what extent, if it is not guarded against, it is imputed, the principles now to be stated will explain.

¹ Merely natural pollution has place in some twice, in others once in a week, in others once in a month, and in others very rarely.

II. Principles. 1. Man of himself cannot promote the loss or consumption of venereal things, that is, of himself he cannot place an act from which a venereal effect is going to follow. For since venereal things as such have been entrusted to the individual for the good of the species, man, just as he cannot directly squander them, so of himself he cannot exercise an influence toward their loss, that is, place an act from which a venereal effect is going to follow. If he places the act without a proportionate reason, the effect is imputed as fault. And these things which we have said agree with the opinion of St. Thomas, since he teaches that pollution is imputed as fault if it has been caused by superfluity of food or drink (II-II, q. 154, a. 5), that is, from a cause influencing pollution only by accident. Finally, note well that the argument holds even if the venereal effect is merely permitted, that is, is not intended.

2. The more the act to be placed has the character of a cause, the graver in itself is the obligation of avoiding the act, and the graver is the cause required to render the act lawful. This being laid down, it seems altogether to be concluded that there is, of itself, a grave obligation of avoiding an act which has the character of a perfect cause, that is, one which both by its nature and gravely influences the venereal effect; the venereal effect, I say, that is, the pouring out of venereal things, which both depends on the will and is not ordered to the good of the species, and therefore involves a disorder, and indeed a grave one (n. 28).¹

Nor is St. Alphonsus more benign when he declares that "pollution is not mortal unless it proceeds from a cause mortal in itself, in the genus of lust" (III, 484). For he understands a cause which by its nature and gravely influences lust, and for this reason can be said to exist as mortal in itself and, as leading to lust, in the genus of lust; this is deduced from the fact that immediately afterward he proceeds thus: "One sins mortally who places shameful actions, of themselves proximately exciting to pollution or commotions. Otherwise, if the cause is remote, ... he will sin only venially" (loc. cit.).

¹ According to St. Thomas, lust is opposed to the life of man in potency. In human semen "there is man in potency ... and therefore disorder concerning the emission of semen concerns the life of man in proximate potency" (De Malo, q. 15, a. 2; q. 2, a. 10).

III. Applications. From the principles stated, particular norms are deduced both with regard to pollution, to which are equated vehement venereal commotion and distillation which occurs with great libido, and with regard to light venereal commotion, to which is equated distillation which occurs with lesser libido (St. Alphonsus III, 477).

1. Pollution is imputed:

a. As grave fault, if an action is placed which both by its nature and gravely influences it; for an action of this sort has, as we have already noted, the character of a perfect cause (St. Alphonsus III, 482). A reason of necessity or of notable utility excuses.

Actions both by their nature and gravely influencing are, for example: intense and rather prolonged thought about venereal things; kisses, whether columbine, that is, with the tongue put into the mouth of another, and repeated several times, or held with notable delay, or repeated very often; deliberate looking, whether at human intercourse, or at the naked breasts of a beautiful person, or at the obscene parts of a person of diverse sex, or, if the looks are prolonged, at obscene statues or pictures; touch of the obscene parts of another person, of naked breasts, and, at least if it is done lingeringly, of the genitals of animals; prolonged and tender conversation with a person loved inordinately, etc. (St. Alphonsus III, 417 sq.; 482).

Corollary. On account of an excusing cause, it is lawful, notwithstanding the pollution that will follow, to study venereal matters, to hear the confessions of women, to practice the surgical art, and to serve the sick or those going into the bath (St. Alphonsus III, 420, 483).

b. As light fault, if an action is placed which either by its nature, but only lightly, or by accident, influences it; for actions of this sort have only the character of an imperfect cause (St. Alphonsus III, 484). A just cause excuses; yet this is not had if there is question of an action influencing by accident but sinful (St. Alphonsus III, 483, 3, 4, 5; 484 at the end).

Actions influencing by their nature but only lightly are, for example: looking at the chest of a woman, at lightly immodest spectacles, and, at least if it is done in passing, at a naked person of the same sex; a light kiss of a girl; touch of one's own genitals done in passing, etc. - Actions influencing by accident are called those which are outside the matter of lust, such as excess in food, drunkenness, riding, etc. (St. Alphonsus III, 481).

Corollary. "It is lawful, even when pollution has been foreseen, to ride for the sake of utility ... and also for the sake of recreation ... It is lawful to lie in some position in order to rest more conveniently ... to take warm foods or drinks moderately" (St. Alphonsus III, 483).

It is disputed whether pollution is imputed as grave fault or as light fault if someone places an action which by its nature only moderately influences pollution, but which, in view of some person's peculiar disposition toward venereal things, is probably going to be followed by it. Now St. Alphonsus teaches that in the case pollution is imputed as grave fault, because on the one hand the action placed has, with respect to this subject, the character of a perfect cause; on the other hand it is not so burdensome to abstain from causes moderately influencing that a person is excused from the whole or from so much on that account. The contrary must be said if someone is frequently polluted from light causes, "because it is, as it were, morally impossible for men commonly to avoid all these causes" (St. Alphonsus III, 484).

Actions both by their nature and moderately influencing are, for example: looking at shameful spectacles from vanity, the intercourse of larger animals, and, at least if the look is continued, at a naked person of the same sex; touch of one's own genitals, etc. (St. Alphonsus III, 484).

2. Light venereal commotion is to be judged more mildly than pollution and vehement commotion; both because, although the disorder is grave, it is nevertheless lesser, and especially because of the burden of avoiding commotions of this sort. Hence, with sufficient probability, it is imputed only as light fault, even if someone places an action which both by its nature and gravely influences it; the same must be said a fortiori if the action, either by its nature and lightly, or only by accident, even if gravely, influences it (cf. St. Alphonsus III, 477, 2). A just cause excuses, even more in the case of light influence. If the said commotions follow from an honorable action, it is commonly better not to attend to them.

68. Corollary I. Note that more often, under the appearance of indirectly voluntary lust, direct lust is in reality had, especially when someone, on account of a reason not proportionate or merely pretextual, performs actions which of themselves and gravely influence a venereal effect. Reasons not proportionate, or even merely pretextual, are not so rarely: the advancement of knowledge, the care of one's own health or another's, pain, ignorance, the dissipation of a neighbor's scrupulosity, etc.; these, namely, are put forward as pretexts, while in reality, although with a certain tacit sense, the thing proceeds from an intention of lust. A manner of acting of this sort is called by Vermeersch masked lust.¹

Corollary II. Pollution had in sleep is to be judged thus:

1. It is not imputed as fault if it comes from a merely natural cause, as from superabundance of semen (n. 65). Indeed in that case it cannot in any way be called evil, so that it is even lawful to desire it with an inefficacious affection and to rejoice over it when it has arisen (St. Alphonsus III, 480; V, 20). Nevertheless it is in no way lawful to procure it, or in any way to help toward it, or to do something for the end that it happen, because then it would no longer be merely natural. "But if some celibate man has experienced spontaneous nocturnal emissions as more difficult or rarer, and for that reason has been badly affected nervously during the day, he can with a safe conscience take a suitable medicine, not indeed so that he may obtain some definite pollution, but so that evacuation in general may be rendered easier. For he directly effects nothing else than so to temper his body that nature can act regularly."²

2. It is imputed as grave fault: "1. if before it was directly or formally procured, that is, if it was intended, and the cause has not been retracted; 2. when after sleep it was pleasing and was approved on account of venereal pleasure; otherwise not" (St. Alphonsus III, 485; Homo Apostolicus, tract 9, n. 34). The reason why otherwise it is not imputed as grave fault is that sleep itself causes the cause placed before sleep not to be able to be called proximately influencing.

3. It is imputed as light fault if, without just cause, an immodest action is placed from which it is sufficiently foreseen that pollution will follow. And thus indeed it must be said theoretically; but practically it is difficult to determine when some action influences the pollution of which there is question, all the more because according to some, those phantasms rather recur during sleep with which one was less occupied during the day than those with which one was more occupied.³

One who, having awakened, notices that pollution is imminent or has begun, and generally one who suffers pollution involuntarily begun, is not bound to inhibit the flow of semen, because it is most difficult to avert the exit of semen already released from the loins. Care must nevertheless be taken that the danger of consent be averted, for example by praying or by thinking about other things (St. Alphonsus III, 479). If he consents, he sins gravely, if he is fully in possession of himself; otherwise, if he is not fully awake.

Corollary II. Great itching in the shameful parts can be driven away by rubbing, even if pollution follows, if the itching comes from acrimony of the blood, but not if it comes from the ardor of libido. The reason is that in the former case pollution is not a means of obtaining the good effect, but in the latter it is. Moreover, the itching can be presumed to come from acrimony of the blood unless, once pollution has been had, it suddenly ceases (St. Alphonsus III, 483, 2; Homo Apostolicus, tract 9, n. 35).

Corollary III. Great irritation of the nerves in the genitals, which as it were compels toward touches or motions that induce pollution, must be judged like the itching of which there was just discussion; namely, it can be extinguished by touch or motion if it is from acrimony of the blood, but not if it is judged to arise from the ardor of libido. But the fact that, for example, a motion of the body cannot be made for driving away irritation which comes from the ardor of libido does not prevent it from being made for another end - for example so that a truly troublesome position in bed may cease, etc. - and pollution be permitted. Meanwhile let that pitiable man beseech God, lest he consent to pollution.

¹ De castitate et de vitiis contrariis, nn. 388-389.

² Vermeersch, op. cit., n. 330.

³ Vermeersch, op. cit., n. 385.

I. Natural remedies are, for example: 1. to use tonic foods, light and of easy digestion, but by no means exciting foods and drinks; 2. to avoid idleness and solitude, and to be occupied with useful work, which work, insofar as it can be done, it is expedient to assign; 3. to lie in a harder bed,¹ on the side, not on the back, with the arms crossed over the chest; to use a light covering and not to indulge in too much sleep;² 4. when using baths, to be washed with cold water; 5. finally, certain medicines seem useful for tempering venereal things, such as lupulin, heroin;³ likewise the so-called chaste tree.⁴ The Salernitan aphorism also is known: "Camphor through the nostrils castrates males by its odor"; which, however, Gemelli does not admit.⁵

II. Supernatural remedies, besides flight from occasions, frequenting of the sacraments,⁶ and prayer, are: 1. a firm persuasion concerning the gravity and harms of the evil, which the confessor should endeavor to instill into him, fatherly indeed, but seriously and effectively; 2. courage added to the miserable sinner, and the raising up of his mind and heart for battle; 3. a manly resolution, and this renewed from time to time, especially morning and evening; 4. filial devotion toward the Blessed Virgin Mary, with the added custom of reciting daily, morning and evening, three times the Angelic Salutation together with the invocation enriched with indulgences: "Through thy Immaculate Conception, O Mary, render my body pure and my soul holy" (indulgence of 300 days, Pius X, December 5, 1904); 5. chastisement of the body and fasts, but account should be taken of the persons; 6. diversion of the mind to another object as soon as temptation first arises; likewise invocation of the Most Holy Names of Jesus and Mary; 7. if there is question of a more cultivated person, the incitement of the mind toward noble duties and duties useful for the common good; 8. finally, marriage is commonly to be urged most of all (St. Alphonsus, Praxis Confessarii, nn. 15, 16).⁷

¹ "The body should never rest on feathers, which warm, provoke itchings, even touches: frequent causes of pernicious habits. The bed should be rather hard than soft" (Bossu, in Eschbach, op. cit., p. 532).

² "Sleep lasts six to eight hours, as an average term. Habit has the greatest influence on this state of the economy." "Rising early preserves health and holiness" (St. Francis de Sales). (Brachet, in Eschbach, loc. cit.).

³ Gemelli, Non moechaberis, c. 5, p. 171 sq.

⁴ "Agnus castus was formerly celebrated; we ourselves have sometimes advised its use, and despite the assertion of modern physicians who deny it all efficacy in this kind, we have received the most satisfactory reports about its employment." (Catechisme du V. Cesar de Bus, annotated by Bonhomme, t. II, p. 354).

⁵ Loc. cit.

⁶ "I scarcely think that there is any other effective remedy, except very frequent confession with one and the same confessor ... for this sacrament is the greatest bridle, and one who does not use it should not promise himself amendment except by a miracle." Thus St. Alphonsus (VI, 464) with Toletus.

⁷ If the means have remained ineffective, "recourse must be had," says Antonelli, "to amputation of the clitoris, that is, clitoridectomy, in women, even adults. This operation is very easy and altogether harmless ... It is true that some doctors by no means approve this operation, because through it the woman is deprived of the chief place of pleasure. But this reason must be counted as nothing, because, if there is question of a married woman, normal intercourse with pleasure and fecundation is in no way impeded; but if there is question of an unmarried girl, this operation removes the cause of so many sins and brings only great advantages to her health" (Medicina Pastoralis, I, n. 504). To these things I note: Apart from the fact that an amputation worthy of note is lawful only for the direct good of the whole, in this case the clitoris as such, that is, insofar as it is the seat of venereal pleasure, is amputated. But the clitoris as such, since it regards the good of the species, cannot be amputated for the good of the individual.

The predominant individual motives for sin are as numerous as the different characters of those addicted to sin, and hence it is impossible to classify them. The predominant general motives for sin, on the contrary, can be assigned according to the principal goods that most often move or repel with wills of all who commit sin, as follows: (a) goods of the soul, such as praise and honor, inordinately pursued (the vice of pride); (b) goods of the body, inordinately desired (the views of lust and gluttony); (c) goods that are external, unduly loved (the vice of avarice); (d) one’s own good, not sufficiently wished (the vice of sloth); (e) the neighbor’s good, not suffiviently desired (the vices of envy and anger).

Is the effect which follows, gravely evil, voluntary only indirectly or in the cause, always imputable as grave fault, so that someone contracts the grave malice proper to that effect, if he illicitly posits the cause without any sufficient reason? - R. 1. Affirmatively, if that cause of itself, or from its intrinsic nature, gravely influences the effect. The reason is that if the cause of itself gravely influences the effect, the grave malice from the effect redounds into the cause. Therefore someone contracts the grave malice proper to the effect itself by willing its cause without any sufficient reason. Moreover, at least practically speaking, one who wills the cause, of itself gravely influencing an effect gravely evil, without any sufficient reason, in reality directly wills the grave malice of that effect, and does not merely permit it; since the cause and effect are inseparably connected with one another, so far as concerns the very nature of the thing, and no other honorable reason is present for positing the cause on account of another honorable effect, as is supposed.

R. 2. Negatively, if that cause of itself influences that effect only lightly. The reason is that, since the cause of itself has only a light influence upon that gravely evil effect, a cause of this kind is not of itself sufficient for the positing of the effect, and accordingly, so far as concerns the nature of the thing, they are not inseparably connected with one another. Therefore it is not the case that because someone wills the cause, he also wills the effect, but he wills only the permission of the effect, if perhaps it follows. Accordingly he does not contract the grave malice proper to the effect. But since the malice of the effect redounds into the cause by reason of the influence which the latter has upon the effect, where the influence is light there is only light malice; and consequently, with the direct intention of the gravely evil effect always excluded, someone willing a cause that influences such an effect only lightly, although he will not sin gravely, nevertheless will sin lightly. And this is the proper reason why, although there is no smallness of matter in venereal matters, nevertheless there is such in those acts of mere sensuality, as are looks, from a cause of mere curiosity, at less honorable things, with the intention of the venereal thing itself again excluded, as the very common opinion of theologians holds.

R. 3. Again negatively, if the cause in no way of itself influences that evil effect, but the effect follows merely accidentally, or from extrinsic circumstances. The reason is that since the effect follows only accidentally, there is no connection, so far as concerns the nature of the thing, between the cause and the effect. Therefore it is not the case that because someone wills the cause, he also wills the effect, but he wills only the permission of the effect, if perhaps it follows. But since the malice of the effect in no way redounds into the cause, for the effect does not follow from that cause of itself, but merely accidentally, someone willing the cause, with every intention of the evil effect excluded, contracts none of its malice, neither grave nor light, although perhaps otherwise he also sins gravely. And thus, if someone foresees pollution from some excess of drink or food, without willing and intending it, he will sin lightly, or perhaps even gravely, by reason of that excess, but by no means will he sin by reason of the pollution, since this effect is not willed, but happens outside and against the intention, and the cause is outside the genus of lust. Nor indeed is someone bound to remove all causes influencing only accidentally into some evil effect, by reason only of that evil effect itself. For in actions only this one thing must be attended to: whether they are the cause of this effect, or not. For if they do not have the force of a cause, it is ridiculous that they must be avoided on account of an effect of this kind. And in no way is someone bound to abstain from positing such a cause, if a reasonable motive is present for positing a cause of this kind.

Cf. 40. 1, 4; Suarez, tr. 2, d. 1, s. 4, 5; Sanchez, l. 9, d. 45, n. 14 ff.; L. 1. 3. n. 484; Salm., tr. 26, c. 7, n. 41; S. Th. 2. 2. q. 154. a. 5; 3. p. q. 30. a. 7; d'Annibale, 4th ed., p. 1, n. 157, note 15.

You will resolve: 1. "If the cause of pollution is one gravely influencing it, and the man does not abstain from positing that cause or action, it is clear that the pollution is imputed as sin, even if it was not intended, provided it was at least confusedly foreseen. But causes of this kind are without doubt all those which of themselves are grave faults in the genus of lust, namely touches or sights of the shameful parts of another's or one's own body with base and deliberate delight; the sight of human intercourse; and morose thoughts about venereal matters. Therefore all pollutions arising from these causes are certainly mortal. Thus S. Th. a. 2. q. 154. a. 5, and others commonly. And then that base act which is the cause of pollution has a special malice against nature, as Sanchez says, de Matr., l. 9, c. 45, n. 23, and all agree." L. 1. 3. n. 482. A special malice, namely of the effect or pollution, which is a sin against nature, besides the proper malice which consists in delight excited from a base object. Gravely influencing; therefore, if the cause, whether by reason of itself or by reason of the disposition of the subject, does not gravely influence, grave fault is absent by reason of the pollution perhaps going to follow, since then it follows outside the intention and accidentally. Of themselves are grave faults: "the common and more probable opinion teaches that pollution is not mortal (namely in the cause), unless it comes from a cause of itself mortal in the genus of lust.... The reason is that, since pollution is not willed except in the cause, it will be evil in that degree in which the cause itself is evil." L. 1. 3. n. 484. In the genus of lust, whence "it is inferred that the pollution which happens outside the intention from causes illicit even mortally in another genus than lust is not mortal, as from drunkenness, or from eating too immoderately or on a forbidden day." L. 1. 3. n. 484, 477; Salm., Theol. Schol., tr. 13, d. 10, n. 274; Theol. Mor., tr. 26, c. 7, n. 41.

2. "If someone, about to do some necessary or lawful and honorable thing, foresees that pollution will naturally follow, and this applies much more to distillation, which nevertheless he in no way wills or intends, then, provided the danger of consent to the delight is absent, he is not bound to abstain from such an action; because the effect following accidentally and outside the intention is not imputed to one pursuing his right. Hence, notwithstanding pollution, it is lawful to hear the confessions of women, to study cases of conscience, to touch oneself from necessity, cautiously and from necessity to kiss women, to embrace according to the custom of the country, if otherwise one would have to be regarded as uncivil." L. 1. 3. n. 481. "It is lawful for someone who suffers a great itching in the private parts to drive it away by touch, even if pollution follows." L. 1. 3. n. 483. The reason is that these acts either of themselves influence only lightly, or although they of themselves gravely influence, nevertheless, since they are not done from a base cause of concupiscence and delight, but from an honorable, necessary, useful, suitable cause, they no longer have the same force and influence upon the effect, which is gravely increased by that evil propensity of the will, and on the contrary is greatly diminished by the will turned elsewhere and resisting as far as it can. Hence the evil effect, if it follows, is attributed rather to natural constitution, or to weakness of nature, than to the aforesaid acts as cause. Besides, with the aforesaid honorable end standing, someone is not bound to abstain from the cause in order to impede the evil effect. For when a cause has two effects, one good, the other evil, it can be posited from the intention of the good effect alone, by behaving permissively toward the evil. Therefore that evil effect, in the case, truly follows accidentally and outside the intention. L. 1. 3. n. 483; l. 5. n. 14; S. Th. 3. p. q. 80. a. 7.

3. "It is inferred that the pollution which arises from a not prolonged conversation with a girl, or from a slight glance, or from curious reading venially base, is only venial; because, as has been said, since those causes influence lightly, the subsequent pollution proceeds rather from a natural cause than from them." L. 1. 3. n. 484. But if someone has a just cause, he sins in nothing. L. 1. 5. n. 29. A just cause is "any reasonable cause of necessity, utility, or fittingness." L. 1. 3. n. 484; l. 5. n. 29.

4. A fortiori grave fault is absent in those actions which influence remotely and accidentally, since they are outside the genus of lust. Therefore, although pollution or an evil commotion is foreseen as going to follow, it is lawful to ride horseback, not only for the sake of necessity and utility, but also for recreation; to recline in some position in order to rest more comfortably; moderately to take hot foods or drink; to lead honorable dances, etc. L. 1. 3. n. 483. Grave fault is absent; for whether light fault is present in the positing of such causes without a just reason, on account of the effect going to follow, is disputed. Holzmann and others deny it, "because, as they say, the pollution arises rather from the weakness of nature than from that cause, which concurs to pollution only accidentally and remotely. But Sanchez, Lessius, and others more probably affirm it..., because without a rational cause to permit pollution always seems something unbecoming and disordered." L. 1. 3. n. 484; Sanchez, de Matr., l. 9, d. 45; Sporer, de Matr., n. 644 ff.; Lessius, l. 4, c. 3, d. 14, n. 97-103.

What is lust? - Lust, which is opposed to chastity, is the inordinate appetite of a venereal thing. Inordinate; venereal things are ordered to the generation of offspring, and they are had licitly only in marriage. Therefore those things are inordinate which are not ordered either to generation or to this in marriage. Lust is grave by its whole genus if it is deliberate and directly willed. Hence it does not admit smallness of matter. For the use of venereal things by its nature has been instituted for the conservation of the human race, which is a great good of men, and an external good of God; consequently he who abuses it gravely offends God, and injures human society. If it is deliberate and directly willed; for if deliberation and willing are concerned only with its cause, then smallness of matter can be given in this matter. S. Th. 2. 2. q. 153; L. 71. Cf. here 37 seqq.

What are the daughters of lust? - They are eight, four on the part of the intellect, and four on the part of the will. 1. Blindness of mind, when someone is so addicted to shamefulness that he does not think of heavenly things. 2. Precipitation, by which someone from the same cause acts without counsel. - 3. Inconsideration, when he offends in the manner, acting inconsiderately in things which are unbecoming to his state or person. 4. Inconstancy, when someone from the same affection of pleasures quickly falls away from pious purposes. 5. Love of self; for the lascivious man on account of pleasures makes himself, not God, the end of his actions. 6. Hatred of God; for the lascivious man is accustomed to abhor divine things, indeed God himself, as the avenger of sins. - 7.

Affection for the present age; because love of carnal pleasures so affects the mind that at times it would be prepared even to renounce eternal blessedness, if it were permitted always to enjoy present things. - 8. Horror of the future age, when one immersed in pleasures inordinately fears death, and, unwilling to think about it, strives to prolong life by illicit means, etc. - The first four are mortal when some precept of God gravely obliging is omitted. But if they are concerned only with the matter of lust, they are not sins distinct in species; otherwise, however, if other precepts are violated. The latter four, if there is full consent of the will, are per se mortal and distinct in species; from indeliberation or another imperfection of acts they are often venial. L. 71; S. Th. 2. 2. q. 15; q. 46; q. 53, a. 6; q. 153, a. 5.

Must pharisaical scandal also be avoided? - Pharisaical or malicious scandal, at least ordinarily, is not necessarily to be avoided either by omission of a good work, or by omission even of an indifferent work not having the appearance of evil. Proof. Such scandal arises from the sole malice of him who receives scandal, and for this reason is in no way given, but purely received. But charity in no way obliges us to impede the sins of others which are altogether voluntary to them and altogether independent of our manner of acting, at least ordinarily; for charity does not urge with so great an inconvenience. Therefore. Matt. 15:14. Ordinarily; for "if care concerning the good of neighbor can oblige one to doing good, why not also sometimes to omitting it? Especially since man is thereby deprived of no spiritual good... because this very thing, namely to deprive oneself of the merit of that work because of the good of neighbor, will be a greater merit than the good work itself. Whence in works of counsel the matter is clear." Suarez, de Carit., d. 10, s. 3, n. 9. The case could be if, for example, fruit were hoped for from delaying a good work. Collectan. S. C. de P. F., n. 1723. But if the pharisaical scandal were for impeding spiritual goods, then it would altogether have to be contemned. S. Th. 2. 2. q. 43, a. 7.

Is it licit to advise a lesser evil to someone already determined to carry out a greater one? Some deny it, because he who advises a lesser evil truly advises evil. Others more probably affirm it, because this kind of counsel tends formally to this, that the greater sin not be committed. Therefore formally it advises only good. And Sanchez with the Salmanticenses adds that this is licit not only for private persons, but also for confessors, parents, and others upon whom from office it is incumbent to impede the sins of subjects. L. 57; l. 5, n. 77.

