In every voluntary, or human, act there is an interior and an exterior act of the will, and each of these acts has its own object. The end is the proper object of the interior act of the will; the exterior object acted upon is the object of the exterior act of the will; and as this exterior act specifies the morality, so does the interior object--which is the end--specify it, and even more importantly than the exterior object does. The will uses the body as an instrument on the external {14} object, and the action of the body is connected with morality only through the will. We judge the morality of a blow, not by the physical stroke, but from the intention of the striker. The exterior object of the will is, in a way, the matter of the morality, and the interior object of the will, or the end, is the form. Aristotle (_Ethics_, lib. v., cap. 2) says: "He that steals that he may commit adultery, is, absolutely speaking, more an adulterer than a thief." The thievery is a means to the principal end, and it is this principal end that chiefly specifies or informs the action. The means used to obtain an end are very important in a consideration of the morality of an act. There are four classes of means,--the good, the bad, the indifferent, and the excusable. Good means may be absolutely good, but commonly they are liable to become vitiated by circumstances,--almsgiving is an example. Some means are bad always and inexcusable,--lying, for example. The excusable means are those which are bad, but justifiable through circumstances. To save a man's life by cutting off his leg is an excusable means. The existence of excusable means whereby some good actions are effected does not establish the assertion that the end justifies the means. The end sometimes may incriminate or sanctify indifferent means, but it does not in itself justify all means. The means, like other circumstances, are accidents of an action, but they are in an action just as much as colour is in a man. Colour is not of a man's essence, but you can not have a man without colour.