What it is and its gravity

Pollution is the voluntary emission of human seed outside intercourse, whence it is also called the solitary sin. It is called voluntary either in itself or in its cause, to distinguish it from the involuntary kind, which can arise from various causes and especially occurs naturally in sleep to relieve a superfluity. It is called an emission of seed to distinguish it from that discharge by which a less dense fluid, of an altogether different kind, flows from the urethra in those of and under the age of puberty, whether with venereal excitement or without it.

Directly voluntary pollution is intrinsically evil and a mortal sin. This is established from Holy Scripture and from the constant teaching of the Church. Innocent XI condemned this proposition: "Self-abuse is not forbidden by the law of nature. Hence, if God had not forbidden it, it would often be good and sometimes obligatory under pain of mortal sin." The same is proved from the very bad effects which follow from this vice, both to the individual, by weakening the powers of his mind and body, and to society, inasmuch as those entangled in this vice, content with solitary pleasure, would shun the grave burdens of marriage, to the ruin of the human race. In every case it is unlawful, so that no exception is admitted; for, because of men's very great proneness to this kind of sin, if it were ever permitted they would readily invent occasions of indulging themselves, to their own ruin. Hence it must never be lawful, not even to save life. Several of the older Doctors taught, probably, according to St Alphonsus, that it is lawful to expel corrupt seed without any sensation of lust. Modern writers, however, deny that seed is ever corrupted, so that the foundation of that opinion appears to be wanting.

it is lawful, and expedient, to remove what has gathered under the foreskin in order to lessen irritation,

¹ 1 Cor. vi 10.

² Theol. Mor., 3, n. 478.

322. - In the first place there occurs for remembrance the sin which, from the ordinary circumstance of the agent, is called solitary; from the weakness of soul which it betrays, effeminacy; from the more frequent manner in which it is committed, masturbation ¹; and from the liquid secretion then emitted, pollution.

¹ At least under the rationale that they are accustomed, not very scientifically, to explain the word masturbation as though it were stuprum committed by the hand.

As is easily gathered from the anthropological part ², the man, in pollution, regularly emits semen specifically necessary for generation, but which is available in such quantity that the greatest part of it does not in fact serve generation; but the woman emits a liquid, or rather is moistened inwardly by a liquid which contributes nothing directly to generation itself, yet assists active generation or copulation. (It is entirely accidental if, because of arousal or excitation, an ovum descends.)

² Nos. 7, 8.

But of itself, in either sex, this effusion accompanies the arousal by which the one wonderfully completes the other physically, and both become one flesh for the generation of a new human being.

Therefore pollution, separated from copulation, is the solitary effusion of this liquid.

Moreover, for the production of pollution, every person can contribute by his threefold life: the vegetative life, which prepares the liquid and, in definite circumstances of the excited organ, pours it forth; the sensitive life, which enjoys the conjoined pleasure, depicts it for itself in an image, and desires it by a pursuing passion; the rational life, which, recognizing a certain pleasurable human good in this enjoyment, accepts it by the will or deliberately seeks it.

Then the mind itself is so occupied in these things that it is prevented from thinking of others.

That pollution can be called complete which is thus perfected by the participation of the threefold life.

But it can exist partially.

The non-pleasurable emission from which those afflicted with spermatorrhea often suffer pertains merely to the vegetative life. A "secretion" of this kind can be compared with the "secretion" of tears or the emission of urine.

Pollution in which, without the cooperation or assent of the mind, the sense alone is delighted is to be ascribed to the animal or sensitive life: as if it were to occur during the day apart from the will.

In a certain manner intermediate is the pollution in which the higher faculty participates, but while impeded by sense. Such is that to which, in sleep, the will seems to give assent.

Let us call complete pollution by the name of psychological pollution in the full sense, insofar as the higher psychic powers act in it; we call the pollution of the sensitive life psychological in a diminished signification, or even animal, since it pertains to the lower psychological life common to us with animals; finally, the pollution of the vegetative life would well be called physiological, if today several authors did not call physiological a fully voluntary pollution which is procured for the sake of health, real or pretended, without approval of the pleasure ³. Wherefore, to avoid confusion, we shall instead call it corporeal.

³ Cardinal Lehmkuhl, I, 1042, note.

Corporeal pollution lies outside the rationale of sin. As St. Thomas says ⁴, "that which is on the part of the body... stands accidentally in relation to the moral act, which is considered of itself only according to those things which belong to the soul." "Pollution," says Sanchez ⁵, "arising by a natural way in sleep is in no respect a human act nor subject to his will, but is a certain natural act and evacuation, like sweat."

⁴ II-II, question 152, article 1.

⁵ In Decalogum, book 1, chapter 2, no. 18.

