Quomodo in electione, in motu, in fructu, amoris rectus usus constet, sive perversus
The Threefold Pattern of Love's Act
Love's right use is distinguished by a threefold structure: choice arising from reason, movement residing in desire and action, and fruit found in the end.
Let us now draw a somewhat sharper distinction between its right use and its perverse use. Its use, as I see it, consists in three things: in choice, in movement, and in fruit.1 Choice comes from reason; movement lies in desire and action; fruit lies in the end.
The Soul's Hunger and Its Turn Outward
The rational creature is made capable of blessedness and hungry for it, yet cannot attain blessedness by itself and so must seek it in something outside itself.
The rational creature was indeed made capable of blessedness, just as it was made always hungry for that same blessedness — but it is by no means sufficient unto itself to reach blessedness.2 And so, taught by its own unhappiness that it cannot attain blessedness by itself, in order to obtain the blessedness it longs for, the soul sees that it must enjoy some thing outside itself which is not itself.3
How Blessedness Is Located and Chosen
Each person establishes blessedness in the enjoyment of some thing or things, then chooses that thing for enjoyment, and this choice is made by the power of love itself.
Accordingly, each person — whether by the measure of their faith and understanding, or through the deception of error, or through the experience of the senses — first establishes blessedness for themselves in the enjoyment of some one thing, or at least in the enjoyment of certain things.4 Then, whatever that thing is whose enjoyment it imagines can make it blessed, without any hesitation it chooses for itself as something to be enjoyed.5 Now this choice is made by love — for the rational soul does this by love's own power, or by that nature which we called love above.6
Reason's Discernment and Love's Choice
Reason distinguishes between Creator and creature, temporal and eternal, bitter and sweet, but love makes the actual choice, and this choice can be either good or evil.
Love, of course, always has reason as its companion — not a reason by which it always loves rationally, but a reason by which it can sharply distinguish, with keen discernment, the things it chooses from the things it rejects. Finally, it belongs to reason to distinguish between Creator and creature, between temporal things and eternal things, between what is bitter and what is sweet, between what is harsh and what is delightful; but it belongs to love to choose what it has set its heart on for enjoyment. Moreover, the choice itself is called love, and it is a certain act of the soul; but although the love by which one chooses is always a good thing, this choice — which is also called love — must necessarily be either good or evil, and through this the love itself is either good or evil.
When Choice Goes Wrong and Desire Follows
If the mind chooses wrongly, love becomes unhappy; enjoyment is using something with pleasure, and the movement of love that follows choice is likewise good or evil depending on its direction.
For if the mind, enticed by the experience of some pleasure or deceived by some error, chooses for enjoyment the things that least ought to be enjoyed, it surely loves unhappily. Now we say we 'enjoy' something when we use it with pleasure and joy. The very movement of that love immediately follows — or even accompanies — the choice itself, secretly stirring and moving the soul toward desire for the thing it has decided to choose. And this movement of the soul is likewise an act, and it comes from love and is called love: if it is directed toward what it ought to be, and as it ought to be, the love is good; but if toward what it ought not to be, or otherwise than it ought to be, the love is evil.
Fruition: Love's Rest in What It Has Chosen
When the soul obtains what it has chosen and desired, it rests in joyful enjoyment, which is called fruition, and love thus consists in choice, movement, and fruition together.
But if one has chosen the thing one meant to enjoy, has desired it, and has obtained it through timely efforts according to one's wish, one soon rests in the enjoyment of it with joy and delight. And this use — so that it may be called by a single word — we call fruition. In these three, then, love or desire seems to consist — namely, in the mind's choice, in its movement, and in its fruition.
The Beginning, Course, and End of Love
Choice is the beginning of love, movement its course, and fruition its end; when all three are rightly ordered, love is rightly named, but when all three are disordered, desire is shamefully completed.
But the choice of love, whether good or evil, is the beginning; the movement of love itself is its course; the fruition of love itself is its end. If, then, the mind chooses what it ought for the purpose of enjoyment, if it is moved toward it as it ought to be, and if it enjoys it as is fitting, both so wholesome a choice and so useful a fruition are rightly judged to deserve the name of love. But love is begun in this choice, it is extended in movement, and in fruition it is brought to completion. But if the mind chooses foolishly, is moved improperly, and shamefully abuses these things, one can easily see how desire is being brought to completion, as it were, by these very steps.
The Two Fountains: Love and Desire
Love and desire are two fountains—the root of all good things is love, and the root of all evil things is desire, echoing 1 Timothy 6:10.
