Explanation of Catholic Morals | Page 4

of mental aberration, which is only
another name for insanity or folly, whether it be momentary or
permanent of its nature. A human being, in such a condition, stands on
the same plane with the animal, with this difference, that the one is a
freak and the other is not. Morals, good or bad, have no meaning for
either.
If the will or consent has no part in what is done, we do nothing,
another acts through us; 'tis not ours, but the deed of another. An
instrument or tool used in the accomplishment of a purpose possesses
the same negative merit or demerit, whether it be a thing without a will
or an unwilling human being. If we are not free, have no choice in the
matter, must consent, we differ in nothing from all brutish and
inanimate nature that follows necessarily, fatally, the bent of its
instinctive inclinations and obeys the laws of its being. Under these
conditions, there can be no morality or responsibility before God; our
deeds are alike blameless and valueless in His sight.
Thus, the simple transgression of the Law does not constitute us in guilt;
we must transgress deliberately, wilfully. Full inadvertence, perfect
forgetfulness, total blindness is called invincible ignorance; this

destroys utterly the moral act and makes us involuntary agents. When
knowledge is incomplete, the act is less voluntary; except it be the case
of ignorance brought on purposely, a wilful blinding of oneself, in the
vain hope of escaping the consequences of one's acts. This betrays a
stronger willingness to act, a more deliberately set will.
Concupiscence has a kindred effect on our reason. It is a consequence
of our fallen nature by which we are prone to evil rather than to good,
find it more to our taste and easier to yield to wrong than to resist it.
Call it passion, temperament, character, what you will,--it is an
inclination to evil. We cannot always control its action. Everyone has
felt more or less the tyranny of concupiscence, and no child of Adam
but has it branded in his nature and flesh. Passion may rob us of our
reason, and run into folly or insanity; in which event we are
unconscious agents, and do nothing voluntary. It may so obscure the
reason as to make us less ourselves, and consequently less willing. But
there is such a thing as, with studied and refined malice and depravity,
to purposely and artificially, as it were, excite concupiscence, in order
the more intensely and savagely to act. This is only a proof of greater
deliberation, and renders the deed all the more voluntary.
A person is therefore more or less responsible according as what he
does, or the good or evil of what he does, is more or less clear to him.
Ignorance or the passions may affect his clear vision of right and wrong,
and under the stress of this deception, wring a reluctant yielding of the
will, a consent only half willingly given. Because there is consent, there
is guilt but the guilt is measured by the degree of premeditation. God
looks upon things solely in their relation to Him. An abomination
before men may be something very different in His sight who searches
the heart and reins of man and measures evil by the malice of the
evil-doer. The only good or evil He sees in our deeds is the good or evil
we ourselves see in them before or while we act.
Violence and fear may oppress the will, and thereby prove destructive
to the morality of an act and the responsibility of the agent. Certain it is,
that we can be forced to act against our will, to perform that which we
abhor, and do not consent to do. Such force may be brought to bear

upon us as we cannot withstand. Fear may influence us in a like manner.
It may paralyze our faculties and rob us of our senses. Evidently, under
these conditions, no voluntary act is possible, since the will does not
concur and no consent is given. The subject becomes a mere tool in the
hands of another.
Can violence and fear do more than this? Can it not only rob us of the
power to will, not only force us to act without consent, but also force
the will, force us to consent? Never; and the simple reason is that we
cannot do two contradictory things at the same time--consent and not
consent, for that is what it means to be forced to consent. Violence and
fear may weaken the will so that it finally yield. The fault, if fault there
be, may be less inexcusable by reason of the pressure under which it
labored. But once we have willed, we have willed, and essentially,
there