Effects voluntary in their cause

If I am not justified, according to the foregoing principle, in performing an action which causes some evil effect, that evil effect is imputable to me though I did not intend it in itself; it is not indeed voluntary in itself, but it is voluntary in its cause, and I am bound to avoid evil even though only voluntary in its cause.

When, however, evil is not voluntary in itself, but only voluntary in its cause, a question arises concerning the degree of moral guilt which is contracted when such a cause of evil is posited unwarrantably. The case arises especially when grave evil is the result of an action which in itself is only venially sinful, as when grave harm is the result of slight negligence. Of course, great evil arising from grave negligence is seriously sinful even though only voluntary in the cause; and so a doctor who through grave negligence kills his patient is guilty of a great sin, though he did not intend the homicide.

But supposing that in passing through a gate in the country I leave it open, owing to slight negligence, and in consequence a neighbour’s crop is seriously damaged by his cows getting among the corn; do I commit a grave sin in that case¹ Of course, if owing to the circumstances I clearly foresaw that the damage was certain to follow and I could easily have closed the gate if I chose, I certainly sin grievously in not closing it; the negligence is then grave. But our case supposes circumstances to be such that the negligence is only slight, partly on account of the uncertainty of harm following, partly because I had frequently seen the gate standing open, and for other reasons. Will the neglect to close the gate after me in such circumstances be grievously sinful on account of the serious harm to my neighbour which was the consequence² ‘The answer must be ‘“‘ No.”’ For the harm did not follow necessarily and exclusively from my neglect; my action was not the immediate and necessary cause of the damage done to the crop; other agents intervened; my action was only slightly responsible for what followed. Inasmuch, then, as the malice of the cause is only slight, and this alone is voluntary in itself, the evil effect which is only voluntary in the cause will be imputed only as a venial sin.

¹ Rom. iii 8.

² Summa, 2-2, q. 64, a. 7.

'Theologians dispute about the question whether such a sin of omission as is committed by not closing the gate after me, with resulting loss to my neighbour, can be committed without a special act, by simply neglecting to put the act which was of obligation.

The question is not a very practical one; it will be sufficient to say in reply that physically a man who adverts to the obligation of doing something may hold himself neutral, and so sin by omission without doing anything; practically, however, in such cases, a positive determination is formed not to perform the duty, or at least to perform something else which is foreseen to be an obstacle to the performance of the duty.¹

¹ Suarez, tract. 5, d. 3, sec. 2, n. 6.

The question sometimes arises at what time a sin of omission or a sin which is voluntary only in the cause is committed. When a man gets drunk on the Saturday evening and foresees that in consequence he will not be able to attend Mass on the following day, is the sin of omitting to hear Mass committed on the Saturday night, when he voluntarily posits the cause of his not hearing Mass on the following day, or on the Sunday, when Mass is not heard as is of obligation? Inasmuch as a formal sin is a human act, it would seem that we must say with St Alphonsus¹ that the sin is committed when the cause of the omission or of the evil is voluntarily posited, otherwise we should have to say that a man may commit sin without knowing it, or while he is asleep. ‘10.

¹ Theol. Mor. lib. 5,

What is the direct and indirect voluntary; voluntary in itself and in the cause; positive and negative? - The voluntary, by reason of the act of the will by which it proceeds from the will, is one thing direct, another indirect. The direct is from the will acting. The indirect is from the will not acting, not prohibiting, namely which ought and can prohibit. For "not always is that which follows upon a defect of action reduced, as into a cause, into the agent from the fact that he does not act, but only then when he can and ought to act. For if the helmsman could not direct the ship, or the governance of the ship had not been entrusted to him, the sinking of the ship, which would happen through the absence of the helmsman, would not be imputed to him. Therefore, since the will, by willing and acting, can impede this which is not to will and not to act, and sometimes ought to, this which is not to will and not to act is imputed to it as existing from it." S. Th. 1. 2. q. 6. a. 3; 2. 2. q. 69. a. 7; 3. p. q. 47. a. 1. Namely, it must be what one ought and can prohibit, so that one is in fault. And thus no one would say that every good which you do not do is voluntary to you, even indirectly, and consequently imputable, although absolutely you can do it, but are not bound to do it; and much less every evil which you are not bound in any way to impede.

If nevertheless someone knowingly posits an act incompatible with another act, which is omitted, for performing which there is no obligation, since that omission is free, it is indirectly voluntary, although not imputable to fault; for example, if you wish to study without wishing not to go to visit a church, when there is no obligation; and, on the contrary, it is imputable to merit, as if you wish to pray and therefore omit recreation, without saying, I wish to omit it. Cf. Commentary de Act. hum., Fourth, n. 9. Cf. here the following paragraph and n. 35.

The voluntary, by reason of the object which immediately terminates the act of the will, is one thing voluntary in itself, another voluntary in the cause. The first is had when someone immediately wills something in itself; the second, when someone wills the cause from which some effect is going to follow, even if he foresees this effect; for then he does not will it in itself, but in another, namely in its cause. Foresees, that is, merely foresees; for if besides this he wills it, that effect will already be directly and in itself willed and voluntary, and not merely in the cause. From this it follows that that effect will no longer be willed and voluntary as an effect; nor likewise will its cause be willed and voluntary as a cause; but then the effect, with respect to the will, will have the notion of an end, and the cause the notion of a means. For that which someone wills on account of itself has the notion of an end; what someone wills on account of another has the notion of a means. Nor indeed is it valid to object that if the effect is merely foreseen, and the will is not borne into it by its own act, then that effect is outside the intention, and in no way can it be voluntary, not even in the cause. For because the will, by not willing the cause, can impede the effect, and sometimes ought to impede it if it is evil, the effect is imputed to it; consequently, since it is not willed in itself, it will be willed in the cause. S. Th. q. 6. a. 3; q. 71. a. 5.

And thus evil works committed against one's neighbor in drunkenness are voluntary in the cause for him who was voluntarily made drunk, foreseeing those evils from previous experience, although he neither willed nor intended those same evils. If someone writing a bad book foresees many spiritual evils from it, although he does not intend them, they are imputed to him, and they are voluntary to him not in themselves, but in the cause. But if the effect is good, and someone who posits the cause foresees it, he is already judged implicitly to will it, and he does not lack his merit, since the good is the object of the will, not evil. If you give your goods to a monastery, foreseeing the spiritual goods thence to come, you certainly do not lack merit. Therefore there is a distinction between good and evil; for good, at least in some way, we ought to intend; evil, on the contrary, cannot be intended, but ought to be avoided. Suarez, d. 1, s. 4.

Several theologians altogether distinguish the voluntary in itself and the voluntary in the cause from the direct and indirect voluntary. And thus Suarez says, "The voluntary in itself is sufficiently clear; for then something is said to be voluntary in itself when it is willed in itself, so that the will is immediately concerned with it, either by a proper act, if it is voluntary direct, or through the lack of an act, if it is indirectly voluntary." D. 1, s. 4. Likewise S. Th. q. 77. a. 7: "Two things seem to have to be considered. First, that something can be voluntary either according to itself, as when the will is borne directly into it, or according to its cause, when the will is borne into the cause and not into the effect; as is clear in him who voluntarily becomes drunk. For from this, what he commits through drunkenness is imputed to him as quasi-voluntary. Secondly, it must be considered that something is called voluntary directly or indirectly. Directly indeed is that into which the will is borne; but indirect is that which the will could have prohibited, but does not prohibit."

But others call the voluntary in itself and in the cause the direct and indirect voluntary, and express this by another division, namely of the positive and negative voluntary. Gury, Ballerini, n. 5. Now, with a comparison established between both divisions, the voluntary in itself and in the cause, and the direct and indirect voluntary, and insisting upon the doctrine of the Angelic Doctor, it must be said that the direct voluntary includes under itself both the voluntary in itself and the voluntary in the cause. For the direct voluntary is said by the Angelic Doctor to be "that which proceeds from the will as from an agent," q. 6. a. 3 ad 1. But both the voluntary in itself and the voluntary in the cause proceed from the will insofar as it is acting and willing.

But the indirect voluntary can be reduced both to the voluntary in itself and to the voluntary in the cause. The indirect voluntary is said by the same Holy Doctor to be "that which is from the will as from a non-agent," l. c. But both the voluntary in itself and the voluntary in the cause include the acting and willing will. Therefore the indirectly voluntary is neither properly voluntary in itself, nor likewise properly voluntary in the cause. Nevertheless it can be reduced to both; for the indirectly voluntary is said either only of the interior act of the will, or also of the exterior act. If the first, since not willing is immediately from the will, it can be called voluntary in itself. If the second, since externally not acting is as it were the external object completing that not willing, just as the former is in some way voluntary in itself, so also is the latter, since one complete non-act is as it were constituted from both the lack of an interior and exterior act; for example, not willing to hear Mass, and not hearing Mass in fact, just as one complete act is constituted from the internal and external act of willing to hear Mass and of hearing Mass.

Now, as from the positing of an act, as from a cause, some effect can follow, so from the omission of an act another act can follow, which, although it is not properly the effect of that omission, just as that omission is not properly the cause of the following act, since not acting cannot properly be a cause, nevertheless it can be considered as an effect. And thus it can be called voluntary in the cause; for example, the death of those sailing, indirectly voluntary, is, in the sense stated, voluntary in the cause for the pilot of the ship who desists from steering.

When is an effect willed in the cause imputed? - It is imputed, speaking of itself, first when someone has posited the cause, or from the time when he could and ought to have impeded it, if he noticed it after the cause had been posited. "The reason is that the free volition, or non-impeding, of an evil effect is formally evil, but not the physical existence of the effect; and accordingly formal sin is committed when there is such a perverse volition or nolition.... Thus therefore, he who, for example, has offered poison to another ... does not sin when the death of the other follows ... but when he freely posited the cause of this effect." Struggl, q. 1, a. 3, n. 32. Speaking of itself; for if someone can impede an effect of this kind right up to its execution, and does not impede it, or is pleased in its futurition or existence, he continues in his mind the sin whose cause he previously posited freely and culpably. Consequently someone must then confess the effect as if it were the external act and object, the complement of the sin. But it would be otherwise if, after the cause had been posited, before the effect follows, he retracts the will, or confesses the sin committed. L. 1. 5. n. 10; S. Th. 2. 2. q. 79. a. 3 ad 3.

Note: Since the cause, as such, participates in the specific malice of the effect, but not in a different malice, it suffices in confession to accuse only the malice of the effect; or if the cause has in itself another special malice, it suffices to state each separately. And thus, if because of play you omitted Mass, it suffices to accuse this omission; if because of theft you likewise omitted Mass, you can then accuse separately the theft and the omission of Mass. L. 1. 5. n. 9; Lugo, de Poenit., d. 15, n. 479.

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

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

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

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

1. Ricardus, an innkeeper, lest his tavern be deprived of the great concourse of guests, supplies abundant wine to drunkards asking for it, although he foresees that many of them will become drunk and quarrel. He is moved by reason of customary profit, and sometimes by reason of preventing blasphemies; nor does he think that he offends in this. He also easily admits into his inn men uttering impious or obscene conversations, nor does he rebuke them, because, he says, he is not held by reason of his office to be solicitous about their manner of acting.

2. Nemesius on a certain day offers 20 asses by way of payment to Caius, a porter carrying a certain bundle to his inn. The porter asks 25 asses. Nemesius denies that he will give him anything more, although that man, furious, breaks out into imprecations and blasphemies.

Q. 1. What is the indirectly voluntary? 2. Does Ricardus sin gravely by serving wine to those who will become drunk, for the sole reason of customary profit? 3. Does he sin gravely by doing this to prevent the blasphemies of the drunkards? 4. Does he sin gravely by not preventing the impious and obscene conversations of the guests? 5. In the second case, ought Nemesius to have given the aforesaid five asses, although not owed, in order to prevent the blasphemies of the porter?

R. To the first, cf. I. M. 32, 33, 34. To the second, negatively, generally and speaking in itself. The reason is that the innkeeper is not held to prevent, with grave damage to himself, the sins of drunkenness and quarrels which guests are accustomed to admit; for charity does not urge with so great an inconvenience. But hardly any tavern is found in which some guests are not accustomed to become drunk, and afterwards to mix in some quarrels. Therefore, if the innkeeper denies wine, the guests will go to other drinking shops, in which abundant drink is served to them; and therefore he himself will undergo great damage, and uselessly. Generally and in itself: for if it is not a question of sins of this sort foreseen confusedly, but is a question of some particular case, namely of a certain drinker already near drunkenness, who asks for more drink, it cannot here be served. The reason is that in a particular, determined, and certain case, only slight damage would have to be undergone by him in order actually to prevent a determined and certain sin. Except if, from other extrinsic circumstances, grave damage would still have to be undergone by him, or graver sins would follow. Elbel 17; L. 1, 2, n. 69.

To the third, negatively. The reason is that, of two evils, the greater must be prevented when both cannot be prevented.

To the fourth, affirmatively, if there is grave scandal of others and he could easily prevent it. The reason is that he is held only by the general reason of charity, which does not oblige with grave damage. But a grave inconvenience in practice is not lacking, as was just said in the response to the first for the case of the drunkenness of guests.

To the fifth, negatively, if he has paid the customary and just price. The reason is that, since similar cases often occur, an occasion would be given to wicked men to blaspheme more and more, and grave damage would have to be undergone by pious men. G. 7, 8, 9; I. M. 35, 36, 337, 434.

1. If the voluntary is considered in order to the act itself, which proceeds from the will, and in order to the object, about which that act is occupied, other divisions of the voluntary are had.

2. Two things concur in the voluntary, namely an intrinsic principle and cognition of the end. By reason of this cognition, one voluntary is perfect, another imperfect. But this division can be taken in two ways. For if only an imperfect cognition of the end is had, as to its intrinsic nature, as is sensitive cognition, which consists in the apprehension alone of the thing which is the end, without the fact that the account of the end and the proportion of the means to the end are known, then the imperfect voluntary is had, which also belongs to brute animals. But if perfect cognition of the end is had, as to its intrinsic nature, as is the intellective cognition of the thing which is the end, of the thing which is the means, and at the same time of the account of the end and of the proportion of the means, then the perfect voluntary is had, which belongs only to rational nature. Therefore the imperfect voluntary is the act of the sensitive appetite; the perfect voluntary, from the act, is the rational appetite. S. Th. 1. 2. q. 6. a. 2.

3. The perfect and imperfect voluntary can besides be had in the very act of the will, according to its accidental perfection. The perfect voluntary is had in those acts of the will which proceed with full cognition and advertence. The imperfect voluntary is had in those acts of the same will which proceed with half-full cognition and advertence, as are sometimes the acts of children, and the acts of the half-fatuous, the half-asleep, the half-drunk, acts of sudden anger. The aforesaid deliberation is situated in the consideration of various objects, which are proposed as to be chosen to the liberty of the will, and it can be completed in a very brief time and in a single moment. Whence it happens that in this imperfect voluntary there can be great latitude, such as there can be in imperfect advertence. Yet in this division the imperfect voluntary is taken insofar as the perfect voluntary is excluded, and consequently insofar as there is excluded the perfect use of reason which may suffice for the exercise of liberty, according to the capacity of the object. Suarez, Tr. 2, D. 1, S. 3. 4.

4. By reason of the voluntary itself, or of the inclination of the will, one voluntary is such simply or perfect, another is such secundum quid or imperfect. The first is that which proceeds from the will, by the full inclination of the same will, without any repugnance, as, for example, the leader of an army going on to triumph after victory has been obtained. The second is that which indeed proceeds from the will consenting, but not without some repugnance of the same rational will, so that there is indeed an actual volition, but one mingled with a conditional nolition of the object. Thus a sailor, when the danger of shipwreck presses, actually wills and deliberately wills to throw out the merchandise, which nevertheless, by a deliberate will also, he would wish to preserve, if shipwreck were not threatening; whence not without a deliberate repugnance of the will, but an inefficacious one, he absolutely consents to throw it out. Whence “those things which are done through fear are not voluntary simply, but mixed.” S. Th. 1. 2. q. 142. a. 3. Cf. n. 6 and S. Th. 1. 2. q. 6. a. 6. ad 3., a. 7. ad 2., 3. q. 47. a. 1. — This division of the voluntary into the voluntary such simply and into the voluntary secundum quid, into the perfect and imperfect voluntary, can be taken in various senses, as is already clear from what has been said and will further be clear from what is soon to be said. For that denomination can be taken from various respects of the voluntary.

5. By reason of the free, or by reason of deliberation, one voluntary is absolute and simply, another secundum quid, which is also called velleity. And thus, while a temptation of sin stands in the will, which nevertheless someone deliberately resists, the will, as nature, or secundum quid, wills the sin; but nevertheless the same will, as the will of reason, absolutely and simply detests the sin. Appositely St. Thomas, 3. p. q. 21. a. 4., where at the same time he gives the reason for this division: “The will of man simply is the will of reason. For this we will absolutely, which we will according to deliberate reason. But that which we will according to the motion of sensuality, or even according to the motion of the simple will, which is considered as nature, we do not will simply, but secundum quid, namely if something else does not stand in the way, which is discovered through the deliberation of reason. Whence such a will is rather to be called velleity than absolute will; because, namely, man would will this, if something else did not stand in the way.”

