ns done, whereas
after death every one is judged according to the intentions of the will
and thence of the understanding, and according to the confirmations of
the understanding and thence of the will. These intentions and
confirmations a judge does not see; nevertheless each judgement is just;
the one for the sake of the good of civil society, the other for the
sake of the good of heavenly society.

486. VI. ADULTERIES OF THE FIRST DEGREE ARE ADULTERIES OF IGNORANCE,
WHICH ARE COMMITTED BY THOSE WHO CANNOT AS YET, OR CANNOT AT ALL,
CONSULT THE UNDERSTANDING, AND THENCE CHECK THEM. All evils, and thus
also all adulteries, viewed in themselves, are at once of the internal
and the external man; the internal intends them, and the external does
them; such therefore as the internal man is in the deeds done by the
external, such are the deeds viewed in themselves: but since the
internal man with his intention, does not appear before man, every one
must be judged in a human court from deeds and words according to the
law in force and its provisions: the interior sense of the law is also
to be regarded by the judge. But to illustrate the case by example: if
adultery be committed by a youth, who does not as yet know that adultery
is a greater evil than fornication; if the like be committed by a very
simple man; if it be committed by a person who is deprived by disease of
the full powers of judgement; or by a person, as is sometimes the case,
who is delirious by fits, and is at the time in a state of actual
delirium; yet further, if it be committed in a fit of insane
drunkenness, and so forth, it is evident, that in such cases, the
internal man, or mind, is not present in the external, scarcely any
otherwise than in an irrational person. Adulteries in these instances
are predicated by a rational man according to the above circumstances;
nevertheless the perpetrator is charged with blame by the same rational
man as a judge, and is punished by the law; but after death those
adulteries are imputed according to the presence, quality, and faculty
of understanding in the will of the perpetrators.

487. VII. IN SUCH CASES ADULTERIES ARE MILD. This is manifest from what
was said just above, n. 486, without further confirmation; for it is
well known that the quality of every deed and in general the quality of
every thing, depends upon circumstances, and which mitigate or aggravate
it; but adulteries of this degree are mild at the first t