The Last End of Man (Beatitude)

Since moral theology teaches man the way by which he can come to his end, it first treats of the ultimate end of man, both so that he may know the end toward which he must tend by his acts, and so that the foundation and supreme principle of moral theology may be clear: for all things depend upon and are governed by the end. Nevertheless, the ultimate end is to be treated in such a way that those things which are set forth at length in moral philosophy are briefly recalled here, and then those things are added which are proper to moral theology.

13. What it is. 1. Every rational agent acts for the sake of an end. An end is that for the sake of which something is done, or that toward which someone tends. End is distinguished in many ways; it will suffice here to explain the end of the work and the end of the worker. The end of the work is that good toward which a thing or action tends by its nature: a clock toward indicating time, almsgiving toward relieving the poor. The end of the worker is that good which the agent intends or strives to obtain through his action; for example, almsgiving toward making satisfaction for sins. The end of the worker is the cause which moves the worker to acting.

The end of the worker can be the same as the end of the work, and it can be different from the end of the work. If an artisan builds a house, the end of the work, or of the house, is that it serve for dwelling; the end of the worker can be the same, namely that he construct dwellings, but it can also be another: that he make a profit, that he acquire provisions for himself.

2. If we refer these things to God and to the things created by Him, and ask about the end of the Creator, or worker, and also about the end of creation, or work, it is clear first that there can be no discourse about a motive cause of creation, since God can be moved to acting by no good, neither external nor internal, but only about the reason why God willed that creatures should exist. Then it is certain that even God, acting ad extra, intends some good which He strives to obtain through His works or through creatures.

The end and the motive of an action differ from each other. For the motive is that good which moves the agent to the action; but the end is called both that good to the obtaining of which the action is ordered by its nature, and that good which the agent intends to obtain by his action. This good moves the agent to placing the action. Therefore only the end in this latter sense is the motive of the action, but not the end taken in the former sense, unless the agent is moved by that good to placing the action. Thus the internal end of eating is the preservation of life. In him who eats for the sake of pleasure, pleasure is the motive of eating; in him who eats in order to preserve life, the end is at the same time the motive of eating.

¹ Cf. Kleutgen, Theologie der Vorzeit^2 (Munster: Theissing, 1872), vol. 1, n. 427 ff.; vol. 2, chief part 4: "Von der ubernaturlichen Gemeinschaft mit Gott"; chief part 5: "Vom naturlichen und ubernaturlichen Ziel und Ende des Menschen"; vol. 5, chief part 3: "Von der praktischen Theologie." Bouquillon, Theologia moralis fundamentalis^3, bk. 1, De ultimo fine; bk. 2, De mediis ad finem. Schwane, Allgemeine Moraltheologie (Freiburg: Herder, 1885), § 13. Th. Meyer, Institutiones iuris naturalis^4 (Freiburg: Herder, 1907), I, n. 35 ff. V. Cathrein, Moralphilosophie^4 (Freiburg: Herder, 1904), p. 79 ff.

14. 1. The reason which moved God to create man, or the world, is the divine goodness or the infinite perfection of God. Therefore love and the highest esteem of the divine perfection is the reason for which God from eternity wills that created things should exist in time, and that man should exist.

The reason for which God wills something is goodness, just as the reason for which He understands something is truth. But it cannot be a goodness distinct from God and placed outside God; otherwise God would not be most perfect and sufficient unto Himself. Therefore it is the divine goodness itself. Hence Sacred Scripture says: "The Lord has made all things for Himself,"¹ namely by gratuitous goodness,² and St. Augustine says: "Because God is good, we are."³

From the fact that man was created for the sake of divine goodness or the infinite divine perfection, two things necessarily follow: that man is a participation or participated likeness of the divine goodness, just as, analogically, an effect is a participation of the cause from which it flows; and that man, since he is a likeness and image, is a manifestation and representation of the divine goodness.

2. The good for the obtaining of which man was created by God is twofold: the external glory of God and the beatitude of man. The former is called the external end of man; the latter, the internal end of man.

a. The external glory of God. God creates man, as He creates the whole world, not in order to obtain some good for Himself, but in order to communicate His good to man, and in order that man may manifest it and acknowledge it with praise. But the external glory of God consists in the manifestation of the divine good and in knowledge of it with praise.

a. Glory is twofold, internal and external. Internal glory is the perfection and excellence on account of which someone is worthy to be known and praised; external glory is an external work on account of which someone merits admiration and praise.

Internal glory is either objective, namely the perfection and excellence itself, which constitutes the object of knowledge and the motive of praise, or formal, which is the knowledge of that excellence itself and the praise, love, and joy which follow from this knowledge. External glory likewise is either objective, namely the external work itself, which constitutes the object of knowledge and the reason for praise and admiration, or formal, which is the knowledge of the work and the praise, love, and admiration which follow from it.

b. Therefore the definition by which glory is usually defined, "clear knowledge with praise," that is, knowledge concerning someone's excellence with acknowledgment and praise of the same, this definition, I say, sets forth formal external glory, which in the proper sense is called glory.

c. Objective external glory of God is the universal ultimate end of all created things and properly absolute, both because all things are so ordered to it that its attainment is necessary, and because it is not ordered to another end. Subjective external glory of God is the proper end of man, as a rational creature.

d. Since the nature of creatures is diverse, the glory which they were created to exhibit is also diverse: irrational creatures, which are only a certain trace of God,⁴ glorify God objectively by their mere existence, since they manifest God and His attributes; but man, who is the image and likeness of God,⁵ can know, praise, and love the excellence of God, and therefore by his existence he objectively glorifies God, and by admiration of God's works he formally glorifies Him.

b. The beatitude of man. Since man was made for the glory of God, he was created to know and love God; but the beatitude of man consists in the knowledge and love of God; therefore the ultimate end of man is the glory of God and at the same time the beatitude of man. Each end is acquired by the same acts of knowledge and love.

Beatitude is distinguished as twofold: objective or external, which is the good in whose possession man becomes blessed; and subjective or internal, which is the attainment and possession of that good. Moral philosophy demonstrates at length that the objective beatitude of man is nothing other than God, the highest good, since there is no other good which can quiet the appetite of man, and that subjective beatitude consists in the knowledge and love of God, since by these acts man is intimately joined with the highest good and enjoys it.⁶

Note. What the ultimate end of man is, is here shown from the end which God had and had to have in creation; moral philosophy deduces the same from the very nature of man.

¹ Prov. 16:4.

² St. Bernard, Sermon 3 on Pentecost, n. 4.

³ De doctrina christiana l. 1, n. 32.

⁴ Job 11:7.

⁵ Gen. 1:26-27.

⁶ Cf. Cathrein I^4, p. 81 f., 96 ff.; Meyer I, n. 59 ff.

15. The external glory of God is the primary end of man; perfect beatitude is the secondary end of man.

a. Whatever God wills, He wills for the sake of His goodness. Therefore He wills the beatitude of man only for the sake of His goodness, namely so that this goodness may be communicated and manifested, or for the sake of His external glory. Therefore He wills His external glory primarily, and the beatitude of man secondarily. b. Since the love of God is ordered, He wills individual goods according to their dignity. But the glory of God, since it is a divine good, excels the beatitude of man in dignity, which is the good of a creature.

The Hermesianists thought that this order of ends had to be inverted, namely that God principally intends the beatitude of man, and His own glory secondarily, lest God, if He ultimately referred all things to His own glory, should have to be called desirous of His own advantage and ambitious. But: a. the external glory of God, which is the primary end of creatures, is not some advantage or internal good of God, since such a good cannot accrue to God, as being most perfect. b. He is called ambitious who seeks glory not due to him, or glory due to him in an undue manner; but God seeks and intends glory most due to Himself and in a due manner, namely from love of His infinite perfection and goodness. Therefore God wills and intends only that which right order requires.¹

¹ Cf. Kleutgen, Theologie der Vorzeit I, n. 428 ff.

16. The beatitude to which man is destined in the present order consists in the intuitive vision of God and in the highest love and joy which result from it.

a. Vision. "Beloved, now we are sons of God; and it has not yet appeared what we shall be: we know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is."¹ By these words the Apostle teaches that our state in eternity will be far different from that which we now have: for then we shall be like God in glory and beatitude; and the cause of this wonderful transformation is the intuitive vision of God. "For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, that which is in part shall be done away. Now we see through a mirror in an enigma: but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then I shall know as I also am known."² From these words we learn that the knowledge of God which we enjoy in this life is far inferior to the knowledge which we shall enjoy in eternity: for the knowledge of this life, whether natural through reason or supernatural through faith, is mediated knowledge of God; but the knowledge of the future life is immediate vision and intuition of God. Benedict XII declares: "By apostolic authority we define that the blessed enjoy the divine essence, and also that from such vision and fruition the souls of those who have already departed are truly blessed and have eternal life and rest."³

b. Love. From the intuitive vision by which the human intellect is intimately joined with the divine essence, there arises in the will, by natural necessity, love of the highest good immediately known. The Apostle signifies this highest charity, by which man is borne toward God, in these words: "Now there remain faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."⁴ For he says charity is greater than faith and hope because it is also to remain in eternity.

c. Joy. Speaking of eternal beatitude, Sacred Scripture says: "Well done, good and faithful servant ... enter into the joy of thy Lord."⁵ "Your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no one shall take from you."⁶ And indeed, since through the love of the highest good present every appetite is satisfied and quieted, and since man at the same time knows that the possession of the highest good cannot cease, there necessarily follows from this that highest joy by which Sacred Scripture designates eternal beatitude.

d. The perfect beatitude of man consists in those acts by which he perfectly possesses and enjoys the highest good. But by the intuitive vision of God and by the love which necessarily follows from it, man possesses the highest good in the most perfect way and enjoys it. Therefore Benedict XII says: The blessed "enjoy the divine essence, and from such vision and fruition the souls of those who have already departed are truly blessed."

¹ 1 John 3:2.

² 1 Cor. 13:9-12.

³ Constitution Benedictus Deus, January 29, 1336.

⁴ 1 Cor. 13:13.

⁵ Matt. 25:21.

⁶ John 16:22.

17. It is supernatural. The beatitude to which man is destined in the present order is truly supernatural, that is, it exceeds all the powers and all the demands of created nature, and is a participation in the divine life itself.

The beatitude which is promised to us in heaven can be known only by Him who searches the deep things of the Godhead; but such beatitude surpasses both the powers and the demands of created nature, and therefore is supernatural in the strict sense.¹ The beatitude of the Son of God is altogether supernatural to created nature; but the beatitude which awaits us in eternity is a participation in the beatitude of the Son of God Himself: for He will grant us to sit with Him on His throne, just as He Himself sits on the throne of His Father;² He will dispose the kingdom for us, just as the Father has disposed it for Him; He will grant that we eat and drink at His table in His kingdom.³ The beatitude which awaits us in eternity consists in the intuitive vision of God, together with the love which necessarily results from it. But this is the beatitude of God Himself, and consequently is altogether supernatural. The sonship by which man is constituted an adoptive son of God is plainly supernatural; therefore the beatitude which corresponds in due proportion to adoptive sonship is also supernatural. But the beatitude which we await in eternity is the beatitude of the sons of God.⁴ Although man can produce ethically good works by the powers of nature, nevertheless he cannot perform, without the help of grace, any work that is apt for the ultimate end to which we have been destined by God. But if grace alone renders us apt for works proportioned to the ultimate end, our ultimate end is supernatural.

¹ "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for those who love Him; but God has revealed them to us through His Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God." 1 Cor. 2:9-10.

² "He who has overcome, I will give to sit with Me on My throne; just as I also overcame and sat with My Father on His throne." Apoc. 3:21.

³ "And I dispose to you, as My Father has disposed to Me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom." Luke 22:29 f.

⁴ "For whoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are sons of God. For you have not received the spirit of servitude again in fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption of sons, in which we cry: Abba, Father. For the Spirit Himself gives testimony to our spirit that we are sons of God. But if sons, also heirs: heirs indeed of God, and coheirs of Christ." Rom. 8:14-17. Cf. Gal. 4:1 ff.

18. What they are. In order that man may be able to attain the end to which he is destined, God willed him to be furnished with suitable means and powers. These are of two kinds, natural means and supernatural means; and both the natural and the supernatural are some external, others internal.

1. The external natural means are: a. created things existing besides man, which supply him with the necessities of life; b. the diverse forms of societies, the family and civil society. The internal natural means with which the soul is furnished are especially the intellect and the will, by which it can know and love its highest good.

The philosophical disciplines treat of all these things; supposing their doctrines, in this place we treat only of the liberty of the will, concerning which several points must be noted which are of the greatest importance in moral theology.

2. The external supernatural means which Christ the Lord instituted for this end are the Church, sacrifice, the sacraments, and the like. The internal supernatural means with which the soul is furnished, so that it may be able to tend to the supernatural end, are: a. sanctifying grace, which inheres in the substance of the soul and elevates man to a supernatural nature and life proportioned to the supernatural end to which he is destined; b. infused habits, which inhere in the powers of the soul, namely in the intellect and appetite, and furnish man with the forces and powers by which he can exercise works proportioned to the supernatural end; c. actual graces, by which God concurs with individual supernatural actions of man, in that He preveniently assists, accompanies, and perfects them by His help.

In order that man may tend by his moral acts to the ultimate end, the powers by which moral acts are elicited must be furnished with dispositions and qualities stable in themselves, by which they are rendered apt for eliciting acts consonant with the end; therefore God has placed habits in the powers, and these supernatural habits. Further, in order that the powers furnished with habits may be able to act supernaturally, they also need actual grace, by which they are excited to acts. Finally, in order that their acts may be meritorious of eternal life, the soul must be adorned with sanctifying grace. In these are contained all the internal means which are necessary to man so that he may be able to live a moral life consonant with the ultimate end.

Dogmatic theology treats of grace, whether habitual or actual; but those things which are necessary to know about infused habits must be set forth in this place. Now infused habits are of two kinds, supernatural virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit, concerning which we must now treat.

37. On the obligation itself. The primary and principal moral duty which is incumbent upon man living in this life is the obligation of tending to the ultimate end and of attaining it by the means ordained by God.

1. Man has been destined by God to the end of eternal life; but in this destination there is manifestly contained the will of God, by which man is obligated to attain the end through the means ordained by Him.

This argument can be set forth in this way: God constituted Himself the ultimate end of man; but by the very fact that He constituted Himself the ultimate end, He imposed upon man the obligation of tending to the ultimate end.

2. Man by a natural weight is borne toward his perfection and beatitude, which he cannot attain except in God, the supernatural end. But in a rational being the tendencies of nature are governed by law and moral obligation. Therefore he is bound by moral obligation to strive toward the end of eternal life by freely choosing the end and those things which have been ordained by God for attaining the end. The same obligation is also imposed upon man by the express words of Sacred Scripture: "Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect";¹ "with fear and trembling work out your salvation."²

3. The relation of the present life to eternal life, according to Sacred Scripture, is the state of the way to the terminus, the state of tendency toward perfect beatitude: for the present way is exhibited as a time of combat, labor, and probation; eternal life as crown, wages, and reward.³ Therefore, according to the will of God, we must freely strive toward the ultimate end through the means ordained by God.⁴ Whoever has not done this will fall away from the end of beatitude and will be condemned to eternal punishment: "And these shall go into eternal punishment; but the just into eternal life."⁵

¹ Matt. 5:48.

² Phil. 2:12.

³ Matt. 5:12; 16:27; 19:17, 29; 25:9, 30, 46; 1 Cor. 9:24; 2 Tim. 4:8; Jas. 1:12; 3:4.

⁴ Matt. 19:17.

⁵ Matt. 25:46. Cf. Matt. 7:19; John 5:29.

38. What this obligation involves. In order that man may come to the end of eternal life:

1. He is bound by faith to acknowledge God, the supernatural end, and to constitute Him the end of his moral life. Hence he ought to be so disposed that he wills to love nothing, to desire nothing, which simply impedes the ultimate end and is simply opposed to attaining it, of which sort is mortal sin.

a. Since venial sin is not simply opposed to the attainment of the ultimate end, the will and intention of committing venial sin is not against the prescribed obligation of tending to the ultimate end. Venial sin is indeed an action through which man does not tend to his end, but it does not remove the end and the attainment of it.

b. From these things it is gathered that the first and fundamental precept of the whole moral life is this: that man adhere to God by faith, hope to attain Him as his supreme good, and order himself and all that is his to God, his ultimate end. And since ordering to God in this order of salvation is done through the charity of God, it is understood why an act of divine charity is necessary and prescribed at the beginning of the spiritual life.

2. He is bound to acquire for himself the state of grace and of divine sonship through the sacrament of baptism: for the kingdom of heaven is promised only to the sons of God, just as only sons have a right to the inheritance of the father: "Unless one has been reborn of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."¹ "But if sons, then heirs."²

3. He is bound to lead a life worthy of a son of God through the supernatural observance of the commandments of God, so that through good works he may merit for himself the reward of eternal life: "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments."³ "He who does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven."⁴

4. If he has deserted the ultimate end and lost the state of grace through mortal sin, he is bound to return to the end of his life and to recover the lost state of grace through penance. For in the state of mortal sin an efficacious tendency to the ultimate end is impossible. Moreover, for one existing in the state of mortal sin, since his will, turned away from God, adheres to earthly things, because of lack of strength it is too arduous to overcome the difficulties which occur in observing the precepts for a long time, unless he withdraws his will from sins and efficaciously sets God before created things.⁵

Discussion will return elsewhere concerning the difficulty which is found in assigning the time within which this obligation must be fulfilled.⁶

¹ John 3:5.

² Rom. 8:17.

³ Matt. 19:17.

⁴ Matt. 7:21.

⁵ Cf. St. Thomas I-II, q. 109, a. 8; II-II, q. 14, a. 2. Lugo, De poenitentia, disp. 7, n. 234 ff.

⁶ Cf. De sacramentis^3, n. 217.

39. To what extent the world is to be fled. The Christian religion, which constitutes the ultimate end of man not in the goods of this life but in the goods of another life, and obligates him, earthly things being put after, to strive toward supernatural and eternal goods, is therefore gravely blamed, as though by directing man to supernatural and future things it turns him away from the goods of this life, teaches him to despise them, and to neglect temporal prosperity and progress.

a. It rightly and deservedly teaches that man attains his end not in this life, but only in the other, since in this life man cannot obtain either the moral perfection fitting to human nature or the happiness which he naturally desires. For progress, even the greatest, whether material or intellectual, cannot raise man either to moral perfection or to happiness.

b. It teaches that the world is to be contemned and fled insofar as worldly cares impede the tendency toward eternal goods and bring true human happiness into danger. Hence is understood the frequent admonition of Sacred Scripture and of the holy Fathers, not of loving but rather of abandoning the world, namely insofar as it brings the danger of losing more excellent goods. But it is wholly false that the Christian religion impedes temporal progress or renders man unfit to collaborate in perfecting and promoting temporal life and its culture. For it requires only this: that in the works by which he tries to promote temporal prosperity, he observe the norms of morality and not neglect Christian duties. With this condition posited, Christians are admonished to apply themselves seriously and diligently to temporal and worldly labors.¹

c. Nor from the fact that the Christian religion teaches that virginity is to be preferred in itself to marriage, and the religious state to the secular state, does it despise or condemn marriage or the secular state, but it prefers the greater and better good to the lesser good. Nevertheless, when the character of human nature is considered, it is not to be feared that so great a multitude of men will abandon the world that material prosperity and progress will ever be neglected.² Indeed the Christian religion effectively increases and promotes in every way the true culture both of the individual man and of society, in that it cultivates individual and social virtues in individuals, protects and perfects the family and the state, and commends and promotes that progress to which alone true and solid stability belongs.

¹ Cf. 1 Thess. 4:10 f.

² On this matter the following discuss aptly: Schneider, Die gottliche Weltordnung (Paderborn: Schoningh, 1900): "Weltflucht und Kulturscheu," p. 528 ff. Mausbach, Die katholische Moral^2 (Cologne: Bachem, 1901): "Kulturarbeit und Weltflucht," p. 113 ff. H. Pesch, Die soziale Befahigung der Kirche^2 (Freiburg: Herder, 1897); Kneib, Die Jenseitsmoral (Freiburg: Herder, 1906).

We shall deal first with the end in general, and then with the final end of man.

I. Notion of end. An end is said to be: that for the sake of which something is done, or that for the sake of which an agent operates, or that which, by exciting the appetite of the one about to operate, draws him to acting. Now the appetite is drawn only by an apprehended good. Hence good and end, although they differ in formal concept, materially fall into the same thing. That is, one and the same thing is called a good insofar as it is fitting to the appetite; it is called an end insofar as, through that fittingness, it draws to acting.

Good, by reason of appetibility, is distinguished as threefold: honorable, delectable, and useful. The honorable is that which is conformable to the rules of morals; the delectable, that which is apt to satisfy the appetite; the useful, that which is apt for attaining some other good. Now since an end is that which by its goodness moves one to acting, a useful good as such does not have the character of an end but only of a means (St. Thomas, I, q. 5, a. 6, ad 2); for that which is chosen by reason of another is called a means. Thus, for example, victory is the end of those fighting, while the fight is the means.

II. Division of end. End is distinguished:

1. Into the end of the work and the end of the worker. The end of the work, or the intrinsic end, is the end to which the work by its nature is ordered. The end of the worker is the end which the worker intends in acting, whether it is the end of the work itself or some other end. Thus in almsgiving the end of the work is the relief of the poor person; the end of the worker can be the relief of the poor person, or vainglory, or something else (cf. St. Thomas, II-II, q. 141, a. 6, ad 1).

