Habitude XXIX

To the fourth one proceeds thus. It seems that moral virtue is able to be without the intellectual. For moral virtue, as Tully says, is habitude in the way of nature, agreeing [consentaneus] with reason. But even if nature agrees with some superior moving reason, it is not needful for that reason to be united with nature in the same thing, as is obvious in natural things lacking cognition. Therefore there is able to be in the human being moral virtue in the way of nature, inclining to agreement with reason, although that human being's reason is not completed through intellectual virtue.

Further, through intellectual virtue a human being achieves complete use of reason. But it sometimes happens that those in whom the use of reason is not vigorous are virtuous and accepted by God. Therefore it seems that moral virtue can be without intellectual virtue.

Further, moral virtue makes an inclination to working well. But some have a natural inclination to working well, even without the judgment of reason. Therefore moral virtues can be without intellectual virtues.

But contrariwise is what Gregory says, in Moral. XXII, that other virtues, unless they act prudently in that for which they strive, are not able to be virtues. But prudence is an intellectual virtue, as was said above. Therefore moral virtues are not able to be without the intellectual.

I reply that it must be said that moral virtue is able to be without certain intellectual virtues, like wisdom, knowledge, and craft, but it cannot be without intellection and prudence. Moral virtue is not able to be without prudence because moral virtue is choosing habitude, that is, one making good choice. But for choice to be good, two things are required. First, that there be due intending of the end, and this is done through moral virtue, which inclines the striving impulse to good appropriate to reason, which is the due end. Second, that the human being rightly receive those things that are endward, and this cannot be done save by reason rightly deliberating [consiliantem], judging, and prescribing, which pertains to prudence and to virtues annexed to it, as was said above. Therefore moral virtue is not able to be without prudence. And consequently neither without intellection. For by intellection naturally cognized principles are recognized, both in reflective and in working matters. Thus just as right reason in reflective matters, inasmuch as it proceeds from naturally cognized principles, presupposes intellection of principles, so also prudence, which is right reason for enactables.

To the first it must be said that natural inclination in things lacking reason is without choice, and therefore such inclination does not necessarily require reason. But inclination of moral virtue is with choice, and thus for its completion it needs that reason be completed through intellectual virtue.

To the second it must be said that in the virtuous the use of reason does not need to be vigorous with respect to everything but only with respect to those things that are done according to virtue. And thus use of reason is vigorous in all the virtuous. Thus those who seem to be simple, as lacking worldly wisdom [mundana astutia], are able to be prudent; according to Matth. X, Be prudent as serpents and simple as doves.

To the third it must be said that natural inclination to the good of virtue is a sort of incipience [inchoatio] of virtue, but is not completed virtue. For this kind of inclination is insofar as it is stronger is able to be more dangerous, unless right reason is adjoined to it, through which is made right choice of those things appropriate to due end, just as a running horse, if blind, more forcefully stumbles and is injured the more forcefully it runs. And therefore even if moral virtue is not right reason as Socrates said, yet it is not only according to right reason inasmuch as it inclines to that which is according to right reason, as the Platonists held, but it must be with right reason, as Aristotle says in Ethic. VI.

[Thomas Aquinas, ST 2-1.58.4, my translation. The Latin is here, the Dominican Fathers translation is here.

Cyrillus Hierosolymitanus

 Today is the feast of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Doctor of the Church. From his Catechetical Lecture 15):

We preach not one advent only of Christ, but a second also, far more glorious than the former. For the former gave a view of His patience; but the latter brings with it the crown of a divine kingdom. For all things, for the most part, are twofold in our Lord Jesus Christ: a twofold generation; one, of God, before the ages; and one, of a Virgin, at the close of the ages: His descents twofold; one, the unobserved, like rain on a fleece ; and a second His open coming, which is to be. In His former advent, He was wrapped in swaddling clothes in the manger; in His second, He covers Himself with light as with a garment. In His first coming, He endured the Cross, despising shame; in His second, He comes attended by a host of Angels, receiving glory. We rest not then upon His first advent only, but look also for His second. And as at His first coming we said, Blessed is He that comes in the Name of the Lord , so will we repeat the same at His second coming; that when with Angels we meet our Master, we may worship Him and say, Blessed is He that comes in the Name of the Lord. The Saviour comes, not to be judged again, but to judge them who judged Him; He who before held His peace when judged , shall remind the transgressors who did those daring deeds at the Cross, and shall say, These things have you done, and I kept silence. Then, He came because of a divine dispensation, teaching men with persuasion; but this time they will of necessity have Him for their King, even though they wish it not.

