ARTICLE 3

In this article the question is: Whether a power of the soul can be the subject of virtue.

It would seem that it cannot.

             OBJECTIONS:

1. According to Augustine, virtue is that by which we live righteously. But we live, not by any power of the soul, but by its very essence. Therefore, no power of the soul is the subject of virtue.

             2. Further, grace is nobler in being than nature. But natural being exists by the essence of the soul, which latter is nobler than its powers, since it is their principle. Therefore, the essence of grace, which exists through the virtues, does not reside in the powers of the soul, and neither is any power the subject of virtue.

             3. Further, an accident cannot be a subject. But a power of the soul is in the class of accidents; for natural potency and impotency belong to the second species of quality. Therefore, a power of the soul cannot be the subject of virtue.

             4. Further, if one power of the soul is the subject of virtue, any power can be such, since every power may be attacked by vices, which the virtues are ordered to overcome. But not every power of the soul can be the subject of virtue, as will be shown later. Therefore, a power cannot be the subject of virtue.

             5. Further, active principles in nature, such as heat and cold, are not the subject of other active principles. But the powers of the soul are types of active principles, for they are the principles of the soul's operations. Therefore, they cannot be the subject of other accidents.

             6. Further, the subject of a power is the soul. If then a power be the subject of another accident, for an equal reason that accident may be the subject of yet another accident, and so on, ad infinitum: which is impossible. Therefore, no power of the soul is the subject of virtue.

             7. Further, in the Posterior Analytics, it says that there is no quality of a quality. But a power of the soul is a quality, of the second species, while virtue is of the first species of quality. Therefore, a power of the soul cannot be the subject of virtue.

             ON THE CONTRARY

1. What performs an action is the principle of that action. But the powers of the soul elicit virtuous acts. Therefore they possess also the virtues themselves.

             2. Moreover, the Philosopher says, in the Ethics, that the intellectual virtues are rational in their essence, and that the moral virtues are rational by participation. But 'rational in essence and by participation' signifies the powers of the soul. Hence powers of the soul are subjects of virtues.

             I reply: A subject is related to an accident in three ways. First, as providing it with support; for an accident does not subsist by itself, but is upheld by a subject. Secondly, as potency to act; for the subject stands to an accident as the potential to the actual. Hence accident is said to be a form. Thirdly, as cause to effect; for the principles of the subject are per se the principles of its accident.

             With regard to the first relation of subject to accident, one accident cannot be the subject of another. Since no accident subsists of itself, it cannot support another accident: unless, perhaps, it may be said to do so inasmuch as it is itself upheld by a subject.

             As for the other two ways in which subject and accident are related, one accident may act as subject of another: for one is in potency to another, as the medium (diaphanus is to light, and surface to color. Again, one accident can be the cause of another, as a humor is the cause of taste. In this way, one accident is said to be the subject of another accident. Not that one accident can furnish support for another; but because a subject receives one accident through the medium of another. In this manner is a power of the soul designated as the subject of a habit.

             A habit is related to a power of the soul as act to potency; since, of itself, the power is undetermined, and is determined to this or that by a habit. Moreover, acquired habits are caused by the powers as principles. Consequently, it must be admitted that the powers are the subjects of virtues, because it is through the medium of a power that a virtue dwells in the soul.

             REPLY TO OBJECTIONS:

1. Life, as it appears in the definition of virtue, refers to action, as was said above (in the preceding Art.).

             2. The soul receives spiritual being, not through the virtues, but through grace. For grace is the principle of spiritual being, whereas virtue is the principle of spiritual operation.

             3. A power is not of itself a subject, but inasmuch as it is sustained by the soul.

             4. We are speaking here of human virtues; hence those powers which can in no way be called human, which the command of reason in no way reaches, namely, the vegetative powers of the soul, cannot be the subjects of virtue. Nevertheless, every assault of vice which rises from these powers takes place through the sense appetite, which the command of reason does reach, so that this appetite may be called human, and may be the subject of human virtue.

             5. Of the powers of the soul, the only (purely) active ones are the agent intellect and the powers of the vegetative soul, which are not the subjects of any habits. The other powers of the soul are initially passive: principles, nonetheless, of the soul's actions, when moved by their active objects,

             6. There is no need of an infinite process, because one will arrive at some accident which is not in potency to any other accident.

             7. There is no quality of a quality in such a way that the latter is of itself the subject of the former. Nor does our position hold that there is, as has been said above (in the body of the article).