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A VIRTUE may be defined, in a rough-and-ready way, as a good
habit.
A habit is a permanent, or at least stable and not easily altered condition.
Thus health or disease may be a habit, and we do sometimes speak of a man as habitually healthy or habitually ill. But we do not
generally use the word in this passive sense, but in an active, as a condition or quality of an agent. It denotes a persisting
quality that enables and inclines its possessor to perform a certain activity easily and readily. A habit is not the activity
itself, but a quality or condition of the agent. Thus drunkenness, which is a habit, is not the act of getting drunk, nor the
long series of acts of getting drunk, but the proneness of the drunkard to get drunk. A habit therefore imparts to its possessor
the power to perform a particular action easily and readily. If the action befits the purpose for which the agent exists, it is a
good habit; if it does not, it is a bad habit. Thus the habit of giving alms, whereby a man easily and readily helps his neighbour
and can only with difficulty restrain himself from so doing, is a good habit, for to help one's neighbour is very fitting to human
nature and promotes the true end of man. Drunkenness, on the other hand, whereby a man easily and readily drinks too much, and can
only with difficulty restrain himself from so doing, is a bad habit, as "too much" plainly shows, for to drink too much
is to drink more than is fitting, and beyond what is required.
Since a habit imparts to its possessor a facility of action, the power to employ his talents and faculties easily, and a good habit imparts the power of using one's faculties both easily and well, a good habit or virtue is the perfection of a faculty, talent or gift. For our physical and mental powers exist to be used in the performance of certain actions, and they are obviously at their best, or perfect, when they can be used easily and readily:
it is a flaw in them when their exercise requires great effort.
It is in this sense that the so-called intellectual virtues are virtues.
There are five intellectual virtues.
First, sanity, generally described as the power
to recognise first principles. This is a virtue possessed by all normal people; it is the habitual exercise of basic reason. The
absence of this habit or virtue is the same thing as madness.
Second, cleverness, usually described as the
power to argue and infer conclusions from first principles, and called the virtue of knowledge. Cleverness or mental ability is
clearly a good condition of the mind, which because of it performs its functions of reasoning easily and readily.
Third is wisdom, or sound judgment, the ability to see the wood for the trees and to place the
results of the activities of cleverness in their proper relation to each other. There is a great difference, as we all recognise,
between a clever man and a wise one. Wisdom crowns the work of cleverness with further reflection and judgment. This too, clearly,
is an excellence or virtue of the mind, a habit conferring an easy and ready exercise of the power of judgment.
Fourth is the virtue of prudence, an excellence
of the practical rather than the speculative reason, giving an ability to select the best means for attaining an end. It is the
activity of our minds when we are concerned with action and practical affairs. The virtue or habit of prudence enables us to judge
in any circumstances what is the best thing to be done, with this or that end in view. It is clearly not the same as being clever,
or as being wise, but is a separate excellence. It may be called the habit of right choice.
Lastly, there is artistic skill. This is the
excellence that enables its possessor in the arts or crafts to practice his art or craft well. It is clearly an excellence of
the mind, though it normally finds expression in making things. A musician, for example, expresses his art in making harmonious
noises, but the art itself is his ability to do this easily and well, and this ability is a mental excellence or virtue.
The inclusion of art among the intellectual virtues, justifiable because it is undoubtedly
a mental excellence, the perfection of a faculty, provides a reminder that the intellectual virtues are not virtues at all in the
ordinary sense of the word. They confer a facility of action, the power to do a thing easily and well, but they contribute nothing
to our power to make a good use of the faculty that they thus perfect. Virtues in the ordinary sense are habits that not only
make certain actions easy for us to perform, but also ensure that we perform them rightly. The brilliant artist and the clever
scientist are not necessarily virtuous men. The intellectual virtues, apart from prudence, produce works that in themselves are
good, and are themselves good states, or perfect the mental faculties, but they do not make their possessors good.
This is the work of virtue properly so called or the moral virtues.
Moral virtue is defined by Aquinas
(S.T. I, ir, quaest. Iv, art. 4) as bona qualitas mentis qua recte vivitur, qua nullus male utitur:
a good habit of the mind productive of good living and incapable of abuse.
The moral virtues share with the intellectual virtues the definition of being
"good habits".
That is, they are stable conditions that make it easy for us to perform certain actions.