The second pollution, that of the sensitive life, at least in the waking state, presents matter to be governed by reason: "for the sensible passions are the matter of moral acts ⁶." Wherefore, when a man who is in possession of himself and not excused by inconvenience does not impede animal pollution, he commits a venial sin because of the rebellion of sense tolerated without cause and a certain danger of consent. But to repress by a positive effort, which is somewhat painful, a pollution which has already arisen is praiseworthy but not necessary.

⁶ St. Thomas, II-II, question 152, article 1.

Finally, the third pollution, fully psychological or complete, insofar as the higher reason participates in it, constitutes a mortal sin. Cf. the demonstration set forth below.

Therefore observe, which must be well noted, that these three pollutions differ in their physical rationale, since complete pollution does not signify merely a certain mental approval of a physiological phenomenon, but the participation of the sense which is delighted and of the mind which as it were penetrates the pleasure and cooperates toward it.

323. - The grave question concerning the malice of voluntary or admitted pollution must now be undertaken. This question contains three parts. For these three things are asked concerning voluntary pollution: is its malice intrinsic; is it grave; is it specifically distinct from the malice of a lustful touch?

I. Opinions. That the malice of the sin of pollution, at least in the man, was not unknown to the pagans is already demonstrated by Martial in these verses:

"Do you think this is nothing? It is a crime, believe me, and a great one, Such as you yourself can scarcely conceive in your mind....

Believe me, the very nature of things says: That which you waste with your fingers, Ponticus, is a man ¹."

¹ Epigram 42, book 9, Against Ponticus.

But Caramuel ² again denied that this uncleanness is condemned by nature itself; and from two of his assertions was taken proposition 49, which Innocent XI condemned as at least scandalous and dangerous in practice: "Effeminacy is not prohibited by the law of nature. Wherefore, if God had not forbidden it, it would often be good and sometimes obligatory under mortal sin."

² Cf. Theologia intentionalis, book 4, nos. 1960 and 1965.

Therefore, the common doctrine of Catholics affirms that it is intrinsically and gravely evil. Yet in the accurate demonstration of the doctrine they again experience no slight difficulty and have attempted various ways.

II. Various arguments. Several indicate this rationale, that pollution signifies a futile emission of semen, the exclusive destination of which is the good of the human species. Ballerini ³ still adduces this rationale; and Lehmkuhl himself ⁴ seems to us to have attended excessively to this effusion. You would indeed say that St. Thomas himself ⁵ used an argument from the pouring forth of semen. But in this way he responds rather ad hominem. To one objecting that semen is a superfluity of nourishment, the Holy Doctor replies that "it is a superfluity which is needed." But in the direct demonstration in the body of the article, he places the formal malice of lust in the vicious use of venereal things.

³ Opus theologicum morale, vol. 2, treatise 6, no. 1026.

⁴ Theologia moralis, I, 1036 and 1039.

⁵ II-II, question 153, article 3, reply to objection 1.

Moreover, the rationale deduced from the prodigal effusion of semen is subject to a twofold difficulty. Nature itself, even against the will of the man, lavishes this semen. Why would the same not be lawful for me for a just cause, for example for the sake of health ⁶? Especially since the quantity of this liquid is so great that it can never be said: "this portion of the semen poured forth is necessary for generation." Indeed, a useless outpouring is permitted even to men themselves. For no less than in pollution, in the copulations of sterile persons the semen is lavished.

⁶ Thus already Sanchez, De matrimonio, book 9, disputation 17, no. 16.

Again, the end for which nature prepares semen is not the generation of offspring alone.

For it destines semen for an operation, copulation, which has other immediate utilities; but nature impels to so many copulations that several must necessarily be futile.

And so you will never establish from the outpouring as such why it is not lawful to lavish by pollution this semen which can be lavished in other ways, but rather from another rationale which, if found, will manifest to us the formal malice of pollution.

b) Wherefore others have placed the malice of pollution not in the loss of semen, but in perfect venereal pleasure; and at least principally in it, as they say; indeed exclusively in it, if they wish to speak consistently. Thus Rev. Fr. Eschbach, Disputationes, disputation 4, chapter 4, or the Nouvelle Revue Theologique, vols. 3 and 5, which Palmieri favors, Opus theologicum, note to II, no. 1028.

But they incur this grave criticism, that pleasure follows the nature of the conjoined operation, so that it cannot be the first rationale of dishonesty. Nor can the force of this principle be evaded by a certain arbitrary distinction between venereal pleasure and other pleasures ⁷. At most this can be conceded: that, if it is connected with an operation evil of itself, the pleasure can create such allurements and such a danger of delusion that the disorder must consequently be judged grave and every accidental exception must be rejected. Wherefore Sanchez and other scholastic doctors gathered merely from the pleasure the necessity of a perpetual and grave prohibition ⁸.

⁷ Cf. Eschbach, Disputationes physiologico-theologicae, disputation 4, chapter 4, p. 483.

⁸ Cf. Sanchez, De matrimonio, book 9, disputation 17, no. 16; and Lessius, book 4, chapter 3, nos. 108, 119, 122.

