Question II: Whether prudence is a virtue

IT IS CERTAIN that Prudence is a Virtue.

IT IS PROVED by St. Bonaventure, book 1 on chapter 8 of Wisdom, and in book 3, distinction 33, questions 1 and 4, from those words: He teaches Sobriety, and Prudence, and Justice, and Virtue, that is, Fortitude. The same is proved by that verse of Proverbs 8: Prudence is mine, fortitude is mine. By me kings reign, and lawmakers decree just things.

IT IS PROVED secondly by St. Bonaventure in the Dieta, title 5, chapter 5, and by other places of Scripture, Proverbs 28: A leader lacking prudence shall oppress many, etc.

PROVERBS 6: O sluggard, go to the ant, and learn Prudence; which, though it has no guide, nor master, nor prince, prepares for itself food in the summer, and gathers in the harvest what it may eat.

PROVERBS 30. The prudent man is compared to four little animals, praised in the same place. There are four little ones of the earth, and they are wiser than the wise: The ant, a people without strength, which prepares its food in the harvest: The rabbit, a weak folk, which makes its bed in the rock: The locust has no king, and goes forth all together by its bands: The stellio supports itself on hands, and dwells in the houses of kings. These four animals are set before us as Masters of prudence, as Lyranus notes there, together with St. Bonaventure, who there excellently expounds these animals for us in mystical parallels; that we may imitate the rabbit, making our bed in the rock, which is Christ, as is said 1 Corinthians 10. The stellio, or lizard, which, having no wings, supplies by its hands the lack of nature; so too let diligent prudence supply in acting the defect of nature: the locust, which mounts on high and at once descends to the earth; for so also the prudent man mounts high through holy desires, and at once descends to the knowledge of his own infirmity, and thence acknowledges the necessity of divine help; according to Psalm 110: He ascends even to the heavens, and descends even to the abysses. And according to St. Gregory below. Lastly, let us imitate the ant, that we may prudently lay up merits for ourselves, according to John 9: Work while it is day.

Matthew 10: Be therefore prudent as serpents, to which comparison the Holy Doctor best expounds in the place cited with five parallels.

FIRST, indeed, the serpent exposes its whole body to blows, that it may save its head; so the prudent Christian exposes all things, that he may preserve the honor of Christ the Head, as is said Philippians 3: Those things that were gains to me, I have counted as loss for Christ.

SECONDLY, the serpent, among narrow and smooth rocks, strips off its old skin; so too the Christian ought to put off the old man, as the Apostle admonishes, Ephesians 4.

THIRDLY, the serpent beguiles the charmer, as is said Psalm 57. So too prudent Saints beguile the demon, stopping one ear with the tail, that is, the memory of last things; according to Ecclesiastes 7: Remember your last things, and you shall not sin forever; and they stop the other ear, in the manner of the serpent, in the earth, by the memory of their own fragility, because it is said Genesis 4: You are dust, and into dust you shall return.

FOURTHLY, the serpent lies in wait for the heel; so prudent men conquer the desires of the flesh, attending to what the end of pleasure is, namely infernal death, according to Romans 6: The end of them is death.

FIFTHLY, the serpent flees woman on account of the enmities, Genesis 3, declared against it; so the prudent man flees the occasions of fornication, according to the counsel of Paul, 1 Corinthians 10.

ANOTHER prudence of the serpent the Holy Doctor expounds in the sermon on the Holy Apostles Philip and James, for when it feels itself weighed down by poison, it eats a certain herb, by whose virtue it vomits up the poison; then it hastens to a bath of water, and there washes itself, and remains fasting for many days; whence the skin is loosened from the flesh, and amid the smooth narrows of the rock it sheds its skin, that it may put on a new one. So too man, prudent, wishing to become a new man from the old, ought to wash himself with tears, eat the bitter herb of penance, and thus vomit up the poison of sins by confessing; then pass through the narrow gate of satisfaction, and thus, stripped of the spoils of faults, put on grace. See the holy Doctor there.

