below in a normal human existence of virtue and friendship,
with mind and body sound and whole and properly trained for
the needs of life. The higher happiness is given to man by free
grace of God; but it is given to those only whose heart is right,
and as a reward of virtuous actions. Passing to consider what
actions are virtuous, we first observe generally that the morality
of an act is in part, but only in part, determined by its particular
motive; it partly depends on its external object and circumstances,
which render it either objectively in harmony with the
“order of reason” or the reverse. In the classification of
particular virtues and vices we can distinguish very clearly
the elements supplied by the different teachings which Aquinas
has imbibed. He follows Aristotle closely in dividing the
“natural” virtues into intellectual and moral, giving his
preference to the former class, and the intellectual again into
speculative and practical; in distinguishing within the speculative
class the “intellect” that is conversant with principles,
the “science” that deduces conclusions, and the “wisdom”
to which belongs the whole process of knowing the sublimest
objects of knowledge; and in treating practical wisdom as
inseparably connected with moral virtues, and therefore in a
sense moral. His distinction among moral virtues of the
justice that renders others their due from the virtues that control
the appetites and passions of the agent himself, represents his
interpretation of the Nicomachean Ethics; while his account
of these latter virtues is a simple transcript of Aristotle’s, just
as his division of the non-rational element of the soul into
“concupiscible” and “irascible” is the old Platonic one. In
arranging his list, however, he defers to the established doctrine
of the four cardinal virtues (derived from Plato and the Stoics
through Cicero); accordingly, the Aristotelian ten have to
stand under the higher genera of (1) the prudence which gives
reasoned rules of conduct, (2) the temperance which restrains
misleading desire, and (3) the fortitude that resists misleading
fear of dangers or toils. But before these virtues are ranked
the three “theologic” virtues, faith, love and hope, supernaturally
“instilled” by God, and directly relating to him as
their object. By faith we obtain that part of our knowledge of
God which is beyond the range of mere natural wisdom or
philosophy; naturally (e.g.), we can know God’s existence, but
not his trinity in unity, though philosophy is useful to defend
this and other revealed verities; and it is essential for the soul’s
welfare that all articles of the Christian creed, however little
they can be known by natural reason, should be apprehended
through faith; the Christian who rejects a single article loses
hold altogether of faith and of God. Faith is the substantial
basis of all Christian morality, but without love—the essential
form of all the Christian virtues—it is “formless” (informis).
Christian love is conceived (after Augustine) as primarily love
to God (beyond the natural yearning of the creature after its
ultimate good), which expands into love towards all God’s
creatures as created by him, and so ultimately includes even
self-love. But creatures are only to be loved in their purity
as created by God; all that is bad in them must be an object
of hatred till it is destroyed. In the classification of sins the
Christian element predominates; still we find the Aristotelian
vices of excess and defect, along with the modern divisions into
“sins against God, neighbour and self,” “mortal and venial
sins,” and so forth.
From the notion of sin—treated in its jural aspect—Aquinas passes naturally to the discussion of Law. The exposition of this conception presents to a great extent the same matter that was dealt with by the exposition of moral virtues, but in a different form; the prominence of which may perhaps be attributed to the growing influence of Roman jurisprudence, which attained in the 12th century so rapid and brilliant a revival in Italy. This side of Thomas’s system is specially important, since it is just this blending of theological conceptions with the abstract theory of the later Roman law that gave the starting-point for independent ethical thought in the modern world. Under the general idea of law, defined as an “ordinance of reason for the common good, promulgated by him who has charge of the community,” Thomas distinguishes (1) the eternal law or regulative reason of God which embraces all his creatures, rational and irrational; (2) “natural law,” being that part of the eternal law that relates to rational creatures as such; (3) human law, which properly consists of more particular deductions from natural law particularized and adapted to the varying circumstances of actual communities; (4) divine law specially revealed to man. As regards natural law, he teaches that God has implanted in the human mind a knowledge of its immutable general principles; and not only knowledge, but a disposition, to which he applies the peculiar scholastic name synderesis,[1] that unerringly prompts to the realization of these principles in conduct, and protests against their violation. All acts of natural virtue are implicitly included within the scope of this law of nature; but in the application of its principles to particular cases—to which the term “conscience” should be restricted—man’s judgment is liable to err, the light of nature being obscured and perverted by bad education and custom. Human law is required, not merely to determine the details for which natural law gives no intuitive guidance, but also to supply the force necessary for practically securing, among imperfect men, the observance of the most necessary rules of mutual behaviour. The rules of this law must be either deductions from principles of natural law, or determinations of particulars which it leaves indeterminate; a rule contrary to nature could not be valid as law at all. Human law, however, can deal with outward conduct alone, and natural law, as we have seen, is liable to be vague and obscure in particular applications. Neither natural nor human law, moreover, takes into account that supernatural happiness which is man’s highest end. Hence they need to be supplemented by a special revelation of divine law. This revelation is distinguished into the law of the old covenant and the law of the gospel; the latter of these is productive as well as imperative since it carries with it the divine grace that makes its fulfilment possible. We have, however, to distinguish in the case of the gospel between (1) absolute commands and (2) “counsels,” which latter recommend, without positively ordering the monastic life of poverty, celibacy and obedience as the best method of effectively turning the will from earthly to heavenly things.
But how far is man able to attain either natural or Christian perfection? This is the part of Thomas’s system in which the cohesion of the different elements seems weakest. He is scarcely aware that his Aristotelianized Christianity inevitably combines two different difficulties in dealing with this question: first, the old pagan difficulty of reconciling the proposition that will is a rational desire always directed towards apparent good, with the freedom of choice between good and evil that the jural view of morality seems to require; and, secondly, the Christian difficulty of harmonizing this latter notion with the absolute dependence on divine grace which the religious consciousness affirms. The latter difficulty Thomas, like many of his predecessors, avoids by supposing a “co-operation” of free-will and grace, but the former he does not fully meet. It is against this part of his doctrines that the most important criticism, in ethics, of his Duns Scotus. rival Duns Scotus (c. 1266–1308) was directed. He urged that will could not be really free if it were bound to reason, as Thomas (after Aristotle) conceives it; a really free choice must be perfectly indeterminate between reason and unreason. Scotus consistently maintained that the divine will is similarly independent of reason, and that the divine ordering of the world is to be conceived as absolutely arbitrary. On this point he was followed by the acute intellect of William of Occam (d. c. 1347). This doctrine is William of Occam. obviously hostile to all reasoned morality; and in fact, notwithstanding the dialectical ability of Scotus and Occam, the work of Thomas remained indubitably the crowning result of the great constructive effort of medieval philosophy. The effort was, indeed, foredoomed to failure, since it attempted the impossible task of framing a coherent
- ↑ Synderesis (Gr. συντήρησις, from συντηρεῖν, to watch closely, observe) is used in this sense in Jerome (Com. in Ezek. i. 4-10).
