15. As a great part of the things that we do are indifferent as well
in themselves as in the circumstances of the doing of them, the moral
character of our lives depends largely on the ends that we habitually
propose to ourselves. One man's great thought is how to make money;
what he reads, writes, says, where he goes, where he elects to reside,
his very eating, drinking and personal expenditure, all turns on what
he calls making his fortune. It is all to gain money--_quocunque modo
rem_. Another is active for bettering the condition of the labouring
classes: a third for the suppression of vice. These three men go some
way together in a common orbit of small actions, alike to the eye, but
morally unlike, because of the various guiding purposes for which they
are done. Hence, when we consider such pregnant final ends as the
service of God and the glory of a world to come, it appears how vast
is the alteration in the moral line and colouring of a man's life,
according to his practical taking up or setting aside of these great
ends.

16. We must beware however of an exaggeration here. The final end of
action is often latent, not explicitly considered. A fervent
worshipper of God wishes to refer his whole self with all that he does
to the Divine glory and service. Yet such a one will eat, drink, and
be merry with his friends, not thinking of God at the time. Still,
supposing him to keep within the bounds of temperance, he is serving
God and doing good actions. But what of a man who has entirely broken
away from God, what of his eating, drinking, and other actions that
are of their kind indifferent? We cannot call them sins: there is
nothing wrong about them, neither in the thing done, nor in the
circumstances of the doing, nor in the intention. Pius V. condemned
the proposition: "All the works of infidels are sins." Neither must we
call such actions indifferent in the individual who does them,