Scotus Academicus, Tomus decimus: De Baptismo, De Poenitentia, De Extrema Unctione

Three things above all must be determined in this Question: first, whether penance is an acquired or infused virtue, theological or moral; second, on the supposition that it is moral, to which of the four cardinal virtues it is reduced; third, granted that it must be reduced to some species of justice, whether it is comprised under commutative or distributive justice. These matters may be made known more easily and clearly as follows.

NOTE 1. Virtues, considered generally in relation to God, are of three kinds. Some have God as their object and proximate end, so that it belongs to the nature of these virtues to refer their acts to God; such are the theological virtues, whose object is God himself, either to be believed, hoped for, or loved. Others have God neither as their object nor as their proximate end, as fortitude, whose object is death or something similar, while its proximate end, at least intrinsically, is not God but something else: for example, when someone exposes himself to death for his country, so that, once the enemy has been driven off, people may live in peace. For the material object of this act of fortitude is death; its formal object, or intrinsic end, is peace, or a peaceful and tranquil life. Hence, if such an act is referred to God, this reference will be only to an extrinsic end, and will take place through the virtue not of fortitude but of charity or religion. Others, finally, although they do not have God as their object, nevertheless have him as their end to whom, that is, the proximate end toward which all their acts are directed. Such are religion and penance, whose acts are immediately ordered to God. They are therefore close to the theological virtues, and are for the most part commanded by them.

NOTE 2. According to the Doctor, d. 14, q. 3, n. 5: “A virtue is not judged moral for the reason that it is known and elicited solely from prior natural cognition, rather than from revelation or faith. For, he says, according to the Philosopher a moral virtue is so called because it is generated by custom or habit. But through any kind of knowledge, whether acquired by the light of nature or by faith, the appetite can be inclined accordingly, and by frequent action can generate in itself a habit inclining it in this way. This will be an elective habit, because it is appetitive, and is according to right reason, though not natural reason but another kind of reason. In this way poverty, humility, chastity, and the like are moral virtues, because they are generated according to perfect and right reason, though not purely natural reason, through custom—that is, through frequently choosing in this way.” Hence he concludes: “Therefore, once this rule known from the Gospel, ‘Do penance,’ Matthew 3, is presupposed, the will can, by frequently eliciting an act conformed to this rule, generate in itself a habit inclining it to similar acts; and this will truly be a virtue, because it accords with right reason, indeed with the most perfectly right reason, and yet it will be moral, because generated by habit and custom.” Thus the Doctor. By these words he indicates that although, in order to be a Christian virtue, penance must be elicited for the sake of God who has been offended, on the supposition of a divine precept known through revelation, it will nonetheless be a moral virtue, generated and acquired through repeated acts. Hence, for a virtue to be infused and supernatural, it is not enough that it presuppose knowledge received from revelation; in addition, its acquisition must wholly exceed human powers, so that it cannot be obtained except by God’s giving and infusing it.

NOTE 3. All moral virtues are reduced to the four cardinal virtues, which are called cardinal because the others turn upon them as a door turns on its hinges. They are justice, fortitude, temperance, and prudence. It is clear that penance is not reduced to prudence, fortitude, or temperance, since those virtues are concerned only with moderating and regulating the passions of the sensitive appetite, whereas penance concerns all sins, both spiritual and bodily. Hence the only difficulty remaining to be weighed is the reduction of penance to justice. Since the formal character of justice consists in the obligation and duty of rendering what is owed according to right reason, it extends to various species of virtue: for twenty-two virtues are counted, both immediate and mediate, of which justice is predicated as of its species. These are latria, piety, dulia, hyperdulia, legal justice, equity, benevolence, affability, beneficence, truthfulness, friendship, liberality, penance, reverence, observance, mercy, vindication, gratitude, and punitive, restitutive, distributive, and commutative justice. The sufficiency and proper enumeration of all these are gathered from the four principal debts a person may have: either in relation to the cause on which one depends as an effect; or in relation to one’s own condition and nature; or with respect to a second and added perfection; or with respect to voluntary action. Since the present discussion is especially about the ordering of a person in respect of an obligation that arises through voluntary action, it should be understood that this voluntary action presupposes a deed, or does not. If it presupposes a deed, that deed is either good or bad for the person. If good, the person is obliged to make recompense according to his ability, which he does through the virtue of gratitude. If bad, he is bound by office to correct it, toward which punitive justice inclines him; and in particular, if the wrongdoer has injured his neighbor, he is bound to make satisfaction, toward which restitutive justice inclines him. If, however, the voluntary action presupposes no deed but is on equal terms, then a twofold obligation may arise: either to equality according to geometric proportion, which is exercised by distributive justice, or to equality according to arithmetic proportion, which is exercised by commutative justice.

