ART. I. -- THE FACULTY BY WHICH HUMAN ACTIONS ARE ELICITED.
25. A human action is one that proceeds from a deliberate will. -- Intelligence and liberty constitute the specific difference between man and the rest of the visible creation. But since the actions by which a being attains its end are in harmony with the constitutive principles of its nature, human actions are, strictly speaking, those which proceed from a deliberate will, those which are elicited freely and with knowledge of the end. Actions that are not free are called actions of man, not human actions.{1}
26. Twelve successive steps may be distinguished in human actions. 1, a simple apprehension of the good; 2, a simple volition to acquire it; 3, a judgment that the good is possible; 4, an intention of taking the means to attain it; 5, an examination of these means; 6, consent of the will to these means; 7, discernment of the fittest means; 8, a choice of this means; 9, an indication of what is to be done for the execution of the action; 10, an impulse given to the faculties or powers destined to execute the action; 11, the exercise of these faculties or powers; 12, delectation of the will. -- The first principle from which every human action proceeds is a necessary tendency of the will to good in general, just as every demonstrated truth is derived from a first indemonstrable truth. This natural impulse of the will being presupposed, the following order obtains among the successive steps of the intellect and will which constitute a human act: 1. The intellect proposes under the general form of good the end to be attained. 2. The will takes complacency in this good as good, and bids the intellect see whether the good is suitable and possible. 3. The intellect judges of its possibility. 4. The will is borne toward the end to be attained, really desires it, and bids the intellect seek the means. 5. The intellect points out the means. 6. The will approves of them and orders the fittest to be sought. 7. The intellect points it out. 8. The will chooses it and commands the intellect to prepare the means of executing the action. 9. The intellect indicates these means. 10. The will moves the faculties or powers that elicit the action. 11. These faculties or powers execute the command of the will. 12. The will rests in the completion of the action and in the end attained.
Of these subordinate actions the first four refer to the end of the action, considered, first, in a general way, then determinately and particularly; the next four have as their object the means, which are first examined in general, and then the best is chosen; the last four have for their object the execution of these means, and the repose and pleasure of the will in the accomplished action. In these subordinate actions, five judgments influence the will, which thereupon applies the intellect to new researches. To the fifth action of the will the action of the eliciting power responds, and to this, in turn, the repose of the will In this series of subordinate actions liberty is exercised every time the will acts. The human action subsists in all its essence when the will is making its election, its free determination; but it subsists in all its integrity only when the action willed is executed. To sum up these results, every human action may be resolved into three principles: (1) An impulse of the will to good in general; (2) knowledge of a particular good; (3) liberty in the choice of this good. Without the first condition the will could not act; without the second, it would have no direction; without the third, it would not act conformably to its nature.
27. A voluntary action is perfect or imperfect, direct or indirect, express or tacit, elicited or imperate. -- A voluntary action is perfect if it proceeds from an entire inclination of the will; it is imperfect if it is done with a certain repugnance, or without a perfect knowledge of what is done. It is direct if it is actually produced by the will; it is indirect if it happens through the omission of an action. It is formal or express if it proceeds from a proper action of the will; it is virtual or tacit if it is willed not in itself but in something else. It is elicited if it is the action of the will itself; it is imperate if it is elicited by other faculties at the command of the will.
28. Violence, when absolute, renders the action involuntary; when conditional, it makes it less voluntary. -- Since a voluntary action must be produced by an intrinsic principle, it no longer exists when the action proceeds from an extrinsic principle, such as absolute violence. Violence is defined as "an action proceeding from an extrinsic principle and opposed by the subject."{2} If the violence is only conditional or moral, it is absolutely possible not to do what is demanded, and hence the action is voluntary, though only partially so. Violence, be it noted, can be exercised only over imperate actions and never over actions elicited by the will.
29. Fear makes the action less voluntary, but not absolutely involuntary. -- Fear is an impression resulting from a threatening evil difficult to avoid. This evil, it may indeed be said, does us a sort of violence, but the violence is purely conditional; free will is not destroyed, but only lessened.
