Part VI: God as the End of Things

Part VI: God as the End of Things

Part VI God as the End of Things Passage 34 God as Goal of Human Living Source: Thomas's Commentary on book 4 of Peter Lombard's

Sentences, Distinction 49.1. Text from Parma edn., vol. vii (1858) (reprinted in American edn., vol. vii.ii, New York, 1948).

Date: 1253-5, Paris, Thomas's first public theology lectures as bachelor, aged 28-9.

Type of passage and how to read: See the preliminary note to Passage 24 and the Introduction.

Notes on translation: 'Bliss' translates beatitudo, which Thomas on the whole reserves for the revealed happy state of heaven, whereas

'happiness' translates felicitas, which covers both heaven and Aristotle's eudaimonia. Note, however, that 'happiness' means a happy or blessed or flourishing state of being, rather than the feeling of happiness or joy (delectatio) which accompanies it.

[Book 4, Distinction 49] Five questions need debate: bliss...

[Question 1] The first question divides into four:

Where should bliss be sought?

Does everyone desire it?...

{Article 1] The first question [Where should bliss be sought?] we approach as follows:

[Query 1] It seems bliss should be sought in material goods.

For [1] Ibn Rushd? says widely held views can't be altogether false, and Aristotle? that No word on many people's lips is wholly lost. Now most human beings have as their goal

God as the End of Things bodily pleasures and material goods. So the goal of human life we call bliss consists in material goods.

Bliss, then, should be sought in material goods.

Moreover, [2] the goal ultimately achieved is the one first intended and desired. Now human beings desire material before spiritual goods, since, as Gregory? says, we are led to love of the unseen through our love of the material. So material goods are our ultimate goal: bliss. Bliss then should be sought in material goods...

Moreover, [4] everyone agrees that bliss is the end of virtue.

But virtues have material as well as spiritual ends: moderation, for example, preserves us from even bodily harm. So bliss isn't to be sought only in spiritual goods, but also in material ones.

Moreover, [5] Aristotle says* that happiness and good fortune seem to belong together. But fortunes consist in material goods. So happiness and bliss consist in material goods...

{1] Everything to do with body human beings have in common with other animals, whereas bliss is peculiarly human. So bliss won't be found in bodily or material goods.

Moreover, [2] bliss is the supreme human good, and should be sought among whatever human goods rank highest. Now just as soul ranks higher than body, so what is good for the soul ranks higher than bodily goods. Bliss then should be sought in what is good for the soul...

Further, [Query 2] It seems bliss is more a matter of will than of understanding.

For [1] bliss is the supreme good. But good is the object that defines will, not understanding. So bliss consists in willing rather than in understanding.

Moreover, [2] according to Aristotle,> bliss needs delight; and its Greek name means enjoyment. Delight is, however, a matter of will or the affections. Bliss too then.

God as Goal of Human Living Moreover, [3] Aristotle® says that happiness or bliss consists in the exercise of our highest virtue. But the most excellent of all virtues, as St Paul makes clear in 1 Corinthians 13, is charity. So, since charity is a, virtue of will, bliss should be sought there...

Moreover, [5] human bliss consists in perfect union with God, and will unites human beings to God more closely than understanding: thus Hugh of St Victor commenting on the words of pseudo-Dionysius' Moving and sharp, writes: Love surpasses knowledge and is greater than understanding, for God is loved rather than understood, and love enters where knowledge is left outside. So bliss consists in love rather than in knowledge, in willing rather than in understanding.

[1] John 17 [3] says: this is eternal life, to know you, the true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. But eternal life is bliss. So bliss consists in knowing...

Moreover, [3] Aristotle? says that ultimate human bliss consists in exercise of contemplative virtue. Now that's a matter of understanding.

So bliss consists mainly in understanding...

Further, [Query 3] It seems bliss consists in practical understanding rather than in contemplation.

For [1], according to Aristotle,? the more general a good is the more godlike. But contemplation is to the good of the individual doing the contemplating, whereas practical understanding can be to the general good of many. Bliss then consists in practical understanding rather than in contemplation.

Moreover, [2] bliss is ultimate human perfection. But being able to cause other things is more perfect than being complete in oneself: as pseudo-Dionysius'® says: the most godlike thing of all is to become God's fellow worker in guiding others. Now contemplation perfects human beings in themselves, but practical understanding causes perfection in others. Bliss then consists in practical understanding rather than in contemplation...

God as the End of Things Moreover, [4] human bliss consists in what ranks highest in human life. But practical understanding ranks higher than contemplation, since it lays down laws for contemplation: government policy determines the place of the contemplative sciences in education. So bliss consists in practical understanding rather than in contemplation.

[1] Bliss, being our ultimate goal, is sought for its own sake and not as a means to something else. Now practical knowledge is a means to a goal outside itself: getting things done, whereas we seek contemplation for its own sake. So bliss consists in contemplation rather than in practical understanding.

Moreover, [2] our bliss consists in unity with God. But we are united to God by contemplation, not by practical understanding. So bliss consists in contemplation rather than in practical understanding...

Further, [Query 4] It seems we can attain to bliss in this life.

For... [3] our present human life is more perfect than that of other animals. Yet the ultimate goal of other animals is contained within their present life. So our goal, bliss, must be contained within our present life.

Moreover, [4] by nature everything desires to attain its goal, and from that arises desire of the means to that goal, and especially of those means which are a sine qua non of its attainment. Now if bliss can't be attained in this life, death becomes a sine qua non of bliss. So man would by nature desire to die, which is disproved by experience and by St Paul's authority in 2 Corinthians 5 [4]: I do not wish to put off this body but to be further clothed. Human bliss then can be attained in this life.

{1] Nobody can be blissful if he lacks what he rightfully desires. But the blissful have a right and balanced desire not to be able to lose their bliss; so without that there is no true bliss. Now no one can have that in this life, for, however

God as Goal of Human Living blissful this life, it ends at death. So bliss can't be had in this life.

Moreover, [2] no one has attained his ultimate end if something remains to be desired, fer bliss, Aristotle says, must be satisfying in itself. Now, however perfect in knowledge or virtue or anything else a person is in this life, there always remains something to be desired: many things he doesn't know, for example. Indeed the goodness of the perfection itself remains uncertain during this life, since even the wisest and most perfect men can lose their minds because of bodily infirmity. So bliss can't be had in this life...

In reply to Query 1 [Should bliss be sought in material goods?]:

Bliss, since everyone desires it by nature, names the ultimate goal of human life. Nowa thing's goal is either something it characteristically does, or something it attains by what it does. What things do is determined by their form, and in our case the form which makes us human is mind; so bliss consists either in something mind does or in something mind's activity relates us to. Such things we call spiritual goods, and even philosophers hold bliss must consist in spiritual goods. Those who thought it consisted in material goods did so because they were ignorant of their own natures and judged themselves not by what was best in themselves and defined them most fully, but by external appearances; and so sought bliss in external goods.

Hence: to 1: Widely held views needn't be absolutely true, only true in part. The many people who identify bliss with material goods are correct to this extent: that they identify bliss as they see it with what is best for them as they see it. But though the part of their opinion identifying bliss with what is best for human beings is right, the part identifying it with material goods doesn't have to be right, for that part is rooted in a false assessment of themselves as first and foremost bodies. to 2: Material goods happen to be desired before spiritual

God as the End of Things ones because, as Aristotle!! explains, we know generalities before details; so we start knowing our human goal only in general as something very good, and we desire it in the way we know it. Consequently, we think it to be one of those goods we are first aware of, and since these are the goods we can sense, we start by thinking them the greatest goods. But in the end, when we know perfectly and distinctly, we discriminate our human goal from other goods; and then we desire the highest good as it really is, that is, as a spiritual good. The argument, however, talks as if material goods were desired before spiritual ones in themselves... to 4: We must distinguish the end of an activity from the intended end. Material good can be an end of virtue in the sense of an end-result of virtuous activity, but it is not what virtue's intention comes to rest in; for virtue perfects soul, which is superior to body, and since nothing acts for the sake of something inferior to itself virtue's intention won't rest content with material goods. to 5: Where happiness and good fortune belong has two meanings. If we mean who enjoys them, then happiness and fortune belong together because only rational creatures can enjoy either. If we mean where are they to be found, then happiness and fortune can't belong together, for fortune is something unintended that happens on the way to a goal, whilst happiness or bliss is intended by everybody and is never on the way to anything else. So though material goods can be called a fortune in this latter sense, it won't follow that they constitute happiness .. .

In reply to Query 2 [Is bliss a matter of will rather than of understanding?]:

A matter of will may mean an object of will, and because bliss is our ultimate goal and goals define goods and goods are what we will, in this sense bliss is certainly a matter of will. But it may also mean an activity of willing, and in this sense bliss is not a matter of will. For by bliss we mean our ultimate human goal, and that can be understood as either internal to us or external: the internal goal of anything being its characteristic activity (since things exist in order to act),

God as Goal of Human Living and its external goal what is attained by that activity. Now we don't call every activity a goal but only that which first unites a thing to its external goal. And I am talking of the situation in which a thing has, an external goal, for then the internal goal serves the external goal: the external goal acts as ultimate goal to which the thing's activity—its internal goal—is ordered. We see this in nature where things by their activity attain their external goal, God's goodness, by imitating it so to speak. Now no one's activity of willing can be their ultimate goal in this way, for willing is willing of a goal: willing as such (like any other act of will) orders things to a goal, and therefore presupposes a goal other than itself; so that though we may will willing itself that must presuppose some previous object of willing. For we can't understand a power turning back on its own activity unless the activity on which it turns back is first completed by an object of its own, different from such activity: otherwise we will go on for ever. Thus, if understanding understands itself understanding, it must understand itself understanding something; and if you say it understands itself understanding this—itself understanding—then we again need some other object, and so on ad infinitum. Clearly then understanding can't be what understanding first understands, and in the same way willing can't be what will first wills. And since what will first wills is its ultimate goal, no activity of willing can be will's ultimate goal.

Nor can we say we attain our external goal by the immediate means of an act of willing it; for before attainment of the goal our act of willing is seen as moving us to the goal, and after attainment as a sort of resting in the goal. But a will that has been tending towards a goal can't suddenly start resting in it unless it and the goal are now related differently, and whatever it is that changed will's relationship to the goal so that it now rests in it is the ultimate internal goal which first unites us to our external goal: if, for example, our external goal was money, then our internal goal would be possession of that money, which would relate us to the money in such a way that our will rests in it. Since then the ultimate goal external (in some sense) to human willing is

God as the End of Things God, the ultimate internal goal can't be any act of willing, but whatever act first relates us to God in such a way that our will is at rest in him. Now this is the act of seeing God with our understanding, which brings God and our understanding into contact so to speak, since everything we know exists as known in us; in the same way bodily contact brings us a bodily delight in which our affections rest. So our ultimate human goal is an act of intellect, and bliss—our ultimate goal—consists in understanding. Nevertheless, the will's part in this—the resting in the goal which we call delight—is a sort of formal completion of the notion of bliss, supervening on the seeing of God that constitutes its substance. So that we ascrive to will our first relationship to the goal, that of desiring to attain it, and our last, that of resting in it when already attained.

Hence: to 1: This argument proves bliss is an object of will but not that it is an act of will. to 2: Bliss needs delight as a sort of formal completion. For delight completes activity as a sort of end supervening on it in the way beauty supervenes on youth as its adorning grace,'? to 3: Charity is said to be a higher virtue than any other in this life precisely because it directs everyone to God, and in heaven it will enjoy ultimate rest in God. But that doesn't make its activity the very substance of bliss, but either, as in this life, an attraction towards it, or, as in the next, a resting init... to 5: The affections unite us to God more perfectly than understanding, inasmuch as affective unity supervenes as an adorning perfection on the perfect unity understanding has achieved; but the first unity is always that of understanding.

For love inclines us to desire perfect unity before understanding perfectly achieves it (but not before understanding achieves some knowledge, since one can't desire what one doesn't know at all). And that is why Hugh says that love enters where knowledge is left outside.

God as Goal of Human Living In reply to Query 3 [Does bliss consist in practical understanding rather than in contemplation?]:

We have already explained that human bliss consists in that intellectual activity which first unites us to our ultimate external goal by giving us knowledge of it. But practical understanding can't give us knowledge of our ultimate external goal; for practical knowledge is related to what it knows as a cause to its effects, and a cause's effects can't be its ultimate goal since it is not causes which depend on effects for perfection but rather the reverse. So bliss can't consist in the activity of practical understanding but only in the activity of contemplation: and that is why practical knowledge is desired always for the sake of something else, whereas contemplation is desired more for its own sake.

Hence: to 1: The good to which contemplative knowledge unites us is more abstracted from the individual and therefore more general than that to which practical understanding unites us, for practical knowledge reaches completion in activity and that is always individual. It is true that attainment of the goal of contemplation as such is restricted to the attainer, whereas attainment of the goal practical understanding aims at can be both individual and general; for the practical understanding of someone like a ruler can direct both himself and others to a goal, whereas someone's contemplation directs only himself to the goal of contemplation. But so superior is that goal of contemplation to the good of practical understanding that its individual achievement outweighs common achievement of the good of practical understanding. So the most perfect bliss consists in contemplation. to 2: Having perfection that also overflows into others is more perfect than just having it oneself; and that's the only way the comparison made in the argument can be understood, since causing perfection without being perfect oneself isn't possible. Now sometimes it happens that a thing is more perfect in itself than it is as a cause, because the perfection it communicates is not the same or not as great as the perfection it possesses; thus God has greater perfection in God as the End of Things himself than he communicates to others. So we say that the perfection contemplation gives to the contemplator himself is greater than that of a smith making a knife, but that someone who by contemplation made others into equal contemplators with himself would be more perfect than someone who contemplated alone... to 4: Contemplation, simply speaking, ranks higher than practical knowledge, since we seek it for its own sake whereas practical knowledge is sought for the sake of getting something done. Nor does practical understanding lay down laws for contemplation, since 'contemplation doesn't judge truth by any criteria provided by practical understanding; rather practical understanding by deciding how someone should attain contemplative perfection legislates on behalf of contemplation, as Aristotle'? says, and that itself shows practical understanding to be at the service of contemplation.

In reply to Query 4 [Can we attain to bliss in this life?]:

In willing desire of the goal and the means to it is related to the goal's achievement as movement is to destination in nature; and just as a thing stops moving when it arrives at its destination, so will's desire subsides when it attains what it was seeking, and turns into love or enjoyment. Bliss then, as the goal of all desire, must be something which when possessed leaves nothing to desire, and since everyone desires to exist and to hold on to good possessed it is generally agreed that bliss must persist without fluctuation. But not everyone has agreed about what that actually means. Some have said bliss doesn't have to persist for ever but only as long as human life lasts, and that though it mustn't actually fluctuate the possibility of fluctuation will always be there; and according to Aristotle'* this was Plato's opinion. For Plato thought a human being blissful in this life if his bliss lasted till he died, though, because human beings, however perfect, suffer vicissitudes in this life, and cannot know with certainty what the future holds, whether any particular human being's perfection will last till death can't be known until he has actually died. Consequently, no one can be called blissful till he is dead. This view Aristotle rejected,

God as Goal of Human Living since it doesn't seem right to say that someone can be called blissful only when he doesn't exist and can't when he does.

For if bliss belongs in this life, being blissful is being blissful while alive and not when dead, and human beings should rather be called blissful when alive than when dead.

So Aristotle goes on to give his opinion about bliss or happiness: namely, that bliss to be perfect must last for ever without changing, but that human beings can't achieve perfect bliss. They can imitate it a little and to that extent be called blissful, so that human bliss does not have to last for ever without fluctuation in the ordinary sense, but only in so far as the human condition permits: and that is what he calls being humanly blissful. And this is the lack of fluctuation that attaches to a human being because firmly established virtuous dispositions won't allow him to be easily turned away from the practice of virtue. But this view also seems unreasonable. For all agree that happiness or bliss is a good of rational or intellectual natures and so wherever such natures truly exist, not by imitation, we should find true bliss and not just an imitation of it. Now human beings don't simply echo understanding (in the way other animals echo reason, imitating planning in some way in their behaviour), but are truly rational and intellectual; so we must believe they can sometimes attain true bliss and not simply an imitation of it; for otherwise the natural desire of their intellectual nature will have no function.

However, because of the many vicissitudes to which human life is subject, true bliss can't be located in this life, but as the goal of human life must be located after this life.

And this is conceded by all philosophers who hold the soul that gives form to the human body to be itself an intellect; for they hold the soul to be immortal. But philosophers who hold the soul that forms the human body to be not itself an intellect but some sort of echo of a separate single intellect shared in by all say that the soul which forms our body will die, and attains not perfect bliss but only an imitation of it such as has been described. Now this view, as we showed in book 2, is absurd. So we simply concede that there is a true human bliss located after this life; though we don't deny that God as the End of Things a certain imitation of bliss is possible in this life if human beings perfect themselves in the goods firstly of contemplative and secondly of practical reason. This is the happiness

Aristotle discusses in his Ethics without either advocating or rejecting another bliss after this life.

Hence: ... to 3: The goal of human life surpasses that of other animals even more than the one life surpasses the other, and what gives human life its greater excellence is precisely the greater excellence of the goal it is ordered to. So it doesn't have to contain its ultimate goal in the way the lives of other animals do. to 4: Though human beings desire their goal by nature they don't have by nature a desire for everything they need to attain that goal, but acquire that desire by reasoning, debating what they need and making choices. Also, there's nothing odd about desiring something hateful in itself as a means to an end, in the way we desire amputation of a limb for health's sake. And this is the way death, which everyone flees from by nature, can be desired for the sake of bliss; as St Paul also says in Philippians 1: 23: I desire to be dissolved and live with Christ.

[Article 2] The second question [What is bliss?] we approach as follows:

[Query 1] It seems bliss is something uncreated:

For... [3] Augustine'® defines the enjoyable as what is desirable for itself alone. But bliss, according to Aristotle,'® is desirable for itself alone, and so is enjoyable. Augustine goes on, however, to say that only God is enjoyable. So bliss can't be anything else but God...

Moreover, [5] everything in us belongs either to our substance or is incidental. Now bliss doesn't belong to our substance, for then we would all always be blissful; so, if bliss does exist in us, it will be something incidental to us. But incidentals can't be a substance's goal, since the substance ranks higher than the incidental. So bliss can't be something existing in us, and must be something uncreated.

God as Goal of Human Living [1] Boethius'" explains that human beings are blissful by sharing [God's] bliss, just as they are set to rights by sharing his rightness. But our rightness is something God creates in us. Bliss then too.

Moreover, [2]: Aristotle'® says the more goods it accumulates, the more attractive happiness becomes. But God is not made more attractive by accumulation. So happiness is something other than God, and so something created in us.

Further, {Query 2] It seems happiness is not an activity.

For [1] Boethius!? defines bliss as a state made up of all goods gathered together. But a state is not an activity. So bliss is not an activity.

Moreover, [2] our activities are caused by us."° So if bliss consists in some activity of ours we will cause our own bliss, which is absurd.

Moreover, [3] if something within us is to be our ultimate goal, it must above all be something sought just for itself. But pleasure is sought just for itself, not as a means to anything else. Bliss then must above all consist in pleasure. Pleasure, however, is a feeling, not an activity. So happiness isn't an activity...

[1] Aristotle?! says happiness is the active exercise of perfected virtue.

Moreover, [2] that for which a thing exists is its ultimate goal. But Aristotle? says everything exists for the sake of its activity. So the activity proper to human beings is their ultimate goal, and human bliss is some sort of activity.

Moreover, [3] human bliss lies in becoming as like God as possible. But actually acting makes us most like God, actualizing our potentialities to the utmost. So human bliss consists in human activity.

Further, [Query 3] It seems human bliss differs from eternal life.

God as the End of Things For... [2] a comment in the book of Causes says life implies movement and change. But bliss implies lack of change. So bliss differs from eternal life.

Moreover, [3] human beings can share bliss, but not eternal life, since what is made in time can't be eternal. So eternal life differs from bliss.

Moreover, [4] things that last for ever share eternity in the broad sense of everlastingness. Now the damned last for ever in the eternal fire to which they have been committed, as Matthew 25 [41] says; not in bliss, however, but in utmost misery. So bliss differs from eternal life.

[1] Whatever is the goal of human life is bliss. But according to Romans 6 [22] eternal life is the goal of human life: your harvest will be holiness and your goal eternal life. So .. .7°

Moreover, [2] ultimate human bliss consists in seeing God, as we said above. But that is what eternal life consists in, as we read in John 17 [3]: This is eternal life: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent. So bliss is the same as eternal life...

