ARTICLE 13

Whether virtue is in the mean.

1. Objections: It would seem that it is not:

 a. Virtue is an extreme, not a mean  obj. 1 to 4, 6, 10.

 b. None of the types of virtue is in

    the mean       obj. 5 and 15.

 c. Virtue is in no type of mean   obj. 7, 13, 14.

 d. Virtue is in the mean of things, not

    that of reason.      obj. 8.

 e. Virtue is an indivisible, without mean

    or extreme.       obj. 9.

 f. Since vice is not in the mean, neither

    is virtue.       obj. 11.

 g. Virtue is not an indivisible   obj. 16 to 18.

 h. At least justice is not in the mean  obj. 12.

2. On the contrary

The authority of Aristotle, Scripture, and Boëthius, for the moral, intellectual, and theological virtues, respectively.

3. Body

 a. A thing which has a rule or measure is good when it adequates its rule or measure.

 b. The good of

  (1) human passions and actions, which are the object of the moral virtues, consists in their adhering to the measure or mean of reason.

  (2) the intellectual virtues differs according as these are

   (a) practical, i.e., with regard to things to be done or made by us: in which our reason is the rule and measure.

   (b) speculative: which regard the truth of things in themselves in which reality will be the measure and rule of our reason. This mean will not be between contrary things but between contraries of the mind, namely, affirmation and negation.

  (3) the theological virtues lies in their being ordered to their object, viz., God, by the will. In the will there is no mean, since the will tends to things in themselves, to reality, in which there is no contrariety. Hence per se there is no mean in the theological virtues, although there may be one per accidens.