Whether a Habit Can Diminish?
Objection 1: It would seem that a habit cannot diminish. Because a
habit is a simple quality and form. Now a simple thing is possessed
either wholly or not at all. Therefore although a habit can be lost
it cannot diminish.
Obj. 2: Further, if a thing is befitting an accident, this is by
reason either of the accident or of its subject. Now a habit does not
become more or less intense by reason of itself; else it would follow
that a species might be predicated of its individuals more or less.
And if it can become less intense as to its participation by its
subject, it would follow that something is accidental to a habit,
proper thereto and not common to the habit and its subject. Now
whenever a form has something proper to it besides its subject, that
form can be separate, as stated in _De Anima_ i, text. 13. Hence it
follows that a habit is a separable form; which is impossible.
Obj. 3: Further, the very notion and nature of a habit as of any
accident, is inherence in a subject: wherefore any accident is
defined with reference to its subject. Therefore if a habit does not
become more or less intense in itself, neither can it in its
inherence in its subject: and consequently it will be nowise less
intense.
_On the contrary,_ It is natural for contraries to be applicable to
the same thing. Now increase and decrease are contraries. Since
therefore a habit can increase, it seems that it can also diminish.
_I answer that,_ Habits diminish, just as they increase, in two ways,
as we have already explained (Q. 52, A. 1). And since they increase
through the same cause as that which engenders them, so too they
diminish by the same cause as that which corrupts them: since the
diminishing of a habit is the road which leads to its corruption,
even as, on the other hand, the engendering of a habit is a
foundation of its increase.
Reply Obj. 1: A habit, considered in itself, is a simple form. It is
not thus that it is subject to decrease; but according to the
different ways in which its subject participates in it. This is due
to the fact that the subject's potentiality is indeterminate, through
its being able to participate a form in various ways, or to extend to
a greater or a smaller number of things.
Reply Obj. 2: This argument would hold, if the essence itself of a
habit were nowise subject to decrease. This we do not say; but that a
certain decrease in the essence of a habit has its origin, not in the
habit, but in its subject.
Reply Obj. 3: No matter how we take an accident, its very notion
implies dependence on a subject, but in different ways. For if we
take an accident in the abstract, it implies relation to a subject,
which relation begins in the accident and terminates in the subject:
for "whiteness is that whereby a thing is white." Accordingly in
defining an accident in the abstract, we do not put the subject as
though it were the first part of the definition, viz. the genus; but
we give it the second place, which is that of the difference; thus we
say that _simitas_ is "a curvature of the nose." But if we take
accidents in the concrete, the relation begins in the subject and
terminates in the concrete, the relation begins in the subject and
terminates at the accident: for "a white thing" is "something that
has whiteness." Accordingly in defining this kind of accident, we
place the subject as the genus, which is the first part of a
definition; for we say that a _simum_ is a "snub-nose." Accordingly
whatever is befitting an accident on the part of the subject, but is
not of the very essence of the accident, is ascribed to that
accident, not in the abstract, but in the concrete. Such are increase
and decrease in certain accidents: wherefore to be more or less white
is not ascribed to whiteness but to a white thing. The same applies
to habits and other qualities; save that certain habits and other
qualities; save that certain habits increase or diminish by a kind of
addition, as we have already clearly explained (Q. 52, A. 2).
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