Whether Foresight* Should Be Accounted a Part of Prudence?
[*"Providentia," which may be translated either "providence" or
"foresight."]
Objection 1: It would seem that foresight should not be accounted a
part of prudence. For nothing is part of itself. Now foresight seems
to be the same as prudence, because according to Isidore (Etym. x),
"a prudent man is one who sees from afar (_porro videns_)": and this
is also the derivation of _providentia_ (foresight), according to
Boethius (De Consol. v). Therefore foresight is not a part of
prudence.
Obj. 2: Further, prudence is only practical, whereas foresight may be
also speculative, because _seeing,_ whence we have the word "to
foresee," has more to do with speculation than operation. Therefore
foresight is not a part of prudence.
Obj. 3: Further, the chief act of prudence is to command, while its
secondary act is to judge and to take counsel. But none of these
seems to be properly implied by foresight. Therefore foresight is not
part of prudence.
On the contrary stands the authority of Tully and Macrobius, who
number foresight among the parts of prudence, as stated above (Q. 48).
_I answer that,_ As stated above (Q. 47, A. 1, ad 2, AA. 6, 13),
prudence is properly about the means to an end, and its proper work
is to set them in due order to the end. And although certain things
are necessary for an end, which are subject to divine providence, yet
nothing is subject to human providence except the contingent matters
of actions which can be done by man for an end. Now the past has
become a kind of necessity, since what has been done cannot be
undone. In like manner, the present as such, has a kind of necessity,
since it is necessary that Socrates sit, so long as he sits.
Consequently, future contingents, in so far as they can be directed by
man to the end of human life, are the matter of prudence: and each of
these things is implied in the word foresight, for it implies the
notion of something distant, to which that which occurs in the present
has to be directed. Therefore foresight is part of prudence.
Reply Obj. 1: Whenever many things are requisite for a unity, one of
them must needs be the principal to which all the others are
subordinate. Hence in every whole one part must be formal and
predominant, whence the whole has unity. Accordingly foresight is the
principal of all the parts of prudence, since whatever else is
required for prudence, is necessary precisely that some particular
thing may be rightly directed to its end. Hence it is that the very
name of prudence is taken from foresight (_providentia_) as from its
principal part.
Reply Obj. 2: Speculation is about universal and necessary things,
which, in themselves, are not distant, since they are everywhere and
always, though they are distant from us, in so far as we fail to know
them. Hence foresight does not apply properly to speculative, but
only to practical matters.
Reply Obj. 3: Right order to an end which is included in the notion
of foresight, contains rectitude of counsel, judgment and command,
without which no right order to the end is possible.
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