2. Into the end which, the end for whom, and the end by which. The end which is the very good that is intended; the end for whom is the person for whom the good is desired; the end by which is the very possession or acquisition of the intended good. Thus health is the end which, the sick person is the end for whom, and the acquisition of health is the end by which intended by the physician.¹

3. Into the primary end and the secondary end. The primary or principal end is the one intended by the worker in such a way that, if it were lacking, he would not act, and for its sake he would act even if other ends were lacking. The secondary end is the one intended in such a way that without it the action would nevertheless be placed.

4. Into the final end and the intermediate end. The final end is the one intended only by reason of itself, and therefore not referred to another end. An intermediate end is said to be one which is indeed intended by reason of itself, but with a relation or subordination to a further end.

5. Into a natural end and a supernatural end, according as it can be attained by natural means or - as with the beatific vision - only by a supernatural means.

¹ The end which and the end by which, for example health and its acquisition, likewise the end which and the end for whom, for example health and the sick person for whom health is desired, should not be taken as simply several ends, but rather as two quasi-parts of one total end (Billuart, same place, article 1).

In treating this question, a distinction must be made between the end for whom and the end which, or, in other words, between the subject into which some good is ordered and the good itself which is ordered into that subject.

I. The final end for whom of man - as also of every creature - is God, or the divine goodness. This is clear: 1. from Sacred Scripture: "For whom are all things, and through whom are all things"; "The Lord has made all things for himself, the wicked also for the evil day."¹

It is proved 2. by reason. He who is the first cause and therefore the absolute Lord of all things is necessarily the end to which all things are subordinated. But God is the first cause and therefore the absolute Lord of all things.

¹ Heb. 2:10; Prov. 16:4.

II. The final end which of man is the external glory of God, both objective and formal.¹ This is clear 1. from Sacred Scripture: "And everyone who calls upon my name, I have created him for my glory, I have formed him and made him."² It is clear 2. from reason; for from the fact that God is the final end for whom of man, it follows that man is ordered to the good of God. But the good of God to which man is ordered can be nothing other than the external glory of God, and that both objective and formal. For that good cannot be some intrinsic good, since God is infinite and therefore his intrinsic good cannot be perfected. Nor can it be some extrinsic good which is useful to God, since God is infinitely blessed. It remains, therefore, that that good is the external glory of God, or consists in the fact that man glorifies the divine goodness.

Now the end of man is the external glory of God, and that both objective and formal. For every creature ought to glorify God in the manner in which it can accomplish this. Now man can glorify him not only objectively - that is, by displaying a likeness of his goodness - but also formally, that is, by knowing, loving, and extolling him (St. Thomas, Contra Gentiles, book 3, chapter 20). Hence the Vatican Council says: "God, by his goodness and almighty power, not for increasing his beatitude, nor for acquiring it, but for manifesting his perfection through the goods which he imparts to creatures, by a most free counsel... created the creature from nothing." And: "If anyone denies that the world was made for the glory of God, let him be anathema."³

¹ Glory is taken in two ways: improperly, for the excellence itself by force of which someone deserves to be known, praised, loved; properly, for knowledge, praise, and love of excellence, and taken in this sense it is usually defined as: clear knowledge with praise. The glory of God is distinguished as twofold, internal and external, according as it is in God or is offered to him by creatures.

Internal glory again is twofold, objective and formal. Objective glory is the divine excellence itself; formal glory is God's own infinite knowledge, love, and joy concerning his infinite excellence.

External glory also is twofold, objective and formal. Objective glory consists in this, that divine excellence or perfection shines forth in creatures. Formal glory is situated in this, that divine perfection is known, loved, and extolled by creatures. Now irrational creatures glorify God only objectively; rational creatures, however, are also bound to formal glorification. Besides, objective glory is ordered to formal glory and is completed by it; in other words, irrational creatures are ordered to manifesting the divine perfections to man and to arousing him so that he may formally glorify God. Hence irrational things are said to be ordered into God through man as mediator; man, however, is ordered immediately into God.

² Isa. 43:7.

³ Constitution Dei Filius, chapter 1 and canon 5.

III. Besides the absolutely final end, which man has in common with every creature and which consists in the external glory of God, there is also another final end proper to man. "In the parts of the universe," says St. Thomas, "each creature is for the sake of its own proper act and perfection" (I, q. 65, a. 2). Now the final end proper to man is beatitude. For that is rightly called the proper end of man toward which he himself tends by a natural appetite, and therefore by one implanted by the author of nature. But man tends by a natural appetite toward beatitude.

Corollary. Beatitude, although rightly called the final end proper to man, is nevertheless subordinated to the glory of God, which is the absolutely final end. For from the fact that God is the final end for whom of man, it follows that all things which pertain to man or regard him, and therefore also the beatitude itself of man, are ordered to the good of God, that is, to his external glory. Besides, the beatitude of man and the external glory of God are so connected with each other that they are constituted by the same acts. Lessius explains this in these words: "The highest glory of God is our highest good, and our highest good cannot be anything except his highest glory. The reason is that his highest external glory is that he be perfectly known, loved, and tasted by us. Hence it consists in three vital acts; and in the same acts our highest good formally consists.... For our highest good and formal beatitude is to see, love, taste God, or, what can be said in one word as the same thing, to enjoy God. And so in the highest glory of God our highest good is formally and intrinsically included, so that it cannot be conceived without it; and by this very fact, that God intends and seeks that glory, he intends and seeks our highest good and advantage."¹

¹ Lessius, De perfectionibus divinis, book 14, chapter 3.

IV. In order that beatitude, which we have proved to be the end proper to man, may be more fully clarified, several things must be set forth concerning beatitude.

1. In what does beatitude consist? Beatitude, which by its concept implies the presence of every good and the absence of every evil, is taken objectively or materially, and subjectively or formally. Objective beatitude is the "perfect good which totally quiets the appetite" (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 2, a. 5). Subjective beatitude is the very attainment or possession of the fully beatifying good. Therefore:

a) Objective beatitude, or the perfect good which totally quiets the human appetite, is not a created thing but God. For that good totally quiets the human appetite which perfectly quiets the intellect and the will. But no creature can perfectly quiet the aforesaid faculties; God, however, does quiet them.

The major is proved. The sensitive and vegetative parts of man are subordinated to the rational part, so that they are not for their own sake, but so that they may render rational life possible. Hence they have one final end together with the rational part. Given this, they attain their end by the very fact that the rational part is perfectly quieted.

The minor is proved. Since intellect and will are capable of every truth and good, and have an innate desire for them, that good alone can perfectly quiet the said faculties which contains in itself every truth and good. But no creature contains every truth and good; God, however, contains them (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 2, a. 8).

b) Subjective or formal beatitude, by the consent of all, consists in some operation, and indeed in an operation of the rational part. It consists in some operation: "for beatitude is the ultimate perfection of man; but each thing is perfect insofar as it is in act" (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 3, a. 2). It consists in an operation of the rational part, not of the sensitive part; "for the beatitude of man consists essentially in his conjunction to the uncreated good, which is the final end, as was shown above, to which man cannot be conjoined through an operation of the senses" (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 3, a. 3), as is plain. But it is disputed in which act of the rational part beatitude consists. According to some, it is situated in an act of the will alone, whether of love, as the Scotists teach, or of joy, as others judge. According to others, it consists in an act of intellect and will. According to others, it consists in an act of the intellect alone, namely in the perfect knowledge of God. This is the opinion of St. Thomas (I-II, q. 3, a. 4), and it seems true. For beatitude formally consists in the act by which we formally attain the highest good. But that act is not love, nor joy, but the perfect knowledge or vision of God. It is not love, by which we are inclined toward the object but do not attain it; nor joy, which concerns a possessed good and therefore supposes its acquisition; but perfect knowledge or vision, since by it the knower unites to himself, and therefore attains, the known object.

2. How is beatitude divided? Beatitude is divided into natural and supernatural. Natural beatitude "is proportioned to created nature, namely that which a created thing can attain according to the power of its nature" (St. Thomas, I, q. 23, a. 1). Supernatural beatitude is that which "exceeds the proportion and capacity of created nature" (St. Thomas, same place).

Now natural beatitude consists in "a knowledge of God that is indeed perfect, relatively to the capacity of nature, but mediate and only abstractive, insofar as he is the Author of nature. Namely, this contemplation of divine things, although as to clarity far more perfect than every knowledge of this mortal life, in the state of pure nature would not have reached the vision of God, but would have been knowledge of God from creatures, and chiefly through infused science. From that knowledge would have flowed perfect natural love of the infinite Good and endless joy. And so in the state of natural beatitude man, wholly immune from every physical and moral evil, would have been naturally perfectly blessed by the perpetual possession of the infinite Good."¹

Supernatural beatitude consists in the immediate or intuitive vision of the highest Good, or of the divine Essence (n. 8).

Note. The state of supernatural beatitude is the complex of all those things which render man blessed in every respect in the supernatural order. To this, besides those things which are required for the essence, belong beatific love, joy, perpetuity, impeccability, the resurrection and glorification of the body, etc.

¹ Potters, Compendium Ethicae Generalis, number 43.

3. What beatitude is the end of man?

Supernatural beatitude is truly the end of man. This is clear both from Sacred Scripture¹ and from the doctrine of the Church.² From these things, however, it does not follow that natural beatitude has been taken away. "Now there is the same nature, and consequently the same capacity; hence, since grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it, it does not deprive it of this natural perfection. And so it is certain that in supernatural beatitude man will have every perfection connatural to himself, in the way in which St. Thomas proves that a man seeing God is not deprived of the natural knowledge of God; rather, he is perfected in it to the highest degree; and the same is proportionally true of love."³

¹ Cf. 1 Cor. 13:12; 1 John 3:2.

² Benedict XII, Constitution Benedictus Deus; Council of Florence, in the Decree of Union, Denzinger-Bannwart, numbers 530, 693.

³ Suarez, De ultimo fine, disputation 4, section 3, number 4.

4. The destination of this life is the imperfect glorification of God, and secondarily imperfect beatitude. Since the final end, that is, the external glorification of God and beatitude, cannot be perfectly obtained in the present life, it remains that this life must be the way and preparation for attaining the perfect or consummated glorification of God and beatitude in the other life. Now earthly life cannot be the way, preparation, or disposition toward the glorification of God and our consummated beatitude unless we begin the said glorification and beatitude in this life. Therefore the destination of this life is the begun or imperfect glorification of God, and secondarily imperfect beatitude, consisting in the knowledge and love of God, and in the joy and peace that will arise from them.

I. Man, when he acts deliberately, always acts for the sake of some end. For always, when he acts deliberately, he intends some effect or some good. But that effect is truly an end: for an end is that for the sake of which something is done (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 1, a. 1).

II. Man, when he acts deliberately, always acts for the sake of some final end. For man, whose rational appetite regards the good as its object and is satisfied only by a good apprehended as perfect, man, I say, whatever he deliberately desires, desires either as a perfect good or as tending toward a perfect good. But in either case he acts for the sake of the final end: in the former case, because the perfect good has the character of the final end; in the latter case, because one desiring something as tending toward the perfect good desires it in order to the perfect good or to the final end (cf. St. Thomas, I-II, q. 1, a. 6).

III. The final ends for which man can in fact act are distinguished as three, namely God, the creature, and beatitude in common. Of these, God and the creature are final ends in the concrete, as regarding a concrete object, and are called material ends. Beatitude is the final end in the abstract, as regarding the indeterminate perfect good, or whatever that may be; and it is usually called the formal end. Now that God and the creature can be intended as the final end is plain and admitted by all. The same seems to be said of beatitude in common. For by the consent of all, there are acts that are venially evil. But acts of this kind are neither referred to God as to the final end, nor to the creature as to the final end, because then they would be mortal sins. It remains, therefore, that they are referred to beatitude in common. Moreover, there are good acts placed without charity. But acts of this kind do not seem to be referred to God as to the final end (n. 243); nor are they referred to the creature as to the final end, because then they would be gravely evil. Hence it seems necessary to admit that they are referred to beatitude in common. Others, however, teach otherwise, and judge that acts that are venially evil and good acts placed without charity are referred to God positively, to the creature negatively, or - as others say - to God efficaciously, to the creature inefficaciously.¹

¹ Cf. Billuart, De ultimo fine, dissertation I, articles 4 and 5.

IV. Man cannot act at the same time for several final ends. For someone desires as the final end that which he desires as the perfect good. Hence the final end so fills the appetite of man that nothing outside it remains to be desired by man. Given this, neither can he desire anything outside it (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 1, a. 5). Hence a deliberate act is referred either to God alone, or to the creature alone, or to beatitude in common alone, as to the final end. If to God, the act is good; if to the creature, it is gravely evil; if to beatitude in common, it is good or venially evil, according as it is or is not referable to God (n. 243). Others, however, think otherwise according to what was said under III.

V. A man acting for the sake of some final end refers his act at least virtually to that end, or at least virtually intends that end. Therefore first note that intention is distinguished into actual, virtual, habitual, and interpretative intention; and into explicit and implicit intention. Actual intention is had when someone actually intends or wills some end. Virtual intention is had when someone has actually willed some end and acts by force of the past willing, although he does not actually think about the end. Habitual intention is had when someone intends the end and has not revoked the intention, but nevertheless does not act by force of that intention. Interpretative intention is had when someone does not intend the end, but would intend it if he thought about it. Others, however, by the name of interpretative intention understand that which others call implicit. Explicit intention is had when some end is intended distinctly, or according to its proper concept. Implicit intention is had when some end is contained in another thing explicitly willed. With these things noted beforehand, the proposition is proved: no one truly acts for the sake of some end unless the intention of the end in some way exercises influence on the act on the part of the agent. But neither interpretative nor habitual intention suffices for that; virtual intention, however, does suffice, as is gathered from the notions handed down.

I. Beatitudes. 1. Since the infused virtues, and especially the gifts of the Holy Spirit, are infused into us for this end, that we may more easily arrive at supernatural beatitude, it follows that the excellent acts of perfect virtue, and especially of a perfect gift, conduce in a special way to this beatitude, and therefore especially foster the hope of the man eliciting them of arriving at it. Therefore, on account of this vivid hope, those acts as if inchoatively attribute to the one eliciting them the beatitude to which they conduct him. And therefore Christ already proclaims blessed those who elicit such acts on this earth, and the acts themselves are called beatitudes by a metonymy by which the name of the effect is attributed to the causes, that is, to the act. Hence the beatitudes can be defined, according also to the mind of St. Thomas: excellent acts of perfect virtue, and especially of a perfect gift, conducting in a special way to eternal beatitude. "Therefore it is required for the notion of beatitude," says the Angelic Doctor, "that it be something perfect and excellent; hence only perfect works are called beatitudes, and by reason of their perfection they are also attributed more to the gifts than to the virtues" (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 70, a. 2).

2. Our Savior enumerates eight beatitudes of this sort in the celebrated sermon on the mountain (in St. Matthew, chapter 5). St. Augustine¹ and St. Thomas attribute them to the several gifts as special acts in such a way that to wisdom as its act there corresponds the beatitude designated by the words: "Blessed are the peacemakers" (cf. St. Thomas, II-II, q. 45, a. 6); to understanding, "Blessed are the clean of heart" (cf. St. Thomas, II-II, q. 8, a. 7); to knowledge, "Blessed are they who mourn" (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 9, a. 4); to counsel, "Blessed are the merciful" (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 52, a. 4); to piety, "Blessed are the meek" (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 121, a. 2); to fortitude, "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice" (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 139, a. 2); finally to fear, "Blessed are the poor in spirit" (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 19, a. 2); while the eighth beatitude in a certain way pertains to all the seven preceding (cf. St. Thomas, I-II, q. 69, a. 3, ad 5).

¹ Book 1, De sermone Domini in monte, c. 4, n. 11 (ed. G., t. 3, cols. 1496-1497); cf. ibid., cc. 1-6, nn. 3-15 (cols. 1493-1500).

Nature of the Last End.—As man’s Last End is that object which will make him perfectly happy, it cannot consist: (a) in external goods, such as wealth, honors, fame, glory and power, since one might have all these and yet be very unhappy; (b) in goods of the body, such as health, beauty, pleasure and strength, since all these things are passing, and moreover satisfy only a part, and that the lower part, of man; (c) in goods of the soul, such as wisdom or virtue, since man’s intellect is never content with particular truth, nor his will with particular good, the former always reaching out for the highest truth, the latter for the highest good. Hence, the Last End of man is the Infinite Good, or God “who satisfieth thy desire” (Psalm cii. 5).

In human acts is the free truly found not only from coercion, but also from necessity? - R. Affirmatively. It is a truth of faith, which is most openly clear from Scripture and Tradition; notably from Trent, sess. 6, c. 4-6. The reason is that "if some good is proposed to the will which has the complete notion of good, as the ultimate end, on account of which all things are sought, it cannot not will to be happy, or will to be miserable. But in those things which are ordered to the ultimate end, nothing is found so evil that it does not have some good mixed in, nor anything so good that it suffices in all respects; hence, however much the good or the evil is shown, it can always adhere and flee into the contrary by reason of the other thing which is in it; from which it is taken, if it is evil simply, as an apparent good; and if it is good simply, as an apparent evil; and hence it is that in all things which fall under election the will remains free, having determination in this alone, that it naturally seeks happiness, and not determinately in this or in that." S. Th. 2. D. 25. q. 1. a. 2.

Hence, as is clear, that power toward opposites, by which the act of the will is placed by the will itself, presupposes in its exercise the objective indifference of the judgment of the intellect, which consists in this: that the intellect proposes to the will in the object various notions of suitability or unsuitability, of good or evil. Therefore liberty is concerned with particular goods to be sought. But as regards the seeking of happiness in general, the human will is not free as to the specification of the act, because it cannot will the opposite; but it is free as to the exercise of the act, because someone can not wish then to think about beatitude. S. Th. de Malo, q. 6, sole article.

From the liberty by which human acts are performed, they are said to be imputable to the agent, namely the honesty or baseness of the act redounds to the agent himself, as to its author. Eccl. 15:11 ff.; Trent, sess. 6, c. 4-6; St. Augustine, Enchir., c. 105; S. Th. 1. 2, Prologue, q. 10. a. 2; q. 13. a. 6; 2. D. 25. q. 1. a. 1; Suarez, tr. 2, d. 1, s. 2; Wurzburg, de Act. hum., c. 2; E. M. n. 10, 11.

36. But the fundamental and universal objective principle of demonstration, pervading and governing the whole of moral Theology, is that God is the ultimate end of man, and accordingly that man is bound by obligation to tend to God by acts proportioned to the aforesaid end, morally good, and moreover supernatural, since God is the ultimate end of man not merely naturally but supernaturally. For the beatitude to which man is destined in the present order of divine providence consists in the intuitive vision of God and in the fruitful love of God; this end is wholly supernatural, exceeding all the powers and all the exigencies of created nature. Indeed, the reason by which God is moved to create the world and man is His own divine goodness and infinite perfection itself, namely love of His own infinite goodness and perfection. The world exists and we exist because God is good. But since divine goodness and perfection are infinite and cannot in any way be increased in themselves, God, creating the world and man, can intend nothing other than to communicate outwardly His good and His perfections, which consequently all creatures may manifest, and rational creatures may know, and thus may tend to God and glorify Him. The Lord has wrought all things for Himself, Prov. 16:4. Therefore man was founded by God in order that he may know and love Him; and in this knowledge and love of God consists both the glory of God and at the same time the beatitude of man. But, showing the riches of His divine goodness and infinite perfection, God made man a sharer in the divine nature, by destining man to see Him as He is, not through a mirror in an enigma, but face to face. Therefore after this mortal life man enjoys the divine essence, by whose knowledge and love he possesses eternal beatitude. But this immediate and intuitive vision of God, and enjoyment of God from love of the divine goodness immediately known, is a participation in the divine life itself: when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, 1 John 3:2; and consequently it exceeds all natural exigencies and powers, and is wholly supernatural. Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it ascended into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for those who love Him. 1 Cor. 2:3.

1. Declaration of the title. Deservedly St. Thomas begins the moral part of the Summa theologica from the consideration of the ultimate end: for thus the connection between moral and dogmatic theology appears; since the morality of human acts ultimately depends on the ultimate end, both natural and supernatural, this morality cannot be understood unless the ultimate end of man is first set forth. Thus also the question concerning the foundation or norm of morality, which today is agitated with great heat, can be solved: for below it will be demonstrated that the ultimate norm of morality is God, the ultimate end. Wherefore in one and the same treatise we treat concerning the ultimate end and concerning the norm of morality, because these are only two respects of one and the same question.

Division. There will therefore be two articles: the former concerning the ultimate end of man; the latter concerning the norm or foundation of morality.

I. Concerning the ultimate end of man:

• Preliminary matters: concerning end, good, perfection, beatitude.
• God as ultimate end, insofar as:
• He is to be formally glorified by us.
• He beatifies us.
• He is reached through Christ.
• Corollary: concerning the cooperation of God and man.

II. Concerning the norm of morality:

• Catholic norm:
• The intrinsic distinction between good and evil.
• God as the ultimate norm discriminating good and evil, and conscience as the proximate norm.
• God as the ultimate norm commanding.
• Corollary concerning sanction.
• Conclusion concerning the excellence of the Catholic norm.
• Non-Catholic systems:
• Utilitarianism: it is set forth; it is refuted.
• Kantism: it is set forth; it is refuted.
• Independent ethics: it is set forth; it is refuted.
• Comparison between the Catholic norm and the others.

Since in Theology we use a twofold light, reason and faith together, here the end of man is treated, both natural and supernatural. Therefore we presuppose those things which in Philosophy were said concerning end, and which in the Synopsis of Dogmatic Theology we established concerning the elevation of man to the supernatural state.

