The Essence of Morality

93. Declarations. 1. It is not asked whether human acts are morally indifferent: for it is clear that human acts which are done without advertence to the moral order are neither good nor evil (n. 55). But the question is instituted concerning moral acts: namely, whether acts which are done with advertence to the moral norm are all either good or evil, or whether moral actions must be admitted which are indifferent.

2. This question concerns moral acts considered concretely and in the individual, namely as they are exercised by an individual person operating here and now, and therefore together with the end of the one operating and with the remaining adjuncts accompanying the action in the concrete, for example to sing in church in order to praise God. For if moral acts are considered abstractly and according to species, that is, only according to their object, for example to sing, with abstraction made from the end of the one operating and from the remaining circumstances, it is certain that moral actions can be indifferent, because per se they have neither conformity nor difformity with the norm of morality.

It is clear that an act considered according to species does not exist except in the abstraction of the mind: for as often as an act is performed, it is performed in certain circumstances and unto some end which the agent proposes to himself.

3. Now concerning moral acts considered concretely and in the individual, there is not one opinion of philosophers and theologians. For the Scotists, affirming with St. Bonaventure,¹ and the Thomists with St. Thomas,² and the greater part of other theologians, denying, are opposed concerning whether any moral act considered in the individual can be indifferent. Nevertheless, they affirm this only of truly moral acts, which are done deliberately and with advertence to the moral order. For it cannot be denied that acts which are done without advertence either to the act itself or to the morality of the act are indifferent even considered in the individual.

These things, however, hold concerning the natural order and the natural goodness of actions. For indifferent actions are sometimes also called supernatural actions which are not meritorious and yet are not sins, that is, actions which are neither meritorious nor demeritorious. It is readily conceded that there are indifferent supernatural actions, of which kind are works both of sinners and of unbelievers which are done from grace, but especially works by which they dispose themselves for justification. Whether such actions must also be admitted in the just, who are in the state of sanctifying grace, depends upon the conditions which are required for a meritorious act.

¹ In II Sent., dist. 4, q. 1, a. 3.

² Summa I-II, q. 18, a. 9.

94. There are no indifferent moral acts. For the one operating either intends an honorable end or does not intend one. If the first, the action is morally good. If the other, the one operating either apprehends the action to be exact according to the norm of reason, or apprehends it as opposing the norm of reason. There is no middle in him who adverts to the morality of the action. If the first, the action is good; if the other, the action is evil (n. 87).

1. Many Thomists reason in this way: any action which is exercised deliberately is ordered by the one operating to some determinate end, because man acting deliberately always acts from some end. Now this end is either an honorable end or it is not. If the first, the action will be good; if the other, the action will be evil. For as often as man acts deliberately, he must act according to the dignity of rational nature. But he acts according to the dignity of rational nature only if he acts for an honorable end; therefore in the concrete there is no morally indifferent action.

This argument supposes that actions must be positively directed to an honorable end in order that they be good. Therefore, if it is taken strictly, as the words sound, those actions indifferent from the object which are done from an indifferent end or on account of sensible delight, but are nevertheless ordered according to the mode prescribed by reason, would have to be called morally evil.

2. The reason of the Scotists, by which they fortify the contrary affirmative opinion, is this: in order that man act fittingly to rational nature, it is not necessary that always and in all things he tend toward a positively honorable end. Therefore if an action is ordered to some advantage of nature or is exercised for relieving a need of nature, it will not be good, because it does not tend toward an honorable end; nor will it be evil, because on the one hand it is not unfitting to rational nature, and on the other it is not necessary that every action be referred to an honorable end. Therefore it will be indifferent.

This argument also supposes the same theory, namely that actions must be positively directed to an honorable end in order that they be good. Nevertheless it affirms that those actions which are done on account of an indifferent end, whether their object is good or indifferent, but nevertheless ordered according to the prescription of reason, are morally indifferent.

95. Things to be noted concerning this question. 1. From the premises it is clear that the whole controversy concerning indifferent acts depends upon two heads of doctrine: a. whether an obligation can be demonstrated of always and in all deliberate actions intending a positively good end; for if this obligation exists, actions placed on account of an indifferent end become evil because of this neglected obligation. b. But if this obligation is not established, it is further asked whether those actions which are exercised on account of an indifferent end, but nevertheless according to the prescription of reason, must be called good or indifferent.

2. Whatever is said, certainly those theologians are not to be tolerated who on the one hand deny acts indifferent in the individual, but on the other hand absolutely require for the moral goodness of an act that an honorable end be positively intended. For the rigor of this doctrine is too greatly opposed to the mind and practice of the faithful, who are not persuaded that in absolutely all actions a positively honorable end must be sought lest they be evil. Therefore no one, whether uneducated or learned, whether of lax or timorous conscience, recognizes a moral defect in the omission of this good intention, and therefore no one ever accuses himself of it. And indeed it cannot be understood why, for example, an action is evil by which someone tries to drive away the sensation of cold only to relieve this annoyance without a higher end. Therefore it will be either good or at least indifferent; the Scotists call it indifferent, but according to the theory expounded it must be called morally good, if the agent judges it licit in the concrete and explicitly intends it as such.

By performing good actions a man becomes a good man morally, and he is a bad man morally if he performs bad actions. Actions are called good or bad morally with reference to the norm or rule of human conduct. So that the morality of an action is its relation to the rule of human conduct. It will be a morally good action if it be conformed to the rule of conduct; otherwise it will be a morally bad action. As men have differed, and do differ, widely in their views as to the meaning of human life and as to man’s destiny, they naturally have differed, and do differ, widely in deciding what is the rule of human conduct. The rule in different systems will be progress, or the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or pleasure, or the categorical imperative of the individual reason. Even among Catholic philosophers and divines there is some difference of opinion as to what constitutes the fundamental norm of morality. Practically the different opinions come to much the same, especially as there is greater agreement among Catholics as to what are the formal and proximate rules of morality. The teaching of St Thomas and many others seems to be that the fundamental norm of morality is rational human nature as such. Good in general is that which is conformable to the being whose good it is; and so morally good actions will be such as are conformable to the rational nature of man considered in itself and in all its relations.. Man’s intellect can know man himself, the existence of God and our relation to him, our relations to other human beings, and to the world round about us; knowing these things, our reason can tell us what actions are becoming and what unbecoming to such a nature. Moreover, reason tells us that although we have the physical liberty to do wrong, we are nevertheless under a moral obligation to abstain from it. Our most wise, and good, and provident Creator, who has given us our nature and placed us in the position which we hold, cannot be indifferent as to the manner in which we conduct ourselves. The still, small voice of conscience is there to tell us what is right, in the name of God whose herald it is, to approve of what we do well, to condemn what we do ill. The fundamental norm of right conduct, then, is man’s moral nature, morally right conduct is conduct in conformity with man’s nature in itself and in all its relations. This constitutes right order in the moral world, which God the Creator and provident Ruler of the universe cannot but will us to observe, and this divine Will or Reason bidding us to observe right order and prohibiting its violation is the eternal law of God, the formal objective rule of morality. Human reason, applied to conduct, or conscience, is the formal subjective rule which makes known to us and applies the objective rule¹

¹ V. Frins, De Act. Hum. 2, n. 65. 2, n. 65.

The morality of a human act belongs to it inasmuch as it issues freely from the will with knowledge of its moral quality. Because it is the free product of the human will, a human or a moral act makes a man culpable or praiseworthy. Now the will alone is free, and so morality belongs properly to the internal act of the will. In a perfect human action, indeed, the external act must follow, if it is in the agent’s power, in order to the completeness and perfection of the internal act; otherwise there will be no perfect and efficacious will, But the external act, which is called free only with reference to the will from which it proceeds, cannot have any separate morality of its own, nor of itself can it add to the morality of the internal act. In a complete human act, therefore, consisting of an internal and external action, morality is formally in the internal act alone. Accidentally, on account of longer duration, or repetition, or greater intensity which the external act causes, it may add something to the goodness or malice of the internal act, but not in and by itself. A man is good or bad as his will is good or bad.

From this it must not be concluded that an external sin is the same as an internal sin; that if a man has committed fornication, it is sufficient to confess the desire and intention to do so; the malice of the internal and external acts are the same substantially, but an internal act is different from an external act; and so the sins also differ, for sin is a bad human act.

There is considerable difference of opinion as to whether, besides the division into good and bad actions, we must also admit a third class, neither good nor bad, but indifferent. In the abstract, indifferent actions certainly exist; to take a walk, for example, in itself and in the abstract, is neither a good nor a bad action. But in the concrete, a man’s intention, and the circumstances in which the action is performed, necessarily give it a moral quality. The intention must be honest or not, the circumstances must be such as to make the action conformableto right reason or not, and so in the concrete any particular action must be either right or wrong; it must be either good or bad, it cannot be indifferent. An action may of course be morally good, and yet not supernaturally meritorious, and so indifferent from a supernatural point of view; and this perhaps is the meaning of some of those divines who contradict the above teaching of St Thomas and the common opinion of the schools.¹

¹ St Thomas, 1-2, q. 18, a. 9.

An action which in itself is not conformable to right reason and order is against the law of nature and intrinsically bad. An action which in itself is not bad, but only bad because forbidden for good reasons by a lawful authority, as eating flesh meat on a day of abstinence, is said to be bad because forbidden; while intrinsically bad actions are forbidden by God because they are bad and inordinate. However, not all these intrinsically bad actions are bad in the same degree. Some are necessarily and always so, because in all circumstances they remain inordinate, as hatred of God, our first beginning and last end. Others in certain circumstances may become lawful, as taking what belongs to another, which in certain circumstances may be done without sin. The State for good reason may grant leave to take another’s land for a new railway; and a fortiori almighty God, the supreme Lord of all created things, may, without doing an injury, take the life, rights, or property of his creatures. Many divines explain the spoliation of the Egyptians, and the divine toleration of polygamy in the Old Law, by the aid of this principle.

Finally, some actions, as obscene touches and looks, are commonly inordinate and sinful; but if there is good reason for them, and due caution be exercised, they become lawful.¹

¹ Gury, I, n. 26.

(St. Thomas, I-II, q. 10, aa. 4 and 9; q. 21, a. 1; q. 71, a. 6; St. Alphonsus, bk. V, XXXIV-XXXV.)¹

¹ Cf. John of St. Thomas, In I-II, t. I; Suarez, In I-II, De bonitate et malitia humanorum actuum; the Salmanticenses, Cursus theologiae, tract II, De bonitate et malitia humanorum actuum; Lehu, La raison, regle de la moralite d'apres St. Thomas; Pegues, Commentaire francais litteral de la Somme theologique, tt. VI and VII; Pesch, Praelectiones dogmaticae, tract II, sect. III, De relatione actuum humanorum ad finem ultimum seu de moralitate actuum humanorum; Frins, De actibus humanis; Walter McDonald, The Principles of Moral Science; Potters, Compendium Ethicae Generalis; Sweens, Theologia moralis fundamentalis.

I. Notion. The morality of human acts consists in their relation, for example of agreement or disagreement, to the divine law. For morality is the property of acts by virtue of which they are called good or evil, or indifferent (n. 61), worthy of praise or blame. But they must be called such from their relation to the divine law, since by commanding, forbidding, and permitting, it is the supreme director of all acts toward the ultimate end and toward proper secondary ends. "The will of any creature whatever," says Aquinas, "does not have rectitude in its act except according as it is ruled by the divine will, to which the ultimate end belongs, just as any lower will ought to be ruled according to the will of a superior, as the will of a soldier according to the will of the commander of the army" (I-II, q. 19, a. 1).

But since right reason indicates what the law or ordinance of God, commanding, forbidding, and permitting, includes, morality can also be called: the relation of a human act to right reason and law. "Now," as St. Thomas says, "a human act has that it is evil from the fact that it lacks due commensuration. But the commensuration of any thing whatever is attended to by comparison with some rule; if it turns aside from this, it will be incommensurate. Now the rule of the human will is twofold: one is proximate and homogeneous, namely human reason itself; the other is the first rule, namely the eternal law, which is, as it were, the reason of God" (I-II, q. 71, a. 6). Likewise St. Alphonsus: "The moral goodness of a human act consists in a certain conformity and agreement of the free act with right reason and law, so that that act is called good which is conformed to law and reason. Hence St. Augustine says: 'In no way can that have been rightly done which does not proceed from right reason.' Conversely, the moral malice of a human act consists in discrepancy or deformity from right reason. That act is called evil which is not according to the dictate of right reason, whether uncreated, which is the eternal law, or created, which is the natural light of man, or a participation in the eternal law according to St. Thomas. Both of these reasons are the rule of human acts, from which the measure of the goodness or malice of a human act is taken" (V, XXXIV).

Furthermore, since the relation of a human act to the divine law, which directs all acts to the ultimate end, and its relation to the ultimate end itself correspond to each other, morality can also be called: the relation of a human act to the ultimate end. Hence elsewhere St. Thomas says: "The formal account of a moral act is taken by comparison to the end" (De malo, q. 4, a. 2, c.). "According to relation to the end all moral habits are distinguished, from which the first difference of good and evil was taken, because good imports an end... but evil a disordering from the end" (In III Sent., dist. 33). "On the ultimate end depends the whole goodness or malice of the will, because whatever good things someone wills in order to a good end, he wills well; but whatever things are in order to an evil end, he wills badly" (Contra Gentiles, bk. 4, c. 95).¹

Corollary I. The morality of a human act does not consist in its liberty; nevertheless, liberty is the foundation of morality. "There the genus of morals begins, where the first dominion of the will is found" (St. Thomas, In II Sent., dist. 24, q. 3, a. 2; St. Alphonsus, V, XXXV). Nor is it situated, as Scheeben teaches,² in advertence of reason to the morality of the object; this advertence is a condition of morality. Nor does it consist in the relation of the act to human nature, unless this is taken as subject to the divine law.

Corollary II. Morality properly so called belongs only to elicited acts; to commanded acts it belongs only extrinsically.

Hence a commanded act, especially an external one, "does not add intrinsic and per se moral goodness or malice over and above the interior act, but enjoys only extrinsic goodness or malice taken from the act of the will commanding it" (St. Alphonsus, V, XL; St. Thomas, I-II, q. 20, a. 4). Thus authors, with the exception of the Scotists, teach sufficiently commonly, relying on this reason: morality is founded in liberty, which is found intrinsically in the elicited act alone. Consonant with this doctrine is the fact that although Abraham wished to immolate his son, and could not, nevertheless God says to him: "Because you have done this thing and have not spared your son... I will bless you."³

Nevertheless, a commanded act, especially an external one, per accidens increases the formal morality of the internal act, namely insofar as it causes the internal act to become more intense, to be prolonged longer, and to be repeated more often (St. Thomas, l.c.; St. Alphonsus, l.c.).

Corollary III. Having considered the nature of morality, which imports a relation to divine law, one must truly say with St. Thomas: "Every sin is evil because prohibited" (I-II, q. 71, a. 6, ad 4); and with St. Alphonsus: "No moral good, no evil, can be understood without respect at least to the natural law. When it is commonly said that certain things are prohibited because they are evil, this is rightly to be understood thus: certain things are forbidden by positive law as things repugnant to natural law. For nothing is intrinsically evil if it is not compared at least with the right of nature" (V, XXXV).

¹ Several definitions handed down by others likewise fall under the definitions handed down above, such as: morality is situated in the relation of the act to rational nature, insofar as it is subject to divine law; or: in the relation of the act to its object, insofar as it is subject to the rules of morals.

² Handbuch der katholischen Dogmatik, I, 1.2, n. 594 sq.

³ Gen. 22:16-17.

II. Division. Morality is divided:

1. Into objective and subjective morality. Objective morality is that which belongs to the act considered in itself; subjective morality is that which inheres in the act according as it proceeds here and now from the will.

2. Into goodness and malice. It is disputed whether a third species of morality ought to be added, namely indifference. Concerning this, observe the following things. It is commonly admitted indeed that there are acts indifferent from the object or according to species, as, for example, to lift a straw, etc. But it is asked, and even in the Thomistic school it is disputed, whether indifference is a species of morality. Moreover, it seems it must be affirmed, because even an indifferent act has order to the divine law, insofar as by force of that law it can be ordered to the ultimate end, is permitted by that law, and from it there belongs to man a right, that is, a moral faculty of placing the said act. And this opinion seems conformed to the mind of St. Thomas, who says thus: "Therefore if we speak of a moral act according to its species, in this way not every moral act is good or evil, but some are indifferent" (De malo, q. 2, a. 5). And again: "There are three differences of human acts. For as was said above, certain acts are good from their genus, which are acts of virtues; and with respect to these there is posited the act of law to prescribe or command, for law prescribes all acts of virtues, as is said in book 5 of the Ethics. But certain acts are evil from their genus, as acts of vices; and with respect to these law has to prohibit. Certain acts, however, from their genus are indifferent; and with respect to these law has to permit" (I-II, q. 92, a. 2).

3. Into intrinsic and extrinsic morality, according as the act is subject to natural law or to positive law, whether divine or human.

Definition.—Morality is the agreement or disagreement, of a human act with the norms that regulate human conduct with reference to man’s Last End. The act which is in agreement with those norms is morally good; the act which is in disagreement with them is morally bad. An act that neither agrees nor disagrees with the norms of morality, is called morally indifferent.

The constitutive norm of morality is that which gives an act its moral quality. (a) Proximately, this is the relation of agreement or disagreement of the act to the rational nature of man considered in its entirety and with reference to its true happiness; (b) remotely, this norm is the relation of the act to God, the Last End of man.

Hence, that which makes an act morally good is its agreement with the nature of man as a rational being destined for heaven, and its promotion of the glory of God, which is the purpose of all creation.

The manifestative norm of morality is that through which the moral quality of acts is known. (a) Proximately, this is right reason, which is the superior faculty and guide of the will; (b) remotely, it is the divine intellect, from which reason receives its light.

The preceptive norm of morality is that which points out duty with respect to good and evil. (a) Proximately, it is conscience; (b) remotely, it is the law of God.

The species of morality are three: (a) an act is morally good when it is in harmony with the norms of morality mentioned above (e.g., prayer, works of charity); (b) an act is morally bad when it is out of harmony with those norms (e.g., blasphemy, injustice); (c) an act is morally indifferent when, if considered in the abstract, it neither agrees nor disagrees with moral norms (e.g., walking, riding, etc.).