In reply to Query 1 [Is bliss something uncreated?]:

Boethius"* says that the good thing everything desires is to exist. So the ultimate thing everything desires is as perfect an existence as its nature allows. Now anything dependent on others for existence will depend on others for the perfecting of its existence; for the more closely united it is to the source of its existence the more perfect an existence it will receive: earthly bodies are subject to decomposition, Aristotle" explains, because they are so far away from their first source.

So things dependent on others for their existence have a twofold ultimate goal: an external goal, the source of the perfection they desire; and an internal one, namely, the selfperfection that derives from union with their source. Bliss then, the ultimate human goal, will be twofold: one within, the ultimate perfection human beings can attain, a created bliss; and one without, union with which causes that bliss within, and this is God himself, an uncreated bliss.

God as Goal of Human Living Hence:... to 3: Love has two types of object: objects loved with good will—persons to whom we will good for their own sake in the way we love friends without thought of return; and objects loved with desire, be they internal goods like pleasure or things that cause internal good like the wine that gives the pleasure. Now the ultimate thing we love can't be something loved with desire, since that is good only in relation to something else, namely, the person for whom?® it is desired; but the ultimate thing we love must be loved with good will...

So then: our internal created bliss we love only with desire, loving it in relation to ourselves, and thus in relation to God since we too are to be loved in relation to God; it cannot therefore be the ultimate thing we love, though, as the greatest good deriving from union with God, it can be the ultimate thing we desire. In that sense we can say we seek or desire it for its own sake, since this suggests its ultimacy among things loved with desire; for even though we desire

God, our desire for God is the same as our desire for the greatest good coming to us from God, just as our desire for wine is the same as our desire for the pleasure it causes in us... to 5: Although incidentals as such rank lower than substances, still a certain incidental in a certain respect may rank higher. As supervenient on the thing and thus by definition incidental to it, incidentals will always rank lower than a thing's substance; but if it relates the thing to something external it can sometimes rank higher: namely, when it unites it to something of higher rank than itself. And this is the way bliss and grace and suchlike things rank higher than the nature of the soul upon which they supervene. And in another respect all incidental properties of a thing rank higher, as actualizations of what exists in the substance only potentially.

In reply to Query 2 [Is happiness an activity?]:

We have said that a thing's ultimate internal goal is what unites it to its ultimate external goal, the source of its perGod as the End of Things fection. Now things can be united to God, who is their ultimate goal, in two ways: by imitating him, and by coming into contact with him. The things most united to God in the first way are those most like him, and their ultimate internal goal is that in them which is most like God. Now things are more like God the more actualized they are, and less like him the more they are potential, so that a thing's ultimate goal is what most actualizes them. The second way of being united to God—making contact with him—is open only to reasoning creatures, by way of knowledge and love: for God can be an object of such activities but of no other creature's activities.

Now in whichever of these ways we think of the ultimate goal of human perfection we have to regard it as a sort of activity. When we think of it in the way that applies to all creatures uniting with God, we see that activity actualizes the mere capability of acting, so that the ultimate perfection of things lies in their own perfect activity; and this is why we say things exist for the sake of their activity. And again when we think of it in the way that is peculiar to reasoning creatures uniting with God, ultimate human perfection also consists in activity; for a disposition to act only unites with its object when it actually acts. Bliss then must be a sort of activity. Though the second way of thinking of it is more relevant to bliss than the first, since bliss is found only in reasoning creatures.

Hence: to 1: At every level the means to a goal work together for an ultimate goal, and since in human beings as in other creatures that ultimate goal is perfect activity, every human good contributes to the perfecting of human activity. Thus in this life acquired dispositions, natural abilities, and externally needed tools are all goods contributing to perfect human activity, and bliss, therefore, is said to gather together all such goods so that they can contribute to what is the substance of human bliss, the most perfect human activity. And all these goods also contribute to our heavenly bliss, for it is the use we make of these goods that deserves such bliss. In God as Goal of Human Living that bliss not all such goods will still exist in their own natures, but they will exist in what has taken their place: faith, for example, in the sufficiency of eternal goods. to 2: We must distinguish the-essence of an activity from the ways in which it can be perfected. Its essence is determined by some native ability, but it is perfected by dispositions.

When these are acquired dispositions the activity is totally our doing, but when they are instilled the activity's perfection derives from the external cause of our dispositions. Now our activity is only called bliss when it is perfected with a perfection uniting us to our external goal. So our bliss is not our doing, but God's. to 3: Pleasure has two roles. Sometimes it precedes attainment of a goal and then it can be a means to something else: it can, for example, be used to perfect our activity since we pay more attention to doing what gives pleasure. But sometimes it follows attainment of a goal as an effect of that activity which unites us to the goal. And such pleasure is not bliss itself, but a sort of form or perfection of bliss, as we have already said...

In reply to Query 3 [Does human bliss differ from eternal life?}:

We use the word life in two ways. Firstly, to mean the existence of living things, for, as Aristotle?' says, in living things to exist is to live. A living thing is something able to cause its own activity: we call plants living because they cause themselves to grow, animals because in addition they move themselves around and exercise their powers of sense, and human beings because in addition they exercise will and understanding. Now abilities are perfected by activity, so we go on to use the word life for the activities to which things move themselves: an animal's life is a life of sensation, human life a life of understanding, and in the same way everyone calls whatever activity he principally intends his life, as though his whole existence was ordered to that; we say This fellow leads such-and-sucha life. And it was in this sense of life that Epicureans held bliss to be a life of pleasure.

God as the End of Things Now activity is measured by time only if it involves change: an activity like illumination which is tied not to change but to the end of a change doesn't take time but is instantaneous, and if an activity existed which altogether transcended change it would be measured not by time but by some higher measure than time. Now the activity of seeing

God, which we hold human bliss to be, cannot be measured by time: neither in itself, since it has no before and after, nor on the side of the seer or the seen, since both exist outside change; so the activity can be measured neither by time nor by an instant marking the end of some temporal interval.

Nor can it be measured by the everlastingness that measures the unchanging created [heavens] and as such is distinguished from eternity, for seeing God transcends the native power of all creatures and is something no creature can attain by nature. What properly measures it is eternity itself; and the seeing of God, bliss itself, is thus eternal life.

Hence: ... to 2: Although movement and change are what first draw our attention to life, enabling us to distinguish living things from non-living, the word life extends further: to every activity not externally caused, like willing and understanding and so on. And even the word movement gets applied to such activities, so that we talk of understanding as a movement of mind, and willing as a movement of will. to 3: Human beings can't share eternity as a measure properly applying to them or anything in them, as the argument says. But they can partake of eternity in a certain sense: a human being partakes of God's own activity when he sees God, and in that way partakes of the eternity which measures that activity; and so his own activity is called eternal life. to 4: Eternal used of the eternal life of the saints doesn't merely mean never ending as it does used of the eternal sufferings of the damned. It also means lacking all change: and not only all actual change as when we call the heavens everlasting, but also all potentiality to change. For the saints

God as Goal of Human Living by adhering to God receive from hima stability that doesn't allow of change, a stability that God has by nature and makes him eternal...

[Article 3] The third question [Does everyone desire bliss?] we approach as follows:

[Query 1] It seems not everyone desires bliss.

For [1] according to Augustine?® we don't desire what we know nothing about, and Aristotle"? says what we will is what we understand to be desirable. But not everyone knows about bliss, and many are mistaken about it. So not everyone desires it.

Moreover, [2] a person who desires bliss must desire what bliss in reality is, and that is the sight of God. But not everyone does desire that. So not everyone desires bliss.

Moreover, [3] what we can't think we can't desire. But we can't think contraries existing together, as Aristotle explains. So we can't desire contraries existing together.

However, some people desire the contrary of bliss: sins, for example. So not everyone desires bliss.

; Moreover, [4] sin has been defined as adhering to changeable goods and spurning the unchangeable good. But bliss is the unchangeable good. So sinners spurn it and thus don't desire it.

; [1] Boethius?? proves desire of true good to be implanted in every human soul. But true good is bliss. So everybody desires bliss.

Moreover, [2] everything desires its own goal. But bliss is the ultimate goal of human life. So every human being desires it.

Further, [Query 2] It seems some can desire unhappiness.

For [1] all rational powers can do the opposite of what they do. Will, then, as a rational power, can will the opposite of what it wills. Now unhappiness and bliss are opposites. So if someone can desire bliss, they can also desire unhappiness.

God as the End of Things Moreover, [2] if people can't will unhappiness then willing it is impossible and not willing it a necessity. But, as Anselm? says, necessity implies coercion or prevention. So will would be coercible, which goes against its freedom.

Moreover, [3] existence is just as desirable to everyone as bliss. Yet some people, like suicides, don't want to exist. So some people also want to be unhappy.

Moreover, [4] Aristotle says*> that we will goals, and again** that goals are goods or apparent goods. So both real and apparent goods can be desired. But what is evil can appear to be good. So however evil unhappiness is, someone can will it.

[1] Augustine®> shows that no human being can want to be miserable.

Moreover, [2] will relates to what it primarily wills as mind to what it primarily understands. Now, as Aristotle?* proves, mind cannot assent to the contrary of what it primarily understands: namely, that assertions and their denials can't both be true. So will can't assent to unhappiness, the contrary of what it primarily desires.

Further, [Query 3] It seems the desiring of bliss has no merit.

For [1] there's no merit in what we do by nature. But we . desire bliss by nature, for otherwise we wouldn't all do it. So no one's desire of bliss has any merit.

Moreover, [2] merit and demerit relate to the same things, so if, as Augustine®" says, there's no sin in what one can't avoid doing, then there's no merit either. Now human beings can't avoid desiring bliss. So their desire can't have merit.

Moreover, [3] one can't merit eternal life by one's own powers, as Pelagius used to say. But we can desire bliss by our own powers. So desiring bliss can't be meriting.

{1] The way we desire bliss is the way we desire God. So if there's no merit in desiring bliss there won't be merit in desiring God, which is absurd.

God as Goal of Human Living Moreover, [2] merit is caused by the love of charity, and that love is primarily love of our goal. So merit lies above all in will moving to its ultimate goal, that is, in desiring bliss.

Further, [Query 4] It seems.that not everything we will is willed for the sake of bliss.

For [1] enjoyment is never willed except for its own sake, as Aristotle®® says. But enjoyment, as we saw, is not the substance of bliss. So not everything we will is willed for the sake of bliss.

Moreover, [2] things desirable for bliss's sake must be orderable to bliss. But many sinners will things which, far from ordering them to bliss, turn them away from it. So not everything people will is willed for the sake of bliss.

Moreover, [3] what doesn't even look good can't be desired for bliss's sake. But sometimes we desire things that don't even look good: Augustine writes: I stole things I already had much and much better of, nor did I so much want to enjoy the thing as desire the stealing: the stealing and the sin... And I ask what in the sin gave me pleasure, and behold there was nothing there to see. So something was desired not for bliss's sake.

Moreover, [4] death can't be ordered to bliss, except perhaps by hoping for a life after death, since bliss is only for the living. But some people wish to commit suicide or be killed without hope of a future life. So not everything people will is willed for the sake of bliss.

Moreover, [5] the human will is judged*° right when it is ordered to a right goal. If then everything we desired was desired for bliss's sake, every human act of will would be right, and that is untrue.

Moreover, [6] you can't do A for B's sake without thinking about B. So if everything we will is willed for bliss's sake we would have to be thinking about bliss in every desiring act, which doesn't seem true. So we come to the same conclusion as before.

[1] Desire comes to rest in what is desired for its own sake God as the End of Things and not for some other reason. But where desire comes to rest is its ultimate goal. So if we desired something else than bliss for its own sake and for no other reason, there would be another ultimate goal than bliss and that can't be. So everything else we desire must relate to our desire for bliss, mediately or immediately . . .

In reply to Query 1 [Does everyone desire bliss?]:

In any hierarchy of agents and things acted on, the primary agent orders the secondary agents to the primary agent's goal by imprinting them with some disposition: the mind moves the hand and the hand moves the stick and the stick strikes, which was the goal intended by the mind: stick and hand tend towards the goal intended by the mind by some disposition the mind imprints on them mediately or immediately. And we distinguish natural from violent movements by what kind of imprint is left in secondary agents by the primary agent: in violent movements the imprint is not in accord with their nature, so that the consequent activity is hard and laborious for them, but in natural movements the imprint accords with their natures, so that the consequent activity is agreeable and sweet; and this is why Wisdom8 [1] says that God disposes all things sweetly, for all things tend by their divinely imprinted natures towards the goal to which God's providence orders them led by the imprints they receive.

And because all things issue from God in so far as he is good, as both Augustine*! and pseudo-Dionysius*? say, everything created tends to desire good in the way appropriate to it, according to the imprint it receives from its creator. And so things describe a sort of circle, coming out from good and tending towards it, a circle completed in certain creatures but remaining incomplete in others. For creatures not ordered towards contact with the first good from which they have come out, but only to a sort of imitation of him, don't complete the circle; but reasoning creatures—the only creatures who can come into a sort of contact with their first beginning itself{—do. They attain God through knowledge and love, and in that attainment bliss

God as Goal of Human Living consists, as we have said. And so just as every other thing desires its own good by nature, so every reasoning creature desires its own bliss by nature.

. to 1: Just as what we see may mean what as such is seen, namely, colour, or what that happens to make visible, for example, a man, so also what we want or will may mean what as such is willed, namely, good, or what that happens to make willable, namely, this or that good thing. And just as what such is willed is good, talking generally, so what as such is will's ultimate goal is supreme good; whether it be this or that good thing that happens to be willed as ultimate goal and principal object. Everyone knows bliss to be will's principal object as such, then, but not everyone knows what that happens to be. For everyone the bliss desired is known and desired as perfect good, but this perfect good can happen to be found in pleasure or riches or virtue or something of that sort; so it's not strange to find many mistakes made about that. to 2: Although bliss is in fact the sight of God, not everyone desiring bliss must in fact be wanting to see God, for bliss as such names what will as such wills, but the sight of God doesn't. In the same way we can desire something sweet without wanting honey. to 3: Although people sometimes desire things that are in fact irreconcilable with bliss, they nevertheless don't think of them as irreconcilable but as aids to getting there. to 4: Someone who sins by adhering to changeable goods as his goal is taking those changeable goods to be the perfect good he primarily desires, and so is desiring bliss by adhering to them. For just as someone desiring bliss doesn't have to be desiring what bliss in fact is, so someone spurning what bliss in fact is doesn't have to be spurning bliss. Just as ignorance of a man doesn't imply ignorance of white, even though the man in question be white.

In reply to Query 2 [Do some people desire unhappiness?]:

The activity of secondary causes is based on the presupposed God as the End of Things activity of a primary cause. Thus all our living activity presupposes what God, acting first, has imprinted in our soul.

Thus we see that mind can't reach understanding of anything without presupposing knowledge we were born with, and is not able to give assent to anything opposed to the premisses we know by nature. And the same is true of will.

It is imprinted in our soul from God, as first cause, that we will good and desire perfect good as our ultimate goal; so our wills can't desire anything opposed to that. So that no one can will unhappiness or evil except incidentally, by taking to be good what in fact is bad.

Hence: to 1: Rational powers can do the opposite of things that lie within their power and which they have themselves decided to do, but not the opposite of what someone else has decided they shall do: the will can't will the opposite of what God has decided to imprint on it. So it can't will the opposite of its ultimate goal even though it can will the opposite of things it itself decides to do: things such as those it chooses to do in pursuance of that ultimate goal. to 2: Coercion and prevention imply violence, and are not characteristic of the kind of necessity that follows from a thing's nature: violence is always against nature. So since will is carried towards bliss with a necessity derived from its nature, it isn't coerced and is no less free. to 3: There is no reason why something desirable in itself shouldn't be undesirable because of something accompanying it. Even existence, which in itself is a good everyone desires, can be rendered evil and hateful by some accompaniment like grief or unhappiness. So then non-existence becomes desirable; but incidentally, not because it takes away existence, but because it takes away the evil which rendered existence hateful. But lack of evil is good, and is desired as good by the one desiring not to exist. Unhappiness, however, means perfect evil, and so it can never appear good, and no one wills to be miserable; but non-existence means not evil as such but something evil that might have some good accompaniment and so be desirable, as one sees in Aristotle*? and in Jerome's gloss on Jeremiah 20 [14]:

God as Goal of Human Living Cursed be the day of my birth. Augustine's assertion that no one desires not to exist is to be understood of non-existence in itself. to 4: One can't think white is black though one can think a white thing, say a man, is black. And in the same way one can think a good thing to be evil, but one can't think goodness to be badness and vice versa. Because unhappiness is by definition evil one can't think it good and so can't desire it.

In reply to Query 3 [Has the desiring of bliss any merit?]:

According to Aristotle** the good which we will is in things, so that the movement of will ends up in something existing outside the mind. Now although we can consider things generally in mind without particularizing, things can't exist generally outside mind without being particulars. And so will can't ever be carried towards good without being carried towards a defined good, and can't ever be carried towards supreme good without being carried towards supreme good defined in this or that way. Now though will is inclined by nature towards bliss in general, an inclination towards bliss of this or that sort comes not from nature but from a reasoned discrimination deciding that the supreme human good is to be found in this place or in that. So whenever anyone actually desires bliss natural desire must be wedded to reasoned desire, and though the natural strand in the desire is always right, the reasoned strand is sometimes right (when bliss is desired where it really is) and sometimes perverse (when it is desired where it isn't). And so in desiring bliss there can be merit (given grace) or demerit, depending on whether the desire is right or perverse.

Hence: to 1: To what is natural in desire of bliss there is always joined something not of nature but willed; so there is always room for merit or demerit. to 2: Although one can't avoid desiring bliss in some way or another, one can avoid desiring it in the way it should be desired, and so can do it with or without merit.

God as the End of Things to 3: It isn't within the power of human beings to desire bliss with the perfect desire needed to merit it, but we have the gift of God's grace to help us, as we read in 2 Corinthians 5

[5]: It is God who has made us for this, meaning, according to the gloss, who has made us desire true glory.

In reply to Query 4 [Is everything we will willed for the sake of bliss?]:

According to Aristotle,** goals play the same role in desire as premisses in understanding. Because the first and highest of any particular sort of thing causes the rest, knowledge of premisses in contemplative thinking causes knowledge of everything else, and desire of a goal causes desire of everything leading to the goal. So since bliss is the goal of human life, whatever it is our will's desire to do is ordered to bliss; and we see this in experience. For people desire things because they think them good; and when they possess things they think good, they reckon themselves that much closer to bliss, since good added to good comes closer to perfect good, which is bliss itself. So every desire is ordered to bliss.

Hence: to 1: Enjoyment is one of the requirements of bliss and contained in it, so our very desire for enjoyment orders us to bliss in the sense that the desired enjoyment is a likeness, more or less close, of the enjoyment which completes bliss. to 2: There are two ways things desired can be ordered to bliss. First, as a desired means of reaching bliss, in the way we will virtuous actions in order to merit bliss. Or secondly, as resembling bliss in some way. For will's very desire of something makes it desire things similar, even if the thing primarily desired is unattainable; and this is how even sinners tend towards bliss and God's image, as Augustine*® said: Pride imitates your exalted majesty, you being the one

God exalted over all; and what does ambition seek but honour and glory, you being above all worthy of honour?, and so on with the other vices. to 3: Augustine says in the same place that theft itself appeared good in one respect, namely, that it was against the God as Goal of Human Living law and so seemed to have a shadow of freedom in it. Thus he asks: What did I love in that theft, in which I perversely and viciously imitated my God? and answers: Perhaps doing something forbidden pleased me, at least deceitfully exercising a power I didn't have, so that enslaved I imitated freedom, did something illicit, and went unpunished, in a dark likeness of omnipotence? to 4: People without hope of a future life expose themselves to death in two ways. Firstly, in defence of virtue, choosing, for example, to undergo death to save their fatherland or avoid some dishonour; and this they order to bliss as they see it, a bliss coming not after death but in that very act, since the doing of this perfect act of virtue, the undergoing of death, is something they greatly desire, which to them is bliss. Secondly, people desire to die to avoid the burden of unhappiness they are bearing. But avoiding unhappiness is the same as desiring bliss. Clearly then the desires of those who want to undergo death are ordered to bliss. to 5: Two things are required for an act of will to be right: it must pursue a due goal, and whatever it wills as means to that goal must be proportioned to it. Now even though every desire is ordered to bliss, there are two ways in which it can be perverse: that very desire of bliss can perversely seek bliss where there is none, as we have already said; and even when it is sought in the right place, the desired means to the goal may not be proportioned to it, as when someone wills to steal in order to give alms and merit bliss. to 6: The first premisses of understanding don't have to be present in substance in subsequent demonstrations, as actually thought about, but only in [causal] power, as when we demonstrate from truths already proved by first principles. And in the same way, though all desires relate to bliss, we don't have actually to think about bliss in every desire: the desire of bliss is present in power in all other desires, as a cause in its effects.

