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Objection 1: It would seem that vice, i.e. a bad habit, is worse
than a sin, i.e. a bad act. For, as the more lasting a good is,
the better it is, so the longer an evil lasts, the worse it is. Now
a vicious habit is more lasting than vicious acts, that pass
forthwith. Therefore a vicious habit is worse than a vicious act.
Objection 2: Further, several evils are more to be shunned than
one. But a bad habit is virtually the cause of many bad acts.
Therefore a vicious habit is worse than a vicious act.
Objection 3: Further, a cause is more potent than its effect. But
a habit produces its actions both as to their goodness and as to their
badness. Therefore a habit is more potent than its act, both in
goodness and in badness.
On the contrary, A man is justly punished for a vicious act; but not
for a vicious habit, so long as no act ensues. Therefore a vicious
action is worse than a vicious habit.
I answer that, A habit stands midway between power and act. Now it
is evident that both in good and in evil, act precedes power, as
stated in Metaph. ix, 19. For it is better to do well than to be
able to do well, and in like manner, it is more blameworthy to do
evil, than to be able to do evil: whence it also follows that both in
goodness and in badness, habit stands midway between power and act, so
that, to wit, even as a good or evil habit stands above the
corresponding power in goodness or in badness, so does it stand below
the corresponding act. This is also made clear from the fact that a
habit is not called good or bad, save in so far as it induces to a good
or bad act: wherefore a habit is called good or bad by reason of the
goodness or badness of its act: so that an act surpasses its habit in
goodness or badness, since "the cause of a thing being such, is yet
more so."
Reply to Objection 1: Nothing hinders one thing from standing above
another simply, and below it in some respect. Now a thing is deemed
above another simply if it surpasses it in a point which is proper to
both; while it is deemed above it in a certain respect, if it
surpasses it in something which is accidental to both. Now it has been
shown from the very nature of act and habit, that act surpasses habit
both in goodness and in badness. Whereas the fact that habit is more
lasting than act, is accidental to them, and is due to the fact that
they are both found in a nature such that it cannot always be in
action, and whose action consists in a transient movement.
Consequently act simply excels in goodness and badness, but habit
excels in a certain respect.
Reply to Objection 2: A habit is several acts, not simply, but in
a certain respect, i.e. virtually. Wherefore this does not prove
that habit precedes act simply, both in goodness and in badness.
Reply to Objection 3: Habit causes act by way of efficient
causality: but act causes habit, by way of final causality, in
respect of which we consider the nature of good and evil. Consequently
act surpasses habit both in goodness and in badness.
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