6. By reason of the object toward which the will tends, one voluntary is absolute and simply, another is that which is velleity and secundum quid, namely insofar as it is considered absolutely, as it in fact is, according to all its circumstances, or only insofar as it is in itself, abstraction having been made from the circumstances. To the point, the Angelic Doctor, 1. p. q. 19. a. 6. ad 1: “Everything, according as it is good, is thus willed by God. But something can be, in the first consideration of itself, according as it is considered absolutely, good or evil, which nevertheless, insofar as it is considered with some adjunct, which is the consequent consideration of it, has itself in the opposite way. Thus for a man to live is good and for a man to be killed is evil, according to absolute consideration; but if there is added concerning some man that he is a murderer, or one living to the danger of the multitude, thus it is good for him to be killed and evil for him to live; whence it can be said that a just judge antecedently wills the man to live, but consequently wills the murderer to be hanged. Similarly God antecedently wills every man to be saved, but consequently wills certain men to be damned according to the demand of his justice. Nor however do we will simply that which we will antecedently, but secundum quid: because the will is compared to things according as they are in themselves, and in themselves they are in particular. Whence we will something simply, according as we will it with all the particular circumstances considered, which is to will consequently. Whence it can be said that a just judge simply wills the murderer to be hanged, but secundum quid would will him to live, namely insofar as he is a man. Whence it can rather be called velleity than absolute will. And thus it is clear that whatever God simply wills, comes to be, although that which he antecedently wills does not come to be.” And hence it is clear that the throwing of merchandise into the sea, which was spoken of above in n. 4, by one account is voluntary secundum quid, but by this account must be called voluntary absolutely and simply, namely by looking at the thing as it is done here and now.

7. The voluntary, also by reason of the object and by reason of its perfection, is one kind of voluntary that is absolute, efficacious, perfect, or complete, as it is called by St. Thomas, and another is voluntary which again is called velleity, of simple complacency, or imperfect and incomplete, as it is called by the same Holy Doctor. The first is that which extends itself even to the attainment of the thing, by willing the thing and the means to it. The other is that which does not proceed as far as the attainment of the thing, but rests in simple complacency toward it. Thus the Angelic Doctor assigns the reason of this division, 1. 2. q. 13. a. 5. ad 1: “It must be said that the will is middle between the intellect and exterior operation. For the intellect proposes its object to the will, and the will itself causes exterior operation. Thus therefore the principle of the motion of the will is considered on the part of the intellect, which apprehends something as good in the universal. But the termination or perfection of the act of the will is attended to according to order to operation, through which someone tends to the attainment of the thing: for the motion of the will is from the soul to the thing; and therefore the perfection of the act of the will is attended to according to this, that something is a good for someone to do. But this is possible. And therefore the complete will is only concerning the possible, which is good for the one willing. But the incomplete will is concerning the impossible, which according to some is called velleity: because, namely, someone would will that, if it were possible.” And thus a sick man hoping for health wills health with a complete will: for he has an absolute and efficacious will for health, at the same time willing the means inducing health. A sick man despairing of health, whence he neglects to apply the means necessary for recovering it, wills health with an incomplete will; for he has only simple complacency, or velleity, for health, since at the same time he does not will the means inducing health.

8. Complete and incomplete will, therefore, is not to be taken thus, as if incomplete will were a non-deliberate willing, or not capable of merit and demerit, or as if incomplete will were a half-deliberate willing. For someone can deliberately and with full deliberation will to expel God from his kingdom if he could, and similar things; where it is certain that sin and grave sin are found. But the completion and incompletion of the will must be taken according to the order of the will to operation, namely according to the manner of the motion of the will to the thing. Hence, from the fact that the motion of the will is to the thing, to be attained, disposed, etc., by the mediation of exterior operation, it is not perfect with the perfection apt by nature to be found in the genus of the motion of the will unless it is terminated at an achievable good, although it is perfect as to consent, deliberation, and other things of this kind. And thus a sinner, even a great sinner, who wills to be converted to God and therefore wills to do penance, has a complete will. Cajetan in l. c. And in q. 20. a. 4 the same Angelic Doctor says: “If we speak of the goodness of the exterior act, which it has (the exterior act) according to the matter and the due circumstances, thus it is compared to the will as term and end, and in this way it adds to the goodness or malice of the will, because every inclination or motion is perfected in this, that it obtains the end or reaches the term: whence there is no perfect will, unless it is such that, given the opportunity, it operates. But if possibility is lacking, the will existing perfect, so that it would operate if it could, the defect of perfection, which is from the exterior act, is simply involuntary.” Therefore the will can be called and be complete in two ways. In one way according to that relation by which the thing willed is in the will. In another way according to that relation by which the will tends into the real attainment of the thing willed. According to the first mode, the perfection of the will is signified by this, that there is willing perfectly; but according to the second, by this, that there is having perfectly, or attaining and possessing the thing willed. Whence a will prepared to operate if it could is a perfect will, because it perfectly wills, and this pertains to the perfection of the first relation; and it is imperfect simply, because it does not arrive at this, that it really have, attain, and possess that which it wills and which it is naturally ordered to have. For every motion falling short of the term is imperfect through privation consisting in the attainment of the term. And since the first perfection is of another account than the second, and the whole latitude of the first is compared to the second as imperfect to perfect, the consequence is that however much the interior act of the will may grow, and however intense it may be, by itself it will never arrive at this, that it be perfect simply, without exterior attainment. On account of this the Savior said, John 15:13: Greater charity no one has, than that someone lay down his soul for his friends; he said “lay down,” not “wish to lay down.” Cajetan in l. c.

9. The voluntary, by reason of the very act of the will by which it proceeds from the will, is one kind direct, another indirect. The direct is from the will acting. The indirect is from the will not acting, not prohibiting. And here one must distinguish between omission and the effect of omission. An omission is voluntary, although there is no obligation of positing the act. For if the intellect adverts to that which is omitted, now that omission depends upon the will, so that it be posited or not posited, and thus it is always voluntary. Nor is it required for this, that it be voluntary, that there be a precept of positing the act. He who, intent on study, omits Mass on a weekday, omits it no less freely than on a feast day. Whence an omission is not always culpable; for this other thing depends upon a precept, which certainly can be present, of positing the act, but such a precept is not always had. Indeed there are many voluntary omissions which nevertheless at the same time are not culpable. He who gives himself to prayer or study omits lawful recreation, not through a direct volition of that omission, but from the voluntary choice of prayer or study at that time, and certainly he does not sin, indeed he merits. But the effect accompanying or following an omission is not voluntary apart from an obligation of impeding it, unless perhaps the omission is ordered to this effect. For the aforesaid effect does not proceed physically from the will; for the will, not acting, can exercise no physical influence into it. Nor indeed does it proceed morally from the will; for, since it does not proceed physically from the will, the will in no way influences it, and therefore neither can it be attributed to it morally, except insofar as the will can and ought to impede it. For then that effect is imputed to the will, insofar as the care of impeding the effect is incumbent upon the will. Wherefore, setting aside this obligation of impeding the effect following from the omission, an effect of this kind is not voluntary. Appositely the Angelic Doctor, 1. 2. q. 6. a. 3: “Not always is that which follows upon a defect of action traced back, as to a cause, to the agent from the fact that he does not act, but only then when he can and ought to act. For if the helmsman could not direct the ship, or if the governance of the ship had not been committed to him, the sinking of the ship, which would happen through the absence of the helmsman, would not be imputed to him. Therefore, because the will by willing and acting can impede this which is not willing and not acting, and sometimes ought to do so, this which is not willing and not acting is imputed to it, as existing from it.”

10. “It is confirmed 1.º from the distinction which exists between the omission itself and that effect following or accompanying it, respectively to the will. An omission of itself immediately, no other cause intervening, depends upon the will; for the will can no less immediately not will than will. Whence, in order that non-volition or the omission of willing be voluntary indirectly, it does not need another cause, but only advertence and the suspension of influence in a vital mode, which it provides by eliciting another act incompossible with the act which is omitted; for then the omission proceeds indirectly from an intrinsic principle with cognition of the end. But the effect following or accompanying an omission is not of itself immediately from the will, but by the mediation of another intervening cause; if, for example, while I omit to separate two men fighting, the killing thereafter following is caused neither by my will nor by my omission, but by the sword of the killer; likewise when a sailor omits to govern the ship, neither his will nor his omission sinks the ship, but the storm. Therefore, in order that such an effect be referred back to the will as to a cause, and be called interpretatively voluntary, something must be assigned by which it happens that it pertains in some manner to the will and has some connection with it; and nothing else can be assigned except the precept of impeding that effect. 2.º There are effects following or accompanying a voluntary omission which in no way are voluntary, because of a defect of obligation to impede them: thus God voluntarily omits to impede the sins of men, and nevertheless the sins are not voluntary to him, because he is not bound to impede them.” Billuart, De Act. hum., Diss. 1, a. 1.

11. But it has been said, unless perhaps the omission is ordered by way of means to this effect; for if the aforesaid omission is ordered by the agent himself as a means to this effect, “then it is manifest that such an effect would be directly intended and willed, and consequently positively and directly voluntary: as, if someone, to this end that he suffer cold, for the sake of mortification, omits to approach the fire; the cold is positively voluntary to him, because intended and willed of itself.” Billuart, l. c. But if the aforesaid omission of itself is ordered as a means to this effect, as, for example, if someone omits to eat and drink and then dies from hunger and thirst, then, because of that intimate conjunction between the omission and the effect, the effect with it is judged to constitute one object, and pertains to the same species with its cause. He who wills the antecedent also wills the consequent intimately connected with it, sufficient cognition being supposed. Whence in a voluntary of this kind, a precept can contribute only to this, that that voluntary be base or honorable, but not to this, that it be voluntary, since the voluntary is from the intrinsic, and the precept is extrinsic. Suarez, Tr. 2, D. 1, S. 4.

12. The voluntary, likewise by reason of the very act of the will and by reason of the object which immediately terminates the act of the will, is one thing as voluntary in itself, another as voluntary in the cause. The first is had when someone immediately wills something in itself; but the second when someone wills the cause from which he foresees that some effect will follow; for then he does not will this in itself, but in another, namely in its cause. He is said to foresee, that is, merely to foresee; for if besides he wills it, now that effect will be directly and in itself willed and voluntary, and not only in the cause. Hence, moreover, it follows that that effect will no longer be willed and voluntary as an effect; nor likewise will its cause be willed and voluntary as a cause; but then the effect in respect of the will will have the character of an end, and the cause the character of a means. For that which someone wills for its own sake has the character of an end; that which someone wills for the sake of another has the character of a means. Nor indeed is it valid to object that, if the effect is merely foreseen, and the will is not borne into it by its own act, now that effect is outside the intention, and can in no way be voluntary even in the cause. For because the will, by not willing the cause, can impede the effect, and sometimes ought to do so, the effect is imputed to it; and consequently, since it is not willed in itself, it will be willed in the cause. S. Th. q. 6. a. 3., q. 71. a. 5. And thus the evil things of the deed, committed against the neighbor in drunkenness, are voluntary in the cause for him who has been voluntarily made drunk, foreseeing those evils from previous experience, although he neither willed nor intended those same evils. Cf. the following number and Suarez, Tr. 2, D. 1, S. 4, etc.

13. Many Theologians wholly distinguish the voluntary in itself and the voluntary in the cause from the direct and indirect voluntary. And thus Suarez says: “the voluntary in itself is clear enough; for then something is called voluntary in itself, when it is willed in itself, so that the will is immediately occupied about it, either through a proper act, if it is direct voluntary, or through the lack of an act, if it is indirect voluntary.” D. 1. S. 4. Likewise St. Thomas, q. 77. a. 7: “Two things,” he says, “seem to have to be considered. First indeed, that something can be voluntary, either according to itself, as when the will is borne directly into it; or according to its cause, when the will is borne into the cause, and not into the effect; as is clear in him who is voluntarily made drunk. For from this, that which he commits through drunkenness is imputed to him as quasi-voluntary. Secondly it must be considered that something is called voluntary directly or indirectly. Directly indeed, that into which the will is borne; indirectly, however, that which the will was able to prohibit, but does not prohibit.” — But others call the voluntary in itself and in the cause direct and indirect voluntary, and they express this by another division, namely of the positive and negative voluntary. For the positive voluntary is that which proceeds from a positive voluntary action. The negative voluntary, on the contrary, is that which depends upon the voluntary omission of some action. And thus the positive voluntary is in him who by his command or counsel provokes another to committing theft; the negative voluntary is in him who does not impede a theft when he can and ought to impede it. Cf. Gury-Ballerini n. 5., Suarez, l. c.

14. Further, a comparison having been established between both divisions, of the voluntary in itself and in the cause, and of the direct and indirect voluntary, and insisting on the doctrine of the Angelic Doctor, it must be said that the direct voluntary comprehends under itself both the voluntary in itself and the voluntary in the cause: for the direct voluntary is said by the Angelic Doctor to be “that which proceeds from the will as from an agent,” q. 6. a. 3. ad 1. But both the voluntary in itself and the voluntary in the cause proceed from the will insofar as it is acting and willing. — But the indirect voluntary can be reduced both to the voluntary in itself and to the voluntary in the cause. The indirect voluntary is said by the same Holy Doctor to be “that which is from the will, as from one not acting,” l. c. But both the voluntary in itself and the voluntary in the cause include the will acting and willing. Therefore the indirect voluntary is neither properly voluntary in itself, nor likewise properly voluntary in the cause. Yet it can be reduced to each. For the indirect voluntary is said either only of the interior act of the will, or also of the exterior act. If the first, since not willing is immediately from the will, it can be called voluntary in itself. If the second, since exteriorly not acting is as it were the object exteriorly completing that not willing, as the latter is in some manner voluntary in itself, so also the former; since, as it were, one complete non-act is constituted, for example, not willing to hear Mass and not hearing Mass in fact, from both the lack of the interior and of the exterior act, as one complete act is constituted from the internal and external act, of willing to hear Mass and of hearing Mass. Now, as from the positing of an act, as from a cause, some effect can follow, so upon the omission of an act another act can follow; and although this is not properly the effect of that omission, as that omission is not properly the cause of the following act, since not acting cannot properly be a cause, nevertheless it can be considered as an effect; whence it can be called voluntary in the cause, and thus, for example, the death of those sailing is indirectly voluntary, and, in the sense stated, is voluntary in the cause for the helmsman of the ship ceasing from governing.

15. Concerning a bad effect in particular, the question is raised: what is required so that a bad effect following, voluntary only in the cause or indirectly, be imputable to the will unto fault? — The matter concerns only a bad effect; for if the discussion is about a good effect, if this is outside the intention, it can attribute no morality to the act of the will by reason of itself. The will does not touch it by its act; therefore the goodness of the will cannot arise from it. “For this,” says S. Th. q. 18. a. 7. ad 3, “that the will be good, it is required that it be of the good under the aspect of the good, i.e. that it will the good on account of the good.” On the contrary, if the effect is bad, although the will does not intend it, it can receive its imputation, namely if it is bound to impede it, and consequently to abstain from positing its cause. It is said by reason of itself; for by reason of the cause itself we have already seen how the exterior act adds something of goodness or malice. Cf. n. 7.

16. Further, for the aforesaid imputation three conditions are required. The first is that he who posits or omits the cause advert at least confusedly that such an effect is going to follow from that cause; because nothing is willed unless it is in some manner foreknown. Wherefore, with ignorance of the future effect standing, no one can be held by any obligation of not positing the cause, namely the cause either by doing something or by omitting to act. Therefore the effect will be able in no way to be imputed to him. Hence death is not imputed to him who offered to another a liquid which he did not know to be poisonous. Nor is drunkenness imputed to him who, ignorant of the strength of the wine, drank to satiety. Precognition of the effect can be had in two ways: first, if it is directly foreseen; secondly, if it is in the power of the one acting to forethink and notice it, and from negligence he omits to do this.

17. The second condition is that the agent be able to impede such a cause, i.e. physically, which is clear of itself; there is no obligation to impossible things; and likewise morally, or without a graver inconvenience, according to the nature of the thing. For, with attention to the matter in question, not only physical but also moral impossibility can excuse. Consequently the sins of subjects are often not imputed to a Superior, because it is impossible for the Superior himself to impede them, at least without a graver inconvenience.

18. Finally, the third condition is that the agent ought to omit or remove that cause, by reason of the aforesaid bad effect that is going to follow; because an effect following outside the intention is not imputed to one pursuing his own right. For then the agent in fact does not will the effect, but wills the permission of the effect. Appositely S. Th. q. 6. a. 3: “But it must be known that not always is that which follows upon a defect of action traced back as to a cause into the agent, from the fact that he does not act, but only then when he can and ought to act. For if the helmsman (of the ship) could not direct the ship, or if the governance of the ship had not been committed to him, the sinking of the ship, which would happen through the absence of the helmsman, would not be imputed to him.” And thus also if someone has not kept the ecclesiastical fast, and at night experiences pollution, this pollution perhaps following from the aforesaid intemperance is not imputed to him; for he was not bound to observe the law of fasting by reason of impeding this effect, but from elsewhere, by reason of the precept of the Church. On the contrary, he sins who gives alms to a poor man whom he knows will abuse it to make himself drunk; for although that alms is a cause wholly per accidens of the aforesaid drunkenness, nevertheless one is bound from charity to abstain from giving the alms precisely by reason of the aforesaid bad effect. The reason is that when there is an obligation of not positing the cause by reason of such an effect, although cause and effect are not connected physically and one is not the cause of the other, nevertheless they are connected morally, insofar as, with the obligation standing of impeding the effect as far as possible, its cause, although only per accidens, constitutes with it one moral object, according to the account of disconvenience, and therefore the will of one is judged to be the virtual will of the other. Suarez, Tr. 2, D. 1, S. 4.

