CHAPTER II
THE CAPITAL VICES
THEOLOGIANS divide the chief vices to which human nature is subject into seven heads or capital sins, as they are called. The name implies that they are the source and origin of many more, inasmuch as the inordinate love of any temporal good is apt to give rise to many inordinate ways of pursuing it. The seven capital sins are: Pride, Covetousness, Lust, Anger, Envy, Sloth, Gluttony.
1
On Pride
1. Pride is the inordinate love of our own pre-eminence. There is a tendency deeply seated in human nature, which arises from the self-love which is innate in every man, and which leads him to prefer himself to others, to wish to lord it over them, and to bear with impatience the yoke of subjection to authority. Truth requires that we should look upon any qualities and gifts that we possess as coming to us from the bounty and goodness of God, and as giving us no right to exalt ourselves above others who have received similar or even greater benefits from the generosity of our common Father. Pride, on the contrary, would willingly close its eyes to this salutary and humbling truth; it looks upon whatever it possesses as its own, as the fruit of its own labour and merit; it is prone to magnify its gifts, and to consider them to be greater than they really are, while on the other hand it is blind to the good qualities of others. This leads to the growth of a spirit of independence which is impatient of subjection to any authority, human or divine, and to a depreciation and contempt of others. The proud man has no need to ask God for anything; he thanks him that he is not as the rest of men; he is self-sufficient and independent of all the world. This is the pinnacle of pride, the inordinate love of one's own pre-eminence.
Consummate pride, which refuses to be subject to God and to lawful authority, and which looks down upon other men