First conclusion. — PENANCE IS A MORAL VIRTUE, NOT A THEOLOGICAL ONE; ACQUIRED, NOT INFUSED. This is the Doctor’s position with respect to both parts, the first of which

He explains in In IV Sent., d. 14, q. 2, n. 9, where he says: “From this there could be a doubt about the relation of this virtue to charity: for since penance, through its act, commands an act of charity, it seems to be superior to charity. But the contrary is clear, because the per se object of charity is God under the most noble objective character, whereas the proper object of this virtue is a punishable wrong, or the guilty person against whom punishment is to be inflicted.” Hence he concludes that “penance is not only not a theological virtue, but is not even simply the most noble virtue among those concerned with a created object.” Accordingly, at n. 20 he says: “Finally, I say that it is not a theological virtue, but is concerned with a created object.”

This truth is therefore proved by an argument of the Doctor, drawn from In III Sent., d. 26, q. 1, n. 15, where he says: Three conditions are held to belong to a theological virtue: first, it regards God as its object; second, it has as its rule the first rule of human acts, not an acquired rule; third, it is infused immediately by God as efficient cause. But none of these conditions applies to penance. Not the first, since penance is directed immediately not toward God but toward sin, to be avenged and punished. For, as we shall say presently, it is punitive or vindictive justice, whose formal object is the correspondence of punishment to guilt, and whose material object is punishment and guilt themselves.

YOU WILL SAY: In avenging sin, the penitent intends to make satisfaction to God for the injury inflicted; therefore penance is directed toward God as its object. — I deny the inference, for he does not intend to make satisfaction to God as though the satisfaction or punishment itself were the proximate end and ultimate motive he proposes to himself. He intends it only because making satisfaction to God and punishing sin are good. Thus the one making satisfaction, and consequently punishing himself, has as the formal object to which he is directed, not God, whom he does not love by that act, but the will by which he desires to make satisfaction to God, and this is certainly something created. Accordingly, just as obedience, although it wills to obey God, and religion, although it wills to worship God, are not for that reason theological virtues, because they are not immediately concerned with God but obedience with the thing commanded and religion with divine worship, which are created beings; so penance, although it intends to make satisfaction to God, should not on this account be judged a theological virtue, because it is not immediately concerned with God but with sin to be avenged.

YOU WILL PRESS: Penance intends to appease God; but that appeasement is something uncreated, for it is an act of the divine will accepting our acts of service and pardoning our offenses; therefore, and so on. — I distinguish the minor premise: that appeasement is something uncreated on God’s part and in its completed state, I grant, because pardoning sins belongs to God alone; on the penitent’s part and in its becoming, I deny. For the penitent is not immediately concerned with that appeasement and remission, but only with works suited to appease God, which he wills to offer in order to obtain that remission of sins. The offering of these works is in itself good and honorable, even if no pardon of sins were to follow from it. Hence the primary act of penance is to will to punish sin and to offer works of satisfaction by which God may be appeased.

The second condition of a theological virtue is likewise absent from penance, since it is not regulated by the first rule of human acts, namely, either God under some essential or attributive character, or the divine will known through revelation, but by the dictate of reason, which declares that punishment must be proportioned to sin and satisfaction to the gravity of the offense.

