Whether Human Virtue Is an Operative Habit?
Objection 1: It would seem that it is not essential to human virtue
to be an operative habit. For Tully says (Tuscul. iv) that as health
and beauty belong to the body, so virtue belongs to the soul. But
health and beauty are not operative habits. Therefore neither is
virtue.
Obj. 2: Further, in natural things we find virtue not only in
reference to act, but also in reference to being: as is clear from
the Philosopher (De Coelo i), since some have a virtue to be always,
while some have a virtue to be not always, but at some definite time.
Now as natural virtue is in natural things, so is human virtue in
rational beings. Therefore also human virtue is referred not only to
act, but also to being.
Obj. 3: Further, the Philosopher says (Phys. vii, text. 17) that
virtue "is the disposition of a perfect thing to that which is best."
Now the best thing to which man needs to be disposed by virtue is God
Himself, as Augustine proves (De Moribus Eccl. 3, 6, 14) to Whom the
soul is disposed by being made like to Him. Therefore it seems that
virtue is a quality of the soul in reference to God, likening it, as
it were, to Him; and not in reference to operation. It is not,
therefore, an operative habit.
_On the contrary,_ The Philosopher (Ethic. ii, 6) says that "virtue
of a thing is that which makes its work good."
_I answer that,_ Virtue, from the very nature of the word, implies
some perfection of power, as we have said above (A. 1). Wherefore,
since power [*The one Latin word _potentia_ is rendered
'potentiality' in the first case, and 'power' in the second] is of
two kinds, namely, power in reference to being, and power in
reference to act; the perfection of each of these is called virtue.
But power in reference to being is on the part of matter, which is
potential being, whereas power in reference to act, is on the part of
the form, which is the principle of action, since everything acts in
so far as it is in act.
Now man is so constituted that the body holds the place of matter,
the soul that of form. The body, indeed, man has in common with other
animals; and the same is to be said of the forces which are common to
the soul and body: and only those forces which are proper to the
soul, namely, the rational forces, belong to man alone. And
therefore, human virtue, of which we are speaking now, cannot belong
to the body, but belongs only to that which is proper to the soul.
Wherefore human virtue does not imply reference to being, but rather
to act. Consequently it is essential to human virtue to be an
operative habit.
Reply Obj. 1: Mode of action follows on the disposition of the agent:
for such as a thing is, such is its act. And therefore, since virtue
is the principle of some kind of operation, there must needs
pre-exist in the operator in respect of virtue some corresponding
disposition. Now virtue causes an ordered operation. Therefore virtue
itself is an ordered disposition of the soul, in so far as, to wit,
the powers of the soul are in some way ordered to one another, and to
that which is outside. Hence virtue, inasmuch as it is a suitable
disposition of the soul, is like health and beauty, which are
suitable dispositions of the body. But this does not hinder virtue
from being a principle of operation.
Reply Obj. 2: Virtue which is referred to being is not proper to man;
but only that virtue which is referred to works of reason, which are
proper to man.
Reply Obj. 3: As God's substance is His act, the highest likeness of
man to God is in respect of some operation. Wherefore, as we have
said above (Q. 3, A. 2), happiness or bliss by which man is made most
perfectly conformed to God, and which is the end of human life,
consists in an operation.
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