And furthermore, if the disorder is present in the pleasure itself, since the pleasure of the consummated act and that of the non-consummated act seem to differ only in intensity ⁹, one could scarcely distinguish imperfect lust specifically from perfect lust, so that in matrimony you would be compelled to confess either that all solitary lust is gravely evil or that none is gravely evil ¹⁰.

⁹ Cf. II-II, question 154, article 4.

¹⁰ Cf. those things which the Most Illustrious Dr. Waffelaert most excellently objects, no. 63, De virtutibus cardinalibus.

Yet we do not therefore hold as improbable the opinion of those who, once the intrinsic malice of the action is admitted, contend that, because of carnal pleasure wrongly sought, it is opposed to temperance, so that unless this pleasure were joined to it, a diverse species of malice would have to be sought. Cf. the appendix at the end of the book.

c) But if, with not a few, you appeal to the disadvantages of pollution once permitted, and affirm that if the licitness of pollution were conceded in some case, men, content with this pleasure, would no longer be sufficiently solicitous about entering matrimony, there will be those, such as Lecomte ¹¹, and after him Berardi ¹², who altogether deny the truth of this effect. But it is already evident that this rationale is sought extrinsically.

¹¹ De l'ovulation spontanée, part 2, section 1, chapter 3, § 2.

¹² Praxis confessariorum, no. 849.

d) There are not lacking those who think that the malice of pollution must be derived from the fact that it is an act against nature, but its gravity from the conjoined vehement pleasure and the consequent danger of frequent abuse which would be gravely opposed to the good of the species. Thus, for example, Rev. Dr. Van Roey. This opinion seems to approach the truth more closely. Yet it has this inconvenience: that pleasure follows the nature of the operation, which here would not in itself be gravely evil; and that the vehement pleasure and the very danger of abuse can be absent in various cases in which at least grave guilt would logically have to be denied. Rev. Dr. Van Roey solves this latter difficulty thus, in the cited place: "From the common danger such a law is made, and reasonably must be made, which permits no exception. Otherwise, with the psychological constitution of men again considered, the law would be weakened in itself and the intended end would not be obtained" ¹³. By these words he transfers to the natural law those things which are customarily said of positive law. To the first difficulty he responds that pleasure belongs essentially to the work of pollution itself. (Quaestio specialis, p. 28.)

¹³ Quaestio specialis, pp. 23-24.

Hence Palmieri ¹⁴ again: "It must be confessed that there are certain practical truths necessary for human society, which men perceive and sense by a certain rational instinct, but the altogether demonstrative rationale of which those same men, when they seek it analytically, find only with difficulty.... Among truths of this kind is perhaps also found this one with which we are dealing."

¹⁴ Opus theologicum, vol. 2, no. 1036.

Nevertheless, after those things which we discussed in no. 305 concerning the formal cause of grave sin, when we spoke of fornication, the proof does not seem so difficult; and the difficulty is seen to arise from the manner in which they wished to derive the gravity of the disorder directly from the gravity of the harm.

The question concerning the intrinsic malice of pollution and its gravity is followed by the question concerning its specific distinction from imperfect acts. All Catholic authors affirm this distinction, if you except a few who, after the true organic rationale of female pollution was discovered, began to doubt whether or not there existed in women a true distinction between the perfect and imperfect solitary act. With this distinction destroyed, the burden of sacramental accusation would be lightened. Indeed, there was even one among them who inclined to this consequence ¹⁵: that the rationale of mortal sin seemed consequently to be absent from the solitary acts of a married woman.

¹⁵ Observe that this was in no way defended or admitted by Ballerini, but rather by Lecomte, De l'ovulation spontanée. Cf. Van Roey, Quaestio specialis, who on p. 6 and in note 6 explicitly averts a suspicion of this kind from Ballerini.

324. - III. Therefore, we comprehend both the gravity of pollution in either sex and its distinction from the imperfect act in a conclusion which we can state briefly thus:

Every voluntary pollution, indeed every full consent to casual pollution, whether of the man or of the woman, is infected with intrinsic and grave malice and is specifically distinguished from imperfect lust.

To explain some words: we here call pollution voluntary when it is sought directly or by intention.

Consent to pollution signifies the deliberate enjoyment of the pleasure which accompanies even casual pollution, or, as Lehmkuhl says ¹⁶, the accepted pleasure of a pollution which has arisen.

¹⁶ Theologia moralis, I, 1039.

But casual is any pollution which occurs apart from intention, whether some action of ours or no action has given occasion to it.