19. These things having been set down, another question is easily resolved: when is someone bound to remove or not posit a cause, by reason of the bad effect that is going to follow, which he foresees? It is said, by reason of the bad effect that is going to follow; for the question is not about the obligation of a cause not to be posited or to be removed by reason of itself. For if it is good in itself, it is not to be removed by reason of itself; but if it is evil, whether a bad effect follows or does not follow, it cannot be posited, because it is evil in itself. Thus, for example, someone eating meat then suffers shameful motions; abstracting from this effect, he indeed can eat meat on Sunday, but cannot eat it on Friday, not on account of that effect which happens on Friday, for otherwise he could not eat it even on Sunday, but because on Sunday it is permitted by the Church to eat meat, and on Friday it is prohibited. Wherefore the question in this case is such: whether, namely, on account of that foreseen bad effect, he ought to abstain from meat, both on Friday and on Sunday and on any other day.

20. Now someone is bound to remove a cause, by reason of the bad effect that is going to follow, 1.º when from it per se, or from its intrinsic nature, directly and primarily, and uniquely, a bad effect follows. The reason is that then a cause of this kind must be evil in itself. For a cause according to moral estimation is judged from the effect into which of itself, or from its nature, it directly and primarily tends; since this is nothing but bad, consequently the cause is bad. And then the case is verified that, abstracting from the effect, someone cannot posit the cause by reason of itself; and thus neither can he tend in any manner into the effect, since, the cause being removed, the effect is removed. And thus it is not licit to offer poison to someone, from which nothing but death would follow.

21. Someone is bound 2.º to remove a cause, if, although a good effect follows from it, nevertheless the bad effect follows from it per se, directly and primarily; and only through this as medium, another good effect follows from it per se, namely secondarily and indirectly. The reason is that, notwithstanding that secondary and indirect good effect, the cause remains evil; and evils are not to be done that goods may come. The same must be said if the good effect follows only per accidens, in whatever way it happens. For a cause is specified not by an effect per accidens, but by an effect per se. “The power of a cause is estimated according to effects per se, but not according to effects per accidens.” S. Th. q. 20. a. 5. “For judgment concerning some thing is not given according to that which is per accidens, but only according to that which is per se.” S. Th. ib. c. And thus a girl cannot procure abortion in herself in order to avoid infamy; for the good effect follows from another preceding bad effect, from the killing of the innocent through the procured abortion, which is assumed as a means to that end.

22. Someone is bound 3.º to remove a cause, by reason of the bad effect that is going to follow, when, although the cause is honorable or indifferent in itself, nevertheless one is bound to impede the effect from justice, or from charity, or from a precept which urges as to be fulfilled. Hence a physician and a surgeon, suffering bad motions in the exercise of their own art, do not sin, because they are not bound, by reason of impeding such an effect, to omit the exercise of their own art. But he would sin if someone wished to play for the sake of recreation while the last Mass on Sunday will soon be celebrated, so that consequently he omits it from distraction. Cf. St. Alphonsus, l. 1. n. 152. “For he who is obligated to a law must necessarily be obligated to procure the ordinary means, and those proximately necessary from the very nature of the thing for observing the law..... Ordinary, I say; for human laws do not compel to extraordinary and excessively difficult things.” Ithurriaga, Cas. 32. n. 4. But the reason, as has already been said, is taken from this: that by reason of the precept, that cause and the effect following from it, although physically they are connected only per accidens, and neither is the cause of the other, nevertheless morally they are judged to have the account of one disconvenient object, or of one to be avoided by the will; and therefore the will of one is judged the virtual will of the other. Suarez, Tr. 2, D. 1, S. 4. 5. Therefore homicide would deservedly be imputed to him who, against a law prohibiting it, left heavy vessels upon a window without securing them, or impeding them by some barrier from falling into the public way, if they then were carried away by the wind and killed a man.

23. From this it is understood that for this voluntary, not just any precept of avoiding the cause is sufficient, one which is wholly extrinsic to such an effect, as appears in the example brought forward in him who in the time of Lent is bound to fasting and to abstinence by reason of the precept of the Church, but not lest pollution follow. Rather, there is necessary a precept which induces an intrinsic obligation of avoiding that cause, precisely by reason of such an effect, and consequently which induces a moral mutation in that object, by reason of that moral connection with the effect, that precept standing. Suarez, Tr. 2, D. 1, S. 4.

24. Finally, someone is bound 4.º to remove the aforesaid cause, by reason of the bad effect, when, although that cause is honorable in itself or indifferent, nevertheless from the part of the agent there is no proportionate necessity, utility, or fittingness. The reason 1.º is that natural equity requires this, that we avoid evil as far as can reasonably be done. Wherefore a reasonable cause for permitting a bad effect is necessary, and this can be nothing other than either necessity, or utility, or at least the fittingness of the action, or the good which is in that action, or which comes from that same action. 2.º Because then an honorable end of the one acting is lacking from the part of the agent. 3.º Because then to will a cause of this kind without any proportionate reason shows of itself a bad affection directly toward that evil future effect, or at least there is often the proximate danger of such a bad affection directly toward the aforesaid evil effect. Wherefore a priest does not sin when administering Communion to a hidden sinner publicly asking, because he does this to avoid the public harm which would follow from that public denial of the Eucharist. On the contrary, he would sin administering Communion to a public sinner publicly asking, because now that honorable end is lacking for impeding that immense sacrilege, which would not be without public scandal.

25. On the contrary, someone is not bound to omit or remove a cause by reason of the aforesaid bad effect when, setting aside that special obligation from charity, from justice, from an urgent precept, of impeding the effect, the bad effect follows merely per accidens, or from extrinsic circumstances, or follows only from another preceding good effect. For since the cause must be judged from the effect per se, and from the effect into which it tends directly and primarily, that cause is either good, or at least indifferent, in itself. Wherefore, if an honorable end of the one acting is not lacking from elsewhere, the agent can posit or preserve it. “And although also the goodness of the action is not caused from the goodness of the effect, nevertheless from this the action is called good, that it can induce a good effect; and thus the very proportion of the action to the effect is the reason of its goodness.” S. Th. 1. 2. q. 18. a. 2. ad 3. And thus the leader of an army in war directing fiery balls against a fortress in which there are enemies attacking is not bound to desist from the assault of the fortress from the fact that those enemies therefore blaspheme God. For that assault is a cause wholly per accidens, from extrinsic circumstances, of those blasphemies.

26. Likewise someone is not bound to omit or remove a cause, precisely by reason of the bad effect, if from it there follows at the same time a good effect which the agent intends; at the same time, because namely that cause tends equally directly and primarily, by an almost parallel influence, into a good and bad effect. For then the cause in itself according to moral estimation is indifferent, but honorable insofar as it is subject to the intention of the agent; for the bad effect is not intended, but only permitted. Wherefore the agent can posit that cause, if again one is not bound to impede that effect in the particular case on account of charity, justice, or another special precept to be fulfilled, nor from the part of the one acting is an honorable end lacking. “Nothing prevents,” says the Angelic Doctor, “one act from having two effects, of which one only is in the intention, but the other is outside the intention. But morally acts receive their species according to that which is intended, not from that which is outside the intention, since it is per accidens.” 2. 2. q. 44. a. 7. Therefore it is licit to repel force by force; for equally from this repulsion of force by force inflicted there follows the defense of one’s own life and the destruction of another’s. Cf. S. Th. 2. 2. q. 64. a. 7.

27. Nor indeed is it required that the good intended in the positing of the cause equal the evil which also follows from it. For first, morally speaking, that equalization is impossible, since good and evil are in a diverse genus. Besides, the liceity of such an action does not depend on this equalization, but on the fact that that action is honorable in itself, since, objectively speaking, it is indifferent, but, subjectively speaking, only an honorable end is intended in it. It is confirmed from the fact that, where the matter concerns avoiding the evil of others, we are often not bound to that except from charity, and charity does not oblige with grave inconvenience: the gravity of this inconvenience, from the doctrine of all, is considered per se, namely independently of equalization with the evil to be permitted. Moreover, if that equalization were always required, already it would be a most grave inconvenience if someone always had to abstain from acting in order to avoid the evil which also follows from it; and such an inconvenience would be still graver if it had to be undergone by all. Wherefore, although that equalization between good and evil is not had, if the inconvenience to be undergone is considered in the particular case, nevertheless it is had if it is considered generally with respect to all, and with respect to all cases. Finally, confirmation is added from what Theologians commonly teach. For from the common doctrine, one is not bound, on account of bad effects against chastity, to abstain from horseback riding, from a more comfortable manner of lying in bed, from the moderate taking of drink or hot foods, from leading honorable dances. Cf. St. Alphonsus, l. 3. n. 483. A woman can go to church to hear Mass, although scandal of someone follows from his own malice. Nor indeed is someone bound to give a driver a wage greater than is just, lest he blaspheme. The bad effect in these cases certainly exceeds, and far exceeds, the good effect.

28. Now, since that cause of permitting the bad effect is situated in the good itself which is had or follows from the action whence that bad effect arises, although compensation and equalization are not required between the good and bad effect, nevertheless a proportionate reason is required for positing the cause of the bad effect, as was said in n. 24. Wherefore a reason for acting is required to be greater in proportion as the cause touches the bad effect more proximately and immediately, in proportion as the influence of the aforesaid cause into the bad effect is more necessary, in proportion as its influence into this effect is greater, in proportion as the bad effect is more certain and graver, in proportion as less right to the action considered in itself is had. And this consideration has place especially where the matter concerns avoiding harm to others, whether temporal or spiritual. And if the discussion is about spiritual harm or sin, that must be weighed in particular: whether, namely, the sin arises rather from another’s malice than from our action. — If therefore a cause influences the bad effect remotely and lightly, and from it some good effect also follows, for this reason there is not an obligation of taking away the cause, because a lesser reason is required for positing a cause influencing evil only lightly and remotely than if it influenced gravely and proximately. Hence you are not bound to abstain from honorable and useful conversation with a woman on account of bad motions arising thence. Billuart, De Act. hum., Diss. 1, art. 1.

29. Another question concerning this matter remains to be resolved: whether an effect that has followed, gravely culpable, voluntary in the cause or indirectly, is always imputable unto grave fault, so that someone contracts the grave malice proper to that effect, if someone illicitly posits the cause, without any sufficient reason. — The aforesaid malice cannot be contracted in the case except insofar as someone wills the cause; for the matter concerns the voluntary in the cause, or the indirectly voluntary; the effect, as going to follow, is foreseen only from the cause. But the cause cannot contain in itself the malice proper to the effect except insofar as it influences the effect. If therefore the cause influences the effect merely per accidens, and there is no special obligation of not positing the cause by reason of the bad effect, cf. nn. 18, 19, 22, 23, no malice from the effect can redound into the cause. Therefore although someone posits the cause without sufficient reason, not for that reason does he contract any malice of the effect, although he sins from elsewhere. With respect to such an effect the will has itself merely permissively. The reason is that, since the effect follows only per accidens, there is no connection, so far as is from the nature of the thing, between the cause and the effect. And for this reason he who wills the cause does not also will the effect, but wills only the permission of the effect, if perhaps it follows. But since the malice of the effect in no way redounds into the cause, for the effect does not follow from that cause per se, but merely per accidens, someone willing the cause, every intention of the bad effect being excluded, contracts no malice of this, neither grave nor light, although perhaps from elsewhere he even sins gravely. And thus if someone foresees pollution from excess of drink or food, without willing and intending it, he will sin lightly or perhaps even gravely by reason of that excess, but by no means will he sin by reason of the pollution, since this effect is not willed, but happens outside and against the intention, and the cause is outside the genus of luxury. Nor indeed is someone bound to remove all causes influencing some bad effect only per accidens, by reason only of the bad effect itself; and in no way also is he bound to abstain from positing that cause if, supposing that it is honorable or at least indifferent in itself, there is present a reasonable motive for positing a cause of this kind. Suarez, Tr. 2, D. 1, S. 4.

30. But if the cause per se, that is from its own nature, influences the effect, and influences gravely, grave malice redounds from the effect into the cause. Wherefore someone contracts the grave malice proper to the effect by willing its cause without any sufficient reason. Moreover, at least practically speaking, he who wills a cause per se gravely influencing a bad effect, gravely evil, without any sufficient reason, in fact directly wills the bad effect itself; since on the one hand the cause and effect are inseparably connected with each other, so far as is from the very nature of the thing, and on the other hand, since there is no other honorable reason present for positing the cause on account of another honorable effect, as is supposed, this is certainly a sufficient sign that someone wills the effect itself. He who, for example, knowingly and prudently sets fire to another’s house, whence the whole house is burned, certainly wills the burning of the house, and this is deservedly imputed to him. Yet except the case in which, although the cause per se gravely influences the bad effect, nevertheless in the particular case, on account of peculiar dispositions of the agent or of the patient, that cause is deprived of such an effect, although per accidens.

31. If finally the cause indeed influences the effect per se, but only lightly, only light malice can redound from the effect into the cause. Wherefore he who wills the cause of that bad effect gravely evil, without sufficient reason, can sin only lightly, always excluding the proximate danger of further consent. Moreover, practically speaking, in such a case a sufficient indication of bad affection directly toward the effect itself is not had. For since the cause per se has only a light influence into that effect, gravely bad, a cause of this kind is not of itself sufficient for the positing of the effect, and thus, so far as is from the nature of the thing, they are not inseparably connected with each other. Wherefore, at least practically speaking, it is not because someone wills the cause that he also wills the effect; but he can have himself only permissively with regard to this effect. And indeed there are many who utterly shudder at mortal sin, but do not hate venial sin in such a way that they would not admit it even by a deliberate purpose. These easily consent to a lightly bad cause; but they are in no way borne into a gravely bad effect. — Hence the proper reason must be sought why, although smallness of matter is not given in the venereal matter, nevertheless it is given in those acts of mere sensuality, such as lookings, from a cause of mere curiosity, at things less honorable, with the intention of the venereal thing itself being again excluded, as the most common opinion of theologians holds. For since here the cause influences the effect only lightly, only light malice can redound from the effect into the cause, nor must someone willing the cause necessarily will also the effect.

32. In the last place it must be noted “that the same act can be voluntary in another causally, and nevertheless be involuntary in itself objectively, as if someone by a direct act wholly does not will to kill a man, and nevertheless wills to shoot an arrow, sufficient diligence not being used, lest he kill a man; for then homicide, if it should happen to occur, is in itself involuntary formally by reason of the prior act, and nevertheless it is voluntary in another and virtually by reason of the posterior act. And the reason is that those two acts in themselves are not formally contrary; and otherwise, since the will is free, although it does not will homicide, it can fail to be applied actually to showing the necessary diligence lest homicide follow; and therefore I said that it is involuntary objectively rather than causally.” Suarez, Tr. 2, D. 1, s. 4.

33. You will resolve from all that has been said about the voluntary in the cause: 1.º “If the cause of pollution is gravely influencing it, and the man does not abstain from positing that cause or action, it is clear that the pollution is imputed unto sin, even if it was not intended, provided it was foreseen at least confusedly. But causes of this kind are without doubt all those which per se are grave faults in the genus of luxury, namely touches or looks upon the shameful parts of another’s or one’s own body with base and deliberate pleasure; the sight of human intercourse and lingering thoughts about venereal matters. Therefore all pollutions coming from these causes certainly are mortal sins. Thus S. Th. 2. 2. q. 154. a. 5, and others commonly. And then that base act, which is the cause of pollution, has special malice against nature, as Sanchez says, De Matr. l. 9. D. 45. n. 23, and all consent.” St. Alphonsus, l. 3. n. 482. Special malice, namely of the effect or pollution, which is a sin against nature, besides the proper malice which consists in the pleasure excited from a base object. Cf. Salmant., Theol. Schol., Tr. 13, D. 10, n. 274.

Gravely influencing: wherefore if the cause, whether by reason of itself or by reason of the disposition of the subject, does not gravely influence, grave fault is absent by reason of the pollution perhaps going to follow; since then it follows outside the intention and per accidens. Salmant., Theol. Mor., Tr. 26, C. 7, n. 41.

Per se they are grave faults: “the common and more probable opinion teaches that pollution is not mortal (namely in the cause), unless it comes from a cause per se mortal in the genus of luxury... The reason is that, since pollution is not willed except in the cause, it will be evil in that degree in which the cause itself is evil.” St. Alphonsus, l. 3. n. 484. — In the genus of luxury: whence “it is inferred that pollution is not mortal which happens outside the intention from causes illicit still mortally in another genus than luxury, for example from drunkenness, or from eating, excessively immoderate or on a forbidden day.” St. Alphonsus, l. 3. n. 484.

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

35. 3.º “It is inferred that the pollution which arises from a not long conversation with a girl, or from a light look, or from curious reading venially base, is only venial; because, as was said, since those causes influence lightly, the subsequent pollution proceeds rather from a natural cause than from them.” St. Alphonsus, l. 3. n. 484.; Billuart, Dissert. 1, art. 1. But if someone has a just cause, he sins in nothing, St. Alphonsus, l. 5. n. 29. A just cause is “any reasonable cause of necessity, utility, or fittingness.” St. Alphonsus, l. 3. n. 484., l. 5. n. 29. And “if in some body by reason of infirmity... or of another cause, there is a positive indisposition to venery, although causes are applied to him which otherwise of themselves gravely influence into pollution or carnal pleasure with respect to others..., nevertheless with respect to him... they will not be gravely influencing, but only lightly, or even in no way, or they will be causes only materially of the genus of luxury; wherefore commonly... by reason of their influence into pollution he will not sin mortally.” Salmant., Tr. 16, c. 7, v. 41.

