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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.
Objection 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.
Objection 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
(Question 48).
I answer that, As stated above (Question 47, Article 1, ad
2, Articles 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 to Objection 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 to Objection 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 to Objection 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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