I. The sin which, from the ordinary circumstance of the agent, is called solitary; from the liquid secretion emitted in it, pollution (immunditia, zelfbevlekking); from the weakness of soul which it manifests, softness; from the more frequent mode by which it is committed, masturbation (manus-turbatio), is defined: the separated complete use of the genitals and consequently of satiative venereal pleasure without concubitus. There is indicated:

A. the genus: complete use, and so forth. For thus it is distinguished from immodesty or the imperfect acts of lust, which are nothing but the beginning and preparation of complete lust; and from these it differs in species as the mere beginning of a work and the consummation, beginning and term, means and end, and as an incomplete species from a complete species.¹

¹ Saint Thomas, I-II, q. 72, a. 7.

B. the difference: without concubitus, because if it is done in natural concubitus, it will be fornication or another species according to nature; if in unnatural concubitus, or in an undue organ, it will be another species against nature. Therefore, from the fact that it is a solitary vice, pollution differs in species from the other consummated sins according to and against nature.

Therefore it is badly defined as: a. perfect satiative venereal pleasure outside concubitus. For pleasure is for the sake of the act and is essentially joined to the act as its consequence, and therefore it would not be evil unless the act itself were disordered. Hence, although complete pleasure outside legitimate concubitus is evil, nevertheless it is not the principal and specifically distinctive malice of pollution;²

² Hence a certain more recent author writes inconsiderately: "According to Saint Thomas the malice of lust does not consist, not even partially, as some have wished, in the frustration of semen, but is wholly situated in the pleasure which is proper to seminal emission," alleging Disputed Question De Veritate XV, a. 4, ad 3. For the holy Doctor does not say that the inordination is from the pleasure, but on the contrary that this pleasure is from the inordination of the act: "The whole inordination of fornication, from whatever source it occurs, redounds into the pleasure which is caused by it."

b. the fruitless effusion of semen, or the voluntary effusion outside concubitus.³ For its fundamental malice is not in the loss of semen, although in men this is an acceding gravity, because in them semen is specifically necessary for generation and therefore the complete use of the generative faculty of itself expels semen. But the malice is in this, that separately and solely for the individual good someone enjoys an operation which can be loved and sought only for the sake of the species.

³ Thus also Billuart: "Pollution or softness is the voluntary emission of human semen outside concubitus," and he attributes the definition to Saint Thomas, art. 11. But the holy Doctor does not say precisely this, but this: "that without any concubitus, for the sake of venereal pleasure, pollution is procured."

Hence the sin of pollution, just as in men, so also exists and does not differ in species:

1. in women: although in them there is no effusion of semen, nevertheless there is the complete use of the genital organs, distinct from imperfect use, from the movement and contraction of the female genital canal with satiative pleasure, which is usually accompanied by an abundant distillation of liquid of the female canal which contributes nothing directly to generation but assists copulation and the act of generation;⁴

⁴ Aristotle already denied that the seed of woman is true seed. Saint Thomas holds it as imperfect and not necessary for generation: "Such seed is not the matter which is required of necessity for conception" (III, q. 31, a. 5, ad 3). Afterwards many scholastics doubted whether there is seed in woman. Nevertheless all constantly taught that in the female there is a solitary sin distinct in species from incomplete lust, nor did they affirm this from a false assimilation of humor to seed properly so called. Hence one or another modern author who contradicts or doubts concerning this is not to be heard. Thus Noldin; but Father Schmitt, in more recent editions of the same work, has now amended this.

2. in youths and old men, because they are capable of copulation and have the complete use of the genitals, namely perfect erection and motion of the genital member, which ejaculation of semen is apt to follow, even if this is not always ejaculated, or is not always prolific, for example because of the absence of zoospermata;

3. in the impubescent who do not have semen, provided that they have the complete satiative use of the genital organ, namely are capable of perfect erection and copulation, or are able to effect intromission into the female genital canal;

4. likewise in those who have undergone vasectomy (zaadleiders-afsnijding), because they remain capable of copulation and satiative pleasure, indeed they preserve a perfect sexual appetite and semen, although they cannot emit that semen;

5. in eunuchs, not indeed those who were born so or were made so before the seventh year, but those who were castrated at adult age and retained the virile member, as long as they remain capable of satiative erection and copulation, which usually endures for some time; on the contrary:

6. not in infants and boys, even if perhaps they emit some liquid in a solitary act, because they are not capable of perfect erection and copulation; whence their act is always the imperfect and begun use of the genital organ. Likewise, not in those eunuchs who do not have perfect erection.

II. Pollution is either active or voluntary, or passive or involuntary.

A. Active pollution per se is an act essentially, and indeed gravely, evil, prohibited by the law of nature.

It is proved: 1. from the Scriptures, which say that the soft, the unclean, and the immodest will not obtain the kingdom of heaven: I Cor. VI, 10; Gal. V, 19; Eph. V, 3. This also regards the gentiles, since the newly converted are said to have been washed from it, who hitherto had been subject only to the natural law.

2. From the condemnation of proposition 49 by Innocent XI.⁵

⁵ "Softness is not prohibited by the law of nature. Hence, if God had not forbidden it, it would often be good and sometimes obligatory under mortal sin."