Resolves: You are not bound to pay more than is fair to a worker or coachman, although you foresee that otherwise he will blaspheme. - A parish priest is not bound to give up stole fees, although he foresees that several will detract. - These persons sin not because of infirmity, but because of their own improbitity, and therefore regularly no care is to be taken for them.

What are the sixth and ninth precepts of the Decalogue? - The sixth and ninth precepts of the Decalogue are: You shall not commit adultery... You shall not desire his (your neighbor's) wife. Ex. 20:14, 17. By the sixth precept of the Decalogue are prohibited all things which are contrary to the ordered propagation of the human race. For all these in their own way are reduced to moechia, or adultery, as to the primary act contrary to this ordered propagation. But by the ninth precept every interior concupiscence of those external works which had already previously been prohibited by the sixth precept is prohibited. Therefore each of these precepts prohibits lust, which is: the inordinate appetite or use of venereal things. S. Th. 2. 2, q. 154, a. 1; L. 412, 414.

Does directly voluntary lust admit lightness of matter? Directly voluntary lust in whatever genus never admits lightness of matter. The reason is that any pleasure directly sought necessarily induces a subversion, in a most grave matter, of the natural order established by the Creator. This is also clear from prop. 40 condemned by Alexander VII. Sporer de Matrim. nn. 689, 699; L. 415, 416; S. Th. 2. 2, q. 153, aa. 2, 3; E. M.

Does indirectly voluntary lust admit lightness of matter? - R. Affirmatively, because then there is no consent or direct intention in venereal pleasure, but only in the cause, which is lightly or gravely sinful according as it lightly or gravely influences the pleasure. L. 482, 483; Cf. here 37-40.

To what virtue is lust opposed? - Lust is directly opposed to chastity, which, taken generally, is a moral virtue which moderates the inordinate appetite and use of venereal things. Cf. 349. A part of chastity, and its most perfect part, is virginity, which imports two things, namely integrity of body, and integrity of mind, or the purpose of preserving that integrity of body in perpetuity. Indeed, a threefold chastity is to be distinguished: conjugal, widowed, virginal. Conjugal chastity is that which in marriage moderately uses lawful pleasures. Widowed chastity is that which after the death of the spouse, or after virginity has otherwise been lost, by a firm purpose thereafter abstains from the appetite and use of venereal things. Finally, virginal chastity is that which proposes perpetually to abstain from all carnal pleasures, both unlawful and lawful in marriage. S. Th. 2. 2, q. 151-153.

How is virginity lost? - Virginity is lost physically in a girl through the opening or breaking of the virginal enclosure, and in a male through the emission of seed; but morally it is lost both by a female and by a male through voluntary pollution. Nevertheless as to political state, and in the face of the Church, a girl remains a virgin as long as the enclosure of virginity has not been violated by intercourse, and a male as long as he has not carnally known a female. Tambur. Explic. Decal. l. 7, c. 5, nn. 2, 3; Laym. l. 3, s. 4, nn. 7-9; Sporer after tract V, in append. ad 6th Precept, n. 6; S. Th. 2. 2, q. 152.

How many kinds of pleasure are distinguished here? - In this matter a twofold pleasure is to be distinguished, one venereal, which is also called carnal, the other sensible. Venereal pleasure is felt in the genital parts through the commotion of the same genital parts and seed; on the contrary, sensible pleasure is felt in the other senses from their application to their object, and from the proportion of the object to the proper sense. Sensible pleasure is manifest in two ways; one is purely such, another is sensible-venereal. Sensible pleasure purely such is that which arises from an object which precisely of itself is not apt to move to venereal pleasure, as, for example, the pleasure which arises from the touch of silk, the smell of a flower, the hearing of music, the taste of sugar. Sensible-venereal pleasure is that which arises from an object which of itself is in some way apt to move to venereal pleasure, as, for example, the pleasure which arises from touch, from the embrace of a woman, from her kiss, etc. Cf. n. 291; L. 412, 413-415.

How is lust distinguished? - One lust is interior, another exterior. The former is the voluntary occupation of the imagination, intellect, and will by joy, morose pleasure, or desire of a venereal thing for the sake of pleasure. The latter is the very use itself of venereal things for the sake of pleasure; and it is multiple in species: for one is in acts not consummated, another in consummated acts, which differ in species from them; and both this, which is in consummated acts, and that, which is in acts not consummated, are subdivided into other species according to the specific diversity of objects. But consummated acts, in this matter, are those acts which reach all the way to the emission of prolific fluid. Acts which do not reach this term are not consummated acts, which properly are acts of sensuality and immodesty. Cf. 349. Acts of lust not consummated are base looks, hearings or speeches, to which base readings are counted, base smells and tastes, finally touches.

S. Th. 2. 2, q. 151, a. 4; q. 154, a. 1 ad 5; q. 155, aa. 2, 3, 4; L. 412. Vivid and morose imagination and thought of obscene things is a cause per se gravely influencing base effects. It ordinarily precedes, accompanies, and follows acts of lust not consummated, and therefore from these it has its proper gravity, as also from a grave object, from a depraved intention, from danger of consent in a gravely base thing.

What about obscene looks? - A voluntary and deliberate look at very obscene things, which from their nature proximately dispose to venereal pleasure, unless it is done from a just cause, is, speaking per se, a mortal sin; but a look at less obscene things, which from their nature dispose only remotely to venereal pleasure, unless it also is done from a just cause, speaking per se, is only a venial sin. The reason of the 1st part is that one acting thus exposes himself to the proximate danger of venereal pleasure, which is gravely sinful; and therefore he sins gravely. The reason of the 2nd part is that although the object is in some way dishonorable, and therefore action about it is unlawful, nevertheless it does not bring proximate danger of venereal pleasure; hence that action is not gravely unlawful. L. 420 seqq.

What about base speeches? - "Of itself it is not evil to utter or hear base words." L. 426. Of itself, for, practically speaking, very obscene words, with continued conversation about these matters, which from their nature proximately dispose the speaker or hearers to venereal pleasure, unless they are done from a just cause, are mortal sin. But less obscene words, or words spoken in passing, which from their nature dispose only remotely to venereal pleasure, unless likewise they are done from a just cause, are only venial sin. The reason is the proximate or remote danger of venereal pleasure which is had by conversations and words of this sort. L. 426, 427, 428.

What about base touches? Very base touches, which from their nature proximately dispose to venereal pleasure, unless they are done from a just cause, speaking per se, are mortal sin; but less base touches, which from their nature do not dispose proximately, but only remotely, to venereal pleasure, unless likewise they are done from a just cause, speaking per se, are only venial sin. The reason is that one touching himself or another person in the former way exposes himself or the other person to proximate danger of venereal pleasure; but in the latter way, only to remote danger; nor is there present a reasonable cause for either touch, making it honorable. Therefore. L. 415, 416, 417, 418; S. Th. 2. 2, q. 154, a. 4; q. 156, aa. 2, 4.

Do the aforesaid touches differ in species from the consummated act of pollution and intercourse, and from other incomplete acts? R. To the 1st: Affirmatively; and this response holds both for touches and for other incomplete acts, about which the discussion has hitherto been. The reason is that an inchoate act differs in nature from a consummated act. Therefore when similar acts precede the venereal act completed in the same passion, or accompany it, or immediately follow it, such as kisses, touches, etc., they constitute with the completed venereal act one sin in number, and they are not necessarily to be explained distinctly in sacramental Confession; but when they are exercised without a completed venereal act, they are a sin distinct from this, yet one or several in number, if they are exercised in the same movement of passion, or in several. Hence in such a case they are a certain incomplete lust, and are to be explained in sacramental Confession.

R. To the 2nd: The first and more common opinion affirms. The reason is that these acts, considered in themselves, proceed from distinct and diverse faculties, and are ordered to distinct and diverse objects. Hence it follows that "the desire of looking basely, touching, kissing, fornicating, are distinguished in species not only from morose pleasure concerning those objects, but also each from the other, because they tend to those objects as they would be placed on the part of reality; but if they were placed on the part of reality, they would be distinguished in species, as is clear. Hence he who once was delighted by thought about intercourse, and once desired intercourse, does not satisfy by saying, twice I had a base thought, but he must say, once I was delighted in intercourse, and once I desired it. Similarly, he who once desired to look, once to kiss, once to touch, once to fornicate, does not satisfy by saying, four times I desired to do something base, but he is bound to express those objects." La-Croix l. 6, p. 2, n. 1032. The second opinion denies. The reason is that although acts of this sort physically proceed from faculties really distinct and diverse, and tend to objects really distinct and diverse, nevertheless, morally considered, they do not contain grave intrinsic malice; but the grave malice which they contain they have from venereal pleasure, to which they proximately dispose, and which is the same in species for all these acts. S. Th. 2. 2, q. 154, a. 4. Hence it follows that, once in Confession the venereal pleasure which followed, to which someone consented, has been explained, it is not necessary to explain whether he procured it for himself by looking at or touching himself, or even by looking at or touching another person, abstraction nevertheless being made from the sin of cooperation and scandal, certainly to be explained if they were present. Likewise, once the interior pleasure of the will, or desire as regards venereal pleasure, has been explained, it is not to be explained whether that pleasure and desire of the will was immediately terminated to base looks or touches. Billuart, Diss. 6, art. 15, section III, Note and following, has these things: "Franc. Henno teaches that pleasures concerning look, touch, kiss, etc., differ in species among themselves, and ought thus distinctly to be accused... because, he says, looks, touches, kisses, are distinguished in species among themselves... but nevertheless he admits that the practice of confessors and penitents is contrary. Besides, I think that his foundation is false, namely that touches, kisses, looks are distinguished in species in the genus of lust. For since they are not evil per se, as has been said, but only by reason of commotion, or pollution, or intercourse, to which they excite and tend, they have the same species of malice among themselves, namely either of carnal commotion, or pollution, or intercourse, etc. Hence in my judgment the penitent would satisfy who would say, so many times I excited in myself or in another carnal commotion, or pollution, while saying nothing whether by touches, or looks, or kisses, provided that he explains the conditions of himself and the accomplice. A fortiori he would satisfy by saying, so many times I was carnally delighted concerning such or such a person, without explaining whether concerning touches, or kisses, or looks; but indeed if there was pleasure concerning intercourse or pollution, because these differ in species from immodesty and are to be distinctly accused, so too are the pleasures concerning them." S. Th. 2. 2, q. 154, a. 4 ad 3, speaking of kisses and touches, says: "That things of this sort are not sins according to their species." And ib. ad 2 he says: "From lust they have the nature of sin." And in c.: "Things of this sort, insofar as they are lustful, are mortal sins."

783bis. Note: An act exciting simple venereal pleasure differs in species from an act of pollution; and therefore in confession the nature of the act is, per se, to be explained distinctly. "Nevertheless, as Genicot notes here, ed. 4, vol. 1, n. 396, 3, that distinction often is not accused by the penitent; nor are questions about most shameful matters to be made by the confessor without true necessity. It is lawful to follow the rule set down by Bouvier, Diss. in 6 Dec. praec. p. 76: 'Once touches or lustful motions have been discreetly known, let the confessor abstain from immodest interrogations.' And Berardi writes, Prax. conf. n. 851: 'When the penitent says, I touched myself, if it is evident that he truly touched himself maliciously, it is to be presumed that he carried the act through to its natural end; hence, whether the matter concerns men or women, I would say that interrogations about that matter can be omitted. It is true that some interrupt the act, although they have maliciously begun it, but from this confessors cannot be obligated to add further interrogations to all and each who confess that they touched themselves, concerning this very interruption.'"

Do touches and other incomplete acts, when they are grave sin, contract malice diverse in species because of the various circumstances of persons? - As regards touches, kisses, and embraces, this is commonly affirmed. And the reason is that in moral estimation touches more than other acts regard the individual person, and approach most closely to intercourse.

Hence just as the specific circumstances of persons are to be explained in intercourse, so also in touches. L. 417, 453, 459. As regards looks, the Salmanticenses apud St. Alphonsus 421 likewise affirm; and both as regards looks and also as regards base words whether said or heard, Sanchez de Matrim. l. 9, d. 46, nn. 17, 18, 30, 45 also affirms in almost the same way as regards touches, because of an altogether universal reason, namely because all these acts are ordered to coition and participate in its moral malice. But St. Alphonsus, having reported the opinion of the Salmanticenses, adds these things as regards looks: "But La-Croix more truly contradicts this doctrine, l. 6, p. 2, n. 1030, where he says that he who looks venereally at a person without any desire is not bound to say what sort of person it was. For how would a woman, by looking basely at a priest... commit sacrilege, which consists in the violation of a sacred person, when no violation intervenes there? And how would someone, by looking basely at a relative, commit incest?" l. c. But these things also hold as regards base words said or heard, as is clear per se.

S. Th. 2. 2, q. 154, a. 4 ad 1, ad 2; L. 415, 416, 417; Gur. Cas. 146; Laym. l. 3, s. 4, n. 13. Hence he who by the sight of some person or by conversation is voluntarily excited to pollution commits one sin of pollution, since the aforesaid acts do not put on the species of intercourse with the person who is looked at, or with whom someone converses.

How are the sins of consummated lust distinguished? Some are according to nature, namely when they are exercised in that mode which is not opposed to the generation of the human species, if namely in intercourse, per se apt for generation, diverse sex, the same species, and the natural vessel and mode are preserved; others are against nature, if seed is so poured out that it cannot serve generation, that is, if the things just enumerated are not preserved, whether this is done outside intercourse, or in intercourse from which generation cannot follow. St. Thomas enumerates six species of consummated lust, which are: fornication, defilement, abduction, adultery, incest, vice against nature. L. 412, 432; S. Th. 2. 2, q. 154, aa. 1, 2, 11, 12.

What is fornication? Fornication is the intercourse of an unmarried man with an unmarried woman from mutual consent. Of an unmarried man with an unmarried woman, that is, free from the bonds of marriage, kinship or affinity, and vow. Fornication is intrinsically evil, and mortal sin, so that it is never lawful. Proof of the 1st part: 1. from prop. 48 condemned by Innocent XI. 2. Because fornication and vague intercourse are opposed to the good education of offspring, which cannot be done without the conjugal bond of male and female. For for that education there is required not only the care of the mother, by whom the offspring is nourished, but much more also the care of the father, by whom thereafter the offspring is to be instructed, defended, and advanced to a state in which it can provide necessary things for itself. Proof of the 2nd part: 1. because in Sacred Scripture fornicators are excluded from the kingdom of heaven, 1 Cor. 6:9; Eph. 5:5; Gal. 5:19 seqq. 2. Because fornication gravely opposes the good of offspring, and the due propagation of the human race; for if fornication and vague intercourse were lawful, males doubtful about the ownership of offspring would not acknowledge it and would not devote care to due education; but females thereafter deserted by males would procure abortions, abandon infants, or plainly kill them.

Moreover fornication is mortal sin, even if a rich man wished to care for the due education of fornicated offspring; for if fornication were lawful in such a case, very many would arrogate similar license to themselves, would omit marriages, and fornication would successively become common against the due propagation of the human race. Trid. s. 24, C. 8 de R. M.; s. 25, C. 14 de R.; Struggl 23; S. Th. 2. 2, q. 154, aa. 2, 3; L. 432, 435 seqq.; E. M.

What is defilement? - Defilement is sometimes taken for every illicit intercourse; but more commonly by this word a special sin of lust is designated. Theologians, however, do not agree among themselves concerning the nature of this sin. Fr. Gury 425 says defilement is the violation or oppression of a woman against her will. But others hold that the proper nature of defilement consists simply in the illicit deflowering of a virgin; while others hold that it consists in violent intercourse with a virgin, so that intercourse with a consenting virgin is not a sin distinct from simple fornication. But by the name virgin in each opinion is understood not she who has so preserved the virtue of virginity that she has been stained by no sin of lust, but she who retains the seal of virginity intact, although she has been polluted even voluntarily, and therefore has irrevocably lost the virtue of virginity. L. 101 de Verb. sign.; L. 443; S. Th. 2. 2, q. 154, aa. 6, 7; Laym. l. 3, s. 5, tr. 3, p. 3, c. 13, init. If a woman, unwilling, outside marriage, is overcome by force by a man, it is lawful for her not to receive the seed of the man who has entered her. And the same they permit, though not all, to a woman who had previously consented, because she is bound not to continue the sin. But if a woman oppressed by force has already received the seed, more probably she cannot eject it or render it infertile by injection of cold water, since this is against the nature of generation, which has already been begun. Lugo de Iust. et Iur. d. 10, n. 197; L. 394; l. 6, n. 954.

It is certain among all that violent deflowering of a virgin, besides grave sin against chastity, also involves grave sin against justice, necessarily to be explained in Confession, because of the most grave injury inflicted on the virgin, and on her parents, if the virgin is under their guardianship. Inst. l. 4, t. 4, section 2. And this circumstance of violence, as is clear per se, is to be expressed, even if the woman were not a virgin, but corrupted or married. Moreover, "by violence here is understood not only physical violence, but also moral, such as fraud and fear; likewise importunate prayers and blandishments, which according to the judgment of prudent persons, especially in this matter, are morally reputed violence; such are those which are accompanied by great promises, kisses, touches, incentives of Venus, and in one word all those by which a noble woman cannot easily resist." Billuart de Temper. Diss. 6, art. 3, Dico 1; Struggl 28, 29. But although force or violence is not had, certainly notable fraud is had, and therefore special malice against justice to be declared in Confession, if someone should fornicate with a woman insane, drunk, or sleeping, because she is violated without her consent, and therefore a grave injury is inflicted on her. Sporer 606; Laym. l. c. n. 1; S. Th. 1. 2, q. 154, a. 6; L. 430, 433. But whether illicit deflowering of a virgin freely consenting is a species of lust distinct from simple fornication is disputed, and each opinion is at least extrinsically probable. The negative opinion seems more probable. The reason is that that circumstance of physical virginity or integrity is merely material with respect to the virtue of chastity, and therefore the sin against chastity is not changed in species. Hence, which is consequent, this circumstance of virginity in any sins whatever committed by a female or male, virgins, will not be necessarily explained in Confession, unless perhaps on the occasion of reservation, or censure, or another extrinsic circumstance, for instance if it culpably became known, and disgrace and damage came about, which must be repaired. S. Th. 2. 2, q. 154, aa. 1, 4; Laym. l. c. An inflicted injury demands satisfaction; inflicted damage, if it follows, demands restitution. But for repairing the inflicted damage, if no promise of marriage intervened, the defiler is bound either to marry the girl, or to dower her sufficiently or sufficiently increase her dowry, so that she may marry another as equally as if she were a virgin. C. 1, 2 de Adult. et stupr.; C. B. 825. Cf. 1376; L. l. 3, nn. 640-612, 648; Laym. l. c. nn. 2, 4; Lugo de Poenit. d. 16, s. 4, section 7; C. I. Poen. 331 seqq.; C. G. 331 seqq.

What is abduction? - Abduction can be taken in two ways. First it can be taken as it is a diriment impediment of marriage, and it is the violent leading away of any woman from the home or paternal or quasi-paternal power to another place for contracting marriage, under the power of the abductor. In another way, however, it is a species of lust; and this is the carrying away of any person, whether male or female, whether virgin or corrupted, whether married or unmarried, from place to place, force being brought either against the one abducted or against those to whose power the person is subject, namely parents or guardians, or husband, but not if they are brothers and the woman is of her own right, for the sake of fulfilling lust. Inst. l. 4, t. 4, section 2. Therefore in the first way the person is carried away for the sake of contracting marriage; in the other way, for the sake of lust. Abduction in the 1st way is discussed in the treatise on Marriage; here we deal with abduction in the 2nd way.

Moreover it is clear how abduction thus taken differs from defilement. For defilement has place only with an unwilling virgin, but abduction with any person; defilement involves only violence or fraud, abduction also the leading away from place to place; defilement brings violence only to the virgin, abduction to the person abducted, or to those to whose power the abducted person is subject, or even to both. "Hence you see that abduction of a virgin, the base effect having followed, differs from defilement only very accidentally." Sporer de Matr. 603. Yet if someone departs voluntarily with a lover, the parents not knowing, there will not properly be abduction, but flight, not adding malice distinct in species to fornication. Therefore the proper malice of abduction consists in the injury which is brought in violent carrying away for the sake of lust. Therefore, just as defilement perfectly such, so abduction, besides the sin of lust, contains a sin of injustice; and that injustice is both against the person herself who is violently carried away, and also against parents or any other persons whatever in whose power that person is constituted. From Trent, s. 24, C. 6 de R. M., the abductor is bound "to dower decently, at the judgment of the judge, the woman abducted, whether he has married her or has not married her," unless the woman is a prostitute or of bad reputation. S. Th. 2. 2, q. 154, a. 7; L. 444; C. I. Poen. 349 seqq.; C. G. 354 seqq.; C. B. 826.

What is adultery? - Adultery is intercourse with another's spouse. It is a grave sin, distinct in species from others, Heb. 13:4. Besides the sin against chastity, it includes another against justice. For it violates in a grave matter the inalienable right of the other spouse; hence such malice does not cease, although that spouse consents. L. 445; S. Th. 2. 2, q. 154, a. 8.

The degrees of gravity of this sin are: 1. Grave, when an unmarried person sins with a married person, because besides fornication he sins against the right of a third party only by cooperating. 2. More grave, when a married person sins with an unmarried person, because besides cooperation in fornication he sins against the fidelity given by himself to his own spouse, and violates the right acquired by the spouse in his body. 3. Most grave, when a married person sins with a married person, because he himself sins against justice, violating the right of his own spouse, and cooperates in the sin against justice of his accomplice, likewise violating the right of his own spouse. Hence the state of each is altogether to be declared in Confession. The adultery of a wife is more grave than the adultery of a husband, because of the most grave damage to the family and to the legitimate heirs, willed in the cause, which circumstance introduces another species of malice. Sporer 529; L. 445; C. I. Poen. 353 seqq.; C. G. 336 seqq.; C. B. 823, 821.

"Adultery is committed by a married person in every species whatsoever of lust, at least external, not only natural, with an unmarried person, a married person, a relative, a sacred person, etc.; but also against nature, by bestiality, sodomy, softness, and likewise by kisses and touches even with unmarried persons; and therefore a married man or married woman doing such things is bound to explain the state of his or her marriage. Most common of the doctors: Sanchez l. 9, d. 18, n. 4; Lugo, Tamburini. The reason is because in all these things an injury is always done to the spouse, according to the Apostle: The husband does not have power over his own body, etc. And conversely." Sporer 529.

Spouses also contract the malice of adultery or quasi-adultery when sinning against nature by sodomy or softness, when mutually or separately they pollute themselves. For thus their flesh is most truly divided against the fidelity of marriage. But they must necessarily explain that that sin was committed with their own spouse; otherwise they will never explain the sin committed by themselves. Sporer 526; L. 446; Diana tr. 6 de Matr. r. 186, n. 4; E. M.

What is incest? Incest is intercourse with blood relatives or relatives by affinity within the degrees prohibited by the Church for marriage. Incest is a grave sin, and differs in species from other sins of lust. For it is not only against chastity, but also against the piety and reverence which those joined owe mutually to themselves. S. Th. 2. 2, q. 154, a. 9; L. 448; C. I. Poen. 337; C. G. 333 seqq.

Do not only intercourse, but also all immodest touches among relatives put on the nature of incest, necessarily to be explained in Confession? R. Affirmatively. For these acts also are contrary to the reverence due to relatives. L. 453, 469; Billuart Diss. 6, art. 6, 9; Cf. here 784.

What is sacrilege? - Sacrilege, insofar as it is a sin of lust, is the violation of a sacred place, thing, or person through a venereal act. Therefore besides sin against chastity, it also embraces sin against religion. Sacrilege "can be placed as a species of lust," because chastity consecrated to divine worship is violated. S. Th. 2. 2, q. 154, a. 10; L. 454.

What is softness or pollution? Softness, or voluntary pollution, is the voluntary emission of human seed outside intercourse or concubitus. Voluntary; for this emission of seed can also come naturally from the very abundance of humor, and can often be determined by several extrinsic circumstances, both in the state of wakefulness and especially in sleep. But some of these circumstances are physical, such as weakness of temperament, some disease producing irritation of the genital organs, lying on the back, softness and heat of the bed, exciting drinks, exercise of riding, etc.; others are moral, such as thoughts of venereal things, readings of the same things, conversations, etc. But pollution will be voluntary when it is intended in itself or even in its cause, whatever that cause finally may be. Since, moreover, this voluntary pollution often is excited by manual contact, hence commonly it is called masturbation.

