It will perhaps be remarked that moral judgments are passed not only on conduct and character, but on emotions and opinions; for instance, that resentment in many cases is deemed wrong, and love of an enemy is deemed praiseworthy, and that no punishment has been thought too severe for heretics and unbelievers. But even in such instances the object of blame or praise is really the will. The person who feels resentment is censured because his will has not given a check to that emotion, or because the hostile attitude of mind has led up to a definite volition. Very frequently the irascible impulse in resentment or the friendly impulse in kindly emotion develops into a volition to inflict an injury or to bestow a benefit on its object; and the words resentment and love themselves are often used to denote, not mere emotions, but states of mind characterised by genuine volitions. An emotion, or the absence of an emotion, may also, when viewed as a symptom, give rise to, and be the apparent subject of, a moral judgment. We are apt to blame a person whose feelings are not affected by the news of a misfortune which has befallen his friend, because we regard this as a sign of an uncharitable character. We may be mistaken, of course. The same person might have been the first to try to prevent the misfortune if it had been in his power; but we judge from average cases. As for opinions and beliefs, it may be said that they involve responsibility in so far as they are supposed to {216} depend on the will. Generally it is not so much the opinion itself but rather the expression, or the outward consequence, of it that calls forth moral indignation; and in any case the blame, strictly speaking, refers either to such acts, or to the cause of the opinion within the will. That a certain belief, or "unbelief," is never as such a proper object of censure is recognised both by Catholic and Protestant theology. Thomas Aquinas points out that the _sin_ of unbelief consists in "contrary opposition to the faith, whereby one stands out against the hearing of the faith, or even despises faith," and that, though such unbelief itself is in the intellect, the cause of it is in the will. And he adds that in those who have heard nothing of the faith, unbelief has not the character of a sin, "but rather of a penalty, inasmuch as such ignorance of divine things is a consequence of the sin of our first parent."[28] Dr. Wardlaw likewise observes:--"The Bible condemns no man for not knowing what he never heard of, or for not believing what he could not know. . . . Ignorance is criminal only when it arises from wilful inattention, or from aversion of heart to truth. Unbelief involves guilt, when it is the effect and manifestation of the same aversion--of a want of will to that which is right and good."[29] To shut one's eyes to truth may be a heinous wrong, but nobody is blamable for seeing nothing with his eyes shut.