|
Objection 1: It would seem that a habit cannot diminish. Because a
habit is a simple quality and form. Now a simple thing is possessed
either wholly or not at all. Therefore although a habit can be lost it
cannot diminish.
Objection 2: Further, if a thing is befitting an accident, this is
by reason either of the accident or of its subject. Now a habit does
not become more or less intense by reason of itself; else it would
follow that a species might be predicated of its individuals more or
less. And if it can become less intense as to its participation by its
subject, it would follow that something is accidental to a habit,
proper thereto and not common to the habit and its subject. Now
whenever a form has something proper to it besides its subject, that
form can be separate, as stated in De Anima i, text. 13. Hence
it follows that a habit is a separable form; which is impossible.
Objection 3: Further, the very notion and nature of a habit as of
any accident, is inherence in a subject: wherefore any accident is
defined with reference to its subject. Therefore if a habit does not
become more or less intense in itself, neither can it in its inherence
in its subject: and consequently it will be nowise less intense.
On the contrary, It is natural for contraries to be applicable to the
same thing. Now increase and decrease are contraries. Since
therefore a habit can increase, it seems that it can also diminish.
I answer that, Habits diminish, just as they increase, in two
ways, as we have already explained (Question 52, Article 1).
And since they increase through the same cause as that which engenders
them, so too they diminish by the same cause as that which corrupts
them: since the diminishing of a habit is the road which leads to its
corruption, even as, on the other hand, the engendering of a habit is
a foundation of its increase.
Reply to Objection 1: A habit, considered in itself, is a simple
form. It is not thus that it is subject to decrease; but according to
the different ways in which its subject participates in it. This is
due to the fact that the subject's potentiality is indeterminate,
through its being able to participate a form in various ways, or to
extend to a greater or a smaller number of things.
Reply to Objection 2: This argument would hold, if the essence
itself of a habit were nowise subject to decrease. This we do not
say; but that a certain decrease in the essence of a habit has its
origin, not in the habit, but in its subject.
Reply to Objection 3: No matter how we take an accident, its very
notion implies dependence on a subject, but in different ways. For if
we take an accident in the abstract, it implies relation to a subject,
which relation begins in the accident and terminates in the subject:
for "whiteness is that whereby a thing is white." Accordingly in
defining an accident in the abstract, we do not put the subject as
though it were the first part of the definition, viz. the genus; but
we give it the second place, which is that of the difference; thus we
say that "simitas" is "a curvature of the nose." But if we take
accidents in the concrete, the relation begins in the subject and
terminates in the concrete, the relation begins in the subject and
terminates at the accident: for "a white thing" is "something that
has whiteness." Accordingly in defining this kind of accident, we
place the subject as the genus, which is the first part of a
definition; for we say that a "simum" is a "snub-nose."
Accordingly whatever is befitting an accident on the part of the
subject, but is not of the very essence of the accident, is ascribed
to that accident, not in the abstract, but in the concrete. Such are
increase and decrease in certain accidents: wherefore to be more or
less white is not ascribed to whiteness but to a white thing. The same
applies to habits and other qualities; save that certain habits and
other qualities; save that certain habits increase or diminish by a
kind of addition, as we have already clearly explained (Question
52, Article 2).
|
|