Nevertheless, that the matters may be understood more clearly, we recall to memory the things more necessary to know: 1. concerning end, especially concerning the ultimate end; 2. concerning moral good, by which we tend toward the end; 3. concerning perfection, which is the complete evolution of this good; 4. concerning beatitude, which arises from perfection.

2. 1. Concerning end. (A) Notion. End in general is that toward which some being tends. Namely, every being, when it acts, tends toward something certain, determinate, and defined, which therefore is aptly called end, because it completes and, as it were, terminates the being itself; wherefore it is also called appetible, good, perfection.¹ And indeed every nature by its action spontaneously seeks its own perfection and completion. But man has this above other creatures, that he is master of his own operations, and thus not only is moved, but further moves himself toward his own end and good.²

¹ Properly speaking, "good either is an end, or is said in order to an end." Sum. Theol., Ia IIae, q. 56, a. 1, ad 2. But "the end principally has the nature of good." Ibid., q. 72, a. 1, ad 1.

² St. Thomas, De veritate, q. XXII, a. 1.

(B) Species. End is twofold: the end of the work and the end of the worker.

(a) The end of the work is that to which the work is destined by its own nature, independently of the intention of the agent: thus the relieving of a poor man is the end of almsgiving. This is called: 1. proximate, or intermediate, when it itself is ordered to another further end; 2. ultimate, however, when it is not ordered to another: ultimate in a certain respect, when it is such only in some series of things (for example, health with respect to medicine), ultimate absolutely and simply, when it is such in relation to all beings.

This ultimate end is more expressly called by St. Augustine "the end of our good,"¹ as it were the full completion of our good.

¹ De Civit. Dei, XIX, 1, P.L. XLI, 621.

Hence: a) the ultimate end, from its notion, is necessarily one; b) other goods cannot be desired except as beginnings or means relative to the ultimate end, and thus from the desiring of the ultimate end; c) our ultimate end and our perfect beatitude coincide: "For beatitude is the perfect good, which totally quiets the appetite."²

² St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 2, a. 8.

(b) The end of the worker is the motive on account of which the agent works: thus the end of the worker in almsgiving can be love of neighbor on account of God, or vain glory. This likewise is called proximate when it is so intended that something else is sought through it; ultimate, when one rests in it, and indeed either absolutely or in some series of operations.

3. 2. Concerning good. (A) Notion. Good in general is that which is fitting to some being, or that which terminates and quiets the appetite, or that which perfects a being. These notions complete one another: (a) indeed, that which is fitting to some nature is deservedly called good; (b) but a being deservedly quiets the appetite³ in the apprehension of some object fitting to itself; (c) on the other hand, it is perfected in the attainment of this good.⁴

³ Deservedly, therefore, St. Thomas writes (I, q. 5, a. 1): "Good consists in this, that something is appetible"; and C. Gent., III, 3: "This belongs to the nature of good, that it terminates the appetite."

⁴ "Each thing is called good insofar as it is perfect" (I, q. 5, a. 5).

(B) Species. Good is distinguished as threefold: honorable, delightful, and useful: honorable, that which perfects a rational being and therefore is consonant with right reason; delightful, that which brings some sense of delight; useful, that which is apt as a means for attaining some other good. - But since the useful good is not desired for its own sake, but insofar as it is a means for obtaining something else, there are only two genera of goods: honorable, which perfects rational nature, and delightful, which delights the appetite. It must likewise be noted that these two genera of goods are indeed diverse, but not necessarily opposed; for some delight can be honorable, namely when it is conformable to right reason.

The honorable good is also called moral, and is a certain reality perfecting and completing man in order to his end: for every being is called good insofar as it pursues its end and comes nearer to it. - Moral evil, on the contrary, is a certain defect of entity, in some way diminishing man, and turning him away from his end, or at least delaying him.

4. 3. Concerning perfection. (A) Notion. The perfection of some being is its complete evolution; for, as St. Thomas says, "that is called perfect to which nothing is lacking":¹ therefore it consists ultimately in the attainment of the end: "Each thing is said to be perfect insofar as it attains its proper end, which is the ultimate perfection of the thing."²

¹ In 4 Sentent., q. 1, a. 4.

² St. Thomas, IIa IIae, q. 184, a. 1.

Whence "the perfection of anything is its good";³ for perfection arises from the attainment of the end, which itself also is some good.

³ Cont. Gent., III, 16.

(B) Species. Perfection is twofold: absolute, in which a being totally attains its end; relative, by which a being tends toward the end because it will have attained it. Deservedly, therefore, St. Thomas says: "But each thing, if it lacks its proper perfection, is moved toward it, so far as it is in itself; but if it has it, it rests in it."⁴

⁴ C. Gent., III, 16.

5. 4. Concerning beatitude. (A) Beatitude, which belongs only to intellectual nature, when man is being treated is called "the perfect good of man,"⁵ or the stable possession of the perfect good; for it can be nothing other than that which perfectly befits him.

⁵ Sum. theol., Ia, q. 26, a. 1.

(B) It can be twofold: a) begun, which sufficiently, but not perfectly, quiets man; b) perfect, which totally quiets him, as it will be in the other life. Perfect beatitude, after Boethius, is described as a state perfected by the gathering together of all goods, or more accurately, the stable possession of the perfect good which totally quiets the soul.

Division. With these things noted beforehand, we shall demonstrate that God is the ultimate end of man, and indeed in a twofold sense: 1. insofar as we are bound to tend toward Him by a free movement and to glorify Him; 2. insofar as in Him we find supreme beatitude; 3. we shall show that Christ is the mediator for glorifying God and attaining beatitude. Whence there will be a threefold thesis.

6. Thesis I: God is the ultimate end of man, in both the natural and supernatural order, insofar as we are bound to glorify Him formally, or by a free movement. It is certain.

It is declared. Irrational creatures tend toward God by necessity of nature and promote His glory only objectively, insofar as they are a trace of His perfections; rational creatures, such as man, are moved freely toward God and formally, or with full consciousness, glorify the Creator by praise, worship, love. - Here it is a question of external glory, which is defined as "clear knowledge with praise,"¹ or the rendering of honor to some person because of his excellence; but it is not a question of the internal glory of God, which consists in the knowledge and love of Himself, and cannot be increased.

¹ Sum. theol., Ia IIae, q. 2, a. 3.

Since man, from the things said in the treatise concerning God the Creator, nn. 152-176, was destined to a supernatural end, he ought to tend toward God not only in the natural order, but also in the supernatural order. Now the natural end of man consists in the knowledge and love of God proportioned to the powers of human nature; but man naturally does not see God intuitively, but knows Him deductively, understanding in some way His existence and attributes from those things which have been made. But there is another mode of knowing God, namely the mode by which God Himself knows Himself, by contemplating His own essence directly, immediately, intuitively. This mode, as altogether exceeding the proper powers of man and of the other creatures, is deservedly called supernatural.

7. It is proved. 1. God is the ultimate end of man in the natural order.

(A) God, in creating man, as a supremely intelligent being, had some end: for every intelligent being acts on account of an end. But God, supremely and infinitely perfect, cannot create on account of any other end than Himself; for every other end, as lower, is wholly unbecoming to Him. Therefore God created man on account of Himself.

(B) Every being is master of those things which it has produced, especially when it is the author of their whole being. But God created man from nothing, giving to him his whole being, and continuously conserving the same; therefore He is master of the whole man. But He would not truly be his master unless man ordered his life to God, by knowing, loving, and worshiping Him. Therefore man is bound to glorify God. - In other words: man, all that he is, is from God; therefore man, all that he is, depends on Him, and ought to tend toward Him by glorifying Him.

8. 2. That God is the ultimate end of man in the supernatural order is established from the things said in the treatise concerning God the Creator and concerning God the Consummator, where it is proved that man is destined to the beatific vision. Here let it suffice to relate the principal texts, from which it is evinced that men in heaven enjoy the immediate vision of God, are already adoptive sons of God, and that all things are to be referred to God.

(a) Men in heaven see God immediately and clearly: "We see now through a mirror in an enigma; but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know, even as I am known";¹ - "Beloved, now we are sons of God; and it has not yet appeared what we shall be; we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is."² Therefore in heaven we shall see God face to face, that is, directly, immediately, intuitively; we shall see Him as He is, in the same mode (but not in the same degree) in which He sees Himself. But from Philosophy it is established that this is above all the powers and exigencies of man.

¹ I Cor., XIII, 12.

² I John, III, 2.

(b) By such an elevation we do not remain simply servants of God, but we are made partakers of the divine nature, and adoptive sons of God, heirs indeed of God, and coheirs of Christ.³ For God sent His Son that we might receive the adoption of sons,⁴ and as many as received Him, He gave them power to become sons of God.⁵ And indeed, since we are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying: Abba, Father;⁶ for the Spirit Himself gives testimony to our spirit that we are sons of God: but if sons, also heirs, heirs indeed of God, and coheirs of Christ.¹ Whence John deservedly exclaims:² "See what manner of charity the Father has given us, that we should be called sons of God and be so." Now divine adoption and also inheritance are in no way owed to man.

³ Which we set forth in the treatise concerning Grace, 139-145.

⁴ Galat., IV, 5.

⁵ John, I, 12.

⁶ Galat., IV, 6.

¹ Rom., VIII, 16-17.

² I John, III, 1.

But to this beatific vision, and to the perfect love which follows it, we are disposed in the present life through the practice of supernatural virtues, and especially of faith, hope, and charity; and thus already we begin to glorify God.

9. (c) From this Scripture infers: 1. that all things were created on account of God, and therefore that all things are subject to His dominion, and conspire unto His glory: "For from Him, and through Him, and in Him (in Greek, eis auton, that is, on account of Him) are all things: to Him be glory forever."³ Therefore we are as things of God, and ought to act on account of Him: "For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself; for whether we live, we live to the Lord; or whether we die, we die to the Lord; therefore whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's."⁴ 2. Especially the works of the Incarnation, Redemption, and Sanctification tend unto the glory of God: thus, when Christ was born, the angels sing: Glory to God in the highest;⁵ but Christ, when about to die, says to the Father: "I have glorified Thee upon earth";⁶ the Blessed in heaven say:⁷ "Thou art worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory, and honor, and power"; finally Christ Himself will be subject to Him who subjected all things to Himself, that God may be all in all.⁸ - From these things it is deservedly inferred that God is the ultimate end, toward which we ought to tend, by promoting His glory: "All things are yours, but you are Christ's; and Christ is God's."⁹

³ Rom., XI, 36; cf. Hebr., II, 10; Apoc., XXI, 6; Ps. XVIII, 2.

⁴ Rom., XIV, 7-8.

⁵ Luke, II, 14.

⁶ John, XVII, 14.

⁷ Apoc., IV, 11.

⁸ I Cor., XV, 28.

⁹ I Cor., IV, 22-23.

10. Thesis II: God is the ultimate end of man in the natural and supernatural order, insofar as in Him alone we find supreme beatitude. It is certain.

It is declared. The Vatican Council¹⁰ deservedly declares that God created the world "not to increase His own beatitude, nor to acquire it, but to manifest His perfection through the goods which He imparts to creatures." For God, since He is the fullness of being, is altogether sufficient to Himself, and in the possession of Himself is perfectly blessed; for beatitude consists in the possession of the good which totally satisfies and quiets the appetite; but God, by possessing Himself, infinitely perfect, possesses such a good, since there is nothing outside God which is not already eminently contained in Him; therefore God did not create man in order to obtain something for Himself. - On the other hand, He proposed to Himself some end; therefore He willed to impart His perfection to others in some way, namely by communicating to them some participation of His being and of His beatitude.

¹⁰ Sess. III, cap. I.

11. It is proved: 1. By reason. For true beatitude two things are required and suffice: the possession of the perfect good, which totally quiets every legitimate desire, and the stable or interminable possession of this good. For (a) if we investigate the matter metaphysically, an imperfect good is not appetible for its own sake, but only on account of another, and therefore does not confer true and integral beatitude; on the other hand, if the good possessed is lost or can be lost, beatitude already fails: for that which passes cannot quiet the immortal desires of man. (b) Psychologically the same is established: when we look into our inward aspirations, we are conscious that we wish to attain perfect beatitude by fully developing our faculties, and that we wish to live not only for a long time, but perpetually.

But this possession of the perfect and perennial good is not found in created goods, but in God alone.

12. (A) Man cannot attain beatitude in created goods.¹ For these are of three kinds: external goods of fortune, goods of the body, and goods of the soul. But goods of this kind, although in manifold respect they are desirable, lack the two aforesaid conditions.

¹ St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 11, a. 1-8; Cont. Gent., lib. III, cap. 26-36; Suarez, De ultimo fine hominis, disp. V; Meyer, t. I, n. 59-60; P. Lescoeur, La Science du Bonheur, Paris, 1873, pp. 9-44; 110-144; 321-341.

(a) External goods, such as riches, dignities, honors, fame, etc.: 1. are not appetible of themselves, but only on account of another, insofar as they help toward procuring goods of soul or body; thus riches are sought to sustain life or to enjoy pleasures, honors suppose that some excellence is present in a man, but they do not confer it. - Nor do they fulfill all the legitimate aspirations of man; for often the more riches and honors abound, the more they inflame desire; not rarely also, after some time, they bring on nausea and weariness of life; furthermore, many other things necessary for felicity can be lacking to those who have all these things, such as bodily health, wisdom, tranquility of soul, etc.

2. Nor are they stable; for they are easily lost by some misfortune; hence they are possessed with solicitude, and at length sometime they pass away at the time of death.

13. (b) Goods of the body, which consist in health, strength, beauty, and the delight of the senses, do not confer true felicity: 1. by their nature they are subordinated to goods of the soul, nor are they truly useful except insofar as they serve the operations and perfection of the soul; for what does strength of body profit, if the mind is weak and the will depraved? Nor do they fulfill all the legitimate desires of man; for they are common to beasts and men, and therefore do not satisfy the nobler faculties of the soul; indeed, when someone indulges immoderately in bodily delights, the powers of the soul are depressed, morals are corrupted, and man, since he delights in the same pleasures and rests in them contrary to the right order of reason, becomes like a beast.

2. Moreover, how uncertain and unstable they are, there is no one who has not experienced it.

14. (c) Goods of the soul, namely those which are acquired through the exercise of the faculties, such as wisdom and virtue, indeed contribute more to man's felicity, especially when they are found joined together with the moderate and legitimate use of the other goods, but they do not perfectly satisfy our desires. For the adequate object of the intellect and will is not any truth or good whatsoever, but universal truth and good, which is found only in God. 1. And indeed our intellect is so constituted that from the knowledge of finite beings it rises to the knowledge of the infinite, and from the notion of particular truths it in some way reaches to universal truth itself. Hence, however great may be the breadth of things which it knows, it wishes to learn many more things, and curiously to search out things unknown. 2. The same must be said of the will, which is able to rest only in the absolute good; wherefore friendship, even the most perfect, which brings friends so many and such great consolations, at least for a time, does not fulfill the desires of the heart; hence the noblest men exclaim with Augustine: "Thou hast made us for Thee, O God, and our heart is restless until it rests in Thee."¹

¹ St. Augustine, Confess., lib. I, n. 1, apud Migne, P.L., XXXII, 661.

15. (B) Man finds his beatitude in the attainment of the ultimate end, or in the perfect knowledge and love of God.

Here it is a question of knowledge and love of God relatively perfect, that is, with respect to the capacity of each man: for absolute perfection belongs to the infinite alone. But man is truly blessed when his capacity, whatever it may be, is sufficiently fulfilled.

It is proved. The supreme good of each being is known from its nature, faculties, and legitimate tendencies: for the most wise Creator placed these in it, as a manifest sign of its destination. But since man's proper faculties are intellect and will, he is perfectly blessed when faculties of this kind rest in the attainment of their object. Now the intellect and will of man, from what has been said, are capable of all truth and good, or of universal good and truth. Therefore they are perfectly satisfied when, according to their capacity, they know and love God, who alone is the highest truth and the highest good.

16. It is declared. 1. Man attains knowledge and love of God only imperfectly in the present life, whether naturally through reason or supernaturally through faith: for he is on the way in relation to perfection, and daily ought to reach a higher degree; and consequently he attains greater felicity the more perfectly he orders his whole life to God.

2. It must likewise be noted that for perfect beatitude the legitimate satiety of man's sensitive faculties is desired. This indeed does not belong to the essence of beatitude, but to its natural complement. For the sensitive faculties are truly a part of man, although subordinated to the intellectual powers; therefore they ought to be subjected to the spiritual part, and to aid it in attaining beatitude; and since the tendencies of these faculties are diverse among themselves, and also often contrary to the higher tendencies of the soul, in the present life they ought to be mortified, so that the spiritual man may be able more easily to attain his end. Nevertheless, when they are subjected to the will, they can attain a certain proper felicity even in the present life;¹ but in the future life, when the struggle between body and soul has ended, the sensitive faculties will enjoy legitimate joys more fully.

¹ The matter can be demonstrated historically, by showing that those who turn themselves to God are much happier than those who turn themselves away from Him. Cf. Baunard, op. cit., and La Foi et ses victoires, 7th ed., Paris, 1901-1902.

17. 2. By authority. (A) In the Old Testament, again and again Moses and the Prophets, the Sapiential books and the Psalms call him blessed who loves God from his whole mind, from his whole heart, and with all his powers, but unhappy him who departs from the way of God.

Ecclesiastes declares this clearly: "I have seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold all is vanity and affliction of spirit."² For indeed he had rejoiced in riches and pleasures, but in all these he had found nothing except vanity and affliction of spirit: "I enlarged my works, I built houses for myself and planted vineyards... And all

² Eccles., I, 14.

which my eyes desired, I did not deny them, nor did I forbid my heart from enjoying every pleasure... And when I had turned myself to all the works which my hands had made, and to the labors in which I had sweat in vain, I saw in all things vanity and affliction of soul, and nothing remaining under the sun."¹ Wherefore he passed over to contemplating wisdom, and proposed to investigate all things which are done under the sun, but soon recognized that in these also there is labor and affliction of spirit, and that there is one and the same end of the wise man and the fool; whence again he exclaims: "If the end of me and the fool shall be one, what does it profit me that I have given greater labor to wisdom?... And therefore my life wearied me, seeing all evils under the sun, and all things vanity and affliction of spirit."²

¹ Eccles., II, 4-11.

² Eccles., II, 15-18.

(B) In the New Testament, Christ defines the conditions of perfect and eternal beatitude throughout the whole Gospel, but especially in the sermon on the mount, where He proclaims blessed those who, willingly renouncing earthly things, serve God alone, love Him perfectly, and their neighbor on account of God, and thus pursue the kingdom of God. Wherefore the Apostle, writing concerning piety, which embraces love of God and neighbor, exhibits it as most efficacious for earthly and eternal beatitude: "But piety is profitable for all things, having promise of the life which now is and of that which is to come."³

³ I Tim., IV, 8.

Therefore man's beatitude is found in God alone; therefore God is our end insofar as He is the author of our beatitude.

18. Conclusion. From this it is inferred that the glory of God and the beatitude of man are connected intimately, not only extrinsically from the will of God, but also intrinsically, from the very nature of the matter, and in fact fall back into the same thing: for man is blessed by glorifying God, and by pursuing true beatitude he glorifies God: for by the same acts of knowledge and love of God each end is acquired, and deservedly St. Thomas⁴ says: "God does not seek His glory on account of Himself, but on account of us."

⁴ Sum. theol., IIa IIae, q. 131, a. 1 ad 1.

If, however, we compare one end with the other, the glory of God is the primary ultimate end, man's beatitude the secondary end, since this beatitude by its nature is referred to glorifying God and is subordinated to Him. Therefore let us do all things for the greater glory of God, and by that very fact we shall be blessed.

For attaining each end, we need Christ as mediator.

19. Thesis III: For glorifying God and attaining eternal beatitude, man, in the present state, needs the grace of Christ the Redeemer. It is certain.

It is declared. In the treatise concerning God the Creator we proved that man, raised to the supernatural state, fell, and in the treatise concerning the Incarnate Word that the same man was redeemed by the infinite satisfactions and merits of Christ, so that the Lord is the necessary mediator to God. Therefore it will be enough to touch briefly on a matter proved elsewhere.

It is proved. 1. Christ is the perfect mediator of religion, by whom we are able to glorify God: "One mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a redemption for all."¹ Hence St. Peter exhorts all that they honor God through Christ: "That in all things God may be honored through Jesus Christ."²

¹ I Tim., II, 5.

² I Peter, IV, 11.

In reality the Lord instituted the sacrifice of the Mass, in which anew He offers Himself to the Father as a victim of praise, not only in His own name but in our name, since He is truly the head of the mystical body of which we are members. Moreover, through holy communion, He communicates Himself to us with the spirit of religion, so that through Him and with Him and in Him, not only at the very moment of communion, but throughout the whole day, we may be able to glorify God, by offering our actions to the Father with Christ as so many spiritual victims.

2. Christ is also the perfect mediator of sanctification, insofar as He merited for us all graces by which we may be able to attain perfection and beatitude. For He Himself not only revealed to us the truth which we ought to believe, nor only showed by His virtues the way which we ought to follow, but also merited all graces by which we are able not only to be freed from sin but also to cultivate all virtues, and we tend toward eternal beatitude: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life³... And for them I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth⁴... Blessed be God... who has blessed us with every blessing in the heavens in Christ⁵..." - Therefore Jesus is not only the exemplary cause, but also the meritorious cause of our justification: "The causes of this sanctification," says Trent,¹ "are indeed the final cause: the glory of God and of Christ and eternal life; but the efficient cause: the merciful God... and the meritorious cause: His most beloved Only-begotten, our Lord Jesus Christ, who, when we were enemies, on account of the exceeding charity with which He loved us, by His most holy Passion on the wood of the cross merited justification for us and satisfied God the Father for us."

