LITMIR.BIZ

Principles of human action are those things from which it springs and upon which it depends, and by which a human action is brought to completion.

1. Division of principles.

2. What is the end?

3. What is the occasion?

4. What is an order, and what counsel?

5. The means?

6. What the habit?

1. The principles of an action are either disposing principles, by which it is merely begun, or efficient and deciding principles, by which a human action is brought to act.

      Disposing principles are: (1) Moving principles, in part indirectly and that either naturally, as the end, or morally, as the occasion; in part directly, and that likewise either naturally, as inclination, or morally, and that extrinsically, as persuasion, bidding, incitation, or intrinsically, as obligation. (2) Directing principles, either in a moral way, as law, or in a natural way, as discernment. (3) Assisting principles, as means which are natural, like natural power, and that which chiefly manifests itself here, the faculty of locomotion; or else moral things, as authority. Efficient or deciding principles are immediate causes from which a human action has its being, and are such either simply, as will, whose respect to the directing moral principle is called obedience; or else they are combined with inclination, as habit.

2. The end is a certain good which is sought for its own sake, or because it has something in itself for the sake of obtaining which the action is undertaken; and it is either an ultimate end or an intermediate one. The greatest variety is found in this latter class. The former is called the summum bonum, which is either imaginary or what seems the summum bonum to the corrupted judgement of men, as pleasure of the body, wealth, honour, power, fame, &c., or true and agreeable to reason, as the pleasure and repose of the mind resulting from the practice of the virtues and the contemplation of things. To this is opposed the summum malum, which again is either imaginary, as poverty, diseases, servitude, contempt, &c., or true, as disquiet and anxiety of the mind arising from the practice of the vices and ignorance of things. The leading place, moreover, among principles is assigned to the end, because it must be known and valued before the rational agent bestirs himself to perform an action, and it is abhorrent to the nature of the rational agent to move, as it were, toward a vacuum, that is, to undertake anything without a predetermined end.

3. Occasion is that by which is offered to any one equipped with a natural faculty, in a convenient place and time, an object of some <69> action. For, in order that a person be said to have an occasion for acting, it is essentially required: (1) That the object of the action be present, or that it can be secured with only a little trouble. (2) That there be ready at hand a convenient place where we can be unhindered by others in our action, or, after the action, may not be affected by some inconvenience. (3) That a convenient time present itself, in which more necessary matters do not have to be performed, and in which we and others who concur in the action are conveniently situated. (4) That there be a natural faculty or power to act. It must be noted, nevertheless, here, that in common speech sometimes he also is said to have an occasion, who has merely the first three requisites, although he be deprived of the power of action. But, since the rest are of no avail when this last is wanting, you will call that an imperfect occasion. Moreover, occasion is like a very effective spur to undertake good as well as bad actions, and thus the common expression, that “occasion makes the thief,” is all too true.

4. An order is that whereby there is pointed out to some one, by virtue of the force of command [imperii], an action which he ought to perform. An action of that kind upon orders, undertaken as by that person who is subject to the orders of another, satisfies the obligation toward the giver of the order; thus, if neither the giver of the order has exceeded the limits of his authority, nor the other exceeded the limits of the thing commanded, it reflects, as it were, its effects properly and directly not back upon the executor, but upon the commander, and therefore it is imputed primarily not to the former but to the latter. But, truly, he who

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