3. By reason: pollution is an act by which the complete use of the genitals and the pleasure attached to it are sought outside marriage and are ordered to the individual good, whereas they are destined solely to the social good, the generation of offspring. But this is a perversion of order, by which the act is frustrated of its primary end intended by nature; it is a grave inordination, because it is directly against the greatest good necessary to human society: its conservation and propagation. Therefore pollution is a grave perversion of order.

Confirmation: a. if pollution were not prohibited, or were prohibited only under light sin, many, content with this pleasure, would bid farewell to the burdens of marriage with the greatest detriment to society. Thus too the end intended by nature would be frustrated.

b. If simple fornication according to nature is gravely illicit, although it is against the education of offspring alone, a fortiori a sin against nature, which is much graver, as being against propagation itself.

Hence pollution is mortal sin:

a. if it is voluntary in itself;

b. if it is voluntary in a cause which is placed without sufficient reason and per se proximately and gravely influences it; otherwise, if it influences lightly, because then it is venial.⁶ But it should be noted that every cause which per se and gravely influences a carnal motion does not for that reason gravely and per se influence pollution itself; thus, for example, an instantaneous consent to carnal pleasure.

⁶ Compare above, Question II, nn. VI and VII.

IV. Every voluntary pollution of itself is a sin of the same species in whatever mode it is procured, whether namely by the mind, imagination, or sight; by the touch of the hand; by the use of some instrument; or by contact with a physical thing, or an animal, or an unaware living person, provided affection toward the person or toward concubitus is absent and pollution alone is intended. This is also verified in women, among whom pollution, whether clitoral or of the female canal, for example by the insertion of a finger, candle, carrot, and so forth, or by the use of an artificial virile member, that is, an instrument which imitates the virile member, or procured by another touch in a less honorable part, for example around the external pudendum, on the thighs, in the pubic region, by compression of the thighs, on the mammary papillae of the breasts, and so forth, are of the same notion.

Per accidens it can contract specifically diverse malice when certain circumstances accede, which therefore must be declared in confession, qualified pollution, and indeed:

1. from the circumstance of the agent; and thus the pollutions of an unmarried person, of one bound by vow, and of a married person differ;

2. from the circumstance of internal intention or affection; pollution from simple affection differs from that which is done from fornicary, sodomitical, bestial, adulterous, incestuous, or sacrilegious affection, whether someone intends these sins by absolute desire, or whether he precisely takes complacency in them as such;

3. from the circumstance of the special mode by which it is carried out, namely by touches of another person conscious of this matter, either because of scandal and complicity if the person consents, or because of unjust violence if the person resists. But if the person is married, bound by vow, or related by blood, a diverse species is contracted.

V. Observations. 1. Whoever has sought in vain the complete use of the genitals in such a way that he has not tasted satiative pleasure, which is the sign of complete use, has committed the sin of pollution by affection, but effectively he is not guilty of consummated lust.

2. Similarly, he who, after a chance pollution has been experienced involuntarily, consents to the pleasure, because the pollution is only willed, not voluntary, unless he wished to augment the arisen pollution. Nevertheless it is gravely sinful, because thus he wills the pleasure which has been ordered by God solely to conjugal copulation, by which generation is apt to occur in the due mode. Hence Saint Thomas has these things concerning nocturnal pollution: "It can happen that in the very awakening sin arises, if indeed, on account of the pleasure, what happened is pleasing. This will be a venial sin if such pleasure is by surreption, but mortal if it is with deliberating consent, and especially with appetite for the future. That pleasure does not make the past pollution a sin, because it is not its cause, but it is a sin in itself.⁹ But if it is pleasing as an exoneration and alleviation of nature, it is not believed to be a sin."

⁹ Saint Thomas, on IV Sent., d. 9, q. 1, a. 4, qc. 1, ad 5. Recently this was denied, or called into doubt, even by Antonelli, Medicina Pastoralis, in the most recent edition, t. II, c. XIII. Against this is what Vermeersch wrote in Periodica, XXII, p. 122: "Concerning the harmful passing over, in the matter of chastity, of Saint Thomas's principle concerning pleasure"; likewise in Th. M., 3rd ed., IV, n. 101. Consequently Antonelli's work was prohibited in universities, seminaries, and other houses of studies.

3. Active pollution, because essentially evil, cannot be licitly procured even for preserving life, because the active use of the genitals is not licit except on account of the good of the species, and because semen pertains to the species, whence the individual man does not have dominion over it. Nevertheless someone could take a medicine which would immediately procure health and at the same time expel semen, because it would be to place a cause with a twofold effect, of which the good is intended and the evil permitted. Yet it is not licit to procure health by means of the emission of semen.