Emission: this emission in males occurs outside the genital member; hence it is exterior emission. But in females it occurs both outside, though more rarely, and within the genital vessel without any exterior outflow. Although in females this emission occurs in the genital vessel, they themselves sensibly perceive it; for in it they are affected by great pleasure, and once it is completed they are satiated and are at rest; and by this sign of great pleasure and subsequent satisfaction it is discerned whether in reality they have been polluted. Hence pollution differs altogether from inordinate motions, which motions are alteration, commotion, swelling, erection of the genital parts; and these motions are joined to the sense of venereal pleasure, and dispose to pollution. These motions can have place both in men and in women. Of seed: seed here generally is understood as the viscous humor destined for generation by the Creator Himself. This humor is not of the same nature in male and female. For the matter which is secreted through pollution in a female is not prolific, but a certain simple mucous excretion, which renders the work of marriage easier; nevertheless it tends and is ordered by nature to the release and fecundation of the ovule, and in the ovule is the prolific element on the part of the woman. But the matter which is secreted in a male is truly prolific, and it is originally elaborated in the testicles. In it, however, there is to be distinguished mucus, especially prostatic and urethral, which serves to dilute the seed so that it may be emitted more easily in intercourse, and the seed itself, which is the prolific element on the part of the man, and which consists in zoospermata or nemaspermata. Hence pollution in a man differs from distillation, which is a certain urethral excretion, and flow of another humor, which is elaborated not in the testicles, but from the prostate gland and from the mucous glands of the urethra; nor is it prolific, nor is it usually emitted with so vehement, but only with light, indeed sometimes without any commotion of the flesh and venereal pleasure. Women also can experience not only pollution, but also an outflow of a certain humor from the vulvo-vaginal glands, not unlike the distillation of males, which therefore is not per se to be confused with true softness or pollution. Outside intercourse or concubitus; hence pollution has this, that it is a sin against nature, and therefore diverse in species. And thus S. Th. 2. 2, q. 154, aa. 1, 11, 12 constantly derives the special malice of the vice against nature from this, that through it the generation of offspring is impeded, and that it is contrary to the natural order itself of the venereal act.

What is bestiality? - Bestiality is concubitus with a beast. The species of this sin is not changed, morally speaking, from the variety of beasts. But whether it is morally changed from diversity of sex, some affirm, but commonly and more probably it is denied. "Therefore the whole essential deformity of this crime consists in approach to a different species." L. 474. "That bestiality be complete, the emission of seed is required on the part of the perpetrator. Soettler says there is no need to declare in Confession whether intercourse was in the womb or in another part of the body of the brute, since no part is destined for receiving human seed. Nevertheless, in the case in which this sin were reserved, Billuart holds that insemination within the vessel of the brute is necessary, because reservation, as odious, must be restricted to the consummated act. Therefore Billuart does not repute bestiality consummated unless it is done within the vessel of the brute; hence, at least for the most part, it cannot be consummated by women." Craisson, Notiones circa sext. Decal. praec., n. 178. S. Th. 2. 2, q. 154, a. 11; E. M.

What about touches with a beast? "Immodest touches with a beast, although they are not properly sins of bestiality, nevertheless have some special baseness, as Elbel says, at least venial." L. 474; Cf. here 814.

What is sodomy? "There is a great question in what act sodomy consists. Some hold that it consists in concubitus toward an undue vessel. Others, in concubitus toward an undue sex. Each opinion is probable, and in each opinion there is seen the special deformity which sodomy has against nature, which requires that both be preserved for generation, that is, the due vessel and the due sex." L. 466. The second opinion is said by St. Alphonsus, l. c., to be the more probable and common opinion of theologians. "The reason is that true and proper sodomy is committed in access to a person with whom generation can in no way take place." L. ib.

According to this opinion it does not matter in what vessel males or females come together among themselves, in the anterior or posterior, or in another part of the body, since the malice of sodomy consists in affection toward the undue sex, and is complete in its genus when the application of the genital member to a part of the body of the same sex is done by way of concubitus. But if there were only application of the hand, foot, or mouth to the genital parts of another, even if pollution should have place from each side, it would not be reputed sodomy, because it would not be concubitus. Cf. 814. L. 446, 485; S. Th. 2. 2, q. 154, aa. 11, 12; Rom. 1:26, 27; Constitutions of St. Pius V, Cum primum, 1 Apr. 1566; Horrendum illud, 30 Aug. 1568; C. I. Poen. 338; C. G. 330; E. M.

1. By the sixth precept of the Decalogue all things are prohibited which are repugnant to the ordered propagation of the human race. For all these, in their own way, are reduced to adultery, as to the primary act repugnant to this ordered propagation. But by the ninth precept all interior concupiscence is prohibited concerning those external works which already had been previously prohibited by the sixth precept. Each of these precepts prohibits lust, which is: the inordinate appetite or use of venereal things. St. Thomas, 2.2, q. 154, a. 1; L. 412, 414. Therefore the malice of lust consists in this: that man uses venereal things, that is, the motion of the genital spirits and semen, which by nature and by God as author of nature is ordained to the due propagation of the human race, inordinately for pleasure or for another perverse end.

Inordinately, that is, outside marriage, or contrary to the laws of marriage within marriage.

Now then: 1. Lust, of whatever genus or species, is per se a grave sin. The reason is: 1. Because it fights gravely against nature. For the use of the venereal matter from its nature was instituted and is necessary for the conservation and propagation alone of the human race; therefore it cannot be usurped outside marriage; indeed, not even in marriage except in the due mode, without grave disturbance of right order. 2. Because it is prohibited under grave obligation by God the Author of nature, as is clear from innumerable places of Sacred Scripture. And thus the Apostle Paul, in the Epistle to the Galatians 5:19, says: manifest are the works of the flesh, which are fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, lust... which I foretell to you, as I have foretold: that they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God. - L. 414; St. Thomas, 2.2, q. 153, a. 2, 3.

2. Directly voluntary lust in any genus never admits smallness of matter. The reason is that any delectation directly sought necessarily introduces subversion, in a most grave matter, of the natural order established by the Creator. This is clear also from proposition 40 condemned by Alexander VII, which lies thus: It is a probable opinion which says that a kiss had for carnal and sensible delectation, which arises from the kiss, is only venial, the danger of further consent and of pollution being excluded. - Sporer, de Matrim., n. 689-690; L. 475, 476; St. Thomas, 2.2, q. 153, a. 2, 3.

3. But indirectly voluntary lust admits smallness of matter, because then there is no consent or intention toward venereal pleasure, but only toward the cause, which is lightly sinful, since it influences venereal delectation only lightly. G. 412 (Gury, Comp. Theol. mor., t. 1, n. 412); L. 482, 483. And indeed, since that cause per se influences that pleasure only lightly, and therefore ineffectively, there is had indeed a permission of it, in no way a willing of it. But if someone not only permits that venereal pleasure, but also actually wills and intends it, in that cause, he will be guilty of grave fault; because in reality he wills and intends a venereal thing, which is gravely illicit.

4. Moreover, lust is directly opposed to chastity, which taken generally is: the moral virtue which moderates the inordinate appetite and use of venereal things. A part of chastity, and indeed the most perfect part, is virginity, which imports two things: namely integrity of body, and integrity of mind, or the purpose of preserving that integrity of body forever. Virginity is lost physically in a girl by the opening or breaking of the virginal cloister, and in a male by the effusion of semen; but morally it is lost, more or less, both by a woman and by a male, through voluntary pollution, or merely venereal delectation, or only through consent to these, although in reality neither pollution nor venereal delectation takes place. Yet as regards the political state and in the face of the Church, a girl remains a virgin so long as the cloister of virginity has not been violated by intercourse, and a male so long as he has not carnally known a woman. Whence "a nun who before profession or consecration voluntarily polluted herself, although she loses, as was said, virginity according to virtue, nevertheless since she does not lose it according to state, because she rejoices in an intact virginal cloister, needs no dispensation for making profession and for receiving the veil granted only to virgins. And for the same reason, the same woman can without scruple accept a legacy left to virgins alone, and pronounce herself a virgin in order to marry, etc. Azor, citing Bonac. and others, teaches that a virgin secretly violated in the cloister cannot put herself forward for requesting the veil of consecration, even if from this she is going to incur infamy; but that she can exercise the offices proper to a virgin, indeed offer herself for them, lest she be defamed; because, he says, ecclesiastical institutes do not oblige with so much rigor. But with peace to Azor, a most learned man, this reason proves that in a similar danger of infamy she can not only put herself forward for the aforesaid offices, but also request the veil of consecration, as he holds, citing Suarez and Pell., because that likewise is from an ecclesiastical institute." Tamburini, Explic. Decal., l. VII, c. 5, n. 2, 3; Sporer, after tr. V, append. ad VI praecept., n. 6; Struggl, tr. 7, q. 4, art. 1, n. 2; Billuart, tr. de Temper., Dissert. 4, de Cast., etc., art. 1, 2, 5; Dissert. 5, de Luxur., art. 1, 2; St. Thomas, 2.2, q. 152.

2. Note 1. In order that the object of lust be rightly understood, in this matter a twofold delectation must be distinguished: one venereal, which is also called carnal, another sensible. Venereal delectation, or delectation concerning a base thing, can be either merely spiritual, namely that which is in the mere will, without any base commotion in the body, or not merely spiritual but at the same time carnal, as if there is present a base commotion in the body. La-Croix, l. 3, n. 890-892. This venereal and carnal delectation is felt in the genital parts through the commotion of the genital spirits and semen; on the contrary, sensible delectation is felt in other senses from their application to their own object, and from the proportion of this object to its proper sense. If venereal delectation is intended either directly in itself, or indirectly in the cause, it is called sought; but if, after it has followed besides the intention, free consent of the will is added, the delectation is called admitted.

Sensible delectation is twofold: one is purely such, the other is sensible-venereal. Purely sensible delectation is that which arises from an object which of itself precisely is not apt to move to venereal delectation; as, for example, the delectation which arises from the touch of silk, the smell of a flower, the hearing of music, the taste of sugar. Sensible-venereal delectation is that which arises from an object which of itself in some way is apt to move to venereal delectation, as, for example, the delectation which arises from touch, from the embrace of a woman, from her kiss, etc. L. 412, 413, 415.

Venereal delectation deliberately voluntary among persons to whom intercourse is illicit properly looks to lust and is a grave sin from its whole genus, not admitting smallness of matter. The reason is that venereal delectation of itself is ordained to the generative act and the propagation of the human race, which is a most grave matter; and if besides it is notable, it contains from its intrinsic nature the proximate danger of pollution, which is directly repugnant to generation. This is confirmed from proposition 40, condemned by Alexander VII, already cited in n. 1, 2. For that condemnation of the proposition is to be understood: 1. of warmer and lingering kisses, which from their nature proximately dispose to venereal delectation; by no means, however, of lighter kisses and those transitorily impressed, which only remotely dispose to venereal delectation; 2. of even lighter kisses, but had for the sake of carnal or venereal delectation. For in that proposition carnal and sensible are joined, so that by the name sensible delectation you understand carnal delectation itself, or delectation which is sensible and at the same time carnal. If, therefore, those kisses are grave on account of the proximate danger and on account of the intended end of venereal delectation, venereal delectation of itself is grave. Hence "he sins gravely who spontaneously consents to light carnal motions spontaneously occurring." L. 415.

Purely sensible delectation, as such, does not properly pertain to lust, but to sensuality, and of itself it is not evil, but indifferent. Nor indeed can another malice be found in it except that which generally is in an act which is not referred to a rational end; such certainly would be the case if someone not only acted with that delectation, but also for the sake of that same delectation, positively excluding a further honest end and resting in it.

Finally, sensible-venereal delectation either from its nature proximately disposes to venereal delectation, or only remotely. If proximately, it is a grave sin on account of the proximate danger of venereal delectation. If remotely, it does not per se exceed venial sin, if it is directly intended, on account of the inordination which is directly intended in it, yet not a grave one, since the proximate danger of venereal delectation is absent. Whence, from some sensuality only, to look at a beautiful woman, to touch her face or hand, or to give her a light kiss, another depraved intention or danger of consent to another grave thing being excluded, is only a venial sin. Struggl, tr. 2, q. 2, n. 15, 4, 5, 6, 7; Tamburini, Expl. decal., l. 7, c. 8, n. 1 et seqq.; Sporer, de Matr., n. 686, 688, 691; Billuart, Dissert. 5, de Luxur., art. 1, 2; Ithurriaga, Cas. 51, n. 3 seqq.; Cas. 18, n. 1 seqq.

The theologians commonly warn, however, as regards practice, that "from sensual delectation to venereal, especially in the sense of touch or sight, the progress is easy." Billuart, de Temp., diss. 5, art. 2; L. l. 3, n. 416; l. 6, n. 854.

3. Note 2. In order that it may also be rightly understood how virginity is a part, and indeed the most perfect part, of chastity taken generally, and is not confused with it, a threefold chastity must be distinguished: conjugal, vidual, virginal. Conjugal chastity is that which in marriage moderately uses lawful pleasures. Vidual chastity is that which, after the death of a spouse or after virginity lost from some other source, thenceforth abstains from the appetite and use of venereal things by a firm purpose. Finally, virginal chastity is that which proposes perpetually to abstain from all carnal pleasures, both illicit and those lawful in marriage. St. Thomas, 2.2, q. 151, 153.

4. Note 3. Finally, that what has been said concerning the nature of virginity may be rightly understood, it must be known that some place the virginal cloister in women in a certain membrane, which is called the hymen and is situated at the entrance of the vagina, and this, having been torn by male intercourse or by another extraneous cause, is abolished; but others wish it to be nothing other than the compression or folding together of the orifice of the female vessel, which is dilated by the congress of a man or by another extraneous cause, and thus the vessel is opened. But although the hymen is commonly found in virgins, nevertheless its presence or absence is not indeed a certain sign of virginity; for several cases of virgins are cited who have lacked it. Billuart, Diss. 6, art. 3; Milne Edwards, Lecons sur la Physiologie, Paris 1870, tome 9, pag. 59, 65, 66; Debreyne, Moechialogie, l. P., ch. 1, art. 2, sect. 2; Longet, Physiologie, Paris 1850, t. 2, pag. 139; Ant., p. 113, 115 (Antonelli, Medicina Pastoralis, second edition, pag. 113, 114, 115).

5. Lust is one kind interior, another exterior. The former is the voluntary occupation of fantasy, intellect, and will through joy, morose delectation, or desire concerning a venereal thing for the sake of pleasure. The latter is the very use of venereal things for the sake of pleasure, and it is multiple in species; for one kind is in non-consummated acts, another in consummated acts, which differ in species from the former; and both this kind, which is in consummated acts, and that which is in non-consummated acts, is subdivided into other species according to the specific diversity of objects. - But consummated acts in this matter are those acts which reach all the way to the effusion of prolific humor. Acts which do not reach this term are non-consummated acts, which properly are acts of sensuality and immodesty. - St. Thomas, 2.2, q. 151, a. 4; q. 154, a. 1, ad 5; q. 155, a. 2, 3, 4; L. 412.

We shall explain these various species of lust step by step here in various chapters and articles.

12. Sins opposed to chastity are called by the general name of luxury (from the word luxus). Before we explain the individual sins, a general principle concerning their gravity must be established.

General principles concerning the gravity of luxury. There are two, according as venereal delectation is directly or indirectly willed.

13. First Principle: Venereal delectation properly so called, directly willed, with full deliberation, outside legitimate matrimony, is a mortal sin from its whole genus, or does not admit smallness of matter. Thus commonly against Caramuel and a few others who excuse from mortal sin a slight venereal delectation deliberately sought.

It is explained. (a) Here there is question of venereal delectation properly so called, which arises from the movement of the organs serving generation, but not of merely sensible, or organic, delectation, which according to many theologians of itself does not exceed venial fault. "Whence," says Billuart,¹ "as one who hears a sonorous voice, who tastes savory food, precisely on account of the organic or sensual delectation arising therefrom, sins only venially; so he sins only venially who looks at a beautiful woman, or touches her hand or face, precisely on account of merely organic or sensual delectation, consisting, as I have already said, in a certain proportion and conformity of the thing seen or touched with the organ of sight or touch; so that it is nothing other than delectation concerning a beautiful thing which is seen, or concerning a pleasing, soft, tender thing which is touched, without any other delectation of any shameful thing whatever." Nevertheless the wise author observes that from sensual delectation to venereal there is an easy progress, and therefore in practice one must not linger over these organic delectations.

¹ Billuart, De temperantia, diss. V, art. 2.

(b) There is likewise question of venereal delectation directly willed, namely which is expressly intended as an end or means (above, n. 168); and indeed with full deliberation and perfect consent: for these conditions are required for every mortal sin (n. 474-475).

14. It is proved. (a) For from what has been said (n. 1), venereal delectation has been ordered by the Author of nature to the propagation of the human race, and therefore is unlawful outside legitimate matrimony. But this prohibition is grave; for the end of the law is of the greatest moment, namely the propagation of the human race; and besides, unless it obliged under grave sin, it would be ineffective. For since man is most inclined to carnal delectations, and lust, once voluntarily admitted, clouds the mind and easily draws the will to worse things, it can scarcely happen that someone deliberately consent to venereal pleasure without incurring the danger of falling into the worst corruption: for one who, placed on a precipice, wishes to descend a few steps, is exposed to the proximate danger of sliding farther; and he who loves danger will perish in it. Therefore it is necessary that every deliberate delectation of this kind be prohibited under grave sin, lest man rush headlong into the vices of the flesh and thus frustrate the end intended by God. - In reality venereal delectation, deliberately admitted, easily induces or prepares the effusion of human seed. Now, unless such disorder were prohibited under grave sin, many men would refuse the burdens of matrimony, and would seek pleasure outside conjugal intercourse, and would not care for offspring to be begotten and educated.

(b) It is established from the condemnation of this proposition 40 by Alexander VII: "The opinion is probable which says that a kiss had on account of carnal and sensible delectation which arises from the kiss is only venial, with the danger of further consent and of pollution set aside." This proposition was condemned because it falsely supposes that a kiss had on account of carnal delectation, that is, venereal,² does not induce danger of consent into graver acts: for one who expressly seeks venereal delectation in a kiss, from things commonly occurring, does not stop here. Wherefore there is the greatest difference between honorable kisses, which are signs of friendship, and those which are done for the sake of lust.

² Carnal delectation signifies the same thing as venereal; sensual delectation, although by some it is distinguished from venereal, is taken by others for it: hence the sense must be determined from the context. Cf. Viva, on this proposition.

15. Second Principle: Venereal delectation only indirectly voluntary is not mortal from its whole genus, but admits smallness of matter. Thus commonly against the few who assert that there is not smallness of matter in luxury even indirectly voluntary.

It is explained. There is question of one who by no means intends venereal delectation, but places an action from which he foresees that some delectation of this kind will arise, although he does not wish to consent to it; e.g., concerning an adolescent who reads a book otherwise useful, foreseeing that from its reading carnal commotion will follow.

16. It is proved. For carnal delectation directly sought is said to be gravely sinful insofar as it induces proximate danger of further consent; but such danger often does not exist when an action honorable of itself is placed, from which indeed some venereal delectation is foreseen, but not intended; and therefore often there is either no sin, or the sin is only venial, according as there is or is not a proportionately grave reason for placing that action from which venereal delectation is foreseen. - But if at the same time it is foreseen that consent will accede to this pleasure, he commits mortal sin, because he truly wills to sin gravely.

17. For the rest, these principles will be understood more clearly from what is to be said below concerning the individual sins of luxury. - Sins of this kind are called consummated when voluntary and culpable effusion of seed is present;³ non-consummated when this effusion is not had. Sins are called naturally consummated if semination occurs in the mode by which generation can be obtained; consummated against nature if it happens in the mode which is opposed to the generation of offspring.

³ In women there is not properly effusion of seed, but only of some mucous fluid which is not prolific; but since this vaginal mucus is emitted with pleasure and erection of the organs, it is also called pollution, as in a man, and is held as a consummated sin of luxury when it happens voluntarily. Cf. Antonelli, t. I, n. 559-563.

— Notion. 1. Luxury is the inordinate appetite of venereal things, concerning which elsewhere expressly.

2. As a capital vice, it begets in the intellect: blindness of mind, alienated from heavenly thoughts; precipitation of one acting without counsel; inconsideration of one acting, which things disgrace his state or person; inconstancy in good purposes. But in the will of the luxurious person there grows false love of self, because of the custom of referring all things to oneself; hatred of God the avenger of sins is prepared; affection of the present age is fostered from inordinate fear of death. The four latter effects, but not the former, are grave from their kind.

The opposite virtue is chastity.

V. Lust is the inordinate appetite, that is, love and use, of venereal pleasure; but it is inordinate if, outside legitimate use in conjugal copulation and in acts disposing toward it, pleasure is sought. For pleasure, just as also the use of the genitals, by its nature is essentially ordered to the propagation of the human race. But this cannot occur in due mode except in the permanent matrimonial union, which is altogether necessary for the right education of offspring. Therefore the appetite and use of venereal things is inordinate if it is sought: first, without order to the act of legitimate marriage; secondly, in that act, but in an illegitimate and undue mode, beyond the rules prescribed by nature and reason.

By reason of the mode in which it occurs, lust is one thing when it is A. merely internal, which consists in the mere affection for or desire of pleasure or of the use of venereal things, and is prohibited by the ninth precept of the Decalogue; B. another when it is also external, which occurs with the use and commotion of the genital organs, and is prohibited by the sixth precept. This latter can be:

1. complete, perfect, and consummated, if the exterior act is brought to its natural term, that is, to satiative pleasure; whether a. it be natural or according to nature, and the act is apt for obtaining its natural end of generation, as fornication, adultery, incest; or b. it be unnatural or against nature, and the act is not apt for its natural end, but this is rendered impossible, as pollution, onanism, sodomy;

2. incomplete, imperfect, and begun, if the exterior act is not brought to its natural term and does not attain the final term of satiative pleasure. This stands to complete lust as beginning to term, means to end, inception to consummation; and therefore it is not so much called lust, which concerns the very pleasure of copulation, but rather immodesty concerning the accompanying pleasures.

By reason of the diverse intention of the will by which lust is committed, and therefore of diverse gravity and imputability:

1. one kind is directly and in itself willed, when someone intends and procures venereal pleasure itself for its own sake;

2. another is voluntary in the cause, when someone voluntarily places a cause which procures venereal pleasure, without willing and intending that pleasure in itself;

3. another is indirectly voluntary, when someone neither intends nor procures venereal pleasure, but does not prevent it, though it has arisen involuntarily, when he can and ought to prevent it.

Concerning the gravity of these outside marriage we must now speak.

II. The effects of this vice are some physical, some psychological, some moral.

1. Physical. Young persons addicted to this vice easily contract a habit altogether tyrannical, which greatly weakens their strength: the frequency of immodest acts disturbs the whole nervous system and brain; hence grave irritations of the nervous system, weakness and general fatigue, headaches, diminished appetite for food, convulsions of the limbs, weakening of sight, hearing, and memory; then involuntary or passive pollutions accede, vehement palpitations of the heart, disturbance of circulation; sometimes also, but more rarely, incurable diseases: phthisis, dropsy, epilepsy, tabes dorsalis, phthisis of the spinal marrow, and among women, inflammation of the uterus, hysteria. Often also by frequent masturbation the potency of coeundi and generating is lost.

2. Psychological effects are: arrogance, melancholy, hypochondria, seeking of solitude, neurasthenia, and dementia.

3. Moral effects are depression of soul, enervation of will, inability for labors, especially intellectual ones: namely, the acuteness of the intellect and the energy of the will are weakened to such a point that they can scarcely abstain from sin. For the mind, infected with obscene images, can scarcely think of other things; soon noble ideas and pure affections vanish, and insane egoism prevails.

Nevertheless, not all these effects are always produced, nor in the same degree in all. For there are men of so robust a constitution of body that from this vice they suffer only slight injuries to health and light disturbances of the nerves. Therefore those who try to deter lustful young persons from vice by setting forth its evil effects must beware of exaggerations. Yet the danger is present lest an inveterate and almost incurable habit be contracted, from which the aforesaid effects more or less follow.

I. Lust is the inordinate appetite for venereal things. It is called:

1. An appetite for venereal things, or the love of venereal delight and of the use of the organs of generation, to which this delight is joined: a delight, namely, not merely spiritual, nor merely sensible, but at once carnal and venereal or sexual, which, namely, is proper to the generative parts of each sex and can be perceived in them alone;

2. inordinate, that is, exceeding the mode prescribed by right reason. But the mode prescribed by right reason is that the movement of the generative organs and venereal delight be sought in order to the due propagation of the human race in legitimate marriage. Therefore one who exceeds this mode on account of delight and seeks that delight more than is fitting acts inordinately.¹

¹ St. Thomas, II-II, q. 153, a. 1; Quaestiones disputatae de Malo, 15.

Venereal delight, namely, as also the use of the generative organs, from its nature is essentially ordered to the propagation of the human race. But this cannot be done in a due mode except in a permanent matrimonial union, which is altogether necessary for the right education of offspring. Therefore the appetite and use of venereal things is inordinate if it is sought: 1. without order to the act of legitimate marriage; 2. in that act, but in an illegitimate and undue mode, outside the rules prescribed by nature and reason.

II. The species and gravity of lust. - Lust is external or merely internal, according as the use of the generative organs and venereal delight is unduly admitted in reality, or, on the contrary, represented only in the mind, pleases or is desired.

External lust is perfect or complete, or imperfect or incomplete, according as the use of the generative organs is complete and reaches its natural terminus and satiative delight, or, on the contrary, the use is incomplete and is not brought through to its terminus and does not attain perfectly satiative delight. Complete or perfect lust is according to nature or against nature, according as the act of itself is apt for obtaining the natural end of generation, or is not apt for this end, since this end, on the contrary, is rendered impossible. Each comprehends several distinct species.²

² St. Thomas, II-II, q. 154, a. 1 and 11.

Now, according to the principles of moral science, lust is a grave sin from its genus, since it is opposed to the due propagation of the human race and thus is naturally apt to harm the common good,³ and indeed:

³ St. Thomas, II-II, q. 153, a. 3; cf. Gal. 5:19-21.

