n, as to point, if possible, to its
consummation by deed, we are to understand that the woman has offered
the forbidden fruit to her husband."

_I answer that,_ Consent implies a judgment about the thing to which
consent is given. For just as the speculative reason judges and
delivers its sentence about intelligible matters, so the practical
reason judges and pronounces sentence on matters of action. Now we
must observe that in every case brought up for judgment, the final
sentence belongs to the supreme court, even as we see that in
speculative matters the final sentence touching any proposition is
delivered by referring it to the first principles; since, so long as
there remains a yet higher principle, the question can yet be
submitted to it: wherefore the judgment is still in suspense, the
final sentence not being as yet pronounced. But it is evident that
human acts can be regulated by the rule of human reason, which rule
is derived from the created things that man knows naturally; and
further still, from the rule of the Divine law, as stated above (Q.
19, A. 4). Consequently, since the rule of the Divine law is the
higher rule, it follows that the ultimate sentence, whereby the
judgment is finally pronounced, belongs to the higher reason which is
intent on the eternal types. Now when judgment has to be pronounced
on several points, the final judgment deals with that which comes
last; and, in human acts, the action itself comes last, and the
delectation which is the inducement to the action is a preamble
thereto. Therefore the consent to an action belongs properly to the
higher reason, while the preliminary judgment which is about the
delectation belongs to the lower reason, which delivers judgment in a
lower court: although the higher reason can also judge of the
delectation, since whatever is subject to the judgment of the lower
court, is subject also to the judgment of the higher court, but not
conversely.

Reply Obj. 1: Consent is an act of the appetitive power, not
absolutely, but in consequence of an act of reason deliberating and
judging, as stated above (Q. 15, A. 3). Because the fact that the
consent is finally given to a thing is due to the fact that the will
tends to that upon which the reason has already passed its judgment.
Hence consent may be ascribed both to the will and to the reason.

Reply Obj. 2: The higher reason is said to consent, from the very
fact that it fails to direct the human act acc