³ John, XIV, 6.

⁴ John, XVII, 19.

⁵ Ephes., I, 3.

¹ Sess. VI, cap. VII (Denzing., 799).

There is, therefore, an obligation of tending toward God the ultimate end, of glorifying Him, and thus of attaining salvation through Christ.

20. Corollary. From this it follows that the means for attaining our end are the cooperation of God and of ourselves.

A) Namely, God, out of superabundant goodness, makes deiform the essence and faculties of the soul which He created, through habitual grace, infused virtues, and gifts of the Holy Spirit; moreover He not only assists the exercise of human faculties through natural concurrence, but also fittingly elevates it through actual graces. But God provides these internal supernatural means, in order that He may accommodate Himself to human nature, constituted of soul and body, through external means, especially through the Sacraments.

B) Thus elevated and made a partaker of the divine nature, man moves himself freely to the end, by acting under God and with Him cooperating, according to the norm of the precepts imposed by God both naturally and supernaturally, with Christ as leader and helper, the perfect exemplar and meritorious cause of all virtues.

This indeed will be clearer from what is to be said concerning the norm of morality.

That man may attain his end, he needs a rule or norm to which he may render his deliberate acts conformable. This norm can be twofold: general or fundamental, by which a distinction is established between good and evil, obligatory acts and non-obligatory acts; special, by which it is determined in species which actions are licit or not, commanded or not. Here it is a question only of the general norm.

We shall set forth: 1. the Christian norm of morality; 2. various systems of non-Catholics.

21. State of the question. From the things said concerning the ultimate end it is permitted to infer what is the true norm of morality, or that rule by which the distinction is constituted between good and evil acts, between acts obligatory or not. For since the perfection of man consists in the attainment of the ultimate end, actions which tend toward God are good, but those which turn us away from Him are evil; those which are necessary to the end are obligatory, those which are only useful are non-obligatory. We shall weigh three things: 1. whether there is an intrinsic distinction between good and evil; 2. what is the norm discriminating between good and evil; 3. what is the commanding norm, or that which imposes obligation.

As to the first question, certain things are to be noted beforehand.

That there is some distinction between good and evil all philosophers of sound mind admit, but they by no means agree concerning its nature.

(A) For not a few contend that the reason of this distinction arose from man himself: (a) namely from civil laws, according to Hobbes (1588-1679), who teaches that the rules of good and evil, of the just and the unjust, are civil laws, and therefore that is to be held as good which the legislator has commanded, that as evil which he himself has forbidden;¹ this theory J. J. Rousseau renewed and many modern politicians embrace; (b) from education, according to Montaigne (1533-1592); or from public opinion and the tradition of peoples, as Saint-Lambert² held (1717-1803); or from the evolution of social sense, as the evolutionists hold.

¹ Hobbes, Elementa philosophica de Cive, c. XII, § 1.

² St-Lambert, Principes des moeurs chez toutes les nations, Paris, 1798. - To this also pertains the opinion of those who, with Levy-Bruhl (La Science des moeurs, Paris, Alcan, 1904), hold that ethics is occupied with morals as they exist, not with duties to be fulfilled: for these duties, they say, arise only from social influence (pression sociale); these A. Fouillee refuted in the periodical Rev. des Deux Mondes, Oct. 1, 1905, p. 519-550.

(B) Some teach that the distinction between honorable and dishonorable acts must be placed in the free will of God, so that, before every law and apart from God's good pleasure, what is good and what is evil cannot be defined; thus Scotus, Descartes, and Samuel Pufendorf³ (1632-1694).

³ Pufendorf, De jure naturae et Gentium, l. I, c. 2, § 6.

Against these we shall establish that at least certain actions, from their own nature, independently of every will, are good or evil, and that this distinction is ultimately to be placed in the divine reason or nature, which is the supreme norm of good and evil.

22. Thesis I: There are certain actions intrinsically good or evil, even if they had been commanded or prohibited by no law, even divine law. - We indeed confess that there are many actions which are morally good for this reason, that they have been commanded by some divine or human law, and others similarly evil, because they have been prohibited; but there are certain actions which are commanded or prohibited for this reason, that in themselves they are honorable or dishonorable. - This indeed is declared rather than demonstrated.

23. 1. Historically and psychologically it is established that there are certain actions which, by the common and perpetual persuasion of men, have always been held as essentially honorable or dishonorable; thus, for example, to love parents, to do good to one's neighbor, to speak the truth, and other things of this kind, are deservedly reputed good; on the contrary, to pursue parents with hatred,¹ to kill the innocent without legitimate reason, to betray friends unjustly, to utter a lie harmful to one's neighbor, and other things of the same kind, are deservedly judged as something base and dishonorable.² This persuasion indeed flourishes among all nations, even barbarous ones, nor is it diminished or lost except when the moral sense is diminished or destroyed.

¹ There are indeed barbarians who cultivate piety toward parents in a singular way, for example by killing the aged, lest they suffer bitter pains longer or be reduced to captivity by enemies; thus they indeed err concerning the manner of cultivating piety, but not concerning the obligation itself of loving parents.

² J. L. de Lanessan confesses (La Morale des Religions, Paris, Alcan, 1905, p. 557) that in all religions, whether ancient or modern, these duties are found prescribed. - It is evident, on the other hand, from the things to be said below, n. 213, concerning the existence of natural law.

But so constant and universal a persuasion, deeply inhering in minds so diverse and disagreeing about almost all other things, does not arise from civil law, which is diverse among various nations, nor from education or public opinion, which likewise is not the same among diverse peoples, but is derived from nature itself. For public opinion is nothing else than the manifestation of ideas which flourish among individual citizens; education transmits only notions which appeared rational to ancestors; if therefore the distinction between good and evil is recognized by all today, that surely cannot arise except from the common persuasion that such a distinction is so consonant with reason that it draws its origin from nature itself.

Nor can it be said that the morality of these acts depends on a free institution of God; for just as there are certain speculative truths which are true independently of the divine will (for example, that which is, is; two and two make four, etc.), so likewise there are certain moral actions which of themselves are so honorable or dishonorable that not even the divine will can change their morality; for example, God cannot make blasphemy a praiseworthy act, nor piety a sin: this will be clear from the following argument.

24. 2. Philosophically it is established that an essential distinction must be admitted between good and evil. (a) For from what has been said, every action which tends toward God, the supreme good and ultimate end, cannot fail to be good. But certain actions, considered through themselves, independently of every law, tend toward God in this way; for example, love of God and of neighbor rightly ordered is so disposed in relation to the ultimate end and the common good, that no one of sound mind can say that acts of this kind are depraved; on the contrary, contempt of God, His existence being posited, the unjust killing of the innocent, and other things of this kind are so opposed to right reason that they can never be honorable. Therefore, by the judgment of right reason, these actions can only be good, while the contrary acts are necessarily evil.

(b) This indeed is also clear from the consequences of the contrary opinion; for if there is no essential and objective distinction between good and evil, a broad way is opened to moral skepticism; for that which today is held as evil, tomorrow, with laws or tradition or education changed, can be held as licit; and therefore the true notion of moral obligation perishes. For obligation is conceived as something permanent and universal, prescribing certain actions not hypothetically but categorically, while civil laws or traditions of peoples are something unstable and particular, and can create only hypothetical obligation. Therefore, with this distinction removed, by that very fact the moral order falls, as will be still more clear from the things to be said below concerning other systems of ethics.

25. Thesis II: The ultimate discriminating norm of morality is God Himself, insofar as He is the supreme good and the ultimate end of all things; but the proximate norm, for man, is his rational nature considered integrally, whether in itself or in its relations with others.

It is declared rather than proved. Although all Catholics agree concerning the substance of the norm of morality, nevertheless they differ as to the mode of explaining the same. For all admit that God is the ultimate norm of morality; but, according to some, this norm is the divine essence itself; according to others, it is the divine reason or eternal law,¹ or conformity with divine reason or with the natural order of things. Again, as to the proximate norm for man, some assert that it is man's rational nature, others that it is right reason or conscience.² But these are various modes which, when rightly explained, fall back into the same thing.³

¹ Thus, for example, St. Thomas (Ia IIae, q. 21, a. 1): "But in those things which are done through the will, the proximate rule is human reason, but the supreme rule is the eternal law. Therefore whenever a man's act proceeds toward the end according to the order of reason and of the eternal law, then the act is right; but when it is turned aside from this rectitude, then it is called sin."

² Concerning these various systems, cf. Meyer, op. cit., n. 181-185; Costa Rossetti, op. cit., th. 22-23; Cathrein, Philosophia Moralis, 3rd ed., 1900, Freiburg, n. 84-95.

³ For some hand down the principally objective norm (the nature of God, the rational nature of man), others the directly subjective and indirectly objective norm (divine reason, right reason); but since divine reason infallibly perceives the divine nature itself, and right human reason judges of things according to man's rational nature, the difference is rather in the mode of speaking than in the thing itself.

1. We have said that the ultimate norm of morality is God, insofar as He is the supreme good and ultimate end. (a) That is the ultimate norm of morality from which, as from a fundamental principle, acts derive their goodness. But God, supreme goodness and the source of all perfection, by that very fact is the fundamental principle of every goodness. Therefore God is the ultimate norm of morality, and therefore our actions are morally good or evil according as they are conformable or deformed in relation to the divine goodness. (b) That is the supreme norm of morality according to which acts attain their ultimate end: for, from what has been said, every being is good insofar as it attains its ultimate end. But God is the ultimate end of all things, and especially of the rational creature, and therefore of human acts. Therefore God is the supreme norm of morality. Therefore human acts are good when they tend explicitly or implicitly toward God, evil when they decline from the ultimate end.

Thus moral goodness depends neither exclusively nor primarily on the divine good pleasure, but ultimately on His wisdom and goodness: for God wills nothing except what is consonant with His infinite wisdom, and wisdom approves nothing except what is consonant with the divine nature itself, or infinite good. Therefore they err who say that the Christian norm of morality is arbitrary, as resting on the free and blind will of God. Even when God promulgates positive laws, He prescribes nothing except what He sees to be good, since His will is not really separated from His wisdom and goodness.

26. 2. We have said besides that the proximate norm of morality, for man, is his rational nature considered integrally, in itself and in its relations with others.

(A) The proximate norm of morality is rational nature. It is proved: (a) in a deductive manner. Every being is good insofar as it attains its end, from what was said above. But it does not attain its end except by perfecting acts conformable to its nature; therefore man acts well by following his rational nature. This is valid especially for man, who, created to the image of God, participates in His goodness in some way. Therefore, by following our rational nature, by that very fact we live conformably with the divine nature and tend toward our ultimate end.

(b) In an inductive manner. Good is called that which perfects us, but evil that which depresses us; but it is established by experience that we are perfected by the harmonious and hierarchical exercise of our faculties, so that the sensitive faculties, as lower, are subjected to the higher reason.¹ Therefore we are perfected by acting according to our rational nature.

¹ A. Eymieu, La Loi de la Vie, demonstrates this by many facts, and concludes, p. 157: "... Life, every life composed of diverse elements, exists, lasts, and develops only on the condition that the superior element coordinate and therefore subordinate, dominate, the elements which compose it, and subject them to itself in order to use them."

(B) The proximate norm of morality is nature considered integrally, that is, according to all its parts, both rational and sensitive or vegetative, insofar as these parts also are truly human and ought to be subjected to reason; indeed, even according to the individuating notes proper to each one, namely his temperament, character, propensities, special duties and offices, etc. For human nature ought to be considered not in the abstract, but in the concrete: for it can happen that what is licit to one becomes illicit to another, because, with attention given to his character or condition, it is evil, or at least proximately inducing to evil.

(C) Again, the nature of each man must be considered not only in itself, but in its relations with other men, and also with beings inferior to him, or superior, and especially with God, to whom it is subordinated as to its end.

(D) Since in the present state man is destined to a supernatural end through Christ the Redeemer, man's nature must be considered as Christian, aided by grace and subject to supernatural laws.

27. Conclusion. (a) These things being posited, an action is deservedly called good which is truly consonant with the integral nature of man, and is exhibited to right reason as honorable.¹ For when we pursue the good proportioned to our rational nature, toward which we are naturally inclined, we cannot act badly in the moral order; otherwise the defect would be poured back upon the author of nature Himself. Deservedly therefore St. Thomas² says: "For each one, that is good which is connatural and proportioned to him." - From this it follows that the ancient precept "live according to nature" is legitimate, provided it is rightly understood, in the sense explained.

¹ I say honorable, because the delightful or useful is not always consonant with reason, and therefore is not morally good.

² St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 27, a. 1; cf. q. 29, a. 1. - That the matter may be declared by examples, temperance is something good, but intemperance something evil, because it is consonant with rational nature that we use food and drink only moderately for perfecting the whole man; so also acts of justice are good, because it is consonant with rational nature considered in its relations with others that to each one his own right be rendered.

28. (b) Since we have been raised to the supernatural order, God has manifested His will to us not only by the light of reason, but also by the light of faith, by which we know the divine ordering of things in a more perfect and more certain manner. Indeed, the Son of God, made man, led a human life, and by cultivating natural and supernatural virtues, showed the way to attaining the end not only by precepts but by examples, and thus handed down to us a living rule of morals. This rule is briefly contracted in these words: "Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect."¹ For since our perfection consists in the attainment of the ultimate end, namely God the supreme good, we ought, as far as possible, to imitate the divine morals, adhering to the footsteps of Christ.

¹ Matt., V, 48.

29. Thesis III: The ultimate commanding norm of morality (that is, imposing moral obligation) is God the supreme legislator, or the divine command moderated by wisdom; the proximate norm is the necessary connection with the ultimate end perceived by reason.

The first part is proved. (A) Among the goods which lead us to the ultimate end, some are truly necessary for attaining the end, either of themselves or from the wise will of God, but others are only useful. But God, infinitely good and perfect, cannot fail to command those things which are necessary to the end; otherwise He would not truly will the end itself. Therefore He wills certain goods to be truly obligatory. - Other goods, however, which are only useful, He does not command; and these are matters of counsel.

(B) On the other hand, God alone, by reason of the supreme dominion by which He alone has power over all wills, has the right of imposing those things which He wisely judges to be necessary for the end. But He manifests His will both by natural law, manifested through conscience, and by positive law: concerning which things the treatise concerning Laws treats.

30. The second part is proved, or the proximate norm is the necessary connection of actions with the ultimate end. For the will is invincibly borne toward that which is supremely appetible, namely toward beatitude, which is found in the ultimate end. But there are objects which appear to reason as necessarily connected with beatitude or the ultimate end. Therefore there are objects which appear to reason as necessarily to be desired, or as morally obligatory. On the other hand, there are other goods whose connection with beatitude is not established, and these are only matters of counsel.

Therefore the proximate norm of obligation is the necessary connection of acts with the ultimate end or beatitude, perceived by reason.

31. Corollary. Besides the norm of morality and of obligation, there must be admitted a certain sanction, by force of which those acting honorably receive some reward and those acting badly undergo punishments.

(A) From the things said above, n. 10, God willed that men acting honorably should find their beatitude in the attainment of the ultimate end, and that those acting perversely should find, in the loss of the end, the lack of beatitude, and therefore supreme unhappiness. This is the primary and best sanction, flowing from the very nature of things and the divine ordering, or from a certain immanent justice, by force of which virtue ultimately obtains beatitude and vice is punished by the privation of the same.

(B) On the other hand, right reason shows that some sanction is necessary; for, (a) God, as infinitely wise, good, and just, must establish order in the moral order as equally as in the physical order. But the moral order requires that beatitude not be separated from good, at least at the end, since beatitude is nothing other than the quiet possession of good.

(b) God can be considered as ruler and guardian of the moral society, whose members are individual rational beings, and therefore He ought to provide for the common good of that society; but He would not wisely do this unless He rewarded the good and punished the evil; for, given human nature as it exists, many, enticed by passions, will violate the moral order and disturb the peace of society, unless they are deterred from evil by fear of punishments; on the other hand, unless reward is granted to the good, not a few of those who wish to cultivate virtue, broken in spirit because of the innumerable difficulties by which they are beset, and not strengthened by hope of some recompense, will abandon the arduous path of perfection, and soon will increase the number of violators of the law. Therefore, as wise provider and ruler of society, God ought to reward the good and punish the evil.

32. From the things thus far set forth it is clear that the Catholic norm of morality, such as it has been explained, is at once consonant with reason and most excellently accommodated to human nature.

For this it is required and sufficient that this norm be: 1. lucid, complete, and accommodated to all; 2. that it provide motives apt for doing good; 3. that it supply efficacious means for fulfilling duty. But these three things are found in the Catholic norm:

1. A neat, complete rule, accommodated to all; since: (a) it clearly sets forth the distinction between good and evil, between duties and counsels, by showing that good is that which is consonant with divine wisdom and will, insofar as it is manifested by right conscience, but evil that which is contrary to this will; duty is that which is wisely commanded by God as a necessary means to the ultimate end; counsel is that which is useful but not necessary to the end.

(b) It commands all duties: 1. toward God, whom, as Creator, Lord, and Father, we ought to reverence, love, and worship; 2. toward neighbor, whom we ought to love as an adoptive son of God and brother in Christ, and whose rights we ought to protect; 3. toward family and society, by revering the very authority of God in parents and rulers; 4. toward ourselves, by polishing through the practice of virtues the image and likeness of God impressed upon our minds.

(c) It is accommodated to all: by its perspicuity it can be understood by the simple, since it sets forth duties not abstractly but concretely; by its profundity it pleases philosophers, since it places the reasons of good and evil, of duty and counsel, in the highest cause.

2. It provides motives most apt for acting well: to deter from evil, it excites fear of God and of punishments; for cultivating virtues, it raises hope by the consideration of rewards; for acting perfectly, it fosters love of God and neighbor; and thus progressively it snatches men from vices and lifts them to the summit of virtues.

3. It supplies most efficacious means, namely:

1. The examples of Christ, of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and of the Saints, which more efficaciously than words draw even the weak to the perfection of Christian life;

2. Innumerable graces, which, whether through visible signs or sacraments, or in a merely internal manner, perfect our faculties, increase spiritual powers, and render the observance of the commandments not only possible but also easy for all those who, conscious of their own weakness, trustingly invoke the help of God.

This will also be clearer from a simple exposition of the systems of non-Catholics.

33. Innumerable are the systems devised by various philosophers concerning the foundation or norm of morality. Yet the principal ones can be reduced to two genera, which we shall weigh historically and critically. These are: 1. utilitarianism, to which modern evolutionism has succeeded, according to which the norm of morality is utility or pleasure, whether individual or social; 2. rationalism, which seeks the norm of morality from human reason alone; of which there is especially a twofold form: stoicism, whether ancient or modern (Kantism), which contends that the norm of morality is moral obligation itself, or duty, independently of any utility or pleasure, and independently of God; and the system of independent ethics, which is explained in diverse ways by diverse authors, as will be declared below.

34. Utilitarianism, which is also called hedonism (hedone, pleasure), or eudaemonism (eudaimonia, beatitude), places the ultimate good of man and his ultimate end in felicity, or pleasure, so that actions are to be called good which, after a prudent estimation of things has been made, bring more pleasure than pain. Therefore the supreme rule is: "Pleasure is to be sought, pain is to be fled." - A twofold utilitarianism is distinguished: individual utilitarianism, which regards only the pleasure of the individual; social utilitarianism, which regards also the felicity of others and of the whole human race.

¹ L. Carrau, with great erudition, described utilitarianism historically and critically, La morale utilitaire, Paris, 1874; cf. M. de Baets, Les Bases de la Morale, Paris and Ghent, 1892, p. 37-79.

35. (A) Among the ancients, the principal favorers of individual utilitarianism were Aristippus of Cyrene, Epicurus (hence the name Epicureanism), Democritus, Lucretius; among the moderns, La Mettrie, Condillac, Helvetius, Diderot, Feuerbach, and others. The summary of Epicurus's doctrine is this:² experience establishes that the supreme rule of life, common to men and beasts, is flight from pain and pursuit of pleasure: for to this nature impels us. Nevertheless we do not embrace every pleasure; for we observe that sometimes greater pains follow from pleasure, and that from the toleration of pains greater delight often follows; wherefore the wise man uses things moderately, and chooses those actions which, all things considered, throughout the whole course of life finally bring more pleasure than pain. - And in this he is distinguished from Aristippus, who admitted only present pleasure as the norm of morality.

² Guyau, La morale d'Epicure et ses rapports avec les doctrines contemporaines, 4th ed., Paris, Alcan; cf. L. Carrau, op. cit., p. 10-36.

A nobler form of eudaemonism Aristotle had proposed, the Stagirite, born in Thrace, disciple of Socrates and Plato, according to whom the norm of morality is situated in the highest good of man, such as can be obtained in the present life; but that good consists not in the pleasure of the senses, nor in some state or potentiality of the soul, but in the activity proper to rational man, whose completion is had in the contemplation of honorable and divine things.¹

¹ L. Olle-Laprune, Essai sur la Morale d'Aristote, Paris, 1881.