1. Every lust outside marriage, directly and sought for its own sake, is a grave sin, even incomplete and imperfect lust, since every venereal delight from its nature is ordered to perfect and complete delight and is its beginning; whence directly and in itself to will it is implicitly to will the perfect act. But indirectly, or in a cause willed, it can sometimes be only venial, if the influence is light and the danger light.

2. Lust in the use of marriage is grave if it is against nature, as being impeditive of generation; otherwise it is of itself only venial, as if spouses exercise intercourse in the natural mode but for pleasure alone.

All these things are abundantly declared in our little work Concerning Chastity and Lust.

III. Lust is a capital vice. - A capital sin has a highly appetible end, by whose appetite man proceeds to perpetrate many sins. But the end of lust is the delight of venereal things, which is the greatest of all and most appetible, both on account of the vehemence of the delight and on account of the connaturality of this concupiscence. Therefore lust is evidently a capital sin.⁴

⁴ St. Thomas, II-II, q. 153, a. 4; Quaestiones disputatae de Malo, 15, a. 4.

IV. Lust has eight daughters. - St. Gregory, Morals, book 31, c. 45 (or 17), enumerates eight interior daughters of lust. For since the appetite of lust is most vehement, it follows that it most of all impedes the use of the higher powers, that is, of intellect and will. For all powers proceed from the soul as from one source and root; whence the intense exercise of one power diminishes the force of acting in the others and draws vigor away from them. And therefore "when the lower powers are vehemently affected toward their own objects, it follows that the higher powers are impeded and disordered in their own acts." Hence lust:

A. In the intellect produces:

1. blindness of mind in the right consideration of the end and its goodness, or alienation from thinking of heavenly things;

2. precipitation in counsel and deliberation concerning the choice of means;

3. inconsideration in judgment concerning things to be done, which are unbecoming to one's state or person;

4. inconstancy in commanding the execution of judgment, or in good purposes; for it softens the heart of man and renders it weak.

From these things it appears that lust most of all overturns prudence.

B. In the will it produces, concerning the end:

5. love of self, not indeed as to all things, but as to the delight of the flesh which it inordinately desires;

6. hatred of God, insofar as He prohibits the desired delight;

concerning the means to the end:

7. affection for the present age, that is, excessive love of the present life on account of its pleasures;

8. horror and despair of the future age, that is, of spiritual goods, because while someone is too much detained by carnal delights, he does not care to arrive at spiritual ones, but disdains and despises them.⁵

⁵ St. Thomas, II-II, q. 153, a. 5, together with q. 53, a. 6; Quaestiones disputatae de Malo, 15, a. 4.

To these Isidore, on Deut., c. 16, adds four exterior inordinate acts, principally pertaining to speech. For speech can be inordinate in four ways:

1. as to matter, and thus shameful speech is posited; for because the mouth speaks from the abundance of the heart, therefore the mouth of the lustful man, whose heart abounds with shameful concupiscences, easily speaks shameful things;

In the opening lecture of this course, I remarked to you, gentlemen, that the scope of Medical Jurisprudence is much wider than that of Medical Law. It embraces many subjects of which human laws take no cognizance, and in particular such vicious actions as do not violate the rights of others, but are injurious to those only who practise them. They undermine the health and shorten the lives of the guilty parties, and bring in their train diseases the most destructive and often the most incurable. It is the physician’s beneficent task to lessen the weaknesses and sufferings of the body, and to prolong human life in well-preserved vigor to a green old age. It is not the least important part of his valuable services to provide for the sound and vigorous propagation of the human race to future generations. Of this propagation of our race, of the laws which govern it, and of the criminal abuses by which these laws are violated, I am to treat in this present lecture. My subject is “Venereal Excesses.”

I. If a physician’s purpose were only to make money, his task would then be to multiply diseases and infirmities; he would then be as great a curse to mankind as he is really intended to be a blessing; and an immense blessing he will be to his fellow-men if he studies to remove even the remote causes of diseases and untimely deaths. He can do so in a variety of ways and not the least by providing against sexual excesses and abuses. These are a copious fountain of ill to humanity. A host of diseases, such as tuberculosis, diabetes, cardial and nervous affections, epilepsy, hysteria, general debility, weaknesses of sight, languor and general worthlessness, hypochondria, weakness and total loss of reason, and, in married life, impotence and sterility are some of the effects of venereal excesses. Any excitement of the sexual passion before the body has received its full development is more or less injurious to its welfare; and all excesses or unnatural indulgence of it at any period of life is pregnant with deplorable consequences. Now, such evil practices are too much overlooked by many physicians; yet it is certain that thousands of patients might, by timely warning on these matters, be saved from unspeakable mental and physical sufferings. To give sensible and intelligible directions on a subject as delicate as it is important in medical practice, it will be necessary to enter into some scientific details.

The passion which prompts to sexual intercourse is altogether natural in itself, and, as such, intended by the Creator to be indulged in at the right time and in the proper manner. It is the stimulus which He has provided for the propagation of the human race. If the stimulus is strong at times, this too is a special effect of His wisdom; because without a powerful prompting of this kind, most men would shirk the burden of married life, just as very many would not care to toil if they had no hunger and thirst and other bodily wants to satisfy.

But though all these cravings are useful and even indispensable to mankind, all of them need the regulation of reason. When they are indulged immoderately or in unnatural ways, they become most copious sources of bodily diseases, of mental disorders, and moral degradation. Every one knows how the passion of drink, when abused, proves the ruination of millions; excessive eating, too, injures the systems of countless people. But no animal passion is more liable to become disorderly, none needs more firm control and habitual watchfulness, than the passion of lust. Reason dictates that it should be indulged for no other purpose than that for which the Creator has made it, namely, marital intercourse. I say marital and not merely sexual intercourse; for outside of married life all nations have always condemned its indulgence.

Besides, it is only in the married state that the children, which are the fruit of such intercourse, can be properly educated. To generate a race of young barbarians is certainly not the purpose of the sexual relations. Children must not be begotten unless they can be properly raised, in a manner worthy of their noble destiny. Now, it is only in the married state, in the family or domestic society, that they can be thus educated. They need the tender hand of a mother to supply their material wants; they need the manly care of a devoted father to provide the necessaries of life, his firm hand to break their wanton wills, and his wise direction to set them well on the road to temporal and eternal happiness. Therefore, no one has the right to beget or to bear children except in marital life. Now, the sexual passion is to be exercised only in connection with its proper object, the procreation of children and the fostering of such mutual love between husband and wife as is conducive to domestic happiness. Therefore this passion is to be kept under careful and rational constraint. This the law of morality requires; all nations have ever exacted that this passion shall be subject to established rules; no free-love has ever been tolerated where there was the least pretence to civilization, and I do not know that it was ever permitted even among barbarians.

Even the distant approach that Mormonism made towards free-love has been absolutely condemned and repressed by the common-sense of the American people, as incompatible with civilization. In fact, all history testifies that the true civilization of any race or country rises or falls with the restraints imposed on the passion of lust; no polygamous nation has ever been more than half-civilized. The greatness of Rome and Greece decayed when the laws of social purity declined; and in our own day the immorality of what is called “the social evil” is the darkest stain on modern civilization.

And what we say of civilization or social soundness, the soundness of the body politic, applies in a great measure to individual soundness, the health of every person’s mind and body. Personal purity promotes health and vigor, it lends beauty to form, gives a keen edge to the intellect, adds energy and brings success to manhood, and prepares for enduring and honored old age. Venereal excesses, on the contrary, undermine the vigor of the constitution, bring on a host of bodily infirmities, exhaust the system before the proper time, debauch and degrade the mind and will, and prepare their victims for an early grave or a decrepit old age.

II. But how can a passion so ardent be properly restrained? In particular, what can a physician do to prevent the manifold injuries which, if not properly controlled, it will bring to his patients? These are practical questions directly to our purpose.

The first requisite for all effective action is to have correct knowledge and strong convictions on a subject. No one will check a passion with firmness if he have a lingering doubt as to whether, after all, he is strictly bound to restrain it. As a man’s mind matures, at least if his mind be upright and not distorted by the strain of a ruling passion, he understands more and more thoroughly that his perfection consists and his highest interests lie in obeying at all times the law of reason, in maintaining his specific dignity of a rational being, and not allowing himself to be controlled by passion, the ruling power of brute animals. Besides, he becomes aware in various ways of the evil results of immoral practices, and he sees many reasons to keep his passions in check. But young people have neither such experience nor such information, and they are not always wise enough to understand the imperative dictates of self-restraint. And yet it is often in early years, while body and mind are in the period of development, that the most serious injury is done to the constitution and to the character by the indulgence of carnal pleasures. Habits are then engendered which become a real slavery; so that later in life when there arises a sincere desire to stop such disgraceful practices, there is a feeling of impotence to resist temptations which by one’s own fault have become a second nature.

What then can be done with the young? They must early and authoritatively be told of the wrong, the sin of base self-indulgence, and of every practice that leads to it. If a beginning of immorality is discovered in a child, it must be plainly told and emphatically warned of the serious consequences involved. The child’s mother is, as a rule, the best guide and director in infancy. Later on, the Doctor has frequent chances to do so; it comes from him with better grace than from others; and his warning is likely to be minded, because it is clear that he knows and ought to know what he is talking about with regard to bodily consequences. Yet it is always a matter of delicacy; and great care should be taken lest, while pointing out the evil, there be also a stimulus added to a prurient curiosity.

Much good sense is required in any given case to decide whether more good or more evil is likely to result from the warning; in doubt of success, it is better to leave the matter alone.

“Where ignorance is bliss

’Tis folly to be wise.”

The safest way of repressing the passion of lust is the provision that an all-wise Providence supplies in Religion, in which God authoritatively forbids all immoral action and even all immoral coveting or desire. Positive dogmatic teaching on this subject is required, especially with the young. You cannot argue with them on this matter as you can with grown people. That is one reason why religious teaching should permeate early education. The Decalogue should be the back-bone of a child’s training: and it should be proposed on the authority of God, and explained so as to check not only sinful acts, but also covetings, prurient curiosity, improper reading, immodest looks and thoughts, in a word, whatever paves the way to the walks of sin. The greatest of teachers has Himself laid down the law in this matter: it must be proposed as coming from His divine lips, as it did: “I say to you that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (St. Matt. v. 28). The lesson is enforced by these words of the^† great Apostle: “Neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate ... shall possess the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. vi. 9, 10).

True, the child will not realize the full import of such lessons; but he will understand it in due time; and already in early years he will be warned against indulging his nascent passions. It is well that the conscience should be early awakened in this matter; for the more this passion is indulged, the more it craves for further indulgence till it becomes almost uncontrollable.

III. No possible evil to any individual man or woman can result from the firm control that one may acquire over the passion of lust. On the contrary, if it should be controlled all through life, this would only add to a man’s strength of mind, firmness of will, soundness of body, and length of life. For in the school of morality, in which every Physician should be educated, the leading principle is: “Contraries are cured by contraries,” “Contraria contrariis curantur.” On this principle, lust is most efficiently controlled by aiming, at least in youth, at total abstinence from its indulgence. You know that, in the Catholic Church, priests and religious lead a single life, and pledge themselves for life to practise the most perfect control of the sexual passion. What do you think is the result of their total abstinence on this point with regard to their length of days? As a rule their life is much longer, in normal circumstances, than that of the other learned professions. Here are a few proofs. In France, during the twenty years from 1823 to 1843, 750 priests died in the diocese of Paris. Of these only 200 were under sixty years old; there were 554 between sixty and seventy years old, 448 over seventy, and 177 over eighty. Again, of 202 Carmelite nuns who died in a large convent of Paris, Dr. Descuret, the attending physician, states that 82 had lived over seventy years, 23 over eighty years. Most Trappists and Carthusians die of scarcely any other sickness than old age. All young people who aspire to the clerical or religious profession learn from their early years the holiness and the loveliness of purity. Our Church effects this result by placing before their youthful imaginations the most perfect of patterns of virtue, the infant Saviour, the virgin Mother, the boy saints Aloysius and Stanislaus, the maidens Agatha and Cecilia, and a whole phalanx of Christian heroes and heroines.

I dwell the more willingly on this subject, gentlemen, because, besides protecting modesty in your young patients generally, it may fall to the lot of some of you, in the course of your professional careers, to be attending physicians to religious houses; and you will then appreciate the delicacy of the flowers of virtue that bloom beneath the shadow of the sanctuary. Certainly even there you may happen to find isolated cases of infidelity to duty; for human nature is not angelic nature; but in such abodes it comes near to it, at least for the vast majority.

IV. On the other hand, what sad havoc does not the sexual passion play where it is precociously developed and wantonly indulged. Dr. H. Fournier, one of the most eminent physicians of Paris, says: “There is not a vice more fatal to the conservation of man than masturbation.” This unfortunate habit is sometimes acquired by very little boys and girls. Foolish or vicious nurses may bring it on by handling young children most indelicately. This is one of the many reasons why none but virtuous servants and nurses should be employed by wise parents and physicians. In later years, children often learn this degrading and most injurious vice from their depraved companions, some of whom seem even to regard the practice of it as a manly accomplishment. When habitually indulged in, it produces on the health and the strength of the constitution effects the most deplorable. Even the intellect is liable to become thereby enfeebled, a want of virility is exhibited both in the body and in the mind of its victims; then follows a loss of ambition and self-control. “When this morbid passion gets control of a person,” writes an experienced practitioner in medicine, “it is as though an unclean spirit had entered, subdued the will, weakened the moral forces, enfeebled the intellectual faculties, lessened the power to resist temptation, and overcome every obstacle opposed to its gratification. Even while the intellect is still clear, and the sense of wrong keen, the individual is a slave to this morbid impulse.” Though the baneful effects may not always affect the physical health of the victim, the unfortunate practice very often engenders in boys and girls tendencies which in later years lead to all the miseries conspicuous in houses of debauch and infamy. But I need not dwell on consequences that belong to pathology rather than to Jurisprudence.

V. Confining myself to my sphere of what is morally right or wrong, I must be permitted to point out some gross violations of duty in some members of your honored profession. There are physicians so reckless of consequences and of principles alike as to advise at times the practice of illicit sexual intercourse. Let them beware; they are doing a very unwise and guilty act. Even if an immoral practice should save a human life, it may not be indulged, on the principle which must be by this time very familiar to your ears, that the end does not justify the means. And besides no good result can be expected from what is contrary to the law of nature and of nature’s God. It was to punish sins of the flesh that the Deluge was sent, which destroyed nearly the whole human race. “All flesh had corrupted its way,” says the sacred historian. It was to punish unlawful indulgence of lust that Sodom and Gomorrha were destroyed by fire from heaven; and the memory of these guilty cities is preserved in the very name of Sodomy. Onan, as the same sacred volume relates (Gen. xxxviii), performed the marriage act in a manner to frustrate it of its legitimate purpose, the generation of children, and the Lord slew him; and his sin is to this very day branded with his name and called Onanism. And yet in Christian lands physicians are found who will at times dare to recommend such practices to their patients.

On the occasions mentioned, God punished the guilty miraculously; but that is not His usual way. He has so contrived our natures that sins committed against His laws in our bodies ordinarily bring a part of their punishment in their train, not the less certain because slower in its operation than a miracle would be. All the venereal diseases are there to act as earthy ministers of Heaven’s justice, anticipating, and often mercifully averting, the punishments of the future world.

VI. Besides private and secret tortures of body and mind, a public and most deplorable calamity has descended of late on our own vigorous young nation, as well as on some older lands, threatening in the not distant future the extinction of many of its most esteemed families and of what was, not long ago, a vigorous stock. The following article by Dr. Walter Lindley, Professor of Gynecology in the University of Southern California, will explain the matter better than my words could do. It was read in Los Angeles at a meeting of the Southern Californian Medical Society in June, 1895, and is printed in the “N. Y. Medical Journal” of August 17 of the same year (pp. 211 and following). It is headed “American Sterility;” I will quote freely from it:

“The obstetrician finds his vocation disappearing among the American women from the face of the earth.

“It is a fact that the American family with more than one or two children is the exception. From the records of six generations of families in some New England towns, it was found that the families comprising the first generation had on an average between eight and ten children; the next three generations averaged about seven to each family; the fifth generation less than three to each family. The generation now on the stage is not doing so well as that. In Massachusetts the average family numbers less than three persons. In 1885 the census of Massachusetts disclosed that 71.28 per cent of the women of that State were childless. The census of 1885 in the State of New York shows that twenty-five per cent of the women of that State are childless, fifty per cent average less than one child, and seventy-five per cent average only a trifle over one child.

“Southern California has fully as dark a record as New England—that is, in the family where the man and wife are American-born. It goes without saying that the medical profession in this country is composed to a great extent of typical progressive Americans, and I ask you to make mental statistics of the children in the families of the physicians in Southern California, and you will find very few of them containing more than two.

“Had the Rev. T. R. Malthus lived in the United States to-day, he would never have argued about the danger of over-population, as he did in his interesting volume on ‘The Principles of Population.’”

After quoting the views of Plato, Aristotle, and Lycurgus, Dr. Lindley continues: “In Southern California there are, it is true, many children, but the average American family is very small.

“As I sat writing this an evening or two ago, I jotted down the names of twenty-five families of my acquaintance in Los Angeles, taking them as fast as I thought of them. The list was composed entirely of professional and business men ranging in age from thirty-five to fifty. All had been married quite a number of years. The result of my memorandum was that in these twenty-five families there were but eighteen children. These families were wholly unselected, and are about the average Protestant American families outside the rank of laborers.

“What are the causes of this small proportion of children? Disease, preventives of conception, and abortion form the trinity of responsibility in this grave condition. It is true that the first cause (disease) results in many women being barren, but I believe that you will agree with me that the last two causes, preventives of conception and abortion, are the two chief causes.

“The A. P. A. might find food for thought by investigating the infrequency of criminal abortion in Catholic families in the United States. It is the Protestant or agnostic American who too often uses one of the preventives of conception.” (Here the Doctor refers to a foot-note in which he says: “I write this opinion as a Protestant, and should be glad to learn that it is not well founded.”) He continues: “If, through inadvertence, pregnancy should occur, then an abortion is in order. Disease and poverty and war and accident all work together to keep down the population, but we are overcoming these. Plagues and pestilences are rare. The number who die of starvation in California is very small, while war has played but a small part. Through the diffusion of the laws of sanitation, improved dietary, and advanced therapeutics, the longevity of man is increasing, but the American woman’s aversion to child-bearing is blighting our civilization, and can be well named the twentieth-century curse. In this aversion the woman frequently echoes the wish of the husband.

“A large proportion of the American young women who marry do so with the determination that they will have no children. They are abetted in this notion by many elderly women. The cure for this terrible sentiment is education. The home, the press, the schoolroom, and the pulpit should be centres for reviving the ancient idea of the nobility of motherhood. The physician should not underestimate his influence.

“By constantly bearing in mind the danger of the present tendencies, he can do much to change the current. Let us hope that we shall again see the day when thoughtful motherhood shall be considered the highest function of womanhood, and to shirk this natural duty will be deemed a disgrace.”

Gentlemen, it would be easy to prove that this testimony of Dr. Lindley is not that of an exceptional witness, or a piece of special pleading; but it is the acknowledged conviction of the medical profession generally, confirmed by the last United States Census, and in fact not questioned, to my knowledge, by any weighty authority. As early as 1857, Dr. H. B. Storer, an eminent physician of Boston, startled the community by publishing two books on this subject, entitled: “Criminal Abortion. Why not?—A Book for Every Woman”; “Is it I?—A Book for Every Man.” Soon after, Rev. John Todd, a Protestant minister of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, published a work styled “Serpents in the Dove’s Nest,” all which works and a multitude of others tell the same tale of woe regarding the increase of child-destroying crimes in New England, chiefly among the old stock peculiarly called Americans. Dr. Nathan Allen, of Lowell, Massachusetts, in his treatises, “Changes in the New England Population” and “The New England Family,” gives overwhelming testimony. “Harper’s Magazine” (quoted by the “Catholic World” for April, 1869) remarks: “We are shocked at the destruction of human life on the banks of the Ganges, but here in the heart of Christendom fœticide and infanticide are extensively practised under the most aggravating circumstances.” We Catholics are not personally interested in this matter; but the good of our fellow-men and chiefly our fellow-countrymen calls for the earnest exertion of us all to stop this dreadful evil. All the works I have referred to exempt Catholics from the blame pronounced; the “Harper’s Magazine” article referred to expressly says: “It should be stated that believers in the Roman Catholic faith never resort to any such practices; the strictly Americans are almost alone guilty of such crimes.” This matter is fully explained in a recent work called “Catholic and Protestant Countries Compared,” by Rev. Alfred Young, C.P., ch. xxxii.

VII. Now, gentlemen, I am very much afraid that while physicians as a body abhor all such murders and openly condemn them, many do not show much repugnance to allow, and even sometimes to suggest, such onanistic intercourse among married people as shall prevent the possibility of conception. For instance, if it happens that a young mother suffers much in her first confinement, at once the suggestion is made that a second parturition may prove fatal. From that moment regular intercourse is dreaded. Either onanism is habitually practised, or the husband becomes a frequent visitor to dens of infamy, where to where to save his wife’s health, he encourages a traffic that leads multitudes of wretched girls to a premature and miserable death. Every one despises those outcasts of society; but are not the men who patronize them just as guilty? Probably enough, if the imprudent suggestion about dangers of a second child-bearing had not been made by the Doctor, the young wife might have become the happy mother of a numerous family of healthy children. For we must trust in Divine Providence. If a husband and wife do their conscientious duty, there is a God that provides for them and their family more liberally than for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. And if He should so dispose that the worst should befall, well, such temporal clangers and sufferings as attend child-bearing are the lot of woman-kind, just as the dangers and hardships of the battlefield, the mine, the factory, the forest, and the prairie are the lot of the men.

The man who shirks his duty to family or country is a coward; women, as a rule, are brave enough in their own line of duty, and patiently submit to God’s sentence pronounced in Paradise, “I will multiply thy sorrows and thy conceptions, in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children” (Gen. iii. 16), just as they have to submit to the words immediately following: “Thou shalt be under thy husband’s power, and he shall have dominion over thee.”

Certainly, the husband of a delicate woman ought to spare her strength and restrain his passion, but not at the sacrifice of morality; and Doctors ought to be very careful not to cause false or exaggerated alarms, and thus make themselves to some extent responsible for untold moral evils. They should remember that, as a rule, the raising of a family is the principal purpose of a married life. The happiness and virtue of the parties concerned depend chiefly on the faithful performance of this duty. How sad is the lot of those—and they are many—who undertook in early years of married life to prescribe a narrow limit to the number of their children; they had one or two, and they would have no more, and for this purpose criminally thwarted the purposes of nature. Then comes death and snatches away their solitary consolation: and they spend their old age childless and loveless, in mutual upbraidings and unavailing regrets.

How different is the lot of those aged couples—and they were many of yore, and are yet in various nations—who are like patriarchs amid their crowds of children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, dwelling in mutual love and as if in a moral paradise where all domestic virtues bloom!

VIII. True, such families are usually the outcome of moderately early marriages; and many Doctors nowadays disapprove of such unions as an evil. A moral evil they certainly are not; and the physical evils sometimes attending them must, I think, be traceable to a variety of causes; for such evils are certainly not inseparable from early marriages. As to their moral advantages, Mr. Wm. E. H. Lecky, in his “History of European Morals,” writes of the Irish people in particular: “The nearly universal custom of early marriages among the Irish peasantry has alone rendered possible that high standard of female chastity, that intense and jealous sensitiveness respecting female honor, for which, among many failings and some vices, the Irish race have long been pre-eminent in Europe” (v. i. p. 146). And that he does not confine his statement to female chastity is evident from what he adds farther on: “There is no fact in Irish history more singular than the complete and, I believe, unparalleled absence among the Irish priesthood of those moral scandals which in every Continental country occasionally prove the danger of vows of celibacy. The unsuspected purity of the Irish priesthood in this respect is the more remarkable, because, the government of the country being Protestant, there is no special inquisitorial legislation to insure it, because of the almost unbounded influence of the clergy over their parishioners, and also because, if any just cause of suspicion existed, in the fierce sectarianism of Irish public opinion it would assuredly be magnified. Considerations of climate are quite inadequate to explain this fact; but the chief cause is, I think, sufficiently obvious. The habit of marrying at the first development of the passions has produced among the Irish peasantry, from whom the priests for the most part spring, an extremely strong feeling of the iniquity of irregular sexual indulgence, which retains its power even over those who are bound to perpetual celibacy” (p. 147). No one will say, I believe, that the custom of early marriages in Ireland has any injurious effects on the health of either parents or children. Nor need it necessarily have such effects on those of our American young men and women who lead regular lives and are not enfeebled by unnatural vices or demoralized by dainty food and luxurious manners.

A wise physician has many proper ways of providing for the health and strength of both parents and children without advocating practices which are a snare for innocence. Let him insist with all his patients on the cultivation of healthful habits for the family and the individual; wholesome and not over-delicate food; moderation in eating and drinking; regular and manly exercise, especially in the open air; early hours for retiring and rising. But, above all—and this is directly to our present purpose—let him show the greatest regard for the laws of morality, the main support of individual and social happiness. His views upon such matters, manifested alike in his conduct and his conversation, but especially in his management of cases involving the application of moral principles, will go far to influence the community in which he moves. His task is to be a blessing to his fellow-men, a source of happiness and security to individuals and to society.