These are two fountains — the sources, namely, of good things and of evil things — since the root of all evil things is desire (1 Tim.✦7 6), and the root of all good things is love.✦
Read the original Latin
Jam nunc inter ejus usum rectum sive perversum aliquanto subtilius discernamus. Constat autem, ut mihi videtur, usus ejus in tribus, in electione, in motu, in fructu. Est autem electio ex ratione; motus in desiderio et actu ; fructus in fine. Rationalis quippe creatura sicut beatitudinis capax condita est; ita ipsius beatitudinis avida semper : sed ad beatitudinem nequaquam ipsa sibi sufficiens est. Propria autem infelicitate, quod ad beatitudinem sibi non sufficiat, consequenter edocta, ut cupita beatitudine potiatur, re aliqua sibi videt esse fruendum, quae ipsa non sit. Proinde unusquisque vel pro modo suae fidei et intellectus, vel pro erroris fallacia, vel pro experientia sensus, primo sibi beatitudinem in rei cujuslibet, vel certe rerum quarumlibet fructu constituit. Deinde quidquid illud est, cujus se fructu beari posse confingit, sine omni ambiguitate sibi eligit ad fruendum. Quam utique electionem amor facit : nam ea vi sua, sive natura, quam superius amorem diximus, anima rationalis id facit.
Habet nempe amor semper comitem rationem, non qua semper rationabiliter amet ; sed qua, ea quae eligit, ab his quae reprobat, vivaci circumspectione discernat. Denique rationis est inter Creatorem et creaturam, inter temporalia et aeterna, inter amara et dulcia, inter aspera et delectabilia discernere; amoris autem quod voluerit ad fruendum eligere. Porro et ipsa electio amor dicitur, et est quidam actus animae ; sed, cum amor ipse quo eligit, semper bonum sit, haec tamen electio, quae et amor nihilominus appellatur, necesse est ut bona vel mala sit, ac per hoc bonus vel malus amor sit. Nam si experientia cujuslibet delectationis illecta, vel certe quolibet errore decepta mens, ea quibus minime fruendum est eligat ad fruendum, profecto infeliciter amat. Frui autem dicimus, cum delectatione et gaudio uti. Ipsam sane electionem statim sequitur, vel etiam comitatur ipsius amoris motus occultus, excitans quodammodo et movens animum in illius rei desiderium, quam eligendam putavit. Et hic similiter motus animi actus est, et ex amore est, et amor dicitur : et si sit ad id quod debet, et sicut debet, amor bonus est ; si vero ad id quod non debet, vel aliter quam debet, malus amor est. At si eam rem quam ad fruendum elegerit, electam desideraverit, actibus opportunis pro voto adeptus fuerit, in illius mox usum cum gaudio ac delectatione quiescit.
Quem usum, ut uno verbo appelletur, fructum vocamus. In his igitur tribus charitas sive cupiditas constare videtur; in animi scilicet electione, in motu, in fructu. Sed electio amoris sive boni sive mali est inchoatio : motus amoris ipsius cursus; fructus ipsius amoris est finis. Si itaque mens ad fruendum eligat quod oportet : si ad id sic moveatur ut debet, vel eo fruatur ut decet, et tam salubris electio, et tam utilis fructus non immerito charitatis censeri vocabulo judicatur. Sed in hac electione charitas inchoatur, motu extenditur ; in fructu vero perficitur. At si animus eligat insipienter, moveatur indecenter, turpiter abutatur ; his quasi gradibus cupiditatem consummari facile adverti potest. Hi sunt duo fontes, bonorum scilicet et malorum origines ; quoniam quidem radix omnium malorum est cupiditas (I Tim. vi), et radix omnium bonorum charitas.
Scripture echoes
- ↩1Tim.6.10 — For the root of all evils is the love of money, which some, reaching for it, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.
- ↩1Tim.6.10 — For the root of all evils is the love of money, which some, reaching for it, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.
Notes
- 1 ↩'Fructu' rendered as 'fruit' in the sense of enjoyment/fruition (frui), not merely outcome. The triad — choice, movement, fruit — maps the structure of a complete act of love.
- 2 ↩'Avida' rendered as 'hungry for' to capture the appetitive force; the soul's incapacity for self-salvation is the theological point.
- 3 ↩'Fruendum' (gerundive of frui) rendered as 'enjoy' in the technical sense of frui — to take delight in something as an end. The soul's recognition that beatitude lies outside itself is the key move.
- 4 ↩The three vel alternatives (faith/understanding, error's deception, sense experience) name three sources by which a person locates beatitude. 'Fructu' again = enjoyment/fruition.
- 5 ↩'Confingit' (rare verb) glossed as 'fashions/imagines'; rendered as 'imagines' to convey the mind's act of constructing a picture of beatitude. The gerundive 'fruendum' again = 'to be enjoyed.'
- 6 ↩The sive clause offers two ways of naming the same force: 'love's own power' or 'that nature which we called love.' The identity of love as the animating force of the soul's elective act is the point.
- 7 ↩The Latin cites 1 Tim. 6:10 (radix enim omnium malorum est cupiditas). The verse numbering is incomplete in the source; the full reference is supplied by the normalized text.
Speculum caritatis (The Mirror of Charity) companion
Reorder one love at a time, daily
Use the study map with the free Chosen Portion app's daily readings to work through Aelred at a sustainable pace.
Aelred wrote the Mirror as a rule for daily interior discipline in community, and Chosen Portion carries that discipline forward as a short ordered reading each day.
- All 3 books and 102 chapters mapped into 4 weekly themes with page-level pointers
- Aelred's choice-motion-fruit test, turned into a one-page self-examination worksheet
- 16 discussion questions ready for personal journaling or a 4-session small group