Article I: On the Mediocrity of Virtues

381. Virtue is said to consist in mediocrity, or in the mean, insofar as it is placed between excess and defect. Hence that common saying: Virtue is in the middle; and: The blessed have held the mean.

One must distinguish the mean of the thing, which namely is determined from the nature of the thing, and consequently is one and invariable; and the mean of reason, which reason determines by prudent estimation, the circumstances of place, time, and person being attended to.

382. PRINCIPLES. I. The theological virtues do not consist in a mean, per se and on the part of the object. The reason is because one cannot sin against them by excess: since no one can believe God too much, hope in God too much, love him too much.

But per accidens, or by reason of the subject, theological virtues have a mean; because although man cannot be borne into God as much as the notion of the object demands, nevertheless he ought to be borne according to the measure of his condition. Thus, for example, we ought to hope in such a way that our hope is a mean between presumption and desperation (St. Thom., 1.2, q. 64, a. 4).

383. II. All moral virtues consist in a mean. The reason is because these virtues are occupied about a finite good, to be pursued moderately, concerning which it is said (Wis. 11:21): Thou hast disposed all things in measure, and number, and weight: and therefore, just as it is vice to be deficient in the pursuit of this good, so also to exceed. Thus fortitude is between rashness and cowardice: temperance between intemperance and insensibility, etc. (St. Thom., l. c., a. 1).

Nevertheless justice holds the mean in one way, and the remaining virtues in another.¹ For:

1. JUSTICE ought to attain the mean of the thing, that is, equality according to the thing, so that as much be rendered as is owed. Hence the mean of justice is the same for all, nor can it vary: whence if you owe 100, you ought to render 100; if you render only 99, you wound justice; if you give 101, it will be an act of liberality (cf. n. 398 and 404).

2. The other moral virtues hold only the mean of reason, according to the estimation of prudence, regulating and measuring all things. The reason is because they are occupied about passions, in which the mean cannot be constituted in the same way for all, but in a diverse way according to the quality of persons. Thus, for example, in temperance, what is the mean or right for one will be little or too much for another; and so concerning the other virtues (St. Thom., l. c., a. 2). Cf. n. 391.