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Objection 1: It would seem that it is possible for virtue to be in
the interior sensitive powers of apprehension. For the sensitive
appetite can be the subject of virtue, in so far as it obeys reason.
But the interior sensitive powers of apprehension obey reason: for the
powers of imagination, of cogitation, and of memory [FP, Question
78, Article 4] act at the command of reason. Therefore in these
powers there can be virtue.
Objection 2: Further, as the rational appetite, which is the
will, can be hindered or helped in its act, by the sensitive
appetite, so also can the intellect or reason be hindered or helped by
the powers mentioned above. As, therefore, there can be virtue in
the interior powers of appetite, so also can there be virtue in the
interior powers of apprehension.
Objection 3: Further, prudence is a virtue, of which Cicero (De
Invent. Rhetor. ii) says that memory is a part. Therefore also in
the power of memory there can be a virtue: and in like manner, in the
other interior sensitive powers of apprehension.
On the contrary, All virtues are either intellectual or moral
(Ethic. ii, 1). Now all the moral virtues are in the appetite;
while the intellectual virtues are in the intellect or reason, as is
clear from Ethic. vi, 1. Therefore there is no virtue in the
interior sensitive powers of apprehension.
I answer that, In the interior sensitive powers of apprehension there
are some habits. And this is made clear principally from what the
Philosopher says (De Memoria ii), that "in remembering one thing
after another, we become used to it; and use is a second nature."
Now a habit of use is nothing else than a habit acquired by use, which
is like unto nature. Wherefore Tully says of virtue in his Rhetoric
that "it is a habit like a second nature in accord with reason."
Yet, in man, that which he acquires by use, in his memory and other
sensitive powers of apprehension, is not a habit properly so called,
but something annexed to the habits of the intellective faculty, as we
have said above (Question 50, Article 4, ad 3).
Nevertheless even if there be habits in such powers, they cannot be
virtues. For virtue is a perfect habit, by which it never happens
that anything but good is done: and so virtue must needs be in that
power which consummates the good act. But the knowledge of truth is
not consummated in the sensitive powers of apprehension: for such
powers prepare the way to the intellective knowledge. And therefore in
these powers there are none of the virtues, by which we know truth:
these are rather in the intellect or reason.
Reply to Objection 1: The sensitive appetite is related to the
will, which is the rational appetite, through being moved by it. And
therefore the act of the appetitive power is consummated in the
sensitive appetite: and for this reason the sensitive appetite is the
subject of virtue. Whereas the sensitive powers of apprehension are
related to the intellect rather through moving it; for the reason that
the phantasms are related to the intellective soul, as colors to sight
(De Anima iii, text. 18). And therefore the act of knowledge
is terminated in the intellect; and for this reason the cognoscitive
virtues are in the intellect itself, or the reason.
And thus is made clear the Reply to the Second Objection.
Reply to Objection 3: Memory is not a part of prudence, as species
is of a genus, as though memory were a virtue properly so called: but
one of the conditions required for prudence is a good memory; so that,
in a fashion, it is after the manner of an integral part.
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