nifests itself chiefly in what are known
as the emotions of the will. St. Prosper, after Fulgentius the most
prominent disciple of St. Augustine, enumerates these as follows: "Fear
(for 'the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom'); joy ('I rejoiced
at the things that were said to me: We shall go into the house of the
Lord'); desire ('My soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the
Lord'); delight ('How sweet are thy words to my palate, more than honey to
my mouth');"--and he adds: "Who can see or tell by what affections God
visits and guides the human soul?"(58)

3. ACTUAL GRACES OF THE SENSITIVE SPHERE.--Though it cannot be determined
with certainty of faith, it is highly probable that actual grace
influences the sensitive faculties of the soul as well as the intellect
and the will.

God, who is the first and sole cause of all things, is no doubt able to
excite in the human imagination phantasms corresponding to the
supernatural thoughts produced in the intellect, and to impede or paralyze
the rebellious stirrings of concupiscence which resist the grace of the
will,--either by infusing contrary dispositions or by allowing spiritual
joy to run over into the _appetitus sensitivus_. The existence of such
graces (which need not necessarily be supernatural except _quoad modum et
finem_) may be inferred with great probability from the fact that man is a
compound of body and soul. Aristotle holds that the human mind cannot
think without the aid of the imagination.(59) If this is true, every
supernatural thought must be preceded by a corresponding phantasm to
excite and sustain it. As for the sensitive appetite, it may either assume
the form of concupiscence and hinder the work of salvation, or aid it by
favorable emotions excited supernaturally. St. Augustine says that the
_delectatio victrix_ has for its object "to impart sweetness to that which
gave no pleasure."(60) St. Paul, who thrice besought the Lord to relieve
him of the sting of his flesh, was told: "My grace is sufficient for
thee."(61)

4. _The Illuminating Grace of the Mind and the Strengthening Grace of the
Will Considered as Vital Acts of the Soul._--If we examine these graces
more closely to determine their physical nature, we find that they are
simply vital acts of the intellect and the will, and receive the character
of divine "graces" from the fact that they are supernaturally excited in
the soul by God.

a) The Biblical, Patristic, and concilia