The Catechism of the Summa - The Second Part: VI. OF WHAT IS IMPLIED IN A HUMAN ACT FOR IT TO BE A GOOD MERITORIOUS ACT, OR A BAD DEMERITORIOUS ACT; AND OF MERIT AND DEMERIT IN GENERAL (C)

(C)

Must not one take into account the circumstances which accompany a human act, since upon them depends so much the character of the act?

Yes; and nothing is more important than the weighing of the circumstances of a human act in order to appreciate its true value (VII. 1, 2).

Is it possible to enumerate these circumstances?

Yes, these circumstances are those of person, of object, or of effect produced, of place, of motive, of the means employed, and of time (VII. 3).

What is meant by these different circumstances?

These different circumstances bear on the character or condition of the person who acts, on what he does, or on what results from his act, on the place where he does the act, on the end for which he acts, on those things which he uses as means, and on the time when he acts (VII. 3). 

Which is the most important of these circumstances?

It is the motive for which a person acts or the end which he has in view when he acts (VII. 4).

Is it always the will which produces human acts?

Yes, it is always the will; sometimes the will only; at other times it is some other faculty or even the exterior members of the body, but always under the impulse and by order of the will (VIII.-XVII.).

Next - The Catechism of the Summa - The Second Part: VI. OF WHAT IS IMPLIED IN A HUMAN ACT FOR IT TO BE A GOOD MERITORIOUS ACT, OR A BAD DEMERITORIOUS ACT; AND OF MERIT AND DEMERIT IN GENERAL (D)