1. We have spoken of human acts in relation to man, who through them orders himself to the ultimate end of human life, or beatitude. It must now be said of the same acts in order to the aforesaid end, or of the morality of those same acts. For the order of human acts to the common end of the whole of human life constitutes the moral order, or the morality of human acts, as will soon be explained, St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 21. a. 2. ad 2. But first it must be said generally of morality itself, and specifically of the moral goodness and malice of human acts. Then indeed we shall speak of the various sources of this morality in human acts. And this we shall furnish in distinct Commentaries.

2. Human acts can be considered either all generically, or these or those specifically. If they are considered generically as human acts, they are capable of conducting man to the end, namely to the ultimate end, in the possession of which happiness and beatitude and his full perfection are constituted. For through them man orders and leads himself to the end. St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 1. a. 1. 2., q. 7. a. 2. If these or those specifically, as such acts, are inspected, they are actually ordering and leading, or not, to the end, according as they are conformable to the end or not. And thus, for example, cognition of God and love of God, by their nature, order and lead man to the end; ignorance of God and hatred of God, by their nature, turn and remove man from the end.

3. If human acts, in the first way, are viewed generally, they are called moral. If, in the second way, they are considered as constituted in a particular species, they are called morally good or evil, honorable or base. “Good and evil,” says St. Thomas, q. 18. a. 5., “diversify species in moral acts.” Therefore morality constitutes the genus; goodness or malice the species. Let us first consider the reason of each appellation; then, for declaring the matter itself, by the way indicated from the name of the thing to the thing itself, we shall come to it.

4. The reason of the former appellation is that human acts, by which man directs himself to the end, are free acts; namely, they are in reality those acts from whose repetition habits are properly begotten, which by the Latins are called mores. For mos signifies a frequent and more often repeated mode of operating proceeding from the free determination of the will. St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 58. a. 1. Certainly the free pertains especially to habits and mores. St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 49. a. 4. “There the genus of morals begins, where dominion of the will is first found.” St. Thomas, 2. D. 24. q. 3. a. 2. But acts from which habits or mores are begotten are most aptly called moral. Moreover, since human or free acts of this kind are those means with which man has been furnished so that he can tend to the end, namely so that he may use them not only once or another time, with attention to the nature of man, but so that he may exercise himself in them, and persevere in doing well unto the end of life, St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 5. a. 7.; hence also this whole order of human actions to the end is most aptly called the moral order. “And because,” says St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 1. a. 3., “Ambrose says.... mores are properly called human, moral acts properly receive species from the end: for moral acts and human acts are the same.”

5. There is no real difference between a human act and a moral act. The difference is only from the diverse account by which the human act is considered. For if it is viewed according to its physical being, insofar as it is an act proceeding from reason and free will, it is held as a human act. But if it is viewed according to the relation which it has to its norm, whence is its goodness and malice in order to the end to be attained, it is a moral act. Wherefore morality adds to the voluntary and the free a relation to the norm of honorableness.

6. We proceed to the reason of the other appellation, namely of an act morally good or evil, honorable or base. Now if human or moral acts are conformable to obtaining the ultimate end, then nothing is lacking to them, not only insofar as they are physical actions done with advertence and deliberation, but also insofar as they are a means, instituted by nature, for attaining the end. But, on the contrary, if they do not lead to the end, although nothing is lacking to them insofar as they are physical actions done with advertence and deliberation, nevertheless something is lacking to them insofar as they are a means to the end. But that to which, considered under some respect, nothing is lacking, is called good under that respect; but evil, if something is lacking, under the same respect. But this respect or order of human acts to the end, as has already been said, is called the moral order or respect. Therefore human acts, if they are viewed specifically, are rightly called morally good or evil. “Thus therefore it must be said,” says St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 18. a. 1., “that every action, insofar as it has something of being, has so much of goodness; but insofar as something of the fullness of being which is due to human action is lacking to it, so far it falls short of goodness, and thus is called evil.” And 1. 2. q. 18. a. 5: “For each thing, good is that which befits it according to its form; and evil is that which is beyond the order of its form.... Whence it is manifest that good and evil diversify species in moral acts, for differences per se diversify species.”

7. Moreover to praise someone is to impute to him, or to attribute to him as author, the goodness of his act, just as to blame someone is to impute to him the malice of his act. Wherefore acts are imputable to praise or blame according as they are good or evil. But if the goodness or malice by which an act is imputed to someone for praise or blame is in the moral order, then the act which is imputed to praise is called honorable from being honored, and that which is imputed to blame is called base from being blamed. “From this,” says St. Thomas, q. 21. a. 2., “an act is called culpable or laudable, because it is imputed to the agent. For to be praised or blamed is nothing other than for the malice or goodness of one’s act to be imputed to someone. For then an act is imputed to the agent when it is in his power, so that he has dominion over his act. But this is in all voluntary acts, because through the will man has dominion over his act... Whence it remains that good or evil in voluntary acts alone constitutes the account of praise or fault.”

8. And hence it is clear that honorable can be taken in two ways: 1.º according as it is contradistinguished from useful and pleasurable; 2.º according as it is contradistinguished from base. In the first way it signifies the good which is sought per se; a good ordered to an end is called useful, q. 7. a. 2., q. 8. a. 3.; it is called pleasurable insofar as by possession of itself it quiets the appetite and brings delight, St. Thomas, 2. 2. q. 145. a. 3. In the other way it signifies an action which, beyond the entity of a human action, also has the account of a means to the end, that is, an action which not only is done with advertence and deliberation, but which is done conformably to the end, which consequently is consonant with right reason, and fitting to man insofar as he is man, and bringing decorum: “Something is called honorable insofar as it has a certain decorum from the ordering of reason.” St. Thomas, 2. 2. q. 145. a. 3. Hence moral good can be honorable good, useful good, and pleasurable good, when namely a human act is concerned with these goods according to the order of right reason, according as they can lead man to the end. St. Thomas, 2. 2. q. 145. a. 1. 2. 3. Cf. Commentary Tenth n. 7.

9. Coming to the matter itself, we note first that the Doctors commonly understand by morality the relation of human acts to their proper norm and rule, according to which they are ordered and directed. The diversity of opinions is situated rather in determining this norm and rule. And thus also commonly, genus being taken for species, acts are distinguished as moral and immoral, to designate right human acts and voluntary acts falling short of their proper rectitude. Moreover, omitting the discrepant opinions of others, and insisting upon the doctrine of the Angelic Doctor, morality considered generically, according to its primary and fundamental concept, can be defined: the capacity which human actions have in themselves to be good or bad in order to the end of creation, that is, to be conformable or fitting, or not, to attaining this end. But specifically it is the account of conformity or deformity which human actions have in themselves in order to the end of creation, as means to the end, insofar as namely they are fitting or unfitting for leading man, or not, to his end. It is said according to its primary and fundamental concept; for proximately and formally that conformity or fittingness, deformity or unfittingness, is only from law, which is manifested through right reason. For by this very fact that law commands something to be done or omitted, it formally and proximately constitutes that thing in the account of a means in order to attaining the end, the use of such a means bringing forth obligation in conscience. Whence St. Alphonsus rightly says: “The moral goodness of a human act consists in a certain conformity and fittingness of the free act with right reason and law.” Treatise on Human Acts XXXIV. For then there is right reason, when it proposes an act ordered to the due end of man, which cannot be if the act is discordant from the aforesaid end, if it is contrary to law. But this law is the eternal law, from which every other law is derived and in which it is founded. Cf. St. Thomas, qq. 18. 19. 20.; Suarez, Tr. 3. D. 1. D. 2. S. 1. 2., D. 3. S. 2. 3., D. 7. S. 1-6., D. 10. D. 11.

10. And indeed, if morality is the relation of human acts to their proper norm and rule, according to which they are ordered and directed, this primary and fundamental norm of all human acts can be nothing other than the end of the whole of human life. For acts are essentially ordered and directed to an end, and all human acts, that they may be ordered and right, ought essentially to be directed to the common end of the whole of human life. According to the Angelic Doctor, 1. 2., throughout, all human actions ought to be directed and ordered to the end, 1. 2. q. 5. a. 7.; the end is the proper and chief object of the will, q. 8. a. 2.; from the end human and moral acts are principally specified, q. 87. a. 6. ad 2. Therefore the primary and fundamental account of morality must be taken from the end. Moreover by the morality of human acts this also is commonly understood, namely the account of the rectitude or non-rectitude of those same human acts; and since human acts are means to the end, the end is the rule and measure of that rectitude or non-rectitude. By morality, again, this also is understood, that acts are according to reason or beyond reason; moreover reason manifests this and dictates that this must be followed in human acts, namely the end to be attained through acts congruent and conformable to it. But by moral goodness or malice this is commonly understood, that human acts are ordered or not ordered to that end; that they are according to right reason ordering proper acts to the end, or beyond this right reason. Hence the goodness of acts is insofar as they are useful for the end, q. 7. a. 2. ad 1. a. 4. ad 2.; and consequently from that end, and from the object ordered or not ordered to that end, a human act is constituted in the species of an act morally good or morally bad.

11. Since man is under God, the mind of man must be ordered under God, and all other things which are in man must be ordered under his reason. St. Thomas, Contra Gentiles, l. 3. C. 229. Then certainly human acts, rightly ordered as the very nature of man requires, will be right, and the reason proposing them and directing one to them will be right. Moreover the rectitude of any thing is taken from its proper nature and proper end, which has been placed in all things by God himself, according to the proper determinate nature of each thing. Therefore a human act which in itself does not preserve this order of nature itself, just as it does not follow right reason, which proposes the aforesaid order and manifests that it must be preserved, so consequently it will naturally be an unfitting act, and will not be able to be ordered by man to God the founder of nature. On the contrary, an act which bears before itself the natural order, which right reason also shows, is intrinsically ordered to God the founder of nature, since it is fitting to nature itself, and consequently can be referred by man in his human act to God by right reason.

12. Therefore the rectitude or aberration of a human act is only from its fittingness or unfittingness with the ultimate end, which is not had intrinsically in it except from fittingness or unfittingness with rational nature itself. “There cannot,” says St. Thomas, 2. D. 40. q. 1. a. 5., “be any act proceeding from someone deliberating without intention of the end. But that end is the good fitting to man either according to the soul, or according to the body, or according to exterior things.” The body is ordered to the soul, exterior things to both. And therefore if the use of the body and of exterior things is not contrary to the good of the soul, and is in the middle between excess and defect, the use will be right; otherwise the use will be vicious.

St. Thomas, in the cited place. The former use, corresponding to the nature of the thing, is of itself referred to God, the creator of nature and the ultimate end; but the latter use, contrary to the natural order of things, cannot of itself be referred to God. Whence it is that the former is right and good, the latter morally aberrant and evil. Reason apprehending this order of things and proposing it as to be observed practically in its own acts is that right reason of which St. Alphonsus speaks, n. 9. Therefore the ultimate account of morality is in this relation of human actions to the ultimate end of man, or God, which in the actions themselves intrinsically flows forth from the very nature of the things about which those human actions are concerned.

13. The Angelic Doctor explicitly teaches concerning this matter: “Human actions, 1. 2. q. 18. a. 4..... have the character of goodness from the end... as it were according to relation to the cause of goodness,” namely to the primary and fundamental cause of goodness, since it is the first cause. “The specific difference which is from the end is more general; and the difference which is from the object ordered of itself to such an end is specific with respect to it,” q. 18. a. 7. Moreover all objects are of themselves ordered to the ultimate end. Therefore the specification of morality from the ultimate end is primary and fundamental. And ibid. ad 2: “It must be said that the end is last in execution, but is first in the intention of reason, according to which the species of moral acts are taken”; and consequently the species of good and the species of evil. And ibid. a. 5 ad 1, q. 18. a. 8: “Good, insofar as it is according to reason, and evil, insofar as it is beyond reason, diversify the species of morals.” “Whence, if the object of the act includes something that agrees with the order of reason, the act will be good according to its species... But if it includes something that is repugnant to the order of reason, the act will be evil according to its species.” But good is according to reason and evil beyond reason, as is said in q. 18. a. 5 in the body, insofar as it is fitting or not fitting to it. Moreover an object is fitting or not fitting to reason insofar as it corresponds or does not correspond to the end; and this is the same as to fit or not to fit the order of reason. “For since it belongs to reason to order, an act proceeding from deliberative reason, if it is not ordered to a due end, by this very fact is repugnant to reason and has the character of evil. But if it is ordered to a due end, it agrees with the order of reason; whence it has the character of good.” For this reason the whole rectitude of reason must also be taken again from the end. “In those things which are for the end, rectitude of reason consists in conformity to the appetite for the due end; but nevertheless the very appetite for the end presupposes a right apprehension concerning the end, which is through reason,” q. 19. a. 3 ad 2. “In moral matters reason is ordered to the common end of the whole of human life..... But since sin is through deviation from order to the end..... in moral matters, where the order of reason to the common end of human life is considered, sin and evil are always considered through deviation from the order of reason to the common end of human life,” q. 21. a. 2 ad 2. If the deviation of a human act is to be taken from the ultimate end, from the same end the rectitude of a human act must be taken. And thus the Angelic Doctor, 1. 2. q. 5. a. 7, says: “The rectitude of the will..... is nothing else than the due order of the will to the ultimate end.” Finally, “the goodness,” says the Holy Doctor, “of the will depends on the intention of the end. But the ultimate end of the human will is the highest good, which is God. Therefore it is required for the goodness of the human will that it be ordered to the highest good.” 1. 2. q. 19. a. 9. Cf. also ibid. a. 10. Therefore it is sufficiently and more than sufficiently established that the morality generally of human acts, and their moral goodness and malice, according to the primary and fundamental concept, is to be placed in the relation of the same acts to the end of human life, in a relation of fittingness or unfittingness. “But the will of some man willing some particular good is not right unless he refers it to the common good as to an end, since even the natural appetite of any part is ordered to the common good of the whole. But from the end is taken, as it were, the formal reason for willing that which is ordered to the end; whence, in order that someone by a right will should will some particular good, it is necessary that that particular good be willed materially, but that the divine common good be willed formally.” 1. 2. q. 19. a. 10.

14. Man, proceeding from God, ought ultimately to tend to God. Having in himself several higher and lower faculties, he himself ought so to act that the higher dominate the lower, and that reason and will not be subjected to the senses. Moreover, living in human society, he ought peacefully to make use of association with men. But as those things which are from God are ordered, so God, creating all things for His glory, necessarily commands that order be observed and forbids it to be violated. The prescription of observing and not violating this order, or law, and the consequent obligation, proximately and formally constitutes the morality of human acts. But men, by observing this order prescribed by God, attain their end from God; by violating it, wandering far from their end, they are repelled by the same God lest they attain the end. Therefore men are bound to observe this prescribed order not only by the mere necessity of the end, but also by the necessity of obeying God commanding, in which morality and moral obligation properly consist proximately and formally. For morality properly imports conformity or deformity with the proper rule of morals, which indeed is the reason and will of God, or the eternal law of God; nor can it be any other. For since human reason and will depend on God in their being and operation, the norm directing human acts to God Himself, the ultimate end of man, ought to be the very reason and will of God, and no other. And from this there follows and clearly appears moral obligation, which consists in this, that man cannot transgress the law of God without offending God.

15. But that, from the same Angelic Doctor, that morality, and moral goodness and malice, must proximately and formally be taken from the eternal law, is thus clear from 1. 2. q. 19. a. 4, where he at the same time shows how that morality, goodness, and moral malice also proceeds from reason: “It must be said,” he says, “that in all ordered causes, the effect depends more on the first cause than on the second cause, because the second cause does not act except in the power of the first cause. But that human reason is the rule of the human will, from which its goodness is measured, it has from the eternal law, which is divine reason. Whence it is said in Ps. 4: Many say: Who shows us good things? The light of Thy countenance, O Lord, has been signed upon us; as though he were saying: the light of reason which is in us can show us good things and regulate our will only insofar as it is the light of Thy countenance, i.e. derived from Thy countenance. Whence it is manifest that the goodness of the human will depends much more on the eternal law than on human reason.” The same is clear from a. 9: “That which is first in each genus is the measure and account of all things which are of that genus. But each thing is right and good insofar as it attains to its proper measure. Therefore, in order that the will of man be good, it is required that it be conformed to the divine will.”

16. Therefore the first rule and measure of the good human will is the divine will. Indeed the human will, in order that it be right, is not bound to be conformed to the divine will in the material thing willed, or in the very thing itself that is willed, unless the will of God becomes known by precept or prohibition. For a thing willed by God under the aspect of the common good, to which God attends as universal provider, is good; yet under the aspect of a particular good, to which man ought to attend, and to which God wills that he attend, it can be evil. Whence Augustine, in Enchir. C. 101. n. 26, says: “Sometimes with a good will a man wills something which God does not will.... As if a good son should wish his father to live, whom God with a good will wills to die.” But the will of God commanding or prohibiting obliges man to will and do what is commanded, and to be unwilling and not do what is prohibited. Therefore then the human will is bound to be conformed to the divine will in the thing willed, or in the material thing willed. Now although the human will is not always bound to be conformed in the material thing willed to the divine will, in order that it be right, nevertheless it is always bound to be conformed to the divine will in the formal thing willed, or in the reason for willing; and therefore it ought to will whatever it wills on account of the common and divine good as the ultimate end. For the formal thing willed by the divine will, or its motive and ultimate reason for willing, is the common and divine good, or the common good of the whole universe, insofar as it is ultimately ordered to God Himself and His glory: for the Lord has made all things for Himself. But by seeking the honorable good, virtually and implicitly the will seeks the divine good, since the ends of all things are finally ordered and directed to the ultimate end.

17. These are the words of the Angelic Doctor in the cited q. 19. a. 10: “The good of the whole universe is that which is apprehended by God, who is the maker and governor of the universe. Whence whatever He wills, He wills under the aspect of the common good, which is His goodness, which is the good of the whole universe... But the will of some man willing some particular good is not right unless he refer it to the common good as to an end, since even the natural appetite of any part is ordered to the common good of the whole. But from the end is taken, as it were, the formal reason for willing that which is ordered to the end. Whence, in order that someone by a right will should will some particular good, it is necessary that that particular good be willed materially, but that the divine common good be willed formally. Therefore the human will is bound to be conformed to the divine will in the thing willed formally; for it is bound to will the divine and common good, but not materially.... For the apprehension of the creature according to its nature is of some particular good proportioned to its nature. But it happens that something is good according to a particular reason which is not good according to the universal reason, or conversely. And hence it happens that some will is good in willing something considered according to a particular reason, which nevertheless God does not will according to the universal reason, and conversely..... But what the divine thing willed is according to the common reason we can know; for we know that God, whatever He wills, wills under the aspect of good. And therefore whoever wills something under any aspect whatever of good has a will conformed to the divine will as to the reason of the thing willed. But in particular we do not know what God wills; and as to this we are not bound to conform our will to the divine will.” But the divine will can become known to us in three ways, namely by revelation, by precept, by operation. For by the very fact that God reveals, commands, or works something, it is manifest that He wills that very thing. And hence it is clear that morality proximately consists in the conformity or deformity of our will with the divine will and law, but remotely in the conformity or deformity of our actions with the ultimate end.