The SAME comparisons he has in sermon 2 on one Holy Doctor, which is sermon 31, and sermon 33, where he speaks according to Aristotle in the book on the history of animals, book 8, chapter 17:

IN THE sermon 2 on St. Anthony of Padua, from Job 38, he praises the prudence of the cock: Who gave the cock understanding. And in the sermon on St. Lucy he recounts many examples of prudence from sacred and profane histories. That it is a virtue, indeed, confess Aristotle, books 3 and 6 of the Ethics, chapters 5 and 13, Cicero, books 1 and 2 of the Tusculans, 99, Seneca, letter 68, Plutarch, in the book on the virtue of morals, Juvenal, Satire 10, Valerius Maximus, on prudence. See the Holy Doctor also in book 3, distinction 33, question 3, citing them.

IT IS PROVED thirdly by the Holy Doctor, in the book cited, the Pharetra, chapter 27, from the Holy Fathers unanimously asserting it.

ST. AUGUSTINE, book 1 on the morals of the Church, chapter 15, divides the four Cardinal virtues, as St. Bonaventure also teaches in book 3, distinction 33, question 2, to the first argument; then in the Soliloquies, book 1, chapter 14, he teaches that the perfect work is made by prudence, saying: Great care must be taken, while we act in this body, lest the feathers of our wings be impeded by any viscous thing of the senses: these must be whole and perfect, that we may fly forth to that light from these darknesses.

ST. AMBROSE, on offices, book 1, chapter 10: The wise man, that he may speak well, first considers many things, what he may say, and to whom, in what place and time, and chapter 27, says: The first fount of duty is prudence. St. Gregory, book 2 of the Morals, chapter 36, says: The solid edifice of our mind is sustained by these four virtues, of which the first is prudence, and book 7 of the Morals, chapter 15: When the uprightness of Saints raises men to liberty of voice, consideration of one's own infirmity guards them in humility.

St. Bernard on the Canticle, sermon 49: Discretion is not so much a virtue as a certain moderator and charioteer of the virtues, and the orderer of affections and the directress of morals: Take this away, and virtue will be vice. In the same way speaks St. Isidore, the book On Synonyms, chapter 16: Whatever you do well with discretion is virtue; whatever you carry out without discretion is vice. For virtue without discretion is reputed as vice. And book 2 on the supreme good, chapter 25: It helps nothing, that we discern with a more prudent sense between good and evil, unless by our works we guard against ill-conceived thoughts, or carry forward good things begun.

And St. Jerome on Hosea, book 2, chapter 7: Prudence without goodness is malice.

And Cassian, Conference 1, chapter 23, from the opinion of Abbot Moses, on Discretion, or Prudence, says: This holds among all the virtues the citadel and primacy.

And conference 2, chapter 2: For this is that which is named in the Gospel the eye and lamp of the body, according to that saying of the Savior: The lamp of your body is your eye; and Matthew 6, and Luke 11. Because (he says) it discerns all the thoughts and acts of man, it foresees and surveys all things that are to be done. The same the Holy Doctor has here, and on that place of Luke, though he expounds the lamp as intention. In which way also St. Gregory mingles prudence with intention, homily 22 on Ezechiel: It remains that at last we be wearied in the ministry of the word, or bestow on the needy, or tame the flesh by abstinence, or be moved by Zeal, or at times mildly bear with evil things through patience, that we ought above all to examine our intention, that whatever we do we may do not with our own, but with the Zeal of the Lord.

He recounts OTHER places of the Holy Fathers, the Holy Doctor, in book 3, distinction 33, as of St. Jerome on chapter 8 of Wisdom, St. Augustine, book 12 on the Trinity, chapter 14, and book 14, chapter 9, Bede, in the Gloss, on chapter 26 of Exodus; and the Gloss on Genesis 1: A fountain went forth from Paradise, which is divided into four heads. Juvenal, Satire 10, closes all the Encomia of this virtue:

No deity is absent, if prudence be present. — And this is what the Holy Fathers cited say, that prudence is the Leader and Charioteer of all the virtues.

IT IS PROVED fourthly by the reasoning which the Holy Doctor uses in nearly all the places cited, especially in book 3 of the Sentences, distinction 33, throughout. Every habit good and fitting to man is a virtue; But that habit of prudence is of this kind: Therefore. The major is evident; for virtue is that which makes its possessor good, leading him to his end, and renders its act good, as Aristotle teaches in the Ethics, book 3, chapters 1, 8 and 12, and book 6, and Tully, book 2 on Invention, cited by St. Bonaventure, book 3, distinction 33, question 3, and St. Augustine, book 83 questions, question 31, and book 1 of the Soliloquies, chapter 6, cited by St. Bonaventure, in the place cited. The minor is proved: for it is best and most fitting to the nature of man for reason to establish and set before itself for pursuit or flight those things which according to right reason are to be sought or fled, which is the office of Prudence. The Holy Doctor confirms this, questions 1 and 3, from the contrary. For evil is that which is against prudence, which is the same as against reason, which indeed St. Dionysius confesses to be perverse, chapter 4 on the divine names, part 4.