It has still less of the third condition, namely, that it be infused by God as efficient cause. For, as the Doctor says in the aforementioned d. 14, q. 2, n. 20: From many acts of justly avenging the guilty person in oneself, a habit can be acquired that remains along with mortal sin; it could be acquired before mortal sin is blotted out, were it not perhaps that God justifies before sufficient acts for the generation of penance can be had. This position is proved as follows. Infused virtues are admitted only so that they may incline the recipient to acts necessary for salvation: thus the habit of faith inclines one to believe, of hope to hope, and of charity to love God as one ought. But the habit of penance, if considered in itself, could not incline its recipient to an act of repenting necessary for salvation; therefore it would be pointless. The major premise is established. The minor is proved: an act of penance is said to be necessary for salvation insofar as it disposes the soul to the infusion of the virtues at the moment of justification. But the act that is the dispositive cause of a subject’s reception of an infused habit cannot be produced by that infused habit itself; therefore, and so on. The major premise is taught by the Council of Trent, sess. VI, chs. 9 and 7, where penance is listed among the dispositions required beforehand in an adult for receiving justification. And in sess. XIV, ch. 4, it says of attrition conceived from fear of hell and punishments, if it excludes the will to sin and is accompanied by hope of pardon, that it does not make a person a hypocrite and greater sinner, but is truly a gift of God and an impulse of the Holy Spirit, not yet indeed indwelling, but only moving, by which the penitent, helped, prepares the way for himself to righteousness. The minor is proved: every form to be introduced follows the disposition for it; therefore an act of a penitent necessary for salvation cannot be elicited by an infused habit of penance, for which it is a disposition, especially according to the Thomists, who admit moral virtues infused in themselves and maintain that they are infused only at justification.

YOU WILL SAY 1: Natural and acquired penance does not suffice for the blotting out of guilt; therefore infused penance is required for this. The antecedent is proved from the Council of Trent, sess. III, can. 3: If anyone says that a person can believe, hope, love, or repent as he ought, without the prevenient inspiration of the Holy Spirit and his help, so that the grace of justification may be conferred on him, let him be anathema. Therefore, just as believing, hoping, and loving are supernatural acts in their substance, so too repenting, in order to be a proper disposition for the remission of sins, must be supernatural. — I distinguish the antecedent: natural penance does not suffice both in substance and in manner, I grant; natural in substance and supernatural in manner, I deny. Therefore the act of penance that is preparation for justification is indeed supernatural in manner, because it is elicited only by the benefit of grace and the help of the Holy Spirit. In this respect acts of the moral virtues, insofar as they are meritorious, are called supernatural—not in substance but in manner, since they cannot be pleasing and acceptable to God in the order of salvation without the benefit of grace. The Council intended nothing else: there it defines only, against the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians, that a person cannot be justified by the powers of nature alone, without God’s special help. Hence one cannot infer from it that penance is supernatural in substance, but only in manner, which is certainly necessary for fruitful penance.

YOU WILL INSIST: Acquired habits naturally incline one to produce acts like those from which they were generated. Therefore, if a natural habit is generated from acts of penance that contribute to salvation, it will follow that this habit inclines one to produce acts sufficient for salvation, and consequently that we can repent by the powers of nature alone, which is Pelagian. — I distinguish the antecedent: they incline one to produce like acts in substance, I grant; in manner, I deny. For just as a divine precept may be kept with respect to the substance of the act, even though it is not observed with respect to the end intended by God who commands it—for example, if someone fasts during Lent while in a state of mortal sin, he fulfills the precept with respect to the substance of the act, but not with respect to the end intended by God who commands and intends that the act be meritorious—so an acquired habit of penance can indeed incline the will to an act of repentance with respect to the being and substance of the act, namely, to wish one had not sinned; yet it does not incline it with respect to the end intended by the one commanding, namely, God’s intention that this act of repentance be the final disposition for grace.

Second conclusion. — PENANCE IS REDUCED TO JUSTICE. This is the Doctor’s position, In IV Sent., d. 14, q. 2, n. 5, where he proves that willing to punish sin is not an act of the friendship by which a person is reconciled with God, because it is not an act of an appetitive virtue that orders one to oneself, but to another. “There follows,” he says, “another conclusion: repenting is not an act of an appetitive virtue that orders one to oneself, such as temperance and fortitude; therefore it is an act of a virtue that orders one to another, such as justice. This argument holds on the supposition of that famous division of the appetitive virtues, according to which they are reduced entirely to two classes. The antecedent is proved, because a person can exercise this act of avenging in the same way, according to right reason, upon another as upon himself. Even if he exercises it upon himself, he does so upon himself only as upon another, because he exercises it upon himself only insofar as the Legislator commits to him the task of avenging this accused person. But it is accidental that the person to whom this is committed as a minister of the Judge is the accused person himself, since he would exercise it according to the right reason of a minister upon the accused in the same way if the accused were an entirely different person. Therefore this virtue, whose nature consists in this act, is contained under justice, insofar as justice is generally defined as every virtue that orders one to another.” By these words the Doctor makes clear that this act, which is avenging sin, may be elicited by someone with respect to another just as with respect to himself; and when someone avenges his own sin, he deals with himself as though he were acting toward another. Consequently, this act does not belong to a virtue that orders one to oneself, but to another. But if you object that willing to avenge sin is not an act directed toward another but of a person toward himself, the Doctor replies in the same place that “it is no obstacle that, in his act, he is ordered to himself, because he is ordered to himself only as to another, that is, as the minister of the Judge against the accused who has acted against the law, over whom authority has been entrusted to him by the Judge.” That is, when someone punishes himself for sin, he acts as God’s minister. Hence, although he is at once accused and judge, in order to chastise himself he is, as it were, virtually distinguished from himself insofar as he is accused.