18. And this is also proved from the very account of the eternal law, from which morality certainly must be taken proximately. For “law imports order to the end actively, namely insofar as through it certain things are ordered to the end; but not passively, that is, as though the law itself were ordered to the end, except accidentally in a governor whose end is outside himself, to which it is also necessary that his law be ordered. But the end of divine government is God Himself; nor is His law something other than Himself; whence the eternal law is not ordered to another end.” St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 91. a. 1 ad 3.

19. The established doctrine is confirmed from the necessity which the Angelic Doctor asserts for a positive divine law besides the eternal and natural law, 1. 2. q. 91. a. 4. Through this natural law man is directed only to the ultimate natural end. For through the natural law the eternal law is participated according to the proportion of the capacity of human nature. And therefore a divinely given law is superadded, through which the eternal law is participated in a higher mode, so that in a higher mode man may be directed to the ultimate supernatural end. For “through law man is directed to his proper acts in order to the ultimate end. And if indeed man were ordered only to an end which did not exceed the proportion of man’s natural faculty, it would not be necessary that man have something directive on the part of reason beyond the natural law and the humanly posited law which is derived from it. But because man is ordered to the end of eternal beatitude, which exceeds the proportion of the natural faculty of man, therefore it was necessary that beyond natural and human law he also be directed to his end by a divinely given law.” But as man through nature itself is ordered to God, so also man through law is ordered to God. St. Thomas, Contra Gentiles, l. 3, c. 128, paragraph beginning Item.

19. Since the eternal law is unknown to us according as it is in the divine mind, but nevertheless becomes known to us through natural reason, hence reason itself also is the rule and norm of human acts, and indeed the proximate one, as proposing immediately to the will good or evil according to the eternal law. But this proximate rule is subjective, merely proposing the object; law is the proximate objective rule, constituting rectitude, whose foundation is the very nature of things, which is entirely independent of human reason. Human reason merely knows, applies, and proposes order; it does not constitute it. Suarez, in 1. 2. Tr. 3. D. 2. S. 2. n. 12. For indeed the end of things and the order of means to the end is not effected by human reason, but, constituted from nature itself, is apprehended and manifested by human reason; hence, since reason is man’s proper nature, which is ordered to truth, that which is repugnant to right reason is called by the Angelic Doctor contrary to nature, not because it is repugnant to reason as though reason itself were constitutive of the natural order, but because it is repugnant to reason manifesting rectitude, which right reason is the nature of man. St. Thomas, Quaestiones de Malo, q. 14. a. 2 ad 8: “And therefore that which is contrary to the order of reason is properly contrary to the nature of man insofar as he is man; but that which is according to reason is according to the nature of man insofar as he is man.” St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 71. a. 2. If reason did not propose that which is right in itself, but made it, then this rectitude of acting would depend on the judgment of reason, and nothing fixed and certain any longer would be in the moral goodness or malice of human actions. In those matters which by nature itself are not defined and ordered, human reason can indeed constitute order, which happens in positive laws; nevertheless nothing contrary to the nature of things and the eternal law of God can rightly be done against it. Therefore reason apprehends the rectitude of things and proposes that it is to be observed. And thus St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 18. a. 5, says: “Certain acts are called human or moral according as they are from reason.” And q. 19. a. 1 ad 3: “It must be said that the good is represented by reason to the will as an object; and, insofar as it falls under the order of reason, it pertains to the genus of morals and causes moral goodness in the act of the will. For reason is the principle of human and moral acts.”

20. But it belongs to right reason to order all things to the due end. Moreover this ordering is one by which man is well disposed immediately in relation to the end itself, which the theological virtues provide; another by which he is well disposed mediately to the aforesaid end, namely is well disposed in relation to those things by which he is directed to that end, which the moral virtues provide. St. Thomas, De Virtutibus in communi, a. 12; 1. 2. q. 61. a. 2. But since right reason apprehends and proposes nothing except the order of things constituted and prescribed by God, hence “it belongs to the same reason that vice and sin are contrary to the order of human reason and that they are contrary to the eternal law of God.” St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 71. a. 2 ad 4.

21. What is said of the eternal law must be understood of any other law, since any law is an ordering of reason constituting the order and rectitude of human acts to the end; nor indeed are all human acts either commanded or prohibited by the eternal law itself. Whence many human acts are commanded or prohibited only by positive law; and thus they are constituted proximately and formally in the character of a necessary means to the end. And the eternal law itself commands that laws of this sort are to be obeyed. Moreover, all laws, “insofar as they participate in right reason, are so far derived from the eternal law.” St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 93. a. 3. For they are derived from it as from an exemplary cause, because all laws, in order that they be just, ought to be conformed to the eternal law; as from an efficient cause, because all legislative power is from God; as from a more universal law, approving and commanding that, on account of the common good, other determinate laws be made according to the diversity of persons, places, times, and other circumstances. St. Thomas, in the cited place, ad 2 and ad 3.

22. The remote and fundamental norm of morality, namely the ultimate end of man, embraces all human acts; otherwise it would no longer be the remote and fundamental rule of morality. The reason is clear, because all human acts are means to the end of the whole of human life. Nevertheless not all have the same relation to this end, as is already clear from what has been said: for some are ordered of themselves, namely by their intrinsic nature ordered to this end, whether immediately or mediately, as, for example, the knowledge and love of God, love of neighbor, justice to be observed toward others, etc.; and these acts are called intrinsically good, and because they are good, namely intimately and necessarily consonant with the order of reason, therefore they are then commanded by the natural law. Others, on the contrary, are of themselves repugnant, or by their intrinsic nature discordant with the common end of human life, whether again immediately or mediately, as, for example, blasphemy, perjury, sacrilege, theft, etc.; and these acts are called intrinsically evil, and because they are evil, namely intimately and necessarily discordant with the order of reason, therefore they are then prohibited by the natural law. Finally, there are other acts which of themselves, or by their intrinsic nature, are not necessarily connected with the aforesaid end and consequently with the order of reason, as, for example, conversing with a friend, going into the country, etc.; and these acts are called intrinsically indifferent. Therefore, by the necessity of attaining the end, these acts neither must necessarily be placed nor must necessarily be omitted; but if someone of his own accord wishes to place them, he certainly ought to exercise them in such a way, by the very necessity of attaining the end, that he not withdraw from the end, but always tend to the end, since for this reason nature itself has given man the faculty of acting freely, that through free action he may lead himself to the end. Whence by the very fact that an act, namely an act in the concrete, is not repugnant to the end, it is already consonant with the end at least in some way and morally good. St. Thomas, 2 Dist. 40. q. 1. a. 5. And hence again it is clear what the order and rectitude of reason signify, namely it imports the proportion of the means to the end, which reason does not make, but knows and proposes to the will. And thus the Angelic Doctor calls moral good that which agrees with the order of reason, and likewise honorable good that which agrees with the rectitude of reason, 1. 2. q. 18. a. 8, q. 39. a. 2.

23. Likewise the proximate and formal rule, namely law, also embraces all human acts: since it commands some and prohibits others; but those which it neither commands nor prohibits, but permits either positively or negatively, are to be performed, by that same commanding law, in such a way that they are not repugnant to the order and rectitude of reason; and thus acts of this sort are by that very fact morally good, since if in performing them the order of reason is observed, they are already fitting to reason and morally good and honorable.

24. If the fundamental rule is compared with the proximate objective and subjective rule, it is clear that in truth the end, by the very fact that it is the foundation of the morality or rectitude of the act ordered and directed to it, is not properly a rule, but is merely the end or term of that act, whose order to the aforesaid end or term ought to be measured according to some rule, which indeed is law and human reason; and if law is compared to human reason, the former is the remote rule, the latter the proximate rule. “It must be said,” says St. Thomas, q. 21. a. 1, “that evil is broader than sin, just as good is broader than right. For any privation of good in anything whatever constitutes the character of evil; but sin properly consists in an act which is done for some end, when it does not have the due order to that end. But due order is measured according to some rule, which rule, indeed, in those things which act according to nature, is the very power of nature, which inclines to such an end. Therefore, when an act proceeds from natural power according to a natural inclination to the end, then rectitude is preserved in the act, because the mean does not depart from the extremes, namely the act from the order of the active principle to the end; but when some act recedes from such rectitude, then the account of sin enters in. But in those things which are done through the will, the proximate rule is human reason, while the supreme rule is the eternal law. Therefore whenever the act of man proceeds to the end according to the order of reason and of the eternal law, then the act is right; but when it is bent away from this rectitude, then it is called sin. But it is manifest that every voluntary act is evil by this, that it recedes from the order of reason and of the eternal law. Whence it follows that a human act, from the fact that it is good or evil, has the character either of rectitude or of sin.... It must be said that the end is twofold, namely ultimate and proximate. But in a sin of nature an act indeed falls short of the ultimate end, which is the perfection of the generated thing; but it does not fall short of every proximate end, for nature works by forming something. Similarly, in a sin of the will there is always a defect from the ultimate intended end, because no evil act of the will is orderable to beatitude, which is the ultimate end, although it does not fall short of some proximate end which the will intends and attains. Whence, even when the very intention of this end is ordered to the ultimate end, in the very intention of an end of this sort the account of rectitude and sin can be found.”

25. From the nature of morality explained, it is easily deduced that it is altogether honorable to act for the sake of an end, in hope of remuneration or from fear of punishments; since every human action, in order that it be morally good, ought to tend to man’s ultimate end and lead man to it. Reward and punishment, which are proposed by God Himself the Lawgiver, so that He may move men to obey His law and thus attain eternal happiness, are most apt means for attaining the end; and therefore it is not against the right order of reason, but, on the contrary, it is according to right reason to act from the motive of the aforesaid hope or from fear of the aforesaid punishments. For he who acts from the aforesaid motive wills nothing except the true good of man and flees evil, since eternal happiness is the greatest good of man, and eternal damnation is the greatest evil. — Nor indeed would there be disorder in such an operation from the fact that then man would order God to himself. For when the good for the sake of acquiring which man acts is some particular good, entirely secondary and wholly accidental to himself, then certainly the end for the sake of which, or for the sake of attaining which, the will acts is secondary; and the end for whom, or the subject and person for whom that good is loved and sought, takes on the more principal character of end, because his perfection simply is intended more. But when that good for the sake of acquiring which man acts, or which he loves for himself, is the greatest and highest good with respect to him for whom it is loved, as God is with respect to man, then that good is also principal in the account of end, because it is simply the ultimate end and cannot rightly be ordered to another as to an end. Therefore, when man loves this good for himself, he does not order it to himself as to an end, but rather loves to be joined to that good as to his good and ultimate end; and therefore he does not order God to himself, but rather himself to God as to the ultimate end, namely he orders himself to God not as a means, but as a subject which can attain an end of this sort.

26. From the declared nature of morality, and its origin or source, it further follows that not every human act takes its rectitude or perversity from positive law. For antecedently to every law certain acts are naturally right, others naturally perverse. “This,” says St. Thomas, Contra Gentiles, l. 3, c. 129, “the natural order requires, that lower things be subject to higher things. Therefore those things which are commanded by divine law are in themselves naturally right.” And altogether from this reason it is that man by natural reason itself breaks forth into natural moral principles of his own operations. These principles indeed concern those things which are naturally fitting to man and right in themselves, and not only because they have been constituted by law. St. Thomas, in the cited place. This natural rectitude is from the very nature of man, and therefore is most truly natural. “Of whatever things,” says St. Thomas in the cited place, “there is a determinate nature, there must be determinate operations which agree with that nature; for the proper operation of each thing follows its own nature. But it is clear that man’s nature is determinate. Therefore there must be some operations fitting to man in themselves.” Hence it is easy to determine many things which naturally fit man, both in order to himself, and in order to exterior things, and in order to other men, and in order to God, which are right in themselves. St. Thomas continues in the cited place: “According to the natural order the body of man is for the sake of the soul, and the lower powers of the soul are for the sake of reason, just as also in other things matter is for the sake of form, and instruments for the sake of the principal agent. But from that which is ordered to another, help ought to come to it, not some impediment. Therefore it is naturally right that the body and lower powers of the soul be so cared for by man that from this the act of reason and the good of reason itself be least impeded, and rather helped. But if it should happen otherwise, it will be naturally a sin. Therefore drunkennesses and feastings, and the disordered use of venereal things, through which the act of reason is impeded and is subjected to passions, which do not permit the free judgment of reason to exist, are naturally evil.... Moreover man naturally has this, that he uses lower things for the necessity of his life. But there is some determinate measure according to which the use of the aforesaid things is fitting to human life; and if this measure is passed over, it becomes harmful to man, as appears in the disordered taking of foods. Therefore some human acts are naturally fitting, and some naturally unfitting.... But it is natural to man that he be social. This is shown from the fact that one man alone does not suffice for all things which are necessary for human life. Therefore those things without which human society cannot be preserved are naturally fitting to man. Of this sort are preserving for each one what is his own and abstaining from injuries. Therefore there are some things in human acts naturally right.... Finally, those things by which each one tends to his own natural end naturally fit him; but those which stand contrariwise are naturally unfitting. Man is naturally ordered to God as to an end. Therefore those things by which man is led into the knowledge and love of God are naturally right; but those which are contrary are naturally evil for man. Therefore it is clear that good and evil in human acts are not only according to the positing of law, but according to the natural order. Hence it is that in Ps. 18:10 it is said that the judgments of God are true and justified in themselves. But by this is excluded the position of those saying that just and right things are according to law posited”; namely, in human acts there are some things right according to nature, and not only as if posited by law, as is had in the title of the chapter.

27. Whether morality, or moral goodness or malice, is found only in the interior act of the will, or also in the exterior act? — In an exterior act, a twofold moral goodness or malice can be distinguished. For first, the objective moral goodness or malice of the exterior act can be considered, which that act has of itself, namely from its proper object and from the circumstances by which it is objectively affected, according to the right order of reason. Goodness or malice of this sort, which the exterior act has according to itself because of due or undue matter and due or undue circumstances, is derived from reason, according as that object and those circumstances exhibit the rectitude of reason or deviation from the right order of reason. This objective goodness or malice of the exterior act is prior to the goodness or malice of the act of the will. And thus the exterior act is the object of the will, insofar as it is proposed to the will by reason as a certain good apprehended and ordered by reason, or as departing from this order; and it causes moral goodness or malice in the will. Secondly, moral goodness or malice can be considered in the exterior act in order to the end, according as this exterior act is subject to the interior act of the will. For the end is the proper object of the will. And thus the character of good or evil which the exterior act has from order to the end is found prior in the act of the will, and from it is derived to the exterior act. Likewise, in so far as the exterior act consists in the execution of the work, it is an effect of the will and follows the will. The will then is compared to the exterior act as an efficient cause; whence the moral goodness or malice of the act of the will is the form of the exterior act as existing in the acting cause. St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 20. a. 1. Therefore “the goodness of the end from the will redounds into the exterior act, and the goodness of the matter and circumstances redounds into the act of the will.” St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 20. a. 3.

28. Therefore the moral goodness or malice of the exterior act can be considered in the order of intention, as merely willed, as an object, and in the order of execution, insofar as the aforesaid act is commanded by the will, as execution or effect. In the first way, the goodness or malice of the exterior act gives moral goodness or malice to the interior act of the will, as the object specifying it. Therefore the goodness and malice which is in that act objectively is transferred into the act formally, so that the object has nothing objectively which is not in the act formally. Therefore the exterior act as object does not have any goodness or malice distinct from the goodness or malice of the interior act, since it is the same in both, with this difference, that it is objectively in the exterior act as in the object and motive of the will, and formally in the interior act as in the subject. In the second way, the exterior act has its moral goodness or malice from the act of the will, from which it has that it is voluntary and human. The exterior act, precisely as the execution or effect of the interior act, has no intrinsic moral goodness or malice, but is good or evil extrinsically, only denominatively from the goodness or malice of the interior act. “As from the healthy which is in the animal, healthy is derived to medicine and urine....; in this way from the goodness of the will is derived the goodness of the exterior act.” St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 20. a. 3 ad 3. The reason is manifest, because formal morality is placed in a foreknown and freely willed conformity with the end and law, or with the rule of morals; and this free volition of the will is only in the interior act of the will itself.

29. Now the exterior act and the interior act of the will, as they are considered in the genus of morals, are one human act, St. Thomas, q. 20. a. 3. If the human act is thus considered adequately, the formal moral goodness or malice of the human act is intrinsically only in the interior act of the will, but in exterior acts only by a merely extrinsic denomination. For the morality of a human act, considered formally, is not found except in a free act, and freedom formally is only in the will. Likewise formal moral goodness is from order to the end. “But since the end is the proper object of the will, it is manifest that this character of good or evil which the exterior act has from order to the end is found first in the act of the will, and from it is derived into the exterior act.” St. Thomas, q. 20. a. 1. Whence it is clear that in the exterior act moral goodness of this sort, which is according to order to the end, depends entirely on the will. St. Thomas, ibid. a. 2. But that “goodness of the exterior act which it has from matter and circumstances is other than the goodness which is from the end; yet it is not other than the goodness of the will which it has from the very act willed, but is compared to it as its reason and cause.” St. Thomas, in the cited place, a. 4 ad 2. It is confirmed: “For however much the exterior act may seem good of itself and conformable to reason, if nevertheless it is commanded by an evil internal act, or by a depraved intention and choice, it is not good insofar as it is a human act. Therefore it is a sign that in the account of a human act it is good only by denomination from the interior act. The argument is similar because the exterior act, taken precisely and in itself, does not add formal moral goodness to man, nor does it make him more virtuous; for if we understand someone, thinking that he can perform an exterior act of virtue, to have an efficacious will of exercising such an act, he is right and virtuous, whether he can truly perform it or cannot, because virtue does not depend on a faculty, which can be lacking to us against our will, but on the will, supposing that the will is equal... This doctrine concerning external acts proceeds in the same way in acts of the intellect and of the sensitive appetite.” Suarez, D. 10, S. 1; Becanus, Tr. 1, c. 6.