36. (B) Social utilitarianism was advocated, among others, by Francis Bacon² (1561-1626), who held that the common good, or public utility, is the rule of morals; Hartley (1705-1757) and Paley, who likewise taught that one's own advantage does not suffice for morality, but that benevolence toward others, or sympathy, is also required;³ but especially J. Bentham (1747-1832) and Stuart Mill (1806-1873) perfected and completed that system. As a general principle they defend that the norm of morality must be placed not only in private good, but also in social good, or in the felicity of all men.

² Apud Carrau, p. 40-56; Guyau lucidly sets forth the various systems of the English concerning moral matters, La Morale anglaise contemporaine, Paris, Alcan.

³ Apud Carrau, p. 143-165.

37. Bentham⁴ contends that the method of experimental observation alone, commended by Bacon, is to be employed in moral matters: "What experience is for the physicist," he says, "that observation is for the moralist."

⁴ Bentham, Introduction to the principles of Moral and Legislation, 1789; Traites de Legislation civile et penale, a work extracted from the manuscripts of Bentham by E. Dumont, Paris, 1820; cf. Carrau, p. 167-217.

(a) Now by observation he finds that all men seek delight and flee pain; therefore, he says, every delight is some good and ought to be sought, while every pain is some evil which ought to be avoided.

(b) Therefore man ought to tend toward the greatest possible sum of delightful good in the whole course of life, with a calculation of things employed, which he calls deontological, namely by comparatively estimating delightful and painful things according to intensity, duration, proximity, extension, purity, and fecundity, which he computes in an arithmetical manner.¹

¹ Thus he compares drunkenness and sobriety, or temperance:

Drunkenness: intensity + 30; duration + 10; certainty + 10; proximity + 20; purity - 20; extension - 20; fecundity - 10 = 20.

Sobriety: intensity + 20; duration + 10; certainty + 10; proximity + 20; purity + 30; extension + 20; fecundity + 20 = 130.

Therefore sobriety is worth more than drunkenness. - But what is to be understood by characters of this kind, he himself declares: "The value of pains and pleasures can be estimated by their intensity, their duration, their proximity, their certainty, and their extent. Their intensity, their duration, their proximity, and their certainty regard individuals. Their extent concerns the number of persons placed under their influence... A fecund pleasure is one which has the chance of being followed by pleasures of the same kind. A fecund pain is one which has the chance of being followed by pains of the same kind. A pure pleasure is one which does not have the chance of producing pains. A pure pain is one which does not have the chance of producing pleasures." (Deontologie, t. I, p. 77; Traites de legislation, t. I, p. 58.)

(c) Although man acts on account of a principle that is in itself egoistic, he contributes something to the felicity of others; for, given that men are constituted in society, an intimate and necessary relation exists between general and individual felicity, so that the felicity of one redounds to others and vice versa. Therefore the supreme principle of morality is reduced to this: Direct your activity in such a way that it produces the greatest sum of felicity and the least of pain, not only for yourself, but also for others, or at least for the greatest number of other men. But in a case of collision, place your own felicity before the felicity of others.

Usefulness of the treatise. It is helpful first of all to know to whom moral rules are to be proposed and accommodated.

The subject of moral theology is man, in his present condition as a wayfarer.

"Man," I say, that is, a rational creature, a person, and a part of the human race divided into perfect societies.

"Creature": therefore fully constituted under God, from whom he received being, with the absolute obligation of preserving the order promulgated by God, whether in human nature itself, or by superadded positive will.

"Rational": therefore a formal praiser of God, who ought to refer both himself and the world to God.

"Person," that is, existing for himself, or made for a personal end or beatitude, and, by an intimate appetite which shows itself in every pursuit by which he seeks the true, the good, and the beautiful, tending toward God.

"Part of the human race divided into perfect societies": therefore, with his personal dignity preserved, subordinated to the society of which he is a member.

"In his present condition," of man elevated and redeemed by Christ. As elevated, man is called to the immediate possession of God, which is now begun through sanctifying grace, but will be fully perfected in heaven through glory. As redeemed by Christ, he is his adoptive brother, called to assimilation to the Son of God, with whom, as with the head, he becomes one body as a member.

"As a wayfarer," that is, moving himself toward the terminus, or a being not yet perfect, who ought to perfect or complete himself.

Yet do not think that these various aspects and connected functions are opposed or disparate. On the contrary, they conspire into a wonderful unity. To whichever one he fittingly tends, man fulfills all the others. Thus, he who obeys God praises God, becomes blessed, tends toward God, serves society, imitates Christ, and perfects himself. Nor can anyone render himself useful to society in the due manner without at the same time perfecting himself and performing or obtaining all the other things. You may say the same of him who truly pursues his own perfection.

Man perfect in the terminus is man deified by the beatific vision. Man perfect on the way is man who is wholly disposed toward that deification, turned toward it with full will. For the perfection of the imperfect is disposition toward perfection. But man is disposed toward deification insofar as he renders himself conformable to God in that part which it is in his power to join to God or to separate from God, that is, in the will. This now, as we shall see later, is done through charity.

This same thing is shown in another and perhaps better way. In the present condition of our elevation, our perfection is less our own work than a divine benefit to be accepted by us. Wherefore, the disposition toward deification stands in our adaptation to the will of God, which, just as it alone gave the vocation, alone can complete the same by the beatific possession of God. And this perfection is also an imitation of Christ, who taught us to pray: "Thy will be done"; and from the beginning of his mortal life was the most perfect follower of the divine will, according to that saying: "In the head of the book it is written of me, that I should do thy will, O God" (Heb. 10, 7).

Corollary. If things stand thus, moral theology is at the same time the science of rectitude, of perfection, and of beatitude.

Man, a rational creature, a person, and at the same time part of a perfect society, in his present condition as a wayfarer, ought both to serve God and society, and to consult for himself and imitate Christ. Yet these functions are so closely joined with one another that, by the formal execution of one, the others at the same time are materially fulfilled. But the perfection of the wayfarer is that he dispose himself to deification through conformity with the divine will. Insofar as it teaches these things, moral theology is at the same time the science of rectitude, perfection, and happiness.

Cf. St. Thomas, S. theol. I-II, q. 1-6; Contra gent. 3, 1 sqq.; Billuart, Sum. S. Thomae, treatise on the last end; L. Lehu, Phil. mor. I, De fine ultimo; V. Cathrein, Moralphil. I, Von der Bestimmung des Menschen.

Preliminary note. Already the old pagan philosophers admonished: "Whatever you do, do prudently and look to the end." The Psalmist teaches us to pray: "Make known to me, O Lord, my end,"¹ and on the contrary rebukes those who turn aside from their proper end: "They have all turned aside, they have together become unprofitable."² In the New Testament the end of human life is called the one necessary thing. "Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about many things. But one thing is necessary."³ Hence it is plain of how great importance a living knowledge of the true end of human life is. Hence also it is easily understood why men of all times have proposed to themselves the questions: Whence have I come? and whither am I going? The old pagans thought that they were going to Elysium; modern rationalists not rarely confess that they are ignorant of the end of human life. Whence Du Bois-Reymond said concerning it: Ignoramus et ignorabimus. - Before St. Thomas, in the moral part of the theological Summa, treats of human acts, that is, of the material object of Moral Theology, he first treats of the last end and of beatitude. In a similar way, also in the so-called spiritual Exercises, the beginning of the meditations is commonly taken from consideration of the last end; and in catechisms used in schools the first question is commonly put: "What is the end of human life? or for what are you on earth?" From all these things it appears most clearly that a brief dissertation on the last end is most conveniently placed at the beginning of Moral Theology. Certain notions must be set forth first.

¹ Ps. 38:5.

² Ps. 13:3.

³ Luke 10:41-42.

15. Definition of end. End "is that for the sake of which something is done,"⁴ or "that on account of which an agent operates." But it is called end because, once it has been obtained, the operation is ended or ceases, and the one operating rests; for example, the end of the physician operating is the health of the sick person to be effected; for the sake of recovering health the physician prescribes medicine, makes incisions, etc.; but when health has been recovered the action of the physician ceases. Accordingly end can be considered in two ways: 1. as the principle of willing (end in intention): in order to procure health the physician begins to labor; 2. as the term of action (end in execution): once health has been obtained the physician ceases to labor. Wherefore St. Thomas briefly says: "the end is compared to the act as principle or term."⁵

Divisions. Several divisions being passed over (which you may see in Billuart⁶), the following divisions seem to be noted for our purpose:

⁴ Aristotle, Ethic. Eudem. book 3, c. 11: "The end is that for the sake of which [something is done]."

⁵ S. theol. I-II, q. 1, a. 3 ad 1.

⁶ Treatise on the last end, diss. 1, a. 1.

16. a) The end of the work, or intrinsic and objective end, and the end of the one operating, or extrinsic and subjective end. The end of the work is that to which the work or action directly and immediately tends from its nature, whether it is done by this agent or by another; for example, the giving of alms tends from its nature to relieving the necessity of the neighbor. Therefore the necessity of the neighbor to be relieved is the end of the work or the objective end of almsgiving.⁷ - The end of the one operating is that which the agent intends by operating, whether principally or secondarily. The end of the one operating can indeed coincide with the end of the work, as if one giving alms explicitly intends the assistance of the poor person; but it can also altogether disagree with the end of the work, for example, if one giving alms were to intend vain glory or the seduction of the poor person.⁸ The end of the one operating is materially the same as the moral motive of the action.

⁷ The end of the work is the same as the moral object of the action. This indeed must be noted especially in the indirectly voluntary. Cf. below n. 57.

⁸ Cf. S. theol. II-II, q. 141, a. 6 ad 1.

17. b) Principal or primary end, and secondary or less principal end. This division is rather a subdivision of the end of the one operating (although it can also have place in the end of the work), and is of great importance in discerning the morality of acts. The principal end is that which is intended chiefly and principally, and which before the others impels the agent to acting. The secondary end is that which is joined with some principal end and for this reason is not intended by reason of itself alone, nor by itself alone moves the agent to acting. For example, the principal end of a priest saying Mass ought to be to worship God; his secondary end can be: to receive a stipend or alms for the application of the Mass. Or another example: the principal end (at least implicit) of a Christian ought to be, in any action, the glory of God; but the secondary end can be any honorable good.

18. c) Last end and intermediate end. The simply last end (Endzweck) is that which is so desired that it is referred to no other; on the contrary, all other things are referred to it. The intermediate end (which is also sometimes called proximate) is that which is indeed desired by reason of itself, but nevertheless with relation and dependence upon the last end.⁹

Note 1. The principal end can at the same time be last, but it is not always necessary that it be so. Thus the principal end of him who, existing in sanctifying grace, knowingly commits a venial sin is some created good loved inordinately; but the last end of this sinner remains God. Let there be an example: a just man, who knowingly tells a small lie because he is placed in some difficulty, has in this act as principal end liberation from the difficulty; but nevertheless he does not wish to be turned away from God as his last end.

⁹ Cf. S. theol. I-II, q. 1, a. 3 ad 3, where the Angelic very wisely teaches "that the same act in number, insofar as it once proceeds from the agent, is not ordered except to one proximate end, from which it has its species." - Some theologians undeservedly affirm that an intermediate end is not truly and properly an end, but only a means for obtaining the true end. Cf. Billuart, De ult. fine a. 1.

19. Note 2. End and good are the same materially, because the will cannot be moved or enticed except by good (true or apparent); or in other words: all acts which are produced by the human will are on account of some end or on account of some good to be obtained. Hence even the suicide, who intends his own annihilation, intends together with that end some good (indeed in reality a false one), namely liberation from the evils pressing upon him. Therefore no one can will evil as evil; but if he knowingly intends evil, nevertheless he wills it under the aspect of good. For this reason the scholastics said briefly indeed but most truly: "Evil is not desirable"; and the Angelic Doctor writes very well to the point:¹⁰ "It is impossible that any evil, insofar as it is such, be desired, either by natural appetite, or by animal appetite, or by intellectual appetite, which is the will." - But it was deliberately said that good is the end of acts which are produced by the will. For there are some acts produced by man, but not by his will, for example, the acts so-called "first-first," which happen suddenly and before deliberate will, as when someone, unexpectedly struck by pain, suddenly cries out. Acts of this kind are commonly called acts of man, but not human acts. Even those acts are done materially on account of good and end, but not on account of good and end known.¹¹ - Although end and good materially agree, nevertheless they differ formally, or the concept of good differs from the concept of end. For good is conceived as something suitable to appetite, but end as something to be obtained by means employed.

Proposition 1

¹⁰ S. theol. I, q. 19, a. 9.

¹¹ Cf. below n. 26 sqq.

20. God is the last end of man and of his acts, so that man is bound to tend toward God and to glorify Him.

Proof. We presuppose, both from sound philosophy and from Catholic faith, that a personal God, infinitely perfect, exists, and that He freely created the world and man. These things having been presupposed, the stated proposition can easily be proved. For man and every creature must tend toward that last end which God wished to obtain by creating; otherwise God would not be the supreme and omnipotent Lord of creation. Now the end which God proposed to Himself in creating cannot be something outside Himself, but He Himself is His own end. For every end placed outside the one operating is intended as some good not yet possessed. Therefore the one operating would intend something foreign, if he already had that thing in himself? - Therefore God, in all His operations and accordingly also in the creation of man, cannot intend something outside Himself, because He is infinitely perfect, containing all goods in Himself. "The Lord has wrought all things for Himself."¹² It follows therefore that God Himself, that is, the manifestation of His glory, is the end of the creation of man and of the whole world; and accordingly all creatures ought to intend the glory of God as the last end. Hence St. Thomas says: "The whole universe with its individual parts is ordered to God as to an end, insofar as in them, by a certain imitation, the divine goodness is represented unto the glory of God."¹³

Irrational creatures intend this end by a coerced necessity; for they are as it were vestiges of the divinity,¹⁴ and the perfections and beauties shining in them necessarily manifest the majesty of God the Creator. Whence the Psalmist¹⁵ exclaims: "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament announces the works of His hands." But rational creatures, such as man and angel, are bound to glorify God freely; for they are not only vestiges but also images of the divinity,¹⁶ and they are endowed with free choice. Rational creatures ought to glorify God insofar as they willingly acknowledge His majesty with subjection and praise, and venerate and love Him. Certainly this glorification offered to God by creatures does not increase His beatitude, for the Psalmist¹⁷ says: "Thou art my God, since Thou hast no need of my goods." For God is infinitely perfect and infinitely blessed. Therefore the Vatican Council¹⁸ deservedly teaches that "God, by His goodness and omnipotent power, not for increasing His beatitude, nor for acquiring it, but for manifesting His perfection through the goods which He imparts to creatures, by a most free counsel, together from the beginning of time created each creature out of nothing"; and it pronounces anathema upon him who should deny that the world was created for the glory of God. But since man is immortal, he must also glorify God in the other life; and this indeed is done by the damned through the manifestation of divine justice and omnipotence, but by the just who are blessed through the manifestation of divine mercy and goodness. Throughout all eternity the blessed will glorify God through intimate union with Him. Therefore God, just as He is the principle, so also is the last end of man; or, as it is said metaphorically, God is Α and Ω.

Man is bound to glorify God by all his acts, by serving and obeying Him and by loving and venerating Him. I say: by all his acts. Therefore if he should fail to do this even by one deliberate act, he sins. In this sense the Apostle St. Paul¹⁹ admonishes: "Therefore whether you eat or drink, or do anything else, do all things unto the glory of God." - It is not required, however, that man in all his acts explicitly and expressly intend the glory of God; but it suffices that he at some time elicit an act of charity, and that his remaining acts be virtually ordered to the last end, or God. But if man elicits acts which cannot be referred to the last end, he sins; and indeed gravely, if acts of this kind are altogether opposed to the last end, or God; but venially, if in the elicited acts there is not aversion, but only some deflection from the last end on account of an inordinate affection for a temporal good.

Proposition 2

¹² Prov. 16:4.

¹³ S. theol. I, q. 65, a. 2.

¹⁴ Job 11:7; S. theol. I, q. 93, a. 2.

¹⁵ Ps. 18:2.

¹⁶ Gen. 1:26 sq.; S. theol. I, q. 93, a. 1 sqq.

¹⁷ Ps. 15:2.

¹⁸ Const. "Dei Filius" cap. 1, can. 5.

¹⁹ 1 Cor. 10:31.

21. a) In the attainment of this last end consists human beatitude; b) and the more perfect the attainment is, the greater the beatitude is; c) but in no other thing does true beatitude of man exist or can it exist.

Preliminary note. Before the proof of this assertion, there must be recalled to mind a fact confirmed by daily experience: that there is in man an innate desire for beatitude.²⁰ All, as many as there are in the world, wish to be happy, and no one wishes to be unhappy and miserable. But since this desire is innate, it is also natural and necessary, so that man cannot cast it out. Thus all teach, beginning from Aristotle and Plato down to our contemporaries. Indeed the pessimist Schopenhauer²¹ admits this. But a natural desire cannot be vain;²² and therefore something must exist which can truly satisfy this desire. Otherwise the author of nature would have acted irrationally, indeed even cruelly. - Beatitude is commonly distinguished as objective and formal; objective beatitude is the beatifying thing itself, but formal beatitude is the use or enjoyment of that beatifying thing. Thus, for example, the objective beatitude of the miser is riches, but formal beatitude is the enjoyment of riches. Yet this distinction of objective and formal beatitude does not designate two distinct beatitudes, but two formalities or two integral parts of the same beatitude. For man is not happy from the thing alone, but from the enjoyment of the thing. We treat at the same time of the objective and formal beatitude of man. These things having been noted beforehand, the first part of the proposition is proved.

Proof. a) Beatitude is conveniently defined: the stable, that is, interminable possession of the perfect good which totally quiets our desire.²³ But a possession of this kind is had in the attainment of the last end. Therefore in the attainment of the last end consists human beatitude. The major is explained: for perfect beatitude there is required stable or interminable possession of good; for if the beloved good is lost, indeed if it can be lost, beatitude is no longer present; for a lost good or fear of losing the good stands in the way of perfect beatitude. Moreover there is required possession of a good perfect in every respect, which totally quiets desire. For if the good possessed is imperfect and does not totally quiet desire, beatitude necessarily remains imperfect. The reason is that unsatisfied desire causes unhappiness. Wherefore briefly and yet adequately St. Thomas²⁴ describes beatitude: "Nothing else is understood under the name of beatitude except the perfect good of an intellectual creature, to whom it belongs to know his sufficiency in the good which he has." - The minor of the syllogism is plain from the first proposition, which asserted that God is the last end of man. That God is a good altogether perfect is plain of itself. But there is no reason why God should wish again to dissolve the union of the creature with Himself once had. Therefore this union will be interminable or eternal, and in union with God, the infinite good, human desire is satisfied in the most perfect way,²⁵ and the beatitude of man consists. Wherefore Benedict XII on 29 January 1336 declared: "By apostolic authority we define, ... that the souls of the saints ... enjoy the divine essence, and also that from such vision and enjoyment the souls of those who have already departed are truly blessed and have eternal life and rest."²⁶ - Since God is pure spirit, and since man according to his better part, that is, according to the soul, is likewise spirit, hence the union of man with God will be spiritual, and that most intimate. Spiritual union is made through knowledge and love. Therefore man will be united with God, the last end, and accordingly blessed, if he clearly knows God and perfectly loves Him. While in this life man is a pilgrim away from God, he knows God very imperfectly, enigmatically and as if through a mirror; but in heaven he will see God face to face. But although, with the light of glory assisting, the blessed in heaven clearly behold the majesty of God, nevertheless they cannot perfectly comprehend God, inasmuch as He is incomprehensible and infinite. But no finite intellective power can comprehend an infinite being. The knowledge or vision of God will be the first and essential constitutive element of (formal) beatitude in heaven; or formal beatitude is the best operation of the best human power with respect to the best object. Yet with that vision or contemplation of the divine essence there is intimately joined the perfect love of God above all things.²⁷

²⁰ St. Thomas says: "It does not pertain to free choice that we wish to be happy, but to natural instinct," S. theol. I, q. 19, a. 10.

²¹ Die beiden Grundprobleme der Ethik II, 196, § 14. Therefore Hilty (Das Gluck I, 179) rightly says: "Happiness is properly the key of all our thoughts.... It is the final ground of all learning, striving, and of all civil and ecclesiastical institutions. One may scold that as Eudaimonism, if one will; but it is the life-goal of men: they wish to be happy at any price."

²² S. theol. I, q. 75, a. 6.

²³ Cf. S. theol. I-II, q. 5, a. 3 and 4. "Beatitude, since it is a perfect and sufficient good, excludes every evil and fulfills every desire."

²⁴ Ibid. I, q. 26, a. 1.

²⁵ S. theol. I-II, q. 5, a. 4.

²⁶ Denz. n. 530.

²⁷ It has been much and sharply disputed among theologians in what eternal beatitude more essentially and formally consists: whether in vision or in love, whether in some habit deifying the essence of the soul or in some transfusion of God into the soul of the blessed. (Concerning all these things see Billuart, De beatitudine a. 2.) St. Thomas (S. theol. I-II, q. 3, a. 5) writes: "The last and perfect beatitude, which is awaited in the future life, consists wholly and principally in contemplation."

