Note 237 — Chapter III · CONFESSION

It is to be noted that in speaking of the classification of sins we abstract from the physical, we confine ourselves to the moral species which indicates the peculiar malice of the sin; for instance, the ordeal by fire is physically distinct from the ordeal by water, but morally they are in the same species, because the malice is the same in both sins. Cf. Suarez, De Pœnit. Disp. 22, Sect. 2, n. 3.