They are also of the mind, because they are productive of free human actions, and
for freedom deliberation and choice are necessary.
You cannot have a virtue in connection with the purely natural and physical activities. We do not call a man with good eyesight or
good hearing virtuous.
Yet they are not of the mind in the same sense as the intellectual virtues are.
They are, rather, qualities of the appetite as governed by reason.
A temperate man, for example, is a man whose appetites are controlled by his reason, and the virtue of temperance is precisely
the habit or quality of so controlling appetite.
The moral virtues are further distinct from the intellectual virtues in that they are productive of good living - qua recte
vivitur.
They are essentially practical, being wholly concerned with right actions: right theory and right desire do not constitute virtue
unless and until they issue in right action.
For virtue is the habit of right action.
The moral virtues further differ from the intellectual virtues in that they are incapable of abuse.
We know well enough how cleverness or art can be abused.
But it is impossible to make a wrong use of justice or generosity.
If an act is just, it is right; if an act is generous, it is right.
If an action is wrong, it does not proceed from virtue but from something else, for virtue by definition is the habit of right
action.
For example, an act of liberality, issuing from the virtue of generosity, is always right. If, however, the act in certain
circumstances is wrong, it will always be found not to have been caused by the virtue. If the act is too liberal it flows from the
uncontrolled impulse of generosity seeking its own satisfaction, and has therefore nothing to do with the virtue of generosity,
but is rather its opposite - self-gratification.
All these moral virtues can be reduced to the four cardinal virtues of
temperance,
justice,
prudence
and fortitude.
TEMPERENCE governs the passion of desire,
FORTITUDE those of anger and fear:
JUSTICE governs the dealings of men with one another in accordance with the principle of fair distribution:
PRUDENCE determines what is right in every case.
These four virtues are called cardinal in two different senses.
First, because they embody the essential conditions of every virtue.
For in any virtue there is required prudence to determine by what actions the virtue is expressed, and by what it is not: justice
or uprightness of mind to do what is right; temperance, so that an action is not impeded or marred by wrong desire; and fortitude,
that we be not dissuaded from it by danger, difficulty or fear. The virtue of generosity, for example, demands prudence, if the
extremes of liberality and meanness are to be avoided; justice that acts of generosity be in fact performed - for justice ensures
that we make a more equal distribution of our superfluity to other's need; temperance and fortitude that the claims of
self-indulgence do not impede the practice of generosity (S.T. I, n, quaest. Ixi, art. 4).
Secondly, they represent each in their own sphere the most difficult or most
important virtue.
Thus of the intellectual virtues, prudence is cardinal, because it is essential for right living and action, it is practical and
not theoretical. In the sphere of human relationships justice - what is due or right - is cardinal. In controlling our passions
lust is the hardest, and so temperance that controls lust is cardinal. Equally in controlling the passion of fear, the fear of
death is hardest, and so fortitude is cardinal. Thus the cardinal virtues control the principal areas of moral conduct, and
provide the general conditions necessary for all moral virtues.
The moral virtues, being good habits, are acquired by constant
practice and exercise.
It is possible for the natural man to acquire them.
Indeed in one sense they can only be acquired.
For no one is born with a virtue, because a virtue is a habit.
It is true that men are born with different dispositions and temperaments, and in this way have special aptitudes towards what
may later become virtues.
Thus one man is naturally brave and another naturally temperate.
But these natural dispositions are not yet virtues.
They only become so as they are controlled and governed by prudence.
And there is no doubt that by disciplining their dispositions and passions, by encouraging some and restraining others, men can
and do acquire virtues. Thus, although without divine grace no man can avoid all sin, men can acquire virtuous habits so that they
abstain from sin for the most part, and especially from gross sins. And further, in so far as any man acquires any one virtue in a
high degree, he acquires them all, and in so far as he is enslaved to any one vice he cannot have any virtue. This requires some
explanation of the way in which the virtues are connected together.