Billuart gives the testimony of the Thomistic school, diss. 6, a. 11: "Semen is not a part of the body nor instituted for the good of the individual but of the whole species; whence we cannot use it except in the mode by which it can serve generation.... Semen is not a part of the body nor for its good, but for generation alone."¹⁰

¹⁰ Similarly Sporer exhibits to us the doctrine of the Franciscan school, Theol. sacr., p. 4, n. 641: "It is altogether licit for preserving life and the whole suppositum for a man to cut off some member ... but truly semen by its nature is ordered principally, by no means to the use or conservation of this suppositum in the individual, but to the generation, propagation, and conservation of the whole species; whence nature in no way allows it to be cast away for the sake of preserving the individual, and thus to neglect the species by reason of the individual." Lessius gives the testimony of the Society of Jesus, o. c., l. 4, c. 3, d. 14, n. 96: The testes "are a part of the body, whence concerning them, as concerning other parts of the body, we can determine. But semen is not a part of the body, nor was it instituted for its good, but for the sake of offspring, as its rudiment." And although Thomas Sanchez, De Matrimonio, l. 9, d. 17, n. 16, opposes certain restrictions and tries to correct the argumentation according to his own sense, nevertheless he is compelled to testify that this is the opinion which they commonly hand down.

4. Hence it is gravely illicit for a man to expel semen by pollution and collect it and introduce it by art into the female genital canal or uterus of his wife, so that by that artificial process she may be fertilized, as the Holy Office decreed on March 24, 1897; or directly to procure pollution so that sperm may be obtained by which a contagious disease may be scientifically detected and, as far as possible, cured, as it decreed on July 24, 1929. And in the same way it seems gravely illicit, whatever some have said, to extract semen from the testicles by a certain puncture, whether to institute a chemical analysis or even to fertilize one's own wife.

For man does not have dominion over semen: for just as he does not have dominion over human life, so neither over that which is nothing but the principle of human life, or that which is man in potency, and human life in proximate potency.¹¹ Namely, he has over this not dominion except useful dominion or use, and only in order to generation to be procured by the natural means of conjugal copulation.

¹¹ Thus Saint Thomas, Disputed Question De Malo XV, a. 2.

Or also: semen, the whole of what it is, exists solely for generation. Therefore any use whatever of semen for another end and impeding generation is illicit, because it is essentially against the very nature of semen, which is only for generation.

And so every direct taking or expulsion of semen is illicit outside that which is done in conjugal copulation. Hence, in the case, even if the semen is employed to fertilize the wife: the action by which it is expelled or extracted from the testicles, so far as concerns itself, from its own nature and from the mode by which it is done, emits semen in such a way that generation is naturally impeded; even if per accidens, from another consequent action, this defect is remedied so that the semen contributes to generation in an artificial mode. This nevertheless is insufficient for restoring rectitude in the prior action.

Nor does it stand in the way that the emission, in the case of puncture, is done without pleasure; for no act is evil according to itself because it has pleasure attached, but on the contrary the accompanying pleasure is good or evil according to the nature of the act. Hence pollution is not evil because it is done with pleasure, but the pleasure is evil because it is done in an act emitting semen outside conjugal copulation. But if semen could licitly be taken in this way for scientific analysis or for the artificial fertilization of the wife, why would it not be licit to take it for this end by the ordinary and easier way which nature indicates, and to permit the pleasure? For it would be a cause with a twofold effect, which it is licit to place for a proportionate reason. Why, namely, this would not be licit escapes us. Indeed, in the concession made by the adversaries, there would seem no longer to be any reason why pollution would be an act against natural right: for an action is specified by its term, not the term by the action. The term of the action is not evil because it proceeds from such an action, but rather the action according to species is evil because it has an illicit term. Hence the emission of semen is not so much evil because it is done by the undue use of the genital organ outside conjugal copulation, but on the contrary the use of the genital organ in a man is undue and evil because of itself it is terminated in the emission of semen outside copulation.

5. Any motion or impulse of the body deliberately employed without sufficient reason, by which the effect of pollution follows, is evil. Nevertheless, from deliberate motions there are to be distinguished instinctive motions or impulses, which arise spontaneously in the body by force of nature disburdening itself so that the effect of pollution may be completed.

6. It is licit, even with danger of pollution, to drive away itching in the dishonorable parts by touch or rubbing, unless it comes from libido. Concerning this it should be noted:

a. generally it is better to tolerate itching, if it is slight or easily tolerable;

b. if the itching is not venereal, but arises from some inflammation or acrimony of the blood, it is licit to drive it away, because a true utility is present, provided the danger of consenting to venereal pleasure is absent;

IT MUST BE NOTED from St. Bonaventure in speculo animae, cap. 3. §. Circa tactum, et opusc. de puritate conscientiae, cap. 7. et 8. that pollution can occur in various ways and from various causes. For it can occur either in sleep or in waking, voluntarily, which is defined: Voluntary emission of seed.