36. 4.º A fortiori, grave fault is absent in those actions which influence remotely and per accidens, since they are outside the genus of luxury. Therefore, although pollution or bad commotion is foreseen as going to follow, it is licit to ride horseback not only for the sake of necessity and utility, but also for the sake of recreation; to lie down in some position for resting more comfortably; moderately to take hot foods or drinks; to lead honorable dances, etc. St. Alphonsus, l. 3. n. 483. Grave fault is absent: for whether light fault is present in the positing of such causes without a just reason, on account of the future effect, is disputed. Holzmann and others deny it, “because, as they say, then pollution arises rather from the infirmity of nature than from that cause, which concurs in pollution only per accidens and remotely. But more probably Sanchez, Lessius, and others affirm it... because to permit pollution without a rational cause always seems something indecent and disordered.” St. Alphonsus, l. 3. n. 484. — Sanchez, De Matr. l. 9. D. 45.; Sporer, De Matr. n. 644 and following; S. Th. 3. p. q. 80. a. 7.; St. Alphonsus, l. 3. n. 484.; Salm., Tr. 26, C. 7, n. 41.; Lessius, De Iust. et Iure, L. 4, C. 3, Dub. 14, nn. 97-102.

37. Since the cause as such participates in the specific malice of the effect, but not in a diverse malice, it suffices to accuse only the malice of the effect in confession; or, if the cause in itself has another special malice, it suffices to state each separately. And thus, if on account of play you omitted Mass, it suffices to accuse this omission; if on account of theft you likewise omitted Mass, then you can accuse separately the theft and the omission of Mass. Cf. St. Alphonsus, l. 5. n. 9.; Lugo, De Poenit., D. 15, n. 479.

38. The last question concerning the same matter remains to be resolved, namely: when is an effect willed in the cause imputed? — If the discussion is about internal sin, this certainly is first committed then, when the will consents to the culpable cause to be posited. But if the matter concerns the external act itself of sin, an effect voluntary in the cause and imputable is imputed, speaking per se, first then, when someone has posited the cause, or from the time when he could and ought to have impeded it, if he noticed it after the cause had been posited. “The reason is that the free volition, or the non-impeding of an evil effect, is formally evil, but not the physical existence of the effect; and thus formal sin is committed when a perverse volition or nolition of this kind is had... Thus therefore he who, for example, offered poison to another... does not sin when the death of the other follows... but when he freely posited the cause of this effect”; Struggl, q. 1, art. 3, n. 32.; and sin is always committed then, whether the effect follows or does not follow, because, for example, the other did not take the poison, the poison did not harm, etc. It is said, speaking per se, for if someone can impede an effect of this kind up to its very execution, and does not impede it, or takes complacency for himself in its futurition or existence, in his mind he continues the sin whose cause he earlier freely and culpably posited. Struggl, l. c. But whether, when the effect from the posited cause in reality follows necessarily, it is imputed, or at least imputability is so increased that someone ought to explain it in confession, some affirm, others deny. St. Alphonsus affirms it, l. 5. n. 10. “An omission,” says the Holy Doctor, “voluntary in the cause is also imputed unto sin, even if afterwards the will cannot operate; for instance if someone makes himself drunk, foreseeing that by reason of drunkenness he will omit Mass, then he is bound to confess the cause and its effect, namely drunkenness and the omission of Mass, as Salm. etc. better say, with others commonly against Vasq. etc., provided the will is not retracted before the effect has followed, as Sanch. etc. probably teach; for then it is probable that he is not bound to confess the effect that followed. From this also it is deduced that if the effect happens after retraction, a censure imposed against sinners is not incurred, because that requires contumacy in the act of sin.” Cf. also l. 4. n. 149 and l. 7. n. 40. But Lugo denies it, who has these things: “It must be supposed in the sin, for example, by which you killed another with poison, that there intervenes first an internal act of the will, by which you willed to give him poison; then an external action, by which you prepared and gave the poison; then the effect that followed, namely his death.... The first and sufficiently common opinion affirms that the external effect must be explained... Father Vasquez, etc., broadly defends the contrary opinion. That opinion has always seemed truer to me... The more common reason... is that the external act, which is denominated free from the actual liberty of the internal act, is truly and properly sin; but the effect afterward following, in sleep for example, is not properly sin... but the effect of sin; but in confession all and only sins must be explained; therefore the external act must be explained when it is actually free, but not the effect afterward following... because there cannot be actual sin in him who actually does not sin, nor can he actually sin who actually does not act: but he who sleeps, while his enemy dies by poison, then does nothing; therefore then he does not sin.” De Poenit., D. 16, nn. 437, 439, 440, 449. But this opinion must be limited, unless the penitent has incurred a censure or a reserved case on account of the effect that followed. Lugo himself has this limitation, indeed he adds: “It can also happen that a censure is incurred by him who already through contrition, or through attrition with the sacrament, has been justified from the past sin”; n. 453. Cf. also n. 460 and Laymann, l. 1, Tr. 2, c. 2, n. 5. But, as Ithurriaga observes very well, Cas. 40, n. 31 and following, Cas. 50, n. 26 and following, there is no reservation where there is no subject of reservation, or sin, since it has already been absolved. For of no being there are no properties. What is not, is not such. But where only a retraction of the will has preceded, the cause retracted by the will is no longer in itself a culpable effect. But reservation or censure cannot be incurred when there is no sin through the act.

Since in the other species of the voluntary no special difficulty occurs, we shall say only:

7. Preliminary Notes. - The indirect voluntary, or voluntary in cause, as has been said, is not intended in itself, but is discerned as about to follow from another thing directly willed, as an effect from a cause. Nevertheless it is a true object of the will, although indirect; for he who wills the cause also wills the effect following from it, if he foresees this effect. Hence the saying: He who is the cause of the cause is the cause of the thing caused. Thus when someone sins before others, the scandal coming from his sin is imputed to him by reason of indirect voluntary.

But cause is distinguished manifoldly, namely:

1. Physical, or moral. The former is that which produces the effect by acting physically, as fire produces burning, the sun light. The latter is that which effectively moves another free cause to acting. Thus one commanding a homicide is a moral cause of the killing.

2. Immediate, or mediate. The former is that which produces an effect with no other cause intervening, for example if someone pierces the breast of another, he will be the immediate cause of his death. The latter, which does not produce the effect unless another cause is interposed. Hence moral cause is always a mediate cause.

3. Proximate, or remote. That is called proximate which has a necessary or ordinary connection with the effect. But remote is that which, although it is able to produce the effect, nevertheless does not have great force, and does not influence it notably; or it is that from which the effect for the most part does not come.

4. Cause per se, or per accidens. The former is that which by its nature tends and is ordered to producing the effect. Thus excessive drink is a cause per se of drunkenness. But the latter is that which, although it is not ordered by its nature to some effect, nevertheless sometimes, some circumstance intervening, can produce it. Thus homicide can follow from drunkenness. For the most part this last division falls back into the preceding one.

8. Principles. - I. Principle. A threefold condition is required so that an effect can be imputed to the agent, or to the one positing the cause, namely:

1. That the agent has foreseen the effect, at least in confusion. The reason is that an effect in no way foreseen can in no way be voluntary; for nothing is willed unless it has been foreknown. Hence drunkenness is not voluntary, nor to be imputed to him who becomes drunk from a little wine, whose force he did not know. Therefore, as some have contended, it is not sufficient for fault that the evil effect could or ought to have been foreseen; for the supposition must be denied, namely, that the effect can be foreseen if in fact it is not foreseen, at least in confusion; for the first idea of some thing is not in the power of man.

2. That the agent could have not posited the cause, or could have removed it once posited; for otherwise, liberty being lacking, the voluntary necessarily is lacking. Moreover an obligation cannot be given when this cannot be fulfilled. Hence the axiom: No one is held to the impossible. Hence also Augustine, On Free Choice, book III, ch. 18: For who sins in that which can in no way be guarded against?

3. That the agent, lest such an effect follow, is held not to posit the cause, or to remove it once posited. For if there is not given an obligation of avoiding the cause, the effect following from it cannot be imputed, because the agent uses his own right, and holds himself only permissively as regards the effect. Hence inordinate motions are not imputed to a physician or surgeon in the exercise of his art as if voluntary; because these are not bound to omit their art for the purpose of guarding against this effect, but on the contrary have a just reason for exercising it, as will be declared more from the following principle. - St. Thomas, I-II, q. 20, art. 5.

9. • II. Principle. It is lawful to posit a good or indifferent cause from which immediately follows a twofold effect, one good and the other evil, if there is present a proportionately grave cause, and the end of the agent is upright, namely, he does not intend the depraved effect. - St. Thomas, II-II, q. 64, art. 7.

The reason of this principle is that if this were not lawful, the agent would sin either from the intention of the depraved effect, or from the positing of the cause, or from the foreseeing of the evil effect. But none of these can be said.

For 1. this is not illicit by reason of the end, since it is supposed upright; 2. nor by reason of the apposition of the cause, since it is supposed good, or at least indifferent, or even if it is evil, nevertheless it is not evil on account of that effect about to follow; 3. nor from foreseeing the depraved effect, for in the hypothesis this is not intended, but merely permitted; and for permitting it there is present a proportionately grave and just cause.

But four conditions which are enunciated in this principle are altogether required, namely: 1. that the end of the agent be upright; 2. that the cause be good, or at least indifferent; 3. that the good effect be immediate; and 4. that there be present a grave reason for positing the cause, and that the agent not be held from justice, or from office, or from charity to omit it.

Therefore 1. a good end is required, that is, the agent ought not to intend the evil effect, because otherwise the evil effect would be voluntary in itself. For this reason neither ought he in any way to take complacency for himself concerning the depraved effect.

2. A good cause is required, or at least an indifferent one, namely, that the act be opposed to no law ¹. The reason is evident. For if the cause were evil in itself, it would introduce guilt per se.

¹ This statement extends more broadly than is proper. And indeed, he who unjustly kills a man posits a cause, on account of which creditors suffer harm, evil, indeed most evil; nor nevertheless is he therefore held to restitution, unless he intended that harm, according to the common opinion of the Doctors. Therefore the guilt to be considered here is not that which inheres in the cause in itself on account of opposition to any law whatever, but that which arises from the obligation of guarding against that effect.

3. It is required that the good effect follow at least equally immediately from the cause. The reason is that if the cause directly and immediately has a depraved effect, and the good effect comes only by means of that depraved effect, then good is sought from evil: but it is never lawful to perpetrate evil, however slight, for procuring any good whatsoever; for according to the very common axiom drawn from the Apostle, Rom. 3:8: Evil things must never be done that good things may come. Thus it is not lawful for you to lie, even to save the life of a man.

4. It is required that there be present a proportionately grave reason for positing the cause; because natural equity obliges us to avoid evils and to guard against harms to our neighbor, when we can do this without proportionately grave harm ².

² Here, however, one must not weigh only the harm or inconvenience of the agent at that time, but also and much more the common inconvenience of all, if this were generally required.

Now in these cases, the greater the reason required for acting, the more nearly the cause touches the evil effect, the more probable the evil effect is, and the less right one has to the action considered in itself.

10. You Will Resolve. - 1. An evil effect which follows per accidens from a voluntary cause is not imputable unto fault, unless there is present an accidental circumstance from which the effect necessarily to be guarded against is foreseen: for example, to sell weapons per se is no evil; although it is evil to sell them to someone mad. The reason of the former part is that the evil effect, if perhaps it follows, unless it is intended, is not properly voluntary, since it is not contained in the cause through a necessary connection, nor is the cause ordered to an effect of this kind. Therefore the one positing the cause does not effectively influence the effect; and therefore the effect is not imputable. - Reuter, no. 15. - The reason of the other part is that you are held both from charity and from justice to avert harm which you can easily foresee from weapons handed over to a madman.

2. Blasphemies, impurities, quarrels, or injustices which are done in drunkenness are voluntary when they can be foreseen; but they are sufficiently foreseen from a custom of perpetrating such things in this state, and therefore they are voluntary in cause, and imputable unto sin.

3. A commander in war does not sin who, in time of siege, burns fields, etc., to ward off the enemy, although innocent inhabitants suffer per accidens. Likewise if he burns a tower in which, together with enemies, perhaps pilgrims foreign to the war are enclosed; because the cause of this harm is upright in itself; but the harm of the innocent follows merely per accidens, and is not intended, but only permitted.

4. A Priest does not sin who offers Communion to a hidden sinner publicly asking for it; because although sacrilege is a great evil, nevertheless the public harm about to follow from such a denial of the Eucharist is more to be avoided.

5. He does not sin who, needing money and not able to have it elsewhere, seeks a loan from a usurer who is going to exact unjust gain; because the petition for money per se is not the cause of the evil will of exacting unjust usuries, but his own depraved mind is to be imputed to the usurer alone.

6. A girl who, pregnant from a crime, procures an abortion to avoid infamy, sins gravely; the reason is that there is not present a sufficient cause for inflicting harm of this kind upon the offspring ³.

³ You will seek the reason better from the things said at Principle II, no. 3, as may also be seen below at no. 403, in Resolution 1.

7. An advocate is not held to omit a just defense from which the death of an unjust aggressor is about to follow. The reason is that the condemnation which the evildoer ought to undergo does not follow from the just defense of the one attacked, but from the malice of the attacker, which was voluntary and free to him ⁴.

⁴ It hardly appears why a question should be moved about this. For if it is lawful to accuse a guilty man, indeed if it is lawful also to desire from a right end the punishment of the guilty, what doubt can arise concerning the case proposed here?

8. If a cause remotely and lightly influences an evil effect, and from it there also follows some good effect, although it would not preponderate or would not be equivalent to the evil, there is no obligation of removing the cause; because a lesser reason is required for positing a cause that influences evil only lightly and remotely than if it influenced gravely and proximately. Hence you are not held to abstain from an honest and useful conversation on account of carnal motions arising from it. So Billuart, diss. 1, art. 1.

9. But if the cause remotely and lightly influencing is in itself venially evil, or if from it no good effect follows, there will be an obligation of removing it, but slight, and only under venial sin, unless there is question of grave harm to one's neighbor. The reason is that this obligation is to be estimated according to the quantity of the influence of the cause. For since the effect is not voluntary except in the cause, and is contained in the cause lightly and remotely, it is lightly voluntary in it, and therefore lightly imputable unto fault, and for this reason there is a slight obligation of removing the cause on account of that effect. Billuart, ibid.

10. The omission of acts about which a man in no way thinks is not even indirectly voluntary, because those acts entirely escape the advertence of the agent. Nevertheless such an omission can be voluntary and imputable in cause, if forgetfulness or inadvertence comes from preceding negligence ⁵.

⁵ The authors of the Vindiciae Alphonsinae (p. 906) present these things as dissonant from the doctrine of St. Alphonsus (Book 4, no. 143), where he establishes that as many sins are committed as there were foreseen omissions, etc.; concerning which doctrine the discussion will return in the Treatise on Sins. He will be a great Apollo, whoever knows how to divine where in these matters there is disagreement. To indicate these Authors, we shall henceforth use the sign VV.

11. He who knowingly posits the cause of an action or omission contracts malice before God in that instant, although the action or omission in reality does not follow; and therefore he is bound to confess it as willed. See Casus, t. 1, no. 7 and following.

On the same principles concerning the indirect voluntary and voluntary in cause, innumerable other resolutions depend, especially where there is question of scandal and of cooperation both toward another's sin and in harm to one's neighbor.

One's own action or omission, the effect of one's own action or omission, and the action or omission of another can be imputed.

I. One's own action or omission is imputed according to all notes which are intended; indeed, according to all notes which are known to be in the object, if there is question of evil, provided the will pursues the object as existing. If it is affected toward an abstract thing, the evil act is infected only by the notes by which the object is constituted as lovable or eligible.

II. Concerning the effect.

1. Notions. An effect, in moral matter, is the further efficiency or resultance of an action complete in itself, or of an omission, which can be a distinct object of the will.

The action is taken as moral. This is not complete without some intention of the will. Wherefore the end which gives the first morality belongs, not to the effect, but to the object. Cf. Noldin, Princ., n. 77.

According as the thing or cause to be examined requires it, the action is taken more or less precisely, so that what for the most part is said to pertain to the action is sometimes reckoned as an effect. Thus the killing of a man will for the most part be called an action; and yet, where it has been necessary in order to repel an unjust aggressor, it is judged by St. Thomas to be an effect per accidens of one's own defense (2, 2, q. 64, art. 6).

An effect per se is intended, or in itself also is voluntary; an effect per accidens does not terminate the will, but is merely permitted: it follows against the will, or at least without its intention, on account of the concurrence of a cause which the will cannot impede. And the effect which follows an omission is passively or negatively permitted; the effect which follows an action is actively or positively permitted. In the latter case, contrary to the former, the will by its own action positively concurs toward the effect.

Finally, in moral matter, contrary to what Kant thinks ¹, who can be called a Jansenist non-Catholic, an effect too remote and a merely possible effect, or one whose foresight is founded on no serious motive, can be neglected. Whether they are imputed or not, if they have been intended, is usually disputed in the treatise on justice.