At first sight it seems quite untrue that one vice destroys all virtues, for it is common to find a man who is, for example, intemperate, i.e. self-indulgent in drink and sex, and who is yet kind to children and honest in business, and we are at first inclined to say that he combines the vice of intemperance with the virtues of kindness and honesty. But this is not really so. His kindness and honesty do not flow from virtue, but from his natural dispositions. The virtue of kindness or of honesty is a persistent habit which makes its possessor prone at all times to perform acts of kindness or honesty in all circumstances. But this man has no such proneness where his lusts are concerned. In the satisfaction of his lust he is prone neither to kindness nor honesty, and cannot therefore be said to possess those virtues. It is not that now and then in gratifying his lusts he shows himself unkind or dishonest and that therefore he loses these two virtues: for virtues are not lost by an occasional act of an opposite nature, but by the forming of an opposite habit or vice. It is rather that he never had them. He is better described as a man who in spite of his weakness is really "kind at heart" and one "whose word apart from matters of sex you can always trust". But when a person is so described it is clearly absurd to say that he has the virtues of kindness and honesty.
The interconnection of the four cardinal virtues may be put more technically in this way. You cannot have a perfect virtue without prudence, for it is prudence that enables a man to determine in every given case what action, justice, for example, or temperance, demands. It is not always easy to know what is the "fair thing to do", and to arrive at the correct answer is the work of prudence. We may often observe a man who performs countless acts of generosity and who yet does not acquire the virtue of generosity, because his actions are at the same time imprudent - for example, the indiscriminate almsgiver is for this reason a man of generous impulses, but without the virtue of generosity. Again, if a man be the slave of any one vice he lacks prudence: for how can one who repeatedly acts against reason, as a vicious man does, be called prudent? And if a man lacks prudence, how can he know how to be brave or just or temperate? He may perform brave and just acts from time to time, and so foster his natural disposition to bravery as to come near to having the virtue, but he is clearly a man whose judgment cannot be trusted, especially in difficult circumstances. But as a virtue is a habit of acting rightly easily and always, for this reason - that he lacks prudence - he has not virtues. Thus all the virtues depend on prudence as their guide, whereby are determined the proper means for obtaining their ends, and for avoiding those extremes between which the virtues lie. And prudence depends on the other virtues in the sense that they make the exercise of prudence easier; for vices corrupt the judgment and blind the vision,-but the virtues confer clarity of mind and keenness of perception, and the best counsellors are always not the clever merely, but the just and upright.
It will not have escaped notice that we have spoken hitherto of the virtues as wholly within the sphere of natural morality. They are good habits, acquired patiently by the exercise of the human will in obedience to the conclusions of the human reason. By prudence determining on all occasions what is fair, by prudence steering a middle course along the path of fortitude between the extremes of cowardice on the one hand and recklessness on the other, by prudence standing firm on the rock of temperance against the seductions of indulgence and the errors of over-austerity, the natural man builds up in himself the moral virtues. There has been no word of God or grace, or of man's supernatural end. We have been concerned only with how a man may best live, placed as he is in this world. This is because the foundation of morality is the human will and reason. It is on them that grace works. The natural law is the law of God. But it is now time to turn to the other side of moral theology, and to consider the essential work of grace.
In Christian moral theology the virtues are divided into the two
classes of acquired and infused virtues.
We must now consider what is meant by an infused virtue, and what is its relation to the acquired virtues.
An infused virtue is one implanted in us by God, without any effort or
deserving on our part.
Since at our baptism we are born anew and made the children of God, it is necessary that we receive also the means to live in
accordance with our new stature.
To be a child of God is to have some share in, some connection with, the nature of God. This is not possible to simple created
nature alone and by itself.
That nature must be elevated and enhanced from outside.
This enhancement is known as sanctifying grace,
with its accompanying infused virtues.
The most important of the infused virtues are the so-called theological virtues of
faith,
hope
and love,
whereby we are enabled to do what by ourselves we could never do - to
love God and to put all our trust and hope in Him.
Under the influence of these theological virtues, because we love God and believe and hope in Him, we are enabled, by means of the
infused moral virtues, to live all our lives in obedience to Him and in drawing closer to Him. That is to say, in technical
language, the theological virtues create in us an inclination, a tendency, to seek God, our true end, analogous to our natural
tendency or bent to seek in the order of the created world our material wellbeing. By the infused moral virtues there is implanted
in us a power of choosing the means whereby we may put this tendency to approach God into effect. The infused moral virtues are
wholly dependent on the theological virtues, to which they stand in something of the relation of means to end. The theological
virtues have as their end or object God Himself. They are created in us by God alone, who thereby rightly disposes us towards
Himself, giving us, first, faith, that we may know Him; second, hope, that we may strive towards Him, even though the task be
hard; and third, love, that we may cleave to Him as the source of all that is good and desirable. But this knowledge and
confidence and love being presupposed, they must find expression in action. We must do those things and live that life which
will enable us to grow in faith and hope and love. This expression is found in the exercise of the infused moral virtues.
