1. On Ordered and Disordered Acts of the Will

34. As to the first, one must see first about the order of acts of the will. And on this point I say that there is in general a double act of the will, namely to will and to refuse; for ‘to refuse’ is a positive act of the will whereby it flees the disagreeable or recoils from a disagreeable object; while ‘to will’ is an act whereby it accepts some agreeable object. There is also - further - a double ‘to will’, which can be called the to will of friendship and the to will of concupiscence, so that the ‘to will of friendship’ is of the object for which I will a good, and the ‘to will of concupiscence’ is of the object that I will for some loved other.

35. And of these acts [sc. to will, to refuse] the order is plain, because every refusing presupposes some willing; for I do not flee from something save because it cannot stand along with something that I accept as agreeable; and this is what Anselm says Fall of the Devil 3, when he posits an example about miser, coin, and bread.“For a miser, when he wants to hold onto his coins and prefers bread, which he cannot have unless he gives a coin - he first wants to give, that is to abandon a coin, than not to want to hold onto it. Because not for this reason does he want to give, that he does not want to hold onto the coin; but for this reason he does not want to hold onto the coin, that in order to have bread he necessarily has to give...Therefore not wanting to hold onto something is not always prior to wanting to abandon it, but sometimes to want to abandon is prior.” ⁶ And of these two willings [sc. of friendship, of concupiscence] the order is plain, because concupiscence presupposes the willing of friendship; for since the ‘beloved’ is - with respect to the coveted thing - the end, as it were, for whom I will the good (for because of the beloved I covet for him the good that I will for him), and since the end possesses the first idea of the thing willed - it is plain that the willing of friendship precedes the willing of concupiscence.

36. And from this proved conclusion there follows further that a similar process exists in disordered acts of the will; for no refusing is the first disordered act of the will, because a refusing could not be had save in virtue of some willing - and if the willing were ordered (by accepting the object along with its due circumstances), the refusing that would consequently be had would likewise be ordered;a in the same way, if the willing of friendship were ordered, the willing of concupiscence consequent to it would be ordered - for if I love in ordered way that for which I love the good, I will in ordered way what I covet for that for which I will the good.

a. a[Interpolation] for if I love in ordered way, I hate in ordered way what is harmful to the thing loved.