¹ For example, a servant, at your bidding, denies that you are at home. The one who was seeking you goes away, meets someone on the road, and kills him. This is imputed to you as an effect of your lie! (Metaphysik der Sitten, Ethische Elementarlehre, Von der Luge, Casuistische Fragen, end).

2. Rules of imputation.

1. An effect per se, or intended, is always imputed according to its nature, whether good or evil.

From what was said above it is evident that an evil action is purified by no good effect, so that it is never licit to act evilly on account of a good effect.

2. A good effect is not imputed unless it was foreseen and intended: good is from an integral cause.

3. An evil effect negatively permitted is imputed insofar as there exists an obligation of positively impeding it. This obligation is weighed in the various treatises of moral theology.

4. An evil effect positively permitted and foreseen is imputed insofar as the action must be abstained from lest that effect follow. And so it can happen that it is not imputed, even though the action which it follows is evil. Thus drunkenness is forbidden by the law of temperance, but not lest pollution follow. Therefore merely foreseen pollution is not imputed to him who intoxicates himself.

Moreover, distinct foresight is not required; it is enough that the agent in some way advert that from such a cause such an effect will exist, or can easily come to exist; or at least that in some way he know the obligation to advert to this. This foresight is judged to have been present if, from the nature of the thing, or with attention to one's own experience, such an effect follows for the most part.

But an evil effect foreseen is always imputed to him who can avoid it without omitting the action. For then there is no excuse for the evil effect.

3. Practical formulas. The principle of double effect. But when an action must be abstained from lest an evil effect follow, this must be estimated from the gravity of the evil effect, from the nature of the precept to which it pertains, and from the cause for acting.

1. Hence the rule customarily posited, which we think should be written in these words. An evil effect which is permitted to follow an action is not imputed if the immediate efficiency is diverse, and the permission is excused by a proportionately grave reason.

The efficiency can be the action itself, or another effect of it. It is called immediate, not from an interval of time, but from the mode in which it is produced, which is not through or by means of the evil effect. The proportionately grave reason will have to be estimated thus:

a) Let there be considered the distance by which the evil effect is separated from the causality of the action. The nearer and more necessary the effect has been, the graver excuse will be required.

b) Let there be weighed the obligation of avoiding the evil effect from the principles of justice, if another's damage is foreseen as going to follow my causality; from the principles of charity and piety toward myself, if my own harm, for example of life or members, is feared; from the principles of charity toward the neighbor, if he seems about to sin on the occasion of my action; and of fraternal correction, if his sin will be only material. Where there has been no damage of this sort from which one must beware in acting, there is no obligation except sincerely and prudently to avoid intending the evil effect under a feigned color, or directly causing it.

c) Let the obligation just mentioned be compared with the hoped-for good and with the right of pursuing it: if, these things having been weighed, the cause for acting seems reasonable, it will be licit to act, and the evil effect will not be imputed to the agent.

Concerning the obligation itself of avoiding the evil effect, it will be useful besides to have noted these things. We ought to avoid another's damage in a human way: wherefore what is too remote can be neglected; and without too great a detriment to oneself, so that, in an equal cause, the agent can prefer himself. We ought to provide for our temporal life and safety with moderate diligence and ordinary means, not with exquisite ones. A positive obligation of impeding a material sin does not press us with grave inconvenience. But the due solicitude that the neighbor not sin formally varies according as the neighbor can more easily or more difficultly not sin.

Demonstration. Moreover, the rule handed down is shown true by this brief reason: because in the proposed case, the causality of the will, taken in itself, contains the evil effect neither as intended nor as chosen, and satisfaction has been made to the positive precept of taking care that the evil effect not follow. Therefore no cause remains why that effect should be refunded into the will of the agent.

They are accustomed to render the same thing by this other formula when they say: "It is licit to posit a good or indifferent cause, of which there is a double immediate effect, one good and the other evil, if there is present a proportionately grave reason, and the end of the agent is honest."

We call that formula less happy: a) because it seems to require a simply good or indifferent cause, whereas it is enough that it receive morality from another source than from the order to which the evil effect pertains, so that at least under this respect it is good, although under another it can be evil; b) it compares only effects among themselves, whereas the good can be both the action itself and a further effect of it; c) because it requires an end strictly honest, which is too much. The killing of innocents will not be imputed to the leader who, from hatred, orders a hostile fortress to be overturned.

No action effects another's formal sin. But observe that the free action of another, or, in the case, formal sin, can never be the effect of one's own action. But one's own action, if it is scandalous, immediately brings on a temptation, to which another freely yields or resists.

Lemmas. 1. God does nothing per accidens, since all things are in His power. Nevertheless He can permit moral evil, because He is the universal provider according to the supreme reason of the relation of things to Himself; and the very permission of evil can yield to His glory, that is, that He may obtain free praise from him who "could transgress and has not transgressed" (Eccli. 31, 10).

2. Take care not to transfer the rule called "of double effect" to the diverse case of an action which can be either this or that: for example, what I see is perhaps a man, perhaps a beast. The voluntary discharge of a gun, directed at that thing, will perhaps be homicide, perhaps useful hunting. Here there is no question of a partial causality by which the evil effect is merely permitted, but by a full causality one or the other is done disjunctively. Therefore homicide is hypothetically accepted and chosen. Wherefore it is not licit to do against a probable man what can never be done against a certain man. Or more universally: "As often as you doubt whether what you will is perhaps something else, each in evil or harmful matters must be said to be willed by you." D'Annibale, I, 155.

Therefore let us very carefully distinguish what is probably licit against a certain man, and what is licit against a probable man.

When he sins who wrongly permits an effect.

When the effect is wrongly permitted, guilt is then contracted when the agent posits its cause, and afterward his guilt of itself is neither increased nor diminished, whether the effect follows or not. Thus he who indulged in play, foreseeing the omission of the precept of Mass, becomes no less guilty because perhaps there arrived a priest who celebrated later. Nevertheless, the player will be bound to hear that Mass, lest he sin twice by omission of Mass: one omission voluntary in another, or indirectly; the other in itself, or directly. It also happens that, because the effect did not follow, the sin is not damaging, or the case is not reserved. Think of the censure laid against those procuring abortion... the effect having followed. (Can. 2350 § 1.)

III. Imputation of another's action. Although the free action or omission of another can never be the effect of one's own action, nevertheless in a certain way it is imputed to us on account of cooperation, on account of the imitation of a good example or scandal, and on account of fraternal correction made or omitted.

But again, another's action, as good, will not be imputed except to him who wished to obtain it, or at least confusedly wished to favor it.

But as evil, it is enough that it have fallen under the foresight of the agent. Yet by the same reason by which we have shown that the active permission of an evil effect can be excused, or by a stronger reason, it is effected that, on account of just causes, both cooperation toward another's evil action, and scandal, and omitted fraternal correction, can be excused.

For cooperation means only a secondary work by which the principal free cause is helped, whereas in the active permission of an evil effect, the action of the one permitting is often joined to causes that are not free, so that it can in some way be called a principal cause. Thus, in the classic example of innocents who by chance are found in the place of an explosion.

The author of scandal, as such, merely offers an occasion for evil: he exercises no true efficiency in the evil.

He who omits fraternal correction merely does not impede the evil.

Yet in itself a greater evil, that is, formal sin, arises on the occasion of scandal or of omitted fraternal correction: but the sin is the neighbor's, not that of him whose action we are estimating.

But what cooperation, what account of scandal, and what omission of fraternal correction are excused remains to be examined in their proper places.

Preliminary note. The doctrine concerning the indirect voluntary or voluntary in the cause is of the greatest moment for practice and is, as it were, a key by which many and difficult cases must be solved, for example, concerning cooperation, scandal, the causing of damage, etc. But since these things come chiefly into use in evil effects which are indirectly voluntary, now for the sake of brevity we treat only of the evil indirectly voluntary. For if the indirectly voluntary is something good, then either a) it is joined with another good effect, and thus each effect remains good and the goodness of the whole is increased, or b) it is joined with another (principal) evil effect, and thus the whole, notwithstanding the secondary good effect, becomes evil according to the adage: Good is from an integral cause, evil from any defect whatsoever. - Human actions, although they are singular, often have several effects; for they are after the manner of the motion of some wheel in an artful machine. If one wheel is moved, the others also receive an influx. Thus, for example, a father of a family laboring diligently procures for himself wages, honor among his fellow-citizens, love with his wife, internal peace, etc.; conversely, a father of a family getting drunk causes for himself material losses, quarrels in the family, scandal for his children, etc. Hence it is clearer than light how great is the moment of the doctrine concerning the morality of several effects following from one cause.

57. Principle. It is permitted to posit an action good or indifferent in itself, of which there is a twofold or multiple effect, namely, one or another good effect and one or another evil effect, if:

1. the good effect is immediate;

2. the end of the agent is honest;

3. there is a proportionately grave cause.⁴⁴

The same principle can also be enunciated in this way:

Four conditions are required in order that the evil indirect voluntary be licit: 1. an action good in itself or at least indifferent; 2. the immediate effect good; 3. an honest end; 4. a proportionately grave cause.⁴⁵

It is explained: 1. Before all else it is required that the action posited be good in itself or at least indifferent. Wherefore it is never permitted to perform actions evil in themselves, such as, for example, to lie, to blaspheme, to fornicate, etc., although the best effect is hoped for from them. The reason is that evils are not to be done that goods may come. - But for judging theoretically whether an action is good or indifferent in itself, one must first look to the end of the work or the moral object to which the action from its own nature and immediately is ordered. For acts, as the scholastics teach, are specified from the moral object. But I say moral object and not physical, because one and the same physical act perpetrated by diverse persons can have a diverse moral object, but not a diverse physical object. Thus, for example, to kill a man is an act whose physical object is the violent destruction of human life; this object indeed does not morally specify the human act, but can be either morally good, if, for example, the killing was done by a soldier in a just war, or morally evil, if, for example, a man is killed in an unjust manner. - For judging in practice whether some action is good or indifferent in itself, it helps to inspect whether the agent, absolutely speaking, has the right of positing this action and does not injure the right of another. Thus, for example, an innkeeper has the right of serving wine; an owner has the right of renting his house; and therefore these actions are good, although accidentally they are joined with the evil effect of drunkenness or prostitution.

⁴⁴ Cf. St. Thomas, S. theol. II-II, q. 64, a. 7.

⁴⁵ Cf. Marc-Raus, Inst. mor. I, n. 315; Noldin, De principiis n. 83.

58. 2. Then it is required that the good effect be immediate, that is, that the evil effect not precede it, but follow it. This is plain from the text of St. Paul: "Let us not do evil things, that good things may come."⁴⁶ For this reason it is not permitted to steal money from a very rich man in order to give alms to a poor man; it is not permitted to kill an infant in the mother's womb in order to save the mother's life; a girl pregnant from a crime cannot licitly procure an abortion in order to save her honor. Besides, this condition seems almost to coincide with the first. For if the first effect is morally evil, the action itself also, which produces this effect, is morally evil in itself. For an action is specified from the object or end of the work, as will be proved below. But the end of the work is that which the work first produces, or is the first effect of the action.

But if many authors teach that it suffices that the good effect be equally immediate as the evil effect, this seems to be impossible, at least in practice, because the immediate effect is the end of the work. But the end of the work is one and not twofold, just as the essential form of any one thing is one and not twofold. Nor is any example brought forward by those authors in which truly the good and evil effect are equally immediate. On the contrary, the good effect always precedes or is preceded. Hence the Angelic Doctor forcefully proclaims: "The same act in number, insofar as it once goes forth from the agent, is not ordered except to one proximate end, from which it has its species."⁴⁷ Since these things are so, it seems better to me to express the second condition in this way, if it is to be expressed: it is required that the good effect follow per se and as if necessarily, but the evil effect only per accidens from such an action, namely, because of particular circumstances which occur to the agent against his will. Thus, for example, an innkeeper can for a grave reason sell wine to him who is now about to become drunk. Why? Because the effect which follows per se and necessarily from the sale of wine is licit commerce and honest profit; but that in these circumstances, which do not depend on the innkeeper, some evil follows, namely, the drunkenness of the drinker, this is altogether per accidens, nor is it necessarily joined with the sale of wine, although here and now that evil effect is infallibly produced.

⁴⁶ Rom. 3:8.

⁴⁷ S. theol. I-II, q. 1, a. 3 ad 3.

59. 3. Moreover it is required that the end of the agent be honest. For although a good end does not render evil means honest, nevertheless an evil end defiles all things, whatever means have at last been employed.⁴⁸ Therefore the agent is bound to intend only a good end; but he can bear himself permissively toward the evil effect foreseen. For example, a confessor hearing most shameful sins in the confessional feels grave temptations and dishonest carnal movements. Nevertheless he licitly hears confessions of this kind, provided, however, that he intends a good end, namely, the salvation of the soul, the honor of God, etc., and bears himself only permissively toward those evil effects, which he not only does not seek, but detests. On the contrary, it is not licit to dig a pit on one's own land with the (inordinate) intention that an enemy may fall into it and be gravely injured. For although to dig a pit on one's own land is a good or indifferent action, nevertheless the intended end is dishonest.

⁴⁸ Cf. below n. 121 sqq.

60. 4. Lastly it is required that there be a proportionately grave cause for acting and permitting the evil effect. For the evil effect, although it is joined with the work of the agent beside the intention, always remains a material sin; indeed not rarely it induces grave danger of formal sin. Further, it is not licit to effect material sins, and especially it is not licit to expose oneself to the danger of formal sin, without a proportionately grave cause. I say proportionately grave; for the greater the malice of the effect is, the greater the excusing cause required. But what cause in a particular case is truly proportionately grave must not be weighed from one point. One must consider the circumstances. First, it must be seen whether from the omission of the action which produces two effects, one good and the other evil, some notable harm would truly follow. If not, the action must be omitted; for example, a bookseller who does not offer some dangerous book in his shop indeed loses a small profit, but he does not suffer notable harm. In this case the merchant must desist from such a sale. - On the contrary, if great harm would follow from the omission of the action, it is permitted to complete the action; for example, a confessor experiences vehement temptations; nevertheless he is not bound to desist from hearing confessions, because otherwise great harm would arise for him. - Then it must be seen whether the cause produces the evil effect proximately or only remotely. In causes proximately influencing, a greater motive is required than in those acting remotely. Thus, for example, a very urgent cause is required so that a maidservant may be able to exercise service in some house in which she is often allured to sin by the son of the family; but a much lesser motive would suffice if not the son of the family, but some stranger not so frequently coming into this house, were soliciting her to sin. Generally it can be said: A greater excusing cause is required in proportion as

1. the evil indirectly willed is more grave;

2. the action influences this evil more nearly;

3. the evil truly follows more certainly;

4. the obligation from office of impeding this following evil is greater.

61. Resolves: 1. Soldiers who in a just war attack a city licitly discharge war-cannons, even if from this innocent private persons perish. The reason is that the action, namely, the discharge, is just; the end of the agent is good, namely, the punishment of the enemy; and finally there is a proportionately grave cause.

2. A priest who from confession alone knows that some man is in the state of mortal sin licitly gives communion to him asking for it. The reason is that to give communion is a good action; the end of the priest is good, just as there is also a proportionately grave cause, namely, the preservation of the sacramental seal.

3. A physician who, in treating a sick woman, suffers grave temptations and carnal movements, can licitly continue the care, if a proportionate cause exists. The reason is that the curative action is honest, the end is honest, and a proportionate cause is present. Likewise a physician can, from a proportionate cause, administer medicine necessary for obtaining the health of a pregnant woman, although he foresees that an abortion will follow per accidens. The reasons are the same. But it is never permitted directly to procure an abortion, since this is the direct killing of an innocent man and therefore an intrinsically evil action.

4. A witness cannot perjure himself in order to save the life of the accused. The reason is that to perjure oneself is an intrinsically evil action.

5. A wife cannot render the conjugal debt to an onanist husband unless there is a grave cause. The reason is that although to render the conjugal debt is a good act and the wife's end is right, nevertheless without grave cause it is not permitted to cooperate materially so proximately with the sin of another.

62. Scholion. Several authors, speaking of an evil effect indirectly voluntary, add other conditions, namely, that the agent then only is bound to avoid the evil effect, or that then only the evil effect is imputed to him, if a) he foresaw (at least confusedly) the evil effect; b) if he was able not to posit the cause; c) if he was obliged not to posit the cause. But the first and second condition are verified not only in the indirect voluntary, but in any act whatever done by man. For an effect which he did not foresee, or whose cause he was not able to avoid, is never imputed to the agent. The reason is that in each case the free voluntary is lacking. But the third condition is precisely the point of the question. For our investigation turns on this alone: when a man is bound not to posit a cause from which a twofold effect follows, one good, the other evil. Since these things are so, those three conditions are better omitted in the explanation of the indirect voluntary.

VIII. Lust voluntary in its cause, from which it is foreseen to follow, is sin to the extent that the cause, insofar as it influences it, is sin. Hence it is a sin grave by its genus, which admits lightness of matter.

It is proved: in venereal pleasure willed in the cause, the consent of the will is borne only toward the cause which provokes the pleasure; therefore it is evil only to the extent that the cause itself is evil. Hence the malice is to be determined from the influence on venereal pleasure; and besides this it must be seen whether perhaps there is a just and proportionate reason for placing the cause on account of a good effect and permitting the evil effect.