THE NOCTURNAL, or in sleep, is sometimes wholly in sleep, and then it is not a sin, because it is not voluntary. So the Saintly Doctor in the places adduced, St. Thomas art. 5. Cajetan. ibi, Navar. cap. 16. Tolet. lib. 5. summae, cap. 13. Azor. tom. 3. cap. 24. quaestio 1. Fagundez in 6. praecept. lib. 6. cap. 9. num. 17. But this is understood provided it was not procured beforehand in waking, or you consent in the same waking.

SOMETIMES it is partly in sleep, partly in waking, as if the movement of the flesh and the decision of seed happen in sleep: but the emission of seed in waking, in which you have full power of restraining, or half-full.

If the movement and decision happen in dreams, and the emission in half-waking, there is no sin.

THE QUESTION, however, is whether, if the emission happens in full waking, it is culpable.

THE FIRST opinion is that it is mortal not to repress it. So Tolet. lib. 5. cap. 13.

THE SECOND opinion is that there is no sin, but that it is enough not to take pleasure in it. So Sà verb. Luxuria, Filliucius tom. 1. tract. 30. in 6. praecep. cap. 8. Navar. sum. cap. 16. Graff. lib. 2. decis. cap. 81. num. 14. Azor tom. 3. cap. 24. Cordub. quaest. 23. Soto in 4. dist. 12. quaest. 1. art. 2. Sanchez lib. 9. de matrim. disp. 17. Fagundez in 6. praecep. lib. 6. cap. 9. with St. Bonaventure in the places cited.

MY REASON is, because the seed once decided is naturally and necessarily carried outside. For whether seed is generated in the vessels of the testicles, as the learned Vesalius and Bartolinus teach, which I assert — for it has often been observed in cadavers, as Dodoneus writes observ. 39. Hofmannus de gener. cap. 18. Carpus Riolanus in Bartolinus lib. 1. de infirmo ventre, cap. 22. — or whether it is not generated in them, as Fallopius, Cabrolius, Posthius, Casp. Hofmannus, Caesar Cremoninus, Adr. Spigelius, Regius and others in Bartolinus will; certainly there are vessels of Seed, beginning from the testicles, ending at the root of the penis, by which they carry it, and with force ejaculate the seed, prepared in the testicles, or elaborated above in the spermatic vessels. Wherefore indeed it can restrain it for a time, but yet the seed will without doubt come forth at last.

BUT it CAN, even occurring in sleep, be culpable in its cause. First in the desire for pleasure, second in the procuration, third in not removing the foreseen cause.

IT IS ASKED whether it is lawful to wish for pollution in sleep for health, or for a moderation of lust.

Valentia disput. 9. quaest. 3. puncto 3. Sot. 4. dist. 12. quaest. 1. art. 7. Lopez part. 1. cap. 74. Syluius 2. 2. quaest. 154. art. 5. DENY it; otherwise it would be lawful to procure it.

THEY GRANT that to wish for it, although not to procure it, is lawful: for thus it is lawful to wish for the death of a tyrant king, but God forbid procuring it: Sayrus lib. 8. cap. 5. Navar. sum. cap. 16. Angelus, and Sylvester V. Pollu. Sa V. Luxur. Toletus lib. 5. cap. 13. D. Anton. 2. part. tit. 6. cap. 6. Vasquez 1. 2. disp. 115. cap. 3. Sanchez sum. cap. 2. Filliucius tom. 2. tract. 30. cap. 8. num. 144. Fagundez cap. 9. num. 31. Bassaeus V. Luxur. num. 14. with St. Bonaventure in the places cited.

FOR THAT REASON it is lawful to rejoice, as they teach: Diana part. 3. tract. 5. misc. Resol. 21. et 87. Sanchez select. disp. 21. num. 35. Tannet. prima secunda, disp. 4. quaest. 8. num. 145. Fernand. part. 4. cap. 2. §. 4. Cruz part. 1. praecep. 6. art. 8. dub. 10.

TO PROCURE, however, is always lethal, as they teach with St. Bonaventure, in Sanchez lib. 9. de matrim. disp. 17. num. 16. Fagundez num. 31. who brings forward many reasons of disparity, not very strong. For if it is lawful to cut off a member for life; why not sperm, which is almost an excrement? Because, you say, the members are destined first for the conservation of the individual, therefore it is lawful to expose them for life; but not the seed, which is ordered to the propagation of the species — this, I say, is weak, even though it is commonly brought forward, because also the testicles are ordered to the species, and nearer still the very embryo inanimate, and yet it is lawful to tear these away for the health of the individual.

EXCELLENT is the reason of St. Bonaventure in Diaeta, tit. 1. cap. ult. which Sanchez uses de Matrim. in the place cited: for the emission of seed by excessive pleasure overwhelms reason, and reduces the will to a deplorable servitude. Wherefore nature granted it only for generation; but the mutilation of members, compensated by pain, man does not pursue. Fagundez brings the same reason num. 33. with Tostatus quaest. 184. in cap. 5. Matth. on these words: It is expedient for you that you lose one of your members rather than that your whole body be cast into hell, which passage the Saintly Doctor turns to this purpose, loc. cit. St. Bonaventure indicates this reason also in 4. d. 31. art. 2. quaest. 3.