30. Hence another question arises: whether the external act in some way adds morality to the internal act. — “First it must be said that the exterior act of itself does not bring an increase of goodness or malice, other things being equal, in the interior act: thus St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 20. a. 4..... because the exterior act does not have goodness distinct from the interior act, and necessarily follows from it, if it is in our power; but if it is not in our power, it does not lessen the goodness of the will.... Secondly, it must be said that external action is sometimes necessary for the goodness of the will, or for such goodness; this also is what St. Thomas intends in that a. 4. For when it is in man’s power to execute an external action, he cannot have a perfect interior will unless he execute the exterior action, because the exterior act is the term and end of the interior act, and because an absolutely perfect will is one that works when it can.... Thirdly, it must be said that accidentally the exterior act can increase goodness or malice simply. Thus St. Thomas in the place cited above, and it is easily clear. For 1. on account of the exterior act a man often lasts and perseveres more in the interior act, indeed often also multiplies interior acts; and in this way it is morally worse to kill. 2. Because the exterior action itself both kindles the affection and thus contributes to the interior act, in which way vocal prayer is accustomed to contribute to interior devotion. 3. External actions are useful for moderating the passions and habituating the body, so that it may more easily serve justice.... It must also be added that good external acts are useful for the affection of satisfaction for the temporal punishment due for sin, because satisfaction is not taken only from goodness, but chiefly from the penality of the act; but the exterior act of itself brings its proper punishment and pain. Finally it must be added that exterior acts are necessary for certain effects of grace, which are conferred either ex opere operato or from special privilege, such as are the effects of the sacraments and the effects of martyrdom, and any others that are similar; because, since these effects do not depend on the mind alone of the one acting, they have been promised to one exercising such a work not only in affection but also in effect. And in the same way, conversely, evil external acts, or even their effects, are necessary for incurring certain punishments or censures which are not incurred through the interior act alone.” Suarez, D. 10, S. 2; Becanus, in the cited place. Hence the exterior act does not add goodness or malice to the interior act, but, as it were, extends and consummates it, or rather shows the perfection of the interior act. The matter concerns, as is clear, an interior act efficacious of itself. For if the interior act is inefficacious of itself, as, for example, to will to perform all possible good or all possible evil, one does not contract the same goodness or malice as if he were to carry out every possible good or evil. Cf. Commentary 4, nn. 7, 8.

31. The same St. Thomas says these things in the cited q. 20. a. 4: “It must be said that if we speak of the goodness of the exterior act which it has from the goodness of the end, then the exterior act adds nothing to goodness, unless it happen that the will itself according to itself becomes better in good things, or worse in evil things. And this indeed seems able to happen in three ways: in one way according to number, as when someone wills to do something with a good end or an evil one, and then indeed does not do it, but afterward wills and does it; the act of the will is doubled, and thus there is made a double good or a double evil. In another way as to extension: as when someone wills to do something with a good end or an evil one, and desists because of some impediment; but another continues the movement of the will until he completes the work. It is manifest that a will of this sort is more lasting in good or evil, and according to this it is worse or better. Thirdly, according to intensity; for there are certain exterior acts which, insofar as they are pleasurable or painful, are apt to intensify or lessen the will. But it is clear that the more intensely the will tends to good or evil, the better or worse it is. But if we speak of the goodness of the exterior act which it has according to matter and due circumstances, thus it is compared to the will as term and end, and in this way it adds to the goodness or malice of the will, because every inclination or movement is perfected in this, that it obtains the end or attains the term. Whence the will is not perfect unless it is such that it acts when there is opportunity. But if possibility is lacking, while the will exists as perfect, so that it would act if it could, the defect of perfection which is from the exterior act is simply involuntary. But the involuntary, just as it does not merit punishment or reward in doing good or evil, so also does not take away anything from reward or from punishment if a man involuntarily simply fails in doing good or evil.” Here the question concerns the goodness and malice of acts with respect to essential reward or punishment, for the exterior act adds to accidental reward, as the same Angelic Doctor says, 2 Dist. 40. a. 3. Cf. 1. 2. q. 13. a. 5 ad 1.

32. And in the same q. 20. a. 5, the Angelic Doctor, speaking of a following event, “whether an event of this sort adds something of goodness or malice to the exterior act,” responds: “It must be said that the following event is either forethought (namely foreseen and intended, either directly or indirectly, q. 73. a. 8 ad 1), or it is not. If it is forethought, it is manifest that it adds to goodness or malice. For when someone, thinking that many evils can follow from his work, nevertheless does not on this account leave it off, from this his will appears more disordered. But if the following event is not forethought, then a distinction must be made, because if it follows of itself from such an act, and as in most cases, according to this the following event adds to the goodness or malice of the act. For it is manifest that an act is better from its genus from which more goods can follow; and worse, from which more evils are apt to follow. But if it follows accidentally and as in fewer cases, then the following event does not add to the goodness or malice of the act. For judgment is not given concerning a thing according to that which is accidental, but only according to that which is of itself.” An effect following accidentally does not add goodness and malice to the interior act unless it is intended, or unless it is at least in some way foreseen and one can and ought to prevent it. An effect alone following of itself, even if it is not intended or foreseen, adds goodness and malice to the interior act, or rather is a sign of its perfection, because what follows an act of itself is virtually and implicitly willed.

33. The question is also raised: whether the same exterior act can be good and evil? — “It must be said that nothing prevents something from being one according as it is in one genus, and being multiple according as it is referred to another genus... And according to this nothing prevents some act from being one according as it is referred to the genus of nature, which is not one according as it is referred to the genus of morals... For continuous walking is one act according to the genus of nature, yet it can happen that there are several according to the genus of morals, if the will of the one walking is changed, which is the principle of moral acts. Therefore if one act is taken as it is in the genus of morals, it is impossible that it be good and evil by moral goodness and malice; and nevertheless, if it is one by unity of nature and not by unity of morals, it can be good and evil.” St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 20. a. 6.

34. But concerning the passions in particular it is asked: “Whether moral good and evil can be found in the passions of the soul? — It must be said that the passions of the soul can be considered in two ways: in one way, according to themselves; in another way, according as they are subject to the command of reason and will. Therefore, if they are considered according to themselves, namely insofar as they are certain movements of the irrational appetite, thus there is not in them moral good or evil, which depends on reason, as was said above, q. 19. a. 3. But if they are considered according as they are subject to the command of reason and will, thus there is in them moral good or evil. For the sensitive appetite is nearer to reason itself and to the will than are the exterior members, whose movements and acts nevertheless are morally good or evil according as they are voluntary. Whence much more the passions themselves, according as they are voluntary, can be called morally good or evil. But they are called voluntary either from the fact that they are commanded by the will, or from the fact that they are not prohibited by the will,” St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 24. a. 1, namely when they can and ought to be prohibited. Therefore it is not necessary that the passions always decline from the order of natural reason. Insofar as they are beyond the order of reason, they incline to sin; insofar as they are ordered by reason, they pertain to virtue, St. Thomas, ibid. a. 2. Hence the same Angelic Doctor says in article 3: “If by passions we simply name all movements of the sensitive appetite (and not only disordered movements), thus it pertains to the perfection of the human good that even the passions themselves be moderated by reason. For since man’s good consists in reason as in a root, that good will be more perfect the more it can be derived to the many things which fit man. Whence no one doubts that it pertains to the perfection of moral good that the acts of the exterior members be directed by the rule of reason. Whence, since the sensitive appetite can obey reason, as was said above, q. 17. a. 7, it pertains to the perfection of the moral or human good that even the passions themselves of the soul be regulated by reason. Therefore, just as it is better that man both will the good and do it by an exterior act, so also it pertains to the perfection of moral good that man be moved to good not only according to the will, but also according to the sensitive appetite, according to what is said in Ps. 83:8, My heart and my flesh have exulted in the living God, so that we take heart for the intellective appetite, but flesh for the sensitive appetite.” Therefore, just as exterior acts, so the passions can be considered in two ways: in one way according as they are in the genus of nature, and thus moral good or evil does not pertain to the species of the act or passion; in another way according as they are referred to the genus of morals, namely insofar as they participate something of the voluntary and of the judgment of reason, and in this way moral good and evil pertains to the species of the act or passion. Now, just as it has been said concerning exterior acts that they are good or evil according to themselves from the object, and that they are good or evil from the end, so it must be said concerning the passions. And as exterior acts are good or evil or indifferent from the object, because they bear before themselves something consonant with reason or discordant from it, or holding itself neutrally, as to pray to God and to help the poor man, theft and adultery, to walk and to speak: so in like manner some passions are consonant with reason, and some discordant, and some neutral, as mercy and shame, which is fear of a base thing; envy, which is sadness over another’s good; anger, which can be an appetite for ordered or disordered vengeance. Likewise, as exterior acts are morally good or evil from the end of the will, so also are the passions, as when someone from the judgment of reason chooses to be affected by some passion, so that, with the sensitive appetite cooperating, he may operate more promptly well or badly. And thus passion adds to the moral goodness or malice of the act. St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 24. a. 4; a. 3 ad 1. — Cf. the little work De Essentia boni malique moralis of Augustus Ferretti, who wrote excellently concerning the essence of morality against modern errors.

1. Human or moral acts, as has already been said in the preceding Commentary, are divided into two species; for some are morally good, others morally evil. For differences which are such of themselves diversify the species. Good and evil, as being that which is according to nature or contrary to nature, namely according to the fittingness or requirement of nature, or contrary to this fittingness and requirement, are differences of themselves, and consequently constitute diverse species. For the good for each thing is what agrees with it according to its form, and evil is what is beyond the order of its form. Whence evil is commonly defined as the privation of due form. Therefore, just as in natural things good and evil, which are according to nature and contrary to nature, diversify the species of nature, for a dead body and a living body are not of the same species, similarly in morals, good insofar as it is according to reason, and evil insofar as it is contrary to reason, diversify the moral species, since acts are called moral insofar as they are from reason: reason is the principle of moral acts. St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 18. a. 5; q. 19. a. 1 ad 3. — It is confirmed: “good and evil are differences of the act of the will of themselves. For good and evil pertain of themselves to the will, just as true and false pertain to reason, whose acts are distinguished of themselves as true and false, as when we say that an opinion is true or false. Whence a good will and an evil will are acts differing according to species.” St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 19. a. 1. Indeed the difference of species in acts is according to objects. For every act has its species from its object; whence it is necessary that some difference of the object make diversity of species in acts. But this is that which through itself and not accidentally, with respect to the faculty whence the act proceeds, because nothing that is accidental constitutes a species, but only what is of itself. And thus knowledge of sound and of color, with respect to the intellect, do not differ of themselves, and consequently the acts are not diverse in species; but they differ of themselves with respect to sense, and consequently by comparison to sense the acts are diverse in species. But the differences of good and evil are differences of themselves by comparison to the will; for good, which is the proper object of the will, is what is fitting to the rational will, and evil is what is unfitting to the rational will, namely what fits the will according to reason or is unfitting to it according to reason. “The good of man is to be according to reason, but evil is what is beyond reason.” St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 18. a. 5; q. 19. a. 1.

4. Nor indeed is it valid to object that the first and essential moral goodness is to be taken from the end, which is the first foundation of all morality, and because every willed object is willed for the sake of the end, and consequently the end is willed before the object. For the human act indeed regards first the end, but the end of the work, which is the intrinsic end and coincides with the object itself, which consequently is ordered by that intrinsic end to the ultimate end, and orders the human act first and essentially to that same ultimate end.

22. • Not a few Theologians go off into various opinions and most intricate questions in order to explain and determine the essence of the morality of human acts. But according to the more common doctrine, the following things seem to have to be established:

I. The essence of morality consists primarily in the habitude or relation of the human act to the eternal law, which is the divine reason, or the will of God commanding the natural order to be preserved and forbidding it to be disturbed. The reason is that only the eternal law can be the primary rule of morals ¹. And indeed a rule of this kind must be infallible, indefectible, and able to oblige in conscience; but such is only the eternal law, from which alone the other laws receive the force of obliging: therefore. Thus from St. Thomas, I-II, q. 9, art. 2.

¹ That the eternal law may rightly be established as the rule of morals, or the norm of morality, it must be taken here more broadly, so that it indicates not only the order which must necessarily be observed, but also that which is fittingly observed. Otherwise the honesty of acts not commanded will be excluded.

II. The essence of morality consists secondarily in the habitude of the human act to right reason. The reason is that only right reason can manifest to man the eternal law, or the primary rule of morals. Therefore right reason is the subjective rule manifesting the primary rule. Therefore the essence of morality consists secondarily in the conformity or difformity of the human act with right reason. - St. Thomas, I-II, q. 94, art. 4.

23. You Will Resolve. - 1. Therefore that and only that is a moral entity which is subject to the rule of morals, or to the law of God commanding, forbidding, or permitting ². For through that alone we are ordered to our ultimate end, or disordered from it. Therefore, that our acts may be good, they ought to be in some way conformable to the divine will, since it is the highest and primary rule of morals.

² ** This disjunctive is less apt: for not every act which is not commanded or prohibited ought to be called merely permitted, nor would you aptly call the profession of the evangelical counsels merely permitted.

2. Liberty is pre-required as the foundation of morality; for otherwise the act would not be human, and thus all sins and merits would be taken out of the way. Therefore...

3. It is false that the essence of morality is to be placed in liberty alone. For the imputability of a human act unto praise or blame, unto reward or punishment, follows upon the morality of the act itself; but an act is not worthy of praise or blame only because it is free, but also and especially because it is conformable or difform to the rules of morals, or to the divine will. Therefore...

4. A fortiori it is false that morality consists in the voluntary alone. For the voluntary without liberty is worthy neither of praise nor of blame ³, since man without liberty is not master of his own act.

³ ** That the merely voluntary suffices for the notion of merit and demerit is the Jansenian heresy after Luther, Calvin, etc. See above, no. 12.

24. Questions. - YOU WILL ASK 1. Whether acts properly indifferent, or lacking morality, are given, either in species or in the individual?

I answer 1. It is certain that indifferent acts in species are given, or acts which in their species are without morality. For there are acts which, considered in themselves, abstracting from end and circumstances, have no agreement or repugnance with law or right reason, and therefore are to be reckoned neither good nor evil. Thus to walk, to write, and innumerable similar things are acts indifferent per se.

I answer 2. But there is controversy regarding acts in the individual, or considered in the agent.

The first opinion, more common and more probable, denies this with St. Thomas. The reason is that man, acting deliberately, necessarily proposes some end to himself; for he ought to act as man. Moreover, the end which he proposes to himself is necessarily good or evil, or conformable to reason, or not conformable: therefore in no case will there be given an act properly indifferent in the individual ⁴.

⁴ ** Compare St. Thomas, I-II, q. 18, art. 9. St. Alphonsus (book 5, On Human Acts, no. XLIV) added also this argument to the arguments of St. Thomas: Besides these things, man is held to refer all his acts to God when he acts with deliberation and for some end. For the Apostle says, 1 Cor. 10: Whether you eat, or drink, or do anything else, do all things unto the glory of God. If therefore he refers it to God at least by a virtual intention, the act will be good; if he does not refer it, it will be evil; therefore no act is indifferent.

This argument indeed the holy Doctor took almost to the letter from Collet (On Human Acts, ch. 6, sect. 2, conclusion 1), to whom (he says) I send the one who studiously seeks this question treated more at length....

But indeed it must not be dissembled that this is pressed by very grave difficulties, nor are there lacking rocks which scarcely or not even scarcely can be avoided. And in reality Collet himself observes that both John Hus, and Luther, and Baius, and Jansenius, and Quesnel took arms from here for the defense of their errors; to whom must be added those pseudo-theologians of Louvain, Laurentius Neessen, Macarius Havermans, Ioannes Sinnichius, Gerardus Van Werm, Gregorius Van Goorlaechem, etc., as may be seen in Cardinal Aguirre (Theology of St. Anselm, disp. 130): and to decline these rocks Collet had to flee to the absurdities which you may see below (note to § 32, question 1).

Moreover, that the matter may be clear, not many words are needed. For, according to this doctrine, lest an act be evil, and therefore sin, a relation to God, at least virtual, is necessary. Moreover, that is called virtual which remains by virtue of a previously had actual relation, and has not been revoked (as Collet rightly says in the cited place) through a contrary act, namely sin; the same thing is repeated also by Cardinal Gotti, alleged by VV. (page 130). Therefore, as often as either no actual relation has preceded, or one previously had has already been retracted through a contrary act, all consequent acts will lack the necessary virtual relation, and thus will be evil. And since referring acts to God, or to the glory of God, pertains to the theological virtue of charity, as is evidently shown below, and the actual relation of works to God is nothing else, as St. Thomas has it (2, Dist. 40, q. 1, art. 5, ad 6), than that the habit of charity go forth into act, it manifestly follows that he who either has never elicited an act of charity, or has lost the habit of charity through sin, sins in every deliberate work. Therefore we have revived the condemned doctrine that both unbelievers and sinners always sin in every work of theirs.

Nor indeed can these consequences be ascribed to the doctrine of St. Thomas. For he certainly teaches that it falls under the precept of charity that all things be referred to God; but at the same time he teaches that this precept does not always urge, but only when man is held to elicit an act of charity; otherwise he nowhere says that a relation of this kind is so necessary for the moral goodness of acts that, if this is lacking, they are deprived of every moral goodness and thus, as the opinion of the Jansenists and of Collet has it, become evil. And these things indeed will appear better below, where the discussion of this relation of works to God will return.

Moreover, if any others, to prove that no act in the individual is indifferent, invoked the sentence of the Apostle, they argued from it only that any act ought to be referable to the ultimate end, and for this reason ought to be honest, and therefore ought to have an honest and reason-consonant proximate end. But, as is clear, what is said about an actual or virtual relation to the glory of God, in which the influence of a preceding actual relation perseveres, pertains nothing to this. Wherefore that argument of Collet cannot be drawn from here: either man refers the act to God at least virtually, and thus it will be good; or he does not refer it, and thus it will be evil. Indeed, rather, the relation of an act to God, as ultimate end, supposes the act already to be referable per se, and thus to exist as honest from the proximate end.

The second opinion affirms this with the Scotists. Their reason is that it is not clear that there is a law of intending a positively good end in all things, since such a law is unknown to many doctors. For does right reason dictate that a man acts badly when he posits an action permitted by God, and nevertheless does not refer it to a positively honest end ⁵? not however as to moral goodness. See 2, Dist. 28, art. 2, q. 3. Indeed Gabriel Vasquez also shows that Scotus must be understood thus. On I-II, disp. 217, ch. 1, no. 6.