YOU WILL SAY 1: Penance is reduced to charity; therefore it is not referred to justice. The antecedent is proved: penance is reduced to the virtue from which its proper act, contrition, is elicited. But contrition is elicited by charity: for sorrow over sins on account of God, loved above all, is an act of contrition, since it belongs to the same virtue to rejoice in a friend’s good and to grieve and be sorrowful over his evils. Therefore the act of contrition proceeds from charity. — I DENY the antecedent; and in answer to its proof I say that contrition can be considered in two ways: namely, insofar as it is sorrow for sin through simple displeasure at sin, or insofar as it is sorrow for sin with the intention of avenging it and making satisfaction to God who has been offended. In the former way it belongs to charity, but not in the latter.

YOU WILL INSIST: It belongs to the same virtue to hate and intend the destruction of that which is opposed to the object pursued by that virtue. But charity intends God as the supreme good, to which sin is opposed; therefore to grieve over sin with the intention of destroying it belongs to charity. — I distinguish the major premise: under the aspect in which that evil is opposed to the good intended by the virtue itself, I grant; under another aspect, I deny. To the minor premise I say that charity grieves over sin with the intention of destroying it under the aspect in which sin is opposed to the divine good intended by charity. But to grieve over sin with the intention of avenging and punishing it is not an act of charity but of penance, as has already been demonstrated.

YOU WILL SAY 2: Justice consists in a mean, since it is a moral virtue; but penance does not consist in a mean, since it tends toward excess, according to Jeremiah 6: “Make for yourself the mourning of an only child, a bitter lamentation.” Therefore it is not reduced to justice. — I answer first, to the major premise, that a virtue is not said to consist in a mean because it must necessarily stand between two vices, one deviating from the dictate of right reason by excess, the other by defect. For virginity, which is the most noble virtue, not only moderates but altogether excludes venereal pleasure, and so it does not concern pleasurable passions by moderating excess or defect, but by wholly excluding pleasure. Therefore virtue in general is said to consist in a mean insofar as it is measured by the dictate of right reason. I answer second, by explaining the minor premise: for the mean of justice is equality, which exists between those among whom justice is found, as Aristotle says in bk. V of the Ethics. But in certain cases perfect equality cannot be established because of the excellence of one party, for example, between father and son, or between God and man. Therefore one who falls short in such cases ought to do whatever he can, so as to accomplish to the best of his ability what contributes to equality. Thus penance ought to be intensified as much as possible, so that the penitent may, to the best of his ability, restore the divine right. Accordingly, no matter how much someone repents, his penance will not be vicious on the part of justice. Hence, however much someone detests his sins for God’s sake, he does not sin; indeed, the greater his detestation and avenging of sin, the more perfect his penance. I answer third, with Pitiganis, that virtue in general can consist in a mean in either of four ways: “First, both on the part of the object and on the part of the circumstances, as temperance, against which one may sin by excess or defect, and likewise against certain circumstances, by eating too much or too little, or when and where one ought not. Second, some virtues have superabundance on the part of the object, but are at the mean on the part of the circumstance. For the Philosopher says in bk. IV of the Ethics, ch. 4, that the magnanimous person is extreme in greatness, yet is at the mean in doing what is fitting; such are magnanimity and fortitude. This is because magnanimity concerns the greatest things, and fortitude has the utmost terrors as its object; and because if a magnanimous person deemed himself worthy of more than he ought, he would be vain, whereas if of less, he would be pusillanimous; and if a brave person exposed himself to death for empty glory, he would be rash, and so on. Third, there are virtues that are in a state of deficiency on the part of the circumstance, such as virginity, which rejects all venereal pleasure and thus takes an extreme with respect to matter; but it holds the mean with respect to circumstances, because it observes this for the time when it is expedient to observe it—that is, for a time when abstaining from carnal union is neither commanded nor counseled by God—and also observes it for the proper purpose, namely, so that the mind may be more freely devoted to spiritual things. Fourth, some virtues have superabundance and not defect, such as magnanimity and fortitude; conversely, some have more superabundance, such as latria; and some have more defect, such as temperance.” These points having been established, it may be said that penance consists in a mean by way of defect and excess: for example, if someone detests a small sin more than a great one, or grieves more over a sin because of the loss of some temporal good than of a spiritual one. Thus Pitiganis.

