in
a four-fold malice.

It would be out of place here to adduce more examples: a detailed
treatment of the virtues and commandments will make things clearer. For
the moment it is necessary and sufficient to know that a commandment
may prescribe many virtues, a virtue may impose many obligations, and
there is a specifically different sin for each obligation violated.

But we can go much farther than this in wrongdoing, and must count one
sin every time the act is committed.

"Yes, but how are we to know when there is one act or more than one
act! An act may be of long or short duration. How many sins do I commit
if the act lasts, say, two hours? And how can I tell where one act ends
and the other begins?"

In an action which endures an hour or two hours, there may be one and
there may be a dozen acts. When the matter a sinner is working on is a
certain, specified evil, the extent to which he prevaricates
numerically depends upon the action of the will. A fellow who enters
upon the task of slaying his neighbor can kill but once in fact; but he
can commit the sin of murder in his soul once or a dozen times. It
depends on the will. Sin is a deliberate transgression, that is, first
of all an act of the will. If he resolves once to kill and never
retracts till the deed of blood is done, he sins but once. If he
disavows his resolution and afterwards resolves anew, he repeats the
sin of murder in his soul as often as he goes through this process of
will action. This sincere retraction of a deed is called moral
interruption and it has the mysterious power of multiplying sins.

Not every interruption is a moral one. To put the matter aside for a
certain while in the hope of a better opportunity, for the procuring of
necessary facilities or for any other reason, with the unshaken purpose
of pursuing the course entered upon, is to suspend action; but this
action is wholly exterior, and does not affect the will. The act of the
will perseveres, never loses its force, so there is no moral, but only
a physical, interruption. There is no renewal of consent for it has
never been withdrawn. The one moral act goes on, and but one sin is
committed.

Thus, of two wretches on the same errand of crime, one may sin but
once, while the other is guilty of the same sin a number of times. But
the several sins last no longer than the one. Which is the more guilty?
That is a question for God to decide; He does the judging, we do the
counting.