VIRTUES AND VICES
their origin and mutual relations
(From Fr. Bernard de Lavinheta's Practical Compendium)Supposing we have the necessary prerequisite knowledge of A., we understand that virtue is a subject through which God delivers the influence of divine grace in faith, hope and charity etc. through which the memory is enlightened for frequent remembering and the will for much loving and the intellect for prudently investigating as it is motivated by memory and will so that the grace of faith and consequently also that of hope and charity can be raised higher aloft while the memory remembers more, and loftier things and the will loves more fervently as it procures higher matter for the intellect to investigate in its discourse. Thus there is a continuous flow of faith from the will to the intellect in its rational investigation so that the intellect is raised aloft in its understanding and there is a continuous flow back from the intellect's understanding to the will which confidently makes its suppositions so as to soar aloft in faith. and memory stands as a medium subject to the course of this two way flow with its lofty recollection of both parts.
Opposed to faith, diffidence arises as it disbelieves the things believed by faith and on account of diffidence the will hates the things loved by faith and wherever faith believes in possibility, diffidence necessarily asserts impossibility and thus the intellect has no way of discoursing as it perverts the memory's recollection to things contrary to faith and reason: this is indeed the greatest of all vices because by inducing despair and cruelty against faith and charity it is the root of all evil.
The second mode of being of moral virtue cannot be perceived by the senses but can only be imagined or understood. Only a mode of understanding that rises above the modes of sense and imagination can adequately understand this mode of being of virtue which becomes manifest through the things said about virtue in its own right and in opposition to the things said about vice and conversely. This mode of understanding the mode of being of virtue is clothed in virtue as it is its habit and also the habit of the will and memory as they do things that are good, great, etc. And as a virtuous intellect thus applies its mode of understanding to virtue's mode of being, it clothes its real mode of understanding with virtue's mode of being. And it follows from this that a vicious intellect with its vitiated mode of understanding does not attain virtue's real mode of being but rather attains the mode of being of vice since its mode of understanding is clothed in this. There cannot possibly be any real proportion between a vitiated mode of understanding, and virtue's mode of being.
The third mode of virtue's being considers virtue in a dual way with the distinction between theological and cardinal virtues. There are two intentions, primary and secondary. The first intention belongs to any virtue currently in act, and the second intention belongs to the remaining virtues which remain in the habitual state while the first one is in act. And moral virtue is a figure, and substantial human virtue is the form informing this figure. Through contrariety we consider it in opposition to vice and conversely. Vice has a dual mode of being: either it arises directly from the body with the consent of the soul, like gluttony and lust, or it arises immediately from the soul, like conceit, envy, wrath etc.
Another aspect of virtue's third mode of being: faith, hope and charity are theological virtues since they are infused into the soul by God and these are opposed by diffidence, despair and cruelty, which are the worst of all vices. And if we take the third mode in opposing virtues and vices, it becomes obvious that one virtue opposes two concordant vices, like fortitude against gluttony and lust and one vice opposes two concordant virtues, like despair against faith and hope. And one virtue opposes two concordant vices like temperance against prodigality and stinginess. among virtues there can be no contrariety, if any contrariety arises among the virtues, they become perverted into their contraries.
Also, considering virtue by the fourth mode of investigation in terms of concordance there are four cardinal virtues, namely justice, prudence, fortitude and temperance which are opposed by injury, mindlessness, frailty (or inconstancy) and intemperance which are the chief mediators of gluttony, lust, conceit etc. and of deviation from faith, hope and charity. And this fourth mode operates with concordance and contrariety. There is concordance between the theological and cardinal virtues against the vices that oppose the theological virtues and against the vices that oppose the cardinal virtues. And so a circle is formed with this fourth mode of investigation because the theological virtues have concordance with the cardinal virtues that oppose the cardinal vices, so that through this concordance they can oppose the cardinal vices because through this opposition they also oppose their direct contraries, namely the theological vices, and conversely. And the theological vices oppose the theological virtues in the same way. Similarly, the cardinal virtues are concordant with the theological virtues so as to oppose the theological vices with this concordance because through the same opposition they also oppose their own direct contraries, namely the cardinal vices, and conversely. And likewise with the opposition of the cardinal vices to the moral virtues.
Fourth, whereas the substantial virtue from which moral virtue proceeds is general, and a unit in itself, as it constitutes the human being with goodness, greatness etc., and as it becomes differentiated when it is associated with goodness, where it becomes different from what it is in itself, and also as virtue associates with greatness etc., it is different from what it is in itself, likewise, moral virtue proceeding from this substantial virtue is one in itself but becomes differentiated by different properties as it associates with them. Now the same virtue associated with justice is different from itself in a different way than when associated to prudence, and it is different from itself in another way when associated with fortitude, etc. and the same likewise follows with vice because vice in itself is pure privation or mere non being and therefore one in itself, but as it associates with faith, it exists as the privation of faith and is called diffidence and is different from itself in another way than when associated to chastity because then it is called lust, as lust deprives chastity. And so we can see that just as moral virtue is one in itself and as it becomes specified and differentiated by the various properties it associates with, likewise vice, as the mere privation of virtue, takes on distinct forms of being as it becomes differentiated by the various properties it annihilates by associating with them.