30. Ignorance, when invincible and opposed to the action of the will, renders the action involuntary. -- There is no voluntary action without knowledge; an action is, therefore, more or less voluntary according to the less or greater degree of ignorance. Ignorance is of three kinds: antecedent if it is in nowise willed and the action would not be done if there were knowledge; consequent if it is willed either expressly or implicitly; concomitant when knowledge is wanting, yet so that the action would be done if there were knowledge. Antecedent ignorance excludes all exercise of the will, because no knowledge is had of the object; consequent ignorance is willed implicitly, and hence does not entirely exclude knowledge; and the same is to be said of concomitant ignorance. Consequent ignorance is either affected, if by a direct act, one chooses to remain in ignorance, or crass if the means of acquiring the knowledge necessary to act with propriety are neglected.{3}
31. Concupiscence does not make the action involuntary, but rather makes it more voluntary. If it precedes, it diminishes the free will, but not if it follows. -- Concupiscence is a movement of the sensitive appetite toward a pleasurable good; therefore it inclines the will to this good and gives greater intensity to the voluntary action. But when concupiscence precedes the voluntary action, it does a sort of conditional violence to the liberty of the will and consequently diminishes it; when, on the contrary, it follows the voluntary action, liberty remains, since the action has been freely elicited. Concupiscence even augments the moral value of the action if the will calls it expressly and intentionally to its aid.
ART. II. -- THE PASSIONS.
32. Passion is a movement of the sensitive appetite, proceeding from an apprehension of good or evil, and accompanied with some alteration of the body. -- The human soul, being substantially united to a body, possesses, besides the will or intellective appetite, sensitive appetite or an inclination to sensible goods. The sensitive appetite is the seat of the passions. The cause which actually produces a passion is the good or evil apprehended by imagination. The particular note or character that accompanies it and distinguishes it from a purely voluntary motion is a physical, bodily change, which is due to the fact that the sensitive appetite resides in a corporeal organ.
33. There are six passions of the concupiscible appetite. Love and hatred, desire and aversion, joy and sadness. There are live passions of the irascible appetite, hope and despair, daring and fear, and anger. -- The passions are movements of the sensitive appetite, the divisions of which they therefore follow. Now, the sensitive appetite is concupiscible if it has for its object sensible good and evil taken absolutely; and irascible if it seeks good and evil as being arduous and difficult, in the one case to gain, in the other to avoid. The passions of the concupiscible appetite are six in number: Love and hatred, desire and aversion, joy and sadness. For when good is present, we love it; love begets desire if the good be absent; joy is repose in the possession of good. So, in the presence of evil, we first experience hatred; hatred engenders aversion, if the evil be absent; and when the evil here and now affects us, we feel sadness. There are five passions of the irascible appetite: Hope and despair, daring and fear, and anger. Hope lifts the mind toward a good that is difficult of attainment; despair casts it down at sight of the difficulty; daring faces the evil; fear shrinks from it; anger inflames us against the cause of the evil. All the passions of the irascible appetite proceed from a passion of the concupiscible part, and end in it. These two kinds of passion differ from one another, for those of the concupiscible appetite are all opposed in their object, but not all those of the irascible appetite. Anger has no opposite. All the secondary passions may be reduced to these eleven principal ones.{4}
34. The passions are in themselves morally neither good nor bad; these qualities depend on their subjection to the empire of reason. -- The passions are movements of the irrational appetite, and hence are without either reason or liberty, the two conditions of all morality. If, however, the passions be considered as subject to the empire of the reason and the will, they share in the morality of voluntary actions.
35. The passions of man should be controlled by reason. -- Order requires that the sensitive part of man's being should be directed by the intellect, which is superior. Therefore the passions should be subject to reason. Besides, the passions of themselves are blind, and in man, because of the help they receive from intellect and will, have a tendency to possess their object indefinitely in intensity and duration. Therefore reason should control them that it may establish them in order, whether as to their object or as to the manner in which they tend to it. Thus controlled, the passions attain their natural end, which is to facilitate the practice of virtue, and to excite and sustain man in the accomplishment of good.
ART. III. -- VIRTUES AND VICES.
36. Habit is a permanent quality residing in the powers of the soul, and inclining them to certain determinate actions. -- The will is not only roused to action by the apprehension of good and by the passions, it is also powerfully stimulated and aided by habit, i.e., a permanent quality which inclines the powers of the soul to certain determinate actions. Experience shows that habit gives not only perspicacity to the intellect, and promptitude to the memory, but likewise a great facility to the will in eliciting its acts.
37. Good habits are called virtues; bad habits, vices. -- As the will is free, it can form habits inclining it either to good or to evil; in the former case, the habits are said to be good; in the latter, to be bad. Good habits constitute what are known as virtues; bad habits are called vices. Therefore virtue is defined as "a perfection by which the will is constantly inclined to good actions;" and vice as "an imperfection of the will constantly inclining it to bad actions."
