The Divine Lamp

#1  Man, as a free and rational agent directs his actions for the attainment of some end (see Summa Theologica Ia-IIae, q 1, art 1)

Those actions are properly human which are characteristic of man as man.  Now he differs from irrational creatures in having lordship of his acts.  Such acts are properly human.  But man is lord of his acts through reason and free will, whereby he chooses to do what he does.  Other actions of his may be called actions of a man, but they are not properly human, since they do not proceed from that deliberate will which is characteristic of man as man.  And since every power is directed to its appropriate object, and the object of the will is some end, some good, it is evident that human acts are for the attainment of some end.  This end may be last in execution, but it is first in the agent’s intention.  It is therefore called the final cause.

The very action itself may be the ultimate end, but still is voluntary.  The human power called the Will may produce something objective to itself, as walking or talking for some remoter end; or it may will the action for its own sake.  Then this action is the end which the will aims at. (Excerpted from ELEMENTS OF MORAL THEOLOGY, by John Jay Elmenderf.  Public domain book)

We mean here by end the purpose for which a thing exists; the end of an act is the purpose for which that act is done.  For instance, some may read a certain book for pleasure; others for instruction, others again to practice obedience: the act is the same, the ends are different.

Every human act is done for an end.  For a human act is an act of the will, and the will cannot act unless the intellect proposes to it something to which it may tend, i.e., some good.  The will is only another name for the rational appetite-that is, the power tending to a good which the intellect proposes to it.  The good intended is the end of the act.  Hence, every act is done for an end.  You may argue that you have no special intention, e.g., in reading; that you read merely to kill time, to be busied with someting, ect.; nevertheless, you act for an end or purpose, the end in this case being to kill time or to find occupation.

We do not say that the end intended is always a true good, but only that it is always good after a manner; that it is at least an apparent good, and aimed at because apprehended as good (See ST Ia-IIae, q8, art. 1).  It may be conceived as good in itself, worth tending to for its own sake, or as a means conducive to some good.  (excerpted from A BRIEF TEXT-BOOK OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY by Charles Coppens.  Public domain book)

Every human act is done for some end or purpose.  The end is always regarded by the agent in the light of something good.  If evil be done, it is done as leading to good, or as bound up with good, or as itself being good for the doer under the circumstances; no man ever does evil for sheer evils sake.  Yet evil may be the object of the will,  not by itself, not primarily, but in a secondary way, as bound up with the good that is willed in the first place. (MORAL PHILOSOPHY, OR ETHICS AND NATURAL LAW by Joseph Rickaby.  Public domain book)

Here we have, as a matter of fact, reason for the same terror that engulfs a man at the beginning of his study of God. The terrific complexity of man’s life and man’s activity might well seem an overpowering assignment for the limits of one volume. The scope of those activities, stretching from ocean to ocean, from pole to pole, from the earliest beginnings to the limitless future, would be far too much to touch upon, let alone plunge into, if man were not man. Because he is man, there is an element of unity that binds together the whole sweep of man’s doings as closely as his nature binds the individual; there is a common harmonious note that reveals the meaning of the whole apparently discordant chorus.

The key to the mystery of human life is happiness

That note of unity and harmony is human desire. The same force that has driven men apart, that has set nations at one another’s throats, that has wiped individuals and races off the face of the earth, is at the same time the one great focal point of human agreement and harmony. All men agree on this — they want what they want. And because of this desire, men act. In the attainment of what they want we have the essential notion of happiness. It is not pleasure, not enjoyment, but the possession of the object of desire which constitutes happiness. And in this sense all men want to be happy. Happiness is the key to the mystery of human life, of human activity.  (A COMPANION TO THE SUMMA Vol 2 by Walter Farrell, O.P.  Public domain)