Third conclusion. — PENANCE IS NOT STRICTLY SPEAKING COMMUTATIVE OR DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE, BUT VINDICTIVE JUSTICE. This is the Doctor’s position, In IV Sent., d. 14, q. 2, n. 8, where, speaking of the act of penance, he says: This act, then, is an act of punitive justice, which is distinguished from commutative justice and also from friendship.

The first two parts of the conclusion are proved together, namely, that penance is neither commutative nor distributive justice. For virtues that have different formal objects are distinct from one another; but penance, commutative justice, and distributive justice regard different formal objects. For commutative justice regards equality of thing to thing, that is, a strict debt to be repaid in equality; distributive justice regards equality of rewards or punishments in proportion to praiseworthy acts and faults. But penance cannot restore to equality the divine right injured by sin, because an offense committed against God cannot be sufficiently expiated by any human satisfaction unless God intervenes and freely pardons the offense out of clemency and mercy. Therefore penance is reduced to neither species of justice. — This is confirmed, especially with respect to distributive justice, because it is the justice of a superior toward an inferior: for it belongs to a superior to distribute common goods and punishments to inferiors, to each in proportion to his merit or demerit. Penance, however, belongs rather to an inferior, namely, a creature in relation to God. Furthermore, distributive justice assigns punishments or goods to one person in relation to another, whom it also punishes or rewards; but penance does not punish one penitent in relation to another, but in relation to the guilt committed against God. Therefore, and so on.

Finally, the third part is proved, namely, that penance is vindictive justice. First, by an authority drawn from the book On True and False Penance, cited above by us, which defines penance as follows: It is the vengeance of one who grieves, always punishing in himself what he grieves to have committed. If it is vengeance, then it is vindictive. — Moreover, the sacrament of penance is a tribunal of justice, but of no justice other than vindictive justice; therefore, and so on. The Council of Trent simultaneously confirms the major and minor premises, sess. XIV, ch. 2, where, speaking of the baptized, it says: For it willed that if these should later defile themselves with some crime, they should not be cleansed by a repetition of baptism, since this is in no way permitted in the Catholic Church, but should be brought as guilty persons before this tribunal (of penance).... They obtain full and complete remission of sins, which we can in no way attain through the sacrament of penance without our great weeping and labors, since divine justice (vindictive justice) demands this. And in ch. 5 it indicates that a sinner may publicly confess his sins in order to avenge them: However, it says, although Christ did not forbid anyone to confess his sins publicly for the avenging of his crimes and his humiliation, both for the example of others and for the edification of the Church, which has been offended, and so on. And in ch. 8, On Works of Satisfaction, it establishes: Let them (the priests) keep before their eyes that the satisfaction they impose is not only for the preservation of new life and as a remedy for weakness, but also for the avenging and chastisement of past sins. — This is confirmed: God, by vindictive justice, ordains that sin be remitted through punishment and penitential acts in the sacrament of penance; therefore, when exercising penitential acts, the sinner ought to have this same end and motive. The inference is clear, because a minister, in proceeding rightly to inflict punishment, must act according to the end of the law and the lawgiver, since this is the end of ministerial power, which is intended by the principal delegating cause. But in carrying out punishment upon himself through the virtue of penance, the sinner acts as a minister of God the Judge. For, as Tertullian says in On Penance, this virtue in pronouncing judgment upon the sinner performs the office of God’s indignation. Therefore, just as God prescribes punishment from the motive of vindictive justice, so the penitent ought to prescribe punishment for himself from the same motive.