22. b) The second part of the given proposition, The more perfect the attainment of the last end is, the greater the beatitude is, can easily be proved. For the last end is God, infinitely perfect and blessed. But the more perfectly this infinite good is possessed, the more perfect the beatitude of the possessor necessarily is. This becomes clear by diverse examples: the nearer someone comes to fire, the greater heat he receives from the fire. The nearer someone is to light, the greater illumination he receives. In this earth, indeed, God is possessed in a very imperfect way by the just, because the knowledge of God in this state is very imperfect, and because so many dangers of losing God are present. But in heaven beatitude is more perfect; nevertheless it is not equal for all the saints. "In My Father's house there are many mansions,"²⁸ said Christ. All the saints indeed see God face to face, or have the beatific vision, but not all see God in an equal way. The reason is that the "light of glory," by means of which the beatific vision becomes possible, is not possessed by all the saints in the same degree. For the light of glory corresponds to the sanctifying grace had in this earthly life. Now just as the same degree of sanctifying grace is not had by different men at the time of death, so after death the blessed do not have the same degree of the light of glory in heaven. Whence the saints in heaven are compared by St. Paul to the stars in the firmament. And as star differs from star, so one saint differs from another. The old scholastics are accustomed to express this truth briefly and forcefully in this way: all the saints see the same object, namely God, but not in the same degree of perfection.²⁹

²⁸ John 14:2.

²⁹ Cf. St. Thomas, l. c. I, q. 12, a. 6.

23. c) The third part of the proposition, But in no other thing does true beatitude of man exist or can it exist, is altogether denied both by ancient and by modern rationalists. Some of them think that the beatitude of man consists in pleasure or the best enjoyment of all the goods of life. Thus the ancient and modern Epicureans. Others place beatitude in virtue and in even-minded endurance of pains. Thus the Stoics. Others think that supreme beatitude consists in the destruction of the world, as being the receptacle of all evils. Thus Schopenhauer, Hartmann, and generally the pessimists. Others have devised other opinions. Already Lactantius³⁰ enumerates ten opinions concerning beatitude: "Epicurus judges that the highest good is in pleasure of the soul; Aristippus, in pleasure of the body; Callipho and Dinomachus joined honorableness with pleasure; Diodorus, with privation of pain. Hieronymus placed the highest good in not suffering pain; but the Peripatetics in goods of soul and body and fortune; the highest good of Herillus is knowledge; of Zeno, to live congruently with nature; of certain Stoics, to follow virtue; Aristotle placed the highest good in honorableness and virtue." Moderns have devised still other opinions, which there is no time to enumerate here. But that all of them together are false is demonstrated by this evident argument: all those contrary opinions place supreme beatitude in some created and finite good. But no created and finite good, whatever finally it may be, can be the perfect beatitude of man. Therefore all contrary opinions are false. The major of this syllogism is plain by running through the individual opinions of the adversaries. The minor is proved: no created good lasts perpetually, but passes away in the course of time. Now nothing which is thus transitory can perfectly satisfy the human appetite, as was already said and proved above. Moreover, even if those created goods were stable, nevertheless they could not perfectly satisfy the human appetite, because, experience testifying, the more they abound, the more they inflame desire, according to that worn adage: "The more waters are drunk, the more they are thirsted for." Moreover history offers many examples of men who, although truly heaped up with all earthly goods, nevertheless denied that they were happy. The richest Solomon is witness, most wise and satiated with all pleasures, who nevertheless exclaimed: "Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity,"³¹ and: "I have seen all things which are done under the sun, and behold all is vanity and affliction of spirit."³² But the intrinsic reason of this insufficiency is that the object of our will and desire is universal and every good.³³ Now no created thing is universal good, but a particular or determinate good, and accordingly is not the adequate object of the human will. This indeed St. Augustine,³⁴ inwardly sensing, exclaims: "Our heart is restless until it rests in Thee, O God." St. Bernard,³⁵ however, says: "The rational soul can be occupied by all other things; it cannot be filled. Whatever is less than God will not fill that which is capable of God"; and St. Thomas³⁶ affirms: "Nothing finite can quiet the desire of the intellect, which is shown from this, that the intellect, any finite thing being given, strives for something beyond."

Proposition 3

³⁰ De instit. book 3, c. 2 (Migne, Patr. lat. 6, 364). Indeed St. Augustine (De civ. Dei 19, 1 [Migne, l.c. 41, 621]) says that according to Marcus Varro, 288 diverse opinions of philosophers concerning the highest good of man can be established.

³¹ Eccles. 1:2.

³² Ibid., v. 14.

³³ Cf. S. theol. I-II, q. 2, a. 8.

³⁴ Confess. book 1, c. 1 (Migne, Patr. lat. 32, 661).

³⁵ Declamationes de colloquio Simonis cum Iesu (Migne, Patr. lat. 184, 455).

³⁶ Contra gent. 3, 50; cf. S. theol. I-II, q. 2, a. 8.

24. The last end of man, that is, perfect beatitude, cannot be obtained without supernatural grace, which indeed is given sufficiently to all on account of the redemption of Christ.

Proof. The first part of this proposition is easily proved. For above it was proved that perfect beatitude consists in the vision of the divine essence and in intimate conjunction with God. Now by merely natural powers, without supernatural help, man is not able to elevate himself to this intimate conjunction with God, nor can any created intellect see the essence of God.³⁷ For knowledge takes place according as the known object is in the cognitive faculty, as the scholastics rightly teach. Now the human intellect cannot by its natural power receive into itself the divine essence to be known, since that essence exceeds its mode of being. For the eye of the created intellect is with respect to the essence of God like the eye of the owl, which cannot look upon the sun. Therefore, for obtaining beatitude, there is required some supernatural help, which is grace and the light of glory. What this grace is, and what this light of glory is, belongs rather to Dogmatics to investigate.

³⁷ Cf. S. theol. I, q. 12, a. 4, and Cajetan's Commentary on this article. Moreover S. theol. I-II, q. 62, a. 1.

25. In the second part of the proposition it is affirmed that this supernatural grace is given sufficiently to all. For God has implanted in the soul an ineluctable desire of true and perfect beatitude. Therefore it would be unfitting if the same God had not given sufficient means for satisfying that desire and for obtaining perfect beatitude. - Moreover, Christ died for all and merited sufficient graces for all, so that they could be saved.

It does not belong to this place to search more intimately into the essence and existence of that sufficient grace, because this rather pertains to Dogmatics. Nevertheless two things are to be noted:

1. To baptized infants and to all those who, not having attained the use of reason, die in the state of sanctifying grace, beatitude is given as an inheritance; but to adults having the use of reason, as a reward. Accordingly adult men are bound by their good acts to merit eternal life, and indeed by cooperating well with the grace received.

2. All theologians are accustomed to distinguish between the natural order and the supernatural order. The natural order is understood as that which can be observed by proper natural powers, and in which natural reason is the supreme rule and norm of human acts. The supernatural order is that order which exceeds natural human powers, and in which human actions are regulated also according to theological faith. The purely natural order, or, as it is also commonly called, the state of pure nature, is indeed possible, but in reality it has never existed. For God from the beginning at once elevated the first parents, and in them the whole human race, to the supernatural order; indeed, according to St. Thomas,³⁸ the first man was immediately created in sanctifying grace and accordingly in the supernatural order. In other words: from creation God preappointed a supernatural end for man, so that all human acts ought at least implicitly to be directed to the supernatural end. If they are directed to it, they are good; otherwise they are evil. From these things there follow two corollaries of great importance: 1. there are not human acts indifferent in the individual, as will be proved more broadly below at n. 129; 2. there is not a purely philosophical sin, that is, a human act which would indeed be against right natural reason, but not against the supernatural end. That philosophical sin is not given is now certain, since the contrary opinion was condemned by Alexander VIII on 24 August 1690: "Philosophical or moral sin is a human act disagreeing with rational nature and right reason; but theological and mortal [sin] is a free transgression of the divine law. The philosophical, however grave it may be, in him who either is ignorant of God or does not actually think of God, is a grave sin, but is not an offense against God, nor a mortal sin dissolving the friendship of God, nor worthy of eternal punishment." This proposition was declared "scandalous, rash, offensive to pious ears, and erroneous."³⁹ John de Lugo,⁴⁰ before the condemnation of this proposition, keenly defended philosophical sin, for example, philosophical adultery.

³⁸ S. theol. I, q. 95, a. 1.

³⁹ Denz. n. 1290.

⁴⁰ De incarn. disp. 5, sect. 5 (Paris ed. 1868, t. II, pp. 338-356, especially 352-353). Likewise Maes, Musnier, Caramuel, and others admitted philosophical sins. Cf. Hurter, Nomenclator IV, 407.

9. Notion of End. - End etymologically signifies any terminus whatever, and thus death is called the end of life; but in the strict sense it designates that which finishes or terminates a tendency or action, upon the obtaining of which the agent ceases to act and rests from acting. But because a rational being directs itself to a terminus which it knows as good, therefore the end is also the cause which impels to acting, insofar as it excites desire or appetite for itself and thus allures the efficient cause to acting: "the end," says St. Thomas, I-II, q. 1, a. 1, ad 1, "although it is last (or the terminus) in execution, nevertheless is first (or the principle) in the intention of the agent, and in this way has the nature of a cause"; indeed, it is the first of all causes. Hence it is defined: that to which or on account of which, that is, for the sake of which, something is done.

In the end there can be considered: a) the thing which we desire to obtain (the end which, or objective end); b) its attainment, or the action by which possession of it is obtained (the end by which, or formal end); c) the person for whom possession of the thing is desired (the end for whom, or subjective end). These three, however, are not distinct and separate ends in the concrete, but elements integrating one total end: for we do not desire a thing except as to be possessed by someone.

10. Division of End. - The end is distinguished:

1. By reason of the subject: the end of the work, or intrinsic end, to which the work is ordered from its nature, which is identified with the object, as the relief of misery with respect to almsgiving; and the end of the one acting, to which the one acting orders the work, or which he intends. This is sometimes the same as the end of the work, sometimes diverse; and then, in relation to the object and the end of the work, it is extrinsic and accidental, whether it too is intended along with the former and is joined to the former, as if someone wills almsgiving on account of mercy and the glory of God, or whether, with the former neglected, it alone is intended and directs the act, as almsgiving given solely for fornication.

2. By reason of the terminus, the end is ultimate or intermediate. The former is that which is intended on account of itself and in which one rests, whether it is simply and absolutely ultimate, that is, in every genus of action and with respect to the whole of life, or is ultimate in a certain respect, that is, in some series of actions, as health or victory in the operations of medicine or war. But if it is referred to a further end, it becomes intermediate: this is intended on account of another end to which it is referred, as the relief of a poor man to the honor of God. But the intermediate and proximate end, and the ultimate and remote end, must not be confused: an end is proximate if it is intended immediately, with no other end interposed; remote, if it is intended by the will but through another end. Hence the ultimate end can be proximate or immediately intended, as happens in an act of charity.

3. By reason of causality or influence, the end (especially of the one acting) is total or adequate if the one acting acts on account of it alone, for example almsgiving on account of mercy; or partial or inadequate if he acts at the same time on account of another, for example on account of mercy and vain glory. Partial ends either a) are equally principal if they exercise equal influence collaterally and move concomitantly to acting, so that each would suffice for placing the act, as to go to a city for business and for an extraordinary spectacle; or b) one is primary, or moving, and the other secondary, or impelling, according as the one acting is moved to acting per se, first, and principally, as a priest about to celebrate Mass on account of the worship of God, or less principally, consecutively and subordinately, and with another presupposed, even if otherwise he would not act, for example a priest at the same time celebrating on account of a stipend, who would not celebrate without the stipend.

4. By reason of effect, the end is called effected or produced, or obtained, according as it is made and produced by the operation of the agent, as health by the operation of the physician, or is obtained by the operation of the agent but is not produced, since, on the contrary, it is effected by the intervention of another, as the prize of a contest. These ends do not differ according to final causality, for each moves insofar as it is in intention, but according to being, because one exists before the operation, although it is not yet obtained, and is called antecedent; the other exists after the operation by which it is effected, and is called consequent.

11. Notion and Division of Good.

That to which a being tends as to a terminus cannot be anything except that which is suitable to it; likewise nothing can move someone to acting except what is known as apt to perfect him and seems suitable to him, whether it is truly suitable or according to appearance. Hence end and good are the same in reality, although they are distinguished in concept.

1. "The notion of good consists in this, that something is perfective of another by way of end." Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate 3, a. 2. "The end is that in which the appetite of the agent rests... But it belongs to the notion of good that it terminates appetite, for good is what all things desire. Therefore every action and movement is for the sake of good." Contra Gentiles III, 3.

By reason of perfection, good is supreme or perfect, which fully perfects nature and is the absolutely ultimate end; and imperfect or participated, which perfects in some respect.

But by reason of appetibility it is threefold: a) honorable or rational, which is appetible in itself and for its own sake to a rational nature and is suitable to it: this is always a true good; b) useful, which is appetible for the sake of another, insofar as it serves another, or helps toward attaining another, for example medicine toward health; c) delightful, which is appetible insofar as it quiets appetite by the enjoyment of itself; this can be an apparent and false good if it is dishonorable, for we can also be delighted in dishonorable things.

2. It is an analogical division, for I, q. 5, a. 6, ad 3: "Good is not divided into these three as something univocal predicated equally of them; but as something analogical, which is predicated according to prior and posterior. For it is predicated first of the honorable; secondarily of the delightful; thirdly of the useful."

These three are diverse but not opposed, so that they can be found together: thus the exercise of virtue is honorable in itself, useful for salvation, and procures delight.

12. What We Suppose from Dogmatic Theology. - Besides the notions handed down, from real philosophy and dogmatic theology we suppose as known:

1. That God, in the production of the universe of things, necessarily intended as the end of the one acting His own intrinsic goodness, not as to be increased, but as to be communicated and manifested; and therefore God Himself is the first final cause, or the absolutely ultimate external end for whom, of the whole universe and of all creatures. Hence Prov. XVI, 4: The Lord has wrought all things for Himself (Rom. XI, 36; Apoc. I, 8; XXI, 6; XXII, 13; Hebr. II, 10). It is of faith from the Vatican Council, session 3, chapter 1.

1. Cf. St. Thomas, in II Sent., d. 1, q. 2, a. 1 and 2.

2. That God also intended the end of the work, fixed for the creatures themselves, and that this is His external glory, namely, the manifestation and glorification of His perfection by creatures. This is the primary end which of all creatures (Ps. XVIII, 2; Is. VI, 3; XLIII, 7; Eccli. XVII, 7). It is of faith from the Vatican Council, session 3, chapter 1, canon 5.

3. That all creatures procure this glory of God in their own proper way conformably to their nature; specifically, irrational creatures procure only objective glory, which consists in the representation and manifestation of the perfection of God which they participate; rational creatures also procure formal glory, by acknowledging, praising, and loving the divine perfection.

4. That from His positive will and gratuitous goodness God has destined us to His supernatural glory, which is procured through habitual grace and infused virtues here on earth and through the intuitive vision of God Himself in heaven (I Cor. II, 6-12 and XIII, 12; I John III, 2). It is of faith from the Council of Vienne, articles 4 and 5, and from Benedict XII, the constitution Benedictus Deus, and from the Vatican Council, session 3, chapter 2.

5. That God has furthermore given to individual creatures an end proper and internal to them, proportioned to their nature, which is the perfection itself or good of creatures. When they attain it, by that very fact they concur, as parts of the universe, toward the universal end of the whole created order and thus toward the glory of God. To the rational creature God gave as proper end happiness. This is the secondary end which, subordinated to the primary end (Gen. I, 27 sq.; Wis. XI, 24-25; XII, 13; Ps. VIII, 5). It is of faith from the Vatican Council, session 3, chapter 2, and from the Fourth Lateran Council, chapter 1.

6. That man, unlike other beings which are moved and led into an end, properly and formally acts for the sake of an end, that is, by knowing the end as such and by freely moving and leading himself to it by the will (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 1, a. 2).

13. Object of the Treatise.

In the present treatment we do not inquire concerning the primary end of the universe, which man has in common with other creatures, but concerning the secondary end which is proper to man, namely, concerning his beatitude: for from the fact that he was created for the vision and glory of God, it is not yet affirmed that the beatitude of man consists in this. And this end can be considered in two ways: 1) externally and passively, insofar as from the intention of the Creator it has been fixed for man, and this aspect is ontological and therefore metaphysical and dogmatic; 2) internally and actively, insofar as man is inclined to the end and ought to intend it by his own will and is morally obligated to this; and therefore insofar as the end is the source and root and, as it were, the norm of human actions, and this aspect is psychological and moral. And in this sense we inquire concerning the end or beatitude of man. Furthermore, it can be considered in two ways: a) formally and in the abstract, according to the very notion of ultimate end (what it is); b) materially and in the concrete, according to the very thing which is the ultimate end (in what it is). Now we inquire not only concerning the end in the abstract, but especially in what it consists in the concrete.

14. Division of the Treatise. - The treatise is divided into five questions:

1. On the ultimate end of man in common and beatitude in the abstract (that it is);

2. On objective beatitude (in what it is);

3. On formal beatitude (what it is);

4. On the qualities or dowries of beatitude (what things are required for it);

5. On the mode of attaining beatitude (how it can be obtained).

S. Th. I-II, q. 4, and q. 5, a. 4.

The qualities of beatitude, which necessarily follow from its very essence, are distinguished as three in the soul, namely, supreme delight or joy, impeccability, and unlosableness; besides, a perfect body seems to be required, adapted to the perfect state of the soul, which therefore must be raised by God.

36. Thesis I. Supreme delight, or ineffable joy, which supposes and includes love, necessarily follows from the essence of beatitude.

This is clear from the Council of Vienne (a. 5) and from Benedict XII: they declare that in beatitude there are the vision and fruition of God.

For by beatitude man attains perfect knowledge of the highest truth and possession of the highest goodness, and understands that nothing is better for him. Hence the will is borne toward this with all its powers in the highest degree, and therefore by loving, it rejoices in that highest good and rests in it.

And indeed he necessarily loves and rejoices, so that he cannot not love nor rejoice. Thus we speak against the Scotists. For the intellect, with the highest evidence, proposes God as the highest good, supremely lovable, and the love of Him as the embrace and fruition of infinite good; nor can it represent otherwise, because it is immune from error, so that there cannot appear even a shadow of evil or of what is unsuitable or impeding a greater good in God and the fruition of God. Indeed, the intellect cannot fail to think of this. But the will is essentially an appetite following the intellect. Hence necessarily and at every moment it necessarily loves the highest good and rejoices in its possession. - In other words, the blessed one necessarily and without interruption sees his beatitude to consist in God, namely, the necessary connection of this object, God, with his beatitude. But no one can will not to be blessed. Therefore the blessed one necessarily wills God, and loves and rejoices.

This the Scriptures declare (John XVI, 22; Mt. V, 12; Rom. VIII, 18), and by various metaphors of satiety, inebriation, and a torrent of pleasures (Ps. XXXV, 9; XVI, 15), so that every evil, pain, and sadness is taken away from the blessed (Apoc. VII, 16-17; XXI, 4), and they possess the kingdom (Apoc. XXII, 5; Mt. V, 3, 10).

Thus contemplation of the highest truth, God, is the root of all things required for happiness (Boethius, On the Consolation, book 3; St. Thomas, Contra Gentiles III, 63; Goudin, Philosophy, part 3, q. 1, a. 3, c. 3): for excellently it grants a) the sufficiency which riches promise, for God is possessed, who alone suffices, and truth is perfectly known as intellectual nature desires; b) the joy which delights promise, because contemplation of truth is the one pleasure of the mind, and greater than all pleasures by as much as it is more spiritual and purer (without mixture of sadness and solicitude); c) the celebrity which reputation promises, because it makes man distinguished before God and intellectual creatures; d) the reverence which wisdom promises, for he is supremely wise who perfectly contemplates the highest truth and is joined to God; e) security from evils and in goods, which power promises, because that highest contemplation is eternal and unlosable, and most closely joins one to God, in whom is every good and to whom no evil can approach.

37. Observation. - The delight which accompanies beatitude is caused by the fact that the appetite rests in the good possessed; nevertheless it is not principal in beatitude, but vision is more excellent than delight, both because cause is more excellent than effect, and because delight is on account of operation and not conversely. For delight consists in a certain quieting of the will; but that the will is quieted in something is only on account of the goodness of that in which it is quieted. Therefore if the will is quieted in operation, it does this on account of the goodness of the operation, and seeks delight in the operation because the operation is its good. And thus the more principal good is the very operation in which the will is quieted, rather than the quieting of the will in it.

38. Thesis II. From beatitude there also follows impeccability, or rectitude of the will.

I. If those alone are saved who are conformed to Christ the Lord, and who crucify the flesh with its concupiscences, it is plain to the eye that their number is small. Be not therefore disturbed if, of the many who come to you imploring absolution from their sins, few are truly contrite; for few are the elect.

II. The discourse is of adult Catholics. That the multitude of the elect, considered absolutely, is innumerable, all confess. The dispute is about the number of the elect in comparison with the reprobate. This comparison being made, the Scriptures and all the Fathers, both the ancient ones and those nearest to us, affirm that the former are few, the latter very many.

III. The oracles of Christ in Matthew 7 are lucid: Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. And immediately, moved as it were to wonder, he exclaims: How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that enter by it! What then follows? Beware of false prophets — namely, of false masters, who speak soft and pleasing things, who under the mask of benignity adulterate the testimony of Christ: for some wrongly blurt out that in this saying only Infidels and Heretics are comprehended — the whole tradition of the Fathers crying out against them.

IV. Christ the Lord confirms this his truth in Luke, chapter 13, where, to one asking whether they are few that are saved, he answered: Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able. Who does not shudder at these words, says St. Augustine: They shall seek to enter, and shall not be able? Worldly men, given over to dissolutions and to the spacious way, seek once, twice, thrice every year to enter the narrow way of chastity, of justice, of penance — but in vain. Today they confess, and after a few days they relapse into the spacious and broad way of the vices. All these seek to enter, but in very truth they do not enter. But the parable which the Evangelist immediately subjoins in the same place explains this truth more lucidly; for St. Luke continues thus: But when the master of the house shall be gone in, and shall shut the door, you shall begin to stand without, and knock at the door, saying: Lord, open to us. And he answering, shall say to you: I know you not, whence you are. Then you shall begin to say: We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. And he shall say to you: I know you not, whence you are: depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.

