Section LXXVIII. The Inner Revelation and the Conscience. (Concl'd) · SECTION XCVIII.

LOVE works the accomplishment of the lovingly-willed end; the moral motive and the accomplishing of the end belong, therefore, morally, inseparably together. The moral element lies neither exclusively in the motive, nor exclusively in the action; neither exclusively in the intention or end, nor exclusively in the means to the end, but in the unity of both. A good end does not the means, nor do good means the end, but a good end is accomplished morally only by good means; all end which actually can be realized by immoral means, is itself immoral.

As the moral is a free realizing of a rational end, the question naturally rises, wherein the moral element properly lies, namely, whether in the end and in the motive? or in the means to the end, that is, in the acts that lead to the realization of the end? or whether in both at the same time,—that is, whether we are to judge of an act exclusively from the intention, or exclusively from the action itself, or in fact from both together? The first of these queries has been answered affirmatively by the Jesuits—though this is not peculiar to them, but is involved more or less in all perverted moralizing, especially in that of society at large; outside of the sphere of Christian earnestness there prevails every-where in fact a tendency to distinguish between the morality of the end and that of the means.

From the very idea of the moral it follows necessarily that the conscious end, and hence the intention, occupies with good right the chief place in determining the moral judgment, and that consequently only that action can be good which aims at a good end—one in harmony with the moral order of the world. Whatever accomplishes such an end must consequently be in harmony with the moral order of the world, and hence be itself good; when therefore the axiom: “The end the means” is understood to mean “that the means which answer to a really good end are necessarily also good,” then it is entirely unobjectionable; it becomes false only when either the end is only seemingly good, or the means only seemingly appropriate, or where it is assumed that the means, that is, the actions, are per se morally indifferent, and receive a moral character only from the intention. As, however, all free action falls within the sphere of the moral order of the world, and as the reality that is produced by this action is either in harmony or in disharmony with this order, hence also the action, per se and irrespectively of its end, is either good or bad,—though indeed, in order to its full moral appreciation, its end also must be taken into the account. He who sets a house on fire from negligence may have had no evil intention, but he is punished nevertheless, and justly so, for his action was per se evil, and might have been avoided by him. If we suppose instead of an absolutely good end, that is, such a one as is a part of the highest good, simply particular ends, the goodness of which consists only in their subordination to the order of the whole, then the axiom: “The end the means,” is false, in so far as the end or means do not consist with the order of the whole. He who burns down a house in order to drive the rats out of it attains indeed his end, but at the same time he destroys the super-ordinate end of the house. The question becomes difficult only when bearing upon moral action in a sinful world, in which evil, and hence the infliction of evils for punishment, for discipline and defense, has a legitimate place. But of this we can only speak further on.

Moral action, as flowing from love, may be considered from two points of view: first, in itself, according to its inner differences, that is, moral action as such; secondly, in relation to the different moral objects in virtue of the differences of which the moral action itself assumes a different form.