Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/144



138 HUMAN LIBERTY.

all voluntary acts choice is subsequent to a judgment upon the truth of the good presented, declaring to which good preference should be given. No sensible man can doubt that judgment is an act of reason, not of the will. The end, or object, both of the rational will and of its liberty is that good only which is in conformity with reason.

Since, however, both these faculties are imperfect, it is possible, as is often seen, that the reason should pro- pose something which is not really good, but which has the appearance of good, and that the will should choose accordingly. For, as the possibility of error, and actual error, are defects of the mind and attest its imperfection, so the pursuit of what has a false appearance of good, though a proof of our freedom, just as a disease is a proof of our vitality, implies defect in human hberty. The will also, simply because of its dependence on the reason, no sooner desires anything contrary thereto, than it abuses its freedom of choice and corrupts its very essence. Thus it is that the infinitely perfect God, al- though supremely free, because of the supremacy of His intellect and of His essential goodness, nevertheless cannot choose evil; neither can the angels and saints, who enjoy the beatific vision. St. Augustine and others urged most admirably against the Pelagians, that, if the possibility of deflection from good belonged to the essence or perfection of liberty, then God, Jesus Christ, and the angels and saints, who have not this power, would have no hberty at all, or would have less liberty than man has in his state of pilgrimage and imperfection. This sub- ject is often discussed by the Angelic Doctor in his demon- stration that the possibility of sinning is not freedom, but slavery. It will suffice to quote his subtle com- mentary on the words of our Lord: Whosoever cornmitteth ^in is the slave of sin} "Everything," he says, "is that


 * John viii. 34.