God as the End of Things Passage 35 Moral Action Source: Summa Theologiae, 1a2ae.18-20, Text from Summa Theologiae (Opera Omnia, Leonine edn., vol. vi).

Date: 1269-70, second stay in Paris, aged 45.

Type of passage and how to read: Modified disputed question (see Introduction).

Parallel reading: See also Passage 31.

Our first consideration [what makes human action good or bad] divides into three: first, [Question 18] the goodness and badness of human actions in general; second, [Question 19] the goodness and badness of inner actions; and third, [Question 20] the goodness and badness of external actions.

{Question 18] The first question [the goodness and badness of human actions in general] divides into eleven:

Are all actions good or some bad?

Can the object of a human action make it good or bad?

Can its circumstances?

Does goodness or badness decide a human action's kind?

Is the good or bad kind of an action decided by its goal?

Does the goal determine the kind more specifically than the object, or vice versa?

Can human actions be neutral in kind?

Can they be neutral in particular cases?

Can a moral action's moral kind be decided by a circumstance?

Does every circumstance that alters a moral act for better or for worse decide its moral kind?

[Article 1] The first question [Are all actions good or some bad?] we approach as follows:

It seems that all human actions are good and none bad:

For [1] pseudo-Dionysius' says bad doesn't act except by good's power. But good's power doesn't do bad. So no actions are bad.

Moreover, [2] activity follows on actuality. But what makes things bad is unrealized potentiality, not actuality; fulfilled potentiality is good, as Aristotle" says. So it is the goodness in things that acts, not the badness; and all actions will be good and none bad.

Moreover, (3] the bad can only cause incidentally, as pseudoDionysius® shows. But actions always have direct effects. So no actions are bad; all are good.

In John 3 [20] our Lord says Everyone who acts badly hates the light. So some human action is bad.

We should judge actions good and bad in the same way we do things, since what things do reflects what they are. Now a thing's goodness is measured by how fully it exists; for, as we said in book 1, good and existent are interchangeable terms. Only God possesses full and complete existence in a single non-complex unity; everything else needs variety of parts if it is fully to exist in the way appropriate to it, and so sometimes it happens that things exist in part but not as fully as they should. Full human being, for example, demands a complex of soul and body endowed with every ability and organ needed for knowledge and movement, and if an individual lacks any of this he would not exist fully. As existing he would be good, but as not fully existing he would lack goodness and be called bad: thus for blind men it is good to be alive, but bad to be without sight. And someone who possessed no existence or goodness at all couldn't be called either bad or good. But because goodness is defined by fullness of existence, what doesn't exist as fully as it should is not called good unreservedly but good only to the extent that it exists; it can, however, be called existent unreservedly, and God as the End of Things is non-existent only in a qualified sense, as we explained in book 1.

In a similar way then actions must be called good in so far as they exist, but in so far as they exist less fully than human actions should they will lack goodness and be called bad: if, for example, we don't do as much as we reasonably should, or do something out of place or the like.

Hence: to 1: Bad acts by power of an incomplete good; for where there is no good there is no existent and nothing able to act, and where the good is complete there will be no bad. So the action caused is also an incomplete good: good in part, but as a whole bad. to 2: There is no reason why a thing shouldn't have enough actuality to act, but not enough to produce a complete action; as blind men have the capacity to walk, but in the absence of sight to direct their steps walk badly, stumbling. to 3: In so far as bad actions exist they are good and can have direct effects: adultery can result in children because it is sexual union of male and female, not because it offends against the laws of reason.

{Article 2] The second question [Can the object of a human action make it good or bad?] we approach as follows:

It seems that an action's object can't make it good or bad:

For [1] the objects of activities are things. But it is not things that are bad, but the way sinners use them, as Augustine* says. So it is not objects that make human actions good or bad.

Moreover, [2] objects provide a sort of material for activity.

But it is not its material that makes something good but the form that actualizes it. So what makes action good or bad is not its object.

Moreover, [3] the object of an agent power is an effect brought about by its action. But goodness of causes doesn't depend on their effects, but rather the reverse. So what makes human action good or bad is not its object.

Hosea 9 [10] says: They have become as abominable as the things they have loved. Now human beings become abominable to God because. of the bad they do. So their actions are bad because the objects they love are bad; and similarly for good actions.

As we have just said, actions are like other things: good if they exist fully, bad if they are incomplete. Now to exist fully what something must first have is what defines it: for things in nature a form, for actions an object in the way movements must have a destination. So just as its defining form gives a natural thing basic goodness, so a fitting object of activity gives moral actions their basic goodness (makes them good of their kind, as some people say): for example, using what belongs to you. And just as in nature the basic evil is a failure to reproduce a thing's defining form—the misbegetting of human beings, for example—so in the moral sphere the basic evil is an action having a wrong object—for example, taking what doesn't belong to you. Such an action is bad of its kind, where 'kind' means species or 'defining kind', in the sense in which the human species is called humankind.

Hence: to 1: External things are good in themselves but are not always properly proportioned to this or that action; so as objects of such activities they are not good. to 2: An action's object is not material out of which but material concerning which, and in a sense that is the action's form, defining it. to 3: The object of human action is not always the object of an agent power. Our ability to desire, for example, is more a power of being acted on, by desirable things; yet it is a source of human action. Nor can the object of an agent power be called its effect till transformation has occurred: the effect of our powers of digestion is digested food, but the material on which they operate is undigested food.

Nevertheless, the very fact that an agent power's object is in God as the End of Things some sense its effect makes it the destination of the action, and consequently something forming and specifying the action in the way destinations specify movements. Moreover, though the goodness of the effect doesn't cause the goodness of the action, still we call action good when it is such as to cause a good effect, so that what makes action good is its very proportion to its effect.

[Article 3] The third question [Can the circumstances of a human action make it good or bad?] we approach as follows:

It seems that an action's circumstances don't make it good or bad:

For [1] circumstances 'stand round' an action, existing outside it, so to speak. But good and bad exist within things, as Aristotle® said. So circumstances can't make actions good or bad.

Moreover, [2] whether actions are good or bad is the main concern of moral teaching. But sciences seem unconcerned with circumstances, which are incidental features of actions; for, as Aristotle® says, no science concerns itself with incidentals, So whether actions are good or bad doesn't depend on circumstances.

Moreover, [3] what belongs to a thing's substance is not incidental to it. But actions are good or bad in substance, good or bad of their kind, as we have said. So actions are not accounted good or bad because of circumstances.

Aristotle" says that virtuous people act as they should, when they should, and in accordance with the other circumstances.

So non-virtuous people must do the opposite, acting, according to various vices, when they shouldn't, or where they shouldn't, or disregarding some other circumstance. A human action then can be good or bad because of some circumstance.

To realize perfection fully things in nature must possess many properties over and above the form defining their substance: human beings, for example, must have shape and colour and so on; and lacking a property they ought to have is bad for them. So too with action: to be fully good it must have not only what defines it, but certain additional features called right circumstances; and if it lacks what right circumstances require, the action is bad.

Hence: to 1: Circumstances lie outside an action in the sense of not specifying what it is, but they belong to it as non-defining properties of a sort; just as natural substances have nondefining properties lying outside what essentially specifies them.

. to 2: Not all non-defining properties are incidental to their subject: some are properties characteristic of it, and these are whata science of the subject investigates. Circumstances of moral actions are the concern of moral teaching in this way. to 3: Being good and being existent are convertible terms, and both the substance and the incidental properties of things exist. So both natural things and moral actions can be called good because of the existence they have in substance and because of the existence belonging to them incidentally.

[Article 4] The fourth question [Can the goal of a human action make it good or bad?] we approach as follows:

It seems that an action's goal doesn't make it good or bad:

For [1] pseudo-Dionysius® says that nothing acts with evil in view. So if an action's goal makes it good or bad, no action will ever be bad. Which is clearly false.

Moreover, [2] the goodness of action is something within it, whereas its goal is external. So an action's goal doesn't make it good or bad.

Moreover, [3] good actions can be done for bad ends— giving to the poor out of vanity—and bad actions for good ends—stealing to give to the poor. So an action's goal doesn't make it good or bad.

Boethius? says whatever has a good goal is itself good. And whatever has a bad goal is itself bad.

God as the End of Things In reply:

Things are good in the same ways in which they exist: some things don't depend for existence on other things, and their existence can be satisfactorily considered on its own, but some depend for existence on others, and their existence must be considered in relation to the cause on which it depends. Now existence depends on agents and forms, but goodness on goals. So goodness in relation to a goal doesn't apply to the persons of God, for example, whose goodness is independent of others; but human actions, and anything else the goodness of which depends on other things, have, in addition to whatever goodness exists within them, a goodness relating them to the goal on which they depend.

Four elements therefore contribute to the goodness of human action: firstly, its generic existence as activity at all (for, as we said, the more fully it exists as an action the more goodness it has); secondly, its species as defined by an appropriate object; thirdly, its circumstances—as it were, its non-defining properties; and fourthly, its goal——as it were, its relationship to some cause of goodness.

Hence: to 1: The good things have in view when they act is not always a genuine good, but sometimes genuine and sometimes illusory, and in the latter case the goal can make the action bad. to 2: Though the goal itself is external, the action's proper proportion and relationship to the goal resides within the action. to 3: There is no reason why an action can't be good in one of the ways mentioned above and not in another. So an action good of its kind or its circumstances can be done for a bad goal, or vice versa. Actions are good (period!) only when all these elements are present: as pseudo-Dionysius'® says, any defect will make a thing bad; but to be good a thing must be wholly good.

{Article 5] The fifth question [Does goodness or badness decide a human action's kind?] we approach as follows:

It seems that good moral actions don't differ in kind from bad ones:

For, [1] as we have said, actions are good and bad in the same way things are. But good things don't differ in kind from bad ones: good and bad men belong to the same species. So neither do good actions differ in kind from bad ones.

Moreover, [2] badness is a lack of something, a sort of nonexistence. But, as Aristotle'! says, what doesn't exist can't differentiate anything. So, since species arise by differentiation, it doesn't seem that bad actions can constitute a separate species. Good human actions then don't differ in kind from bad ones.

Moreover, [3] actions differing in kind differ in effect. But good and bad actions can produce the same kind of effect: adultery and married sex both reproduce the human race. So good and bad acts don't differ in kind.

Moreover, [4] sometimes, as we have said, actions are good and bad because of circumstances. But circumstances are non-essential and don't decide an action's species. Good and bad then don't make actions different in kind.

Like dispositions produce like actions, according to Aristotle? But good and bad dispositions like -generosity and extravagance differ in kind. So good and bad actions differ in kind.

Actions we have said are defined by their objects; so difference of object ought to mean actions differ in kind. Note, however, that difference of object may change an action's kind relative to one source of activity without changing it relative to another; for kind is decided by essentials not incidentals, and a difference of object that is essential relative to one source of activity may be incidental relative to another: for the senses, knowing colour differs essentially from knowing sound, but not for mind. Now good and bad

God as the End of Things describe actions relative to reason—as pseudo-Dionysius'* says, it is good for human beings to live reasonably and bad for them not to—since what suits a thing's form is good for it, and what doesn't suit bad. So clearly difference of good or bad due to an action's object—namely, whether the object suits reason or not—is an essential one relative to reason.

And since actions as products of reason are called human or moral, good and bad will obviously decide the kind of moral 'actions, for the essential differences are the ones that decide kind.

Hence: to 1: Even in nature things good and bad, in the sense of suiting or not suiting nature, differ in kind: dead and living bodies don't belong to the same species. And in the same way good and bad, in the sense of suiting or not suiting reason, decide the kind of a moral action. to 2: What is bad doesn't lack everything but some part of what it could have; and actions defined as bad don't lack all object, but have an object unsuited to reason like taking what doesn't belong to one. But in so far as that object exists positively it decides the kind of the bad action. to 3: Relative to reason, married and adulterous sex are two different kinds of act and have different kinds of effect, one earning commendation and reward and the other blame and penalty; but relative to our reproductive powers the actions are one in species and kind of effect. to 4: Sometimes a circumstance is treated as a difference of object that is essential relative to reason, and as such can decide an action's moral kind. This must always be the case when a circumstance changes an act from good to bad, for a circumstance can only make an act bad by offending against reason.

[Article 6] The sixth question [Is the good or bad kind of an action decided by its goal?] we approach as follows:

It seems that the goodness and badness actions derive from their goal doesn't decide their kind:

For [1] it is the object that defines action, and goal is something outside the object. So the goodness or badness deriving from its goal doesn't decide the action's kind.

Moreover, [2] as we have said, incidentals can't decide something's kind. But the goal an action is directed to is incidental: giving to the poor out of vanity, for example. So goodness or badness derived from an action's goal won't decide its kind.

Moreover, [3] different kinds of action can all have one goal: vanity can lead us to perform acts of many different virtues and vices. So the goodness or badness deriving from the goal doesn't decide the kind of the actions.

It was shown earlier that an action can be defined by its goal.

So the goodness or badness deriving from that goal will decide the action's kind.

As we explained earlier, we call some actions 'human actions' because they are done voluntarily. Now voluntary action is made up of an interior act of will and external activity, and each has its object: the goal is the object proper to the interior act of will and the external activity's object is whatever that activity is concerned with. So just as the external activity's kind is decided by the object it is concerned with, so the interior act of will's kind is decided by its own proper object, namely, its goal. Now since the body acts as will's tool, what the will contributes to action is a sort of form of control imposed on the external activity as material, and only when the external activity is voluntary in this way is it morally significant. Human actions then are defined formally by their goal, and materially by the object of the external activity. As Aristotle'* put it: stealing to pay for adultery makes you more an adulterer, properly speaking, thana thief.

Hence: to 1: The goal itself is an object, as we have said.

God as the End of Things to 2: Even if being directed to a particular goal is incidental to the external activity, it is not incidental to the interior act of will, controlling and giving form to the external activity as to material. to 3: When actions of many different kinds are directed to one goal, the external activity is indeed different in kind, but the interior act is of one kind.

{Article 7] The seventh question [Does the goal determine the kind more specifically than the object, or vice versa?] we approach as follows:

It seems that when, for instance, someone is willing to steal in order to give to the poor, the kind of goodness derived from the goal is contained within the kind of goodness derived from the object like a species within a genus:

For [1] something of one species can't belong to another unless the new species is a subspecies of the one it already belongs to: one and the same thing can't be of two unsubordinated kinds. So specification by goal must be a subspecies of the specification an action has from its object.

Moreover, [2] it is always the ultimate differentiation which specifies most narrowly. But differentiation by goal seems to come after differentiation by object, since goals are ends. So specification by goal must be narrower than specification by object.

Moreover, [3] the more formal a differentiating characteristic the more specific, since differentiating characteristics relate to a genus like forms to material. But specification by goal is more formal than specification by object, as we have said. So the species defined by goal must be contained within the species defined by object, as the most narrowly specified species within the genus to which it is subordinate.

There are a finite number of differentiations possible within a genus. But actions of one kind as defined by their object can be directed to infinite goals: stealing, for instance, to any number of good or bad ends. So the species defined by goal is not contained within the species defined by object as in a genus.

The object of external activity can relate to the willed goal in two ways: essentially, in the way fighting well relates essentially to victory, or incidentally, in the way stealing might be related to giving to the poor. Now Aristotle!' says the differentiating characteristics by which a genus is divided into species must be essential to the genus, not incidental to it; otherwise the division will go wrong. If, for example, one divides animals into reasoning and unreasoning, and then further divides unreasoning animals into those with wings and those without, the division will be inappropriate, for winged and unwinged don't differentiate unreasoning as such. Rather one ought to divide as follows: some animals have legs and some don't, and of those with legs some have two, some have four, some have more; for these later differentiations now differentiate the previous differentiation as such. If then an action's object is not essentially related to its goal, the object's differentiating characteristic won't differentiate the goal's as such, nor vice versa, and the action will have more than one kind, not subordinate one to the other: the action will belong morally to two disparate species, as it were. Which is why we say that a person who steals in order to pay for his sexual irregularities commits two evils with one action. But when an action's object is essentially related to its goal, then one of the differentiating characteristics differentiates the other as such, and one of the action's kinds will be subordinate to the other.

But we still don't know which. To clarify that note, firstly, the less general a form the more specific the differentiating characteristic based on it; secondly, the more general an agent the more general the form it imposes; thirdly, the more ultimate a goal the more general must be the agent intending it: victory—the ultimate goal of the army—is the one intended by the generalissimo, whereas the disposition of this or that unit is a goal left to a subordinate commander. It follows then that goals define actions most generally, and God as the End of Things further specification is due to objects essentially related to those goals; for will, having the goal as its proper object, is general mover of all those powers that have as their objects the objects of particular activities.

Hence: to 1: Nothing can belong in substance to two species, unless one is subordinate to the other, but by way of incidental properties it can: the one apple, for instance, can be white in colour and sweet in fragrance. And in the same way an action which in substance is of one natural kind can be classified by supervening moral features in two moral species. to 2: Thougha goal is the last thing implemented it is the first thing mentally intended, and moral actions are defined relative to mind. to 3: Differentiating characteristics relate to a genus like forms to material because they bring it to actually exist.

But in another sense genus is more formal than the defined species by being less qualified and restricted. So that Aristotle'® says the elements of a definition are its formal cause. In this sense the genus is a formal cause of the species, and more formal the more general it is.

[Article 8] The eighth question [Can human actions be neutral in kind?] we approach as follows:

It seems that no action is neutral in kind:

For [1] bad is lack of good, says Augustine.'" But, according to Aristotle,!® lacking and having are in immediate opposition. So action can't be neutral in kind, as though existing in an intermediate state between good and bad.

Moreover, [2] the kind of a human action is decided, as we have said, by either goal or object. But all goals and objects are good or bad. So all human actions are good or bad in kind. None then is neutral in kind.

Moreover, [3] as we have said, an action with its due perfection of goodness is called good, but if any of that is lacking, bad. Now of necessity every action either has its full goodness or lacks something. So of necessity every action is either good or bad in kind, and none neutral.

Augustine'? says there are certain run-of-the-mill things people do, which could be done with a good or a bad spirit, about which it is rash to judge. So there are certain actions that are neutral in kind.

We have said that every action is specified by its object, and that human or moral action is specified by an object related to what makes action human, namely, reason. If the object involves something agreeable to reason the action will be by definition good (like giving to the poor); if the object involves something offensive to reason the action will be by definition bad (like stealing, which is taking something that doesn't belong to you). But sometimes the object involves nothing at all related to reason (like picking up straws, or taking a walk, or suchlike), and actions of this sort will be by definition neutral.

Hence: to 1: There are two senses of lacking: being without and being deficient. The former takes away everything and leaves nothing, in the way blindness takes away sight and darkness light and death life; and between such a lacking and the opposed having there can be no intermediate state of the subject. But the second sense of lacking—being deficient—is the sense in which we say sickness is lack of health, not because it takes away all health, but because it is a sort of road that leads to the total taking away of health by death.

So this sort of lacking leaves something, and sometimes allows of an intermediate state between itself and the opposed having. And this is the way in which bad lacks good, as Simplicius"® says, for it doesn't take all good away but leaves something behind. So an intermediate state between good and bad is possible. to 2: Every object or goal is good or bad in some sense, at least by nature; but, as we have said, this doesn't always imply moral goodness or badness relative to reason such as we are now discussing.

God as the End of Things to 3: Not everything in an action belongs to the species that defines it. So even if that doesn't contain everything required for the action's full goodness, that doesn't mean to say the action is by definition bad, nor good either: just as human beings are neither virtuous nor vicious by nature.

[Article 9] The ninth question [Can human actions be neutral in particular cases?] we approach as follows:

It seems that some individual cases of action are neutral:

For [1] there's no such thing as a species that doesn't and can't contain a single individual. But we have just said actions can be neutral in kind. So there can be individual neutral actions.

Moreover, [2] individual actions cause us to acquire dispositions akin to those actions, as Aristotle! says. But dispositions can be neutral; for Aristotle?" speaks of people that are unresponsive or extravagant but not vicious; yet they certainly aren't virtuous, since they lack certain virtues. So they are neutral in disposition. Certain individual actions then must be neutral.

Moreover, [3] moral goodness is a matter of virtue and moral badness a matter of vice. But sometimes an action which is neutral in kind fails to be directed to any virtuous or vicious goal. And that individual action would then be neutral.

Gregory says in some homily:?> idle talk is without right purpose, serving neither just need nor devotional profit. But idle talk is bad, since men will render an account for it on the day ofjudgement, as we read in Matthew 12 [36]; though if it did serve just need or devotional profit it would be good.