St. Augustine teaches this admirably when he advises in bk. 50 of the Homilies, hom. 50: Let a person set up the tribunal of his mind against himself, if he fears what ought not to be presented before the tribunal of Christ, where each will receive what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. Let him place himself before his own face; and, once judgment has been established in his heart, let accusatory thought be present, conscience as witness, fear as executioner. From there the blood of the confessing soul indeed flows in tears. Finally, let such a sentence be pronounced by the mind itself that a person judges himself unworthy to share in the Body and Blood of the Lord. Let one who fears being separated from the kingdom of heaven by the final sentence of the supreme Judge be separated for a time, through ecclesiastical discipline, from the sacrament of the heavenly homeland. Let the image of the future judgment turn before his eyes, so that when others approach the altar of God, while he does not, he may consider how greatly he must tremble at that punishment by which, while others receive eternal life, he himself with others will be cast into eternal death.

YOU WILL SAY 1: Penance is not reduced to commutative justice; but according to the Doctor, In IV Sent., d. 19, q. 1, n. 26, punitive justice is the same as commutative justice, for he says: I say, then, that just as in other exchanges commutative justice allows a certain latitude, since in exchanges it does not regard an indivisible point but the mean of right reason, so punitive justice, which is the commutation of punishment for guilt, does not necessarily regard an indivisible degree of punishment corresponding to this guilt; rather, there is some latitude, below which the punishment is insufficient, and beyond which a greater punishment ought not to be imposed. He says something similar in In IV Sent., d. 16, q. 1, n. 4: For the present purpose, commutative justice properly regards punishment and reward, so that rewards are rendered, as it were, in exchange for merits, and punishments for sins. — I answer that in those places the Doctor does not take commutative justice strictly, as that which regards the mean to be observed in things and in exchanges properly so called. In this sense it is distinguished from punitive justice: the latter preserves a certain equality in punishments in relation to the debt of faults, whereas the former does so in exchanges of things. Hence he also pointedly adds “as it were, in exchange,” by which he indicates that punishment is not an act of commutative justice taken strictly, but in a somewhat broader sense, insofar as it preserves equality of quantity and regards arithmetic proportion like commutative justice strictly so called. It does not preserve geometric proportion, as distributive justice does; hence it is reduced to commutative rather than distributive justice, although properly it is neither, but only resembles them in a certain proportion and likeness.

YOU WILL SAY 2: Vindictive justice exists only in a Judge or superior who inflicts punishment, not in a subject and accused person; therefore a sinner who punishes himself through penance does not do so by vindictive justice. — I DISTINGUISH the antecedent: it exists in a superior principally and with authority, I grant; ministerially and executively, I deny. For it exists in a subject and inferior in this latter way.

YOU WILL PRESS: To carry out and inflict punishment is not, properly speaking, to do penance; therefore penance is not vindictive justice even executively. The antecedent is proved: someone could will to take on punishment for his sins without having a purpose of not sinning again or sorrow for past sins, which penance certainly requires. — I deny the antecedent, and in answer to its proof I say that such an undertaking of punishment would not be true vengeance for past sins, at least in this life, because it would not be according to the laws of vindictive and punitive justice prescribed by God, which first of all require sorrow and a purpose of amendment. Hence, just as someone does not truly worship God, even if he has the will to worship, if he does not join an interior act of religion to external worship, so neither does someone truly repent or avenge sin if he does not employ the means ordered to that end.

YOU WILL SAY 3: The punishment that the penitent inflicts must be voluntary in the person who undergoes it, since it is an act of a virtue existing in his will; but the punishment inflicted by vindictive justice is involuntary with respect to the one who suffers it; therefore penance is not vindictive justice. — THE DOCTOR REPLIES, In IV Sent., d. 11, q. 1, n. 13, that punishment is involuntary when compared with the will that follows the desire for what is advantageous. Yet, he says, it can be voluntary by an antecedent will, namely, through the voluntary application of causes from which it follows. It can also be voluntary by a just will that accepts it, and this by a consequent will following the desire for justice, because in this way it accepts whatever is ordered to something justly willed for its own sake; but this sorrow can be ordered to something justly willed for its own sake. He had said beforehand, at n. 11, that what is simply involuntary is that against which the will simply remonstrates; and conversely, by opposition, the voluntary can be understood in three ways: first, that against which the will does not altogether remonstrate, but patiently endures; second, what it voluntarily accepts; third, what it voluntarily causes; and this in two ways, namely, either as a proximate partial cause that does not intend the effect joined to it, or as a principal remote cause that does intend the effect; thus there are four members. He adds the reason for this distinction: For, he says, in the first two ways sorrow is only the object of volition; in the third it is only an effect, and not an object; but in the fourth it is both object and effect, unless something impedes it.