420. Notion. Lust is the disordered appetite of venereal delectation. It will be treated more broadly below, when there will be discussion of the virtue of chastity. Lust is a capital vice, because from it many other sins spring up. For delectation in venereal things is the greatest, and on that account is eagerly sought by many and has many servants. By St. Gregory⁶² and after him by St. Thomas⁶³ eight daughters of lust are enumerated.

The daughters of lust are:

1. Blindness of mind. The most wise Solomon offers a terrible example of this blindness; when he was old, joined to women by most burning love, he was so depraved by them that he followed strange gods, falling into foolish idolatry.

2. Precipitation in things to be done, namely without sufficient counsel.

3. Inconsideration, that is, defect in practical judgment. Hence we see lustful persons do most foolish things, that is, with the greatest harm to reputation, honor, health, and temporal goods they serve their passion.

4. Inconstancy. For the will of a lustful man becomes very weak and is not able to resist diverse internal and external temptations.

5. and 6. Love of self and hatred of God. For the lustful man seeks his own delectation above all things and consequently hates God, who so severely prohibits and punishes this vice.

6. and 8. Affection for the present age and horror of the future one. These effects necessarily follow from love of self and hatred of God. But although the lustful man shudders at the future age, nevertheless on account of his blindness of mind, precipitation, and inconsideration he not rarely commits suicide, as is evident especially in our times.

Remedies against lust are: 1. humble and frequent prayer; 2. frequentation of the sacraments; 3. flight from idleness; 4. temperance; 5. flight from occasions.

⁶² Moral. l. 31, c. 45 (al. 17).

⁶³ Concerning the daughters of lust cf. S. Thom., S. theol. 2, 2, q. 153, a. 5.

681. 1. Notions. In a broad or even metaphorical sense, lust signifies every excess or abundance. Thus, for example, we speak of luxury or excess in food, clothing, buildings, and gardens; thus lambs and kids frisking, trees putting forth more abundant branches, and fields excessively fertile are said to luxuriate.

But in the strict and proper sense lust is customarily defined: an inordinate appetite for venereal pleasure. What venereal pleasure is¹³¹⁸ was already said above. For it is that carnal pleasure which arises from an agreeable commotion and alteration of the members serving generation and reaches its highest degree in carnal intercourse or in pollution. It is called venereal pleasure because the ancient Gentiles imagined Venus to be the goddess of this pleasure. It must be recalled that this venereal pleasure is altogether distinguished from sensitive or organic pleasure, and a fortiori from spiritual pleasure.¹³¹⁹ - Venereal pleasure can be licit if the right order of reason is preserved. But it has been established by the Creator that this pleasure is never had licitly and according to right reason except in the use of legitimate marriage.

2. Distinctions. a) Lust is distinguished into consummated and non-consummated. The former produces complete venereal pleasure, which, namely, satisfies nature, since it brings pleasure to its ultimate terminus; or, in other words, it is the same pleasure which is also wont to occur in the act of generation. The latter causes incomplete venereal pleasure, which, namely, arises from thoughts, speech, looks, touches, etc., and is joined with some commotion of the genital parts, but does not proceed to the emission of human seed in the male or of another fluid serving generation in the female. But when there is altogether no commotion of the genital parts, venereal pleasure is not wont to be present either.

b) Consummated lust is subdivided into that according to nature and that contrary to nature. Consummated lust which is according to nature comprises six sins, concerning which there will be discussion below in § 4. It is that from which generation is of itself possible. - Consummated lust contrary to nature renders generation impossible and includes three sins, which will be treated below in § 5.

c) Non-consummated lust is subdivided into internal sins, for example, lustful joy or desire, which will be treated below in § 2; and external sins, for example, lustful touches, which will be discussed below in § 3.

Note. Although boys and girls before puberty, eunuchs, those who have undergone vasectomy, etc., cannot emit true seed, they are nevertheless capable of complete venereal pleasure.

3. Moral malice. In order to judge rightly concerning the malice of lust, it is necessary to distinguish between lust directly and indirectly willed.

¹³¹⁸ In German: geschlechtliche Lust; in French: délectation sexuelle [sexual pleasure].

¹³¹⁹ Cf. above, n. 643.

682. Principle 1. Venereal pleasure directly willed outside legitimate marriage is a mortal sin from its whole genus, so that it admits no smallness of matter.

Thus holds the most common opinion against Caramuel¹³²⁰ and a few other older authors, who admit smallness of matter even in lust directly willed. Venereal pleasure directly willed is present not only when it is directly intended, but also when someone perceives himself to be shamefully aroused and takes complacency in this.

The principle stated is proved by the following reasons:

1. Venereal pleasure is ordered to the act of generation, which the Creator for most just causes gravely prohibited outside legitimate marriage.¹³²¹ Therefore, fittingly, the Creator gravely prohibited not only the highest venereal pleasure which is found in the act of generation, but also every other such pleasure directly willed. For, as experience testifies, man is exceedingly prone to venereal pleasure, which, once arisen, is wont to be so vehement a passion that reason is quickly clouded and the will is violently carried away. Hence, just as a man placed at the edge of a precipice ought not to take even a few steps downward without evident danger of death, so neither can he procure a small venereal pleasure without proximate danger of proceeding further even to the completed act of lust. Therefore, just as a man is bound under grave obligation to avoid not only grave sin itself but also its proximate danger, so he ought under grave obligation to avoid not only a perfect act of inordinate lust but also any light act whatsoever directly willed. The words of St. Paul seem to be understood of this directly willed venereal pleasure:¹³²² "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, lust ... since they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God."

2. From proposition 40 condemned by Alexander VII: "The opinion which says that a kiss had for the sake of the carnal and sensible pleasure which arises from the kiss, with the danger of further consent and pollution excluded, is only venial, is probable."¹³²³ Theologians indeed dispute in what sense this proposition was condemned; nevertheless, this seems certain: its falsity consists in this, that it supposes that a kiss had for the sake of carnal, that is, venereal, pleasure does not by that very fact induce danger of consent to graver acts.

It cannot be objected against the stated principle that smallness of matter is granted in the inordinate lust or venereal pleasure of spouses directly willed, as theologians commonly teach, and therefore also in any other lust whatsoever. For the disparity is that between spouses there is no danger of consent to a completed act gravely sinful. For since the highest pleasure in the act of generation itself is licit for spouses, other venereal pleasures also are not so gravely prohibited to them, provided, however, that they are not directly opposed to the end of marriage.

Note. The older theologians distinguished excellently in venereal pleasure between placentia and complacentia. Placentia is the physical venereal pleasure itself, which can arise from many physiological and psychical causes and of itself has no morality; but complacentia is illicit consent to pleasure of this kind; if this consent is perfect, it is gravely sinful, but when it is semi-deliberate, it is only a venial sin. Hence it is rightly said: "Sensation does no harm where there is no consent."¹³²⁴

¹³²⁰ Theol. fund. n. 1708. The author, however, speaks rather theoretically; for he himself asserts: "In lust, on account of the annexed danger, smallness of matter is not granted in practice." Amadaeus Guimenius (Matthaeus de Moya), De peccatis, prop. XI, wrote about this matter quite tastelessly and calumniously.

¹³²¹ Cf. below, where the malice of fornication is treated.

¹³²² Gal. 5:19 ff.

¹³²³ Denzinger, n. 1140.

¹³²⁴ Among the works of St. Bernard, De conscientia aedificanda, c. 8 (Migne, Patr. lat. 184, 515).

683. Principle 2. Venereal pleasure only indirectly willed is not a mortal sin from its whole genus, but admits smallness of matter.

Thus theologians most commonly teach, at least as to the sense, although some diversity exists among them as to the words.¹³²⁵ Venereal pleasure indirectly willed is that which is in no way desired in itself, but which is joined with an action which someone posits; for example, a young man reads a book foreseeing that carnal pleasure will follow from this reading.

Proof. As is clear from the first principle, directly willed venereal pleasure therefore admits no smallness of matter because the proximate danger of consent to a completed act is always present. But such danger often does not exist when an action honest or indifferent in itself is posited, from which venereal pleasure is indeed foreseen but is not intended; and therefore sometimes no sin, and sometimes only a light sin, is present, according as a sufficient or not sufficiently weighty cause exists for positing the action from which it is foreseen that venereal pleasure will follow. But when not only venereal pleasure is foreseen, but also consent to that pleasure, then it is not lawful to posit the action; otherwise a mortal sin is committed.

Practical rules. In order to judge in practice concerning the sinfulness of venereal pleasure indirectly willed, the rules given concerning the indirect voluntary are to be applied. It is therefore required: a) that the action posited be honest in itself, or at least indifferent. Actions which are outside the genus of lust and produce carnal movements only accidentally, such as eating abundantly, riding horseback, using a hot bath, sitting or lying in a certain position, are actions honest or indifferent in themselves. But actions which of themselves indeed offend pudicity, such as looks, embraces, kisses, touches, etc., are not themselves intrinsically evil, even if they are exercised outside legitimate marriage; for otherwise they could never be performed licitly, for example, by a physician, by parents, etc., which assuredly no one would say. The Angelic Doctor writes to the point:¹³²⁶ "Something is said to be a mortal sin in two ways: in one way, according to its species; and in this way a kiss, embrace, or touch according to its nature does not denote a mortal sin; for these things can be done without lust, either on account of the custom of the country, or on account of some necessity or reasonable cause. In another way something is said to be a mortal sin from its cause [from its motive].... Therefore, when kisses and embraces and things of this kind are done for the sake of pleasure of this kind, it follows that they are mortal sins. And thus alone are they called lustful." - Hence in the genus of lust, only pollution (perfect or begun) or intercourse had outside legitimate marriage seems to be an action intrinsically evil. For this action voluntarily posited can never be licit. - It is then required b) that venereal pleasure not be intended; otherwise it is always a mortal sin, as is clear from the first principle. - Finally, it is required c) that a proportionately grave cause be present for positing the action; which cause ought indeed to be the graver, the more the action influences venereal pleasure (especially in view of the circumstances of the person). For in this matter of venereal pleasure much depends upon the circumstances of persons, and what for one man constitutes a grave sin on account of grave danger of consent to venereal pleasure is no sin for another, because no danger of consent is present. Hence in practice it is exceedingly difficult, not to say impossible, always to determine with certainty whether in some venereal pleasure indirectly willed there was a mortal sin or not. But the confessor ought to turn penitents away even from the danger of any lust whatsoever, and ought not so easily to believe those who claim that in matters sufficiently lewd they felt no shameful carnal movement or pleasure.

¹³²⁵ Cf. Billuart, De luxuria diss. 5, a. 2.

¹³²⁶ S. theol. 2, 2, q. 154, a. 4.

684. Scholion. On the effects of lust. Lust is a capital sin,¹³²⁷ because very many other sins arise from it. After St. Gregory, St. Thomas assigns eight vices which are wont to be born as daughters from lust, namely: blindness of mind, precipitation, inconsideration, inconstancy, inordinate love of self, hatred of God, attachment to the present world, and horror of the future.¹³²⁸ From blindness of mind, which arises from lust, the worst evils are wont to spring forth. For the lustful man, given over to carnal pleasures, is wont to do the most foolish things. Hence Solomon, the wisest man, fell into idolatry because of love of women; King David had to sustain the severest punishments because of the adultery committed. How many calamities are wont to be produced from lust for bodily health, for the peace of the family, for honor, for reputation, for goods of fortune, etc.! Therefore natural reason itself dictates that lust is diligently to be avoided.

¹³²⁷ Cf. above, I, n. 420.

¹³²⁸ Cf. S. theol. 2, 2, q. 153, a. 5.

You shall not commit adultery.....
You shall not desire his wife (of your neighbor).
(Exod., 20, 14, 17).

Admonition of St. Alphonsus. "Now we undertake with difficulty to treat that matter whose name alone infects the minds of men.... Would that I could have explained myself more briefly or more obscurely! But since this is the more frequent and abundant matter of confessions, and because of it a greater number of souls slide down to hell; indeed I do not hesitate to assert, on account of this one vice of impurity, or at least not without it, all are damned whoever are damned: hence it was necessary for me, for the instruction of those who desire to learn moral science, to explain myself clearly (though as chastely as could be done), and to discuss very many particulars. - Yet I pray students, ... that they not read this treatise on the sixth precept (as also that other one on the conjugal debt), unless they are now close to hearing confessions; and that they read for this sole end, casting aside absolutely all curiosity, and at that time more often lift the mind to God, and commend themselves to the Immaculate Virgin, lest, while they strive to acquire others' souls for God, they themselves suffer detriment of their own" (III, 413).

762. The sixth precept is joined by a close affinity to the fifth; for since the fifth precept looks chiefly to this, that human life, when it already exists in the nature of things, be rightly cared for, the principal scope of the sixth precept is that watchfulness be exercised over its very beginnings, and that human nature be conserved: for divine sanction ought to protect not only life, but also that wonderful faculty which man possesses, of communicating life. Cf. Pruner, Spez. Moraltheol., IV Absch., II Tr.

By this precept only adultery, which at once injures justice and chastity, is explicitly forbidden; but implicitly all things whatever that are dishonorable and immodest are forbidden, and it is prescribed that we cultivate chastity of mind and body (Roman Catechism, P. III, c. 7, n. 2).

The ninth precept, which is most closely joined to the sixth, prohibits in the same matter sins of the heart, or wicked thoughts and desires. Of these we have already treated in the treatise on Sins, n. 345 ff.

Hence, in the present treatise, we shall treat: 1. of chastity and lust in general; - 2. of sins of consummated lust; - 3. of sins of non-consummated lust (which are postponed here, because they derive their species from the preceding); - 4. of dangers to chastity.

St. Thomas, 2.2, q. 151-156; St. Alphonsus, III, 412; ed. G., I, p. 665; Sporer-Bierbaum, III, n. 467 ff.; Gopfert, II, 316; Genicot, Theol. mor., I, 387; Antonelli, Med. past., II, 160 ff.; Eschbach, Disp. phys.; Tanquerey, Suppl. de Castit.; Sani, de 6 Praec.; Berardi, Theol. mor., II, p. 333 (ed. 1905); Noldin, de Sexto (ed. 13); Capellmann, Pastoralmed. (ed. 16), p. 128; Gemelli, Non moechaberis.

763. Things to be noted beforehand. The Author of nature implanted in each sex a generative power ordered to this most excellent end, that through the natural intercourse of man and woman in legitimate matrimony, the human species may be propagated and conserved. But the pleasure that accompanies the act of this power rightly concurs unto the same end insofar as it draws men to a thing very burdensome in its consequences; it is ordered to the common good, not to private good.

But for a fuller understanding of this treatise and of the other on Matrimony, we judge that a few things must be said concerning those things that regard human generation, reduced to the norm of more recent physiologists.

1. In the man, three organs especially serve for generation: the testicles, in which the semen is prepared; the seminal vesicles, in which the semen is preserved; the urinary tube (the male member, the rod) through which the semen is cast forth. In the female likewise three organs are numbered: the ovary, in which the little egg matures; the womb (uterus), into which the little egg proceeds; the vagina, which extends from the uterus to the external part of the body. The mouth of this canal is closed by a thin membrane, which they call the hymen, the seal of virginity.

2. Generation is distinguished into active and passive. Active generation, to which the highest pleasure is attached, is the same as copulation, concubitus, coitus, and consists in this, that the male member is introduced into the vagina of the female and the male semen is ejaculated in the female vessel. It is the connatural act by which generation is made possible, so that generation itself ought to follow unless something stands in the way. Passive generation is conception, or the conjunction of the masculine semen with the female little egg.

3. Therefore the man concurs toward generation by providing prolific semen, or sperm, which is a certain fluid secreted by the testicles of the man, containing little bodies called spermatozoa, by which it is rendered prolific. But the woman concurs in this, that she supplies the little egg to be fecundated by the spermatozoa. If at the moment of copulation, or at a time more or less distant, she has a mature little egg, and if the semen of the man meets this little egg, a conjunction is produced and the spermatozoa fecundate the little egg, whence conception arises. But the little eggs are torn away from the female testes, which are called ovaries. This tearing away is sometimes accelerated by lust, but of itself it happens without lust and spontaneously among individual females almost in individual months, or perhaps more often.

But whether the female concurs toward generation through an effusion of fluid, or semination, which she has in the act of copulation? Several among the ancients (thus the Scotists with Galen) affirmed that the semen of the woman is necessary for generation, but today (as Aristotle and St. Thomas already held) it is certain that no semen properly so called is present in women in that fluid which, either inwardly (as more often), or outwardly, is poured forth from the vulvo-vaginal glands. Physicians think that that semen improperly so called is useful for generation, but not necessary. And indeed this opinion already seemed more probable to St. Alphonsus (VI, 918).

4. Menstruation (in French: les regles, les epoques) accompanies ovulation and at the same time is very useful to the health of the woman. This is common blood which, as soon as the severance of some mature little egg from the ovary presses, flows more abundantly to the uterus, both indeed that by its heat it may meet the great work of ovulation to be duly performed, and that it may furnish nourishment to the new fetus, if perchance it is conceived. This flow of blood is called menstrual because for the most part it is accustomed to return on the 28th day, or in individual lunar months (and also a little more frequently), from the time of puberty up to menopause (which ordinarily in our regions happens between the 40th and 50th year), and regularly lasts for 2 or 3 days. During the time of this flow, women suffer various pains rather than feel venereal pleasure.

5. It is also to be noted that eunuchs and the impubescent lack semen. Males in our regions rarely attain puberty before the completed 15th year; but before the 18th year their semen is not accustomed to be prolific.

Among those who have reached puberty there sometimes occurs a morbid and frequent flow of semen, which in men is called gonorrhea, in women white flow or leucorrhea. Gonorrhea for the most part is a certain species of syphilis and therefore contagious; pregnant women not rarely suffer from white flow. By certain ancients (for example Croix, apud St. Alph., VI, 910), the leucorrhea of women is called gonorrhea.

According to today's physicians, semen is not corrupted, because a part of the semen, having gone out beyond its seat, is either absorbed or expelled. Therefore we shall purposely omit the questions of the older theologians looking to this.

6. The effusion of semen is to be distinguished most exactly from distillation. This is a certain subtler fluid, coming from the prostatic gland and mucous membrane of the urethra. In the effusion of semen, ordinarily the semen is ejaculated with vehement pleasure and movement of the flesh; but in distillation, the fluid ordinarily flows out drop by drop, with light or even no pleasure and almost no movement of the flesh. Besides, it can occur even in the impubescent, indeed also in the castrated.

7. By carnal movements, venereal movements, there is understood a certain tendency toward the effusion of semen, manifesting itself ordinarily through erection of the male member or of the female clitoris, joined with pleasure. This erection has as its cause blood flowing together to those members, on account of various causes. But from venereal and pleasurable erection is to be distinguished purely natural erection, which is had from a merely physical cause and without any sense of pleasure (Aertnys, Theol. mor., l. III, n. 219).

On knowledge of the sexual matter. Authors have much disputed what ought to be done concerning instructing sons (and daughters) about the sexual matter. To not a few, even Catholics, the theory was pleasing concerning the virtue and efficacy of full physiological knowledge, to be handed on to each one from tender years, for restraining the impulse of immorality. Ignorance, so they say, is the parent of all evils. Yet to others, and those weighing all things wisely, it has seemed that this theory, if ever it is brought into practice without cautions, renders a flood of lasciviousness unavoidable. Hence they established the following: a) Children before all things are to be educated in virtue, love of God, and horror of sin. b) As premature knowledge of the sexual matter is dangerous, so also is ignorance too long protracted with respect to this matter. The latter sharpens curiosity and exposes the incautious to seduction; the former kindles the fire of lust. c) Therefore knowledge of these things is to be given, but increased gradually, according to the age, necessity, and virtue of adolescents. d) It belongs to those persons to teach children these things to whom God has entrusted the office of watching over them: such as parents, guardians, or, in some cases, prudent and God-fearing outside persons. For two things are owed to a child: charity and reverence. Cf. Gatterer-Krus, Education de la Chastete; Forster, Sexualethik u. Sexualpadagogik; Linz. Quart. Schr., vol. 61, p. 45 and 783; Ami du Cl., 1911, p. 406.

764. Definition. Chastity (from chastising), taken broadly, is a general virtue, consisting in purity of soul from every inordinate love and pleasure of creatures. Chastity, in the proper sense, is a virtue that moderates the affection for and use of venereal things.

"Modesty is the virtue moderating certain less principal acts pertaining to the aforesaid concupiscence, such as kisses, touches, looks, embraces, lascivious conversations, etc. Yet it is not a special virtue distinct from chastity, but only expressing the same chastity, insofar as it is concerned with certain circumstances. For all those lustful acts, antecedent to and concomitant with the more principal one, are restrained by reason according to the same rule, on account of the same end, and in the same manner. But it is called modesty from shame, because concerning these acts, even while they are done licitly, an honorable soul is especially abashed, both because they are less subject to reason, and because in them man comes more nearly to the condition of beasts" (Goudin, Phil. mor., q. 6, a. 3, § 1).

Division. Chastity is divided into chastity specially so called and virginity. Chastity specially so called is that which only restrains the impulse toward illicit pleasures (of the flesh), but moderates licit ones, so that they may happen with the required things observed; and it can be divided into juvenile, conjugal, and widowly. But virginity is a certain heroic chastity so taming concupiscence that for God it does not concede to it even the voluntary experience of licit pleasures. Cf. Goudin, l.c.

Virginity is a special virtue, having itself toward chastity as magnificence toward liberality; because it conquers a special difficulty, and indeed a very great one (2.2, q. 152, a. 3). It consists materially, and as a state, in immunity from every experience of venereal pleasure, and in a certain integrity of the member or genital organ; but formally, and as a virtue, in the purpose of abstaining from every venereal pleasure.

1. If the integrity of the flesh is violated merely materially through rape, or involuntary pollution, the prerogative of virginity is not lost, namely the right to the accidental reward, called the aureola, with which virgins are gifted in heaven.

2. If virginity is violated formally only through internal sin, its prerogative is indeed lost, but reparably, namely so that through penance and a reassumed purpose of preserving virginity perpetually, the right to the aureola is had again.

3. If virginity is violated both formally and materially, namely through the external sin of completed lust (or even through mere touches so lustful that of themselves, in healthy nature, they would cause pollution, even if by accident this does not happen), the prerogative of the virtue is lost irreparably, as innocence is lost through mortal sin. Cf. Salmant., tr. 26, c. 1, n. 47 ff.; Lessius, de Temper., c. 2, d. 14 and 16; Eschbach, Disp. physiol.-theol., disp. 4, c. 2.

765. Principles. I. Conjugal chastity is good, widowly continence better, but virginal perfection best. Thus Venerable Bede (apud Benedict XIV, de Beatif. SS., l. 3, c. 24, n. 56). Hence St. Jerome (in Matth., XIII): "The hundredfold fruit," he says, "we assign to virgins, the sixtyfold to widows, the thirtyfold to chaste marriage." The reason is at hand from the things defined above.

Indeed, it must be held with divine faith that the state of virginity and celibacy is to be preferred to marriage. This is established from the words of the Apostle (1 Cor., 7), and from Trent: "If anyone says that the conjugal state is to be placed before the state of virginity or celibacy; and that it is not better and more blessed to remain in virginity or celibacy than to be joined in matrimony: let him be anathema" (Sess. 24, c. 10).

II. Spiritual beauty is present most excellently in chastity. It is established: 1. From Sacred Scripture (Wis., 4, 1): How beautiful is a chaste generation with clarity: for its memory is immortal: because it is known both before God and before men. 2. From reason: "For chastity is so much the more excellent and more beautiful, as that affection (which it moderates) is more insolent, stronger, and less heeding of reason. For in it, on that account, order, vigor, and the command of reason over the raging appetite shine forth more splendidly" (Goudin, l.c.). Hence St. Alphonsus (Vera Sposa, c. 1, n. 12), with St. Cyprian: "Virginity," he says, "is queen of virtues, possession of all goods"; and with St. Ephrem: "If you have loved this, you will prosper from the Lord in all things."

766. Practical Rules. a) If a penitent who has sinned gravely against chastity asks whether he has irreparably lost the aureola of virginity, let the confessor rather respond by dissembling, lest the penitent fall in spirit. He will be able to say, for example, that penance restores the former goods of the soul, that there is no sin that cannot be repaired before God; and similar things.

b) If a girl asks whether, although she has sinned gravely against chastity, she can become a religious, let the confessor attend to the following:

He can respond: affirmatively, if there is question of entrance into a Religious Congregation (with other things to be posited having been posited). He must respond: negatively, if there is question of an Order with solemn vows, and the girl was voluntarily corrupted: because in Orders virgins are consecrated; hence she who without integrity of flesh would receive the veil would bring grave irreverence upon sacramentals.

A girl who several times acted shamefully with herself by touches, while conserving the seal of virginity, can be admitted into an Order: because before men she conserves the state of a virgin. Similarly, according to a rather probable opinion, a woman who was corrupted against her will can be consecrated; for it does not seem equitable that she should lose her right who by her will preserved virginity. Cf. Piat, I, n. 305.

Note. Some authors judge that even with those voluntarily corrupted the confessor can act more benignly. See Gopfert, II, § 99, at the end.

767. Definition. Lust is the inordinate appetite or use of venereal pleasure (III, 412). It is said: inordinate, i.e. outside matrimony and its laws.