So all talk is either good or bad, and for like reasons all other actions are good or bad. No individual action is therefore neutral.

Sometimes an action neutral by definition is good or bad in a particular case, the reason being that the goodness of a moral action, as we have said, derives not only from the object that defines it, but also from its incidental circumstances; just as incidental properties add to individual human beings things they wouldn't have by definition. And every individual action must have some circumstance which turns it into a good or bad action: the intended goal, if nothing else. For it is reason's function to direct, and any action that issued from reason's deliberation without being directed to a due goal would ipso facto offend against reason and be bad; but if it were directed to a due goal, it would conform to reason and be good. Now of necessity reason either directs it to a due goal or not; so of necessity any deliberate human action, considered in the particular case, is good or bad. The only actions that can be neutral in the particular case are actions like stroking one's chin or shifting one's feet, which issue not from deliberation but from a sort of sense-reflex. Such actions are not, properly speaking, moral or human, since for that they must derive from reason; so they are neutral in the sense of not moral at all.

Hence: to 1: An action neutral in kind can mean two different things. The argument takes it to mean an action bound by definition to be neutral; but in that sense no action is ever by definition neutral, for there is no object of human activity that cannot be directed to good or bad by some goal or circumstance. But another meaning of an action neutral in kind is an action not bound to be either good or bad by definition, but open to being either for some other reason.

Just as a human being isn't bound to be black or white by definition, but isn't precluded from being so either, and he can be black or white for reasons external to his definition. to 2: Aristotle is thinking of vicious in the special sense of harmful to other people, and says extravagant men are not vicious because they harm nobody but themselves; and the same for all others who don't harm their neighbours. But we are here speaking of bad in the general sense of being offensive to right reason, and in this sense every individual act is either good or bad, as we have said.

God as the End of Things to 3: Every goal on which a deliberating reason is intent serves either the good of some virtue or the evil of some vice.

For even the regular feeding and resting of our bodies serves the good of virtue in people who put their bodies at virtue's service; and the same is true of everything else.

[Article 10] The tenth question [Can a moral action's moral kind be decided by a circumstance?] we approach as follows:

It seems that a circumstance can't decide an action's moral kind:

For [1] an action's kind is decided by its object. But circumstances differ from objects. So an action's kind can't be decided by circumstances.

Moreover, [2] circumstances are incidental to moral actions, as we have said. But incidentals don't decide a thing's kind.

So circumstances don't decide the moral kind of actions.

Moreover, [3] a thing can't have more than one definition.

But a single action can have more than one circumstance. So circumstances don't define the moral kind of moral actions.

Where is a circumstance. But where decides the kind of badness certain moral actions have: thus, stealing from a holy place constitutes a sacrilege. So a circumstance can decide what kind of good or bad action a moral action is.

As we have already shown, just as natural forms decide kinds of thing in nature, so forms conceived by human reason decide kinds of moral action. But nature is fixed, and nature's processes have defined ends, so that in nature we arrive at an ultimate form defining the thing's kind, after which no further definition is possible: no supervening modification to a thing in nature can redetermine its kind.

But the processes of reason are not fixed, and whatever is given can be taken further. So what in a first action was treated as circumstance, attendant on the object that decided the kind of the action, can be reassessed by reason as a main feature of the object deciding the action's kind. Thus taking what isn't one's own has its kind decided by the object not one's own, and is classified as stealing; and the place and time at which you steal are considered to be circumstances.

But because they too can be ruled by reason, the place where the object is could also be seen as offensive to reason, namely, to reason's rule that no injustice should be done to holy places. And then taking what isn't one's own from a holy place adds some special contravention of the rule of reason. The place that was first thought of as a circumstance is now being thought of as the main feature of an object offensive to reason. And this is the way in which a circum- . stance, whenever it relates, pro or contra, to a special rule of reason, decides the moral kind of an action, good or bad.

. to 1: A circumstance that decides the kind of an action is thought of as a feature of the object, as we have said, and as a sort of differentiating characteristic determining its species. to 2: Circumstance as circumstance is incidental and cannot decide an action's kind, but when it has become the main feature of the object it decides the action's kind. to 3: Not every circumstance of an action defines a moral kind for it, since not every circumstance implies some harmony or discord with reason. So even if a single action has more than one circumstance the single action doesn't need to have more than one definition. Although even that holds no difficulties: for a single moral action can belong to more than one moral kind, even disparate kinds, as we have said above.

[Article 11] The eleventh question [Does every circumstance that alters a moral act for better or for worse decide its moral kind?] we approach as follows:

It seems that every good or bad circumstance will decide an action's kind:

For [1] goodness and badness differentiate kinds of moral action. So whatever makes a difference to a moral action's God as the End of Things goodness or badness differentiates its kind. But making an action better or worse makes a difference to its goodness and badness, and therefore differentiates its kind. So every circumstance making an action better or worse decides its kind.

Moreover, [2] an attendant circumstance is itself something good or bad, or not. If not, then it can't make the action better or worse, since what isn't good can't make anything better, and what isn't bad can't make it worse. But if the circumstance is itself something good or bad, then this must be of a certain kind. So every circumstance that makes an action better or worse must set up some new kind of goodness or badness.

Moreover, [3] any defect will make a thing bad, as pseudoDionysius** says. But any circumstance that makes bad worse is an extra defect, and so adds a new kind of sin. And in the same way any circumstance that makes good better would appear to add a new kind of goodness, just as adding one to a number makes a new kind of number; for goodness consists in number, weight, and measure.

Difference in degree is not difference in kind. But circumstances that make actions better or worse make a difference in degree. So not every circumstance that makes moral actions better or worse decides its moral kind.

We have said that an action's circumstance, when it is relevant to some special rule of reason, can decide the moral kind—good or bad—of the action. But some circumstances are relevant to what reason says is good or bad only when some other presupposed circumstance has defined the action's kind: thus taking more or less of something doesn't affect reason's judgement of goodness or badness unless there is some feature making the action good or bad: for instance, that what is taken is someone else's and therefore the taking is offensive to reason. Stealing more and stealing less will therefore differ in degree of badness, though not in Moral Action kind; and the same is true for other good and bad actions.

Not every circumstance that makes moral actions better or worse, then, alters their kind.

, to 1: Where variation in degree is a possibility difference in degree doesn't cause difference in kind: a difference in white's intensity is not a difference in kind of colour. And in the same waya difference in intensity of goodness or badness isn't a difference in a moral action's kind. to 2: A circumstance that worsens a sin or makes a good action better sometimes has no goodness or badness of its own, but only in relationship to some other feature of the action, as we have said. And so it doesn't set up any new kind of goodness or badness, but increases that which is due to this other feature. to 3: Not every circumstance introduces a defect peculiar to itself; some do so only relative to something else. And in the same way not every circumstance introduces a new perfection; some do so only relative to some other thing. And to that extent, although a circumstance may increase an action's goodness or badness, it doesn't always alter its moral kind.

[Question 19] Next we consider the goodness and badness of the inner act of willing; and this question divides into ten:

Does whether willing is good depend on the object willed?

Are we bound to follow our reason, even if it is mistaken?

If in following mistaken reason we will something against God's law, do we act badly?

Does the goodness of an act by which we will the means to a goal depend on the act by which we intend the goal?

Does a better intention make our act of willing better?

To be good, must willing conform to God's willing?

To be good, must human willing will what God wills?

God as the End of Things {Article 1] The first question [Does whether willing is good depend on the object willed?] we approach as follows:

It seems that what makes an act of willing good or bad is not its object:

For [1] we can't will anything but good, since as pseudoDionysius"> says the bad is unwilled. If then willing is to be judged good by its object, every act of willing would be good and none bad.

Moreover, [2] good is first found in goals, and the goodness of a goal, as such, doesn't depend on anything else. But, according to Aristotle,"® good action is its own goal, though making isn't and always has some product for its goal. So what makes an act of willing good is not its object.

Moreover, [3] the effect of a thing resembles it. But the objects of our willing are goods of nature, which can't therefore produce moral goodness in our willing. So the moral good of our act of willing doesn't derive from its object.

Aristotle?" says justice is what makes people will the just thing; and by the same token virtue is what makes people will good things. But good willing is virtuous willing. So what makes willing good is the good that it wills.

Good and bad differentiate acts of willing as such; for good and bad belong essentially to will in the way true and false belong to reason, differentiating its actions as such, so that opinion, for example, divides into true and false opinions. So acts of good and bad will are different in kind. Now what differentiates the kind of an action is its object, as we said above. So what properly distinguishes willing as good or bad is the object it wills.

Hence: to 1: We don't always will genuine goods; sometimes we will illusory goods, which have some good in them indeed, but Moral Action are not altogether what we should desire. And as a result our acts of willing are not always good but sometimes bad. to 2: There is an activity which is in one sense our ultimate human goal, but it isn't an act of willing, as we said above. to 3: The will's object is a good presented to it by reason, and as planned by reason it is already a moral object and can cause moral goodness in our acts of willing. For reason is the source of human and moral action, as we said above.

{Article 2] The second question [Does whether willing is good depend only on the object willed?] we approach as follows:

It seems that whether an act of willing is good doesn't depend only on the object willed:

For [1] goals relate to will more than to any other power.

But the goodness of the actions of other powers depends not only on their objects but also on their goals, as we said above. So the goodness of the action of willing too depends not only on its object but also on its goal.

Moreover, [2] the goodness of an action depends not only on its object but also on its circumstances, as we have explained.

And diversity of circumstances can cause acts of willing to be good or bad: as is the case with someone willing when and where and as much as and how he ought, or in ways he ought not. So the goodness of an act of willing doesn't only depend on the object willed, but on circumstances.

Moreover, [3] ignorance of circumstances can excuse us from bad will, as was explained earlier. But that can only be because circumstances affect whether willing is good or bad.

So whether willing is good or bad depends on circumstances and not only on the object willed.

Circumstances as such don't decide an action's kind, as we said above. But we have just said that good and bad differentiate kinds of willing. So whether acts of willing are good or bad doesn't depend on circumstances, but only on the object willed.

God as the End of Things In reply:

In any genus the most basic members are the simplest and least complex, as chemical elements are; so that the most basic members of any genus are simple unities of some sort.

Now the goodness and badness of human actions is based on our willing of them, so that the goodness and badness of our willing must depend on some one thing, whereas the goodness and badness of other actions can depend on several things. The single basis from which we start in any genus is, however, something essential and not incidental, since everything incidental bases itself on what is essential. So the goodness of willing must depend only on the one thing that gives essential goodness co an action, namely, its object, and not on the incidental circumstances of actions.

Hence: to 1: The object of will—and this distinguishes it from other powers—is precisely the goal. So, for the act of willing, goodness of object and goodness of goal don't differ as they do for actions of other powers; except incidentally in the way goal depends on goal and one act of willing on another. to 2: Given a good act of willing, there are no circumstances which could make it bad: for saying someone wills a good when he shouldn't is ambiguous. Either the when qualifies what is willed: and then you aren't willing something good, for to want to do something when it shouldn't be done is not to will a good. Or the when is meant to qualify the willing itself: and then it is impossible to will good when one shouldn't, because one should always will good. Unless, incidentally, by willing this good at this time one is prevented from willing the good one ought to, and then the bad comes not from willing this good but from not willing that. And the same is true of all other circumstances. to 3: Ignorance of circumstances excuses us from bad will if they qualify what is willed; that is to say, if we don't know some circumstances of the action we are willing.

[Article 3] The third question [Does whether willing is good depend on reason?] we approach as follows:

It seems that whether willing is good doesn't depend on _ reason:

For [1] earlier doesn't depend on later. But good belongs to will before it belongs to reasqn, as was made clear above. So whether willing is good doesn't depend on reason.

Moreover, {2] Aristotle"® says that the good for practical reason is a truth conforming to right desire. But right desire is good willing. So the goodness of practical reason depends on that of willing, rather than the opposite way round.

Moreover, [3] moved depends on mover, not vice versa. But willing moves our reason and our other powers, as has been said. So whether willing is good doesn't depend on reason.

Hilary"? says It is an unruly will that holds on to what it has undertaken without subjecting itself to reason. But good willing consists in avoiding unruliness. So whether willing is good depends on whether it follows reason.

Whether our willing is good depends properly on the object willed. Now the object we will is presented for willing by reason, since only a good that is understood is suited for willing, goods sensed or imagined being suited not for willing but for emotional desire. Will responds to good as such— which is what reason grasps—whereas emotions respond only to particular good things as perceived by the senses. So whether willing is good depends on reason in the same way that it depends on the object willed.

Hence: to 1: Good as such, as attracting, acts on will rather than mind, but only because it has first made itself known to our mind as true; for will can only be drawn to what reason has first perceived to be good. to 2: Aristotle is talking here of how practical reason, when it is deliberating about means, needs to be perfected by prudence; for, to be right about means, our reasoning must conform to our willing of the right goal. However, this very

God as the End of Things willing of the right goal presupposes right perception of it by our minds. to 3: In one way willing moves us to reason, and in another reasoning moves us to will, by way of will's object, as we have said.

{Article 4] The fourth question [Does whether willing is good depend on the eternal law?] we approach as follows:

It seems that whether human willing is good doesn't depend on eternal law:

For [1] to each thing its standard and measure, one to one.

Now human willing is measured by right reason, on which its goodness depends. So whether its willing is good doesn't depend on eternal law.

Moreover, [2] measure and measured belong to the same genus, as Aristotle*° says. But eternal law and human willing are not of the same genus. So eternal law can't be the standard by which the goodness of human willing is measured.

Moreover, [3] standards must be most accurately known, whereas the eternal law is to us unknown. So eternal law can't be the standard by which the goodness of our willing is measured.

Augustine*! writes: sin is any word, deed, or desire against eternal law. But the root of sin is bad willing. So, since bad and good are opposed, good willing depends on eternal law.

In any hierarchy of causes the effect depends more on the first cause than on subsequent ones, since subsequent causes act only in virtue of the first cause. Now human reason can lay down standards for measuring the goodness of human willing, because it reflects God's reason, the eternal law.

Thus in the psalms [4: 6-7] we read Many say: Who can show us what is good? We are sealed with the light of your face, O Lord; as if to say: The light of our own reason can show us what is good and lay down a standard for our willing, to the extent that it is the light of your face, light deriving from your face. Clearly then good human willing depends even more on the. eternal law than on human reason, and when human reason fails we should fall back on eternal reason.

Hence: to 1: One thing can't have more than one immediate measure, but there can be several measures hierarchically ordered. to 2: The immediate measure is of the same genus as the measured, but not the ultimate measure. to 3: The eternal law, as it exists in God's mind, is unknown to us; but we gain some awareness of it partly through natural reason, which directly reflects it, and partly through revelation added over and above.

[Article 5] The fifth question [Are we bound to follow our reason, even if it is mistaken?] we approach as follows:

Will, it seems, if it refused consent to a mistaken reason, would not act badly:

For [1] reason provides the standard for human willing to the extent that it derives from eternal law, as we have just said. But a mistaken reason does not derive from eternal law.

So a mistaken reason does not provide the standard for human willing, and a will that refuses consent to mistaken reason does not act badly.

Moreover, [2] according to Augustine>? a subordinate's orders do not bind if they contradict those of his superior: proconsuls can't command what the emperor has forbidden.

But occasionally a mistaken reason proposes something counter to the orders of its superior, namely, God, who holds supreme power. So then the dictate of mistaken reason will not bind us, and a will that refuses consent to mistaken reason will not act badly.

Moreover, [3] a bad act of will must belong to some species of bad act. But refusing consent to mistaken reason doesn't God as the End of Things define a species of bad act: when reason tells us to have illicit sex, for example, to what species of bad act does will's refusal to consent belong? So a will that refuses consent to mistaken reason does not act badly.

Conscience, we said in book 1, is the act of applying knowledge to some action, knowledge which reason provides. So a will that refuses consent to mistaken reason goes against conscience. But such willing is bad: for Romans 14

(23] says: Anything which does not arise from conviction (ie. conscience) is sin. So a will that refuses consent to a mistaken reason is acting badly.

Since conscience is a sort of dictate of reason—a sort of application of knowledge to action, as we said in book 1— to ask whether our will acts badly in refusing consent to mistaken reason is to ask whether we are bound by a mistaken conscience.

Here some people distinguish three sorts of action—good of its kind, bad of its kind, and neutral—and say that reason or conscience is not mistaken when it tells us to do what is good in kind and not to do what is bad in kind (for commanding good implies forbidding bad); but reason is mistaken when it commands what is bad in kind or forbids something good in kind, or when it commands (or forbids) what is neutral in kind, like picking up straws. To the question whether we are bound to follow this mistaken reason or conscience, they answer yes, if it is commanding

(or forbidding) something neutral, saying that a will which refuses consent to such a mistaken reason or conscience acts badly and commits a sin; but no, if reason is commanding something bad in kind or forbidding something good in kind required for our eternal well-being, saying that in these latter cases a will that refuses consent to a mistaken reason or conscience does not act badly.

But this is incoherent. In the case of neutral objects, a will that refuses consent to a mistaken reason or conscience is somehow bad by reason of the willed object, on which the goodness or badness of willing depends; but not by reason of the object's true nature [since that is neutral], so, incidentally, by reason of the way reason perceives it as bad to do or not to do. And since will's object is what reason presents to it, as we have said, when will pursues something presented to it by reason as bad, it acts badly. But this doesn't only happen in the case of neutral objects, but also in the case of objects good or bad in kind. Reason not only presents neutral actions as incidentally good or bad, but bad actions as good and good actions as bad. Thus abstaining from sex outside marriage is a good thing, but will responds to this good only in the way reason presents it, and if a mistaken reason presents it as bad, will will respond to it as bad. And then because what is willed is bad the willing will be bad: not bad in itself but bad incidentally because of the way reason has perceived it. And in the same way, believing in Christ is good in kind and needed for eternal well-being, but will responds to this good only in the way reason presents it, and if reason presents it as bad, will will respond to it as bad: not bad in itself but bad incidentally because of the way reason has perceived it. And this is why Aristotle*? says that an undisciplined man is essentially one who abandons right reason, but incidentally also one who abandons even wrong reason.

So we must say quite simply that will always acts badly if it refuses consent to reason, whether reason is right or wrong.

Hence: to 1: Though the judgement of mistaken reason does not derive from God, mistaken reason nevertheless presents its judgement as true and so as something derived from God, the author of all truth. to 2: Augustine's words are of relevance when we know that the subordinate's orders contradict those of his superior. But if someone thinks that the proconsul's orders are those of the emperor, in flouting the former he flouts the latter. Likewise, if a man is aware that his reason is commanding something

God as the End of Things contrary to God's law, then he is not obliged to follow it; but in such a case his reason is not entirely mistaken. But when our mistaken reason presents something as the law of God, then to flout the dictate of reason would be to flout God's law. to 3: When reason perceives something as a bad act it always perceives it as being a particular kind of bad act: as contravening some command of God, or giving scandal, or something of the sort. So the bad act of will will be that kind of bad act.

[Article 6] The sixth question [If in following mistaken reason we will something against God's law, do we act badly?] we approach as follows:

It seems that will, in giving consent to a mistaken reason, acts well:

For (1] just as will when refusing consent to reason pursues what reason judges bad, so will when giving consent to reason pursues what reason judges good. But will when refusing consent to reason, even mistaken reason, acts badly.

So will when giving consent to reason, even mistaken reason, acts well.

Moreover, [2] will when giving consent to God's command and eternal law always acts well. But eternal law and God's command is presented to us through reason's perception of it, even mistaken reason. So will when giving consent to mistaken reason acts well.

Moreover, [3] will refusing consent to a mistaken reason acts badly. If then will giving consent to a mistaken reason also acts badly, it seems that the wills of people with mistaken consciences cannot avoid acting badly. But then such people are caught in a trap and cannot avoid sin: which is hard to accept. So will when giving consent to a mistaken reason acts well.

Whoever wills to kill an apostle acts badly. Nevertheless, they are giving consent to mistaken reason, as John 16 [2] says: The time is coming when all those who kill you will think they are doing Goda service. So will, in giving consent to a mistaken reason, can act badly.

Just as the preceding question asked whether we are bound by a mistaken conscience, so this one asks whether a mistaken conscience excuses us. Now this question depends on what was said earlier about ignorance. There we said that ignorance sometimes makes our actions unwilled and involuntaty and sometimes not. And since moral goodness or badness attaches only to voluntary action, as was explained above, clearly the only ignorance which can deprive our actions of moral goodness or badness is that which makes our actions involuntary. We also said above that ignorance which is in any way willed, directly or indirectly, will not make actions involuntary. And | call ignorance directly willed when it is the object of an act of will, but indirectly willed when it arises from negligently not willing what it was a duty to will, as we said above.

