Chapter — Vermeersch, On Chastity
Chapter I. A General Consideration of the Virtue of Chastity
Division of the chapter.
90. - Distribution of the matter into three articles. Although we are dealing with the supernatural order, and there is no natural virtue properly so called 1, nevertheless it is useful to investigate what reason itself teaches us concerning chastity, or what natural virtue could have existed and, in a broader use of the word virtue 2, does exist. Wherefore we shall establish this first. Then, in the second article, we shall demonstrate what excellence and aids, in the present order, have accrued to chastity from Christian faith. But now there are not so few men, even cultivated men, who, estranged from Christian faith through their own fault or even ignorance, attempt, as it were, to restore pagan society before our eyes. Therefore, in order that the treatment may be fuller, we shall recount their views on chastity in the third article. And by a similar rationale we shall arrange the matter in the other chapters.
1 A natural virtue, that is, one which is acquired and exercised by the powers of nature alone. Those powers can confer upon a man only natural goodness, which, in the present condition of elevated man, is not sufficient for living rightly.
2 By a broader use, an inclination is called a virtue which, in the natural order, would produce virtue.