Venereal pleasure (libidinous, lustful, carnal) is that which arises (in each sex) from the movement of fluids serving generation and is felt in the genital parts. It differs specifically from sensitive pleasure (natural, sensible), which is had from the conformity of a sensible object with the sense, for example from the contact of a smooth thing (III, 415; Vind. Alph., P. III, q. 13, a. 1).

Sensitive pleasure can be perceived: a) From the sight or embrace of him whom you pursue with tender but honorable love, insofar as that love (which resides in the will) overflows into the sensitive appetite and becomes a cause of movement in the heart and blood. It is called spiritual-sensitive, and if honorable ends are preserved, such pleasure is not to be condemned. b) From an object not of itself apt to move lust (although by accident it sometimes arises), as from hearing music; then by some it is called purely sensitive. c) From a carnal object, but not a shameful one, of itself apt to move lust (although by accident it does not move to it), as from the touch or kiss of a woman's hand; then it is called sensual. Cf. Sporer, Theol. mor., P. IV, n. 680; Ballerini-Palmieri, de 6 Praec., n. 70; Noldin, n. 7.

Immodesty is a vice, repugnant to human shame, in the use of venereal things and of things ordered to them: for example in carnal copulation, and in looks, touches, kisses, embraces, and other things ordered to it. Akin to these is lasciviousness, which is an indecent motion of the body, proceeding from dissolution of the soul.

Immodesty, of itself, differs from lust, because it is not necessarily joined with venereal pleasure; yet it easily leads to this, and on account of the proximate danger of this sort it is ordinarily gravely evil, and therefore, in practice, sins of immodesty are scarcely distinguished from sins of imperfect lust, or of lust indirectly willed (cf. n. 769).

Division. Lust is divided in several ways:

1. By reason of the intended end, one kind is directly willed, namely when pleasure is intended in itself by deliberate plan; another is indirectly willed, when something else is intended, from which pleasure arises. 2. By reason of the effect that follows, one is consummated (or perfect), in which effusion of semen or fluid intervenes; another is unconsummated (or imperfect), in which that terminus of venereal things does not intervene. Both differ specifically among themselves (cf. n. 791, 792). 3. By reason of the act, one is internal, another external.

Lust is subdivided, by reason of circumstances, into various species, as will be explained below n. 771 ff.

Causes of lust. The occasions and causes that lead man to acts of lust are innumerable: a) External causes are given, such as: bad examples, idleness, imprudent questions (sometimes in the sacred tribunal), solitude, certain times of the year, dances, visits of lovers, etc. Cf. n. 824. b) Internal causes are given, namely those that are observed in the subject: not having care of the genitals, sitting for a long time, lying supine in bed, wearing garments too tight, using exciting foods or narcotic substances, etc. All these things either irritate the genital parts, or first bring congestions in the spinal marrow.

Certain diseases are to be numbered among internal causes, especially those that affect the nervous system or the spinal marrow. The more important are: pulmonary phthisis, arthritis, chlorosis, neurosis of the genitals, epilepsy, progressive paralysis of the demented, and especially hysteria. Therefore it is no wonder that there are many who labor under hypersexuality or sexual perversion, that is, who incline excessively to sexual things or to perverse things. There are those who do not feel pleasure unless they act cruelly against themselves (masochism) or against others (sadism). There are those who are insanely drawn to the unspeakable crimes of sodomy. Let the prudent confessor see to what Christian physician he should commend such penitents; because hygienic remedies contribute much to relieving them. Let him also remember that among these, imputability is often diminished, indeed sometimes taken away. Cf. Antonelli, II, n. 160, where all things are given copiously.

768. Principles. I. Lust directly willed is a grave sin from its whole genus. It is said: 1. It is a grave sin; the reason is taken from the frustration of the natural end of this pleasure. For it is a grave sin, or grave inordination, to usurp for a merely private good the highest pleasure that nature constituted and ordered to the common good, namely the conservation and propagation of the human race. But lust directly willed does this. St. Thomas, 2.2, q. 153, a. 3.

It is confirmed from the reason of the common good. That indeed is gravely illicit which, unless it were prohibited, would yield to the grave harm of the whole man, indeed also of the human race. But if venereal pleasure were licit outside matrimony, man without restraint, with the greatest detriment of himself, would give himself to it; because it is proper to carnal pleasure to corrupt the whole rational nature, and indeed in each sex. For we are much affected by those things in which we take pleasure; and therefore reason is either entirely taken away, or greatly weakened concerning other things, in him who hands himself over to pleasures of this sort. Add that the body itself is weakened by lust and a mass of diseases is frequently generated. There accedes a most grave argument from the harm that would come to the human race itself; for men would care little about entering marriage and generating offspring, if pleasure were licit without such a burden. Finally it is evident from the Apostle declaring the lustful to be excluded from the kingdom of God (Gal., 5, 19).

2. From its whole genus; so that every venereal pleasure, even light, taken with full advertence and consent, outside matrimony, is a mortal sin. The reason is that any carnal pleasure, even light, on account of man's highest propensity to venereal things, either implies the aforesaid inordination, or exposes man to a proximate danger of progressing even to complete and certainly grave pleasure. But that which generates danger of gravely sinning, even if in itself it were venial, becomes grave by reason of the danger joined to it (Billuart, de Temper., D. V, a. 2).

Therefore the natural law prohibiting directly willed lust is as it were the law of the Creator of the human race, founded on the presumption of common danger, or on the presumption of law. Cf. the things said on the obligation of a law of this kind, n. 191-192.

It is confirmed from proposition 40, condemned by Alexander VII, with which, as Viva says, the contrary opinion can scarcely be reconciled: "The opinion is probable which says that a kiss had on account of carnal and sensible pleasure, which arises from the kiss, with danger of further consent and pollution excluded, is only venial" (III, 415; H. Ap., IX, 2).

769. II. Lust indirectly willed (and likewise immodesty) admits smallness of matter, i.e. it is reputed grave or light according as the act from which carnal pleasure is foreseen as about to follow influences it, by its force and nature, either proximately and gravely, or only remotely and lightly. The reason is that the evil effect, which follows from an action beyond the intention, must be held evil to that degree to which the cause itself was evil. Recall the things said concerning the indirect voluntary (n. 313-315).

Corollaries. To know the gravity of indirect lust, one must attend to the end on account of which acts are exercised, and besides to the danger that they bring. Acts can, outside matrimony, be exercised from a fourfold end: 1. from the intention of venereal pleasure; 2. from the intention of sensible pleasure; 3. from levity of soul, petulance, and curiosity; 4. from necessity, or from some other just cause.

a) If the aforesaid acts are exercised on account of carnal pleasure, they are mortal sins, even if they are not in themselves greatly dishonorable. Reason: because the intended end is gravely evil; from which end the act of immodesty falls back into lust directly willed. Hence, to touch the hand of a woman on account of carnal pleasure is a mortal sin (III, 415).

b) If they are exercised, with venereal affection excluded, from the sole intention of sensible pleasure, several authors indeed deny that they exceed venial fault; because, they say, it is not more inordinate to take pleasure from the contact of a woman's hand than from the contact of a smooth thing, for example a rose, a silk cloth, and the like. - But, with attention given to the circumstances of manner and time, this opinion, especially if the touches are done with full advertence and consent, is not practically probable,¹ since studiously to seek that pleasure, for the most part, on account of our corrupted nature, carries with it the danger of falling into and consenting to carnal pleasure, especially in persons apt for copulation and especially if those acts are had with some affection and delay.

c) If they are exercised from levity, jest, curiosity, they are not, of themselves, except venial sins; provided they are not in themselves very dishonorable, nor are done with delay and proximate danger of lust, or with the scandal of others, as would be the case if they were done by ecclesiastics (III, 418). - The same must be said if the acts are done from irritation of the nerves.

d) If they are exercised on account of necessity or a just cause, for example touches by a surgeon for healing, they are not sins, even if venereal pleasure arises: provided the will turns away from it and the danger of consenting to it is absent.² This is evident from the things said concerning the indirect voluntary (n. 315).

Note. The danger of indirect lust can arise not only from acts that of themselves hold themselves in the matter of lust (touches, looks, etc.), but also from acts that wander outside the matter of lust, and only by accident influence lust, for example from drunkenness, from the sight of the killing of animals, etc. - Each kind of actions can have proximate or remote influence. See what is to be said n. 795, where at length.

770. It is asked. Whether invincible ignorance can be given concerning sins of lust?

Resp. With experience as witness, it can be given concerning the grave malice of certain sins of lust, whether non-consummated, or even consummated: 1. in adolescents, for a short time, especially when deep silence has been preserved before them about these matters; 2. in the uneducated (indeed perhaps also in others for a short time), when a special circumstance apparently rendering the act honorable intervenes. Thus, for example, there can be ignorance of the grave malice of dishonorable kisses or touches between betrothed persons, of the malice of internal acts, of the malice of onanism among spouses who are already burdened by numerous offspring. Cf. the things said n. 125; Gopfert, II, 320.

Let the confessor beware lest he admonish penitents accustomed to a vice, whose gravity indeed they know, but whose special malice they are ignorant of, concerning this special malice. For such an admonition seems to be of little profit, and from it formal sins would be multiplied. Otherwise one must speak if the penitent thinks that some lustful act that he exercises is not a sin, or is not mortal; because amendment of frequently committed lust will scarcely be possible thereafter, and ignorance, in such a case, cannot be anything except exceedingly harmful to the penitent (Praxis, n. 39; Scavini, I, 391).

St. Thomas, 1.2, q. 73; 2.2, q. 153, 154; de Malo, q. 29, a. 7; St. Alphonsus, III, 432; ed. G., I, p. 677; Sanchez, l. 9, disp. 17, n. 16; Van Roey, Quaest. de 6 praec.; and finally the authors already cited.

771. Sins of consummated lust are of two kinds. Some are according to nature, in the sense that in these are preserved the things that the nature of an act apt for man's generation postulates, namely identity of species, diversity of sex, and natural congress. Others are against nature, in which, namely, the conditions necessary for generation are not preserved.¹ Hence a twofold article.

Sins of consummated lust according to nature are: fornication, stuprum, raptus, adultery, incest, sacrilege. These sins differ specifically among themselves, not indeed by reason of lust, but on account of the special malice that (fornication excepted) is added to each one, namely from opposition to other virtues, especially justice and religion.

772. Definition. Fornication, in the broad sense, is sometimes called every illicit concubitus. In the strict sense, it is defined: Concubitus of an unmarried man with an unmarried woman, by mutual consent (III, 432; H. Ap., IX, 11).

It is said: 1. Concubitus, namely such as is required for generation, so that it may be distinguished from sins against nature; hence copulation of a castrated man with an unmarried woman is not fornication. 2. Of an unmarried man with an unmarried woman, that is, one who is free from vow, marriage, religion, etc.; for from these a new species would be added to the sin. 3. By mutual consent, to exclude violence, because otherwise it would be stuprum.

773. Principle. Fornication can never be excused from grave sin. It is established: 1. From Sacred Scripture (Eph., 5, 5): Every fornicator or unclean person ... does not have inheritance in the kingdom of Christ. 2. From reason: fornication is directly intended lust, because of itself it provokes carnal pleasure. Besides, the end assigned by God to congress is not generation alone, but also good education of offspring. But offspring conceived from fornication ordinarily cannot be well educated. St. Thom., 2.2, q. 154, a. 2.

"Therefore fornication, from the right of nature, is always intrinsically evil, although sometimes by accident offspring would be well educated by the fornicator. The reason is, both because in this, on account of the great danger of hallucination because of excessive pleasure, one can most easily err; and because nature considers the things that commonly happen, not those that happen by accident; and because of itself it is against the right of nature to subject reason to the flesh, as happens in fornication, on account of the pleasure of the act. But in matrimony, although the same pleasure intervenes, God nevertheless by special providence disposes that such disorder be absent" (III, 432; cf. I, 199). Hence, proposition 48 was deservedly condemned by Innocent XI: "It seems so clear that fornication according to itself involves no malice, and is evil only because forbidden, that the contrary seems altogether discordant with reason." But whether fornication is forbidden from the primary principles of the natural law is not so clear.

774. Corollaries. 1. Fornication of betrothed persons does not assume a different species of sin. The reason is that "neither hands over to the other any right over his own body, so that he could not use it according to his own discretion without injury to the other" (H. Ap., IX, 13).

Yet if fornication introduced danger lest the betrothed man be compelled to support another's offspring, justice would be injured.

2. Concubinage and meretricious life are rightly referred to fornication, as to the same species. For more or less does not change the species. Yet sometimes, especially in meretricious life, other species can be added.

a) Concubinage, which is the keeping of a woman as if she were a wife, is defined (according to the sense of Canon Law): "Frequent fornication with the same person, with the mind of retaining her as enslaved to one's own lasciviousness, whether in the same house or otherwise." It is a greater sin than simple fornication, because it adds a vicious habit and has joined to itself a continuous purpose of sinning, at least virtual. - Hence the Council of Trent (Sess. 24, c. 8, de Ref.) established against concubinarii both excommunication of a sentence to be passed after a threefold warning, and the penalty of expulsion outside the town, or even outside the diocese, with the help of the secular arm implored: would that it still could be implored in every region! Hence also it is why, in many dioceses, concubinage is numbered among reserved cases. See as regards clerics, for whom particular penalties are prescribed, n. 2233.

b) Meretricious life is the state of a woman who lies open to the lust of many, whether for gain, or for lasciviousness. Hence, in order that someone can be called a prostitute, she ought to admit at least more than two. Meretricious life is either clandestine, or public, i.e. permitted by civil power under certain norms. It is a most grave sin, by reason of the disposition of soul, scandal, and harm to offspring, which rarely is born from meretricious life, and if sometimes it is born, is accustomed to be educated very badly.

775. Special question: On Prostitution. In our times also the question is sharply disputed: Whether prostitutes are to be permitted?

Resp. One opinion, and this probable, affirms with St. Augustine (de Ord., l. 2, c. 4, n. 12) and the Angelic Doctor (2.2, q. 10, a. 11). The sole reason is because in this way greater evils are impeded, namely acts of sodomy, adulteries, prevarication of honorable women, etc. "Take away," says St. Augustine, "prostitutes: you will disturb all things with lusts."² But the other opinion, which is practically more probable, denies. The reasons are: a) from such permission the way is not closed to the aforesaid evils; - b) because prostitutes can be approached easily, lust fixes deeper roots; c) other evils arise, namely: more girls are prostituted, adolescents reject honorable marriages, neglect studies, etc. Thus St. Alphonsus (III, 434). - In every case, as Venerable Januarius Sarnelli proves (op. de Abusu meretr., aggiunta, § 2), meretricious life cannot be permitted except in great cities, and this under certain conditions, for removing scandals. Cf. Noldin, n. 18, at the end.

Note. For practice, three things are to be noted: 1. The circumstance of concubinage or meretricious life is not indeed of itself to be manifested in confession, since it does not constitute a species; but it is to be manifested both by reason of the occasion to be removed, and especially by reason of the intention had from the beginning and embracing many sins in number. - 2. Neither concubinarii nor prostitutes can be absolved unless it has been plainly established concerning the removed occasion and amendment (III, 435). Say the same of procurers and procuresses, who, for the sake of gain, prostitute their own women or those of others (see n. 1822). - 3. Fornicators are to be asked by the confessor whether offspring has been born from fornication, or is about to be born; whether they have attempted to impede conception of offspring or procure abortion, or have neglected offspring born.

776. Definition. Stuprum, in the broader sense, is the violation or oppression of any woman, even a widow, or otherwise corrupted. In the stricter sense, as in canon law, it is "the deflowering of a virgin, she being unwilling." But a virgin is said to be deflowered when, for the first time, through the concubitus of a man, she is deprived of virginity or integrity of flesh. The malice of stuprum is found, although in an imperfect mode, in the shameful touching of an unwilling woman.

Principles. I. Stuprum, in each sense, has special malice. The reason is that besides fornication it contains grave injury, on account of violence brought in. This malice is increased (but more probably within the same species) when someone takes integrity away from a virgin: for this is reputed, and deservedly, as a good of the greatest price, by which virgins are especially honored, and are sought for suitable marriages. And hence it is why stuprum of a virgin is punished by special penalties in canon law (cf. Craisson, n. 6266).

777. II. Moral and interpretative violence suffices for the crime of stuprum. For commonly he is judged guilty of stuprum who has led a virgin into evil by fraud (for example by a false promise of marriage or of a great dowry) or by grave fear, even reverential fear; as also he who has dishonored a girl not yet having obtained perfect use of reason, or one drunk, foolish, or sleeping, without her previous consent.

778. Questions. Q. 1. What ought a woman oppressed by force to do, so that she may be immune from sin?

Resp. She cannot behave negatively or permissively, but is held to resist, both internally, lest she consent to pleasure, and externally, with at least ordinary resistance, namely by repelling force by force, so that thus she may report victory, and deserve to be crowned by God (cf. n. 736 and 755, end). See Salmant., tr. 25, c. 1, n. 29.

Q. 2. Whether she is also held to cry out?

Resp. Distinguish: Affirmatively (and even with manifest danger to life), if proximate danger of consent is imminent; for then extraordinary resistance also is necessary. But negatively, very probably, with such danger excluded (as can happen when there is question only of touches) with danger of notable harm, whether of infamy, or excessive shame. Yet the contrary opinion, as safer, is to be counseled; and it becomes plainly obligatory if the woman, on account of past experience, or on account of known frailty, is in special danger of afterward consenting to the consummated act (III, 368, 430).

Note. For practice, it is to be noted that cases of a woman oppressed, without her own fault, by reason of irreligiosity that always increases, the condition of labor in workshops, etc., in some regions, become more frequent day by day. Hence women are to be warned not to return home without a companion, and to show themselves strong and circumspect. "Besides, the natural timidity of women, and often confusion from an unforeseen case, can effect that a woman does not oppose a great and manly resistance, and nevertheless is immune at least from formal fault" (Berardi, Praxis, 266).

On restitution on account of stuprum, see n. 956 ff., in the treatise on the Seventh Precept.

779. Definition. Raptus (not insofar as it is an impediment of matrimony, but insofar as it is a species of lust) is defined: The violent abduction of a person, for the sake of satisfying lust.

It is said: abduction, i.e. carrying from a safe place to an unsafe one where liberty is taken away; violence, i.e. force brought in, whether physical or moral, either to the abducted person herself, or to those under whose power she is, namely parents or guardians or husband; of a person, female or male, whether married, virgin, etc.; for the sake of satisfying lust: hence, if someone is abducted for another end, for example so that she may be used for services, that raptus is a sin against justice, but is not a species of lust. - Similarly if a woman of full age or emancipated departs of her own accord with a lover, the parents being unaware, such departure is not properly raptus, but flight, nor in this case is a new species of malice added to fornication (III, 444).

780. Principles. I. Raptus is a grave sin against chastity and justice. Against chastity, on account of the lustful intention; against justice, on account of violence brought in either to the abducted person, or to those under whose power she is, or to both.

II. Raptus is a sin specifically distinct from stuprum. For the raptor unjustly takes away liberty, which is a good distinct from integrity of flesh. From this it follows that the circumstance of raptus must necessarily be disclosed in confession, although lust had not been satisfied, or although the abducted person finally had freely consented to the sin.

Note. In Canon Law (caus. 36, q. 1), raptus is called any violence brought against a woman for the cause of lust; and against such violence the same penalty is established, without the circumstance of abduction being mentioned. In this sense, therefore, stuprum does not differ from raptus according to species, but only as the inferior from the superior, so namely that every stuprum is raptus, but not vice versa.

781. Definition. Adultery is copulation had with a married person.

Therefore the perfect malice of adultery is present when, by concubitus, either one's own marriage-bed or another's, or both at once, is violated. But imperfect malice of adultery is had if this violation happens through imperfect acts, for example touches, or through actions by which a married person illicitly disposes of his own body or of the body of his wife (see below n. 782).

Division. Adultery is either simple, when an unmarried man sins with a married woman, or a married man with an unmarried woman; or double, when a married man sins with a married woman.

Principles. I. Adultery is a grave sin against chastity and a most grave sin against justice, even if consent of the spouse is present. It is established: 1. From Scripture (Deut., 22, 22): If a man has slept with the wife of another, let each die, that is, the adulterer and the adulteress; and you shall take away the evil from Israel. And (1 Cor., 6, 9): Neither adulterers shall possess the kingdom of God. 2. From reason: for adultery injures, in a most grave matter, the right of the other spouse, harms the good of offspring, hurts the family, often begets scandals and quarrels, and generates innumerable other evils, as daily experience teaches.

We said: even if consent of the spouse is present, because such cession is null, since the right over the body of the spouse belonging to each spouse is exclusively proper and entirely inalienable, from the divine institution of matrimony and from the very law of nature. Hence this 50th proposition was proscribed by Innocent XI: "Copulation with a married woman, the husband consenting, is not adultery." Cf. Viva on this proposition; see what we established above, n. 723.

782. II. Adultery of a married man with a married woman includes in itself a double injustice distinct in number. The reason is evident; for the rights of each marriage-bed are violated. Hence, such a circumstance is to be disclosed in confession (cf. n. 330).

From these things conclude: 1. Adultery of an unmarried man with a married woman is, speaking of itself, a graver sin than that of a married man with an unmarried woman. The reason is that, in the first

case, copulation either harms generation (which not rarely happens), and then the husband is unjustly deprived of offspring; or it introduces false heirs into the family, or at least often begets uncertainty of offspring (III, 445). 2. He who knows his own wife sodomitically or onanistically, or is voluntarily polluted, according to the common opinion, more probably commits adultery; because such a crime is against the good of the faith given, and an injury against the body of the spouse (III, 446; Sanchez, de Matrim., l. IX, disp. 18, n. 5; Lehmkuhl, I, 1049; Berardi, II, n. 816). 3. He who has relations with another's betrothed does not commit true adultery. Indeed, on the part of the betrothed woman, there is a promise of her body, but the completed handing over of the body is lacking, as we already said n. 774.

783. Definition. Incest is concubitus with a person joined by kinship or affinity, within the degrees in which it is not licit to enter matrimony. Moreover the malice of this sin is contracted not only by natural congress, but also by sins of lust against nature, or non-consummated sins.

Division. Since a threefold kinship is given, namely natural, spiritual, and legal, and since besides kinship affinity is also given, hence a fourfold incest is distinguished, namely: 1. incest with a blood relative up to the fourth degree; - 2. with an affine up to the fourth degree, if the affinity comes from licit copulation, and up to the second, if from illicit; 3. with a spiritual relative (which kinship arises from baptism or confirmation); - 4. with a legal relative (which kinship comes from adoption). Cf. n. 2015 ff.

784. Principles. I. Incest is a special sin, having most grave malice. For it is opposed both to chastity, and to piety and reverence owed to relatives and affines. Hence in Leviticus (20, 14 ff.) it is punished with the penalty of death; and Blessed Paul (1 Cor., 5, 1-5) gravely rebukes the incestuous man, handing him over to Satan, that he may be corrected.

785. II. Incests between spiritual and legal relatives differ in species both from one another, and from incest with blood relatives and affines; but incest between affines more probably does not differ in species from incest between blood relatives. The reason for the first is that the diverse kinships have their origin from formally diverse roots, namely: natural kinship from nature, spiritual kinship from a sacrament, legal kinship from law. Indeed, according to St. Thomas (2.2, q. 154, a. 9 and 10, ad 2), through copulation between spiritual relatives sacrilege is committed in the mode of incest. Hence this quality of incest is to be disclosed in confession. The reason for the second is that it is material whether the conjunction arises from blood or from marriage, since copulation with blood relatives and with affines is prohibited from the same motive of piety.

The opinion, indeed, that teaches these incests specifically to differ, is also probable; and the reason is that the conjunction of blood relatives arises from an intrinsic bond, i.e. from identity of the same blood received through generation; but the conjunction of affines draws its origin from an extrinsic bond, i.e. from copulation had with their blood relatives (III, 448-450; VI, 469). But in practice, this circumstance or distinction (for example, that someone sinned so many times with a sister-in-law, and so many times with his own sister) can be kept back before the confessor.

786. It is asked. Whether incests differ in species according to diversity of degrees?

Resp. 1. Incest between blood relatives of the direct line, in the first degree, differs in species from the others according to the common opinion of the Doctors; because this nearness of blood-relationship by natural law so dirimently impedes matrimony that the Church herself cannot dispense. Besides, incest committed in this degree injures piety of itself and properly, while, in other degrees, this happens only by participation.

Hence, in confession it is to be explained if a father has sinned with a daughter, or a son with his mother: which crime has a diverse malice by reason of the special reverence owed to a parent. In the same way, incest between a stepson and stepmother, and between father-in-law and daughter-in-law, mother-in-law and son-in-law, differ in species from incest between other affines (VI, 469, 470; H. Ap., IX, 17; Lehmkuhl, I, 1050).

Note. Recent authors indeed call probable the contrary opinion, which denies that incest in the first degree, between blood relatives or affines of the direct line, differs in species from other degrees. Thus Noldin, Genicot, Ballerini, and among the ancients Sporer, Suarez, Tamburini. But our opinion (which among the ancients was more common) is defended by Lugo, Cajetan, Salmant., Roncaglia, and weighty reason supports it. Cf. n. 63, 2, and 65. - See Berardi, II, n. 830, who follows St. Alphonsus.