Now there are actions which cause a base motion per se, others per accidens, according as they are apt to cause it, or on the contrary are not apt to cause it although nevertheless they can cause it. Actions which by their nature are apt to excite venereal pleasure, and thus are ordered to generation, cause it per se, for example a base look, touch, or imagination. Moreover, of these actions some influence that effect proximately and notably, namely those from which the base effect always or almost always follows, for example a repeated touch on the obscene parts of another person;²³ others influence the base motion only remotely and lightly, from which therefore the evil effect rarely arises, for example a touch made in passing on the immodest parts of one's own body.²⁴ Their influence must also be considered relatively, because by its nature it depends somewhat on the varying inclination and disposition of the subject, as in childhood, youth, or old age, in affection or habit of mind, in a warm or cold bodily constitution; hence certain causes are more vehement with respect to one such person, which are light with respect to another, for example a continued look at a naked person of the same sex, or a continued touch of one's own body.

²³ Actions gravely exciting, according to Lehmkuhl, Theologia Moralis, I, n. 864, are: "a more vivid practical thought concerning venereal matters; touch exercised on the obscene parts of another person, unless perhaps it is done entirely in passing in a person of the same sex without depraved affection; a voluntarily continued look at a completely naked person of the other sex; indeed also the look of a man at the naked chest of a woman, or the look at an obscene picture, at least if it is continued after commotion has already arisen."

²⁴ Actions lightly exciting, according to Lehmkuhl, ibidem, are: "touch or look on the immodest parts of one's own body made in passing; a non-immodest and light touch of a woman made in passing; taking her hand; a light kiss from an honorable cause; vain conversation with a woman; a non-fixed look at the chest; a fortiori other lighter looks."

Actions which of themselves pertain in no way to generation and are outside the genus of immodesty cause a base motion per accidens, for example to eat or drink immoderately, to use a bath, to ride, to sit or lie in a certain position, to exercise sight or touch on honorable parts on account of merely sensible pleasure. Indeed there are persons who, from actions which in no way relate to the venereal matter, are vehemently excited by a hidden force. Among causes per accidens are counted those actions which remotely and lightly influence the base effect, even if sometimes they influence it gravely, because this proceeds not from their nature but from the intervention of another cause, for example from the subject's infirmity, custom, obsession, weakness, heredity, and so forth.²⁵

²⁵ From the preceding things those opinions can be reconciled which at first sight seem opposed, while some deny that the influence of the cause is to be determined from the disposition of the agent, while others on the contrary affirm it, or assert that it depends principally on the nature of the cause, secondarily on the disposition of the agent. Noldin says, for example, cited work, n. 35: "He who, on account of peculiar disposition and infirmity, suffers frequent pollutions from actions licit in themselves, which by their nature influence them only lightly, is not bound to abstain from those actions, provided consent to the pleasure is excluded: for in placing them he uses his own right." Namely, this is valid concerning causes per accidens, not concerning causes per se. On the contrary, Genicot, Theologia Moralis, I, n. 377: "For determining which causes influence gravely and which lightly, attention must principally be paid to the nature of the cause; secondarily to the disposition of the agent. Whether a cause by its nature influences gravely or lightly often appears easily enough to each one. But in many cases the matter is not so clear: in these especially one must attend to the condition from the disposition of the agent. For the influence of the same causes is very much diminished or increased according to age, constitution, force of imagination, education, degree of virtue, custom of hearing, seeing, handling base things, and so forth." Indeed Aertnijs, Theologia Moralis, I, n. 260, conformably to the doctrine of Saint Alphonsus: "He who, from inclination toward venereal things, has experienced frequent pollution from causes not indeed gravely immodest by their nature, nor on the other hand altogether light, but which in him more vehemently arouse pollution, is bound, when no reason is given for placing them, to abstain from them, and indeed under grave obligation: because with respect to such a person, on account of his inclination, causes of this sort excite not lightly but gravely." Namely, these things are valid concerning causes per se, not concerning causes per accidens.

With these things posited we say:

a. It is a mortal sin without sufficient reason to place a cause which per se proximately or gravely influences carnal motions or venereal pleasure, even if these by accident do not follow; for example very obscene reading, or a prolonged touch or look at an immodest part. One case is excepted: when someone from his own experience knows certainly that he is not gravely moved by an action of this sort.

Practically, however, for mortal sin two things are often required: first, that the cause influence grave motions, that is, vehement ones, or those sufficiently proximately disposing to pollution, or causing great pleasure; for since light and transitory motions are most frequent, to avoid the causes of all of these would be very troublesome, indeed morally impossible, and therefore not to be urged under grave obligation, because often there is present a reason excusing in some measure, not from the whole, namely, but from so much; secondly, moreover, that the cause influence those grave motions proximately or gravely. Therefore Saint Alphonsus rightly notes²⁶ that even pollution itself is not mortal unless it proceeds from a cause per se mortal in the genus of lust or immodesty. It must be mortal, because since pollution is not willed in itself but only in the cause, it will be evil to that degree to which the cause itself is evil, that is, to which the cause is evil insofar as it is a cause or insofar as it influences; but every and only a cause which of itself gravely influences motions prohibited under grave obligation, unless there is present a reason excusing from a good effect which compensates the evil, is mortal insofar as it is a cause. It must be in the genus of lust, because otherwise it would influence pollution not gravely but only lightly, for example drunkenness or immoderate eating of meat.

²⁶ Theologia Moralis, book III, treatise IV, n. 484.

b. It is a venial sin without a just cause to place an action influencing lightly or remotely or per accidens into even vehement motions and complete venereal pleasure, provided those things do not please and no proximate danger of consent is present. For a light influence on a grave thing is a light thing.²⁷ Such things are a conversation not prolonged with a girl, a look, a touch, reading that is not very base. A sufficient reason is any reasonable cause of necessity, utility, or fittingness.

²⁷ And so an act which would influence only lightly into grave commotion, indeed into pollution, would for this reason be only venially evil. And in this there is a great difference from lust voluntary in itself: for direct intention toward venereal pleasure, even a small one, manifests a disposition of soul very different from that which is found in him who does not seek, indeed does not will, that pleasure. The first per se incurs proximate danger of consenting to further pleasure on account of his own propensity; not so necessarily the other.

c. It is no sin to place from a just cause an action from which inordinate motions are foreseen to follow, even pollution, provided the proximate danger of consent is always absent. A just cause is, for a priest, to hear confessions and to study base matters; for a surgeon, to look at and touch immodest parts; likewise for one serving the infirm or in baths; for all, to kiss women according to the custom of the country, to touch oneself from necessity, to ride for the sake of recreation or utility, to perform gymnastic exercises, to lie down in a more comfortable position, while sitting to put leg over leg according to custom, and to take warm foods and drinks moderately.²⁸

²⁸ You will find the whole doctrine concerning lust voluntary in its cause expounded in Billuart, diss. 6, a. 12. P. Vermeersch proposes the matter otherwise and speaks of disguised lust, cited work, n. 374 and 388, in place of lust voluntary in its cause. Yet our mode seems clearer and more open, more conformable to principles and older. Moreover, although at first sight the distinguished theologian may seem to dissent, nevertheless in fact he teaches the same. "For observe," he says, "that the sin of imperfect lust is committed directly, not only when it is sought by express intention, but also when, without another immediate cause, acts are exercised which directly excite the flesh: for then you are judged to effect the venereal motion" (n. 374). Behold the principle; if now you want an example: "Kisses too frequently repeated, especially on the mouth or lips, too prolonged embraces, because they gravely move the flesh and have no cause among unmarried persons, are argued to be grave unless the carnal motion is positively repressed and, if pollution more strongly threatens, one ceases from these" (n. 401). Genicot-Salsmans has the right doctrine concerning lust voluntary in its cause as regards pollution voluntary in this way (Theologia Moralis, I, n. 401), but not as regards venereal motions, which are not proved to be grave, since in them, he says, there is no evident affection toward complete pleasure (n. 403). But this reason is null, for he who seeks incomplete pleasure by that very fact implicitly seeks complete pleasure, and he who wills the cause of pleasure implicitly wills the effect. Moreover this doctrine is new and is not found in the first editions made under the care of P. Genicot himself; it is not founded in tradition: the traditional doctrine holds that to place a cause per se gravely influencing grave motions is of itself a grave sin; nor is it sustained according to principles: for if something is in itself gravely evil, as venereal motions outside marriage are, it is also gravely evil perfectly to cause it, in the case at hand to place a cause per se gravely influencing such motions. Others state more practically: if the motions are grave and excited without just cause, there is great danger, and the sin is grave; on the contrary, if the motions are light, the danger is small and the sin light. But this is said according to presumptions, according to that which often or ordinarily occurs. For if the motions are grave, danger is not always and for all persons grave, nor is it grave to place a cause lightly influencing such motions. On the contrary, if the motions are only light, nevertheless sometimes grave danger can be present. And so it must be said in principle: to place a cause per se gravely influencing venereal motions is of itself a grave sin; to place a cause influencing lightly or per accidens is of itself a light sin.

S. Th. I-II, q. 77, a. 7; q. 20, a. 5; II-II, q. 43, a. 3; q. 46, a. 2, ad 2; q. 64, a. 7 and 8; q. 79, a. 3, ad 3; q. 150, a. 4.

62. Notions. - By reason of the mode in which the will is borne toward it, the positive and direct voluntary is either:

1. Voluntary in itself, when the will is directly borne toward it, that is, immediately wills something in itself and at the same time causes it by acting, whether as an end (on account of itself), for example when someone wills to kill an enemy, or as a means to an end (on account of another), for example when a thief wills to kill a traveler in order to take money; or

2. Voluntary in cause only, when the will is immediately borne toward the cause and not toward the effect, that is, it does not will the effect in itself as end or means, but nevertheless that effect proceeds from the will insofar as the will wills and does something else with which it is joined as with a cause, for example when someone wills to become drunk, foreseeing that in drunkenness he will commit blasphemies, impurities, homicide. The cause can be physical or moral, immediate or mediate, proximate or remote, a cause per se which is apt to produce the effect although by accident the effect can fail (thus excessive drinking produces drunkenness), or a cause per accidens which not from its nature but by the intervention of another can sometimes produce it (thus drunkenness, when a quarrel intervenes, produces homicide).

1. Hence it exists only in rational creatures, because it supposes it to be known how one thing follows from another.

The more commonly received prefer to say direct and indirect voluntary; but they would speak better if they said immediate and mediate: for that which proceeds from the will through a positive cause nevertheless proceeds directly from it.

2. Therefore the voluntary in cause, which many more recent authors call indirect, is called direct by St. Thomas, because it is from the will as acting. I-II, q. 77, a. 7.

63. Principles. In order that an effect be voluntary in cause, it is required:

1. That the effect was foreseen in some way, at least confusedly, as was said in no. 60, II: for nothing is willed unless it is foreknown;

2. That it could have been avoided, and therefore that the cause was freely placed or could have not been placed: for the effect is not more voluntary than its cause;

3. That there be a nexus of causality between this freely placed cause and this effect. This:

a) is always verified of a cause per se if the two prior conditions are present: for he who wills the cause is judged to will the effect which naturally and necessarily follows from it;

b) is also verified of a cause per accidens, provided that, besides, there is a third condition: that the effect ought to have been avoided, or that there was an obligation not to place the cause, and indeed not to place it lest the effect follow. For since the effect is not sufficiently contained in such a cause (except by means of another cause), and therefore there is no physical nexus with the effect, if the said obligation is lacking, every nexus of causality, even moral, between cause and effect is lacking, and therefore the effect will not be willed nor voluntary in cause, but only permitted. On the contrary, if someone is bound not to place the cause lest the effect follow, and nevertheless places it, he is morally judged, and imputably is, the cause of this effect.

But if the aforesaid conditions are present, the axiom is verified: An evil effect foreseen in the cause communicates its malice to the cause, namely, if it itself can and ought to be avoided. For an effect voluntary only in the cause is not imputed for praise, because it is not intended; but for it to be imputed for fault, it is required that there be an obligation of avoiding the cause lest the effect follow; otherwise no precept regarding the effect would be violated.

64. Corollaries.

From the aforesaid things it follows:

1. That an effect voluntary in the cause can be in itself non-voluntary, if it is not intended, indeed involuntary in itself, if it displeases, as if someone places the cause of killing (for example, to shoot an arrow with some foresight of killing) and the killing is not intended or displeases him, for example, if he does not will to kill but wills to shoot the arrow without employing sufficient diligence lest he kill a man.

2. On the contrary, that an effect can be willed in itself, if it pleases, is desired, or even intended, and not voluntary, if it follows from a cause per accidens and the obligation of avoiding it is lacking because, for example, a greater good effect which follows from the cause is also intended. For then the evil effect willed in itself is not voluntary, but only permitted in the cause (cf. n. 173).

Thus if someone digs a pit on his own land, remote from the road, foreseeing and desiring that his enemy could fall into it; if this happens, the fall is not voluntary to him, because he was only its cause per accidens.

3. That an effect, for example the sin of a neighbor, of which we in no way place the cause per se but only a mere occasion or condition or cause per accidens, is not voluntary in the cause nor imputable, even if it is willed and intended in itself, unless nevertheless there is an obligation of avoiding the effect: for our intention does not change an occasion into a cause, nor a cause per accidens into a cause per se.

Thus if someone takes from a miser a thing of slight value, foreseeing or even intending that from grief he may become ill or die, and this happens, the illness and death are not voluntary, because he was their mere occasion or cause per accidens, in no way their cause per se.

St. Thomas, I-II, q. 71, a. 6; q. 74, a. 2; De Malo, q. 2, a. 2 and 3.

422. What the external sin of commission is. - Sin of commission properly so called is not only the interior will of evil, but also an evil external work commanded by the will or not impeded, for example, homicide, theft, an external movement of anger: for the external act, although it does not have the notion of fault except from the will, nevertheless of itself has the notion of evil because it has deformity or discordance with right reason and the law of God, on account of undue matter or undue circumstances. Whence it also is prohibited by God: but everything which is prohibited by God is sin (and therefore to be declared in confession).

External sin is begun interiorly in affection when its cause is voluntarily placed, and is consummated exteriorly in effect when the external act is really present, in the same mode as was said concerning omission.

423. External sin can be voluntary in the cause or only indirectly. - For sin is an evil human act; whence, just as for a human act, so that an evil external work may be sin, it is required, but also suffices, that it be voluntary in some way. Therefore it is not required that it be voluntary in itself, but it suffices that it be voluntary in a positive cause (for example, anger from drunkenness), or indirectly in a preceding omission insofar as the will ought to prohibit it and does not do so (for example, damage from the fact that a father does not prohibit his son from stealing).

424. Question: Is actual advertence to malice required for sin? - The response is that from the aforesaid the question is easily solved: for sin some voluntary thing suffices, whether in the cause or indirect from omission; but for such a voluntary thing advertence at the moment at which such a cause or omission is placed suffices. Hence:

a) Actual advertence to malice is not always required here and now, that is, at the moment at which the external sin is consummated or the external act is effectively placed: for this is not required so that it may be voluntary, since evil effects or acts are rightly imputed to man which are placed with culpable inadvertence and proceed from a voluntary cause from which they are foreseen as going to follow, as from culpable ignorance on account of negligence (for example, damage to a sick person from a physician negligent in learning the things which he is bound to know), from a passion which someone deliberately wills to follow (for example, homicide from drunkenness or anger), from an evil habit (for example, blasphemy from custom), from voluntary inconsideration, as by acting precipitously (for example, a hunter negligent in considering whether a man or beast is present, and killing a man).

b) Nevertheless that inadvertence and the act placed with it will not be voluntary and culpable, unless at the moment at which the cause was placed there was actual advertence by which in some way the effect or evil act was foreseen at least confusedly, obscurely, and indistinctly, insofar as someone at least doubted or suspected that evil would follow, or knew the obligation of attending to it or of applying greater caution; otherwise they would in no way be voluntary. At this moment sin is begun interiorly and committed as to affection and fault.

From the explanation given, the opposed opinions of theologians are easily reconciled, of whom some always require actual advertence, while others, on the contrary, affirm that sometimes virtual and interpretative advertence suffices (n. 60, II and 63).

S. Th. II-II, q. 150, a. 4.

991. On sins committed in drunkenness. - On the occasion of drunkenness various sins and evils are committed by the drunkard himself. These sins and evils which can follow from drunkenness are imputable:

1. Insofar as they were foreseen, even if accidentally they do not follow. Hence a) they are imputed in their proper species and objective gravity if they are distinctly foreseen, either in their proper species, or only in genus and confusedly in species, because thus the agent really wills the evil of that species and gravity to whose danger he exposes himself. Hence drunkenness which of itself would be venial becomes grave if grave evils to follow from it are foreseen, for example, grave scandal, harm to health, lust, grave sadness to wife, children, parents, etc.; b) if they are foreseen confusedly under the general account of evil, they are imputed only in a general way in the sin of drunkenness, which for this reason becomes graver because on account of it someone is prepared to commit many other sins and evils; c) they are not imputed if in no way they were foreseen;

2. And insofar as the drunkenness was voluntary: for the effect cannot be more voluntary than the cause. Hence its gravity also must be measured according to the gravity of the drunkenness, so that if the drunkenness is only imperfectly voluntary, and therefore venial, even the evils to follow, although grave in themselves, are only venial.

