interior acts of the will are in our power, whereas the external actions are not.  But the will can will an object that is not proportionate to the intended end:  and thus the will that tends to that object considered absolutely, is not so good as the intention.  Yet because the intention also belongs, in a way, to the act of the will, inasmuch, to wit, as it is the reason thereof; it comes to pass that the quantity of goodness in the intention redounds upon the act of the will; that is to say, in so far as the will wills some great good for an end, although that by which it wills to gain so great a good, is not proportionate to that good.

But if we consider the quantity in the intention and in the act, according to their respective intensity, then the intensity of the intention redounds upon the interior act and the exterior act of the will:  since the intention stands in relation to them as a kind of form, as is clear from what has been said above (Q. 12, A. 4; Q. 18, A. 6).  And yet considered materially, while the intention is intense, the interior or exterior act may be not so intense, materially speaking:  for instance, when a man does not will with as much intensity to take medicine as he wills to regain health.  Nevertheless the very fact of intending health intensely, redounds, as a formal principle, upon the intense volition of medicine.

We must observe, however, that the intensity of the interior or exterior act, may be referred to the intention as its object:  as when a man intends to will intensely, or to do something intensely.  And yet it does not follow that he wills or acts intensely; because the quantity of goodness in the interior or exterior act does not depend on the quantity of the good intended, as is shown above.  And hence it is that a man does not merit as much as he intends to merit:  because the quantity of merit is measured by the intensity of the act, as we shall show later on (Q. 20, A. 4; Q. 114, A. 4).

Reply Obj. 1:  This gloss speaks of good as in the estimation of God, Who considers principally the intention of the end.  Wherefore another gloss says on the same passage that “the treasure of the heart is the intention, according to which God judges our works.”  For the goodness of the intention, as stated above, redounds, so to speak, upon the goodness of the will, which makes even the external act to be meritorious in God’s sight.

Reply Obj. 2:  The goodness of the intention is not the whole cause of a good will.  Hence the argument does not prove.

Reply Obj. 3:  The mere malice of the intention suffices to make the will evil:  and therefore too, the will is as evil as the intention is evil.  But the same reasoning does not apply to goodness, as stated above (ad 2). ________________________

NINTH ARTICLE [I-II, Q. 19, Art. 9]

Whether the Goodness of the Will Depends on Its Conformity to the
Divine Will?