V. Who are they that eat and drink the most holy Body and Blood of the Lord, if not Priests and Christians? The discourse, then, is not of Infidels and Heretics, but of domestic Catholics, workers of iniquity. Another parable, in Matthew 13, comes to the same point: Behold the sower went forth to sow. And whilst he soweth some fell by the way side... And other some fell upon stony ground... And others fell among thorns... And others fell upon good ground... He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. The seed is the word of God. Only a fourth part fell upon good ground; the remaining three, by the wayside, among the stones, and among the thorns. This is the explanation of Christ the Lord himself, saying in Luke 8: The seed is the word of God. And they by the way side are they that hear: then the devil cometh, and taketh the word out of their heart, lest believing they should be saved. The faith here spoken of is not that by which we become faithful, but that by which we attain salvation. When Preachers and Directors of souls interpret the said parables to the faithful of Christ, and persuade them to abstain from dances, from games, from comedies, and from the other illusions of the raving world, how many do they find who believe? How many give them credence? Either they deride them, hiss at them, and traduce them as Rigorists, Jansenists, and Fanatics; or, despising them, they go to the benign Casuists, from whom they may receive soft liniments, and run the more swiftly along the broad and spacious way. But let us transcribe the other part of the parable: Now they upon the rock, are they who when they hear, receive the word with joy: and these have no roots; for they believe for a while, and in time of temptation, they fall away. And that which fell among thorns, are they who have heard, and going their way, are choked with the cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and yield no fruit. But that on the good ground, are they who in a good and perfect heart, hearing the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit in patience. Thus far Christ the Lord. Could Christians be more lucidly described — who, often coming both to sermons and to the sacraments, seduced by the thorns of riches, by the solicitudes of the present life, and by the illusions of pleasures, render the word of God sterile? Is it not evident by manifest experience that these are very many, and that they are few who, in a good and perfect heart hearing the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit in patience? These last words must be weighed with the utmost attention, for they declare that it is by no means enough to abstain from vices, as many do, either from fear and worldly respect, or from natural disposition; but that there must moreover be brought forth the fruit of good works, in patience and humility. Not only is that ground reprobate and accursed which puts forth thorns, thistles, and cockle, but also that which does not bear the wheat answering to the seed that was sown, as Christ the Lord expounds more evidently in another parable, Matthew 25.

VI. The ten Virgins, of whom five were foolish, manifest more clearly what has been said. The five reprobate ones were not harlots, not unchaste women, but virgins. They are not accused of harlotry, nor of theft, nor of trafficking. Their crime, according to St. Gregory, was interior elation; and according to Chrysostom, negligence and a certain species of avarice. They wanted oil from their companions for nothing, and only then went to the sellers when the time for buying had passed. Who now, with benign probability, would not excuse them from crime and place them among the elect? Yet at the tribunal of Christ, elation, pride, and the omission of good works are crimes for which the foolish Virgins and foolish Christians are reprobated. No less tremendous is that other parable, Luke 18, where God depicts the reprobate in these words: O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican. I fast twice in a week: I give tithes of all that I possess. He does not ascribe his good works to his own powers, since he gives thanks to God. The works were good, if they be regarded in themselves as they really were, for he is not convicted of lying. What then was his crime? A most hidden self-love, elation, and complacency in his own good works, and contempt of other men as sinners. In the books of many Casuists these vices are scarcely to be found; but in the books of the Gospels these are the crimes for which very many men are damned.

VII. Let St. Paul the Apostle set the seal upon these sacred oracles, who says in 1 Corinthians, chapter 9: All run indeed, but one receiveth the prize. Then in chapter 10 he adds these words: For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea: and did all eat the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink; (and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.) But with most of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the desert. Now these things were done in a figure of us, that we should not covet evil things as they also coveted... Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication, and there fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ: as some of them tempted, and perished by the serpents. Neither do you murmur: as some of them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them in figure: and they are written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore he that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall.

VIII. All were baptized, all ate the same food, all drank the same drink. But with most of them God was not well pleased. Will anyone chatter that Paul speaks of Infidels? All Catholics are baptized; all eat the same most holy food and drink the same drink; all in common frequent the same sacraments. But with most of them, says the Apostle, God was not well pleased — as their morals make plain. St. Thomas writes many things on this testimony of Paul, lectures 1 and 2: With most of them God was not well pleased — with those, namely, who offended God; but only with two, namely Caleb and Josue, to whom alone it was granted to obtain the land of promise... And it is to be noted that, as in good things that which is figured is far better than the figure itself — as the kingdom of heaven than the land of promise — so in evil things that which is figured is far worse than the figure which signifies it. And according to Augustine, those punishments which they endured were a figure of gehenna, which is greater than every punishment.

IX. All the Fathers of every age defend the fewness of the elect in comparison with the reprobate. I shall touch upon a few testimonies. St. Augustine, on Psalm 47, writes as follows: Now all who partake of his sacraments are counted the people of God; but not all pertain to the mercy of God. All, indeed, who receive the Sacrament of Baptism are called Christians; but not all live worthily of that sacrament. For there are some of whom the Apostle says: Having an appearance of godliness, but denying the power thereof; yet on account of that very appearance of godliness they are numbered among the people of God — just as to the threshing-floor, so long as the threshing lasts, pertains not only the grain but also the chaff; but will it also pertain to the barn? (It is evident that Augustine here speaks of Catholics.) For the thorns themselves do not pertain to the people of God. Will you hear? Thus is the similitude itself set down. As the lily, he says, among thorns, so is my beloved among the daughters. He did not say, among strangers, but among the daughters... There are, then, evil daughters: and among them is the lily in the midst of thorns. Therefore those who have the Sacraments and have not good morals are both called God's and not God's, both called his and aliens: his, on account of his own sacrament; aliens, on account of their own vice. Thus daughters, and aliens: daughters, on account of the form of godliness; aliens, on account of the loss of virtue. Let the lily be there: let it receive the mercy of God: let it hold the root of the good flower: let it not be ungrateful to the rain that cometh from heaven. Let the thorns be ungrateful: let them grow from the showers — they grow for the fire, not for the barn... Now here it occurs to everyone who reflects: And what? this people which in the midst of the people of God receives the mercy of God — how great a number has it? How few they are! Scarcely are any found. Will God be content with them, and will he destroy so great a multitude? They say this who promise you what they have not heard from God promising. And truly, if we live ill, if we thoroughly enjoy the delights of this world, if we serve our lusts, God will destroy us. For how many are they who seem to keep the precepts of God? Scarcely is one found, or two, or a very few. Will God deliver these alone, and damn the rest? Far be it, say they. When he shall come and shall see so great a multitude at his left hand, he will have mercy, and will grant indulgence. This, in truth, is what that serpent also promised the first man. For God had threatened death, if he should taste; but the serpent said: Far be it — you shall not die the death. They believed the serpent; they found true what God had threatened, false what the Devil had promised. So also now, brethren: set the Church before your eyes after the pattern and similitude of Paradise. The serpent does not cease to suggest what he then suggested. But the fall of the first man ought to avail us as a warning for caution, not as a model for sinning. He fell for this, that we might rise. Let us answer such suggestions as he answered [who conquered]. For him too the tempter assailed through a woman, as through Eve — and he who conquered in Paradise was conquered on the dunghill. Let us not, then, listen to such voices; nor let us think the just are few. They are many, but they lie hidden among the more numerous. Nor can we deny that the wicked are more — so many more, that among them the good do not appear at all, just as the grains do not appear on the threshing-floor. For whoever sees the threshing-floor may think that there is only chaff. Take a man without experience, and he thinks it is done in vain that the oxen are sent in, that men sweat there under the heat in order to thresh; but there is the mass to be purged by winnowing. Then comes forth the abundance of wheat, which lay hidden in the abundance of chaff.

X. They who dare to champion the petty opinion, born with the laxer Ethics, of the plurality of the elect and the fewness of the reprobate, set themselves against the Gospel, against Augustine, and against the whole tradition of the Fathers. St. Augustine holds his discourse concerning Catholics dwelling in the bosom of the Church. Of these he teaches that the elect are few and the reprobate more numerous. He compares the Church with the threshing-floor, the elect with the wheat, the reprobate with the chaff. The grains of wheat are many; but the chaff so exceeds them that the grains scarcely appear. He objects to himself the greatness of the divine mercy: We have received thy mercy, O God, in the midst of thy temple. Upon this text of David he builds his sermon, and proves that the mercy of God is infinite, but that Christians for the greater part abuse it. Those who multiply the elect — not because these lead a well-ordered life, but because the mercy of God is great — he likens to the serpent persuading our first parents: You shall not die the death. They believed him, and met their death. Very many Christians believe the Benignists who pledge them entrance into Paradise, and they experience the damnation which God threatens, and find false what the Benignists pledge. As it happened then, so also now, brethren — concludes Augustine. The holy Doctor writes similar things in Sermon 18 on the words of the Lord, chapter 19; likewise in Book 10 against Faustus, chapter 16; and again on Psalm 25; Sermon 32 on the words of the Lord; Book 1 against the Donatists, chapter 2; and elsewhere. The doctrine of Augustine is defended by the other Fathers: St. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 33; St. Ambrose, in the book on Noe, chapter 2; St. John Chrysostom, Homily 11 to the people of Antioch; St. Gregory the Great, Homily 29 on the Gospels; St. Jerome, or the Author of the Epistle to Celantia; St. Thomas, I, q. 23, art. 7. Read the illustrious Foggini, in the work published not long ago on this matter.¹

¹ See Tome I, Apparatus, Book 1, Dissertation 2, chapter 7.

XI. The smooth-spoken and benign men press on, exaggerating the divine mercy and crying aloud that Christ the Lord died for all. What follows thence? This quibble proves either nothing, or that no one perishes. They din our ears with the claim that the Fathers, when they assert the number of the elect to be small, comprehend the whole human race. They who prate such things have not read the Fathers. Augustine has already, above, demolished their invention. But, to stop their mouths altogether, let Augustine come forward once more, who on Psalm 73 in this fashion rebukes and refutes these Benignists, who sew cushions under every elbow: There was as yet no example of human fall when it was said to Adam: Thou shalt die the death, if thou touch it. And the serpent came athwart and said: Thou shalt not die the death. The serpent was believed; God was despised. The forbidden thing was done; man died. Was not that rather fulfilled which God threatened, than what the Enemy had promised? So it is, assuredly: we acknowledge this: therefore we are all now born either into death or experiencing it. For even now the serpent does not cease to whisper and to say: Will God really damn such great Crowds? will he deliver only a few? What else is this but: Do against the commandment — you shall not die the death? But as it was then, so also now. If you do what the devil suggests, and despise what God commands, the day of judgment will come, and you will find true what God threatened, and false what the Devil promised. Arise, O Lord, judge my cause: thou hast died, and thou hast been despised.

XII. I shall touch upon a few weighty reasons. The way is narrow. It is trodden either by the innocent or by the penitent. Rare is innocence; rare is penance. The kingdom of heaven suffers violence. A state that does violence to flesh and blood belongs to few. For things that are difficult have place in the fewer, as is known by experience. But most difficult is the attainment of the eternal kingdom. Therefore few arrive there. The elect must needs be conformed to Christ: Whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son. But few are they who display this conformity and likeness. For, as the Apostle says to the Philippians, chapter 2, all seek the things that are their own, not the things that are Jesus Christ's.

XIII. The Fathers teach that a great part of Priests also perish eternally. Chrysostom, in Homily 3 on the Acts of the Apostles, says: I do not think that among Priests there are many who are saved, but that far more are they who perish. St. Jerome, in the epistle to Damasus, writes these words: Behold, the world everywhere teems with Priests; yet good Priests are most rare, so that out of a hundred scarcely one good one is found. The weighty reasons are plain. Few are initiated into the priesthood at God's calling, but very many with the hope of gain and dignity enticing them. Holy Scripture more frequently reproves and chides Priests than the people. God refutes the Priests in Ezechiel, chapter 13: They have deceived my people, saying: Peace, and there is no peace. Against the Priests he inveighs: Woe to them that sew cushions under every elbow: and make pillows for the heads of persons of every age, to catch souls. And when they caught the souls of my people, they gave life to their souls. And they violated me among my people, for a handful of barley, and a piece of bread, to kill souls which should not die. Finally, Christ the Lord most severely refutes the Doctors, Priests, and Theologians, saying in Matthew 15: Let them alone: they are blind, and leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both fall into the pit.

XIV. If we look at the company of cloistered Religious, perhaps no greater number of elect appears. The parables of the slothful and drowsy servant, and of the sterile tree bearing no fruit, display the drowsiness and damnation of Religious. The cloisters are the training-grounds of evangelical perfection; they are choice vineyards of a most abundant harvest, flowering gardens of select fruits. Do you bend your eyes upon those who dwell in the cloisters, that you may yourself gather whether those vineyards flourish or wither. Be of good heart if you discover a fervent zeal for monastic perfection, an exact separation from the allurements of the world, a splendid cultivation of evangelical poverty. Meanwhile let us hear St. Bernard, Epistle 254: Where, then, are they who are accustomed to say: It is enough for us; we do not wish to be better than our fathers? O Monk, do you not wish to advance? No. Do you wish, then, to fall back? By no means. What then? Thus, you say, I wish to live, and to remain where I have arrived; I neither suffer myself to become worse, nor desire to become better. You wish, then, what cannot be. For what stands still in this world? And assuredly it was said of man: He fleeth as a shadow, and never continueth in the same state. Finally, the very author of man and of the world, so long as he was seen on earth and conversed with men, did he stand still? Nay, as the Scripture witnesses, he passed through, doing good and healing all. He passed through, then, as not unfruitfully, so not remissly, not slothfully, not with slow step; but, as it is likewise written of him: He hath rejoiced as a giant to run the way. Now he who does not himself likewise run does not lay hold of him who runs. And what does it profit to follow Christ, if one does not succeed in overtaking him? Therefore Paul said: So run that you may obtain. There, O Christian, fix the goal of your course and your progress, where Christ placed his. He became, it is said, obedient unto death. However far, then, you shall have run, if you have not arrived even unto death, you will not lay hold of the prize. The prize is Christ. But if, while he runs, you halt your step, you do not draw near to Christ, but rather remove yourself farther; and you must fear what David says: Behold, they that go far from thee, O Lord, shall perish. Therefore, if to advance is to run, where you cease to advance, there you cease also to run; but where you cease to run, there you begin also to fall back. Hence it is plainly gathered that to refuse to advance is nothing else than to fall back. Meditate these things, and immediately there will vanish those vain and most inept petty distinctions and petty opinions of certain men, devised for excusing excuses in sins.

1. Every human act is done for some end or purpose. The end is always regarded by the agent in the light of something good. If evil be done, it is done as leading to good, or as bound up with good, or as itself being good for the doer under the circumstances; no man ever does evil for sheer evil's sake. Yet evil may be the object of the will, not by itself, nor primarily, but in a secondary way, as bound up with the good that is willed in the first place.

2. Many things willed are neither good nor evil in themselves. There is no motive for doing them except in so far as they lead to some good beyond themselves, or to deliverance from some evil, which deliverance counts as a good. A thing is willed, then, either as being good in itself and an end by itself, or as leading to some good end. Once a thing not good and desirable by itself has been taken up by the will as leading to good, it may be taken up again and again without reference to its tendency. But such a thing was not originally taken up except in view of good to come of it. We may will one thing as leading to another, and that to a third, and so on; thus one wills study for learning, learning for examination purposes, examination for a commission in the army, and the commission for glory. That end in which the will rests, willing it for itself without reference to anything beyond, is called the last end.

3. An end is either objective or subjective. The objective end is the thing wished for, as it exists distinct from the person who wishes it. The subjective end is the possession of the objective end. That possession is a fact of the wisher's own being. Thus money may be an objective end: the corresponding subjective end is being wealthy.

4. Is there one subjective last end to all the human acts of a given individual? Is there one supreme motive for all that this or that man deliberately does? At first sight it seems that there is not. The same individual will act now for glory, now for lucre, now for love. But all these different ends are reducible to one, that it may be well with him and his. And what is true of one man here, is true of all. All the human acts of all men are done for the one (subjective) last end just indicated. This end is called happiness.

5. Men place their happiness in most different things; some in eating and drinking, some in the heaping up of money, some in gambling, some in political power, some in the gratification of affection, some in reputation of one sort or another. But each one seeks his own speciality because he thinks that he shall be happy, that it will be well with him, when he has attained that. All men, then, do all things for happiness, though not all place their happiness in the same thing.

6. Just as when one goes on a journey, he need not think of his destination at every step of his way, and yet all his steps are directed towards his destination: so men do not think of happiness in all they do, and yet all they do is referred to happiness. Tell a traveller that this is the wrong way to his destination, he will avoid it; convince a man that this act will not be well for him, will not further his happiness, and, while he keeps that conviction principally before his eyes, he will not do the act. But as a man who began to travel on business, may come to make travelling itself a business, and travel for the sake of going about; so in all cases there is a tendency to elevate into an end that which was, to start with, only valued as a means to an end. So the means of happiness, by being habitually pursued, come to be a part of happiness. Habit is a second nature, and we indulge a habit as we gratify nature. This tendency works itself to an evil extreme in cases where men are become the slaves of habit, and do a thing because they are got into the way of doing it, though they allow that it is a sad and sorry way, and leads them wide of true happiness. These instances show perversion of the normal operation of the will.

Readings.—St. Thos., 1a 2æ, q. 1, art. 4, in corp.; ib., q. 1, art. 6, 7; ib., q. 5, art. 8; Ar., Eth., I., vii., 4, 5.

1. Though all men do all things, in the last resort, that it may be well with them and theirs, that is, for happiness vaguely apprehended, yet when they come to specify what happiness is, answers so various are given and acted upon, that we might be tempted to conclude that each man is the measure of his own happiness, and that no standard of happiness for all can be defined. But it is not so. Man is not the measure of his own happiness, any more than of his own health. The diet that he takes to be healthy, may prove his poison; and where he looks for happiness, he may find the extreme of wretchedness and woe. For man must live up to his nature, to his bodily constitution, to be a healthy man; and to his whole nature, but especially to his mental and moral constitution, if he is to be a happy man. And nature, though it admits of individual peculiarities, is specifically the same for all. There will, then, be one definition of happiness for all men, specifically as such.

2. Happiness is an act, not a state. That is to say, the happiness of man does not lie in his having something done to him, nor in his being habitually able to do something, but in his actually doing something. "To be up and doing," that is happiness,—[Greek: en to zaen kai energein]. (Ar., Eth., IX., ix., 5.) This is proved from the consideration that happiness is the crown and perfection of human nature; but the perfection of a thing lies in its ultimate act, or "second act," that is, in its not merely being able to act, but acting. But action is of two sorts. One proceeds from the agent to some outward matter, as cutting and burning. This action cannot be happiness, for it does not perfect the agent, but rather the patient. There is another sort of act immanent in the agent himself, as feeling, understanding, and willing: these perfect the agent. Happiness will be found to be one of these immanent acts. Furthermore, there is action full of movement and change, and there is an act done in stillness and rest. The latter, as will presently appear, is happiness; and partly for this reason, and partly to denote the exclusion of care and trouble, happiness is often spoken of as a rest. It is also called a state, because one of the elements of happiness is permanence. How the act of happiness can be permanent, will appear hereafter.

3. Happiness is an act in discharge of the function proper to man, as man. There is a function proper to the eye, to the ear, to the various organs of the human body: there must be a function proper to man as such. That can be none of the functions of the vegetative life, nor of the mere animal life within him. Man is not happy by doing what a rose-bush can do, digest and assimilate its food: nor by doing what a horse does, having sensations pleasurable and painful, and muscular feelings. Man is happy by doing what man alone can do in this world, that is, acting by reason and understanding. Now the human will acting by reason may do three things. It may regulate the passions, notably desire and fear: the outcome will be the moral virtues of temperance and fortitude. It may direct the understanding, and ultimately the members of the body, in order to the production of some practical result in the external world, as a bridge. Lastly, it may direct the understanding to speculate and think, contemplate and consider, for mere contemplation's sake. Happiness must take one or other of these three lanes.

4. First, then, happiness is not the practice of the moral virtues of temperance and fortitude. Temperance makes a man strong against the temptations to irrationality and swinishness that come of the bodily appetites. But happiness lies, not in deliverance from what would degrade man to the level of the brutes, but in something which shall raise man to the highest level of human nature. Fortitude, again, is not exercised except in the hour of danger; but happiness lies in an environment of security, not of danger. And in general, the moral virtues can be exercised only upon occasions, as they come and go; but happiness is the light of the soul, that must burn with steady flame and uninterrupted act, and not be dependent on chance occurrences.

5. Secondly, happiness is not the use of the practical understanding with a view to production. Happiness is an end in itself, a terminus beyond which the act of the will can go no further; but this use of the understanding is in view of an ulterior end, the thing to be produced. That product is either useful or artistic; if useful, it ministers to some further end still; if artistic, it ministers to contemplation. Happiness, indeed, is no exercise of the practical understanding whatever. The noblest exercises of practical understanding are for military purposes and for statesmanship. But war surely is not an end in itself to any right-minded man. Statecraft, too, has an end before it, the happiness of the people. It is a labour in view of happiness. We must follow down the third lane, and say:

6. Happiness is the act of the speculative understanding contemplating for contemplation's sake. This act has all the marks of happiness. It is the highest act of man's highest power. It is the most capable of continuance. It is fraught with pleasure, purest and highest in quality. It is of all acts the most self-sufficient and independent of environment, provided the object be to the mind's eye visible. It is welcome for its own sake, not as leading to any further good. It is a life of ease and leisure: man is busy that he may come to ease.