That drunkenness is either a) imperfect, leaving the use of reason, and then the sins also are voluntary in themselves, and are mortal or venial according to the gravity of the matter and the present use of reason; or b) perfect, and then the evils are voluntary and culpable in their cause, the drinking; yet less voluntary than if they were voluntary in themselves. They are committed by an internal act and as to affection, when someone deliberately wills drunkenness from which effects are foreseen to follow; by an external act and as to effect, when sins or evils are externally done. Hence in confession it must be declared which sins were foreseen, and which were externally completed from foresight.

992. Remark. - Words spoken in perfect drunkenness sometimes lose their meaning, or do not preserve it fully. Thus, for example:

1. Injurious words sometimes lose the nature of injury, not indeed if they are determinate detractions or contumelies directed against determinate persons, or even directed against God; but if they are certain general injuries uttered against all men and things which occur everywhere. For these are considered by all as if they had no meaning.

2. Likewise a lie does not exist, because speech against the mind is not given; even a pernicious lie does not remain a lie, although it can preserve its harmfulness.

3. Likewise a vow and an oath do not exist, because for these actual free will is required; but those words can externally sound as an oath, and therefore as perjury. In the same way blasphemous utterances externally sound as blasphemy, and thus dishonor God.

993. On cooperation toward the drunkenness of others. - On the occasion of drunkenness various sins are also committed by others who cooperate in drunkenness. Cooperation toward drunkenness is of two kinds. 1) One is negative, which happens by not impeding drunkenness, when someone by office ought to impede it. 2) The other is positive, which happens by influencing the drunkenness of another. This is a) improperly so called, which happens by inducing him to drink, for example, by commanding, counseling, or provoking equals to draughts. According to some, this is probably licit for impeding a graver evil, for example, sacrilege or homicide, because it is licit to persuade a lesser evil as lesser (cf. treatise on charity I, n. 968); otherwise it is illicit, and constitutes direct scandal. Or b) it is properly so called, which happens by furnishing drink to one who is foreseen to become drunk from it. This of itself is illicit, even for innkeepers, because it gives another the occasion or means of sinning which we are bound to avert from him; accidentally, however, it can be licit on account of a just cause proportioned to the evil and to the occasion of sinning, such as a graver evil to be avoided, for example, a quarrel, blasphemies, a fight, or notable harm, for example, if the tavern would be notably deserted, but not merely the indignation of the guest or merely profit which otherwise would come to others.

The cooperator is guilty in many ways, not only by reason of cooperation or scandal in himself, but also by reason of drunkenness in the other, and by reason of the evils and harms which he foresaw would follow from drunkenness; and therefore he is held to restitution for them after the principal causes, as a cooperating cause.

313. Things to be noted beforehand. For a right understanding of the things which follow, certain notions concerning cause and effect must be premised (II, 63 seqq.; III, 571).

A. A multiple CAUSE is distinguished:

1. By reason of influence, it is physical or moral. Physical is that which acts through a physical influence, as fire produces conflagration, the sun light. Moral is that which efficaciously moves another free cause to acting. Thus one commanding homicide is a moral cause of the killing.

2. By reason of mode, it is immediate or mediate. Immediate is that which produces the effect with no other cause intervening: for example, if someone pierces the breast of another, he is the immediate cause of his death. Mediate is that which does not produce the effect except with another cause interposed. Hence, if you except the sin of scandal, a moral cause is always a mediate cause.

3. By reason of connection with the effect, it is proximate or remote. Proximate is said of that which has a necessary, or at least ordinary, connection with the effect which it produces for the most part: for example, poison, administered in an undue quantity, is a proximate cause of death. That is called remote from which the effect, for the most part, does not occur: for example, the reading of a slightly base thing is a remote cause of pollution.

4. By reason of the order of production, there is given a cause per se or per accidens. A cause per se is that which by its nature tends or is ordered to producing the effect: thus excessive drink is a cause per se of drunkenness. A cause per accidens is that to which an effect is joined beyond the ordination of nature. Thus homicide can follow from drunkenness.

Especially to be kept before the eyes are the two latter distinctions, which give place to a fourfold hypothesis, because both a cause per se and a cause per accidens can be proximate and remote (cf. n. 315).

B. The EFFECT is voluntary either directly and in itself, or indirectly and in the cause (cf. n. 272, 7). Now, an effect voluntary in itself is certainly to be morally imputed, since it is truly intended by the will. An effect voluntary only in the cause cannot be imputed to good: for goodness is not contracted unless it is intended (cf. n. 309, II); but an effect of this kind can be morally evil and be imputed to fault. When this happens will be clear from the following principles.

314. PRINCIPLES. I. An evil effect, voluntary only in the cause, is imputable to fault when it is foreseen as going to follow in such a way that it could and ought to have been impeded, and nevertheless is not impeded. Therefore three things must concur, namely:

1. That the effect was foreseen, at least confusedly. The reason is because if it was in no way at all foreseen, it was not voluntary; for nothing is willed unless foreknown. Hence neither is it voluntary, nor imputable to fault, when drunkenness follows from a moderate drinking of wine whose intoxicating force was unknown. On the contrary, blasphemies, quarrels, obscene speeches, which are accustomed to accompany the drunkenness of wine-drinking men, are voluntary and imputable as sin. For that such things would occur is sufficiently clear from experience.

2. That the effect could have been impeded, that is, that it was in the power of the agent either not to posit the cause, or to remove it once posited: for with liberty lacking, the voluntary lacks; nor is there ever any obligation concerning the impossible. Hence a priest is not guilty of sacrilege who gives Communion to a hidden sinner publicly asking it; for the cause of the sacrilege which is committed, in such circumstances, he cannot fail to posit.

3. That the effect ought to have been impeded, that is, that the agent is bound not to posit the cause, or to remove it once posited, and indeed precisely for this end, lest such an effect follow: For where there is no law, neither is there prevarication (Rom. 4:15), nor does he sin who uses his right.

If therefore a law, although it exists, has not yet begun to urge, for example, if someone, for the sake of recreation alone, already on Wednesday undertakes a long journey, then certainly the evil effect (omission of Mass), arising from this, cannot be imputed to him. Cf. Lehmkuhl, Cas. Consc., I, n. 97.

But here a great question arises: When ought the effect to have been impeded? when is the agent bound to omit the cause, lest a depraved effect follow from it? Resp. He is bound whenever not all the conditions are present which make the positing of the cause lawful. But what these conditions are, the following principle will indicate.

315. II. It is lawful to posit an honest cause from which there immediately follows a double effect, one good, the other evil; provided that only the good is intended by the agent, and there is present a proportionately grave cause for permitting the evil effect. The reason is because, when a proportionately grave cause accedes, the law ceases by force of which that evil effect had to be guarded against. For fear of grave harm excuses from law (n. 223). But when the law ceases, nothing now stands in the way of the effect being permitted. Cf. St. Alph., III, 483; ed. G., I, p. 702; St. Thom., 2.2, q. 64, a. 7.

The conditions which therefore are required from this second principle are precisely four, namely:

It is required 1. That the cause which is posited, or once posited is not removed, be honest, that is, good, or at least indifferent, that is, not intrinsically evil, and therefore already in itself and independently from every effect illicit, as a lie, adultery, etc., would be. Hence a girl sins gravely who fornicates in order to avoid death.

2. That the good effect follow immediately from the cause, just as the evil; for, if it followed mediately, namely with the evil effect intervening, this evil effect would now obtain the nature of a cause with respect to the good effect: which the Apostle forbids by the words already cited, saying: Let us not do evils, that goods may come (Rom. 3:8).

Hence it is not lawful for a servant to write amorous letters, so that he may please his master.

3. That the evil effect not be intended, nor approved, but merely permitted. Whence it is necessary that there not be present a danger either of intending the depraved effect, when its cause is posited, or of consenting to it, when afterwards it is produced.

Thus a physician who treats women, a student of theology who studies matters little chaste, a confessor who hears sins against chastity, are bound both to remove a dishonest end and to guard against consent in base movements, if perhaps they arise from their action.

4. That the effect not be permitted except from a proportionately grave or sufficient reason; because the natural law by which we are bound to guard against an evil effect ceases only then, when, the nature of things having been weighed and the order of precepts inspected, a cause is had properly excusing, or just and sufficient for permitting the effect. Now, in order that someone may be able, in view of a good effect, to permit an evil, the greater is the excusing cause required, the worse the effect is, or the closer to the act, or also the more probable (Konings, Theol. mor., n. 8).

a) Worse. Hence one must see what the gravity of the evil effect is. For, for example, a reason sufficient for permitting slight harm to another will not be sufficient that someone expose himself to the danger of killing another.

But for weighing this gravity, it will often be useful to attend to what law the evil effect must be guarded against by, whether by the law of charity, or of religion, or of justice? For not all laws oblige with the same rigor. Thus a cause sufficient

for excusing from a common obligation perhaps is not sufficient for excusing from a special obligation which someone has from office.

b) Closer to the act. Hence one must see whether the cause influences the effect proximately or remotely. If it influences the evil effect just as proximately as the good, the good effect ought to compensate the evil, because otherwise the good effect would not cancel the evil.

Whence a physician can treat women, although he feels base movements (provided that he does not consent to them), because the good effect, or the restoration of health, compensates the evil. But if it influences the evil effect only remotely, a lesser necessity or utility is required than in the preceding case. Hence you are not bound to abstain from an honest and useful conversation with a person of the other sex on account of carnal movements perhaps arising from it.

c) More probable. Whence one must consider whether the cause influences the depraved effect per se or per accidens. If per se, the effect will be more probable, because a cause per se is one which by its nature is ordered to the effect. If per accidens, the various circumstances which make the effect more or less probable must be weighed (Billuart, Diss. I, a. 1).

Note. 1. What effect, namely good or evil, some cause is naturally apt to produce, and what kind its influence is, must be judged from the estimation of prudent men. Many cases will be discussed in their own places, especially where the discourse is on cooperation, on scandal, on justice, on the sixth, etc., where also the studious reader will be able to see various examples of the indirect voluntary. Cf. n. 515, 521, etc.

2. The question concerning the imputability of effects which are voluntary in the cause has been weighed here only in a general way; below (n. 322) it will be said when this imputability begins, and how it ought to be judged.

Since no special difficulty occurs in the other species of the voluntary, we shall speak only:

6. The direct and indirect voluntary comes among theologians in a twofold sense. In one sense, indeed, according as something proceeds from the will directly, as from one acting (as to sink a ship by a war-cannon), or indirectly, as from one not acting, as the sinking of a ship from the helmsman, insofar as he ceases from steering.¹ The direct voluntary taken in this sense others call positive; the indirect, negative, according as acting denotes something positive, not acting something negative. Yet from this do not conclude that the voluntary consists in negation; for, as St. Thomas says,² "something is called voluntary not only because it falls under the act of the will, but because it falls under the power of the will. For thus even not willing itself is called voluntary, because to will and not to will are in the power of the will, and similarly to do and not to do."

But in another and more common sense, the direct voluntary (or, as others say, express³) is called that "which is willed in itself" (therefore it is also called voluntary in itself) "and immediately, as when someone steals something, because he has in himself the will of stealing";⁴ indirect is that "which is willed not in itself, but in another thing which is apprehended, at least confusedly,⁵ as the cause"

"of some effect." Hence it is also called voluntary in cause.¹ By others, for the same reason, it is also called implicit or virtual voluntary.²

Hence you will gather: a) An effect not only foreseen, but also intended, is directly voluntary.

b) What is intended in itself is directly voluntary, even in the case in which it is intended not for its own sake, or as an end, but only as a means; and therefore the killing of a fetus is directly voluntary, although it is intended only as a means of saving the life or reputation of the mother. "For voluntary is not only what we will for its own sake, as an end, but also what we will for another thing, as for an end."³

c) Sins voluntary in cause are imputed at that time at which their cause is voluntarily placed. Yet from this do not conclude that the evil effect itself, when in fact it follows (for example pollution in sleep arising from a voluntary cause), is not sinful, and therefore that it is sufficient to disclose in Confession the guilt of the cause itself. For, as the exterior act is the substantial complement of the interior act and each is morally one and the same act (n. 25), so, in the case, the effect is the substantial complement of the cause, and with it morally one and the same act. Wherefore, just as it is not sufficient to confess the interior act, so neither is it sufficient to confess the placing of the cause. Thus, as the truer opinion, St. Alph., L. V, n. 149, against others.

d) For the imputation of a sinful effect foreseen from a voluntary cause, it makes no difference whether the effect in fact follows or not; for, as was said under c), the effect is imputed when its cause is placed.

That the things to be said concerning the voluntary in cause may be rightly understood, it is useful to premise these things concerning cause. - The efficient cause, concerning which there is speech here, is that by which something is done. But this is:

1° Physical or moral. The former is that which, by acting physically, produces the effect, as fire produces a conflagration, the sun light. The latter is that which effectively moves another free cause to acting. Thus one commanding homicide is the moral cause of the killing.

2° Immediate or mediate. The former is that which produces the effect, no other cause intervening, for example, if someone pierces the breast of another, he will be the immediate cause of his death. The latter is that which does not produce the effect except another cause being interposed. Hence a moral cause is always a mediate cause.

3° Proximate or remote (in moral matters). A proximate cause has a necessary or ordinary connection with the effect; but a remote cause, although it is able to produce the effect, nevertheless does not have great force upon it, nor does it notably influence it; or it is that from which the effect does not frequently arise. Thus the drinking of wine for a drunkard will be a proximate cause, for a sober man a remote cause, of drunkenness.

4° A cause per se or per accidens. The former is that which from its own nature tends, or is ordered, to producing the effect. Thus excessive drink is a cause per se of drunkenness. But the latter is that which, although from its own nature it is not ordered to some effect, nevertheless sometimes, some circumstance being added, can produce it. Thus homicide can follow from drunkenness. For the most part this last division falls back into the preceding one.

7. - An evil effect following from the indirect voluntary, that is, from the direct volition of a cause, is imputed to the agent for fault, if he could and ought to have avoided the cause on account of such an effect. Hence these things flow:

Corollaries. - I. A threefold condition is required that an effect can be imputed to the agent, or to the one placing the cause, namely:

1° That the agent foresaw the effect, at least confusedly. The reason is that an effect in no way foreseen can in no way be voluntary; for nothing is willed unless it has first been known. Hence drunkenness is not voluntary, nor to be imputed to him who becomes drunk from a little wine, whose force he did not know. Therefore, as some have contended, it is not sufficient for fault that the evil effect could have been foreseen or ought to have been foreseen; for the supposition must be denied, namely that an effect can be foreseen if in fact it is not foreseen, at least confusedly; for the first idea of some thing is not in man's power. Hence also, not even indirectly, is the omission of acts voluntary concerning which a man in no way thinks, as, for example, the omission of Vespers in him who, wholly immersed in studies, does not notice the twelfth hour of the night approaching, before which he had determined to finish them. Nevertheless, voluntary in cause and imputable to sin are the blasphemies, impurities, quarrels, which are wont to be done by someone in drunkenness. For such things are sufficiently foreseen from the custom of doing such things in this state.

2° That the agent could have not placed the cause; for otherwise, liberty being lacking, the voluntary would necessarily be lacking. Besides, an obligation cannot be given when it cannot be fulfilled. Hence the axiom: No one is held to the impossible. Thus a priest who gives Communion to a hidden sinner publicly asking for it is not guilty of sacrilege; for he could not, in those circumstances, not place the cause of the sacrilege which this man will commit.

3° That there be present a law by force of which the agent is held not to place the cause, or to remove it once placed; for where there is no law, neither is there transgression. But no one is held not to place the cause, or to remove it once placed, if he has a right of placing it, founded in necessity, utility, or honesty; for from the rule of law: to one pursuing his own right an effect following beyond intention is not imputed. Hence inordinate motions are not voluntary, nor therefore imputable, to a physician or surgeon in the exercise of his art, or to a theologian in the study of Moral Theology, provided, namely, that the proximate danger of consent is absent or remote; because the former are not held to omit their art, nor the latter his study, in order to forestall this effect, but on the contrary they have a just reason for giving work to them. Thus also evil desires of the curious are in no way imputed to a woman honestly adorning herself.

8. II. - It is lawful to place a good or indifferent cause from which there immediately follows a twofold effect, one good, the other evil, if there is present a proportionately grave reason and the end of the agent is honest, namely if he does not intend the depraved effect.¹

The reason of this principle is that, if this were not lawful, the agent would sin either from the intention of the depraved effect, or from the placing of the cause, or from the foresight of the evil effect. But none of these can be said. Not the first; for the end is supposed honest. Not the second; for the cause is supposed good, or at least indifferent. Finally not the third; for in the hypothesis the depraved effect is not intended, but merely not avoided; and there is present a proportionately grave and just reason for not avoiding it.

Moreover, five conditions which are directly or indirectly enunciated in this principle are altogether required, namely: 1° that the end of the agent be honest, that is, not disordered; 2° that the cause which is placed, or once placed is not removed, be good or at least indifferent; 3° that the good effect be immediate; 4° that there be present a grave reason for placing the cause, or not removing it once placed, nor is the agent held by justice, or by office, or by charity to omit it, or to remove it once placed; and 5° that practically there be no prudent judgment that the agent will consent to the illicit effect.

