means the movement of the heart which
is indicated by the pulse veins.

Reply Obj. 3: As Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiv, 17, 20) it is in
punishment of sin that the movement of these members does not obey
reason: in this sense, that the soul is punished for its rebellion
against God, by the insubmission of that member whereby original sin
is transmitted to posterity.

But because, as we shall state later on, the effect of the sin of our
first parent was that his nature was left to itself, through the
withdrawal of the supernatural gift which God had bestowed on man, we
must consider the natural cause of this particular member's
insubmission to reason. This is stated by Aristotle (De Causis Mot.
Animal.) who says that "the movements of the heart and of the organs
of generation are involuntary," and that the reason of this is as
follows. These members are stirred at the occasion of some
apprehension; in so far as the intellect and imagination represent
such things as arouse the passions of the soul, of which passions
these movements are a consequence. But they are not moved at the
command of the reason or intellect, because these movements are
conditioned by a certain natural change of heat and cold, which
change is not subject to the command of reason. This is the case with
these two organs in particular, because each is as it were a separate
animal being, in so far as it is a principle of life; and the
principle is virtually the whole. For the heart is the principle of
the senses; and from the organ of generation proceeds the seminal
virtue, which is virtually the entire animal. Consequently they have
their proper movements naturally: because principles must needs be
natural, as stated above (Reply Obj. 2).
________________________

QUESTION 18

OF THE GOOD AND EVIL OF HUMAN ACTS, IN GENERAL (In Eleven Articles)

We must now consider the good and evil of human acts. First, how a
human act is good or evil; secondly, what results from the good or
evil of a human act, as merit or demerit, sin and guilt.

Under the first head there will be a threefold consideration: the
first will be of the good and evil of human acts, in general; the
second, of the good and evil of internal acts; the third, of the good
and evil of external acts.

Concerning the first there are eleven points of inquiry:

(1) Whether every human action is good, or are there evil actions?

(2) Whether the good or evil of a human action is derived