2. It is disputed whether incest between blood relatives, in the first degree of the transverse line, namely between brother and sister, differs in species from the others. Some probably affirm, because the Church, with the law of nature apparently resisting, never dispenses in this degree. Others probably deny, because the prohibition of the Church does not seem to import any difference, and matrimony between brothers and sisters, children of Adam, was licit (VI, 470; H. Ap., IX, 18; cf. St. Thom., 2.2, q. 154, a. 9, ad 3).

As regards the other degrees of blood-relationship, according to the more probable opinion, incest does not differ in species, just as neither does it as regards the diverse degrees of affinity and legal kinship. The reason is that among them matrimony is prohibited only by positive law (ibid.).

Hence, for practice, you will conclude: a) Outside the first degree in the direct line, whether of blood-relationship or of affinity, the circumstance of degree, although it notably aggravates the sin, is not necessarily to be confessed.

b) Relatives, having obtained a dispensation for matrimony, probably do not commit incest if they fornicate before matrimony. The reason is that the dispensation takes away the prohibition of matrimony; but where matrimony is not prohibited, there is no incest (III, 452; IV, 1140). Cf. n. 2052.

c) A confessor more probably does not commit incest by having relations with his female penitent, since between them no spiritual kinship exists. But a pastor sinning with his female parishioner sins against justice, since by force of his office he is held to feed his sheep by word and example (III, 451). Several say the same of a guardian toward a ward, and of all those to whom care of minors has been specially committed. More probably otherwise, if a master sins with a maidservant, or a believer with an unbeliever, although the sin is graver. Cf. Porpora, V, 285.

The rest, as regards penalties, etc., will be explained in the treatise on Matrimony.

787. Definition. Sacrilege (in the matter of lust) is violation of a sacred person, place, or thing, through a venereal act. It is a great sin (for holy things are to be treated holily), and contains a double malice, one against chastity, the other against religion, as is established from what was said n. 578.

Principles. I. Concerning a person, sacrilege is committed if someone sins lustfully while having a vow of chastity, or with one having it. Cf. n. 581.

Hence: 1. A priest sinning with a person consecrated to God is guilty of double sacrilege; because he injures religion in a double way. 2. More probably, a priest who is at once a religious, sinning against chastity, is guilty of only one sacrilege; because, although he remains bound to the vow of chastity by a double precept, nevertheless, because he sins against the same precept imposed twice from the same motive, he injures only one virtue of religion. 3. He who, bound by a vow of chastity, induces another to a sin of lust is guilty of sacrilege, at least if he induces from a positive affection toward lust, or with delay takes pleasure in another's carnal sin, or pollutes him with his hands, although without his own pleasure (III, 455-457; H. Ap., IX, 20).

788. II. Concerning a place, sacrilege is committed whenever an external lustful act is perpetrated in a sacred place. See n. 582.

Hence, voluntary pollution and fornication committed in a church are sacrilege; and so it is more probable, although the crime is hidden, and the church does not need reconciliation (as in notorious pollution or fornication). Likewise, according to the more probable and more common opinion, conjugal copulation which moral necessity does not excuse, such as danger of incontinence of the spouses, or their long confinement in a church; likewise more probably, gravely immodest acts, namely touches, kisses, obscene looks, as also obscene conversations; and the reason is because all these indecencies injure the reverence owed to a sacred place. But internal acts, such as desires and thoughts, are not sacrileges, unless they are concerned with sins to be committed externally, although hiddenly, in a sacred place (III, 458-462; Conf. dir., IX, 6, where useful things are given).

789. III. Concerning a thing, sacrilege is committed whenever there is abuse of a sacred thing for shameful things, for example solicitation in the confessional (cf. n. 583). - The same must be said of a priest who sins shamefully while vested for Mass, or while carrying the Eucharist, or after communion, as long as the sacred species remain (III, 463; H. Ap., IX, 23).

Sins of lust against nature are those most shameful acts in which the conditions necessary for human generation are not preserved. But from the things said above n. 763, it is established that four things are required for generation, namely, concubitus of two, of the same species, of diverse sex, in the due vessel; in the first of these pollution fails (to which onanism is referred); in the second bestiality; in the third perfect sodomy; in the fourth imperfect sodomy.

We shall treat of each one separately.

790. Definition. Pollution (or softness, masturbation, from disturbing by hand) is the effusion of human semen, without congress with another. Here by the name semen there is understood not only semen properly so called, such as the semen of a man, but also improperly so called, such as the semen of a woman or of boys or eunuchs, which ordinarily is not produced unless pleasure has reached its final terminus. Cf. n. 763, 3.

We already said (ibid., 6) what distinction is present between male pollution and distillation.

Division. Pollution can be: either voluntary in itself, or directly, as masturbation; or voluntary in the cause, or indirectly; or involuntary, which happens especially in sleep.

791. Principles. I. The sin of pollution essentially consists in this, that it is completed lust against nature; in other words, that it is "the complete use of the genital members outside concubitus." This is the common opinion among theologians and the much more probable opinion. For all agree in this: that pollution is a sin against nature; but the note must be designated by which it is diversified from other sins of lust, and this consists in this, that there is had effusion of semen without concubitus, and indeed perfectly satisfying of concupiscence, through acts that can no longer be ordered to procreation (Van Roey, Quaest. de 6 praec., p. 17). The same is established from the authority of theologians (cf. Eschbach, c. IV, where many things are given; Genicot, I, n. 396) and from the common doctrine concerning virginity.

792. II. Directly voluntary pollution is always a mortal sin; so that it is never licit directly to procure it. Theologians agree unanimously, so that "no Catholic appears who contradicts" (Cajet., 2.2, q. 154, a. 12). It is established: 1. From Scripture (1 Cor., 6, 10): Neither the soft shall possess the kingdom of God (likewise Rom., 1, 24 and Gen., 38, 9). 2. From reason: the primary reason, which avails as much for males as for females, boys, and eunuchs, is that (as we proved above n. 768) it is wicked directly to seek carnal pleasure outside the legitimate use of matrimony. But pollution is direct lust and carries with it the most vehement venereal pleasure. Therefore it is intrinsically evil. But this pleasure, because it satisfies the appetite and is physically complete (cf. the preceding number), differs in species from non-consummated pleasure, which can still be ordered to procreation; hence in confession it is to be distinctly accused (cf. Lehmkuhl, II, 1039, 3).

Another reason accedes, which up to the end of the sixteenth century was judged to avail for all, but today is judged valid chiefly for males, namely: pollution frustrates the end intended by nature, which ordered the effusion of semen, especially in the man, solely to the good of the human race, that is, to the generation of offspring. Finally it is confirmed from proposition 49 condemned by Innocent XI: "Softness is not prohibited by the right of nature; hence, if God had not forbidden it, it would often be good" (III, 467, 476; cf. Sanchez, l. 9, disp. 17, n. 15).

793. III. All pollutions, according to themselves, are of the same species, in whatever mode they happen, if they happen without concubitus. Thus commonly, against certain authors who think that pollution in females is not of the same species as in males. Reason: in any pollution there is had the same special note that we indicated in the first principle.

We say according to themselves: because by reason of circumstances other malices distinct in species can be joined. These circumstances are taken: 1. from the part of the subject, for instance if one having a vow of chastity is polluted, sacrilege is added; if married, adultery; 2. from the part of the object imagined or desired: thus pollution has joined to itself the species of fornication, adultery, etc., if it happens with the desire of sinning with a girl, married woman, etc., or with pleasure concerning concubitus with such a person; 3. from the part of the accomplice: if someone is polluted by another's touches, he sins both by reason of his own sin and by reason of the other's sin, i.e. by reason of scandal, seduction, or cooperation. Hence, if the accomplice was a married person, or bound by a vow of chastity, or a blood relative, this circumstance also is to be disclosed in confession; but not, according to the more probable opinion, whether it was a man or a woman; because when concubitus is not had, there is not of itself affection toward sex, but toward pollution (III, 416); 4. from the part of place or thing, for instance if a sacred thing is taken or pollution happens in a sacred place (cf. n. 788, 789).

From these things you will gather: 1. Not even for conserving life will it be licit directly to procure pollution for oneself; likewise it is not licit by touch, posture, etc., voluntarily to promote pollution begun. Yet movements that arise from the muscles while involuntary emptying is standing are not counted among deliberate movements. Cf. Lehmkuhl, I, 1042, note.

2. "No concern is to be had about the various modes applied to pollution. For whether a man uses imagination alone, or the sight of a shameful thing, or touches, or other means...; similarly whether a woman procures for herself the highest pleasure by compression of the thighs alone, or by handling of the clitoris, or by introduction of fingers or some instrument into the vulva,

whether penetrating more deeply, she solicits the very neck of the womb by more shameful itching, one crime is present in all these modes of acting, namely pollution" Lapellas, de Castit., P. 3, sect. 2, c. 1.

3. Similarly, he who is polluted by touching a sleeping person, or one incapable of deceit, or an animal, or an inanimate thing, provided affection toward sex or concubitus is absent, contracts only the malice of pollution.

Preliminary notes. - 1° To the generative powers both in the male and in the female this end has been appointed beforehand by the Creator of nature, that through the natural congress of each sex in legitimate Matrimony the human species may be propagated and preserved.

2° The delectation which accompanies the act of this power rightly concurs to that end to this extent, insofar as it allures men to a thing by no means a little burdensome in its consequences.

3° Man, by original sin, was chiefly wounded and disordered in the concupiscible appetite, especially as regards the genital power and the sense of touch.¹

483. Definition. Luxury (so called from loosening) is the inordinate appetite for, or use of, venereal delectation or sense.

Venereal delectation (libidinous, luxurious, simply carnal) is that which arises from the movement of the spirits serving generation, and is felt around the genitalia.

It differs specifically from sensitive delectation (natural, sensible), which is had from the contact of a smooth thing, without any movement of the genitalia being present. There are those who distinguish this species of delectation into sensitive carnal, which arises from contact with living flesh, and simply sensitive or merely organic, which arises from contact with any other soft thing.²

Division. One luxury is directly sought, which is had when libidinous or carnal pleasure is intended precisely in itself. Another is indirectly willed, when another thing is intended, from which the aforesaid pleasure arises, as happens, for example, in looks or readings less chaste from curiosity or another illicit end.

The species of luxury are various, as they are recounted in Chapters II and III.

484. Principles. - I. Luxury of any species whatever directly willed is a grave sin from its whole genus, so that every venereal delectation, even slight, taken with full advertence and consent is a mortal sin.³ For the Apostle openly declares that the luxurious are excluded from the kingdom of God,⁴ and Alexander VII condemned proposition 40, which said: "that a kiss had for carnal and sensible delectation, which arises from the kiss, is only venial." The reason is, 1° because every carnal delectation or venereal movement is a certain begun effusion of semen or movement toward it; and therefore, if it is sought outside the legitimate act of marriage, it tends toward a grave disturbance of essential order: 2° because the character of delectation of this sort is such that it corrupts the whole rational nature. For we are much affected by those things in which we delight; and therefore reason is either altogether taken away or very much weakened concerning other things in him who lingers in carnal delectations.¹

II. Luxury, indirectly willed, admits smallness of matter, that is, it is judged grave or slight according as the action from which carnal delectation is foreseen as going to follow influences it either proximately and gravely, or only remotely and lightly. The reason is that an evil effect following beyond the intention from an action is judged evil in that degree in which the cause itself is evil. Cf. Scavini.²

485. Questions. - Quaer. 1° Can lightness of matter be given in sensible delectation, if someone, for example, is delighted by contact with the hand of a woman as by contact with a smooth thing?

Resp. Several affirm with St. Antoninus, Sylvius, etc.; for, they say, just as he who hears a sweet voice or tastes savory food precisely for organic delectation does not sin except venially, so he is judged to sin only venially who looks at a beautiful woman, or touches her hand or face, on account of organic delectation alone, willing or feeling nothing further.

But indeed, this opinion is not practically probable, and St. Alphonsus teaches that the opposite is altogether to be held, at least as a general rule. The reason is that, on account of corrupted nature, it is morally impossible to take that natural delectation without carnal and venereal delectation being felt, especially by persons apt for copula; and especially if those acts are had with some affection and delay. Moreover, to expose yourself to the danger of consenting to venereal delectation is of itself mortal. - Wherefore St. Doctor admits the first opinion only "in some rare case, in which through long experience someone would be morally certain that no danger of consent threatens him; but this case," he adds, "when will it be?"³

Yet the Saint notes "that to act on account of sensible delectation is one thing, to act with such delectation another, in which lightness of matter can well be given; provided (it must be added) that the agent not rest in it, but detest it in act. Otherwise he would act not only with delectation, but also on account of delectation; which cannot be separated from the danger of falling into venereal delectation."¹

Quaer. 2° Can invincible ignorance be given concerning sins of luxury?

Resp. It can be given, experience testifying, invincible ignorance concerning the grave malice of certain sins of luxury, whether not consummated, or even consummated: 1° in adolescents, for a short time, especially when deep silence concerning these things has been kept before them; 2° in the rude (indeed perhaps also in others for a short time), when a special circumstance intervenes apparently lending an honorable appearance. Thus, for example, the grave malice of unchaste kisses or touches between betrothed persons can be unknown; the malice of onanism among the unmarried, or even among spouses who are now burdened with a numerous family to be fed. Likewise "rustics, commonly speaking, judge rape a greater sin than simple fornication; on the contrary they do not know the malice of adultery; therefore with those who have the habit of this vice, it is not expedient to admonish them concerning the malice of adultery, when it is foreseen that the admonition will be of little profit, but will only effect that the penitent sin with a twofold sin if he does not resist the concupiscences of the flesh."² Yet carefully beware lest from this you generally conclude for practice that penitents who inculpably do not know that some act of luxury which they have posited either is a sin or is mortal are to be left in good faith; for ignorance of this sort is usually only very harmful to the penitent. For on account of the very ignorance he will repeat that act more easily, and therefore also more often. From this there will soon exist a habit, and one which will put down roots deeper day by day. But amendment is most difficult for a habit of luxury, especially a rooted one: for the sin of luxury, as St. Thomas says,³ is of the greatest adherence.

St. Thomas, II-II, q. 153 and 148.

505. Lust is the inordinate appetite of venereal things, which of itself is mortal, as will be said in the treatise on Temperance. Since the appetite of lust is most vehement, it follows that it most greatly impedes the use of the higher powers, that is, of the intellect and will, because it distracts power from them and moves toward objects opposed to reason.

From lust many vices arise. - For:

a) In the intellect it produces 1. blindness of mind in the consideration of the end and its goodness, or alienation from thinking of heavenly things; 2. precipitation in counsel and deliberation concerning the choice of means; 3. inconsideration in judgment concerning things to be done which are unbecoming to one's state or person; 4. inconstancy in commanding the execution of judgment, or in good proposals. Hence it especially overturns prudence.

b) In the will it produces, concerning the end: 5. love of self as to the delight of the flesh, which it inordinately seeks; 6. hatred of God, insofar as he prohibits the desired delight; concerning means: 7. affection for the present age, that is, too great a love of the present life on account of its pleasures; and 8. horror and despair of the future age, that is, of spiritual goods, because while someone is too much detained by carnal delights, he does not care to arrive at spiritual ones, but is wearied by them and despises them.¹

¹ Further there arise "certain inordinate exterior acts, and especially those pertaining to speech. In this there is something inordinate in four ways. In one way on account of the matter, and thus base speeches are placed: because from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks ... the lustful, whose heart is full of base concupiscences, easily break forth into base words. Secondly, on the part of the cause: for since lust causes inconsideration and precipitation, the consequence is that it makes one break forth into words lightly and inconsiderately spoken, which are called scurrilous. Thirdly, as to the end: for since the lustful person seeks delight, he orders his words to delight; and thus he breaks forth into playful words. Fourthly, as to the meaning of the words, which lust perverts on account of the blindness of mind which it causes; and thus he breaks forth into foolish speeches, namely, when with his words he prefers the delights which he seeks to any other things whatever." II-II, q. 153, a. 5, ad 4.

506. Gluttony is the inordinate appetite of food and drink, which is only venial, unless, by reason of its effect, it brings grave harm to body or soul, for example, to health, or to the use of reason, or to virtue if it is the cause of grave sin (cf. treatise on Temperance).

From gluttony many vices arise. - Gluttony through the immoderate taking of food or drink produces a disturbance of the lower part and thus impedes reason, and consequently those things which ought to be directed by reason. Hence it produces 1. in the soul: a) as to reason, whose sharpness is dulled by immoderation of food and drink: dullness of mind or stupidity as to speculative things; - b) as to the appetite, which, with the helm of reason lulled to sleep, is inordinately affected: inept joy, or a wandering and uncomposed joy concerning those things which, according to the judgment of right reason, are not apt to cause any delight; - as to exterior acts: c) loquacity, by which man cannot restrain words; and d) scurrility, by which he cannot restrain or compose exterior gestures; - 2. in the body, however, it produces uncleanness, that is, the inordinate emission of any superfluities whatever (especially of seed): for although vomiting after superfluous eating is useful, nevertheless it is vicious that someone should subject himself to this necessity by immoderate food or drink.

S. Th. II-II, q. 153; Q. D. de Malo 15, a. 2.

1000. Luxury (onkuischheid) is an inordinate appetite for venereal pleasure.¹ "Someone is called luxurious as if dissolved in pleasures. But venereal pleasures especially dissolve the mind of man; and therefore luxury is especially considered concerning venereal pleasures" (a. 1). Hence luxury properly signifies excess in venereal pleasure.

¹ We propose the doctrine on chastity and luxury briefly and summarily. Whoever desires more should go to our little work Quaestiones de Castitate et Luxuria, where he will also find physiological notions and an indicated congruent bibliography.

But the appetite, that is, the love and use, of venereal pleasure is excessive and inordinate if it is sought outside the legitimate use in conjugal copulation and the acts disposing to it. For pleasure, just as the use of the genitals, from its nature is essentially ordered to the propagation of the human race. But this cannot be done in a due manner except in a permanent matrimonial union, which is altogether necessary for the right education of offspring. Therefore the appetite and use of venereal things is inordinate if it is sought: 1) without order to the act of legitimate marriage; 2) in that act, but in an illegitimate and undue mode, apart from the rules prescribed by nature and reason.

1001. Internal and external, complete and incomplete luxury. - Just as venereal pleasure, which is proper to the genital organ in which it is perceived, restrained and ordered according to right reason, is the object of chastity, so inordinate and unrestrained venereal pleasure is the proper object of luxury.

Unduly to seek it, whether really, completely or incompletely, or by thinking to represent it to oneself and to take complacency in it mentally, is luxurious: as perceived completely and perfectly, it is complete or consummated luxury; as perceived imperfectly and incompletely, it is begun or incomplete luxury; as represented in the mind and thus mentally pleasing, it is internal luxury.

Hence by reason of the mode in which it happens, luxury is: A. merely internal, which consists in the mere affection or desire for venereal pleasure or use, and is prohibited by the ninth precept of the decalogue; or B. also external, which happens with the use and commotion of the genital organs, and is prohibited by the sixth precept. This latter can be:

1. Complete, perfect, and consummated, if the exterior act is brought to its natural terminus, that is, satiative pleasure, whether a) it is natural or according to nature and the act is apt for obtaining the natural end of generation, as fornication, adultery, incest; or b) it is unnatural or against nature and the act is not apt for its natural end, but this end is rendered impossible, as pollution, onanism, sodomy;

2. Incomplete, imperfect, and begun, if the exterior act is not brought to its natural terminus and does not attain the ultimate terminus of satiative pleasure. This stands to complete luxury as beginning to terminus, inception to consummation, and therefore it is not so much called luxury, which is more concerned with the pleasure itself of copulation, but rather immodesty concerning the surrounding pleasures.

1002. Principle I. Luxury is a mortal sin from its kind. - It is proved:

1. From Scripture, where the Apostle, Gal. 5:19-21, among the works which exclude from the kingdom of God, enumerates luxury.

2. By reason: Of the account of luxury it is that it exceeds the order and mode of reason concerning venereal things; but such an excess is mortal from its kind. For the more necessary something is, the more the order of reason must be preserved concerning it, and consequently, if the order of reason is passed over, it is gravely vicious. But the use of venereal things is very necessary for the common good, which is the conservation of the human race, just as food is necessary for the conservation of the individual. Therefore excess concerning venereal things, apart from that which the order of reason requires, is of itself mortal, as in a grave matter (a. 3).

This is confirmed: a) Luxury is contrary to legal justice, because from its nature it is apt directly to harm the common good, namely the conservation and due propagation of the human race; but this is of itself gravely vicious.

b) It violates the right of dominion which God has over our body, of which we have only the use, and indeed only for the due end. Hence "from the fact that someone uses his body inordinately through luxury, he does injury to God, who is the principal lord of our body" (ad 2). But to violate right is of itself gravely evil.

c) The special deformity of luxury consists in this: that the action and pleasure most necessary to the common good and immediately destined to the good of the species are deprived of this natural order to the species, since they are sought for merely personal pleasure and are referred only to the individual. But this is against the natural order of human nature itself.

1003. Principle II. Luxury directly and in itself voluntary, or venereal pleasure sought for its own sake, outside marriage, is a mortal sin from its whole genus; hence it does not admit lightness of matter, but of itself is always grave.

It is said:

1. Luxury or venereal pleasure arising from the commotion of the powers and organs serving generation: for merely sensible or sensual pleasure from the sensible perception of a fitting object, even if sought for its own sake, does not exceed venial fault, because, as was said concerning gluttony, it is only an inordination of a thing indifferent in itself. Hence just as one who hears a sonorous voice, or tastes savory food, precisely for the sensual pleasure arising from it, sins only venially, so one sins only venially who looks at a beautiful woman, or touches her hand or face, precisely for the merely organic or sensual pleasure consisting in a certain proportion and conformity of the thing seen or touched with the organ of sight or touch, so that it is nothing other than pleasure in a beautiful thing which is seen, or in a pleasant, soft, tender thing which is touched, without any other pleasure in a shameful thing.1 And this also holds in practice, though Cajetan and St. Alphonsus think otherwise. Nevertheless it is advisable for all not to linger over these organic pleasures, because from sensual pleasure to venereal pleasure, especially in the sense of touch or sight, progress is easy.

2. Luxury voluntary in itself, or pleasure sought for its own sake: for luxury only voluntary in the cause or indirectly voluntary admits lightness of matter. For, as is clear from the principles set forth in the treatise on Sins:

a) venereal pleasure voluntary in the cause, unless there is a proportionate reason for causing it, is grave or light according as the cause is of itself apt to influence it notably or lightly (I, n. 450);

b) venereal pleasure indirectly voluntary, namely which the will does not repress though it can repress it, is of itself only venial, unless accidentally there is proximate danger of consent (I, n. 449).

3. Outside marriage: for in marriage, luxury even voluntary in itself, or venereal pleasure sought for its own sake, is of itself venial, as being only the excess of a licit thing; unless, however, it happens against nature, in a mode which impedes generation, or includes a danger of this kind.

4. It is of itself always grave and does not admit lightness of matter; hence every luxury, whether complete or incomplete, even the least, provided it is willed in itself, is of itself mortally evil.

It is proved:

1. What is directly opposed to the ordination and primary intention of our nature and of the Creator of nature is a mortal sin (I, n. 539). But every venereal pleasure, by the primary intention and ordination of our nature and of the Creator of nature, is ordered only to procuring generation in legitimate marriage. Therefore every venereal pleasure sought for its own sake outside marriage is directly opposed to this intention and ordination, and is a mortal sin.

2. Incomplete venereal pleasure from its nature tends to the complete pleasure of which it is the beginning; and therefore he who seeks it for its own sake, by that very fact loves and seeks the complete, not indeed as to be executed but as delightful.2 But love of complete pleasure outside marriage is without doubt a mortal sin, because it is directly contrary to the common good, as is clear from the grave malice of fornication. Therefore also love of incomplete pleasure.

Nor should you say that a human act tends into an object as it is proposed by reason; but reason can abstract from complete pleasure, indeed the will can exclude it. - Resp.: It cannot validly exclude it, because consummated pleasure is necessarily implicitly desired by him who seeks its beginning, which by its nature necessarily tends to consummation. The abstraction of the intellect and the intention of the will cannot change the nature of things.

Therefore, just as he remains truly superstitious who, intending to exclude the intervention of the demon, uses vain means which cannot have effect without the intervention of the demon, since thus implicitly and necessarily he seeks that intervention and so acts against his intention (n. 777); so he who, wishing to exclude complete pleasure, desires incomplete pleasure, acts against his own intention. For by that very fact he implicitly and necessarily desires the complete, because the incomplete is not desirable except as the beginning and part of complete pleasure, and except by reason of complete pleasure.

3. He who voluntarily seeks venereal pleasure for its own sake exposes himself to grave danger of seeking further and complete pleasure, on account of the vehemence of the concupiscence of the flesh and common human frailty. Therefore he sins mortally.

Thus it is impossible for anyone to seek incomplete venereal pleasure without implicitly seeking and willing the complete pleasure, and incurring its inordination, or having an affection toward complete luxury and exposing himself to its danger.

Hence proposition 40 was condemned by Alexander VII: "The opinion which says that a kiss had for carnal and sensible pleasure which arises from the kiss is only venial, the danger of further consent and pollution being excluded, is probable"; because it falsely supposes that a kiss had for carnal, that is, venereal pleasure, does not induce the danger of consent to graver acts.