Mistakes of reason and conscience then, made willingly, whether directly willed or arising from neglect of what it was our duty to know, do not excuse a will consenting to mistaken reason and conscience from acting badly. But mistakes that make action involuntary—arising without negligence from ignorance of some circumstance—do excuse a will consenting to mistaken reason from acting badly. For example, if mistaken reason tells a man it is his duty to have an affair with someone else's wife, will that consents to this mistaken reason will act badly, because the mistake comes from not knowing a law of God which it was his duty to know. If, however, the mistake lies in thinking the woman in his bed is his own wife, then the willing of intercourse when she asks for it is excused from being a bad act, for this is a mistake which arises from an ignorance of the circumstances, makes the act involuntary, and excuses it.

Hence: to 1: Any defect will make a thing bad, says pseudoDionysius;** to be good a thing must be wholly good. So God as the End of Things what we will can be bad either because the thing willed is bad by nature, or because the mind presents it as bad; to be good it must both be and be seen to be good. to 2: Eternal law can't make a mistake but reason can. So, in giving consent to human reason, will is not always right, and not always giving consent to eternal law. to 3: In moral action, just as in logical reasoning, a fault early on will lead to others.

If, for example, we suppose someone to be acting out of vanity, he will sin whether out of vanity he does or does not do what he ought to. But he is caught in no trap, since he can put aside his bad motive. And similarly here, if the mistake of reason and conscience proceeds from inexcusable ignorance, then the will is obliged to act badly. But there is no trap here, for the ignorance is voluntary and can be overcome, and the mistake repaired.

[Article 7] The seventh question [Does the goodness of an act by which we will the means to a goal depend on the act by which we intend the goal?] we approach as follows:

It seems that the goodness of our act of will doesn't depend on the act intending the goal:

For [1] we have already said that the goodness of any act of will depends solely on the object willed. But when willing means to a goal the object willed differs from the goal intended. So in such cases the goodness of our act of will doesn't depend on the act intending the goal.

Moreover, [2] to want to keep God's commandments is a good act of will. But it can be put at the service of a bad goal: vanity, for example, or greed, when one wills to obey

God for temporal advantages. So whether the act of will is good doesn't depend on the act intending the goal.

Moreover, [3] just as good and bad differentiate acts of will, so they differentiate goals. But the badness of an act of will doesn't depend on intending a bad goal: someone who steals in order to give to the poor is willing badly even though the goal he intends is good. In the same way then the goodness of an act of will doesn't depend on intending a good goal.

Augustine®> says that God rewards intentions. But things are rewarded by God because they are good. So the goodness of our acts of will depend on the intending of the goal.

Intention can either precede willing or accompany it.

It precedes it, in a causal sense, whenever we will something because of some intended goal. And then that relation to a goal can be thought of as contributing in some way to the goodness of what we actually will: as, for example, when we fast for God's sake, the fasting acquires a goodness from being done for God. So, since the goodness of an act of will depends on the goodness of what is willed, as we have said, it will necessarily depend on the intending of the goal.

Intention follows on willing, however, when it attaches to some already existing willing: for example, if someone willed to do something, and only later referred it to God. In this case the goodness of the first act of will does not depend on the consequent intention, unless the act of will is reiterated to accompany that consequent intention.

Hence: to 1: When we will an action because we intend a certain goal, the action's relationship to that goal contributes to its goodness, as we have said. to 2: If a bad intention causes the willing, then the willing can't be good: willing to give to the poor out of vanity is willing something good in itself for a bad reason, and what is so willed is bad and the willing of it bad. But if the bad intention supervenes then the willing could have been good; so the consequent intention won't corrupt the willing up to that point, but only from then on if the willing is repeated. to 3: Any defect will make a thing bad, as we have already said, but to be good a thing must be wholly good. So whether we will bad for good reasons or good for bad reasons the resultant willing will always be bad. A good act of will must be willing good for good reasons, good for the sake of good.

God as the End of Things [Article 8] The eighth question [Does a better intention make our act of willing better?] we approach as follows:

It seems that a better intention makes our act of willing better:

For [1] a gloss on Matthew 12 [35]—The good person produces good from the store ofgood in his heart—reads: A person does as much good as he intends. But intentions don't only make external doing good, but also our willing, as we have said. So a person has as gooda will as he intends.

Moreover, [2] increasing a cause increases its effect. But good intentions cause good willing. So the better the intention the better the willing.

Moreover, [3] when acting badly, the worse the intention, the more the sin: for if someone throws a stone intending to kill he will be judged guilty of murder. By the same token then, when acting well, the better the intention, the better the act of will.

A good intention can accompany a bad act of will. By the same token thena better intention can accompany a worse act of will.

Actions and intentions of goals can be measured in two ways: by their objects—how much good they will or do—or by their intensity—how intensely their agent wills or does them.

If then we measure by object, it is clear that the degree of our doing doesn't always match up to that of our intending.

And where external activity is concerned this can happen in two ways: firstly, the object that is ordered to the intended goal may not match up to that goal (as giving ten pounds isn't enough to attain a goal of buying something worth a hundred pounds); and secondly, there can arise obstacles to external activity which we are powerless to remove (as when we intend to go on as far as Rome but obstacles arise to stop us doing it). But where interior acts of will are concerned only the first of the above ways operates: for interior acts of Moral Action will are within our power whereas external activity is not; but the object that we will may not match up to the goal we intend, so that the willing of that object, considered in itself, is not as good as the intention was. Nevertheless, since the intention itself is attached to the act of willing in a way, providing the reason for willing, a measure of good in the intention does flow over into the willing: the will is willing a great goal even if the means it wills to take are not worthy of that goal.

But if we turn to the degree of intensity with which actions are willed and goals intended, the intensity of our intention will flow over into the will's interior acts and external activity, since intention gives them both a sort of form, as we have said. Both the interior and exterior parts of an action may be, materially speaking, less intensely willed than the goal is—we often have a stronger desire to be well than to take the medicine required, but the intensity of our intention to be well will flow over, formally speaking, into an intense willing of the medicine.

Yet we must also consider this: that the intention can have as object the intensity of both interior willing and external activity: as when one intends to will or do something intensely, and yet for all that one doesn't will or do the thing intensely, since the goodness of the interior or external activity doesn't match up to the degree of good intended, as we said earlier. And that is why we don't deserve all that we intended to deserve; for degree of deserts is related to intensity of action, as we shall see later.

Hence: to 1: That gloss is talking of God's reckoning in which the goal intended is what mainly counts. Thus another gloss on the same text says that the heart's store is intention, by which God judges our deeds. For the goodness of intention flows over in a sense, as we have said, into the goodness of our willing, to make even external acts deserving in God's eyes. to 2: The goodness of our intention is not the whole cause of the goodness of our willing. So the argument doesn't succeed.

God as the End of Things to 3: Badness of intention alone is enough to spoil our willing, so the worse the intention the worse the willing; but, as we have just said, you can't use the same argument where goodness is concerned.

[Article 9] The ninth question [To be good, must willing conform to God's willing?] we approach as follows:

It seems that to be good, human willing needn't conform to God's willing:

For [1] it is impossible for human willing to conform to God's willing: As the heavens are high above the earth, so are my ways high above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts, says Isaiah [55: 9]. If then willing, to be good, must conform to God's willing, it would be impossible for any human willing to be good. And that doesn't seem right.

Moreover, [2] our willing derives from God's willing in the way our knowledge derives from his knowledge. But our knowledge doesn't have to conform to his: for he knows many things we don't. So our willing doesn't have to conform to his willing.

Moreover, [3] willing causes action. But our action doesn't have to conform to God's action. So not our will to his will either.

We read in Matthew 26 [39]: Not as I will, but as you will; which [Jesus] said because he willed to be an upright man directed to God, as Augustine*® expounds. But upright willing is good willing. So to be good, willing must conform to God's willing.

We have said that the goodness of an act of will depends on the intending of the goal. Now, as we said earlier, the ultimate goal of human willing is the supreme good, God; so the goodness of an act of human will requires that it be ordered to the supreme good. But that [supreme] good is primarily and in its nature the proper object of God's willing; and what is primary in a genus is the standard and pattern for everything else in the genus. So, because to be right and good a thing must measure up to its proper standard, human willing, to be good, must conform to God's willing.

, Hence: to 1: Human willing can't conform to God's willing by equalling it, but it can imitate it. And in the same way [2] human knowing conforms to God's knowing by knowing truth, and [3] human action to God's action by being fitting to its agent. All this by imitation rather than equivalence. So this provides the answers to 2 and to 3 as well.

{Article 10] The tenth question [To be good, must human willing will what God wills?) we approach as follows:

It seems that human willing doesn't always have to conform to God's willing in regard to what it wills:

For [1] we can't will what we don't know about, since will's object is what is perceived as good. But in most cases we don't know God's will. So we can't conform our willing to it.

Moreover, [2] God wills the eternal condemnation of those he already sees will die in fatal sin. If then a human being hada duty to conform his willing to God's willing in regard to what he wills, the human being would have to will his own damnation, and that doesn't seem right.

Moreover, [3] nobody has a duty to be unfilial. But sometimes willing what God wills is unfilial: for example, when God wills the death of one's father it would be unfilial to will the same. So one has no duty to conform one's willing to God's willing in regard to what one wills.

{1] A gloss on the text from the Psalms [33: 1]: Praise comes well from the upright, reads: The upright in heart are those who will what God wills. But everyone has a duty to be upright in heart. So everyone has a duty to will what God wills.

God as the End of Things :

Moreover, [2] like every action, willing is defined by its object. So if we have a duty to conform our willing to God's willing, that conformity must be in regard to what we will.

Moreover, [3] wills conflict when people will different things.

But willing that conflicts with God's will is bad willing. So unless one conforms one's willing to God's willing in regard to what one wills, one will will badly.

We have already explained that the object of willing is presented to it by reason. Now reason can often regard one and the same action as good for one reason and bad for another; and one person may want it because of the good and will well, while another doesn't want it because of the bad and is also willing well. A judge, for example, may will well and justly in sentencing a bandit to death, while the bandit's wife and children may will well in opposing the sentence as a natural evil. But because willing follows on the reasoned perception of mind, the more general the nature of the good perceived, the more general the good that is willed. As we see in the above example: the judge has to serve the general good of the community, which is justice, and wills the bandit's death as good for public order; but the wife is considering what is good for the private family, and so wills her bandit husband not to be killed.

Now God, as the maker and manager of the whole universe, wills what he sees to be good for the whole of that community, and wills whatever he wills as good for the whole universe, a general good which is indeed his own goodness; creatures, however, by nature grasp only the particular goods appropriate to their own natures. Now it can happen that something is good for a particular reason but not good on universal grounds, and vice versa, as we have said. So it can happen that a good will can want something, for a particular reason, that God does not want on universal grounds, and vice versa; or that different men can will opposite things, wanting this to be or not to be so for different reasons, and yet all have good wills.

However, a man willing a particular good does not will it Moral Action rightly unless he intends to will in it the common good as goal: since even parts of a natural whole instinctively desire the common good of their whole. Now the goal gives a sort of form to the willing of the means to that goal; so in order to will any particular good with a right will, we must, in willing the particular good as a sort of material, be also willing the general good that is God's as a sort of form. So human willing has a duty to conform formally to God's will in what it wills, for it has a duty to will the general good that is God's; but it does not have to conform materially, for the reasons already given.

However, either way human willing is conforming in a way to God's willing. For by conforming to God's willing in the general form of what it wills it is conforming to God's willing of the ultimate goal; and by not conforming to God's willing in the particular material it wills, it is conforming to God as active in him, for God wills and causes him to have those natural inclinations and particular perception of things; and so our human willing conforms to God's willing, as people are wont to say, because we will what God wills us to will.

But a further formal conformity is possible: that we will something with charity[, the love of God], thus willing it in the way in which God wills it. And this conformity belongs to the formal conformity to our ultimate goal, which is the proper object of charity.

Hence: to 1: The sort of thing that God wills in general we can know, for we know that whatever he wills he wills because it is good, and so by willing what is presented to us as good we are conforming to God's will in the form of what we will.

But what God wills in particular cases we do not know, and in this respect, therefore, have no duty to conform our willing to his. When, however, in glory we all come to see each thing's relation to what God wills for it, we shall have the duty to conform not only the form of our willing but also all of its matter to God. to 2: God does not will damnation for damnation's sake, or God as the End of Things death for death's sake, since he wills all men to be saved; but he wills them as realizing justice; and it is enough that men too will to preserve God's justice and the natural order. So this provides the answer to 3 as well.

As to the arguments raised against: to 1: Conforming one's willing to God's willing in regard to his reason for willing something is more truly willing what

God wills than conforming to the actual thing willed, since will wills the goal more than what is ordered to the goal. to 2: What defines and gives form to action is the form of the object rather than what it is materially. to 3: There is no conflict of wills when people will different things for different reasons. But if one person gave the same reason for willing something that another gave for not willing it, there would be conflict of wills. But that doesn't arise here.

[Question 20] Next we consider the goodness and badness of external actions; and this question divides into six:

Which goodness and badness comes first, that of an external action or that of the act of willing it?

Does an external action derive its goodness or badness entirely from the goodness of the act that wills it?

Do the interior and external acts share one goodness or badness?

Does an external action add any more goodness or badness than the interior act?

Do the consequences of an external action add to it any goodness or badness?

Can one and the same external action be both good and bad?

[Article 1] The first question [Which goodness and badness comes first, that of an external action or that of the act of willing it?] we approach as follows:

It seems that the goodness and badness of an external action comes first, and not that of the act of willing it:

For [1] we said above that willing is good or bad because of the object willed. But the external action is the object the interior act wills; for we say we want to steal, or will to give to the poor. So the goodness and badness attaches first to the external action and then to the act of willing it.

Moreover, [2] goals are the primary goods, and things ordered to goals are good because they are ordered to good goals.

But though acts of other powers can be goals, an act of willing can't, as we said above. So good belongs first to the actions of another power and then to the acts of willing them.

Moreover, [3] as we have said, external activity is given its shape or form by the act of willing it. But forms come after the material which acquires them. So external activity is good and bad first, and then the act that wills it.

Augustine®" says that it is by our wills that we sin or live rightly. So moral goodness and badness derive from willing in the first place.

An external activity can be judged good or bad in two ways: firstly, because of the kind of act it is and its attendant circumstances, as giving to the poor in the proper circumstances is judged good; or secondly, because of its relation to some goal, as giving to the poor out of vanity is judged bad.

Now because a goal is properly speaking something willed, clearly the goodness or badness an external action possesses because it is related to a goal exists first in the act of will and the external activity gets it from there. But the goodness and badness an external action possesses in itself, because of its due matter and proper circumstances, is not derived from the act of will but rather from reason. So the goodness of an external action as perceived and planned by reason precedes our good willing of it, though the goodness of the actually executed deed follows from the goodness of the act of will that causes it.

God as the End of Things Hence: to 1: The external action is object of our willing inasmuch as it is presented for willing by reason as a good perceived and planned by reason; and in this sense its goodness is prior to the good of the willing act. But the actually implemented external action is an effect of the willing act following on from it. to 2: Goals are intended first but implemented last. to 3: The form, as it comes to exist in the material, is generated after the material, though in nature{'s intentions] it comes first; but the form, as it pre-exists in the agent, comes first in every sense. Nov: the act of will is the agent cause of the external activity. So the goodness of the act of will is the form of the external activity as pre-existing in its agent cause.

{Article 2] The second question [Does an external action derive its goodness or badness entirely from the goodness of the act that wills it?] we approach as follows:

It seems that the goodness or badness of an external action depends entirely on the will:

For [1] Matthew 7 [18] says A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor a bad tree good fruit. Now, according to the gloss, the tree represents the will and the fruit the deed. So if the interior act of will is good the external action can't be bad, and vice versa.

Moreover, (2] Augustine®® says that we sin only with our will. So if there's no sin in the will there can't be a sin in the external action. And so the goodness and badness of the external action depends entirely on the will.

Moreover, [3] the goodness and badness of which we are now talking differentiate moral actions, and, according to Aristotle,' differentiation must be by essential characteristics of the genus. Now since actions are moral because they're voluntary, it seems that actions are good and bad entirely because of the will.

Augustine*® says there are some things that can't be done well, no matter how good the goal or the will.

As we have already said, there are two goodnesses or badnesses to consider in an external action: one deriving from its due matter and circumstances, and the other from its relation to a goal. And the latter goodness, deriving from the action's relation to a goal, depends entirely on the act that wills it, but the former goodness, deriving from due matter and circumstances, depends on reason, and the act of will's goodness comes from willing that goodness.

But now we must remember what we said above: that a single defect will make a thing bad, but a single good point is not enough to make a thing good simply speaking; for that a thing must be wholly good. If then the act of will is good both by reason of its own object and by reason of its goal, the external action will be good, but the goodness that comes from intending the goal is not in itself enough to make the external action good. But if the act of will is bad either by reason of intending the goal or by reason of the action willed, the external action will in consequence be bad.

Hence: to 1: The good will represented by the good tree is to be understood as being good as to both the action it wills and the goal it intends. to 2: A man sins with his will not only by willing a bad goal but also by willing a bad action. to 3: It is not only interior acts of the will which are voluntary but also external actions in so far as they issue from will and reason; and so the differentiation into good and bad can relate to both these types of act.

[Article 3] The third question [Do the interior and external acts share one goodness or badness?] we approach as follows:

It seems that an external action and the interior act of willing it don't share one and the same goodness or badness:

For [1] the sources of interior acts are interior powers of awareness or desire, but the sources of external activity are our motor powers. Now where there are different sources of action there must be different actions. Goodness or badness,

God as the End of Things however, needs some act as its subject, and what exists in one subject can't exist in another. So there can't be one goodness belonging to both interior and external act.

Moreover, [2] as Aristotle*! says, a virtue renders its possessor and his activity good. But the intellectual virtue in the power commanding action differs from the moral virtues present in the powers commanded to act, as Aristotle'? explains. So the goodness of the interior act in the commanding power differs from the goodness of the external action in the powers commanded to act.

Moreover, [3] the same thing cannot be both cause and effect: nothing can cause itself. But either the goodness of the interior act causes that of the external action or vice versa, as we have said. So they can't share the same goodness.

We have already shown that the act of will gives a sort of form to the external action. But material and its form make up one thing. So the goodness of interior and external act is one.

The sources of our inner act of willing are our inner powers (mind and will); and of our external deed our body's motive powers. But from a moral point of view the two together constitute a single action that may have more than one reason for being good or bad. Sometimes the only reason for goodness in an external deed is its goal (swallowing unpleasant medicine, for example), and then the same goodness or badness is present immediately in the willing and mediately in the deed. But the matter and circumstances of an external deed may also have a goodness of their own (the medicine may be pleasant), and then the separate goodnesses flow over into one another.

Hence: to 1: This argument proves that the interior act differs in nature from the external action; but what differ as natural actions constitute one moral action, as we have said. to 2: As Aristotle*? says, the moral virtues dispose us to the very acts of virtue which are, so to speak, our goals, whilst prudence is a virtue in reason disposing us to do what leads to these goals. And so there we need different virtues. But right reasoning about the very goal of the virtues doesn't have a goodness different from the goodness of virtue, since every virtue shares in the goodness of reason. to 3: When something is carried over univocally from one member of a species to another it has to be duplicated: when heat communicates itself, the heat that does the heating is individually different from the heat communicated, though not different in species. But when something is carried over by analogy or proportion there is only one instance of it: when the attribution of health is carried over from organisms to diets and complexions, the health ascribed to the diet and the complexion is the very health of the organism, as produced by the diet and displayed by the complexion. And this is the way external action derives goodness from the inner act of willing and vice versa: by a relation of one to the other.

[Article 4] The fourth question [Does an external action add any more goodness or badness than the interior act?] we approach as follows:

It seems that an external action adds no more goodness or badness than the interior act:

For [1] Chrysostom" says: It is our willing that is rewarded if good or condemned if bad; our works, however, testify 'to our will. God then doesn't ask for works on his own account, so that he may know how to judge, but on others' account, so that all understand that God judges justly.

But goodness and badness should be reckoned according to God's judgement rather than man's. So external action adds nothing more to goodness and badness than the interior act.

Moreover, [2] interior and external acts share one goodness, we have said. But to augment something we must add something else. So external action adds nothing more in goodness and badness than the interior act.

God as the End of Things Moreover, [3] the goodness of the entire creation adds nothing to the goodness of God, since it is derived entirely from God's goodness. But sometimes the goodness of external action is derived entirely from the goodness of the interior act, and sometimes the reverse is true, as we have said. So neither of them adds more goodness or badness than the other.