I ASSERT secondly, that Prudence is a rational, intellectual, and moral Virtue. It is indeed rational, because it is in reason, as the Holy Doctor observes in book 3, distinction 33, question 3, in the body, §. To make evident. For it directs in discerning, which is proper to reason, as the Holy Doctor notes from Aristotle, book 6 of the Ethics, chapter 3. The same St. Thomas teaches, part 1-2, question 57.

THE office of reason, however, is twofold, to discern and to define. These, however, are the functions of prudence, as St. Bonaventure teaches, in the places cited above. Hence in the Dieta salutis, chapter 5, he compares it to the assessor of a judge, who by judging directs the judge, or king, yet not by commanding; so Prudence rules reason: Wherefore Valentia does not define it rightly, first point: It is a faculty of the practical intellect for rightly determining, by an act of imperium, what is to be done. For imperium is nowhere conceded to the intellect, against the Thomists, part 1-2, question 57, article 6, and Tanner, dispute 3, question 1, dubium 1, and others, refuted in part 1-2, treatise 1, Disputation on Imperium. It is truly a moral virtue extrinsically, inasmuch as the intellect is moved and stirred by the appetite rightly ordered through the inclinations of the moral virtues, that through Prudence it may follow the good to be done, consentaneous to the right appetite.

I ASSERT thirdly, that Prudence is a Virtue distinct from the others.

IT IS PROVED by St. Bonaventure above with the authorities, which reckon it to be a special virtue.

SECONDLY it is proved by him in book 3, distinction 33, questions 2 and 3, from the diverse reason of the object, which is the ratio agibilis according to reason, as conforming to the right appetite, and thus as the practical true, or good. Tanner uses this reason, number 12.

THIRDLY it is proved by the Holy Doctor from the acts of Prudence, which are to direct all the acts of virtue according to the right dictate of reason.

IT IS PROVED fourthly from the powers in which the Cardinal virtues are subjected, and which each directs; for Prudence directs the Rational, Temperance the Concupiscible, Fortitude the Irascible.

IT IS PROVED fifthly by St. Bonaventure from the opposed vices; for one is opposed to one; for under one aspect there are opposed to Prudence Precipitancy, Inconsideration, Inconstancy, Negligence, Craft, Guile, Fraud, which are surely not opposed to the other virtues.

IT IS PROVED sixthly by the Holy Doctor from the mean points; for Prudence is a mean between extremes, between which the other virtues mediate; for so Prudence is between Inconsiderateness, Precipitancy, Craftiness, Guile, etc.

You will object, first. The ratio agibilis, as it is the practical truth by conformity with the right appetite, is so widely extended, and is more common, than the ratio agibilis as it is moral good, by conformity with right reason, or with the right appetite; but this ratio of good does not constitute any special virtue, but only the genus of moral virtue: Therefore neither will that ratio constitute the special virtue of Prudence.

The Holy Doctor answers, distinction 33, question 2, to the fifth, that they are equal in a certain universality of predication; but not at all in order; for the Practical True has order only to reason, because it is difficult to rectify in one way, therefore one virtue is necessary: But the matters of the powers, in order to good, suffer various difficulties.

You will object, secondly. It belongs to Prudence to inspect the mean, which also befits every virtue; for whatever sees the essential mean of its end: Therefore it is not a special virtue.

The Holy Doctor answers, that to see its own mean by the mode of a determinate inclination is appropriated to each virtue; but that it is nevertheless proper to prudence to see the mean by the mode of direction. Wherefore Prudence sees the mean for itself and for others by directing; for it perfects the rational power, whose it is to consider and discern, and in this mode it is proper to Prudence. Wherefore as the eye sees for itself and for the other members, so prudence directs, seeing itself and the other virtues. Although as regards inclination all tend toward their end, and move, as it were, like a weight, in the manner in which gravity is said to look toward the center of the world; for so every virtue is said to look toward the mean of right living.