In the Brightness of the Sun

From the Confession of St. Patrick (sect. 59-60):

And if at any time I managed anything of good for the sake of my God whom I love, I beg of him that he grant it to me to shed my blood for his name with proselytes and captives, even should I be left unburied, or even were my wretched body to be torn limb from limb by dogs or savage beasts, or were it to be devoured by the birds of the air, I think, most surely, were this to have happened to me, I had saved both my soul and my body. For beyond any doubt on that day we shall rise again in the brightness of the sun, that is, in the glory of Christ Jesus our Redeemer, as children of the living God and co-heirs of Christ, made in his image; for we shall reign through him and for him and in him. 

 For the sun we see rises each day for us at [his] command, but it will never reign, neither will its splendour last, but all who worship it will come wretchedly to punishment. We, on the other hand, shall not die, who believe in and worship the true sun, Christ, who will never die, no more shall he die who has done Christ’s will, but will abide for ever just as Christ abides for ever, who reigns with God the Father Almighty and with the Holy Spirit before the beginning of time and now and for ever and ever. Amen.

Links of Note

 * Bryan Pickel & Brian Rabern, A Compositional Semantics for Venn Diagrams (PDF)

* Curry Kennedy, A Special Regard for Life, on rhetoric and the moral life, at "Wisdom Speaking"

* Ruth Boeker, Mary Astell on Self-Improvement, Friendship, and Religion (PDF)

* David Oks, Why ATMs didn't kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

* Eric Snyder, Stewart Shapiro, & Richard Samuels, A strengthened argument to realism about numbers (PDF)

* Mark Windsor, Collingwood's Everday Aesthetics (PDF)

* Hollis Robbins, The Great Syllabus Stagnation, at "Anecdotal Value" and Timothy Burke, How Do Syllabi Align?, at "Eight by Seven"

* Cristina L. Wilkins, Cathrynne Henshall, Amy D. Lykins, et al., The teleonome: a framework for understanding animal welfare integrating adaptive capabilities, affective regulation, agency, and environmental affordances

* Paul Lodge, Leibniz's Justification of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (Mainly) in the Correspondence with Clarke (PDF)

* Esther Berry, A Vague Feeling of Unease Will Be the Last Thing You Remember, on trusting your gut, at "The Literate Woman"

* Robin Jean Harris, Baptism as Dramatization, and Baptism as Seal and Spiritual Birth, on St. Cyril of Jerusalem's metaphors for baptism

* Lukas J. Meier, Can Thought Experiments Solve Problems of Personal Identity (PDF)

* Ronald W. Dworkin, Savage care, on the sharp limitations of bioethics for actual medical practitioners, at "Aeon"

Incense Under Trees

 There was no truth, nor sympathy, mercy and love for neighbor, nor knowledge of God in the land. All three are connected with each other and follow one another, with the last as the beginning. Wherever we have the greatest confluence of people, these three sources of happiness are in many ways buried more quickly. In 4:12 it is said: "My people seek advice from a piece of wood and their staff gives them revelations"; it is their prophet, for the spirit of prostitution, of apostasy from God, leads them into these errors. They offer incense under trees, because their shade is good. In gratitude to the shade of the tree, they show it divine honor and forget the living God, his judgments, his name, his prophets.

[Johann Georg Hamann, The Complete London Writings, Kleinig, tr., Lexham Academic (Bellingham: 2025) p. 238. This is a comment on Hosea 4:1, although it actually covers most of this chapter. The reading here is interesting; Hamann seems (more or less plausibly) to interpret the trees comment in 4:13 as giving a general template for how apostasy develops -- finding the protection of something to be good and pleasant, people begin out of gratitude to show it honor that should be reserved to God, and then slowly stop giving such honor to God.]