Every agent intends to do good and avoid evil. But if external action adds nothing of goodness or badness, there would be no point in someone with a good or bad will actually doing good or not doing evil. And that doesn't seem right.

If we're talking of the goodness that external action derives from the willing of its goal, then the external action cannot add to the goodness of that willing, unless the willing itself somehow betters itself while doing good, or worsens itself while doing bad. This could happen in three ways. Firstly, by multiplying in number, as, for example, when someone first wills to do something for a good or bad end but doesn't do it, and then again wills it and does it, the act of will is duplicated and the goodness and badness is doubled.

Secondly, by lasting longer, as, for example, when someone wills to do something for a good or bad end but ceases in the face of obstacles, whereas someone else persists in that movement of will until the work is completed, for clearly the latter will is more lastingly good or bad, and so better or worse.

Thirdly, by gaining in intensity, for certain external actions because of their pleasurableness or painfulness are such as to intensify or diminish the willing of them. And certainly the more intensely we will good or bad the better or worse we will.

But if we're talking of the goodness an external action has because of its own matter and due circumstances, then that constitutes a goal or terminus for the willing; and then that adds to the goodness or badness of the willing, since every tendency and movement is perfected by achieving its goal or Moral Action reaching its terminus. So a willing that given the opportunity doesn't actually proceed to an actual deed is not perfect. If, however, the ability to act is missing, although the willing is perfect and would proceed to act if it could, then the lack of the external act is something simply speaking involuntary.

Now just as the involuntary doing of good or bad doesn't deserve reward or penalty, so the lack of a good or bad deed, if strictly speaking involuntary, doesn't subtract any reward or penalty.

Hence: to 1: Chrysostom is talking of the case of perfect human willing that doesn't hold back from acting unless it is unable to act. to 2: This argument bases itself on the goodness an external act gets from being willed for some goal. But the goodness an external act gets from its own matter and circumstances differs from the goodness the willing of a goal has, though not from the goodness the willing of this very action has, for it is the reason and cause of that goodness, as we said earlier.

So this also makes clear the answer to 3.

[Article 5] The fifth question [Do the consequences of an external action add to it any goodness or badness?] we approach as follows:

It seems that an action's consequences add to its goodness or badness:

For [1] an action's consequences pre-exist virtually in the action, since they are like a cause's effects, which pre-exist virtually in their cause. But things are judged good or bad according to their virtue: virtue renders its possessor good, as Aristotle*® says. So consequences add to the goodness or badness of actions.

Moreover, [2] the good actions a teacher's hearers do are a sort of effect of his teaching. But they redound to his credit, as we glean from Philippians 4 [1]: My brothers and dear friends that I miss so much, my joy and my crown. So consequences add to the goodness or badness of actions.

God as the End of Things Moreover, [3] the greater penalty is reserved for the greater crime, as in Deuteronomy 25 [2]'s prescription: the number of strokes proportionate to his offence. But consequences increase penalties, as we read in Exodus 21 [3]: But if the ox has been in the habit ofgoring before and its owner has been warned but has not kept it under control, then should it kill man or woman, both the ox is to be stoned and its owner put to death. But the owner would not have been put to death if the ox hadn't killed someone, even if the owner hadn't kept him under control. So the consequence has added to the goodness or badness of the action.

Moreover, [4] if someone does something which could cause death—strikes someone, or passes sentence on him—he contracts an impediment to holy orders if death follows, but not otherwise. So the consequence adds to the goodness or badness of the action.

A consequence can't make a good act bad or a bad act good.

For example, if someone gives to a poor man something he then sinfully misuses, that is not blamed on the charitable giver; and again if someone patiently bears an injury done him, that doesn't excuse the one doing the injury. So consequences don't add to the goodness or badness of actions.

An action's consequences can be foreseen or unforeseen.

If they are foreseen, they clearly add to its goodness or badness: not to refrain from an action even when one sees it could have many bad consequences shows a deeper disorder in the will. In the case of unforeseen consequences, we must makea distinction. If the consequences are the usual direct consequences of such an action, then they add to its goodness or badness—a proneness to good consequences makes a deed a better act of its kind, and proneness to bad consequences makes it worse. But if the results are unusual and coincidental, then the consequences don't add to the action's goodness or badness; for we judge things by what defines them, not by anything coincidental.

Hence: to 1: We judge the virtue of a cause by its direct rather than its coincidental effects. to 2: The good actions a teacher's hearers do are a direct consequence of his teaching. So they redound to his credit.

And especially if they were intended by him. to 3: The consequence for which such a penalty on the owner has been prescribed is a direct consequence of its cause and is also presumed to be foreseen. And this is why it draws the penalty. to 4: This would be a valid argument if the impediment to holy orders arose from a moral offence; but it arises from the fact itself detracting from the sacramental symbolism.

[Article 6] The sixth question [Can one and the same external action be both good and bad?] we approach as follows:

It seems that one act can be both good and bad:

For [1] Aristotle*® tells us that a movement is one if it is unbroken. But one unbroken movement can be both good and bad: for example, someone walking without break to church can do it first out of vanity and then out of reverence for God. So the one action can be both good and bad.

Moreover, [2] Aristotle*" says that one and the same action is what the agent does and what the patient undergoes.

But the undergoing can be good—Christ's passion, for example—though the doing of it is bad—-what the Jews did.

So one action can be both good and bad.

Moreover, (3] since the servant is his master's tool in a sense, the servant's action is also the master's as a tool's action is also the workman's. But it can happen that the servant's action springs from a master's good will, and is in that way good, but from the servant's bad will, and is in that way bad.

So the same action can be both good and bad.

Contrary qualities can't coexist in the same subject. But good God as the End of Things and bad are contrary qualities. So one action can't be both good and bad.

There is no reason why things which are single in one genus can't be many in another, as an unbroken surface is one quantitatively but can be of diverse colours, here white, there black. And in this way there is no reason why an action can't be a single physical action but several moral actions, or vice versa, as we have said. An unbroken walk is one physical action but could turn out to be several morally if the walker's intentions, from which it gets it moral character, changed. So if the action is morally single it can't be both good and bad with moral goodness and badness; but if it is one physical action but not one morally, then it can be both good and bad.

Hence: to 1: An unbroken movement issuing from different intentions may be one action physically, but not one morally. to 2: Doing and undergoing are moral inasmuch as they are voluntary. And if different wills make them voluntary then morally they are two actions, one of which can be good and the other bad. to 3: The servant's action as issuing from the servant's will is not the master's action; it is that only as issuing from the master's command. So it is not the master's action that the servant's bad will makes bad.

Passage 36 Virtue Source:

Summa Theologiae, la2ae.55—6.

Text from Summa Theologiae (Opera Omnia, Leonine edn., vol. vi).

Date: 1269—70, second stay in Paris, aged 45.

Type of passage and how to read: Modified disputed question (see Introduction).

Notes on translation:

'Virtue' translates virtus, which has also the meanings of strength, power, vigour, excellence. Deliberately, 'condition' translates dispositio, 'disposition' habitus, and 'habit' and 'custom' consuetudo. 'Moderation' and 'courage' translate temperantia and fortitudo;'

'deiform virtue' translates virtus theologica.

The consideration of virtues divides into five: first, [Question 55] what virtues are; second, [Question 56] what parts of us they affect...

[Question 55] The first question {what virtues are} divides into four:

Is human virtue a disposition?

Is it a disposition to act?

Is it a good disposition?

How can we define it?

[Article 1] The first question {Is human virtue a disposition?] we approach as follows:

It seems that human virtue is not a disposition:

For [1] virtue is power at its utmost, as Aristotle' says. But the utmost of something belongs reductively to the same genus as what it is the utmost of: the point that ends a line to the same genus as the line. So virtue should belong to the genus of powers, not dispositions.

Moreover, [2] Augustine? says that virtue is the good use of our freedom to choose. But using free choice is an activity.

So virtue is action, not disposition.

Moreover, {3] actions are deserving, not dispositions, otherwise a person would deserve all the time even when asleep.

Now virtues are deserving. So virtues are not dispositions but actions.

Moreover, [4] Augustine® says that virtue is ordered love.

And again' that the orderedness we call virtue rejoices in what is given for enjoyment, and uses what is given for use.

Now orderedness names either an action or a relationship.

So virtue is not a disposition but an action or a relationship.

God as the End of Things Moreover, [5] besides human virtues there are the virtues in nature. But virtues in nature are powers, not dispositions. So human virtues too.

Aristotle® classifies virtues and sciences as dispositions.

By the word virtue [literally, strength or force] we mean a certain excellence or perfection of potential. Now we measure anything's perfection primarily in relation to its goal, and the goal of potential is realizing it. So a potential is called perfect when it is all set to be actualized.

Now there are certain potentials, like natural agencies, which are of their own nature all set to act, so that they themselves can be called forces or virtues. But the peculiarly human abilities connected with reason are not of their own nature set on one act but open to several, and must be further determined to act by dispositions, as we said earlier.

So human virtue and excellence consists in such dispositions.

Hence: to 1: Sometimes we call virtue what the virtue is ordered to: its object or its activity. Faith sometimes means what we believe, sometimes the act of believing, and sometimes the disposition to believe. When Aristotle says that the virtue of a power is the utmost it can do he is talking of the object of the virtue. For the utmost a thing can do is what we rate its virtue at: if, for example, someone can lift 100 pounds and no more, then we rate his strength at 100 pounds, not at 60.

But the objection assumed virtue to consist essentially in this utmost the power could do. to 2: Good use of our freedom to choose is said to be virtue in the same sort of way: because virtue is ordered to that as its own proper activity. For the activity of virtue is nothing else than good use of one's freedom to choose. to 3: There are two things needed for deserving: one is the deserving act itself, by which we deserve in the same sense as by running we run, and this is why we say we deserve by Virtue actions. But there must be a source of the deserving act, just as running must have its motive power; and in that sense we deserve by our virtuous dispositions. to 4: Orderedness of love is virtue in the sense of what virtue is ordered to, for virtue orders our love. to 5: Natural agencies are already determined to their activity, but not human powers, so there is a difference.

[Article 2] The second question [Is human virtue a disposition to act?] we approach as follows:

It seems that virtue can't be defined as a disposition to act:

For [1] Cicero® says that virtue is to a soul what health and beauty are to a body. But health and beauty aren't dispositions to act. So neither is virtue.

Moreover, [2] in nature we find virtue to act and virtue to exist, since Aristotle" says that certain things have the virtue to exist for ever, and others not for ever but only for a limited time. Now human virtue corresponds in reasoning creatures to natural virtue in the world of nature. So human virtues too must not only be dispositions to act, but to exist.

Moreover, [3] Aristotle® says that virtue disposes perfect things for the best. Now the best thing to which virtue should dispose a human being is God, as Augustine' proves, and that is done by making the soul like God. So virtue, it seems, names a quality which orders the soul to God by making it like him in some way; but not one which orders it to activity. So it is not a disposition to act.

Aristotle'® says the virtue of anything is what makes it act well.

As we have said, the very word virtue implies an excellence of ability. And since ability can mean either a capability to be something or an ability to do something, perfection in both sorts of ability is called virtue. Now capability to be is characteristic of materials, which are potential of being

God as the End of Things formed; but ability to do is characteristic of forms, which make things active, everything's activity following on its actuality.

Now in the making of a human being, the body is material, formed by its soul. And human beings share body, and the powers exercised by body and soul together, with other animals; only those abilities dependent on reason, exercised by the soul alone, are peculiarly human. So human virtue, which we are now considering, cannot be bodily excellence, but must be reserved to what is the soul's alone. Human virtue then is not related to being something but to doing something; and thus by definition is a disposition to action.

Hence: to 1: How an agent acts depends on its condition, for everything acts in accordance with the sort of thing it is. So, since virtue is a source of some sort of activity, it must cause some previous suitable condition in the agent. Now virtue causes ordered activity. So virtue itself must be a sort of ordered condition of soul in which the soul's powers are ordered among themselves and to the outside world. Virtue then is a sort of fitness of soul and can be likened to health and beauty, which are right conditions of body. But that doesn't stop virtue also being a source of activity. to 2: The virtue to exist is not characteristically human, but only the virtue to do things reason can do, for reason characterizes humans. to 3: Since God's substance is his action, the highest likeness man can have to God is through activity of some sort. Which is why we have said that happiness or bliss, which makes human beings most like God and which is life's ultimate goal, consists in activity.

[Article 3] The third question [Is human virtue a good disposition?] we approach as follows:

It seems that virtue can't be defined as a good disposition:

For [1] everything about sin is bad. But even sin has its virtue, for 1 Corinthians 15 [56] talks of law as the virtue [= power] of sin. So virtue is not always a good disposition.

Moreover, [2] virtues match powers, and power can be for good or bad: as Isaiah 5 [22] says: Woe to the mighty topers, to the powerful mixers of drink. So virtue too can be for good or bad.

Moreover, [3] 2 Corinthians 12 [9] tells us virtue is made perfect through weakness. But weakness is a bad thing. So virtue is not only for good but for bad.

Augustine'! says no one should doubt that virtue makes the soul perfect. And Aristotle'? says that virtue renders its possessor good and his activity good.

As we have said, virtue implies perfect ability, which is why Aristotle'> says a thing's virtue or strength is measured by the utmost of which it is capable. But the utmost of which anything is capable must be good, since evil is always a falling short and, as pseudo-Dionysius'* says, a weakness.

For that reason virtue in everything implies an orderedness towards good, and human virtue, which is a disposition to act, is a good disposition to act well.

Hence: to 1: The words good and perfect are used metaphorically about bad things: Aristotle'® notes that we talk of good and perfect thieves and robbers. And even virtue is used in the same way. Law, then, is called the virtue of sin because occasionally law causes sin to grow, and to reach the maximum of its potential, so to speak. to 2: Drunkenness and unrestrained drinking are bad because they lack reason's order. But what lacks reason may require perfection from some lesser power in its own realm, even though that conflicts with or detracts from reason. But perfection of such a power, when it involves lack of reason, can't be called human virtue. to 3: Reason shows itself the more perfect, the better it can prevail over or tolerate weakness in our body and lower parts. So virtue, the work of reason, is made perfect in God as the End of Things weakness, but not in a weakness of reason: rather in a weakness of our body and lower powers.

[Article 4] The fourth question [How can we define it?] we approach as follows:

It seems that there is something wrong with the usual definition of virtue: namely, virtues are good qualities of mind which dispose us to live rightly, which we cannot misuse, and which God works in us without our help:16

For [1] virtue is human goodness: it itself renders its possessor good.' But it doesn't seem goodness is itself good, any more than whiteness is white. So it is a mistake to say virtue is a good quality.

Moreover, [2] no differentiating characteristic should apply more widely than the genus it is differentiating; since it is a division of that genus. But good applies more widely than quality; since it is interchangeable with all being. So good shouldn't appear in the definition as a differentiation of qualities.

Moreover, [3] Augustine!' says that mind begins where there is something we don't share with the beasts. But Aristotle!" says there are certain virtues in the unreasoning parts of us as well. So not every virtue is a good quality of mind.

Moreover, [4] rightness seems to be a matter of justice, and we call the same people just and right. But justice is one specific virtue. So it seems wrong to include rightness in a [general] definition of virtue, by saying which dispose us to live rightly.

Moreover, [5] when someone is proud of something he is misusing it. Now many people are proud of their virtues: as Augustine"® says: Pride enters into even our good works to destroy them. So it is false to say that virtues are something we cannot misuse.

Moreover, [6] virtues set human beings to rights.

But Augustine?! commenting on John 14 [12]:

Greater than these he will do, says: He who created you without your help will not set you right without your help. So it is wrong to say that God works virtue in us without our help.

We have Augustine's authority especially in De Libero Arbitrio, 2 [19], from which the words of this definition are culled.

This definition collects together everything required to define virtue. For the best definition of anything brings together all its causes, and this definition brings together all the causes of virtue.

Good quality defines virtue's form, like any other, by its genus and a differentiating characteristic: the genus being quality (though disposition would be a more precise genus, giving a better definition) and the differentiating characteristic good. Like other incidental properties, virtue has no material out-of-which, but it has material about-which [subjectmatter] and material in-which [the material it forms]. The definition does not mention the subject-matter with which virtue is concerned, for that is the virtue's object and defines it as a particular type of virtue; but here we are busy defining virtues in general. So as material cause the definition mentions what virtue forms, saying it is a good quality of the mind.

The purpose of virtue, since it is a disposition to act, is action itself. But note that some such dispositions are always for bad (vices), some sometimes for good and sometimes for bad (opinion can be true or false), but virtue is a disposition always for good. So to distinguish virtues from dispositions always pursuing the bad, the definition says they dispose us to live rightly; and to distinguish them from dispositions which incline us sometimes to good and sometimes to evil, it says they cannot be misused.

As to agency, we are given God: the cause of instilled virtue which God works in us without our help. But if this phrase is left out, the rest of the definition applies generally to all virtues, acquired or instilled.

Hence: to 1: Mind's first concept is being, and so anything we think God as the End of Things is thought of as existent, and consequently one and good, which are predicates interchangeable with being. So that beingness itself exists and is one and is good; and oneness exists and is one and is good; and goodness similarly. Now none of this applies to special forms like whiteness and health: not everything we think is thought of as white or healthy. However, we must remember that properties and forms of material things are said to exist, not as though they themselves possess existence but because they are ways in which something else exists. And in the same way, if they are called good and one, that is not because they possess some other goodness or oneness, but because they themselves make something else good or one. And so it is with virtue, which is called good because it makes something good. to 2: Good in the definition of virtue isn't good in general, interchangeable with being and applying more widely than quality; but it is the good of according with reason that pseudo-Dionysius"* talks of as the soul's good. to 3: Virtue can only exist in the unreasoning parts of us inasmuch as they share in reason, Aristotle"? says; so that reason or mind is the proper subject of human virtue. to 4: The rightness belonging to justice is that laid down for the common human use of external goods, which is the proper subject-matter of justice, as we shall see later; but there is a general meaning of right living common to all virtues, that of pursuing a due goal and letting the law of God rule our human wills, as we said earlier. to 5: Virtues can be objects of misuse by people despising or hating or taking pride in them, but they can't be dispositions to their own bad use, as though you could do a bad act of virtue. to 6: God causes in us instilled virtue without us doing anything, though not without our consent, and that is how we must understand the words God works in us without our help; but our own work God works in us with our help, since he is at work within every will and every nature.

[Question 56] Next we consider what parts of us virtues affect. And the consideration divides into six:

Do virtues dispose our abilities to act?

Can one virtue dispose more than one ability?

Are there virtues of intellect?

Of our affective and aggressive capacities?

Of our powers of sense-perception?

[Article 1] The first question [Do virtues dispose our abilities to act?] we approach as follows:

It seems that virtues don't dispose our abilities to act:

For [1] Augustine"* says virtue disposes us to live rightly. But we don't live by some ability of our soul but by the soul's very substance. So virtue disposes not abilities of soul but its substance.

Moreover, [2] according to Aristotle?' virtue renders its possessor good and his activity good. But if activity is an effect of an ability to act, the possessor of virtue is an effect of the soul's substance. So virtue has no more to do with soul's abilities than with its substance.

Moreover, [3] abilities are type-2 qualities,"* and virtues are also qualities, as we have said. But qualities don't have qualities. So virtues don't dispose our abilities to act.

Virtue is ability at its utmost, as Aristotle?" says. But a thing's utmost belongs to it. So virtue belongs in the soul's abilities.

Three things show that virtues belong in our soul's abilities to act. Firstly, the very notion that virtues perfect abilities, since perfections must exist in what they perfect. Secondly, the fact that they dispose to act, as we have said, since all activity of soul issues from some ability of soul. And thirdly, the fact that they dispose a thing towards what is best, namely, to a goal which is either the thing's own activity or something it can achieve by exercising some ability it has to act. So human virtue disposes our ability to act.

God as the End of Things Hence: to 1: Life has two meanings: sometimes it means the living thing's very existence and that has to do with the substance of the soul, which is the source of existence in living things; but it also means the living thing's activity, and in this sense virtue disposes us to live rightly, for it is virtue that disposes us to act rightly. to 2: Goodness belongs either to goals or to things ordered to goals. So, since the agent's good consists in acting, even virtue's making its agent good concerns his activity, and consequently his abilities to act. to 3: One property can be subject to another, not as independently sustaining it in being, but as mediating to it the support of a substance; thus surface is the subject of colour in the sense that colour inheres in a body by way of its surface. And this is the way abilities can be subject to virtues.

[Article 2] The second question [Can one virtue dispose more than one ability?] we approach as follows:

It seems that one virtue can dispose two abilities:

For [1] activities reveal dispositions. Now one and the same activity can issue, in different ways, from several abilities: walking, for example, is directed by reason, stimulated by will, and executed by our motive powers. So a single virtuous disposition can also exist in several abilities.

