beyond that of helping
himself to a little of his neighbor's goods, he is guilty of nothing
more than a venial sin. If, however, the initial purpose is present at
every act, if at every fresh peculation the intention to accumulate is
renewed explicitly or implicitly, then every theft is identical with
the first in malice, and the offender commits mortal sin as often as he
steals. Thus the state of soul of one who filches after this fashion is
not sensibly affected by his arriving at a notable sum of injustice in
the aggregate. The malice of his conduct has already been established;
it is now completed in deed.

A person who thievishly appropriates small sums, but whose pilferings
have no moral reference to each other, will find himself a mortal
offender the moment his accumulated injustices reach the amount we have
qualified as notable, provided he be at that moment aware of the fact,
or even if he only have a doubt about the matter. And this is true
whether the stolen sums be taken from one or from several persons. Even
in the latter case, although no one person suffers serious damage or
prejudice, justice however is seriously violated and the intention of
the guilty party is really to perpetrate grave injustice.

However, such thefts as these which in the end become accumulative,
must of their nature be successive and joined together by some bond of
moral union, otherwise they could never be considered a. whole. By this
is meant that there must not exist between the different single thefts
an interruption or space of time such as to make it impossible to
consider reasonably the several deeds as forming one general action.
The time generally looked upon as sufficient to prevent a moral union
of this kind is two months. In the absence therefore of a specific
intention to arrive at a large amount by successive thefts, it must be
said that such thefts as are separated by an intervening space of two
months can never be accounted as parts of one grave injustice, and a
mortal sin can never be committed by one whose venial offenses are of
this nature. Of course if there be an evil purpose, that alone is
sufficient to establish a moral union between single acts of theft
however considerable the interval that separates them.

Several persons may conspire to purloin each a limited amount. The
circumstance of conspiracy, connivance or collusion makes each
co-operator in the deed responsible for the whole damage done; and if
th