⁵ Father Staidel attributes this opinion to St. Bonaventure in the Dissertation on Human Acts prefixed to volume I of Gabriel Antoine, no. 278. But in reality the holy Doctor at most affirms this concerning the indifference of acts as to the merit of eternal life,

Moreover, although each opinion, as far as appearance goes, is opposed, nevertheless it does not seem to differ so greatly. For according to all, a depraved end must always be excluded; otherwise an act, however indifferent in itself, would become evil. But an end is called good by Thomists which is held as indifferent by their adversaries. For the matter is of an end not supernatural, but naturally good or honest. Moreover he is led by a naturally honest end who acts on account of an end naturally intrinsic to the work, or on account of that to which the work by its own nature is ordered.

25. • YOU WILL ASK 2. Whether the external act adds morality to the internal act?

I answer 1. Per se the external act adds no morality to the internal act, and thus neither increases nor diminishes the substantial merit or demerit of the internal act. - The reason is that all morality is taken from the intrinsic, or from the will; nor does the external act have any imputability unto merit or demerit proper to itself and distinct from the imputability of the internal act. Wherefore the external act is not formally, but only materially, honest or dishonest.

It is also clear from sacred Scripture, which often reckons the will for the deed itself. Thus in Gen. 22 God said to Abraham, who only willed to immolate his son: Because thou hast done this thing, and hast not spared thy son... I will bless thee. And in Matt. 5 Christ himself said: He who shall look upon a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. - Nor does the obligation of declaring the external act in confession stand in the way; for it must be declared because it constitutes one and the same act with the internal act, as will be said where the integrity of confession is treated.

I answer 2. Nevertheless per accidens the external act for the most part increases morality, because very often it is the occasion why the goodness or malice of the internal act is increased, for example, that it be prolonged, or multiplied, etc. For the internal act is increased on account of the arduousness of the good external work, or the delight of the evil one, or on account of the longer delay of time necessary in completing the external work.

Besides, often in the external work there is scandal or harm to the neighbor, or on the contrary good edification, from which the morality of the internal act is also increased. Thus commonly the Theologians. Compare Suarez, On the Goodness of Human Acts, disp. X, sect. 1.

123. 1. Notion. Besides temperament and education, natural habits influence liberty; for since they are acquired by repeated acts, they increase the inclination to performing similar acts. - Here we treat only of natural habits, which are acquired by repeated acts, and not of supernatural habits, which are divinely infused; and indeed insofar as they affect a free act.

¹ St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 49-54; Suarez, Disput. metaphysicae, disp. XLIV; Meyer, t. I, n. 130-139; Bouquillon, n. 338; Vieux Moraliste, apud Ami du Clergé, XXI, 1899, p. 529-593, 673 sq.; Rabier, Psychologie, p. 571-587; F. Ravaisson, De l'habitude (thesis), Paris, 1838.

In this sense, habit is defined as a constant inclination acquired by repeated acts for producing similar acts. Already by the first act a certain initial facility is acquired for repeating the same; but when the same acts are often repeated, at a short interval, with attention and with a propension of the will, especially if it is a question of a delightful thing, soon a vehement inclination is formed and rooted; and this not rarely is acquired and strengthened much more easily by the law of ancestral heredity, concerning which above. This inclination is added to various faculties, and therefore can affect not only the sensitive appetite, but also the intellect and the will.

In moral matters one must carefully distinguish between voluntary and involuntary habit. (a) When a habit has been knowingly and freely acquired and has not been efficaciously retracted,¹ it can be called actually voluntary; indeed, if it had been acquired inadvertently, it becomes actually voluntary when it has not been retracted after the agent became conscious of this habit. (b) When an inclination was acquired inadvertently and retracted as soon as the operator was conscious of it, it must be called altogether involuntary. (c) If it was acquired or retained advertently, but afterward efficaciously retracted, it is called antecedently voluntary and actually involuntary, nor is it morally imputed to the agent.

¹ It is efficaciously retracted when means apt for overcoming the custom are applied, even if it is not immediately conquered.

124. 2. Concerning the influence of habits on liberty. (A) What is done from a voluntary habit, not yet retracted, is free and imputable: in itself indeed, if the habit is actually voluntary; in the cause, if it is antecedently voluntary.

(a) For he who actually wills to retain a habit of which he is conscious by that very fact freely wills frequently to elicit the acts which he foresees will naturally follow from that habit; otherwise he would retract the habit.

(b) But if he does not actually will positively to retain the habit, but formerly freely acquired it, without ever having retracted it, the acts which proceed from the habit can be called voluntary in the cause, insofar as the agent, by freely acquiring the inclination, by that very fact freely willed the effects which he foresaw would follow from it. But, as we noted above, n. 97, the free in the cause is less imputable than the free in act.

(c) Indeed, a habit actually willed increases the voluntary, and consequently merit or demerit; for he who is conscious of some habit, good or evil, and positively wills to retain it, by that very fact shows how vehemently he intends the acts proceeding from the habit; for knowing that they arise from the habit frequently and intensively, he nevertheless wills to retain the habit, and therefore intends this frequency and intensity.

125. (B) What is done from an involuntary or efficaciously retracted habit is less free and imputable.

For, on the one hand, the habit itself is not voluntary, and on the other hand, it so impedes the deliberation of reason and allures the will that it weakens its powers and greatly diminishes liberty. - Indeed, sometimes the habit is so vehement that, when it bursts forth into act, it anticipates the judgment of reason and free consent, especially if it affects the executive powers, as is evident in the example of those who utter blasphemous formulas without any deliberation. Not rarely also custom has sent down the deepest roots, so that, even if it does not wholly remove the use of reason, nevertheless it takes away that degree of liberty which is required for grave sin, as can be seen among certain drunkards who, even after the habit has been retracted, are impelled to drinking by a propension almost invincible.

Wherefore, where habit prevails, it must be morally judged from all the adjuncts how great a degree of liberty remains in the agent.

126. 3. Concerning the manner of acting with regard to habits. From this it is given to understand of how great importance it is to acquire good habits and to eradicate evil ones. For by custom the powers of the will are increased a hundredfold, and acts are performed more promptly, more easily, more perfectly, and more delightfully, and thus the way is prepared for true and constant progress: for with less effort a greater effect is produced.¹ Those, therefore, who have obtained the custom of piety and virtue walk expeditiously in the ways of the Lord and ascend the arduous paths of perfection with a great heart; but those who have formed depraved habits fall easily into sins, undergo the tyranny of the passions, and can return to the practice of virtue only with difficulty and by heroic efforts.

¹ Concerning the utility of habit A. Lemoine says, apud Rabier, Psychol., p. 587: "If it were necessary for the will always to make the same efforts to direct the movements of the members, if no trace remained today of yesterday's exercise, man would not walk; he would scarcely drag himself along like a child of tender age. He would not speak, he would stammer. He would see without looking, he would learn without ever knowing. If it were necessary for him always to conquer the same resistance of instincts and passions without passion losing its force, without that of the will increasing, the most valiant man would soon be at the end of moral energy; he would succumb in this struggle ceaselessly renewed, and virtue would be only a word. It is thanks to habit that man can run instead of crawl, that the sciences are constituted and enriched; that virtue is acquired, that in all things progress is accomplished. In proportion as the act no longer requires, in order to be repeated, anything but a simple effort, the surplus of power, which the cause does not expend in order to reproduce it, becomes in some way available for new and superior efforts."

Happy, therefore, are those who, already from childhood, learn to cultivate, by repeated acts, honesty, piety, abnegation of oneself, charity toward others, and the other virtues!

But if depraved habits have already sent down deep roots, nevertheless one must not despair: custom is conquered by custom. In order that a depraved custom may be conquered more efficaciously, (a) there ought to go before it attentive consideration or meditation on all the motives which ought to move us to eradicate it completely; (b) when the evil inclination urges, we ought to divert the mind to other things, and, if an external occasion is present, immediately flee it and direct our whole attention to something honorable; (c) we ought to apply the means described above, n. 107, for overcoming the passions.¹

¹ Payot, op. cit., p. 200-222, after ascetics, explains how especially sensuality and pleasure can be conquered by the young.

189. 1. State of the question. After the things said concerning the morality of an act directly or indirectly voluntary, it remains to be inquired whether there is given an act which is neither good nor evil, but indifferent with respect to morals. Concerning this there was keen dispute in the schools. - In order that we may separate certain things from uncertain ones, a few things must be noted beforehand:

(A) A human act can be considered in species, or in the abstract, or in the individual case, or in the concrete: it is considered in the former way when it is inspected in its object, the circumstances and the end of the one operating being set aside: thus to walk, to eat, to play, etc.; it is considered in the individual case when not only the object, but at the same time the circumstances and the end of the one operating are inspected: thus to eat moderately, in order to renew strength and to work better. Now all concede that there are given some acts indifferent in species, at least when the object is inspected in the abstract, without those marks which introduce objective morality, for example to walk, to play, without any other determination; hence St. Thomas says:¹ "But it happens that the object of the act does not include anything pertaining to the order of reason, such as to lift a straw from the ground, to go to the field, and things of this kind; and such acts according to their species are indifferent."

¹ St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 18, a. 8.

190. (B) Here there is question of mere natural honorableness; for, in the supernatural order, acts are given which are neither meritorious nor demeritorious or sinful: thus the works of unbelievers, or of those who are placed in mortal sin, are not truly meritorious, or do not merit an eternal reward, although they can be morally good (for example, alms given from a natural affection of mercy).

(C) Moreover there is question of deliberate acts, that is, acts done with knowledge and advertence; for all confess that there can be indeliberate acts indifferent even in the individual case: for these are not truly human, nor moral.

191. 2. The doctrine of St. Thomas. These things posited, St. Thomas (a) explicitly teaches that there are not given deliberate acts in the individual case which are naturally indifferent; for it is necessary that any individual act have some circumstance through which it is drawn to good or to evil, at least on the part of the intention. For an act proceeding from deliberative reason, if it is not ordered to the due end, by this very fact is repugnant to reason, to which it belongs to order rightly, and has the nature of evil; but if it is ordered to the due end, it agrees with the order of reason, whence it has the nature of good. But it is necessary that it either be ordered or not ordered to the due end.¹

¹ St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 18, a. 9; cf. Quaest. disp., De malo, q. 2, a. 5.

(b) Yet he does not require, for the honorableness of the act, that this be explicitly referred to God, but only that the natural goodness which is conformable to right reason be intended. Now works indifferent of themselves are consonant with reason when they are done moderately, without any excess; for virtue stands in the mean;² wherefore he acts well who eats and drinks, the mode of temperance being observed, or who plays for recreation, the mode of eutrapelia being observed, which keeps the mean in games, or rests in order to repair the powers of the body.³ Wherefore idle words are reprehended only because they lack the reason of just necessity or pious utility: "For what is done on account of just necessity or on account of pious utility is done laudably and is a good act."⁴ Thus, for example, if there is question of play or conversation, the act will be morally good if these three things are observed: if delight is not sought in shameful or harmful operations or words; nor is the gravity of the soul totally relaxed, or, in other words, if one plays or converses moderately; if recreation agrees with the person, time, and place, and is duly ordered according to the other circumstances.¹

² St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 64, a. 1.

³ St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 18, a. 9, ad 3; IIa IIae, q. 168, a. 2-4; in 2 Sentent., dist. 40, q. 1, a. 5^†.

⁴ St. Thomas, Quaest. disp., De malo, q. 2, a. 5.

¹ St. Thomas, IIa IIae, q. 168, a. 2.

(c) Works indifferent of themselves, when they are done deliberately by a just man (i.e. one who is in the state of grace), are not only morally good, but also meritorious of supernatural reward: "It sometimes happens that a man does not order some act to God, while nevertheless that act of itself does not contain any disordering by reason of which it is not referable to God, and because the mind of man is habitually related to God, that act is not only not a sin, but is also a meritorious act." For he who enjoys habitual grace, in a general mode orders his whole life to God, and therefore the act of a just man, which bears before itself nothing inordinate, by that very fact tends to God.²

² St. Thomas, Quaest. disp., De malo, q. 9, a. 2.

192. 3. Opinion of many Thomists. Yet many Thomists progress further, or perhaps declare the matter in a more explicit way, saying that an act is not good unless it is referred to God at least virtually and implicitly: virtually, that is, by force of an actual intention, at least general, previously had and still persevering; and implicitly, namely one which is contained in the general intention of living rightly and always acting according to reason.³ This they prove from a double text of Scripture: (a) from the words of the Apostle:⁴ "Therefore whether you eat, or drink, or whatsoever else you do, do all things unto the glory of God"; for there, they say, is included the precept of referring all acts to God, at least virtually and implicitly. (b) Besides, Christ Himself declared that an account must be rendered for every idle word;⁵ but a word is called idle, not because it has an evil end, but because it does not have a good and honorable end. (c) In reality, man acting deliberately cannot act except on account of delight or on account of an honorable end: if he acts on account of delight and rests in it, he acts inordinately, since the delightful ought to be subordinated as a means to some end; if on account of an honorable end, the action is good, as implicitly ordered to God.

³ Thus Billuart, diss. IV, art. 6.

⁴ I Cor., X, 31.

⁵ Matt., XII, 36.

193. 4. Opinion of the Scotists. But the Scotists, after St. Bonaventure,⁶ hold that indifferent acts in the individual case can be given, and therefore they try to blunt the force of the aforesaid arguments.

⁶ Scotus, in II lib. Sentent., dist. 40-41; St. Bonaventure, in l. II Sentent., dist. 41, a. 1, q. 3; Vasquez, in Ia IIae, disp. 52; Arriaga, De act. hum., disp. 21; Henno, Theologia, Cologne Agrippina, 1718, De Act. hum., disp. III, q. 6.

(a) They understand the words of St. Paul brought above as concerning counsel, not however concerning precept; besides, they say, St. Paul here speaks of supernatural charity and of the supernatural relation of acts to God, not however of their natural honorableness.

(b) What Christ says concerning an idle word is to be understood not of a merely idle word, but of a lying and calumnious word, both from the context and according to the opinion of many Fathers;¹ therefore from this it is by no means inferred that there falls upon man the obligation of referring all acts and all words positively to God.

¹ Cornelius a Lapide reports these on this place.

(c) Nor is this obligation proved by reason. It is indeed true that man is rational, and therefore ought to do nothing against reason; but from this it by no means follows that the office falls upon him always of directing his actions to an honorable end; for since man is composed of soul and body, and his nature is spiritual and bodily, sometimes he can act on account of bodily good, or on account of delight, provided he does not seek an evil end.

194. 5. Conclusion. (A) With the Angelic Doctor we think that per se there are not given deliberate acts morally indifferent in the individual case; for the end which a man deliberately operating intends is either in some way subordinated to the ultimate end, or it is not; if it is subordinated in some way, mediately or immediately, implicitly or explicitly, the act is good; but if in no way, namely if someone rests ultimately in delight, the act is disordered, and consequently evil.²

² In this sense the doctrine of St. Thomas is embraced not only by Thomists, but by most other theologians, such as Suarez, De bonit. et malit., disp. IX, sect. 3; Costa Rossetti, op. cit., th. 26, p. 84-90; Meyer, op. cit., t. I, n. 193; Bouquillon, n. 377; Walsh, n. 674-688; Noldin, n. 74.

(B) Nevertheless we do not assent to those Thomists who hold that for a good act a positive relation of the act to God is required, even virtual and implicit; for we judge that acts indifferent of themselves, which do not lack the reason of just necessity or true utility, which otherwise do not recede from the mean through excess or defect, are morally good, according to the principles of the Angelic Doctor himself set forth above, even if they are not positively referred to a further honorable end; for acts of this kind, considered in the concrete, are conformable to reason, and consequently tend toward God as by their own weight.

But per accidens indifferent acts in the individual case can be given, namely if they are indeliberate, or are done without advertence to their morality.

569. 1. Notion. Habit (from the word habere, to have) in a general sense signifies a mode of bearing oneself. But in a more particular sense it designates a stable quality by which some being is perfected. But this can be completed in two ways: in its being and in its operations; in the former case, the habit is called entitative: thus, for example, health of body with regard to the natural order, habitual grace in the supernatural order; in the latter case, the habit is called operative: such are the virtues of prudence, fortitude, etc.

Here we treat of operative habits. In this sense, habit is usually defined as a stable quality which disposes and helps a potency for act. Therefore it is a certain reality, belonging to the genus of quality, added to some faculty, so that this faculty may become ready for acting. According to St. Thomas, it differs in some way from disposition, which is, as it were, an inchoate habit, but does not yet obtain that stability which is desired for habit properly so called.¹

¹ "Disposition is taken in two ways: in one way according as it is the genus of habit, for disposition is placed in the definition of habit. In another way according as it is something divided against habit. And disposition properly so called can be understood to be co-divided against habit in two ways: in one way as perfect and imperfect in the same species, so that disposition is said to retain the common name when it inheres imperfectly, so that it is lost easily; but habit, when it inheres perfectly, so that it is not easily lost, and thus disposition becomes habit, just as a boy becomes a man... From this it is clear that the name habit imports a certain lastingness, but not the name disposition." (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 49, a. 2, ad 3.)

570. Habit helps a potency to act in a twofold way; a natural and acquired habit helps it to perform an operation more promptly, more easily, and more delectably; but a supernatural and infused habit² of itself does not confer facility, but elevates the potency, which by its nature is unfit for certain acts, so that it may be able to perform these acts; thus the infused virtue of faith indeed does not give promptitude for eliciting acts of faith. Yet it must be noted that facility of operating is acquired by the exercise of infused virtues, for example, by repeated acts of faith, insofar as obstacles are removed, and the potencies are rendered more apt for eliciting these acts, as will be explained below.

² To understand rightly the distinction between natural and supernatural habits, there must be recalled to memory the things which we said in Theologia Dogmatica, De Deo Creante, n. 144-146, and above n. 85. Supernatural virtues are infused by God, - tend toward a supernatural end, - are exercised under the influence of actual grace, - and do not of themselves give facility, but only the power for acting supernaturally.

571. 2. The subject of habit. (a) Habits properly so called do not exist in subjects determined to only one thing in operating, or to acting always in one and the same mode: for then it can scarcely be conceived what habit adds to a potency which always does the same thing and acts in the same mode. But it can exist in all subjects which are not determined to one thing, but can operate in diverse ways, and exercise their operations more or less promptly and perfectly: for then it can incline and dispose the faculties toward one or another genus of actions, and toward eliciting those actions more or less promptly and perfectly.