Moreover, [2] Aristotle® says that virtue needs three things: knowledge, will, and steadfast operation. Now knowledge belongs to mind and will to will, so virtue can dispose more than one ability.

Moreover, [3] prudence disposes reason, since Aristotle"? defines it as right reasoning about what to do. But it also disposes will, because he also says*® that prudence can't coexist with a perverse will. So one virtue can dispose more than one ability.

The soul's abilities are subjects of virtue, and one and the Virtue same property can't be in two subjects. So one virtue can't be in several abilities.

If one virtue in two abilities means one virtue disposing two abilities in parallel, that's impossible. For any generic difference in the object of activities requires a difference of abilities, and any species difference requires a difference in dispositions, so that a difference of abilities brings with it a difference in dispositions, though the converse is not true.

But one virtue can be in more than one ability not in parallel but in sequence. Then the virtue primarily disposes one ability, but that disposition causes (or presupposes) disposition of other abilities, inasmuch as secondary abilities exist influencing or under the influence of the first.

Hence: to 1: One and the same activity can't belong equally in parallel to several abilities, but only in different ways and sequentially. to 2: Knowledge is presupposed to the moral virtues, which in themselves dispose our appetites to act in accordance with reason. to 3: Reason is really the subject disposed by prudence, but that presupposes some initial rightness of will, as we will show later.

[Article 3] The third question [Are there virtues of intellect?] we approach as follows:

It seems that intellect cannot be subject to virtue:

For {1} Augustine?! says that all virtue is love, and love is an act not of intellect but only of our abilities to desire. So there is no virtue in intellect.

Moreover, [2] as we have made clear, virtue is ordered to goodness. But goodness is an object of desire, not of intellect.

So virtues must exist not in the intellect but in our abilities to desire.

Moreover, [3] virtue makes its possessorgood, says Aristotle.>?

But dispositions perfecting intellect don't make their possessor God as the End of Things good: a person isn't good just because he has knowledge or know-how. So intellect is not the subject of virtues.

Mind means principally intellect, and virtue was defined above as a disposition of mind. So virtue must dispose the intellect.

Virtues we have said are dispositions to act well. But there are two ways of being disposed to act well. One kind of disposition gives us the facility to do something well: grammatical skill, for example, gives us a facility to speak correctly.

But it doesn't determine that we shall always speak correctly, for grammarians can still use slang and ungrammatical constructions. And the other arts and sciences similarly. But another kind of disposition gives us not only a facility to act, but also determines us to use that facility rightly: for example, justice not only makes us ready in will to do the just thing, but disposes us to a just doing of it.

Now it is not potentials but actualizations of potentials that lead us to call something good, or existent, in the straightforward sense of the words. So it is because of these second types of disposition that we say people do good or are good in the straightforward sense: because they are just or moderate or some other thing of that sort. And because virtue is what renders its possessor and his activity good, it is these dispositions that are called virtues in a straightforward sense, because they render actual acts good, and make the agent good in the straightforward sense. But the first type of disposition is not called straightforwardly a virtue, because it provides us only with a facility to act well, and doesn't make us simply speaking good. For being knowing or having a craftsman's skills doesn't make one good (period!), but good only in a certain respect: a good grammarian or a good carpenter. For this reason knowledge and arts or crafts are often distinguished from virtues, though sometimes they receive that name, as Aristotle*? makes clear.

Virtues in this qualified sense then can dispose our minds Virtue to engage in practice or even in pure speculation unrelated to willing anything: and it is in this way that Aristotle** talks of knowledge, wisdom, and intelligence, and art and craft too, as virtues of mind. But unqualified virtues dispose only our

° will or other abilities of ours precisely as controlled by will.

And the reason is that all our abilities dependent on reason are stimulated to act by willing, as we have said above; and any actual doing of good depends on the doer having a good will. So virtues that don't only provide us with a facility to act well but make our actual acts good must be dispositions either of will itself or of other abilities precisely as stimulated to act by willing.

Now mind is stimulated to act by will just like our other abilities: for people actually think about something when they want to. So there are dispositions of mind precisely as controlled by will that are unqualified virtues: faith disposing our reason or speculative mind to assent under the will's influence (for no one believes unless he chooses to**), and prudence disposing our practical mind. For prudence is a disposition of our reason to right action. And so it presupposes that we are well disposed to our goals—the premisses of our action—bya right will, in the same way that we are disposed to the premisses of speculative thought by the natural light of our agent intellect. So that just as our speculative mind in subordination to our agent intellect is disposed by science to rightly reason about speculative matters, so our practical mind in subordination to right willing is disposed to act by prudence.

Hence: to 1: The words of Augustine must be applied to virtues in the straightforward sense of the word. Not that all those are love simply speaking, but they all in a way depend on love, since they depend on willing which starts off by loving, as we have said. to 2: A thing's good is its goal, so, since truth is the goal of intellect, knowing truth is good intellectual activity. So anything disposing the intellect to know truth, be it speculative or practical, is a virtue.

God as the End of Things to 3: The argument is only considering virtue in the straightforward sense.

[Article 4] The fourth question [Are there virtues disposing our capacities for affection and aggression?] we approach as follows:

It seems that our affective and aggressive capacities cannot be subject to virtue:

For [1] we share these capacities with the lower animals, but the virtue we are talking of is human virtue, peculiar to human beings. So these capacities for affective and aggressive feelings—which are the two forms taken by our sensuality, as book 1 explained—can't be subject to human virtue.

Moreover, [2] our sensuality operates by way of bodily organs. But the goodness of virtue is not something bodily: as Romans7 [18] says: I know that nothing good dwells in my flesh. So my sensuality can't be a subject of virtue.

Moreover, [3] Augustine®® proves that virtues are in the soul, not the body, because soul rules body absolutely so that good use of the body must be totally credited to the soul: when a driver, letting himself be ruled by me, manages his horses well, it will all be credited to me. Now reason rules sensuality in the way soul rules body. So the right regulation of my affective and aggressive capacities must be totally credited to the part of me that is reasonable. Now it is virtue which disposes me to live rightly, as we have said. Virtue then is not something in my affective and aggressive capacities but in the part of me that is reasonable.

Moreover, [4] moral virtue is primarily a disposition to choose well, says Aristotle.>" But choosing is an act of reason, not of affective or aggressive feeling, as we have said above. So moral virtue must dispose reason, not our capacities for affection and aggression.

Courage is said to dispose our capacity for aggressive feeling, and moderation our capacity for affection. So that Aristotle*® writes: these are virtues of our unreasoning parts.

We can consider our capacities for affective and aggressive feelings in two ways: in themselves, as the two forms taken by our sensuality, and then we don't think of them as subject to virtue; or as sharing reason, because of their natural inclination to obey reason, and then (as sharing reason) they are sources of human action and can be subject to human virtue. So these capacities do need to be disposed by virtues.

And that there are virtues of our affective and aggressive capacities can be shown as follows. If actions proceeding from one power under the control of another are to be perfect, then both powers will have to be well disposed to the action: if a workman is to do good work, he must be well disposed to it and his tools too. So in matters where our affective and aggressive capacities are controlled by reason, there will have to be dispositions perfecting not only reason to act well, but also the affective and aggressive capacities too. And where capacities are active because acted on, a good disposition will be one conforming them to the power acting on them; so virtue in our capacities for aggressive and affective feeling will be nothing other than a habitual disposition of the capacity to conform to reason.

Hence: to 1: The capacities for affective and aggressive feeling, considered in themselves as the two forms taken by our sensuality, we share with the lower animals. But as sharing in reason

'and obeying reason they are peculiar to human beings, and as such can be subject to human virtue. to 2: Human flesh can't be virtuously good in itself, but under the command of reason it becomesa tool of virtuous activity, yielding our bodies to the service of righteousness [Romans 6: 19]. And in the same way our capacities for affective and aggressive feeling are not in themselves virtuously good but rather infected with inflammability. Yet conformity to reason brings out the good of moral virtue in them. to 3:

Reason doesn't rule my affective and aggressive capacities in the same way my soul rules my body. For in God as the End of Things matters where the body is moved to act by the soul, it obeys without contradiction the soul's slightest signal: soul rules body like a tyrant, says Aristotle,°? like a master his slave.

And this is why all the credit for what the body does goes to the soul, and there are no virtues in the body but only in the soul. But my affective and aggressive capacities don't obey my reason's slightest signal, but have their own ways of acting which are sometimes at odds with reason: reason rules my affections and my aggressions, Aristotle goes on to say, democratically, like free people are ruled, who have their own will in certain areas. And this is why our capacities for affective and aggressive feeling need to have virtues in them disposing them to act well. to 4: Choosing involves two things: intending a goal (the role of the moral virtue) and picking out the means (the role of prudence), as Aristotle*® says. When emotions are in question, right intending of a goal needs our aggressive and affective urges to be disposed to good. So the moral virtues concerned with emotion must dispose those urges, while prudence disposes our reason.

[Article 5] The fifth question [Are there virtues of our powers of sense-perception?] we approach as follows:

It seems that there can be virtues in our interior powers of sense-perception:

For [1] our sensuality can be subject to virtue in so far as it obeys reason. But our interior powers of sense-perception obey reason, since reason can command activity from our imagination and our instinctive judgement and our memory.

So these too can be subject to virtue.

Moreover, [2] just as our rational desires of will can be either hindered or helped by our sensual desires, so intellect and reason can be hindered or helped by interior sense-powers.

So then there can be virtues in those powers just as in our powers of sensual desire.

Moreover, [3] prudence is a virtue, and Cicero"! says it has a part called memory. So there must also be a virtue in our power of memory; and by the same token in the other interior powers of perception.

; Aristotle* says all virtue is either intellectual or moral. Now moral virtues are all in the desiring side of us, and intellectual virtues in our intellect or reason, as Aristotle** says.

So no virtues exist in our interior powers of sense-perception.

Certain dispositions of our interior powers of sense-perception have been postulated, chiefly by Aristotle** when he said that when remembering series of things, habit, which is like a second nature, comes into play. Now customary habit is a sort of disposition acquired by custom that acts like natural instinct. Cicero*' talked of virtue in this way, calling it a disposition like a natural instinct, in agreement with reason.

Yet in human beings what is acquired by custom in memory and the other powers of sense is not so much itself a disposition as something accompanying mental dispositions, as we said above; and even if there were dispositions in such powers they couldn't be called virtues. For a virtue is a perfect disposition that can only do good things, and so must reside in our abilities to bring good actions to completion.

Now knowledge of truth is not brought to completion in our sensory apprehension, for that is only preparatory to intellectual knowledge. So the virtues by which we know truth are not in our sense-powers, but rather in intellect and reason.

Hence: to 1: Will, the desire of our reason, stimulates the desires of our senses, so that the work of all our powers of desire is completed by sense-desire; the powers of sense-desire must therefore be subject to virtue. But our powers of senseperception rather stimulate our mind—images affect the mind like colours affect sight, says Aristotle*°—so that the act of knowing is achieved in the mind. Cognitive virtues, therefore, must rather be in reason or intellect or reason.

And this also gives us the answer to 2. to 3: Memory isn't part of prudence in the way a species is part of a genus, as though memory itself was a virtue; but a God as the End of Things good memory is something that prudence presupposes, and so it is a sort of component part of prudence.

{Article 6] The sixth question [Are there virtues of will?] we approach as follows:

It seems that our wills can't be subject to virtue:

For [1] an ability doesn't need to be disposed to something it is already in accord with, of its own nature. But since, according to Aristotle,*" will is rational desire, it tends of its own nature towards the reasonable good, which is the object of all virtue; for everything tends naturally towards what is good for it itself. For, according to Cicero,** virtue is a disposition like a natural instinct, agreeing with reason. So will needs no virtues.

Moreover, [2] as Aristotle*? says, every virtue is either intellectual or moral. Now intellectual virtues dispose intellect and reason, but not will; and moral virtues dispose powers that share in reason, like our capacities for affective and aggressive feelings. So there are no virtues of will.

Moreover, [3] all the actions virtue disposes us to are voluntary actions. So if there is a virtue in the will disposing us to any of these human actions, by the same token there ought to be virtue there disposing us to all human actions. So either there shouldn't be virtues anywhere else, or there will be two virtues ordered to the same act, which doesn't seem right. So will can't be subject to virtue.

Agents ought to be more perfect than what they act on. Now the will acts on our capacities for affective and aggressive feeling. So there is even more reason for virtue in the will than there is in those capacities.

Dispositions perfect our abilities to act; so an ability needs to be disposed to act well—by dispositions called virtues— when the ability's own nature won't suffice. Now an ability's nature is defined as an orderedness to its object; and since will's object is what reason proposes as good and proportioned to the one willing, no virtue is required for the will to follow that. But the will needs virtues if a good asks to be willed that exceeds this proportion to us, transcending either the human species, as, for example, the good of God transcends the limits of human nature as such, or transcending an individual, as, for example, the good of his fellow man. So there are virtues in the will disposing it to love our

God and fellow men: charity, justice, and the like.

Hence: to 1: This argument is thinking of virtue that pursues the good of the one willing, like moderation and courage, which deal with human passions and things of that sort, as we have said. to 2: It is not only our capacities for affective and aggressive feelings that share in reason, but our desirous side altogether,°° that is to say, in general. But that includes will. So any virtue in the will is moral, unless, as we show below, it is deiform. to 3: Certain virtues dispose us to moderation of our passions, which is a matter private to this or that human being; and things like that don't need any special virtue in the will since the nature of the power itself suffices, as we have said.

Virtues are needed in the will only in relation to some outside good.

Passage 37 Law Source:

Summa Theologiae, 1a2ae.90-1.

Text from Summa Theologiae (Opera Omnia, Leonine edn., vol. vii).

Date: 1269-70, second stay in Paris, aged 45.

Type of passage and how to read: Modified disputed question (see Introduction).

Notes on translation: Lex naturalis is translated rather awkwardly as 'the law that is in us by nature', in order to avoid confusion with either the laws of nature, or with natural law in the sense of what

God as the End of Things all men agree on. 'Complete self-contained community' translates communitas perfecta.

Next we consider law in general, and our consideration divides into three: firstly, what is law? secondly, the different types of law...

[Question 90] The first question [What is law?] divides into four:

Is law a product of reason?

The promulgation of law.

[Article 1] The first question [Is law a product of reason?] we approach as follows:

It seems that law is not a product of reason:

For [1] Paul says in Romans 7 [23]: I see another law at work in my body, etc. But there is nothing of reason in my body, since reason doesn't make use of a bodily organ. So law is not a product of reason.

Moreover, [2] reason is an ability and has its dispositions and activity. Now law isn't our very ability to reason; nor is it a disposition of reason, for those are the intellectual virtues we talked of earlier. Nor is it the activity of reasoning, for then whenever such activity stopped, as in sleep, law would stop too. So law isn't anything to do with reason.

Moreover, [3] the law moves those subject to it to act rightly.

Now moving things to act is the characteristic role of will, as we have made clear. So law is not a matter of reason but of will, as the old lawgivers also said: the ruler's will gives law its force.

It is the function of law to command and to forbid. But above we said that reason commanded. So law is some product of reason.

Law is a standard of measurement for behaviour, fostering certain actions and discouraging others; for law [lex] derives from binding [ligandum], since it binds one to act. Now reason, the first source of all human activity as we have seen, sets the standard of measurement for human behaviour, for its role is to set the goal of action, and that, according to Aristotle,' is the starting-point for what is to be done. But in any realm the starting-point becomes the standard of measurement for everything within that realm: the unit for all numbers, the primary movement [of the heavens] for all changes. It follows then that law is a product of reason.

Hence: to 1: Since law is a standard of measurement, there are two ways it exists in things. Firstly, in what does the measuring and regulating, and since that is the proper role of reason, law in this sense exists in reason alone. Secondly, in what is measured and regulated, and law in this sense exists in everything which tends towards something in obedience to law.

Such a tendency can itself be called law, but in a derivative sense, not a primary one. And it is in this derivative sense that the tendency of my body to desire is called a law in my body. to 2: Just as in external action we distinguish the doing from what it does, the act of building from the building built, so in what reason does we must distinguish the act of reasoning

(understanding, arguing) from something created by that act.

In the pursuit of truth reason elaborates definitions, then statements, then arguments or proofs; and because reason, when planning action, uses a sort of argument, as we have said above and Aristotle" teaches, it elaborates something that relates to behaviour as premisses of arguments do to conclusions. And these general premisses of practical reason bearing on behaviour have the nature of law, and are sometimes explicitly considered and sometimes held as a sort of disposition of reason. to 3: Reason's moving force comes from will, as we have

God as the End of Things said: someone wills a goal, and because of that reason commands the things to be done to achieve it. But willing the things commanded only has the nature of law in so far as it is ruled by reason. So we can only accept the saying that the ruler's will is law on that proviso; otherwise the ruler's will is more lawlessness than law.

[Article 2] The second question [the goal of law] we approach as follows:

It seems that law's goal is not always the general good:

For [1] law proscribes and prescribes, and its prescriptions sometimes lay down an individual good. So law's goal is not always the general good.

Moreover, (2] law directs human behaviour, which consists of individual actions. So law is also ordered to certain individual goods.

Moreover, [3] Isidore? says if law is established by reason, anything reason establishes is law. But reason establishes not only what is for the common good but what is for our private good. So law serves not only the common good but each one's private good.

Isidore* says that law is drawn up not for any private advantage but for the common utility of citizens.

Law, we have said, as a standard of measurement, is connected with the sources of human behaviour. Now the source of human behaviour is reason, but also within reasoning there is something which is a source of everything else, with which law must first and foremost be connected. In practical reason, which is concerned with behaviour, that source is our ultimate goal in life, and that, as we have already seen, is happiness or bliss. So law must concern itself above all with our orderedness to bliss.

Further, since parts in their incompleteness are ordered to the completeness of their wholes, and each human being is part of a complete self-contained community, law must properly be concerned with the happiness of that community. So that Aristotle, in the definition of matters of law already given,> makes mention of happiness and the city community. For he says® that we call those acts just in law that promote and conserve happiness and its components in the city society, for it is the city that is the complete selfcontained community, as Aristotle says elsewhere."

Now in every sphere things derive status and name from what has such things most—heat in compounds derives from the supreme heat of elemental fire and it is because they share that heat that compounds are called hot. So since law is primarily an ordination for the general good, commands to do particular deeds are laws only when ordered to that general good; and thus all law is ordered to the general good.

Hence: to 1: The prescriptions of law apply the law to what it regulates. Now orderedness to the general good, which is law's concern, is applicable to individual goals; and so certain of its prescriptions concern individual acts. to 2: Actions are certainly individual, but those individual actions have a relationship to the general good, where general means not something generic exemplified in individuals, but a goal which all serve: the general good means some common goal. to 3: When pursuing truth no conclusion is firmly established until it is analysed into self-evident first premisses; and in the same way when planning action no command is firmly established unless it serves our ultimate goal, the general good: only when reason has established it in that way does it have the force of law.

[Article 3] The third question [Who legislates?] we approach as follows:

It seems that anyone with reason can legislate:

For [1] in Romans 2 {14] St Paul says that when Gentiles who don't have the law do by nature what the law prescribes, God as the End of Things then they are law to themselves. But this applies to everyone.

So anyone can legislate for himself.

Moreover, [2] Aristotle® says that the legislator's intention is to foster human virtue. But anyone can foster human virtue in another. So anyone can use his reason to legislate.

Moreover, [3] the head of a family governing his household is like a king governing his city. But the king can legislate for his city. So every head of a family can legislate for his household.

Isidore? says, and you can find it in the Decretals,!° that law is a constitution of the people, in which something is decreed by lords and commons. Not anyone then can legislate.

Law properly, first and foremost, relates to the general good.

Now planning for the general good belongs either to the people as a whole or to someone standing in for the whole people; so legislating belongs either to the whole people, or to some public person whose job it is to care for the whole people. It is just as in all other situations: those to whom the goal properly belongs must have the planning of it.

Hence: to 1: As we already said, law exists not only in the one doing the regulating, but also—shared—in the one regulated. And in this latter way, everyone is a law unto himself, by sharing in the orderedness coming from the regulator. Which is why

Paul goes on to say: they show that what the law requires is inscribed on their hearts. to 2: A private person can admonish, but if his admonitions are not heeded then he has no power of enforcement to foster virtue effectively. But law, to foster virtue effectively, must have this power, as Aristotle'! says. This power resides in the people or the public authorities who can inflict penalties (as we shall say later), so legislation is reserved to them.

