The Opposite Vices

The Vices Opposed to Temperance.—(a) The vice of deficiency has been called insensibility, and consists in an unreasonable dislike of the inferior sensible pleasures, which makes one unwilling to use them when and as reason commands. Thus, the Stoics and Manichees believed that material joys are intrinsically evil, and there have been fanatical advocates of teetotalism (e.g., the Aquarians) and of purity (e.g., the Puritans who would not permit a man to kiss his wife on Sunday, the prudish and censorious who fear or suspect evil without reason, the Pharisees who think they are defiled if a sinner speaks to them, the misogynists who disapprove of marriage). The sin is venial per se, since it does not submit to passion; but it may be mortal on account of some circumstance, as when the marriage debt is unjustly refused or necessary nourishment is not taken. This vice is rarer than its opposite, and it must not be confused with austerity, which for the sake of a spiritual good foregoes some lawful but unnecessary sensible enjoyment.

(b) The vice of excess is immoderation, which includes gluttony and impurity. This is the most disgraceful of sins, because the most unworthy of a rational being; it enslaves man to pleasures of which the lower animals are capable; unlike other vices, it contains in itself nothing of intelligence, industry, generosity, and nothing that would at all liken it to virtue. The lowest depths of degradation are reached when immoderation is brutish even in its manner, as when one is gluttonous of human flesh or desirous of sodomitic pleasure. Immoderation is called by Aristotle a “childish sin,” because, as a child is eager for pleasures and will follow them unduly unless instructed and trained, so also an immoderate person thinks only of his appetite, and will go from bad to worse unless he accepts the discipline of reason. But the child is excusable, while the immoderate man should know better. Immoderation is worse than timidity; for, while the former seeks selfish delight and acts with willing unrestraint, the latter seeks self-preservation and is under some external menace.