Therefore, 1° a good end is required; that is, one placing the cause or not removing it once placed must not intend the evil effect,² because otherwise he would intend something disordered, and therefore would sin. Thus in the example just adduced of the physician, surgeon, student of theology, woman honestly adorning herself, it would be a sin if besides the honest end a dishonest one were sought by them. 2° It is required that the cause which is placed, or once placed is not removed, be good or at least indifferent; namely that the act not be opposed to some law from which here and now he is excused by no legitimate cause. The reason is evident. For if the cause were not of this kind, it would induce guilt per se. Hence a girl gravely sins who, pregnant from a crime, procures abortion in order to avoid infamy; for the cause is not indifferent, and besides the 3rd and 4th condition fail. 3° It is required that the good effect follow equally immediately from the cause. The reason is that, if the cause directly and immediately has a depraved effect, and only by means of that depraved effect the good effect exists, then good is sought from evil; but it is never lawful to perpetrate evil, however slight, for procuring any good whatever; for according to the commonly known axiom, drawn from the Apostle,³ evils are never to be done that goods may come. Thus it is not lawful for you to lie, even for saving the life of a man. 4° It is required that there be present a proportionately grave reason for placing the cause, nor is the agent held from another obligation to omit it; because the natural law obliges us to avoid evils and to forestall harms to the neighbor, when we can do this without proportionately grave harm.

When a reason is proportionately grave will be explained in n. 307, 308. 5° It is required that practically there be no prudent judgment that the agent will consent to the illicit effect when it is produced. For consent into sin is never not to be avoided. Suppose, for example, that from riding there is wont to follow pollution for someone, and that the one riding does not intend this (the evil effect), but honest recreation (the good effect). Nevertheless he knows by experience that, notwithstanding the purpose of not consenting and of employing the means for forestalling consent, frequently, because the means have not in fact been employed, or have not been employed seriously enough, he consents; on this man certainly the obligation rests of abstaining from riding.¹

Note. - a) That it may rightly be decided whether the cause of permissively bearing oneself toward an evil effect is proportioned, the advantages and disadvantages which will follow from the action are to be compared with one another; but not only those which will arise in this or that particular case, but also those which would exist for society considered universally, or for the human race, if either it were necessary to abstain from the action, or it were lawful to place it. Wherefore, if I offer a just wage to a worker, and he demands more than the just amount, I am by no means held to consent to it, although I foresee that he will therefore blaspheme; for from this there would exist for society, or for timorous men, this grave harm: that whatever they asked would have to be furnished to those scoundrels, in order to forestall their blasphemies, which otherwise would not only not be forestalled, but to which a more frequent occasion would also thereby be given. On the contrary fornication will never be lawful, because permission for it, if it were given in any event, would yield to the harm of the human race (n. 493, I, under 2°).²

b) If the effect is lightly evil, it can never be imputed unto grave fault; but if it is gravely evil, it will not therefore always be imputed unto grave fault. For, as I said in n. 7 under 3°, in order that an effect can be imputed to one placing a cause, it is required that there be present a law by force of which the agent is held to avoid the cause on account of such an effect, or insofar as it is the cause of such an effect. But the obligation of this law, and likewise the degree or quantity of the obligation, depends both on the causality which intervenes between the action and the effect - namely whether the action influences the effect per se, or only per accidens, and, if per se, whether proximately or remotely - and on the reason which one has for placing the cause of such an effect. - Therefore under grave fault a gravely sinful effect will be imputed if it follows per se and proximately from the action (pollution from an immodest touch); but the killing of an unjust aggressor will in no way be imputed to you if this is necessary for the defense of your life, since you have a just reason for placing a cause producing even per se and proximately the death of the aggressor. - Under grave fault also will be imputed an evil effect which tends to grave harm of the neighbor if either no reason for placing the cause is present (no good effect follows for you from the cause), or a reason is indeed present, but not proportioned to the harmful effect (the good effect to follow from the placing of the cause is so little that, considering the gravity of the harm that will occur to the neighbor, it is to be esteemed as nothing). A case, for example, would be if, by not placing some action from the placing of which you can abstain without any inconvenience, or at least without proportioned inconvenience, you would avoid a cause, although only remote, of so grave a harm (suppose the killing of a neighbor), that you are held under grave fault by charity to avoid that harm, even with this inconvenience. Besides this case, there is not given a grave obligation of avoiding an effect, although gravely evil, if that effect follows from an act as from a cause per se, but only remote. Wherefore, by force precisely of this principle, inordinate motions following from honest conversation (a remote cause), although useless, are excused from grave fault; but if the conversation is truly useful, those motions by themselves are free from every fault. Notice, however, that a cause remote of itself can, for someone, considering his special disposition, be proximate. Examples are had in n. 502, I, under 2°.

The indirect voluntary or voluntary in cause, as has been said, is not intended in itself but in another thing directly willed, and from that, as an effect from a cause, is discerned as about to follow. Nevertheless it can be a true object of the will, although indirect; for he who wills the cause also wills the effect proceeding from it, if he foresees this effect and the other conditions have place. Hence the saying: he who is the cause of the cause is the cause of the caused thing. Therefore this voluntary is not always imputed unto sin; but that you may know when it ought to be imputed, attend to the two following principles.

A bad effect is then only imputed to the fault of the agent or of the one positing the cause, when the three following conditions are verified: 1st, that the agent foresaw the effect at least confusedly; 2nd, that he was able not to posit the cause; 3rd, that he is bound not to posit the cause, or to remove it once posited. For foresight at least confusedly is required, because an effect in no way foreseen and, as St. Thomas says, thought beforehand, can in no way be voluntary. It is further required that the cause could have been not posited, because liberty is the foundation of imputability, and a sin which cannot be avoided is repugnant. Finally there is required the obligation of impeding the cause, because no one is bound to remove a cause when he has the right of positing it, a right founded in necessity, utility, or honesty. Hence he is free from all fault who, while for his own or others' utility he studies matters of the sixth precept of the Decalogue, foresees that he will suffer base movements, or even pollution, and afterward in fact suffers them. Observe carefully, however, that sometimes there is no right to posit the cause; indeed there is a strict law against positing it; nevertheless the bad effect foreseen and afterward following is not imputed unto fault, because that law is not about avoiding the cause in order to such an effect. Wherefore he who eats meats on Friday with foresight of pollution indeed breaks the ecclesiastical law, but the pollution is not imputed to him. From this it is understood that for this voluntary not just any precept is sufficient, one which is as it were extrinsic and by accident by reason of such an operation, but that there must be a precept by which someone is bound to avoid lest from it another effect should follow, because a precept of this sort is what makes a moral change in the object, and not just any other precept. Cf. St. Alphonsus, nn. 10 and 14; and on the sixth precept of the Decalogue, nn. 483 and 484. - Voit, n. 6. - Baller., note (a), p. 396, vol. 1. - Suarez, De Vol. et Invol., disp. 1, sect. 4, nn. 22, 11.

It is lawful to posit a good or indifferent cause from which there immediately follows a double effect, one good, but the other bad, if there is present a proportionately grave reason, and the end of the agent is honest. The reason for the principle is that this cannot be illicit, 1st, by reason of the end, for this is supposed to be honest, and the bad effect which is foreseen as about to follow is not intended, but merely permitted; nor, 2nd, by reason of the cause, because this ought to be good, or at least indifferent; or even if it is bad, it is required that it not be bad on account of that effect about to follow, because then indeed the malice of the cause would be contracted, but not the malice of the effect. Besides, in order that the principle be true, beyond the two conditions just recounted, which regard the end and the cause, two others must be present.

Therefore it is required, 3rd, that the good effect follow at least equally immediately from the cause. The reason is that if the cause directly and immediately has an evil effect, and only by means of that does the good effect proceed, then good is sought from evil; but now it is never lawful to perpetrate evil, however slight, for procuring any good whatsoever; for according to the well-known axiom taken from the Apostle, Rom. iii, 8, evils are not to be done that goods may come.

It is required, 4th, that there be present a proportionately grave reason for positing the cause; because natural equity obliges us to avoid evils and to guard against damages to our neighbor, when we can do this without proportionately grave damage. But this damage is to be weighed not solely from the inconvenience which the agent would then suffer, but also, and much more, from the common inconvenience of all if this were generally required. I said a proportionately grave reason; for this ought to be the graver, the nearer the connection is between cause and effect, the greater is the malice of the latter, and the less right is had to the action considered in itself. Cf. St. Thomas, 2-2, q. 64, art. 7. - St. Alphonsus, on the sixth precept of the Decalogue, nn. 483 and 484.

Thus, it is lawful for someone who by horse flees an enemy and death at the same time to continue his riding when, in a narrow part of the way, there is in his path a child whom the horse will kill. Certainly that riding, through itself and from the intention of the agent, is not ordered to killing the child but to saving his own life by fleeing through that way; he enjoys a right to this safety, and indeed to obtaining it by riding: it is by accident that the death of the child follows, which he chooses neither as end nor as means; he wills it not directly but indirectly, that is, he wills this swift riding not on account of the connection which it has with the death of the child, but on account of the connection which it has with his own safety. Moreover, in these cases it is often useful to see whether the action, the bad effect being absent, would be lawful; e.g., a woman not pregnant suffers from a deadly tumor in the womb, or a man fleeing on horseback from a pursuing enemy by a narrow road in which this child is not lying; certainly the man possesses the right of fleeing so that his own death may be averted, and the woman the right to have the tumor removed by operation. Now then, it happens in the case of the one fleeing that the death of the child is induced by the riding, and in the case of the pregnant woman that the death of the fetus is induced by the operation. One and the same action has a double immediate effect: flight has safety and death, good and evil. Certainly the man has a right to the good; by this right he uses riding on account of safety; on account of this good he directly wills and posits his action. Very grave is the cause of positing that action whether the bad effect is present or absent; and the presence of that bad effect does not take away his right to posit the action on account of the good effect: the death of the child does not take away from him the right to flee his own death and to save his life; or, he is not bound to die, by omitting an action licit in itself, so that the child may not die. And the same is to be said, by equal reason, of the pregnant woman who suffers from that tumor. In both cases the agent directly wills the good effect and permits the bad; the good effect is directly intended, the bad is permitted, and each is equally immediate. Cf. De Lugo, De Jus. et Jur., disp. 10, sect. 5, nn. 123 seq.

You Will Resolve. 1st. Blasphemies, impurities, quarrels, or injustices which are done in drunkenness are voluntary in cause and imputable unto sin, when they can be foreseen and in fact are foreseen; but they are sufficiently foreseen from the custom of doing such things in this state.

2nd. A leader in war does not sin who, in time of siege, to ward off the enemy sets fields on fire, etc., even if by accident innocent inhabitants suffer. Likewise if he sets fire to a tower in which, together with enemies, perhaps pilgrims foreign to the war are enclosed; because the cause of this damage is honest in itself, but the damage of the innocent follows merely by accident, and is not intended, but only permitted.

3rd. A girl who, pregnant from a crime, procures abortion in order to avoid infamy sins gravely; because she directly intends abortion as the means by which she may free herself from infamy, and therefore seeks good from evil.

4th. If a cause remotely and lightly flows into a bad effect, and from it there also follows some good effect, although it would not preponderate or would not be equivalent to the evil, there is no obligation of removing the cause; because a lesser reason is required for positing a cause only lightly and remotely flowing into evil than if it flowed gravely and proximately. Hence you are not bound to abstain from an honest and useful conversation on account of carnal movements arising from it.

5th. But if the cause, remotely and lightly influencing, is in itself venially bad, or if no good effect follows from it, there will be an obligation of removing it, but a slight one and under venial sin only, unless there is question of grave damage to the neighbor; the reason is that this obligation is to be estimated according to the quantity of the influence of the cause. For since the effect is not voluntary except in the cause, and is contained lightly and remotely in the cause, it is lightly voluntary in it, and therefore lightly imputable unto fault; and for that reason there is present a slight obligation of removing the cause on account of that effect.

6th. The omission of acts about which a man in no way thinks is in itself and directly in no way voluntary; because those acts are impossible, since they wholly escape the advertence of the agent. Nevertheless such an omission can be voluntary and imputable in cause, if forgetfulness or inadvertence proceeds from preceding negligence.

7th. He who knowingly posits the cause of an action or omission, at that instant contracts malice before God, even if the action or omission does not in reality follow; and therefore he is bound to confess it as willed.

On the same principles concerning the indirect voluntary and the voluntary in cause depend innumerable other resolutions, especially where there will be discussion concerning scandal, and where concerning cooperation either toward another's sin, or unto the damage of one's neighbor.

Titus, a young man, confesses that he is accustomed rather often to suffer a seminal emission when he rides horseback. When asked by the confessor whether he has given consent to the depraved pleasure, he denies it; and when asked again whether he rides horseback in order to procure those motions, at first he absolutely denies it, and says that he rides rather because that exercise pleases him greatly. But afterward, correcting himself, he says that he is not certain; perhaps because of the said effect he chooses that mode of exercise somewhat more readily. The confessor, however, having heard these things, doubts whether he ought to forbid Titus horseback riding or not. Hence it is asked:

1. What is voluntary in itself and in its cause, and when is this imputed to the agent as fault?

2. Is an effect seriously bad, voluntary only in its cause, always a mortal sin?

3. What is to be said concerning the case?

1. What is meant by voluntary in itself and voluntary in its cause, and when is the latter imputed as sin to the agent?

That is voluntary in itself which is willed in itself and which is not merely foreseen to follow from something else which is willed in itself. On the other hand, that is voluntary in its cause which is not willed in itself although it is foreseen that it will follow from something that is willed in itself.

That which is voluntary in its cause is imputable to the agent if it was foreseen, if it could be avoided, and if there was an obligation to avoid putting the action precisely because it produced the effect in question.¹

1 Manual of Moral Theology, vol. i, p. 24.

2. Is a seriously bad effect which is only voluntary in the cause always imputable to the agent as a grave sin?

No; for no evil is imputable unless it is voluntary, and evil which is only voluntary in the cause, though it would be grave if it were willed in itself, will not necessarily be grave if it is only voluntary in its cause. For this cause may be only slightly wrong, or only slightly connected with the evil effect, and then the amount of voluntariness in the effect is only slight, and can not be more than a venial sin. If the evil only follows by accident from what is voluntary in itself, it can not be truly said to be voluntary at all, and unless there is some extrinsic reason, such as the necessity of avoiding injury to others or the necessity of obeying a lawful superior, it will not prevent a useful or otherwise licit action being performed lawfully.²

2 Ibid.

3. Concerning the case. The confessor neither ought nor is able to forbid horseback riding to Titus in this case. For although he rather often suffers a seminal emission from it, nevertheless he does not give consent to this bad effect, nor is the effect voluntary in itself or in its cause, because it does not follow of itself from horseback riding but only by accident. For horseback riding contains in itself nothing unlawful or lascivious in the genus of lust, nor by reason of harm to another is he bound specially to guard against such an effect. Hence it is lawful for Titus to ride horseback, and he should be advised to cast aside every thought and fear of that bad effect, for bad motions sometimes arise from that rather than from any honorable action.¹

1 Cf. St. Alphonsus, lib. iii, nn. 483, 484.

Titius, a Catholic, gets himself drunk not rarely; and since for that reason he rather frequently omits hearing Mass on Sunday, and indeed, while drunk, beats his wife, although, when his reason has been recovered, on hearing this he grieves greatly; and since his son, having seized the occasion of his father’s drunkenness, not only omits hearing the commanded Mass but spends the whole Sunday in revelries and games with dissolute companions, Titius, being about to confess, consequently doubts what and in what manner he is bound to confess. Hence it is asked:

1. What sort of sin is drunkenness, and in what does its malice consist?

2. Are the sins of children imputed to their parents?

3. What is to be said concerning the case?

1. What sort of a sin is drunkenness, and in what does its malice consist?

St. Paul enumerates¹ drunkenness among the sins which prevent those who commit them from entering the kingdom of God, and so it is a mortal sin. This should be understood of complete drunkenness, which deprives one of the use of reason, so that he does not know what he is doing and can not distinguish between right and wrong. Partial drunkenness is only a venial sin, unless by reason of scandal or harm done to health or fortune, or some similar extrinsic reason, it becomes a grievous sin.

1 Gal. v. 21.

The malice of drunkenness does not consist merely in voluntarily depriving oneself of reason, for we may do that for a good cause, as we do when we take chloroform. Its malice consists in depriving oneself of the faculty of reason without good cause by yielding to an inordinate appetite for intoxicating drink. Drunkenness not only deprives one of the use of reason but also of the capacity to recover it for a considerable time.

2. Are the sins of children imputable to their parents?

Yes, certainly. “Parents sin gravely if, insofar as it lies in them, they do not take care that their children be imbued with good morals . . . avoid the company of the wicked, observe the commandments of God and the Church, frequent the sacraments, and abstain from sins.”¹

1 Busembaum apud St. Alphonsus, lib. iii, n. 339.

3. Titius committed grave sin every time he got completely drunk so that he did not know what he was doing. We must suppose that he foresaw that he would not be able to hear Mass on the following Sunday when he got drunk, and so he is guilty of mortal sin on this account also. If he knew that he usually beat his wife when he got drunk, he committed sin also on this account, even though he was sorry afterward; his sorrow should have prevented him from getting drunk. If his son was of age to be corrected and compelled to go to Mass and avoid bad company, Titius was obliged to see to this, and he committed grave sin by neglecting his duty and by giving bad example to his son. The sin which he commits is against his obligation as a parent, and the sins of his son are imputable to him under this head; not that the father is guilty of the specific sins committed by his son on account of the father’s neglect. Titius, then, must confess these sins with the number of times that he has been guilty of them.