Acts of man which are under the control of the will and therefore done knowingly and willingly; not acts which happen by accident, as falling, or by nature, as growing, or by instinct, as dodging a missile, but acts performed by choice, that is, after deliberation and decision. They are imputable to their human author to the extent that he has knowledge of his own activity and its import, and to the extent that he has freedom of election. The moral or ethical character of the human act lies in this, that it is freely placed with knowledge of its objective conformity or nonconformity with the law of rational nature, the moral law.