CHAPTER II
VOLUNTARY ACTS
1. HUMAN acts, the subject-matter of moral theology, are also called voluntary acts to distinguish them from such actions as are produced under external compulsion. For voluntary acts are the effect of an internal principle, the will (voluntas). The term, however, is ordinarily used not of all actions which are produced by an internal principle, for some of these are specially denominated spontaneous or reflex actions. These latter are the immediate result of sense excitation without the intervention of consciousness. Thus the eyelid closes to protect the threatened organ, and the hand rises involuntarily to drive off a troublesome fly. Voluntary in the strict sense is used only of actions produced by the will with rational knowledge of, and inclination towards, the object. Voluntary actions are produced with consciousness and deliberation. Thus, practically and in the concrete, voluntary actions are identical with human acts, though their connotation is different. For human acts connote freedom, as we have seen, while an act may be voluntary and yet not free. The beatific vision by which the blessed see God face to face, and are thereby thrilled with ineffable delight, is a voluntary act; it proceeds from the will with full and clear knowledge of God, but it is not free; the blessed cannot avert their gaze from the Infinite Beauty which enraptures every fibre of their being. However, all voluntary acts of man are in this life free, and so, for the purposes of moral theology, human acts and voluntary acts are interchangeable terms.
2. An act may be voluntary in various ways:
(a) An act is perfectly voluntary if it proceeds from the will with full knowledge and deliberation; if the knowledge and deliberation are not full, the act is imperfectly voluntary.
(b) Simply or absolutely voluntary is distinguished from voluntary under a certain respect, or secundum quid. More commonly an action which under the circumstances is willed, but which would not be willed if the circumstances were different, is said to be simply or absolutely voluntary; while inasmuch as the same action would not be willed if the cir-