38. Man needs virtue to act perfectly. -- To be disposed with perfect order to the accomplishment of good, man must be able to do it constantly, promptly, and with pleasure. Now, so to act is the property of habit. Therefore virtue, which is merely a good habit, is necessary to man for the accomplishment of good in a perfect manner.
39. Virtues are naturally acquired only by frequent acts. -- The will is of itself indifferent to this or that particular good. Therefore, to incline it by preference to the moral good, there must be a special inclination added to its nature, forming, as it were, a second nature. This inclination is acquired oniy by a repetition of acts, as experience proves.
40. Virtue lies in the mean. -- Virtue is such when it maintains human actions in conformity with right reason; but this conformity lies in the mean between excess and deficiency; therefore every moral virtue lies in a mean.
41. There are four principal moral virtues: Prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude. -- As in man there are two principles of action, so there are also two generic classes of virtue. Every virtue that perfects the intellect, as "wisdom" and "science," is called an intellectual virtue. Every virtue that perfects the appetite, whether rational or sensitive, is a moral virtue. There are as many principal moral virtues as there are faculties that concur in the moral action and may be the subject of habit in reference to the action. But these faculties are four in number: reason, will, and sensitive appetite, which latter is divided into the concupiscible and the irascible appetite. Hence there are four principal virtues: prudence, which enlightens the reason as to what should be done; justice, which inclines the will to render to everyone his due; -- for in what regards himself man does not need this virtue, since he naturally always desires his own good sufficiently; temperance, which regulates the concupiscible appetite and checks the inordinate pursuit of sensible goods; fortitude, which perfects the irascible part when there is difficulty either in acquiring good or avoiding evil.
{1} A voluntary action is done with knowledge of the end; a free action is done so that the same conditions remaining it need not have been done. A human action is therefore both voluntary and free. Man's desire of happiness is voluntary, but not free.
{2} Liberatore, Institutiones Philosophiae, lib. iii., p. 66.
{3} Antecedent ignorance is called invincible, "because though all the means be employed which can humanly speaking be employed it cannot be dispelled." Hence consequent ignorance is vincible since it can be dispelled when those means are employed which can and should be employed. Cf. Zigliara, Summa Philosophica, M. 19, vi.
{4} Modern Psychology is accustomed to treat of several species of Feeling and Feelings in its theory of the third Faculty. We accordingly have discussions regarding the sympathetic, intellectual, aesthetic, moral, and religious emotions; and also of the feeling or sense of right, of the beantiful, of the noble, and of moral good, or of aesthetic, moral, and religious feeling. If we admit no special Feeling-power, besides the faculties of Cognition and Conation Appetite, where shall we dispose of these states? It is not very difficult to find a place for them, if we only get a clear notion of what is meant by these names. The sympathetic emotions are, in general, joy or sorrow over the weal or woe of others. Those feelings are styled 'AEsthetic' which are awakened in the soul in the presence of the aesthetic excellence of the creations of human genius. Under the phrase 'Intellectual Feelings' are signified those agreeable or disagreeable affections, the cause and object of which is an activity of onr intelligence in harmony or conflict with that intelligence. Finally, Moral and Religions Feelings are the appetencies of the soul in the presence of ethical good and ill with reference to the supernatural order. . . . The sense of the Beautiful and the Good, or AEsthetic and Moral Sentiment, is not a (special) energy, not a faculty of the soul, but simply the first attribute of every created spirit, Rationality. Rationality embraces a two-fold element. Our soul is rational on the one hand because its understanding is necessarily determined by Eternal Wisdom's laws of knowledge; on the other, because there is impressed npon its appetency a natural bent towards what agrees with these laws of knowledge and with Uncreated Goodness, that is, towards the physically perfect and the ethically good, and therefore towards the Beautiful. This rationality, for reasons assigned elsewhere, does not manifest itself in all men in equal perfection, but in its essence it is present in all. Accordingly, in so far as no other agencies interfere, every man naturally knows and recognizes the Good, the Right, the Noble, the Beautiful, and the Great towards these he is impelled, these he embraces, these he loves these he enjoys. On the other hand, Wickedness, Meanness, Ugliness, are for every man the object of aversion and displeasure." -- Jungmann, Das Gemüth und das Gefühlsvermogen, cited in Psychology, Stonyhurst Series, pp. 417, 418.