As regards foreseen pollution occurring in dreams.

It is the opinion of many that you are bound under pain of mortal sin to avoid the causes from which you know pollution will come, or which you know morally, for example eating such foods, lying in such a position, provided however you are not morally certain, that it is only venial. So Tolet. lib. 5. cap. 13. Sylvest. verb. pollutio, Less. tom. 1. lib. 4. cap. 3. d. 14. Sotus 4. dist. 12. quaest. 1. art. 7. Fagundez in 6. praec. lib. 6. cap. 9. num. 34. They add the condition for mortal sin, if it can easily be avoided, for example by taking other foods, etc.

In truth Diana p. p. Tract. de circumstan. aggrav. resol. 65. judges that foreseen pollution, but not intended, and not only in ordinary foods and eating, but in mortally lethal ones, for example drunkenness, is not mortal. He adduces Villalob. tom. 2. tract. 40. d. 16. Vasq. prima 2. d. 115. cap. 3. Sanchez de matrim. tom. 3. l. 9. d. 45. num. 17. Granado 3. part. 2. controv. 6. tract. 4. d. 6. Sancium fol. d. 21. num. 15. et d. 23. num. 29. who further adds that no cause is given efficacious of itself for polluting in dreams, whether the sights or touches be foul; for if they do not cause it while they are present, much less when absent. Therefore no cause is to be confessed unless one be given by the intention of willing that pollution; but then only the intention is to be confessed, not the pollution. Bassaeus praises this doctrine V. Luxur. num. 15. although he adds, from Sanchez lib. 9. d. 45. num. 30. that the pollution itself is also to be confessed. He adduces also Vasquez prima 2. d. 125.

This doctrine of Sancius stinks to me, for it too much conflicts with the practice and with confessions received from confessants of secular priests, whom I have consulted: why, however, those objects materially absent act more in dreams is, because wherever they are moved intentionally, those species agitated in the quiet of the other senses are stronger by a power there united, and in a manner reflected.

I will say, however, with Diana, that foreseen pollution, but not intended, from actions sinful only venially in the genus of luxury, is not mortal. He alleges Suarez, Henriquez, Sanchez, Villalob. Less. and others, whom Tanner. adduces 2. part. d. 4. quaest. 8. dub. 6. num. 123. whose opinion he judges probable in num. 126.

From these Sancius also says, num. 12. that one is not bound otherwise to lie in bed, even if one can conveniently do otherwise: and num. 18. that one is not bound to leave the bed, even if one feels delectation with an alteration of the private parts. Diana reports him p. p. Tract. 16. resol. ult.

Many say it is lawful to procure the expulsion of corrupt seed by friction, even if by accident the emission of true seed follows. So Sanchez, and Villalobus. But here in the fifth edition he expunged this; the latter retracted it, because it is truly a false opinion, although Bonacina follows it de matrim. quaest. 4. p. 10. num. 11.

It will indeed be lawful for a Surgeon to handle the private parts of a sick man in need of turning, for the sake of the cure, with the danger of pollution. So Vasquez prima 2. Tom. 1. d. 115. num. 9. Less. lib. 4. cap. 3. d. 14. Ioan. de la Cruz in direct. praec. 6. d. 9. and others in Diana.

So neither is a runner forced to go on foot, even if he has experienced that he suffers pollution by riding. So many, with whom Diana concurs.

Much less will it be a sin not to abandon grave duties from which pollution follows, as confessions, studies, schools. Fagundez admits this also num. 35. adducing others.

There is also pollution procured, occurring in waking, which is called softness, and it is a grave offence, as is had in 1 Cor. 6. Therefore of these it is said: The soft shall not possess the kingdom of God.

For it is against the special order of nature, as St. Bonaventure notes in the place adduced above.

Therefore Physicians sin most gravely who persuade this to the sick, or provoke it with medicines, as Fagundez notes; nor are those excused from mortal sin who obey them. So they teach Tolet. lib. 5. cap. 13. Lessius lib. 4. cap. 3. d. 14. num. 94. and others in Fagundez. It can however be provoked per se, or with another, which are to be expressed in confession, as St. Bonaventure teaches, Speculo, cap. 3. and others.

To procure a great movement of the genital spirits is lethal; it is truly known to be great, if it gravely disturbs reason, as Bassaeus says with Sanch. num. 19. He says otherwise where a slight distillation and movement of the spirits is procured by reason of the patency of the matter ceasing, with the danger of pollution, and he adduces Sanch. de matr. and Bonacina: But I did not admit the patency of the matter, quaest. 3. disp. 1.