Now, the only means we have to obtain union with infinite good is to follow out the condition inexorably placed by God, which is to act in life in keeping with right reason, to obey the law. Man's supreme honor is in freedom from the tyranny of unreason, and in a full obedience to external and immovable order, with the belief that his chief duty is to apprehend and to conform thereto.
This is morality. From the beginning men have held that certain acts are wrong and to be avoided, and that others are to be done. What is wrong, moreover, is such of its own nature, not from our will: we deem the fulfillment of duty, obedience to law, the first, highest, and last necessity of life. If we deny this truth we let in chaos. What is right or wrong is one or the other on its own merits, prescinding from its pleasurableness or pain.
We must seek good whether we will or not. Good is the sole object upon which the will operates, it is the raw material of the will's business. The ultimate standard of this good is God himself as its exemplary cause, but proximately the standard of moral good is our rational nature. Through our reason we judge whether a thing is good or bad; that is, whether it perfects or injures us; and as it is good or bad for us our will's tendency toward it is good or bad. Many acts are indifferent in themselves, but take on a good or bad quality from our intention; others are good or bad in themselves apart from our volition: charity is good, lying is bad, whether they are willed by us or not.
The morality of any action is determined (1) by the object of the action; (2) by the circumstances that accompany the action; (3) by the end the agent had in view.
1. The term _object_ has various meanings, but here it means the deed performed in the action, the thing which the will chooses. That deed by its very nature may be good, or it may be bad, or it may be indifferent morally. To help the afflicted is in itself a good action, to blaspheme is a bad action, to walk is an indifferent action. Some bad actions are absolutely bad; they never can become good or indifferent--blasphemy or adultery, for example; others, as stealing, are evil because of a lack of right in the agent: these may become indifferent or good by acquiring the missing right. Others are evil because of the danger necessarily connected with their performance,--the danger of sin connected with them, or the unnecessary peril to life. An action, to have a moral quality, must be voluntary, deliberate; and mere repugnance in doing an act does not in itself make the act involuntary.
