orals, good or bad, have no meaning for either.

If the will or consent has no part in what is done, we do nothing,
another acts through us; 'tis not ours, but the deed of another. An
instrument or tool used in the accomplishment of a purpose possesses
the same negative merit or demerit, whether it be a thing without a
will or an unwilling human being. If we are not free, have no choice in
the matter, must consent, we differ in nothing from all brutish and
inanimate nature that follows necessarily, fatally, the bent of its
instinctive inclinations and obeys the laws of its being. Under these
conditions, there can be no morality or responsibility before God; our
deeds are alike blameless and valueless in His sight.

Thus, the simple transgression of the Law does not constitute us in
guilt; we must transgress deliberately, wilfully. Full inadvertence,
perfect forgetfulness, total blindness is called invincible ignorance;
this destroys utterly the moral act and makes us involuntary agents.
When knowledge is incomplete, the act is less voluntary; except it be
the case of ignorance brought on purposely, a wilful blinding of
oneself, in the vain hope of escaping the consequences of one's acts.
This betrays a stronger willingness to act, a more deliberately set
will.

Concupiscence has a kindred effect on our reason. It is a consequence
of our fallen nature by which we are prone to evil rather than to good,
find it more to our taste and easier to yield to wrong than to resist
it. Call it passion, temperament, character, what you will,--it is an
inclination to evil. We cannot always control its action. Everyone has
felt more or less the tyranny of concupiscence, and no child of Adam
but has it branded in his nature and flesh. Passion may rob us of our
reason, and run into folly or insanity; in which event we are
unconscious agents, and do nothing voluntary. It may so obscure the
reason as to make us less ourselves, and consequently less willing. But
there is such a thing as, with studied and refined malice and
depravity, to purposely and artificially, as it were, excite
concupiscence, in order the more intensely and savagely to act. This is
only a proof of greater deliberation, and renders the deed all the more
voluntary.

A person is therefore more or less responsible according as what he
does, or the good or evil of what he does, is more or less clear to
him. Ignorance or the passions may affect his clear vision of right