The infused moral virtues are not the same as the acquired moral virtues. The most obvious difference between them is that the acquired virtues are habits in the proper sense of the word, and the infused virtues are not. That is to say, an acquired virtue makes its own particular kind of action easy - it is done "by force of habit". The infused virtue does not do this: it does, in fact, something greater - it makes its own particular kind of action possible. When, for example, we pray for the virtue of temperance, or as we sometimes say, for the grace of temperance, we do not thereupon find that all temptation to intemperance loses its force. It is just as difficult to be temperate as it ever was. But what has happened is this. Because we have turned to God and asked God to make us temperate, any act of temperance we perform is done for God's sake, and so is different in quality from any similar act performed as a result of an acquired virtue. It has "the tincture, for Thy sake": it is lifted up on to a higher plane. When, therefore, we speak of newly baptised infants as receiving infused virtues, before they are capable of any human action at all, we do not of course mean that they have virtues in the sense of acquired virtues, easy habitual action, but that they have received the necessary faculty or disposition for doing acts for the sake of God, a means whereby they may show their love for Him and draw closer to Him. They will not perform any such act until they reach the age of reason, and even then they will not perform them easily as by habit, but they have that without which any such action would be wholly impossible, the disposition, the desire for God, which God has implanted.
The infused virtues, then, differ from the acquired virtues in being
not so much habits as potentialities or faculties.
Secondly, acquired and infused virtues differ in their object.
Acquired virtues have as their end or object man's wellbeing in this life.
The infused virtues have as their end man's citizenship in Heaven, the fulfilment of his destiny and inheritance as the child of
God.
This difference has been noted in describing the first difference.
It is that between doing an action because we see that it is good for us or society, either now or in the long run, and doing it
because it is the will of God, and we would not be separated from Him. Thirdly, and in consequence upon this, the two kinds of
virtue differ in the standard or measure by which they judge of actions. The acquired virtues judge by the standard of the natural
reason. Because they aim only at man's well being in this world, their standard of judgment is what conduces to this wellbeing.
The infused virtues, because they aim at doing the will of God, have a different measure. Thus, for example, the acquired virtue
of temperance calls that intemperate which injures health, or makes the appetites in general more difficult to control. The
infused virtue of temperance holds that to be intemperate which conflicts with the divine command to bring our bodies into
subjection that they may serve Him easily always. Acquired patience enjoins the endurance of those hardships that cannot be
escaped, with equanimity and resignation; infused patience enjoins sometimes the active embracing of suffering that we may imitate
Christ. Thus although in general the acquired and the infused moral virtues issue in actions which are materially the same,
sometimes the acts enjoined will not be the same, because of the difference in the standard of judgement. And always the actions
will be formally different, i.e. done from a different motive.
These infused virtues, since they are not habits in the ordinary
sense, are easily lost.
The moral infused virtues are dependent on the virtue of love.
For they produce actions done to express and deepen our love for God. If then this virtue of love be lost, they are lost also. We
cannot be just or temperate because that is God's will and out of love for Him, if in fact we do no longer love Him. We may indeed
continue to possess the acquired moral virtues, and go on, from habit, performing acts which are materially the same, that is, we
may still be just and temperate, but our justice and temperance are no longer the infused virtues. Now the infused virtue of love
is lost through any mortal sin. A mortal sin is one committed with open eyes, knowing it to be contrary to God's will and
incompatible with our duty of love and obedience to Him. One who commits such a sin inevitably at the same time denies his love
and loses it.
The commission of any mortal sin, therefore, loses the infused virtues.
They are recovered by the grace of absolution, and our reconciliation to God.
As God answers our contrition by taking us back into His grace, so He infuses into us again the virtues, that we may again be able
to perform actions for His sake and as His children.
Since the actions that flow from the moral virtues are for the most part materially the same, whether the virtues are acquired or infused - or, as we may perhaps call them to avoid confusion, whether they are moral or spiritual virtues - we shall treat them together under the heading of the four cardinal virtues. The infused theological virtues we shall treat separately. And first - FAITH.