7. Aristotle says of this life of continued active contemplation:

"Such a life will be too good for man; for not as he is man will he so live, but inasmuch as there is a divine element in his composition. As much as this element excels the compound into which it enters, so much does the act of the said element excel any act in any other line of virtue. If, then, the understanding is divine in comparison with man, the life of the understanding is divine in comparison with human life. We must not take the advice of those who tell us, that being man, one should cherish the thoughts of a man, or being mortal, the thoughts of a mortal, but so far as in us lies, we must play the immortal [Greek: athanatizein], and do all in our power to live by the best element in our nature: for though that element be slight in quantity, in power and in value it far outweighs all the rest of our being. A man may well be reckoned to be that which is the ruling power and the better part in him. . . . What is proper to each creature by nature, is best and sweetest for each: such, then, is for man the life of the understanding, if the understanding preeminently is man." (Ar., Eth., X., vii., 8, 9.)

8. But if happiness is an act in discharge of the function proper to man as man (n. 3), how can it be happiness to lead a life which Aristotle says is too good for man? The solution of this paradox is partly contained in the concluding words of Aristotle above quoted, and will still further appear presently (s. iv., n. I, p. 21), where we shall argue that human life is a state of transition in preparation for a higher life of the soul, to be lived, according to the natural order, when the compound of soul and body would no longer exist.

9. The act of contemplation, in which happiness consists, must rest upon a habit of contemplation, which is intellectual virtue. An act, to be perfection and happiness, must be done easily, sweetly, and constantly. But no act of the intellect can be so done, unless it rests upon a corresponding habit. If the habit has not been acquired, the act will be done fitfully, at random, and against the grain, like the music of an untrained singer, or the composition of a schoolboy. Painful study is not happiness, nor is any studied act. Happiness is the play of a mind that is, if not master of, yet at home with its subject. As the intellect is man's best and noblest power, so is intellectual virtue, absolutely speaking, the best virtue of man.

10. The use of the speculative understanding is discernible in many things to which even the common crowd turn for happiness, as news of that which is of little or no practical concern to self, sight-seeing, theatre-going, novels, poetry, art, scenery, as well as speculative science and high literature. A certain speculative interest is mixed up with all practical work: the mind lingers on the speculation apart from the end in view.

11. The act of contemplation cannot be steadily carried on, as is necessary to happiness, except in the midst of easy surroundings. Human nature is not self-sufficient for the work of contemplation. There is need of health and vigour, and the means of maintaining it, food, warmth, interesting objects around you, leisure, absence of distracting care or pain. None would call a man happy upon the rack, except by way of maintaining a thesis. The happiness of a disembodied spirit is of course independent of bodily conditions, but it would appear that there are conditions of environment requisite for even a spirit's contemplation.

12. Happiness must endure to length of days. Happiness is the perfect good of man. But no good is perfect that will not last. One swallow does not make a summer, nor does one fine day: neither is man made blessed and happy by one day, nor by a brief time. The human mind lighting upon good soon asks the question, Will this last? If the answer is negative, the good is not a complete good and there is no complete happiness coming of it. If the answer is affirmative and false, once more that is not a perfect happiness that rests on a delusion. The supreme good of a rational being is not found in a fool's paradise. We want an answer affirmative and true: This happiness shall last.

13. We now sum up and formulate the definition of happiness as follows: _Happiness is a bringing of the soul to act according to the habit of the best and most perfect virtue, that is, the virtue of the speculative intellect, borne out by easy surroundings, and enduring to length of days—[Greek: energeia psychaes kat aretaen taen aristaen kai teleiotataen en biph teleio.] (Ar., Eth., I., vii., 15, 16.)

14. Man is made for society. His happiness must be in society, a social happiness, no lonely contemplation. He must be happy in the consciousness of his own intellectual act, and happy in the discernment of the good that is in those around him, whom he loves. Friends and dear ones are no small part of those easy surroundings that are the condition of happiness.

15. Happiness—final, perfect happiness—is not in fighting and struggling, in so far as a struggle supposes evil present and imminent; nor in benevolence, so far as that is founded upon misery needing relief. We fight for the conquest and suppression of evil; we are benevolent for the healing of misery. But it will be happiness, in the limit, as mathematicians speak, to wish well to all in a society where it is well with all, and to struggle with truth for its own sake, ever grasping, never mastering, as Jacob wrestled with God.

Readings.—Ar., Eth., I., vii. viii., 5 to end; I., x., 8 to end; I., v., 6; VII., xiii., 3; IX., ix.; X., vii.; X., viii., 1-10; Ar., Pol., IV. (al. VII.), i., 3-10; IV., iii., 7, 8; St. Thos., la 2ae, q. 3, art. 2; ib., q. 3, art. 5. in corp., ad 3; ib., q. 2, art. 6.

"And now as he looked and saw the whole Hellespont covered with the vessels of his fleet, and all the shore and every plain about Abydos as full as possible of men, Xerxes congratulated himself on his good fortune; but after a little while, he wept. Then Artabanus, the King's uncle, when he heard that Xerxes was in tears, went to him, and said: 'How different, sire, is what thou art now doing from what thou didst a little while ago! Then thou didst congratulate thyself; and now, behold! thou weepest.' 'There came upon me,' replied he, 'a sudden pity, when I thought of the shortness of man's life, and considered that of all this host, so numerous as it is, not one will be alive when a hundred years are gone by.' 'And yet there are sadder things in life than that,' returned the other. 'Short as our time is, there is no man, whether it be among this multitude or elsewhere, who is so happy, as not to have felt the wish—I will not say once, but full many a time—that he were dead rather than alive. Calamities fall upon us, sicknesses vex and harass us, and make life, short though it be, to appear long. So death, through the wretchedness of our life, is a most sweet refuge to our race; and God, who gives us the tastes that we enjoy of pleasant times, is seen, in his very gift, to be envious.'" (Herodotus, vii., 45, 46.)

1. It needs no argument to show that happiness, as defined in the last section, can never be perfectly realized in this life. Aristotle took his definition to represent an ideal to be approximated to, not attained. He calls his sages "happy as men" (Eth., I., x., 16), that is, imperfectly, as all things human are imperfect. Has Aristotle, then, said the last word on happiness? Is perfect happiness out of the reach of the person whom in this mortal life we call man? However that may be, it is plain that man desires perfect happiness. Every man desires that it may be perfectly well with him and his, although many have mistaken notions of what their own well-being consists in, and few can define it philosophically. Still they all desire it. The higher a man stands in intellect, the loftier and vaster his conception of happiness, and the stronger his yearning after it. This argues that the desire of happiness is natural to man: not in the sense in which eating and drinking are natural, as being requirements of his animal nature, but in the same way that it is natural to him to think and converse, his rational nature so requiring. It is a natural desire, as springing from that which is the specific characteristic of human nature, distinguishing it from mere animal nature, namely reason. It is a natural desire in the best and highest sense of the word.

2. Contentment is not happiness. A man is content with little, but it takes an immensity of good to satisfy all his desire, and render him perfectly happy. When we say we are content, we signify that we should naturally desire more, but acquiesce in our present portion, seeing that more is not to be had. "Content," says Dr. Bain, "is not the natural frame of any mind, but is the result of compromise."

3. But is not this desire of unmixed happiness unreasonable? Are we not taught to set bounds to our desire? Is not moderation a virtue, and contentment wisdom? Yes, moderation is a virtue, but it concerns only the use of means, not the apprehension of ends. The patient, not to say the physician, desires medicines in moderation, so much as will do him good and no more; but, so far as his end is health, he desires all possible health, perfect health. The last end, then, is to be desired as a thing to possess without end or measure, fully and without defect.

4. We have then these facts to philosophise on: that all men desire perfect happiness: that this desire is natural, springing from the rational soul which sets man above the brute: that on earth man may attain to contentment, and to some happiness, but not to perfect happiness: that consequently nature has planted in man a desire for which on earth she has provided no adequate satisfaction.

5. If the course of events were fitful and wayward, so that effects started up without causes, and like causes under like conditions produced unlike effects, and anything might come of anything, there would be no such thing as that which we call nature. When we speak of nature, we imply a regular and definite flow of tendencies, this thing springing from that and leading to that other; nothing from nothing, and nothing leading nowhere; no random, aimless proceedings; but definite results led up to by a regular succession of steps, and surely ensuing unless something occurs on the way to thwart the process. How this is reconciled with Creation and Freewill, it is not our province to enquire: suffice it to say that a natural agent is opposed to a free one, and creation is the starting-point of nature. But to return. Everywhere we say, "this is for that," wherever there appears an end and consummation to which the process leads, provided it go on unimpeded. Now every event that happens is a part of some process or other. Every act is part of a tendency. There are no loose facts in nature, no things that happen, or are, otherwise than in consequence of something that has happened, or been, before, and in view of something else that is to happen, or be, hereafter. The tendencies of nature often run counter to one another, so that the result to which this or that was tending is frustrated. But a tendency is a tendency, although defeated; this was for that, although that for which it was has got perverted to something else. There is no tendency which of itself fails and comes to naught, apart from interference. Such a universal and absolute break-down is unknown to nature.

6. All this appears most clearly in organic beings, plants and animals. Organisms, except the very lowest, are compounds of a number of different parts, each fulfilling a special function for the good of the whole. There is no idle constituent in an organic body, none without its function. What are called rudimentary organs, even if they serve no purpose in the individual, have their use in the species, or in some higher genus. In the animal there is no idle natural craving, or appetite. True, in the individual, whether plant or animal, there are many potentialities frustrate and made void. That is neither here nor there in philosophy. Philosophy deals not with individuals but with species, not with Bucephalus or Alexander, but with horse, man. It is nothing to philosophy that of a thousand seeds there germinate perhaps not ten. Enough that one seed ever germinates, and that all normal specimens are apt to do the like, meeting with proper environment. That alone shows that seed is not an idle product in this or that class of living beings.

7. But, it will be said, not everything contained in an organism ministers to its good. There is refuse material, only good to get rid of: there are morbid growths; there is that tendency to decay, by which sooner or later the organism will perish. First, then, a word on diseases. Diseases are the diseases of the individual; not of the race. The race, as such, and that is what the philosopher studies, is healthy: all that can be imputed to the race is liability to disease. That liability, and the tendency to decay and die, are found in living things, because their essence is of finite perfection; there cannot be a plant or animal, that has not these drawbacks in itself, as such. They represent, not the work of nature, but the failure of nature, and the point beyond which nature can no further go.

8. On the preceding observations Aristotle formulated the great maxim—called by Dr. Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, p. i., sect. 15, "the only indisputable axiom in philosophy,"—Nature does nothing in vain. (Ar., Pol., I., viii., 12; De Anima, III., ix., 6; De part. animal., I. i., p. 641, ed. Bekker.)

9. The desire of happiness, ample and complete, beyond what this world can afford, is not planted in man by defect of his nature, but by the perfection of his nature, and in view of his further perfection. This desire has not the character of a drawback, a thing that cannot be helped, a weakness and decay of nature, and loss of power, like that which sets in with advancing years. A locomotive drawing a train warms the air about it: it is a pity that it should do so, for that radiation of heat is a loss of power: but it cannot be helped, as locomotives are and must be constructed. Not such is the desire of perfect happiness in the human breast. It is not a disease, for it is no peculiarity of individuals, but a property of the race. It is not a decay, for it grows with the growing mind, being feeblest in childhood, when desires are simplest and most easily satisfied, and strongest where mental life is the most vigorous. It is an attribute of great minds in proportion to their greatness. To be without it, would be to live a minor in point of intellect, not much removed from imbecility. It is not a waste of energy, rather it furnishes the motive-power to all human volition. It comes of the natural working of the understanding that discerns good, and other good above that, and so still higher and higher good without limit; and of the natural working of the will, following up and fastening upon what the understanding discerns as good. The desire in question, then, is by no means a necessary evil, or natural flaw, in the human constitution.

10. It follows that the desire of perfect happiness is in man by the normal growth of his nature, and for the better. But it would be a vain desire, and objectless, if it were essentially incapable of satisfaction: and man would be a made and abiding piece of imperfection, if there were no good accessible to his intellectual nature sufficient to meet its proper exigence of perfect happiness. But no such perfect happiness is attainable in this world. Therefore there must be a world to come, in which he who was man, now a disembodied spirit, but still the same person, shall under due conditions find a perfect good, the adequate object of his natural desire. Else is the deepest craving of human nature in vain, and man himself is vanity of vanities.

11. It may be objected that there is no need to go beyond this world to explain how the desire of perfect happiness is not in vain. It works like the desire of the philosopher's stone among the old alchemists. The thing they were in search of was a chimera, but in looking for it they found a real good, modern chemistry. In like manner, it is contended, though perfect happiness is not to be had anywhere, yet the desire of it keeps men from sitting down on the path of progress; and thus to that desire we owe all our modern civilization, and all our hope and prospect of higher civilization to come. Without questioning the alleged fact about the alchemists, we may reply that modern chemistry has dissipated the desire of the philosopher's stone, but modern civilization has not dissipated the desire of perfect happiness: it has deepened it, and perhaps rather obscured the prospect of its fulfilment. A desire that grows with progress certainly cannot be satisfied by progressing. But if it is never to be satisfied, what is it? A goad thrust into the side of man, that shall keep him coursing along from century to century, like Io under the gadfly, only to find himself in the last century as far from the mark as in the first. Apart from the hope of the world to come, is the Italy of to-day happier than the Italy of Antoninus Pius? Here is a modern Italian's conclusion: "I have studied man, I have examined nature, I have passed whole nights observing the starry heavens. And what is the result of these long investigations? Simply this, that the life of man is nothing; that man himself is nothing; that he will never penetrate the mystery which surrounds the universe. With this comfortless conviction I descend into the grave, and console myself with the hope of speedy annihilation. The lamp goes out; and nothing, nothing can rekindle it. So, Nature, I return to thee, to be united with thee for ever. Never wilt thou have received into thy bosom a more unhappy being." (La Nullità della Vita. By G. P., 1882.)

This is an extreme case, but much of modern progress tends this way. Civilization is not happiness, nor is the desire for happiness other than vain, if it merely leads to increased civilization.

Readings.—St. Thomas, C. G., iii., 48; Newman's Historical Sketches—Conversion of Augustine; Mill's Autobiography, pp. 133-149.

1. As happiness is an act of the speculative intellect contemplating (s. ii., n. 6, p. 9), so the thing thus contemplated is the object of happiness. As happiness is the subjective last end, so will this object, inasmuch as the contemplation of it yields perfect happiness, be the objective last end of man. (s. i., nn. 3, 4, p. 4.) As perfect happiness is possible, and intended by nature, so is this objective last end attainable, and should be attained. But attained by man? Aye, there's the rub. It cannot be attained in this life, and after death man is no more: a soul out of the body is not man. About the resurrection of the body philosophy knows nothing. Nature can make out no title to resurrection. That is a gratuitous gift of God in Christ. When it takes effect, stupebit natura. Philosophy deals only with the natural order, with man as man, leaving the supernatural order, or the privileges and status of man as a child of God, to the higher science of Scholastic Theology. Had God so willed it, there might have been no supernatural at all. Philosophy shows the world as it would have been on that hypothesis. In that case, then, man would have been, as Aristotle represents him, a being incapable of perfect happiness; but he who is man could have become perfectly happy in a state other than human, that is, as a disembodied spirit. Peter is man: the soul of Peter, after separation, is man no longer; but Peter is not one person, and Peter's soul out of the body another person; there is but one person there, with one personal history and liabilities. The soul of Peter is Peter still: therefore the person Peter, or he who is Peter, attains to happiness, but not the man Peter, as man, apart from the supernatural privilege of the resurrection. Hence Aristotle well said, though he failed to see the significance of his own saying, that man should aim at a life of happiness too good for man. (s. ii., nn. 7, 8, p. 9.)

2. The object of happiness,—the objective last end of man,—will be that which the soul contemplating in the life to come will be perfectly happy by so doing. The soul will contemplate all intellectual beauty that she finds about her, all heights of truth, all the expanse of goodness and mystery of love. She will see herself: a vast and curious sight is one pure spirit: but that will not be enough for her, her eye travels beyond. She must be in company, live with myriads of pure spirits like herself,—see them, study them, and admire them, and converse with them in closest intimacy. Together they must explore the secrets of all creation even to the most distant star: they must read the laws of the universe, which science laboriously spells out here below: they must range from science to art, and from facts to possibilities, till even their pure intellect is baffled by the vast intricacy of things that might be and are not: but yet they are not satisfied. A point of convergency is wanted for all these vistas of being, whence they may go forth, and whither they may return and meet: otherwise the soul is distracted and lost in a maze of incoherent wandering, crying out, Whence all this? and what is it for? and above all, whose is it? These are the questions that the human mind asks in her present condition: much more will she ask them then, when wonders are multiplied before her gaze: for it is the same soul there and here. Here men are tormented in mind, if they find no answer to these questions. Scientific men cannot leave theology alone. They will not be happy there without an answer. Their contemplation will still desiderate something beyond all finite being, actual or possible. Is that God? It is nothing else. But God dwells in light inaccessible, where no creature, as such, can come near Him nor see Him. The beauties of creation, as so many streams of tendency, meet at the foot of His Throne, and there are lost. Their course is towards Him, and is, so far as it goes, an indication of Him: but He is infinitely, unspeakably above them. No intelligence created, or creatable, can arrive by its own natural perception to see Him as He is: for mind can only discern what is proportionate to itself: and God is out of proportion with all the being of all possible creatures. It is only by analogy that the word being, or any other word whatever can be applied to Him. As Plato says, "the First Good is not Being, but over and beyond Being in dignity and power." (Rep. 509, B.)

3. To see God face to face, which is called the beatific vision, is not the natural destiny of man, nor of any possible creature. Such happiness is not the happiness of man, nor of angel, but of God Himself, and of any creature whom He may deign by an act of gratuitous condescension to invite to sit as guest at His own royal table. That God has so invited men and angels, revelation informs us. Scholastic theology enlarges upon that revelation, but it is beyond philosophy. Like the resurrection of the body, and much more even than that, the Beatific Vision must be relegated to the realm of the Supernatural.

4. But even in the natural order the object of perfect happiness is God. The natural and supernatural have the same object, but differ in the mode of attainment. By supernatural grace, bearing perfect fruit, man sees God with the eyes of his soul, as we see the faces of our friends on earth. In perfect happiness of the natural order, creatures alone are directly apprehended, or seen, and from the creature is gathered the excellence of the unseen God. The process is an ascent, as described by Plato, from the individual to the universal, and from bodily to moral and intellectual beauty, till we reach a Beauty eternal, immutable, absolute, substantial, and self-existent, on which all other beauties depend for their being, while it is independent of them. (Plato, Symposium, 210, 211.) Unless the ascent be prosecuted thus far, the contemplation is inadequate, the happiness incomplete. The mind needs to travel to the beginning and end of things, to the Alpha and Omega of all. The mind needs to reach some perfect good: some object, which though it is beyond the comprehension, is nevertheless understood to be the very good of goods, unalloyed with any admixture of defect or imperfection. The mind needs an infinite object to rest upon, though it cannot grasp that object positively in its infinity. If this is the case even with the human mind, still wearing "this muddy vesture of decay," how much more ardent the longing, as how much keener the gaze, of the pure spirit after Him who is the centre and rest of all intellectual nature?

5. Creatures to contemplate and see God in, are conditions and secondary objects of natural happiness. They do not afford happiness finally of themselves, but as manifesting God, even as a mirror would be of little interest except for its power of reflection.

6. In saying that God is the object of happiness, we must remember that He is no cold, impersonal Beauty, but a living and loving God, not indeed in the order of nature our Father and Friend, but still our kind Master and very good Lord, who speaks to His servants from behind the clouds that hide His face, and assures them of His abiding favour and approving love. More than that, nature cannot look for: such aspiration were unnatural, unreasonable, mere madness: it is enough for the creature, as a creature, in its highest estate to stand before God, hearing His voice, but seeing not His countenance, whom, without His free grace, none can look upon and live.

Reading.—St. Thos., 1a 2æ, q. 2, art. 8.

1. Since perfect happiness is not to be had in this mortal life, and is to be had hereafter; since moreover man has free will and the control of his own acts; it is evidently most important for man in this life so to control and rule himself here as to dispose himself for happiness there. Happiness rests upon a habit of contemplation (s. ii., n. 9, p. 10), rising to God. (s. iv., n. 4, p. 24.) But a habit, as will be seen, is not formed except by frequent acts, and may be marred and broken by contrary acts. It is, then, important for man in this life so to act as to acquire a habit of lifting his mind to God. There are two things here, to lift the mind, and to lift it to God. The mind is not lifted, if the man lives not an intellectual life, but the life of a swine wallowing in sensual indulgences; or a frivolous life, taking the outside of things as they strike the senses, and flitting from image to image thoughtlessly; or a quarrelsome life, where reason is swallowed up in anger and hatred. Again, however sublime the speculation and however active the intellect, if God is not constantly referred to, the mind is lifted indeed, but not to God. It is wisdom, then, in man during this life to look to God everywhere, and ever to seek His face; to avoid idleness, anger, intemperance, and pride of intellect. For the mind will not soar to God when the heart is far from Him.

In the present chapter we shall consider: 1. Ends in general. 2. Our last end. 3. The attainment of our last end.