1. Billuart, diss. V, a. 2.

2. It is founded on the principle that "always the beginning of something is ordered to its consummation"; hence he who wills the beginning, by that very fact implicitly and necessarily wills the consummation, just as he who wills a participated good, by that very fact wills it "as tending into the perfect good." I-II, q. 1, a. 6.

1004. Remark. - Luxury is also a capital sin and very dangerous, as we said in the treatise on Sins (I, n. 505).

Capital sins are so called because they are as it were the heads or fountains of other sins. Hence they should be called vices rather than properly sins, if they are considered in general.

Seven are enumerated, namely: 1st. Pride; 2nd. Avarice; 3rd. Lust; 4th. Envy; 5th. Anger; 6th. Sloth; 7th. Gluttony. But how fittingly all sins are reduced to seven heads St. Thomas explains excellently, 1-2, q. 84, art. 4.

We shall say very few things here about the individual capital sins, but we shall carefully indicate the places of St. Thomas and St. Alphonsus to which recourse must be had for a fuller exposition of the doctrine.

Pride is the disordered love of one's own excellence, and is distinguished into perfect, or complete and consummated in its own genus, and imperfect. It is called perfect when a man so stands in himself and is pleased with himself that he is in the disposition of gravely transgressing the law rather than obeying the commands of superiors. But this, by that very fact, always includes mortal sin in itself. In other cases it is called imperfect, and then of itself it is accustomed to introduce only venial sin. From pride proceed ambition, vain glory, presumption, boasting, ostentation, and hypocrisy. - Cf. St. Thom. 2-2, q. 162; and QQ. DD. De Malo, qq. 8 and 9.

Avarice is the disordered appetite of temporal goods. It is opposed to justice or to liberality. If the former, it will easily issue into mortal sin, namely as often as it impels one to grave injustice toward the neighbor. - If the latter, of itself it will produce only venial sins. For the rest, excessive affection toward earthly things can impel, and indeed is accustomed to impel, into other even grave sins. From avarice also proceed hardness of heart toward the miserable, disquiet of soul, perfidy, deceit, etc. - Cf. St. Thom. 2-2, q. 118; and QQ. DD. De Malo, q. 13.

Lust is the disordered appetite of a venereal thing. Lust is a grave sin from its whole genus; but this is to be understood if venereal delectation is deliberate in itself and directly willed. But if it is only indirectly voluntary, it sometimes admits smallness of matter, as will be said more fully below where the sixth precept of the Decalogue is treated.

Blindness of mind, inconsideration, inconstancy, hatred of God, languor of faith, indeed even loss of faith, are effects of lust. - Cf. St. Thom. 2-2, qq. 153 and 154; and QQ. DD. De Malo, q. 15.

Envy is sadness concerning the good of another, insofar as it is judged as one's own evil, or at least as one's lesser good. To it is reduced joy concerning the evil of another, which is judged an increase of one's own good. Envy is directly against charity, and from its genus, although not from its whole genus, imports grave sin. From envy proceed detraction, calumny, whispering, contumely, etc. - Cf. St. Thom. 2-2, q. 36; and QQ. DD. De Malo, q. 10.

Anger is the kindling of the soul, and a disordered motion against someone or something; or it is a disordered appetite of vengeance. Irascibility is the habit of anger. Anger is mortal from its genus, if it is an appetite of vengeance; but venial, if it is only a disordered motion of the soul. - Anger generates indignation, rancor, shouting, insults, blasphemies, etc. - Cf. St. Thom. 2-2, q. 158; and QQ. DD. De Malo, q. 12. - St. Alphonsus, nn. 80 and seq.

Sloth in general sounds the same as laziness; but more strictly it is torpor of mind and weakness of will, from which distaste for spiritual things flows because of the labor and trouble attached to them. - If it is so great that grave obligations are omitted from it, it must be held grave; if otherwise, it is to be judged slight. Torpor, wandering of the mind, nausea in prayer, etc., are the fruits of sloth. Cf. St. Thom. 2-2, q. 35; and QQ. DD. De Malo, q. 11. - St. Alphonsus, n. 84.

Gluttony is the disordered appetite of food or drink, and from its genus it is nothing but venial sin. But it becomes grave if it gravely harms health, or if it renders someone unfit for duties. - From gluttony come drunkenness, about which more fully presently, dullness of mind, buffoonery, much speaking, and uncleanness of every kind. Cf. St. Thom. 2-2, q. 148 and 150; and QQ. DD. De Malo, q. 14. - St. Alphonsus, nn. 74 and seq.

Note. - It would perhaps be very fitting to consult St. Thomas concerning sobriety. Sobriety is especially concerned with drink having the power of making drunk. For sobriety preserves measure: "and therefore," says the Angelic Doctor, 2-2, q. 149, a. 1, "it especially assigns to itself that matter in which it is especially praiseworthy to preserve measure. But of this kind is drink capable of making drunk, because its measured use contributes much and a moderate excess harms much, because it impedes the use of reason more than excess of food." And ibid. ad 3: "although measure is required in all things, nevertheless sobriety is not properly said in all things, but in those things in which measure is especially necessary." Now then, "it pertains to moral virtue to preserve the good of reason against those things by which it can be impeded. And therefore," he says ibid. a. 2, "where a special impediment of reason is found, there it is necessary that there be a special virtue for removing it. But intoxicating drink has a special account of impeding the use of reason, insofar as namely it disturbs the brain by its fumes. And therefore ... a special virtue is required, which is sobriety." And although "food and drink commonly can impede the good of reason, by absorbing it through immoderation of delectation, ... drink capable of making drunk impedes according to a special account." Would that also the following words of the Angelic Doctor were noted by some: "in all drinks capable of making drunk there is one and the same account of impeding the use of reason. And thus that diversity of drinks is related accidentally to virtue." Ibid. ad 3. No food or drink, speaking according to itself, is illicit. Yet drink can be rendered illicit by accident, either "because by wine [a man] is easily harmed, or because by a special vow he is obliged not to drink wine," or "from the manner of drinking, because namely he exceeds measure in drinking," or "on the part of others who are scandalized by this." Ibid. art. 3. To the objection that the use of wine is totally illicit, because it impedes wisdom without which someone cannot be in the state of salvation, the Angelic Doctor responds: "Wisdom can be had in two ways. In one way according to the common mode, insofar as it suffices for salvation. And thus it is not required for having wisdom that someone altogether abstain from wine, but that he abstain from the immoderate use of wine. In another way according to a certain degree of perfection. And thus it is required in some persons, for perceiving wisdom perfectly, that they altogether abstain from wine, according to the conditions of certain persons and places." ad 1. But for women and young people, if we regard proneness to pursuing bodily pleasures, "for old men in whom reason ought to flourish for the instruction of others, and for Bishops or any ministers of the Church who with devout mind ought to insist upon spiritual offices, and for kings who by wisdom ought to govern the subject people, sobriety is specially enjoined." Ibid. a. 4. - Cf. the places to be cited at n. 148 from St. Thom. 1-2, q. 88, a. 5, ad 1; 2-2, q. 150, a. 2.

Drunkenness is a voluntary excess in drink unto disturbance of reason, whether this is done from or with pleasure, or without pleasure. But it is divided into perfect and imperfect. The first is had when the use of reason is altogether taken away, so that the drunk man is incapable of acting morally; but the other is that by which the mind is indeed disturbed, yet still has the power to discern between good and evil.

But many others, following St. Thomas, define the vice of drunkenness as: superfluous drink without necessity and from the pleasure of wine alone unto deprivation of the use of reason.

Perfect drunkenness is always a mortal sin, but imperfect drunkenness of itself is only venial. The reason for the first is gathered both from the consent of theologians and the estimation of God-fearing men, and because to deprive oneself of the use of reason in a violent and unnatural way, and indeed in such a way that it cannot immediately be recovered, gravely repugns rational nature; and finally because in the Scriptures, for example, I Cor. vi, 10, drunkards are excluded from the kingdom of God. But the reason for the second is both because there is no grave disordering as long as one can act morally, and because the consent of theologians so holds. - Cf. St. Thom. 2-2, q. 150, art. 2. - St. Alphonsus, n. 75. But St. Thomas speaks thus, 1-2, q. 88, a. 5, ad 1: "Concerning drunkenness it must be said that according to its own account it has this, that it is a mortal sin. For that a man without necessity renders himself unable to use reason, through which man is ordered to God and avoids many sins that occur, from the pleasure of wine alone, is expressly contrary to virtue. But that it is venial sin happens on account of a certain ignorance or infirmity, for instance when a man does not know the strength of wine or his own weakness, whence he does not think that he will be made drunk: for then drunkenness is not imputed to him as sin, but only overabundance of drink. But when he is frequently made drunk, he cannot be excused through this ignorance, without his will seeming to choose rather to suffer drunkenness than to abstain from superfluous wine, whence the sin returns to its own nature." Therefore the drunk man is guilty of a twofold disordering according to St. Thomas: by drinking wine from pleasure alone; and by drinking from excess unto the loss of the use of reason without any motive which would justify even the account of excessive drink. Cf. Baller., tr. 4, n. 381, seq. - Azor., l. 7, c. 33, q. 5. - Lessius, lib. 4, c. 3, d. 3, n. 13. - Dicastillo, lib. 1, disp. 3, d. 11, n. 104.

You Will Resolve. 1st. It is lawful to use any liquors whatever, as medicine for driving away diseases, for example, typhus, even if drunkenness is foreseen as going to follow, provided nevertheless that it is not directly intended, and the salvation of the soul is not placed in danger. It is required namely 1st. that drunkenness follow only indirectly, and 2nd. that no danger be present that the sick man die without reception of the sacraments. Cf. St. Thom. 2-2, q. 150, a. 2, ad 3. - St. Alphonsus, n. 76. St. Thomas speaks thus: "When someone drinks much according to the counsel of medicine ... the drink is not reputed superfluous." l. c.

2nd. The same seems able to be said of those of our country who take a great quantity of liquor in order to expel or restrain the poison which they have drawn from the bites of serpents; for drunkenness, if any follows in such a case, would be said to have followed only indirectly. In this case it is not taken from the pleasure of wine alone nor without necessity.

3rd. It can never be lawful to assume drunkenness as a means for obtaining some effect, however good, because evils are not to be done that goods may come. But if a great quantity of liquor were taken, not indeed for violent deprivation of the use of reason, but for relaxing and thus soothing the nerves, so that from this some surgical operation may be done more easily, it does not appear why this would be illicit, since it is said to be lawful to use opium or ether for performing similar operations.

4th. Those mothers or nurses are altogether to be condemned who, for quieting the tears of children, use alcoholic or opiated drinks, and thus from the first age introduce an evil custom into them.

5th. A fortiori doctors are to be condemned who recur to the same remedy in order to provoke the sick to gladness or to lessen pains of the body; for those acting thus, although perhaps they can be excused from the sin of drunkenness, because they procure it only indirectly, nevertheless certainly introduce an evil custom into the sick if they recover; or, if they die, expose them to the danger of eternal damnation.

6th. Certainly they sin gravely who by command, counsel, or provocation induce others to drunkenness, or induce them to drink with foresight of future drunkenness: something which here and there is done under the vain pretext of friendship or civility.

7th. Likewise he who drinks to excess in order to free himself from the death which another threatens against him does not drink from the pleasure of wine alone or without cause; hence it is not sin.

Question 1. What must be said concerning the promise not to drink (the pledge) as it is accustomed to be made among us?

Response. Although a promise of this kind is good in itself, and, as daily experience establishes, offers an excellent remedy for amending the life of many, nevertheless the practice of receiving it is not without difficulties. For if it is said openly, what theologically speaking is certainly true, namely that violation of that promise is no sin or only venial sin, it will scarcely not happen that the whole efficacy of the remedy vanishes. But from the other side, if nothing is said, many and grave sins will be perpetrated from an ill-formed conscience; since there are many who judge violations of that promise to be graver sins than perfect drunkenness. Therefore much prudence and discretion is needed in receiving promises of this kind. - Wherefore, if there are those who doubt concerning the quantity of that obligation and inquire about it, or if they are not so untaught that they can easily grasp an explanation, or are not drawn to liquors by an utterly mad and ruined love, it will be useful, indeed necessary, to explain to them what the nature of that promise is; for since this is not a vow, but only a purpose manifested to a priest, it cannot of itself oblige under grave sin. But in the other hypothesis perhaps it would be better to say nothing, and to bear oneself permissively concerning those grave sins which would follow; for the lessening of drunkenness will be a sufficient reason for permitting them. - Cf. Irish Ecclesiastical Record, May 1883, pp. 338 and seq.

Question 2. What must be said concerning those sodalities recently instituted for extirpating the vice of drunkenness?

Response. That they are very good and are preferred by many apostolic laborers to the other remedy which consists in the promise not to drink. The reason is that these more recent remedies, while from one side they foster piety more, which is the beginning of every true conversion, from the other side offer no occasion of new sins. The Fathers of the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore indeed alluded to these remedies in the following words: "Since monstrous scandals arise from excessive drinking, we exhort pastors, and beseech them by the bowels of Jesus Christ, that they put every zeal into eliminating the vice of drunkenness. To this end, we judge worthy of praise the zeal of those faithful who abstain from every ardent liquor in order to decline more safely the danger of excesses. But those who spontaneously enter a society among themselves, so that by mutual examples of virtues they may help and strengthen one another, ought first of all to employ those aids which Christ the Lord left in the Church, by which human vices are amended and infirmity is sustained; and by prayer, frequent reception of the sacraments, and other exercises of piety, to obtain heavenly aid for themselves, and to trust not in themselves, nor in their purposes, but in God, without whom human effort profits nothing." But the Fathers of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, speaking more explicitly, say: "The societies which come under the name of 'Catholic Union for promoting Total Abstinence' and 'Sacred Thirst,' we acknowledge as worthy of great praise; for they are governed by a truly Catholic spirit, and seek the necessary strength not so much in firmness of their own will as in the power of prayers and of the sacraments. Moreover it is known that the Head of the whole Church and Vicar of Christ on earth has more than once enriched them with his apostolic blessing and with the indulgences of the Church. Therefore we also exhibit to the same the signs of our benevolence, and that they may flourish the more, we commend them to the paternal care of all our priests, that they may not only add courage to them but also always show them the Catholic path." Cf. Conc. Plen. Balt. II, nn. 470 and seq.; and Conc. Plen. Balt. III, nn. 260 and seq.

Very recently special spiritual graces in favor of the faithful enrolled in societies of Temperance or Abstinence from intoxicating drink were conceded by the Supreme Pontiff Pius X on 21 May 1914 - namely: indulgences both plenary and partial, and also an altogether singular favor by virtue of which all Masses which are applied by any priest whatsoever for the soul of some deceased member can assist that soul as if they had been celebrated at a privileged altar. These graces were granted by the Supreme Pontiff wishing to show his more favorable will toward the aforesaid Societies and to find their Members more eager in advancing so salutary a purpose. - Acta Apost. Sed., v. VI, p. 309.

Question 3. Is it lawful to induce someone to drunkenness so that he may be turned away from a greater evil?

Response. Affirmatively, if drunkenness is only material to him; because a material evil can be permitted for a grave cause. Thus commonly against Collet, Concina, etc. But they more commonly deny it if drunkenness is formal; because evils are not to be done that goods may come: nevertheless St. Alphonsus, n. 77, admits the opposite opinion as probable with several others, "because it is lawful to induce another to a lesser evil so that he may be impeded from a greater." For when someone can be deterred from perpetrating a greater evil by no other means, to persuade the lesser evil has the account of good. See below n. 185. Q. 5th.

Note. - 1st. Habitual excessive drink produces enormous harms for the individual, the family, and society. It harms the health, fortune, and morals of individuals: domestic peace departs from the family, horrible crimes are committed, reason itself day by day becomes degenerate and more vicious.

Personal remedies: for all to avoid the occasions of this sin and those persons and assemblies by whom temperance is violated; to acquire strength by exercise of this virtue and of Christian mortification, and by consideration of motives both natural and supernatural by which men may become stronger against the vice of drunkenness, finally by petition of divine aid. - Dictionnaire de Theol. Cath., under the word Gourmandise.

2nd. The use of morphine, chloroform, and other medicines bringing exile of reason must be ruled by these general principles. The use of morphine, etc., for calming grave pains by soothing the senses is permitted in surgical operations, in more difficult births, and in general when there is a just cause. The use of morphine, etc., taken habitually induces an unquenchable thirst, to which follows unfitness for performing grave duties, and servitude under the medicine itself: such use is gravely prohibited; indeed doctors sin gravely who so frequently prescribe these things to the sick that there is proximate danger of inducing this habit or desire for morphine. The use of morphine which does not bring with it this danger but only a lessening of pains is not illicit of itself. The use of morphine, etc., inducing the loss of the exercise of reason for a long time without cause is certainly a grave sin.

The use of morphine, etc., employed with the dying without their consent so that they may remain in a state of semi-wakefulness is a grave sin and against natural right: such use in those circumstances, that is, with one dying, is gravely illicit when he is not prepared by the sacraments for dying, nor is it lawful for him to consent to it. If he is prepared and there is no danger of falling into grave sin, doctors are to be deterred from employing these means. But what if the pains are most bitter and extraordinary, for example, if someone is burned by slow fire in a conflagration, and cannot be removed from the flames themselves, because, say, he is held by the beams of the house? Is it lawful in this case, when there is no danger of falling into a state of sin, without the consent of the dying man so to soothe his senses that he will remain in fainting until death? It is not lawful: because he has a right to acquire enormous merits. What if he himself wishes it, or if there is danger of falling into grave sin? In those most difficult circumstances let the priest assist him with every help and exhortation so that he may suffer the pains bravely. If at last the sacred minister himself fears, let him be silent; indeed it does not seem altogether certainly prohibited so to soothe the senses, because in the case, morally speaking, he is a prepared sick man: to this indeed he is bound, but it is not clear that he is bound to acquire greater merits. It is his right: but whether a grave obligation rests upon him, this is not evident. Cf. Villada, Cas., v. 3, p. 309. Lehmkuhl speaks more severely, n. 892, ed. 11a.

3rd. Nor does artificial sleep seem illicit, by which, induced by medicinal injections, a woman giving birth does not fully perceive the pains of birth. During this state, so it is reported, she is not deprived of the use of the senses; afterward, however, she is said not to remember those things which then happened, and the sleep is called twilight. Moreover we affirm that if the woman in that state is duly protected, if the doctor is prudent, if care is applied so that nothing harmful happens either to the woman or to the fetus, the matter is done licitly. But another thing would have to be said if these conditions were not verified.

LUST is a fire devouring even unto consumption, as is said Iob 31., like Greek fire, of which the holy Doctor relates in Diaeta, tit. 1. cap. 9.; for there, once kindled, it is extinguished only when covered with sand and vinegar; so the flesh, kindled with the flames of lust, is scarcely checked unless it be long pricked with the austerity and acrimony of penitence, and seriously and often meditate on the emptiness of the world; which two things are figured by vinegar and sand. It is also a fire, namely, consuming whatever beauty it encounters; for those who are more beautiful, whether men or women, not rarely serve as it were as food for lust. I shall treat, therefore, here of Lust and its manifold species; handling indeed an ungrateful subject, I shall run through it with such a choice of words as to describe most shameful things with honest terms (as far as it will be fitting).

LUxury is defined by D. Bonaventure in the aforesaid Centiloquium sect. 24. and in the Diaeta tit. 1. cap. 9. and in the declaration of theological terms and in the Compendium of Theology, part III. cap. 21. and in the Mirror of the Soul, cap. 3. D. Thomas, quaest. 153. Luxury is the vice opposed to chastity, whereby the mind is inordinately disposed toward venereal pleasures, the reason of the definition is taken from the opposite virtue of chastity, as St. Bonaventure notes, loc. cit. Centil.

I assert that Luxury is a capital vice. Its daughters are eight, from D. Gregory, lib. XXXI. moral. cap. 17. Blindness of mind, Inconsiderateness, Inconstancy, Precipitancy, Self-love, Hatred of God, Affection for the present world, Horror, or despair of the world to come. So D. Bonaventure, loc. cit. Centiloquii.

It is proved, because a capital vice is one that has an end excessively desirable, so that man, in pursuing it, proceeds to commit many sins, which are all said to arise from that vice; now the end of Luxury is the pleasure of venery, which is both the greatest and the most desirable according to the sensitive appetite, both on account of the vehemence of the pleasure and on account of the connaturality of that pleasure and concupiscence, as the Saintly Doctor argues, lib. III. Compend. Theol. cap. 14. and 21. and in the other places cited.

The generation of these daughters from Luxury is explained as follows. Since the inferior powers are affected toward their objects, it follows that the higher powers are impeded and disordered in their acts; but through luxury the inferior appetite is greatly affected by the delightful object: Therefore the higher powers, Reason and Will, are consequently disordered.

And this happens specifically as follows: For there are three acts of practical reason. The first is simple understanding, which apprehends some end as good; and this act Luxury impedes, by making the object of Luxury seem good, as is said Dan. 13. Beauty hath deceived thee, and concupiscence hath subverted thy heart, and behold blindness of mind.

The second act is counsel about the means to be chosen, and this is impeded in Luxury, which impedes the exact comparison of the means with one another, as Terence says in the Eunuch; and behold precipitancy, whereby one attacks everything impetuously, as the Saintly Doctor says, loc. cit. Centiloquii.

The third act is judgment about what is to be done, which is impeded by Luxury, diverting the mind from the consideration of the things that are fitting, according to that text Dan. 13. They have perverted the sense, and turned away their eyes, that they might not see heaven, nor remember just judgments; and behold inconsiderateness, which refuses to foresee what is to be done, as the Saintly Doctor says. On the part of the will also there follows a twofold inordinate act: One in order to the end, and in this respect there is self-love in excessive pleasure, and hatred of God who forbids: The other is the appetite for the things that are toward the end, and there is set down affection for the present world, in which one desires to enjoy pleasure; and horror of the future, fleeing spiritual things. Hence Osee 4. Fornication, and wine, and drunkenness take away the heart. So discourses the Saintly Doctor, loc. cit. Centiloquii.

Nor yet does Isidore speak badly, cited by D. Thomas, art. 5., looking especially at inordinate speech, accustomed to arise from luxury, when he enumerates four effects, Turpiloquy, Scurrility, Jesting, and Foolish speaking. Indeed in speech a fourfold disorder can be observed: The first on the part of the matter; and behold turpiloquy, for, Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, as is said Matth. 12. The second on the part of the cause; because luxury drives one headlong, therefore inconsiderateness precipitates one into scurrilous talk. The third on the part of the end, because the luxurious person intends pleasure, and therefore breaks out into jesting words. The fourth as regards the sense of the words, and so luxury, on account of the blindness of mind it causes, pours itself out into foolish speech. See D. Bonaventure, loc. cit.

I assert secondly that the species of Luxury are six, Fornication, Stuprum, Rape, Incest, Adultery, and the Vice against nature, which is subdivided into several species. For either the pollution causing venereal pleasure is procured without intercourse, and this is mollities (softness), Gal. 5. and 2. Cor. 12. Or there is intercourse with brutes, and this is Bestiality. Third, there can be intercourse with the sex not due, male with male, or female with female, as the Apostle says, Rom. 1. and it is called Sodomy. The fourth and fifth is, if the manner of coupling is not observed, either as regards the instrument, or vessel not due, or as regards other monstrous and bestial manners of coupling, which, if they obstruct generation, are mortal sins even in spouses. Which the Apostle detests as abominable, Rom. 1. 1. Cor. 6. and 12. Galat. 5. Ephes. 5. and Heb. 12.

That these are sins specifically distinct is proved by Cajetan, art. 11. Tanner, disp. 3. quaest. 3. dub. 3. num. 149. from the diversity of motives, for they have different motives of pleasure: For the first have only venereal consummation; the second, a thing of another species; Sodomy, the person of the sex not due, etc.

But to say that the aforesaid five sins are not mortal, specifically distinct, nor so far to be necessarily declared in confession, as some recent authors have insinuated, is not only not safe, as Tannerus says, num. 149. but erroneous, and it was condemned in the year 1665 by the Sacred Congregation by the Decree of Alexander VII, of most holy memory, as we saw, tom. 4. disp. 17. quaest. 10. ad proposit. 14.

All these species are so intrinsically deadly that they are never lawful, except the manner of coupling in marriage from some necessity, provided the vessel be preserved and generation not be impeded, as Tannerus noted, num. 150.

For a threefold cause God forbade Luxury, as the Saintly Doctor says in the Diaeta, tit. 3. cap. 5. First, because it is pernicious, like a pestilence. Second, because it gathers many together at once in sin. Third, because it is the broad way to hell. See the Saintly Doctor. Add that Generation is the way to the production of a most noble creature, namely man created to the image of God; wherefore it will be impious to abuse it with foul and illicit couplings.

To these species are reduced, as dispositions, others contained in this verse, cited from D. Bonaventure, loc. cit. Centiloquii. The look, and speech, touch, and the kiss, This last is the consummation of the whole sin.

Note that the Seraphic Doctor, in the Confessional, cap. 2. particula 14., places grave fault in conjugal copulation. First, if it is done from the impulse of lust through wanton endearments: Second, when it is done against the natural use: Third, in the prohibited time: Fourth, in a filthy place: Fifth, when one approaches a menstruating woman. But of this, Tract. de matrimonio. The Saintly Doctor teaches these things from Allen, and warns that one must proceed cautiously in questioning in confession. These species are to be treated in the following dubitations.