(b) Hence habits can be in the human body, because, insofar as it is substantially united to a spiritual soul, it can be disposed and habituated to serve promptly the operations of the soul.¹ Thus by the assiduous practice of temperance, chastity, and mortification, the body becomes accustomed to obey the command of the will more promptly and more easily; wherefore it is of the greatest moment to subdue the body by good habits, that it may be made a docile instrument of the soul.

¹ Nevertheless St. Thomas holds that habits of this kind are principally in the soul, and secondarily in the body, because the body receives its movement from the soul.

572. (c) The intellectual faculties of the soul are properly the subject of habits, because they are not determined to operating in one way; but the will is the principal subject in which they are rooted, because it, as endowed with free choice, most greatly possesses the power of choosing. Nevertheless also the sensitive powers are the subject of habits, although less principally, insofar as they are subject to the command of the will (above, n. 73-75). This indeed is established by experience; through custom, the imagination is more or less subdued, or on the contrary is accustomed to wander; - through custom, passions are restrained or on the contrary are more easily borne toward illicit things. Indeed, with experience as witness, custom is conquered by custom: thus those prone to anger, by repeated efforts, become meek, the proud learn to cultivate humility, the ambitious turn themselves toward divine things, etc. (above, n. 107). Therefore it matters greatly to acquire good habits already from childhood, but utterly to eradicate evil ones.

573. 3. Concerning the origin and increase of habits. Some are supernaturally infused by God: concerning these below. Others are naturally acquired: and concerning these we must now treat.

(a) That natural propensions transmitted by heredity are given we already noted above, n. 116-117; inclinations of this kind can be called latent habits, insofar as they remain sleeping until, by an external occasion, they are aroused as though from sleep; thus sons born from drunken parents not rarely have contracted an inclination toward alcoholic drinks, which as soon as it is excited by libations passes into habit.

(b) According to St. Thomas,² certain habits are implanted by nature itself, at least inchoatively. Thus, with regard to first principles (for example, the whole is greater than its part, good is to be loved), we are so inclined to knowing them that the habit of these principles can be called naturally implanted. Likewise in certain individuals are found certain natural propensions which are, as it were, inchoate habits: for there are some disposed, from the proper complexion of the body, toward chastity, others toward gentleness, others toward fortitude, as was said above, where temperament and character were treated, n. 120-121.

² St. Thomas, I-II, q. 51, a. 1. - Others indeed, with Suarez (Disput. metaph., disp. 44, sect. 13, n. 7), do not wish these propensions to be called habits; but the question is more about the name than about the thing.

574. (c) But especially from multiplied acts habits are generated and increased, as experience establishes: namely, the more frequently, longer, and more intensely acts are repeated, provided nevertheless that the powers are not exhausted, the greater facility and promptitude are obtained for doing the same acts. The first act already produces some disposition, which the second increases; other acts will complete the generation of the habit. The reason for this is that any faculty is at the same time active and passive; insofar as it is active, it impresses a certain movement, and insofar as it is passive, it receives and retains an impression, by force of which subsequent acts become easier.

Nevertheless, according to St. Thomas,¹ an act does not increase a habit unless it is at least equally intense as the habit itself; for if it is more remiss, it does not dispose toward its increase, but rather toward its diminution; thus he who has already acquired the habit of fervor does not increase it, but rather diminishes it, when he prays remissly and tepidly.

¹ St. Thomas, I-II, q. 52, a. 3. - Yet some on the contrary hold with T. Raynaud, De Virtutibus, l. I, c. 2, that even remiss acts increase with some proportion the force of the habit.

575. (d) Habits can grow in two ways, extensively and intensively: extensively, when the object with which they are concerned is multiple and is successively amplified; thus the habit of knowledge grows when it extends itself to more things, and humility is increased when the various degrees of this virtue are reached; intensively, when they are rooted more deeply in the soul, so that actions are elicited more easily and more delectably. This indeed can be explained thus: through the repetition of acts, difficulty in acting is diminished, and therefore with the same effort subsequent acts are performed more easily, and consequently more delectably.² But how habits influence liberty we explained at n. 109-110.

² "In proportion as the act no longer requires for being repeated except a lesser effort, the excess of power, which the cause does not expend in reproducing it, becomes in some way available for new and superior efforts." (Lemoine, apud Rabier, Psychol., p. 587.)

576. 4. Concerning the loss of habits. That acquired habits are diminished or sometimes utterly perish is established by experience. (a) First, according to all, they decrease or perish through contrary acts, especially intense and long-lasting ones; thus the habit of temperance is gradually diminished and finally utterly taken away through often repeated acts of drunkenness. For contraries are destroyed by contraries, and custom is conquered by custom; thus facility of using food and drink moderately soon decreases when someone begins to indulge gluttony and drunkenness: for, just as by repeated acts of temperance a good habit had been acquired, so by frequent contrary acts an evil habit is contracted; now, when contrary habits are present, the stronger destroys the weaker.

577. (b) Moreover they are diminished and sometimes perish through long cessation from exercise, not indeed directly, as the more probable opinion holds, but indirectly, insofar as, exercise ceasing, impediments are multiplied, and little by little contrary habits are introduced which overwhelm the former ones. Thus memory is diminished unless you exercise it. The same must be said of moral habits: for when someone, for a long time, does not use the habit of virtue for moderating passions, these are accustomed to rise up against reason, and to transgress just limits; thus the inclination to good is gradually diminished, and depraved habits are born which can overturn good ones.¹ Nevertheless, if after some time new efforts are made before the habit is utterly extinguished, it revives more easily.

¹ St. Thomas, I-II, q. 53, a. 3.

But by accident habits impressed upon organic powers can be altered by an alteration of the organ itself; thus sometimes memory is diminished or perishes.

578. 5. Concerning the division of habits. (a) By reason of the object with which they are concerned, habits are good or vicious, according as their object is good or evil. Good habits are called virtues, but evil ones vices; here we treat only of the former, since we have already spoken of the latter, where sins were treated. (b) By reason of origin and nature, virtues are acquired or infused: concerning these we must treat separately.

I. Force of the word, with attention to the agent. Morality immediately designates that property of an act freely done according to the norm of human "activity," by which it is apt to begin or confirm a habit of acting which is worthy of man or fitting to him. For a customary manner of acting freely is properly called by the name of mos. And although depraved acts also can induce a habit, nevertheless that mos can be called accidental, because it is unnatural and violent, almost as in the logical order the subjective certainty of an erring intellect is called accidental and precarious. Moreover, what is first called moral and what is the essence of morality are not agreed upon among doctors.

The norm set before human action is known by reason; whence under another respect an action is called moral which is done according to the order of reason. But we take the norm as it exists for man as he now is, elevated and redeemed, that is, as the subject of moral theology.

II. Of how many kinds morality is. 1. Although an action can be morally good and morally evil, properly the good action alone is a moral action. Nor is a twofold genus of morality to be admitted, since evil morality, as such, is distinguished by privation from good morality. Common usage agrees, which calls an evil act immoral, and a badly conducted man immoral.

2. Morality formally is subjective, or is in acts; denominatively it is predicated of objects. Hence, in a related but not the same signification, objective or material morality is that which affects the object, taken in the broad sense, in itself, without considering the persuasion of the agent; but subjective morality is that which arises from the persuasion of the agent. Thus voluntary abortion is of objectively evil morality, yet subjectively good in many who in good faith judged it as honorable or even commanded in certain circumstances.

3. Intrinsic morality is present in an act from its own genus or from its own nature; extrinsic morality accedes from elsewhere, for instance from the precept of a Superior.

Properly, a human act is not moral unless it is worthy of man and consonant with the order of reason. Yet a twofold morality is distinguished: good and evil; but from evil morality an act is called immoral. Morality is formally subjective; denominatively, however, there is also objective morality, which is intrinsic or essential; and extrinsic morality, which can flow from elsewhere and from outside nature.

99. Nature of morality. In every human act a twofold being can be distinguished: physical and moral. The physical being of a human act is its physical entity; for example, in the killing of a man, the physical being of this act includes both the physical powers which caused the killing and the physical effect itself of the killing. The moral being¹ of a human act is that essential property which renders the physical act either good or licit, or evil or illicit. Thus in the example brought forward of killing, the physical action receives a diverse moral being according as it was done justly by legitimate authority or unjustly by anyone whatever. Almost all admit that the moral being of a human act adds something to the physical being, but there is not one opinion as to what this is.

The morality of human actions can be defined: the transcendental relation of a human act to the norm of morality. The act which is conformable to this rule is right or licit or good; but the act which is disconformable is illicit or evil. Therefore it is necessary that there exist some rule according to which all human acts must be measured and regulated. For just as in physical things the straightness or obliquity or curvature of some object is known if it is compared with a straight rule, so in moral matters a human act is judged right or perverse according as it agrees or disagrees with the rule of morals.

¹ Moral being is predicated principally of human acts. But by analogy of attribution many other things are called moral insofar as they have an order to human acts. Thus we speak of a moral cause, which produces acts not physically but morally, that is, by counseling, commanding, etc.; of a moral law, which directs human acts; of moral virtues, which facilitate human acts; of a moral object, which is reached by a human act; of moral science, which hands down conclusions deduced from moral principles; of moral obligation, which binds us according to human custom; of moral certitude, which indeed is not perfect certitude, but sufficient, with attention to human customs.

100. False opinions concerning the norm of morality. We cannot in our Manual bring forward all the false opinions concerning the norm of morality; for they are almost innumerable. For a fuller doctrine the authors treating of Ethics or Apologetics are to be consulted. Concerning the essence or ultimate norm of morality several non-Catholic and even Catholic authors have erred and do err. Among the errors of non-Catholic authors these seem to be the principal ones: 1. utilitarianism; 2. rationalism; 3. subjectivism.

101. 1. Utilitarianism (also called hedonism from the word ἡδονή, or eudaemonism from the word εὐδαιμονία) places the ultimate norm of morality in terrestrial happiness to be attained, so that those actions are to be called good which, considered both in themselves and in their effects, bring more pleasure than pain. The supreme rule of this system is: Pleasure is to be sought, pain is to be fled. A twofold utilitarianism is distinguished: one individual, the other social. The former intends the happiness of the individual man; but the latter the happiness of human society. The principal patrons of individual utilitarianism were a) among the ancients: Aristippus the Cyrenaic, Epicurus, Democritus, Lucretius; b) among the more modern: Helvetius, de la Mettrie, Diderot, Feuerbach.² - R. Cumberland, Fr. Bacon, Aug. Comte, Stuart Mill, J. Bentham, and others defended social utilitarianism. Yet it is not so certainly established concerning some of the cited authors what utilitarianism they taught, whether individual or social. This holds especially concerning J. Bentham, who is held by some as a patron of individual utilitarianism, but by others as a defender of social utilitarianism. The fundamental principle of this author is: A man must with all his powers in his life procure for himself the "Maximization of pleasure and Minimization of pain," that is, he must take care that pleasure become as great as possible and pain as little as possible, and therefore he must weigh the delectations and pains (according to intensity, duration, extension, purity, and fecundity) which any act will produce. Acts which will produce more pleasure are good; but those which will cause more pain are evil.³

² Cf. Tanquerey, Synopsis Theol. mor. 8, II, n. 93 sqq., and V. Cathrein, Moralphilosophie I 5, 266 sqq., who explain and refute these systems more broadly.

³ Jerem. Bentham, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789). L. Carrau describes utilitarianism with great erudition in La morale utilitaire, Paris 1874; his opinion concerning Bentham is found on pp. 167-217.

102. 2. Rationalism teaches that the supreme norm of morality is to live according to reason without any respect to happiness. The Stoics favored this rationalism, thinking that the highest good is to do virtue for its own sake, or to lead a life concordant with itself.⁴ The true sage follows this rule in his whole life: "Endure, abstain." Endure all inconveniences with an untroubled mind; abstain from all joys; be as if impassible, so that you can be disturbed by no influence of pain or pleasure.⁵ Th. Reid (1710-1796) and especially Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) followed this Stoicism in some measure; Kant taught that the good is to be fulfilled, not because it brings us some utility, but because it is our duty. Hence law does not command in a conditioned way (if you wish to be happy, do this), but in an absolute and categorical way, namely, do this. Hence arose the celebrated "Kantian categorical imperative."

⁴ The principle of Stoicism was: ὁμολογουμένως τῇ φύσει ζῆν, which principle indeed is not explained in the same way by diverse authors (cf. Cathrein, l. c. 226).

⁵ The words of Horace (Od. 3, 3, 8) seem to have been said of the Stoic: "If the shattered world should fall upon him, its ruins will strike him fearless."

103. 3. Subjectivism (which not without merit is also called moral skepticism) today is widely raging among non-Catholics. Already the ancient Greek philosopher Theodorus the Cyrenaic said that nothing is good or evil from its own nature, and therefore that even adultery itself and theft can sometimes be good acts.⁶ In the sixteenth century Montaigne (1533-1592), whom Th. Hobbes (1588-1679) followed, denied the existence of any objective and constant norm for the moral acts of man. In our times R. v. Jhering,⁷ Fr. Paulsen,⁸ Fr. Jodl,⁹ Ed. Westermarck,¹⁰ and many others teach the same. In an altogether crude way M. Stirner and Fr. Nietzsche logically led this subjectivism all the way to true moral nihilism, Nietzsche prating that all morality is an arrogant falsification and that the aristocratic man is outside the limits of good and evil. Subjectivism, which denies every objective constant and invariable norm of morality and asserts that subjective judgment, or rather sentiment (subjektives Gefühl, sentiment subjectif, moral sense), is the sole norm of morality, logically leads to the absurdities defended by Nietzsche and destroys the whole social order, which surely cannot be preserved without constant objective norms.¹¹

After the false opinions of non-Catholics concerning the norm of morality have been briefly stated, there remain to be brought forward the less correct opinions of Catholic authors:

⁶ Diogen. Laert. 9, 61, 101: "Nothing therefore is good or bad by nature."

⁷ Jhering (Idealistische und positivistische Ethik [1882] 222) says: "There is no action which would be evil in itself. The distinction between good and evil does not lie in things in themselves, but first results from the relation of things and actions to the ends of men."

⁸ Paulsen (System der Ethik I, 19) says: "As an Englishman is other than a Chinese or a Black man, and also wishes and ought to be other, so for each among them there also holds another morality." Yet in other places the same author seems to admit an objective stable moral norm (cf. Cathrein, l. c. 263).

⁹ Religion, Moral und Schule (1892) 9.

¹⁰ Ursprung und Entwicklung der Moralbegriffe I, c. 1; cf. also ibid. pp. 13-14.

¹¹ Cathrein, l. c. 168-179, excellently refutes this error.

104. 1. Moral positivism teaches that the ultimate norm of morality is the free divine will, which could have freely established a morality altogether diverse from that which now exists; indeed, that it can still freely change the existing morality. This opinion today is obsolete and has already been refuted by St. Thomas.¹² For there are certain actions intrinsically evil, and indeed independently of the divine will, for example, to blaspheme, to kill an innocent person, to perjure oneself, etc.; nor can God render these licit.

2. Other Catholic authors, admitting indeed that the norm of morality is something objective, immutable, pertaining to the supernatural end of man, have investigated more intimately what precisely that is which first and of itself renders human acts moral. They have gone into diverse opinions, of which the principal ones are the following:

¹² Summa c. gent. 3, 129. Guill. Occam (In 2 sent. q. 19 ad 3 and 4), John Gerson (De vita spir. lect. 1, coroll. 10 and 11), and Descartes (Meditationes de prima philos. resp. 6, 6) are said to have proposed this moral positivism.

105. a) Morality consists in a merely extrinsic denomination, or it is a pure being of reason. For an act is called moral because it is referred either to law or to the rational nature of man. Thus especially Vasquez.¹³ Mastrius and de Coninck are also said to have taught the same.¹⁴ This opinion is certainly false. For some species of morality is moral goodness. But moral goodness is certainly not a pure extrinsic denomination and a being of reason, since by morally good acts we merit eternal life. But it is not consonant with reason to assert that we merit eternal life by some being of reason.¹⁵

¹³ In I-II, disp. 73, c. 9, n. 42 sqq.; disp. 95, c. 10.

¹⁴ In Frins, De act. hum. II, n. 9.

¹⁵ Cf. Billuart, De act. hum. diss. 4, a. 1, where this whole question concerning the essence of morality is discussed clearly and briefly.

106. b) Morality consists in the liberty of the act. Thus Durandus,¹⁶ Scotus,¹⁷ Tanner,¹⁸ and perhaps also Suarez.¹⁹ But this opinion likewise is not to be admitted, because liberty is indeed required for morality, since no act is moral which is not free;²⁰ nevertheless morality does not consist formally in liberty. For being free pertains to the physical order; for by it free beings are distinguished from non-free agents. Moreover, even if the moral order, and consequently morality itself, did not exist, nevertheless liberty would still remain in the actions of man.²¹

¹⁶ 2, dist. 38, q. 1 and 3; cf. also 3, dist. 23, q. 3.

¹⁷ In Sent. lib. 2, dist. 40, q. un., § "De secundo dico." - Moreover, it is not so established what the accurate opinion of Scotus is. Cf. Frins, l. c.

¹⁸ In I-II, disp. 2, dub. 2, n. 36.

¹⁹ Thus at least Frins thinks, l. c. n. 6, citing seven diverse places in the works of Suarez for this opinion. Frins himself (l. c. n. 22) also thinks that the liberty of the act is not only presuppositively, but formally and constitutively the essence of morality.

²⁰ The scholastics dispute much whether and what liberty is required for a human and moral act. The controversy is chiefly concerned with the act of beatific vision, which is not free, but necessary. Some wish this act, as lacking liberty, not to be human or moral; but deservedly, says Billuart (l. c. diss. 1, a. 2): "Beatific love is intimately and inseparably joined to the rule (of reason), and therefore is human and moral in a more eminent way and with imperfections removed."

²¹ Cf. Salmant., Curs. theol. mor. tract. 20, c. 1, punct. 3.

107. c) Morality consists in the advertence of reason to the honesty of the object. Thus Syl. Maurus,²² Scheeben,²³ and a few others, who think that even the very act of beatific love, since, although necessary, it is nevertheless perfectly rational, that is, plainly conformable to the dictate of right reason, is perfectly and properly moral. This opinion indeed does not seem absolutely false, but incomplete; for for the true morality of an act there is required not only advertence of reason to the honesty of the act, but also the intervention of the will. Besides, the essence of morality cannot arise solely from human reason and will, but also from relation to the objective norm of morality, and indeed to the divine norm.

