1. The term _object_ has various meanings, but here it means the deed performed in the action, the thing which the will chooses. That deed by its very nature may be good, or it may be bad, or it may be indifferent morally. In themselves to help the afflicted is a good action, to blaspheme is a bad action, to walk is an indifferent action. Some bad actions are absolutely bad, they never can become good or indifferent (blasphemy or adultery, for example); others, as stealing, are evil because of a lack of right in the agent: these may become good by acquiring the missing right. Others are evil because of the danger necessarily connected with their performance,--the danger of sin connected with them, or the unnecessary peril to life. An action to have the moral quality must be voluntary, deliberate; and mere repugnance in doing an act does not in itself make the act involuntary. 2. Circumstances sometimes, though not always, can add a {13} new element of good or evil to an action. The circumstances of an action are the agent, the object, the place in which the action is done, the means used, the end in view, the method observed in using the means, the time in which the deed is done. If a judge in his official position tells a sheriff to hang a criminal, and a private citizen gives the same command, the actions are very different morally because of the circumstances of the agent giving the command. The object--it changes the morality of the deed if a man steals a cent or a thousand dollars. The place--what might be merely a filthy action in a house might be a sacrilege in a church. The means--to support a family by labour or by thievery. The end in view--to give alms in obedience to divine command or to give them to buy votes. The method observed in using means--kindly, say, or cruelly. The time--to do manual labour on Sunday or on Monday. Some circumstances aggravate the evil in a deed, some extenuate it. Others may so colour a deed that they specify the deed, make the action some special virtue or vice. The circumstance that a murderer is the son of the man he kills specifies the deed as parricide. The end also determines the morality of an action (see St Thomas, _Sum. Theol_. I. 2., q. xviii., a. 4 and 7). Since the end is the first thing in the intention of the agent, he passes from the object wished for in the end to choosing the means for obtaining it. Without the end the means can not exist as such. There are occasions when an end is only a circumstance: for example, if it is a concomitant end. When an end is a, _finis extrinsecus operantis_, when it is in keeping with right reason or discordant thereto, it may become a determinant of morality.