a) Vasquez, whose position in the matter is opposed by most other theologians, contends(202) that no man can perform a good work or resist any temptation against the natural law (Decalogue) without the help of supernatural grace derived from the merits of Christ. To avoid the heretical extreme of Baianism, however, he makes a twofold limitation. He assumes with the Scotists that there is such a thing as a morally indifferent act of the will,(203) and defines the grace which he holds to be necessary for the performance of every morally good deed, as _cogitatio congrua_. This “congruous thought,” he says, is in itself, _i.e._ ontologically, natural, and can be regarded as supernatural only _quoad modum et finem_. The subtle argument by which Vasquez tries to establish this thesis is based principally on St. Augustine and may be summarized as follows: Whenever the Fathers and councils insist on the necessity of grace for the performance of good works, they mean _all_ good works, natural as well as supernatural. The only alternative they know is virtue or vice, good or evil. Consequently the grace of Christ, in some form or other, is a necessary requisite of all morally good deeds. As we have already intimated, we regard this opinion of the learned Spanish divine as erroneous.(204) Three solid reasons militate against it. The first is that, to guard against Baianism, Vasquez is compelled to assume the existence of morally indifferent acts of the will, which is untenable, as “St. Augustine and St. Thomas, and theologians generally teach that there is no such thing in the concrete as a morally indifferent act of the free will, and consequently, if the will is able, without grace, to perform acts that are not evil, it is also able to perform good acts.”(205) Second, Vasquez’s theory counterfeits the notion of Christian grace. “Good thoughts” come so natural to man, and are so closely bound up with the grace of creation, that even Pelagius found no difficulty in admitting this sort of “grace.”(206) Surely fallen nature is not so utterly corrupt that a good child is unable to honor and love his parents without the aid of “grace” (in the sense of _cogitatio congrua ex meritis Christi_). The third reason which constrains us to reject Vasquez’s theory, is that it leaves no room for natural morality (_naturaliter honestum_) to fill the void between those acts that are naturally bad (_moraliter inhonesta_, _i.e._ _peccata_) and such as are supernaturally good (_supernaturaliter bona_, _i.e._ _salutaria_). The existence of such naturally good acts would seem to be a highly probable inference from the condemnation, by Pius VI, of a certain proposition taught by the pseudo-Council of Pistoia.(207)