There are still several opinions concerning the essence of morality, which it would be long to bring forward here, and which are of small or no utility for practice.²⁴

²² Opus theol. II, lib. 5, q. 22, n. 7.

²³ Handb. der kath. Dogmatik I, lib. 2, n. 594 sqq.

²⁴ Cf. Frins, l. c. n. 4-10. L. Lehu, Philos. mor. et soc. (Paris 1914) n. 145 sqq., treats with great erudition the diverse ways of speaking in this matter.

108. The true opinion concerning the essence and norm of morality. Morality consists formally in a tendency (or transcendental relation) to the object, insofar as that object precisely falls under the rules of morals. But the rules of morals are the eternal law and all things which are derived from the eternal law, such as all other just laws and conscience. Almost all Thomists explain the essence of morality in this way, for example, John of St. Thomas,²⁵ Gonet,²⁶ the Salmanticenses,²⁷ Billuart.²⁸ The reason for this opinion is that an act is formally constituted by its tendency to its object; for the whole account of an act is its object. This indeed is admitted by all in the physical order and is plain of itself; thus, for example, the act of vision is formally constituted by its tendency to the object seen. Therefore, by parity, a moral act is essentially constituted by its tendency toward a moral object. But an object is moral insofar as it is subjected to the rules or norms of morals.

1. The supreme objective norm of morality is the eternal law, or the reason of divine wisdom, insofar as it is directive of all human actions. For man is bound by all his acts to tend to the ultimate end, which is God, as was proved above. Therefore all human acts must have a right order to this ultimate end, or, as the Angelic Doctor says, "the rectitude of the will is through due order to the ultimate end."²⁹ If they have that order, they are morally good; otherwise they are morally evil. But since that order has been established by the eternal law, it is rightly said: The morality of human acts consists formally in conformity or difformity with the eternal law. The matter is explained by an example. An act of theft is morally evil. Why? Because God has prohibited it. - Why has God prohibited it? Because through theft the social order is disturbed and thus the glory of God is injured. But if the glory of God is injured by man, the eternal law is also injured, and man will not attain his ultimate end.

2. The proximate objective norm of morality is human reason, that is, the dictate of right reason, not indeed of itself, but insofar as it is a participation of the eternal law.³⁰ For reason is the first principle of human and moral acts. But reason judges concerning the conformity of an act with the eternal law. Hence the Angelic Doctor,³¹ speaking of the twofold species of morality, says: "Good, insofar as it is according to reason, and evil, insofar as it is beside reason, diversify the species of morals." Elsewhere the same holy Doctor says:³² "Good is represented by reason to the will as object, and insofar as it falls under the order of reason, it pertains to the genus of morals and causes moral goodness in the act of the will." The proposed doctrine can be clarified by the example of the shining moon and sun. For just as the full moon does not shine, but reflects the light of the sun, so the dictate of right reason is not the norm of morality except insofar as it reflects the eternal law. - Up to this point the discussion has been concerning the objective morality of human acts.

3. The subjective norm of morality is conscience. Therefore a man must conform his actions to conscience commanding or prohibiting; otherwise he acts badly, as will be said more broadly below, n. 307. The eternal law is inscribed in our hearts (in conscience) either directly by God himself, the author of our rational nature, or by means of just positive laws. Therefore it can be said briefly: The eternal law is the ultimate objective norm, but conscience is the proximate subjective norm of the morality of human acts.³³

²⁵ Cursus theol. in I-II, q. 21, disp. 8, a. 1, n. 23.

²⁶ Clypeus in I-II, disp. 1, n. 18.

²⁷ L. c. punct. 1.

²⁸ L. c. diss. 4, a. 1.

²⁹ S. theol. I-II, q. 4, a. 4.

³⁰ Ibid. q. 19, a. 4. "In all ordered causes an effect depends more on the first cause than on the second cause, because the second cause acts only in virtue of the first cause. But that human reason is the rule of the human will, by which its goodness is measured, it has from the eternal law, which is the divine reason." Hence proposition (3) of the Syllabus of Pius IX was condemned: "Human reason, with no regard whatever had to God, is the sole arbiter of true and false, good and evil" (Denz. n. 1703).

³¹ S. theol. I-II, q. 18, a. 5 ad 1.

³² Ibid. q. 19, a. 1 ad 3.

³³ "The rule of the human will is twofold: one proximate and homogeneous, namely, human reason itself; but the other is the first rule, namely, the eternal law, which is as it were the reason of God" (ibid. q. 71, a. 6; cf. q. 19, a. 4).

109. Divisions or species of morality. Three species of morality are assigned, namely, goodness, malice, and moral indifference. Moral goodness is nothing other than the tendency or real transcendental order of a human act to an object conformable with the eternal law. Moral malice is a tendency to an object dissonant from the rules of morals, or according to other authors: it is the privation of consonance and rectitude. As to these two species of morality, there is almost no difficulty, since they are both understood easily enough and admitted by all Catholics. For certainly there are morally good acts, such as to love God, to render justice to each one, etc., and morally evil acts, such as to lie, to blaspheme, etc. But as to the third species of morality, namely, indifference, authors do not agree. Some teach that indifference is not properly a species of morality, but a negation of morality.³⁴ But the more common and truer opinion teaches that indifference is a true but incomplete species of morality. It is indeed a true species, because there exist acts which, considered only according to their objects in themselves, are neither good nor evil, for example, to walk, to cut wood, etc.; but it is an incomplete species of morality, because in reality an indifferent act does not exist in the individual. There will be fuller discussion of this matter below in article 3; meanwhile it suffices to bring forward the words of St. Thomas,³⁵ who says: "There are three differences of human acts; for certain acts are good from their genus... and with respect to these there is posited the act of law to prescribe or command. But certain acts are evil from their genus, such as vicious acts; and with respect to these law has to prohibit. But certain acts from their genus are indifferent acts; and with respect to these law has to permit." "If we speak of a moral act according to its species, then not every moral act is good or evil, but some act is indifferent."³⁶

³⁴ Thus Tanquerey, l. c. de actibus hum. n. 185, Bouquillon, Theol. fund. n. 348, and from the older authors the Salmanticenses, Gonet, and others.

³⁵ S. theol. I-II, q. 92, a. 2.

³⁶ De malo q. 2, a. 5.

St. Thomas, I-II, q. 18, a. 1 and 8.

114. Morality is the attribution of human acts according to which they are called good or evil, that is, fitting or unfitting. Good and evil are attended to in a special way in human acts. For good and evil are said by comparison to the end; therefore where there is specially the notion of end, there there is specially the notion of good. But it belongs to man in a special way to act for the sake of an end, insofar as he freely determines the end for himself. Therefore in the human act, besides the metaphysical goodness of the act, common to all beings insofar as they are, there is given another goodness which consists in this, that man rightly determine an end for himself. And this is moral good, to which moral evil is opposed.

1. Cf. St. Thomas, in II Sent., d. 27, a. 2, ad 2.

115. Morality is a condition of every human act and is customarily defined: the conformity or difformity of a human act with its rule, right reason.

It is proved: good is that which is fitting to a being by comparison to the end, and evil is that which is unfitting; hence good in a human act is that which is fitting to a human act by comparison to the end. That which is fitting to a human act is fitting to the acting man insofar as he is man. That which is fitting to the acting man insofar as he is man is fitting to reason, which is the first principle of human acts and to which it belongs fittingly to order toward the end. Therefore good in a human act is that which is fitting to reason, or which is according to right reason, by comparison to the end; and evil is that which is not fitting to reason, or which is against right reason.

Right reason, however, is nothing other than a participation in the eternal law of God, whose foundation is the absolutely ultimate end. Hence a threefold rule can be distinguished, as it were: the ultimate end, the eternal law, and right reason.

Whence St. Thomas, De Malo, q. 2, a. 4: "Good and evil in acts must be taken according to that which is proper to man insofar as he is man. But this is reason. Hence good and evil in a human act are considered according as the act agrees with reason informed by divine law, either naturally, or through teaching, or through infusion."

116. The Essence of Morality.

Morality does not consist:

a) In the free act or in its freedom, which is attributed to Scotus: for this is a mere aptitude for morality, namely, the matter or foundation and condition of morality, which adds something to this; whence there can be manifold morality in the same act, but only one freedom. Moreover, freedom pertains to the physical being of the act, for even if morality did not exist, the free act would remain.

b) Nor in imputability, as Pufendorf holds: for this is a consequence of morality, since in order that an act be imputed to praise or fault, it is supposed to have been good or evil.

c) Nor is it a mere denomination extrinsic to the act, as Suarez holds, or a relation of reason, as Vasquez holds: for the act by reason of itself is good or evil; and goodness or malice in acts really and properly inheres and exists even if reason does not consider or denominate them. Whence St. Thomas, a. 4, ad 2: "the due proportion to the end and the relation to it inheres in the action."

1. Modern authors from the Society of Jesus unite the first and third opinions, and say that morality is freedom together with a twofold extrinsic denomination. Thus, for example, Frins and Cathrein say that it is the dependence of an act upon a free operating will and upon reason adverting to the honorableness or baseness of the object. Here there are three things: the intrinsic denomination of the voluntary, and a twofold extrinsic denomination: the relation of dependence upon the free will, and the relation of dependence upon reason adverting. Similarly Pesch says that it consists in this, that the will is freely borne toward an object apprehended under the aspect of good or base (Zeitschrift fur K. Th., 1887, p. 867).

d) Nor is it a real relation properly so called, or predicamental: for this is to a term as a pure term, whereas the act is related to the rule as to its perfective principle. Moreover, it does not pertain to the essence of the human act, but is an accident which comes to it, whereas morality is essential to it because it belongs to it by reason of its proper object, from which it has species.

e) But morality is an intrinsic respect or transcendental relation, that is, the intrinsic habitude of the act itself, by which it tends to the object precisely as conforming or difforming with the rules of conduct. This is the opinion of the Thomists.

It is proved: 1) Morality is an order or disposition which deliberate reason makes in voluntary acts. But reason precisely makes in these acts that their intrinsic habitude or physical tendency toward the object be a tendency toward the object as subject to rules. Therefore morality is the respect or intrinsic order which reason makes in human acts and by which they tend toward the object conformably or difformably to their rules.

2. The essence of any act is an intrinsic order to the object. Therefore the moral act essentially is an intrinsic tendency to the moral object. But the object is moral insofar as it is subjected to the rules of conduct. Therefore morality also essentially is the intrinsic tendency of the act to the object as subject to the rules of conduct.

117. Divisions of morality. - Since morality is the habitude of an action to a rule, hence according to a varying habitude to a varying rule, morality is varied:

1. The rule is remote and objective, namely law, whether the eternal law of God or the temporal law or prescribing right human reason; or proximate and subjective, namely the actual conscience of the law and of the conformity or difformity of the act to it. Hence there is distinguished material or objective morality, which is the conformity or difformity of the objective element, that is, of the act considered according to itself, with its objective rule, law, no account being taken of the relation of the agent to the rule, or independently of the practical judgment of the agent; and subjective or formal morality, which is the conformity or difformity of the subjective element, that is, of the act insofar as it proceeds from the agent, and of the one acting himself, with the subjective rule or practical judgment of conscience. One can be without the other, as when someone from invincible ignorance places an evil act which he thinks good, the act will be materially evil but formally good; and conversely. Thus blasphemy uttered by a madman is materially evil; uttered by one in possession of himself, it is also formally evil.

2. The rule is commanding, or approving and counseling, and therefore there is distinguished obligatory morality, when something is prescribed or prohibited, and free morality, when something is only approved and counseled. Evil is always prohibited; but good is not always commanded, but only that which is judged necessary.

3. The rule is necessary and natural, or positive, and therefore there is distinguished intrinsic and necessary morality, arising from the nature of things: this belongs to those things which are good or evil from their own nature, and necessarily commanded or prohibited; and extrinsic morality, arising from the positive free will of the one commanding: this belongs to those things which are good or evil only because commanded or prohibited.

118. Species of morality. - The supreme and fundamental species of morality is twofold: goodness and malice. It is said to be supreme, because there can be many lowest species of morality, which are taken from objects diverse in species, as will be explained below in q. 5.

It is proved: for a human act is either conformed to its rules or difform from them. In the first case it is good: for good and being are convertible, whence something has so much of goodness as it has of being; if therefore an act has the fullness of being due and fitting to it, it is good. But that which is conformed to its rules has everything that it ought to have. Therefore the act conformed to them is good. In the second case it is evil: for that which has something of the fullness of being is according to this a being and good; but insofar as it does not have the whole being which it ought to have, it falls short of goodness and is called evil. But an act which in some way is difform from its rules does not have the whole being which it ought to have. Therefore such an act is evil. Hence the axiom: Good is from an integral cause, evil from any defect whatever.

Accordingly, good is defined as that which agrees with the rule of reason and with rational nature, evil as that which disagrees.

119. Observation.

In the terminology of modern authors, moral act or morality is often taken in a rather different sense. A moral act is opposed to an immoral act, and then it is the same as an honorable act: thus Kant distinguishes moral, immoral, and amoral acts. In St. Thomas, moral act is never said in this sense, nor is the word immoral ever used, but to a moral act is opposed a non-moral act. Likewise morality among moderns is often taken for honesty and is opposed to immorality. But according to the meaning of the word, just as conduct can be good or depraved, so morality is twofold: goodness and malice.

1. Aptly Ballerini, Op. theol. mor. I, n. 135: "Yet these notions (of modern authors) have nothing in common with the first imposition of the name, according to which, just as conduct can be good and depraved, so also a moral act is good or evil, and therefore morality must be called both good and evil. And for this reason one would have to speak of moral acts in the same way as of human acts, namely, that any act is either human or not human, moral or not moral."

St. Thomas, I-II, q. 18, a. 5 and 8; I, q. 48, a. 1, ad 2; Contra Gentiles III, 9; De Malo q. 2, a. 4 and ad 10; II Sent., d. 40, a. 1.

That good and evil in the physical order do not constitute a specific difference is manifest: thus a good and bad garment, a healthy and sick man, are not species of garment or of man. Hence it is asked whether in human acts goodness and malice also are a mere accidental difference, or on the contrary differ per se and essentially, and consequently according to species. Concerning this one must hold what St. Thomas first of all taught.

144. Thesis. Human acts differ in moral species according to a good or evil object. - It is proved:

a) From the fact that a human act is rational. An act has species from the object. But an act is human and moral insofar as it proceeds from deliberating reason. Therefore it has species from the object considered as it is set before reason, or by comparison to reason. But good and evil in the object differ precisely and per se insofar as they are compared to reason, insofar as the object agrees with it or is repugnant to it. Therefore a good and evil object make human acts differ in species (a. 5).

1. Let it be noted that specific distinction does not arise from differences per accidens, but from a per se difference in the object according as it is compared per se to the principle of action. "Nothing," says St. Thomas, "which is per accidens constitutes species, but only what is per se." Thus to know color and sound are acts specifically diverse according to sense, because they differ per se by comparison to sense; not so according to intellect, which attains them under one notion of object, namely being and true. Likewise to sense white and black differ in species according to sight, because they differ under the notion of color, not according to taste. But human and moral acts are such according as they are from reason; and good and evil differ per se by comparison to reason. "Whence it is manifest that good and evil diversify species in moral acts" (a. 5). Cf. De Malo, q. 2, a. 4.

b) From the fact that a human act is voluntary. An act has species from the object. But an act is human and moral insofar as it is voluntary. Therefore it has species from the object by comparison to the will. But the object of the will is the good or the end. Therefore a human act has species from comparison to the end. But good and evil are said per se according to relation to the end: good insofar as it expresses order to the end, evil insofar as it deprives this order. Therefore in human acts good and evil differ in species (II Sent., d. 40, a. 1, ad 2; De Malo, q. 1, a. 1, ad 4; q. 2, a. 4, ad 10).

145. Is indifference a third species of morality? - Resp.: 1) It is certain that not all human acts are good or evil of themselves according to species, but some are indifferent. For an act has species from the object, and a human act from the object compared to reason, from which the act proceeds. Therefore if the object of itself agrees with the order of reason, the act will be good according to species, for example, to give alms; if it includes repugnance to reason, it will be evil according to species, for example, to steal. But there are objects which express nothing that pertains to the order of reason, for example, to walk, to lift a straw from the ground, to give money, etc., and then the act will be indifferent according to species.

2. Acts indifferent from their own nature do not seem to be moral. For indifference, which is midway between goodness and malice, because it is neither conformity nor difformity to the rule, is not a species of morality but the negation of it. For morality expresses a respect to the rule; but the indifferent does not express respect to the rule: for it is that about which the rule does not care, and it is the same as if the rule did not exist. In other words, morality is said in order to reason, to which it has conformity or repugnance; but the indifferent expresses nothing which pertains to the order of reason; therefore indifference exists outside morality (a. 8).

There are nevertheless some who say that it is an incomplete species of morality.

3. Among indifferent acts some are called well- or ill-sounding, whose object, although it is neither good nor evil, nevertheless inclines more toward goodness, and these acts very often have formal goodness, such as to go to church, to visit the poor, to give money, etc.; or on the contrary toward malice, and then it rather often has an attached injustice, such as to take another's thing, to place a cause from which someone's death can also follow, to use amphibological speech or restriction, etc.; and therefore the act cannot be placed unless a reason is present which renders it honorable, for example, in a case of necessity.

146. Observation.

In order that goodness, of the object or of a circumstance, be contracted, it is required that it be intended in itself and for its own sake; but in order that malice be contracted, it is enough that it be foreseen and indirectly voluntary. For right reason dictates that good is to be pursued and loved in itself because it is worthy to be desired for its own sake; consequently, one who does not intend good in itself does not will it well and rightly and laudably, and as it deserves to be intended. Therefore it is required that the good be the end intended by the agent, or the motive by which he is moved to placing the act; or, as St. Thomas says, q. 19, a. 7, ad 3: "in order that the will be good, it is required that it be of the good under the notion of good, that is, that it will the good and on account of the good." Therefore no one is praised because he visited the sick only for the sake of conversation, or fasted in order to spare money, because the honesty of mercy or of fasting is not formally intended.

Nevertheless one need not explicitly intend that honesty or conformity with the rule as such, but implicitly suffices, by willing the act under some honorable reason, for example, alms because it relieves the poor. On the contrary, evil must not only not be loved, but must be guarded against and avoided, even when it is not intended; and this is not done by him who foresees and does not prevent it.