God as the End of Things Hence: to 1: The law that is in us by nature is promulgated by the very fact that God implants it in our minds as something to be known by nature. to 2: Those not there when the law was promulgated are bound to observe the law, inasmuch as it is brought to their notice by others, or, given its promulgation, can be so brought. to 3: The fixity of writing extends present promulgation into the future, promulgating it so to speak for ever. So that Isidore'S says that lex [law] is derived from lego [to read] because laws are written.

{Question 91] Next we consider the various types of law, and this divides into six:

Is there an eternal law?

Is there a law in us by nature?

Are there human laws?...

{Article 1] The first question [Is there an eternal law?] we approach as follows:

It seems that there is no eternal law:

For [1] law must apply to someone, and there has been no one existing from eternity to whom a law could apply, for only God has existed from eternity. So no law can be eternal.

Moreover, [2] promulgation is essential to law. But there couldn't have been an eternal promulgation since there wasn't anyone eternally there for it to be promulgated to. So no law can be eternal.

Moreover, [3] law isan ordering towards a goal. But nothing eternal is ordered to a goal: only the ultimate goal itself is eternal. So no law is eternal.

Augustine'® says: The law of highest reason is invisible to all but the unchanging and eternal intelligence. psalmist, after he has told us Offer your sacrifice of justice, adds, as if addressing people who asked what were these works of justice: Many say: Who can show us these good things? and answers: the light of your face is signed on us, O

Lord, as if the light of natural reason by which we tell good from evil (the law that is in us by nature) is itself an imprint of God's light in us. Clearly then the law that is in us by nature is nothing else than the reasoning creature's sharing in the eternal law.

Hence: to 1: This argument would hold if the law in us by nature was something different from the eternal law, but in fact it is a sort of sharing in it, as we have said. to 2: All we do by reason and will starts from nature, as we have said; for all our reasoning starts from premisses known by nature and all our willing of courses of action starts from our natural willing of our ultimate goal. So, in the same way, all our planning of action for a goal must start from the law we have in us by nature. to 3: Even creatures without reason share eternal reason in their own way, like reasoning creatures; but because reasoning creatures do it with reason and understanding their sharing in the eternal law is itself law in the true sense, for law is a product of reason, as we have said. Non-reasoning creatures share in it in a non-reasoning way, and so in them it is a law only metaphorically.

[Article 3] The third question [Are there human laws?] we approach as follows:

It seems that there are no human laws:

For [1] we have said that the law we have in us by nature is a sharing in the eternal law, and that, according to Augustine,"* puts perfect order into all things. So natural law is enough to put order into all human affairs, and we have no need of any human law.

Moreover, [2] law is a standard of measurement, as we have said. But Aristotle'? says that human reason doesn't so much God as the End of Things Moreover, [8] charity is a kind of friendship between God and man. But friendship between man and man is not counted a social virtue by philosophers. So the charity of God shouldn't be counted a theological virtue...

Moreover, [11] sin wounds our affections even more than our minds, since, as Augustine? says, sin is a fault of will.

Now our minds can't immediately see God in himself in this life. So neither can our affections immediately love God in himself in this life. But love of God in himself is what charity is supposed to be. So charity shouldn't be counted among the virtues that perfect us in this life...

Moreover, [13] all virtues have their due measure, and so Augustine* says that sin—opposed to virtue—lacks measure, form, and order. But charity is measureless, for, as Bernard® says, the measure of charity is to love without measure. So charity is no virtue.

Moreover, [15] Aristotle® says friendship consists in a sort of equality. But between us and God there is an infinite distance, and thus the greatest inequality. So God can't be friends with us, nor we with God, and there seems to be no such virtue as charity, the name given to such friendship.

Moreover, [16] the love of supreme good is in us by nature.

But nothing that exists in us by nature is a virtue, for Aristotle" says virtues are not innate. So love of supreme good, which is charity, is not a virtue...

The law commands acts of virtue. But it commands acts of charity, for Matthew 18 [37] says that the first and greatest commandment is this: Love the Lord thy God. So charity is a virtue.

Charity is undoubtedly a virtue. Since virtue is something that renders its possessors good and their activity good, clearly there will be a virtue special to human beings disposing them to their special good. But what the special good of human beings is will vary with the context in which you view human beings. For the good special to human beings

5. EN 1 [1.1094°23-5].

6. Metaph. 9 (8.1050°20-2?].

8. EN6 (3.1139°15—17; 6—7.1140°31-1141°8].

9. The City of God, 8 [4].

10. Metaph. 3 [2.997°26-30, 9971-3].

11. EN 6 [9.1142*11-20].

12. Metaph. 6 [1.1026718].

13. Ph. 2 [7.198*29-31].

14. Almagest, 1 (1.5, 7-10].

15. De An. 3 [10.333715].

16. Metaph. 2 [1.99320].

17. APo. 1 [2.71°9-12.15; 6.74°5—75*37, 33.88°30-5].

18. Metaph. 9 [8.1050°11-15].

20. EN2 [5.1106*15-17].

21. Metaph. 6 [1.102618].

22. Metaph. 1 [2.982*14-17].

23. Commentary on On Porphyry's Isagoge [1.3].

24. Didascalicon de Studio Legendi, 3 [3].

25. Metaph. 2 [3.995713].

26. EN6 [9.1142°16-20].

27. Metaph. 6 [1.102522].

28. EN 1 [1.1095*4—6; 6.1098715; 13.1102*5—10}.

29. The City of God, 4 [21].

30. De Medicina, 1.1.

31. The City of God, 20 [19.1].

32. EN 10 (7-8.1177912-1178°32].

33. Natural, vital, and animal spirits or forces.

34. Commentary on the Metaphysics, 1 (3).

35. Isagoge, 6.12—16.

36. Ph. 8 [S—6.256*4-260°19; 10.266710—267°26].

37. Metaph. 9 [8.1050°11-15].

38. Metaph. 1 [1.981718-20].

39. De An. 1 [3.405°31-407°26; 4—5.408729-409°19].

40. Cael, 2 [14.296*24-29776].

41. Metaph. 7 [8.10535 -17].

42. [De Trinitate, 5.2.3.] 43. Metaph. 9 [8.103020-2].

44. Metaph. 6 [1.1026°13; Ph. 2 [2.193522-30; 7.198*27—31].

45. Metaph. 1 [6.987*32-1].

47. Metaph. 7 [15.1039°20—4].

Notes would mislead him too into the wrong numbering. The proof of the pudding in this case is really in the eating; and I find that on my conjecture the answers actually answer the objections, and on the other hypotheses they don't. The reader must judge for himself.

107. The autograph has 'to 4;'. See the previous note.

108. The autograph has 'to 5:'. See the previous note.

109. Mystical Theology, 1 {3}.

110. Commenting on Gen. 32 [30], 'I have seen God face to face.'

111. Celestial Hierarchy, 2 [5].

112. De An. 3 [7.431714].

113. Celestial Hierarchy, 2 [2].

117. Ph, 1 [1.184*23-"12].

118. [Commentary on the Metaphysics, 8.4.] 119. Metaph. 10 [10.1058'26-1059*9].

120. Divine Names [7.3].

121. [De An. 1.1.402525.] 122. EN 10 [7.1177712—21].

123. EN 10 [7.117876-8].

124. Metaph. 1 [1.981°28-982°3]; EN 6 [7.1141718-'2].

125. Commentary on the De Anima, 3 [36}.

126. Metaph. 9 [10.1051°26-8].

127. De An. 3 [5.430715].

128. APo. 2 [19.100*3—11, °3-5].

129. See n. 125 above.

130. See n. 125 above.

Passage 2 1, Soliloquies (2.5).

2. Metaph. 4 [16.1011°25].

4. Commentary on the Metaphysics, 1 [6].

5. Metaph. 3 [3.998522].

7. Cf. Summa Theologiae, 1a.11.2, ad 4m: Dividedness precedes unity in our minds though not in reality, for we conceive simpleness as non-compositeness, points as dimensionless.

Unity, in turn, precedes plurality in our minds, since divided Notes 24. [Commentary on the Metaphysics, 5.2.] 25. Commentary on the De Anima, 3 [14].

27. Commentary on the De Anima, 3 {5}.

28. See previous note.

29. [De An. 3.3.43071.] 30. See n. 22 above.

31. Metaph. 5 [18.1021°30-3].

32. Commentary on the Metaphysics, 5 {21].

34. [Commentary on the De Anima, 5.3.] 35. Commentary on the De Anima, 1.1.

36. Commentary on the Metaphysics, [5.6].

37. Commentary on the De Anima, 1.1.

38. HA8 [1.588°4—12}.

39. PA 1 [2.642°5-7}.

40. Metaph. 2 [2.993°24].

41. De An. 3 [1.429°18-'5].

42. Metaph. 10 (11.1058521-3].

43. Metaph. 9 [1.104527~32].

44. Metaph. 5 [17.1020°26 ff.].

Passage 8 1, [Aristotle, Metaph. 5.3.1014°26.] 2. Ph. 1 [3.185°16].

3. Cat. [5.3°24-4°9].

4. Metapb. 10 (7.1057*17-29].

5. Ph. 6 [4.234°10 ff.].

6. Ph. 5 [2.226723-35].

7. Metaph. 8 (3.1043°34-1044*14].

8. De Generatione 1 [10.327°29-31].

[13.] This work was attributed to St Augustine; but see Thomas's comments in the answer to this objection, and n. 12 below.

3. Metaph. 9 [8.1049>20].

4. [Commentary on the Metaphysics, 8.6.] 5. [De An. 3.4.430°3.] 6. Celestial Hierarchy, 11.

Notes 20. EN 3 [7.1116°3].

21. Ph. 3 [3.202°25].

22. Ph. 5 [5.229730].

24. Rh. [2.3.1380*5)}.

25. Metaph. 10 (8.1058*7].

Passage 17 1. Enchiridion.

2. De An. 3 [10.433°15}.

3. Divine Names, 4 [10-12].

4. [Commentary on the Metaphysics, 6.1-2.} 5. De Trinitate, 1 (1).

6. Confessions, 8 [5].

8. Metaph. 9 [2.10465].

9. De An, 3 [9.432°5].

11. Metapb. 4 [5.1009*15-—22}.

12. De An. 3 [10.4337 ff.].

13. Commentary on the De Anima, 3 {18}.

14. De An. 3 [9.432°5].

15. De An. [3.3.427°25].

16. [EE 7.18.] 17. [De Consolatione, 3.2.] 18. Reading voluptati for voluntati.

19. [EN 3.5.1114732.] 20. Metaph. 6 [3.1027°31 ff.].

Passage 18 1. De An. 1 [4.408°13~15].

2. De An. 2 [1.412*27~8].

3. Divine Names, 7 [3].

4. De An. 3 [4.429°24-7].

7. De An. 2 [4.416°17-30].

8. De An. 2 (12.424°17-21].

9. De An. 3 [4.429°24-7].

10. De An. 1 [4.408518-19].

Passage 26 1. [Ad Eustochium.] 2. Contra Faustum.

4. Metapb. 5 (12.1019*33—1020°5].

5. Metaph. 10 [4.10551].

[Cael. 3.20.] 7. Metaph. 4 [3.1005°30}.

8. Aristotle actually says contrary opinions are of contradictories.

10. Metaph. 9 [2.104615-~25}.

Passage 27 1. Ph. 1 [4,187726-9}.

2. GC 1 [7.32325 ff.}.

3. [Commentary on the Metaphysics, 9.2.] 4. Source not traced, 5. [Commentary on the Metaphysics, 7.2.} 8. Metaph. 5 [12.1019°33-1020°5).

9. Metaph. 7 [8.1033'20~ 103478].

10. Monologion [5. 8).

11. [Commentary on the Metaphysics, 3.] 12. Ph. S$ [1.225°1].

13. Cat. [14.15°13 ff.}.

15. Metapb. § (15.1021%25—5].

17. Commentary on the Metaphysics (3.10).

18. Super Genesim ad Litteram [8.12].

Passage 28 1. Celestial Hierarchy, 4 (1).

2. [Ph. 8.5.257°25.] 3. Ph. 8.1 [250°10 ff.].

4. Metaph. 5 [12.1019*33—1020°5}.

5. Ph, 4 {11.219716 ff.].

Notes 12. EN 10 [4.1174°32].

13. EN 6 [2.1139728].

14. EN 1 [10. 1101°].

15. De Doctrina Christiana 1 {4}.

17. De Consolatione, 3 [10].

18. EN 1 [8.1098°9 ff.}.

19. De Consolatione, 3 [2].

20. Reading nos for non.

21, EN 1 [7.1098718].

22. Cael. 2 [3.286°8?].

23. This sentence was left unfinished by St Thomas or his scribe.

24. De Consolatione, 3 [10].

25. GC 2 [10.336°30].

26. Reading cui for qui.

27. De An. 2 [4.415°13}.

28. De Trinitate, 10 [1].

29. De An. 3 (10.433715].

30. Metaph. 4 [3.1005°19-34].

31. De Consolatione, 3 [2].

32. [Eadmer, De Similitudinibus Anselmi, 53.] 33. EN 3.4 [1113713].

34. Ph. 2 [3.195726].

35. De Libero Arbitrio, 14.

36. Metaph. 4 (3.1005°19].

37. Retractationes, 1 [9].

38. EN 7 [12.1153712?].

39. Confessions, 2 (4, 6}.

40. Reading iudicatur for indicatur.

41. De Doctrina Christiana, 1.32.

44, Metaph. 6 [4.1027°25].

45. EN 7 [8.1151716].

46. Confessions, 2 [6}.

Passage 35 1. Divine Names, 4 [20].

2. Metaph. 9 [(9.1051*4—22].

3. Divine Names, 4 [20].

4. De Doctrina Christiana, 3 12].

5. Metaph. 6 [4.1027°25].

6. Metaph. 6 [2.1026°4).

8. Divine Names, 4 [19].

9. De Differentiis Topicis, 2.

10. Divine Names, 4 [30].

11. Metaph. 3 [3.998522].

13. Divine Names, 4 [32].

14. EN 5S [4.1130*24].

15. Metaph. 7 (12.1038°9].

16. Ph. [2.3.194°26].

17. (Enchiridion, 11.] 18. [Cat. 8.12°26.] 19. On the Sermon on the Mount (2.18).

20. On the Categories (10).

22. EN 4 {1.1121°26].

23. Homilies on the Gospels, 1.6.

24. Divine Names, 4 [30].

25. Divine Names, 4 (32).

29. De Trinitate, 10 [1].

30. Metaph. 10 [1.105324].

31. Contra Faustum, 22 [27}.

32. [Sermo ad Populum, 62.8.} 33. EN7 [9.115133].

34. Divine Names, 4 (30).

35. Confessions, 9 [? Cf. 13.26].

36. Enchiridion? (Cf. Enarrationes in Psalmos, 32.1].

37. Retractationes [1.9].

38. Retractationes [1.9].

39. Metaph. 7 (12.103879}.

40. Contra Mendacium [7].

41, EN 2 [6.1106715].

42. EN 1 [13.110343].

43. EN 6 [12.114478}.

46. Ph. 5 [4.228720].

47. Ph. 3 [3.202718].

I have appended to the indexed English word the Latin word(s) most often translated by it, unless the English word derives from that Latin word; the sign = indicates a translation equivalence, and can often be used as a cross-reference. Many references are indexed by their first page only, and the reader should go on reading until there is nothing more to be found. abilities (potential) = powers 7, astronomy 24 122, 131, 255, 393, 399 authority 414, 417 abstraction, abstractness 4, 14, aversion 168 18, 128, 149, 151, 215 — action (actio) 65, 81, 88, 152, bad (mali) = evil 159, 342, 342, 344, 390, 394 beni oe activity (operatio) 154, 169, 253, Pesinnings (brincipia) = origins = 261, 272, 302, 329, 381, behaviorsles

393~4 haviour 271 actual, actuality, actualization being (ens) 2, 9, 254; see also essence; existence; substance ee og 357 oe Bh bls(beatiudo) 313,394,412, affections, affective emotions (appetitus concupiscibilis) 135, pody (corpus) 95, 188, 301, 394 162, 165, 169, 322, 404, 423 paidness (audacia) affirmations 217, 228 rinkmanship (protervia) agency, agent 64, 71, 169, 200, categories (praedicamenta) 62, 208, 254, 285, 306, 311, 345, 79, 86, 92, 125 353, 382, 397 cause 72, 87, 182, 198, 205, 254, agent intellect, agent mind 49, 285, 303, 323-4 135, 137, 148, 150, 154, 403 certainty 35 aggressive emotions (appetitus chance (casus) 183, 267, 280 irascibilis) 135, 162, 165, 169, change {mutatio, motus) 29, 72,

80, 165, 200, 210, 256, 261, alterations 258 269, 332, . analogy 27, 71, 78, 224-5, 226, characteristics, characteristic 235-6, 384 properties (propria) 121, 126, anarchic 176 angel 102, 155 charity 322, 379, 409, 421 anger (ira) 166, 168 choosing (electio) 406 animals 116, 169, 189, 314 circumstances 179, 346, 348, Anselm's argument 197 350, 357, 359, 364, 381, 383 arguments 411 city, citizen 413, 423 arts 10, 402 classification 3, 7 assent 182 colours 304

Index kind (species) 345, 349, 359 nature, natural 19, 44, 63, 92, knowledge (cognitio) 44, 53, 57, 98, 99, 176, 187, 197, 245, 281, 330, 336—7, 338, 402-3 271, 287, 297, 310, 336, 350, 358; agents 72, 202, 280, 392; atic characteristics 122; desire 169; lack (privatio) 69, 355 id , law (lex) 410, 414 science 3, 16, 24, 27, 30, 34, lawthat is in us by nature 416, necessary, necessity 69, 76, 201, 244, 277 ness mig life (vita) 115, 129, 208, 331, 400 neutral 355, 368 light (luex) 149, 151 non-compositesubstances likenesses (simmilitudines) 241 non-"wing logic 9, 33, 45, 109, 111 non-univocal causes 225 love (amor) 168, 182, 329, 330, rene 215'ationship 62, 336-7, 393, 423, 424 numbers 271 magnetism 189 objects 7, 131, 163, 177, 321, material = matter 21, 29, 67, 93, 337, 350, 352, 359, 363, 364, 97, 102, 255, 285, 306, 345, 375, 392, 397, 408-9, 425 354, 382, 393-4, 397 omnipotence 247 mathematics 3, 17, 21, 23, 24, omniscience 247 30, 34, 41, 93 omnivolence 248 matter = material 8, 15, 23, 28, one 53, 398 29, 67, 118, 187, 208, 272, order 275, 289 301, 383 organization 272 meaning (significatio) 215, 232 means (medium) 406 pain 168 measure 210, 367, 411, 418,425 part 407-8 medicine 10, 11 participles 215 memory 133—4, 138, 142, 407 particular senses 133, 142 merit 339 particularity 15,22, 275, 339 metaphor 219, 258 passion, passivity 81, 88, 146, metaphysics 11, 23, 26, 38 147, 157 mind (anima, intellectus) 57, 63, penalty 388 106, 110, 146, 176, 279, 384, the people (populus) 414 perceptible matter 8, 21 moderation 409 perfection 208, 218, 236-7, 254, moment = instant 269 323-4, 346-7, 392, 399 moral 286-7, 350, 358, 371, philosophers 28 384, 390 plant-forms 115, 189 motive power 135, 136, 287,384 Plato 14, 23, 148, 152, 255 movement 24, 75—6, 141, 165, pleasure (delectatio) 168, 329, 332, 386-7 mules 314 political community 415 multiplicity 237 position (situs) 88 MORE ABOUT OXFORD WORLD'S CLASSICS American Literature British and Irish Literature Children's Literature Classics and Ancient Literature Colonial Literature Eastern Literature European Literature Gothic Literature History Medieval Literature Oxford English Drama Poetry Philosophy Politics Religion The Oxford Shakespeare A complete list of Oxford World's Classics, including Authors in Context,

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A SELECTION OF OXFORD WORLD'S CLASSICS Horace The Complete Odes and Epodes JUVENAL The Satires Livy The Dawn ofthe Roman Empire The Rise ofRome Marcus AvRELIus The Meditations Ovip The Love Poems Metamorphoses Sorrows ofan Exile PETRONIUS The Satyricon PLaTto Defence ofSocrates, Euthyphro, and Crito

Gorgias Phaedo Republic Symposium PLautus Four Comedies PLUTARCH Greek Lives Roman Lives Selected Essays and Dialogues PROPERTIUS The Poems SOPHOCLES Antigone, Oedipus the King, and Electra Statius Thebaid SuETONIUS Lives ofthe Ceasars Tacitus Agricola and Germany The Histories VIRGIL The Aeneid The Eclogues and Georgics

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