Abstract

Thomas claims that a human act is specified both by the object and the end, and that the exterior act is the interior act’s object. These claims are best understood in light of the De Malo’s explicit mature teaching that the exterior act can be essentially good or bad, and that it is both the proximate end and the object of the interior act. Since the interior act wills the end, it wills the apprehended exterior act as the formality under which the whole act is willed. The interior and exterior acts do not form the one human act merely as cause and effect, but also as matter and form. These clarifications explain some problematic texts in the Summa Theologiae.