21. - As was said above in n. 1, for theologians a human act is the same as a moral or imputable act. Yet theoretically each must be distinguished; for a twofold being is found in any human act, namely physical and moral. A human act considered according to physical being, or in the genus of nature, is an act which proceeds from the free will of man. But a human act according to its moral being, or in the genus of morals, is that same act insofar as it agrees with or is opposed to the rule of morals; and therefore the morality of human acts in general is their agreement with the rule of morals, or their discrepancy from the same. With certain more obscure formulas of speaking from the schools being set aside, the essence of morality can be said to consist in the bearing or relation of a human act to the rule of morals.

22. - But the one rule of morals is right reason; if the human act has been conformed to it, it will be called morally good; but if deformed from it, morally evil. Now since right reason is distinguished as twofold, one uncreated, which exists in the divine mind and is called the eternal law; the other created, which is the light impressed by God upon the rational creature, by which the eternal law itself is known; therefore:

I. The essence of morality consists primarily in the bearing or relation of a human act to the eternal law, which is the divine reason, or the will of God commanding the natural order to be preserved and forbidding it to be disturbed. The reason is that the eternal law alone can be the primary rule of morals. And indeed a rule of this sort must be infallible, indefectible, and capable of obliging in conscience; but such is the eternal law alone, from which alone other laws receive the force of obliging; therefore. Thus from St. Thomas.²

II. The essence of morality consists secondarily in the bearing of a human act to right reason. The reason is that right reason alone can manifest to man the eternal law, or the primary rule of morals. Therefore it belongs to right reason to direct the act of the will to God as to the ultimate end. Therefore right reason is the subjective rule manifesting the primary rule. Therefore the essence of morality consists secondarily in the conformity or deformity of the human act with right reason.¹

23. Resolutions. - 1° Therefore a moral being is all and only that which lies under the rule of morals, or under the law of God commanding, forbidding, or permitting. For through this alone we are ordered to our ultimate end, or disordered from it. Therefore, that our acts may be good, they must be in some way conformed to the divine will, since this is the supreme and primary rule of morals.

2° Liberty is pre-required for the foundation of morality; otherwise the act would not be human, and therefore all sins and merits would be removed from the midst.

3° It is false that the essence of morality must be placed in liberty alone. For the morality of a human act embraces its imputability to praise or blame, to reward or punishment; but an act is not worthy of praise or blame only because it is free, but also, and most of all, because it is conformed to or deformed from the rule of morals, or the divine will.

4° It is false, a fortiori, that morality consists in the voluntary alone. For the voluntary can be necessary, as, for example, in the natural appetite for happiness in general (n. 4 under 4°).

5° Moral goodness or malice is twofold, namely objective or material, and subjective or formal. The former is the very conformity or discrepancy of the action with the rules of morals considered in itself and in the object itself, independently of the will of the agent; but the latter is the same conformity or discrepancy, insofar as it is freely willed by the agent.

24. Questions. - It is asked 1° whether there are acts properly indifferent, or lacking morality, whether in species or in the individual.

Resp. 1° It is certain that there are acts indifferent in species, or acts which in their own species are without morality. For there are acts which, considered in themselves, abstracting from end and circumstances, have no agreement or repugnance with law or right reason, and therefore are to be judged neither good nor evil. Thus to walk, to write, and innumerable similar things are acts indifferent in themselves.

Resp. 2° But there is controversy with respect to acts in the individual, or as considered in the agent. The more common and more probable sentence with St. Thomas denies this, and St. Alphonsus proves it in these words: "It cannot happen that some singular act proceeding from deliberate will is done without circumstances: therefore either those circumstances are consonant with reason; namely, so that the act is done when, where, how, and on account of what it ought to be done, and thus it is good; or they are not consonant with right reason, at least not all of them, but some one is lacking, and thus it is evil: therefore no act in the individual, and considered according to all circumstances, can be indifferent."¹

25. - It is asked 2° whether the external act (actually to assist or harm one's neighbor) adds morality to the internal act (to will to assist or harm one's neighbor).

Resp. 1° In itself the external act adds no morality to the internal act, and therefore neither increases nor diminishes the substantial merit or demerit of the internal act. Thus with St. Thomas,² St. Alphonsus³ against certain others. - The reason is that, since the internal act of the will is the cause of the external act, and the effect (the external act) is wholly in the cause (in the internal act), the whole goodness or malice of the former must be placed in the goodness or malice of the latter.⁴

This is also clear from Sacred Scripture, which often regards the will as the deed itself. Thus, with respect to goodness and merit, it is clear from Gen. 22. vv. 16, 17, where God said to Abraham, who only willed to immolate his son: "Because thou hast done this thing, and hast not spared thy son ... I will bless thee." And, with respect to malice, from Matth. 5, 28, where Christ says: "He who shall have looked at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." - Nor is the obligation of declaring the external act in Confession an obstacle; for it must be declared because from the internal act of the will and the exterior work there arises one and the same moral act.⁵ Nor again is an aureola an obstacle, which is attributed to martyrs, doctors, and virgins, and is not granted to those who are inwardly prepared to suffer and do the same things which the former have done and suffered; for an aureola is a certain accidental reward or joy corresponding to a special difficulty joined with an exterior act. Nor, moreover, is it an obstacle that the real reception of a Sacrament confers greater effects than the will alone of receiving it; for in the question the matter is not of an equal effect of the internal and external act, but of the equal morality and imputability of them. Add that the real effect of the reception of a Sacrament comes from the privilege of Christ, who willed that it have power ex opere operato, and not by reason of a greater goodness in the recipient. Finally, the matter is also of effect, not of morality, when we say that by an internal act an indulgence is not acquired which the Church has granted to an external act; that a censure or irregularity is not incurred by the mere will of placing the work to which by law they are annexed; and that the burden of restitution does not exist from affective injustice alone.

It must also be noted, if the matter is concerning goodness, that the internal act is supposed to proceed from a will so disposed that, given the opportunity, it would operate, and besides that the case of an internal act is excluded which by its nature would be necessarily inefficacious in order to the execution of the action which it would even sincerely will. Thus an elicited act by which I would will only to please and obey God as much as Christ did could not reach that goodness which the actions of Christ had; for however much I should will this, I would will it inefficaciously, since I am not capable of a theandric action.¹

Resp. 2° Per accidens, the external act generally increases morality, because very often it is the occasion by which the goodness or malice of the internal act is increased, for example so that it is prolonged or multiplied, etc. For the internal act is increased because of the arduousness of the good external work, or because of delight in evil, or because of the longer delay of time necessary in completing the external work. Besides, often in the external work there is scandal or harm to one's neighbor, or, on the contrary,

his edification; from these also the morality of the internal act is increased. Thus commonly the theologians.

I say, 1st. The essence of morality consists primarily in the habitude or relation of a human act to the eternal law, which is the divine reason, or the will of God commanding that the natural order be preserved and forbidding that it be disturbed. The reason is that only that can be the primary rule of morality which is the supreme norm of an infallible and indefectible order, and able to oblige in conscience; but such is the eternal law alone, from which alone the other laws receive the force of obliging. Therefore.

I say, 2nd. The essence of morality consists secondarily in the habitude of a human act to right reason. For human actions cannot be measured against the supreme norm of morality except by means of human reason, which is a certain participation in, and consequently manifestation of, the divine reason. Hence:

1st. That, and that alone, is a moral being which stands under the rule of morals, or under the law of God commanding or permitting. For through that alone are we ordered to our ultimate end, or disordered from it.

2nd. It is false that the essence of morality is to be placed in liberty alone. For this is prerequired as a condition that an act can be imputed, but it is not the reason why it is imputed unto praise or blame. For he who acts freely is not for that reason worthy of reward, but only he who, since he is free, acts conformably to the divine reason.

3rd. It is false also that morality consists in the voluntary alone. For the voluntary without liberty is in no way imputable, because without it man would not be master of his own actions.

4th. It is false that public opinion is the rule of morality, because it is neither infallible nor immutable, and consequently tomorrow that could be called unjust which today is reputed honest.

5th. Indeed the civil laws themselves cannot be the supreme rule of morals, because laws measure the goodness or malice of an act only insofar as they are honest and reasonable, and consequently insofar as they participate in some higher criterion. Cf. St. Thomas, 1-2, q. 19, art. 4; q. 71, art. 6; and q. 93, art. 3. - St. Alphonsus, nn. 34 and 35.

Question 1. Are there acts properly indifferent, or lacking morality, either in species or in the individual?

Response. It is certain that there are acts indifferent in species, or acts which in their species are without morality. For there are acts which, considered in themselves while abstracting from end and circumstances, have no agreement or repugnance with law or right reason, and therefore are to be reputed neither good nor bad. Thus walking, writing, and innumerable similar things are acts indifferent through themselves.

But there is controversy concerning acts in the individual, or considered in the agent; but the more common and more probable opinion, which with St. Thomas denies it, is held. The reason is that it belongs to a man acting deliberately, and therefore master of his act, to order the act to a due end; but the due end is that which befits rational nature, as it is rational. Moreover an act otherwise good from the object, or at least indifferent, and thus ordered to a due end, is necessarily good; but an act lacking such ordering is bad; therefore in no case will there be given an act properly indifferent in the individual. Cf. St. Thomas, 1-2, q. 18, arts. 8 and 9; and QQ. DD., De Malo, q. 2, arts. 4 and 5. - St. Alphonsus, nn. 42 and seq.

Question 2. Does an external act add morality to an internal act?

Response. Through itself an external act adds no morality to an internal act; and the reason is that all morality is taken from the intrinsic, or from the will; nor does an external act have any imputability unto merit or demerit proper to itself and distinct from the imputability of the internal act. Wherefore an external act is not formally, but only materially, honest or dishonest. Nor does the obligation of declaring the external act in confession stand in the way; for it must be declared both because reservation, scandal, or some damage of neighbor is often present, and because it constitutes one and the same act with the internal act, as will be said where there will be discussion concerning the integrity of confession. But by accident an external act usually increases morality, because very often it is the occasion why the goodness or malice of the internal act is increased, for example, that it is prolonged or multiplied, etc. For the internal act is increased on account of the arduousness of the good external work or the delight of the evil, or on account of the longer delay of time necessary in completing the external work. Cf. Suarez, in 1-2, tract. 3, disp. 10, sect. 1, nn. 3 and 9.

DISSERTATION IV

ON HUMAN ACTS IN ESSE MORIS. St. Thomas, qq. 18, 19 and 20.

The difficulty concerns the conflict of manifold moralities opposed one to another, whereof one namely is good, another evil; or whether the same act can be at once good and evil from diverse heads, good from object, evil from end or some other circumstance, and conversely.

I say 1°: An act otherwise good in itself, whose evil end is the total and adequate reason why it is chosen, is from no part good, but wholly evil. It is the common teaching ^{1 1} Here q. 19, a. 7, ad 2.

It is proved 1° from Scripture. I Cor., v, 6, the Apostle says: A little leaven corrupts the whole lump. By leaven moreover is understood the depraved intention, which while it is the total cause of an act otherwise good, infects and corrupts the whole of it.

It is proved 2° by reason. When one gives alms precisely for vainglory or luxury, so that vainglory or luxury be the total and adequate cause of bestowing the alms, the honesty of the alms is nowise desired, but desired only as the means of attaining glory or luxury; so that, even if it had no honesty of itself, it would nevertheless be assumed for attaining the evil end. But the honesty of the object reflects no goodness into the act unless directly desired in itself, as was said before. Therefore.

I say 2°: An act otherwise good in itself, whose evil end is not the total and adequate reason why it is chosen, can be good from object and evil from end. A fortiori an act good from object and end, upon which supervenes some venially evil circumstance, can be partly good and partly evil ^{1 1} Ibid.

It is proved. An act good whose extrinsic evil end is not the total and adequate cause why it is assumed, e.g., alms done partly on account of one's own honesty of mercy, partly for vainglory, draws and retains goodness from the object, notwithstanding the concurrence of the further extrinsic end, evil namely, of vainglory. Therefore it is good from object and evil from end. — Proof of the antecedent: It cannot be but that the goodness of the object willed in itself and for itself reflect goodness into the act. For to love the good in itself and for itself is necessarily and essentially good. But honest alms, in the case, is loved in itself and for itself, and not precisely and solely for vainglory, which we suppose not to be its total and adequate cause. Therefore.

What I said of the act good from object and evil from end must be said a fortiori of the act good from object and end, into which mingles some venially evil circumstance, e.g., if into alms done from the sole motive of mercy there mingle tepidity or inconsiderateness.

1. A habit is a quality difficult to change, whereby an agent whose nature it was to work one way or another indeterminately, is disposed easily and readily at will to follow this or that particular line of action. Habit differs from disposition, as disposition is a quality easily changed. Thus one in a good humour is in a disposition to be kind. Habit is a part of character: disposition is a passing fit. Again, habit differs from faculty, or power: as power enables one to act; but habit, presupposing power, renders action easy and expeditious, and reliable to come at call. We have a power to move our limbs, but a habit to walk or ride or swim. Habit then is the determinant of power. One and the same power works well or ill, but not one and the same habit.

2. A power that has only one way of working, set and fixed, is not susceptible of habit. Such powers are the forces of inanimate nature, as gravitation and electricity. A thing does not gravitate better for gravitating often. The moon does not obey the earth more readily to-day than she did in the days of Ptolemy, or of the Chaldean sages. Some specious claim to habit might be set up on behalf of electricity and magnetism. A glass rod rubbed at frequent intervals for six months, is a different instrument from what it would have been, if left all that time idle in a drawer. Then there are such cases as the gradual magnetising of an iron bar. Still we cannot speak of electrical habits, or magnetic habits, not at least in things without life, because there is no will there to control the exercise of the quality. As well might we speak of a "tumbledown" habit in a row of houses, brought on by locomotives running underneath their foundations. It is but a case of an accumulation of small effects, inducing gradually a new molecular arrangement, so that the old powers act under new material conditions. But habit is a thing of life, an appurtenance of will, not of course independent of material conditions and structural alterations, in so far forth as a living and volitional is also a material agent, but essentially usable at will, and brought into play and controlled in its operation by free choice. Therefore a habit that works almost automatically has less of the character of a true habit, and passes rather out of morality into the region of physics. Again, bad habits, vices to which a man is become a slave against his better judgment, are less properly called habits than virtues are; for such evil habits do not so much attend on volition (albeit volition has created them) as drag the will in their wake. For the like reason, habit is less properly predicable of brute animals than of men: for brutes have no intelligent will to govern their habits. The highest brutes are most susceptible of habit. They are most like men in being most educable. And, of human progeny, some take up habits, in the best and completest sense of the term, more readily than others. They are better subjects for education: education being nothing else than the formation of habits.

3. Knowledge consists of intellectual habits. But the habits of most consequence to the moralist lie in the will, and in the sensitive appetite as amenable to the control of the will. In this category come the virtues, in the ordinary sense of that name, and secondarily the vices.

4. A habit is acquired by acts. Whereupon this difficulty has been started:—If the habit, say of mental application, comes from acts of study, and again the acts from the habit, how ever is the habit originally acquired? We answer that there are two ways in which one thing may come from another. It may come in point of its very existence, as child from parent; or in point of some mode of existence, as scholar from master. A habit has its very existence from acts preceding: but those acts have their existence independent of the habit. The acts which are elicited after the habit is formed, owe to the habit, not their existence, but the mode of their existence: that is to say, because of the habit the acts are now formed readily, reliably, and artistically, or virtuously. The primitive acts which gradually engendered the habit, were done with difficulty, fitfully, and with many failures,—more by good luck than good management, if it was a matter of skill, and by a special effort rather than as a thing of course, where it was question of moral well-doing. (See c.ii., s.ii., n.9, p. 10.)

5. A habit is a living thing: it grows and must be fed. It grows on acts, and acts are the food that sustain it. Unexercised, a habit pines away: corruption sets in and disintegration. A man, we will say, has a habit of thinking of God during his work. He gives over doing so. That means that he either takes to thinking of everything and nothing, or he takes up some definite line of thought to the exclusion of God. Either way there is a new formation to the gradual ruin of the old habit.

6. Habit and custom may be distinguished in philosophical language. We may say that custom makes the habit. Custom does not imply any skill or special facility. A habit is a channel whereby the energies flow, as otherwise they would not have flowed, freely and readily in some particular direction. A habit, then, is a determination of a faculty for good or for evil. It is something intrinsic in a man, a real modification of his being, abiding in him in the intervals between one occasion for its exercise and another: whereas custom is a mere denomination, expressive of frequent action and no more. Thus it would be more philosophical to speak of a custom of early rising, and of a custom of smoking, rather than of a habit of smoking, except so far as, by the use of the word habit, you may wish to point to a certain acquired skill of the respiratory and facial muscles, and a certain acquired temper of the stomach, enabling one to inhale tobacco fumes with impunity.

7. Habits are acquired, but it is obvious that the rate of acquisition varies in different persons. This comes from one person being more predisposed by nature than another to the acquiring of this or that habit. By nature, that is by the native temper and conformation of his body wherewith he was born, this child is more prone to literary learning, that to mechanics, this one to obstinacy and contentiousness, that to sensuality, and so of the rest. For though it is by the soul that a man learns, and by the act of his will and spiritual powers he becomes a glutton or a zealot, nevertheless the bodily organs concur and act jointly towards these ends. The native dispositions of the child's body for the acquisition of habits depend to an unascertained extent upon the habits of his ancestors. This is the fact of heredity.

8. Man is said to be "a creature of habits." The formation of habits in the will saves the necessity of continually making up the mind anew. A man will act as he has become habituated, except under some special motive from without, or some special effort from within. In the case of evil habits, that effort is attended with immense difficulty. The habit is indeed the man's own creation, the outcome of his free acts. But he is become the bondslave of his creature, so much so that when the occasion arrives, three-fourths of the act is already done, by the force of the habit alone, before his will is awakened, or drowsily moves in its sleep. The only way for the will to free itself here is not to wait for the occasion to come, but be astir betimes, keep the occasion at arm's length, and register many a determination and firm protest and fervent prayer against the habit. He who neglects to do this in the interval has himself to blame for being overcome every time that he falls upon the occasion which brings into play the evil habit.

Readings.—St. Thos., 1a 2æ, q. 49, art. 4, ad 1, 2; ib., q. 50, art. 3, in corp., ad. 1, 2; ib., q. 51, art. 1, in corp.; ib., q. 53, art. 3, in corp.; Ar., Eth., II., i.; ib., III., v., 10-14; ib., II., iv., 1, 2, 4.