Habitude XXVIII

 To the third one proceeds thus. It seems that human virtue is not sufficiently divided according to moral and intellectual virtue. For prudence seems to be some mean between moral and intellectual virtue, since it is enumerated with intellectual virtue in Ethic. VI, and also is commonly enumerated by all among the four cardinal virtues, which are moral, as will be obvious below. Therefore virtue is not sufficiently divided according to moral and intellectual as immediate.

Further, continence and perseverance and patience are not reckoned among intellectual virtues. Nor are they moral virtues, because they do not have a passional mean, but passions abound in them. Therefore virtue is not sufficiently divided according to intellectual and moral.

Further, faith, hope, and charity are sorts of virtue. But they are not intellectual virtues, for these are only five, to wit, knowledge, wisdom, intellection, prudence, and craft, as was said. Nor are they moral virtues because they are not about passions, which moral virtues are chiefly about. Therefore virtue is not sufficiently divided according to intellectual and moral.

But contrariwise, the Philosopher says in Ethic. II that virtue is twofold, the one intellectual and the other moral.

I reply that it must be said that virtue is a sort of habitude completing a human being for working well. Now the source [principium] of human action is only twofold, to wit, intellect or reason and striving, for these are the two movers [moventia] in the human being, as is said in De Anima III. Thus any human virtue should be the completing of one of these sources. If, therefore, it is a completing of speculative or practical intellect for good human action, it will be intellectual virtue, but if it is a completing of the striving part, it will be moral virtue. Thus by elimination [relinquitur quod] every human virtue is either intellectual or moral.

To the first it must be said that prudence according to its essence is intellectual virtue, but according to its matter it converges on [convenit cum] the moral virtues, for it is right reason for enactables, as was said above. And according to this it is enumerated with the moral virtues.

To the second it must be said that continence and perseverance are not completions of the sense-relevant striving power. This is obvious in the fact that, in the continent and persevering, passions super-abound in them, which would not be if sense-relevant striving were completed by some habitude conforming it to reason. Now containing, or persevering, is a completion of the rational part, which holds itself against passions lest it be drawn off. But it falls short of the notion of virtue, for intellectual virtue that has itself [se habere] well about morals presupposes right striving for the end, so that it has itself [se habeat] rightly about sources, that is, ends from which we reason, which is lacking from continence and perseverance. Nor can there be complete working proceeding from two powers unless each power is completed by due habitude, just as the complete action does not follow from one acting instrumentally if the instrument is not well disposed, however complete the principal agent may be. Thus if sense-relevant striving that is moved by the rational part is not complete, then however complete the rational part, the following action will not be complete. So neither will the source of the action be virtue. And because of this, continence from delights and perservance from sorrows are not virtues, but are something lesser than virtue, as the Philosopher says in Ethic. VII.

To the third it must be said that faith, hope, and charity are above human virtues, for they are virtues of a human being so far as he is made participant of divine grace.

[St. Thomas Aquinas, ST 2-1.58.3, my translation. The Dominican Fathers translation is here, the Latin is here.]

Sufficio is the verb for supplying or providing, so 'sufficiently divides' means that the division, taken together as a division (without overlapping) supplies the whole.

Note that this article doesn't just divide human virtues into intellectual virtues and moral virtues, but also relates them to what is immediately below them (reply to objection 2) and what is directly above them (reply to objection 3). It also deals with the most obvious puzzle case for taking the division to be a strict division, namely, prudence, which seems to fall on both sides; in fact, prudence is an intellectual virtue, but it is the intellectual virtue about the whole field of what moral virtues are about, so it is counted as a moral virtue.

Up and Running

 Let us do penance, brothers, let us do penance right away, because we no longer have any extended period of time, the very hour is quickly coming to an end for us, and the imminence of judgment is already preventing us from the opportunity to make amends. Let your penance get up and running, so that judgment may not outrun it, since the fact that the Lord has not yet come, that he still waits, and that he delays, means that his desire is for us to return to him and not to perish.

[St. Peter Chrysologus, Selected Sermons, Volume 3, Palardy, tr. Catholic University of America Press (Washington, DC: 2005), Sermon 167, section 5.]