Article I: Notions

I. Previous Notions Concerning the Practical Intellect and Intellectual Virtue. 1. The properly practical intellect is not yet that in which certain judgments concerning things to be done and omitted are made and contained. For these can present themselves speculatively to the human mind without any relation to future action. Cannot a professor propose ascetical norms without any zeal or will for pursuing perfection? Indeed it happens too often that a man acts against conscience, or a judgment of this kind. But a judgment to which a contrary action is opposed in truth does not pertain to the act, i.e. is not practical. But that intellect is called practical which, from the motion of the will wishing to act, deliberates, judges, and commands. Yet because the human will is not compelled by such deliberation and judgment of the intellect, but can deny consent and draw the intellect to another practical conclusion through the mediation of an opposite consideration, that intellect is to be called practical most especially which is mingled with action, or which, after consultation and judgment, is informed by the command of action.

And they note that, since the will is a rational appetite, it indeed lies in its power, by application of the intellect to considering diverse things, to change the ultimate judgment concerning an action to be done or omitted; but by no means can it happen that it act without a practical judgment, or disagree from some practically ultimate judgment. Therefore no free action is done without its being indicated in some way that one must so act.

This process of our actions can be narrated more distinctly thus.

From a true will of any end whatever the intellect is moved to considering, by inquiring, the means; then, at the end of the inquiry, to giving a sentence concerning suitable means; finally to proposing the execution of the means; which proposal, from the motion of the will, becomes a command, by which the proposal is prescribed to the active faculties as to be followed.

Let us suppose someone who wishes to obtain some office. He will deliberate, he will consult concerning the way. Besides conciliating to himself the benevolence of the prince or collator, which is immediately perceived to be necessary, the very mode of conciliating favor will be investigated. A sentence of this kind will impose an end upon that inquiry: this mode seems most suitable. And, from the same desire of office, the discovered mode will be proposed as to be embraced, with greater or lesser force, according to its efficacy, the estimation of the office, and the difficulties joined to its execution. The will chooses the proposed mode by approving it; and the discovered mode becomes the exemplar of execution: the act is accommodated to the intellectual reason.

2. Because every virtue perfects our free acts, intellectual virtue is not wholly in the intellect, but also supposes a good disposition of the will; nor can the act of such a virtue be had without motion of the will. Wherefore intellectual virtue grows together from a good disposition of will and intellect. Therefore qualities of mind, just as bodily health itself, can indeed aid virtue; yet they are not formally virtuous; and a good disposition of the intellect cannot, as such, be meritorious. Those qualities can be placed among the beginnings of virtues which the will can use for the end of virtue, and which are perfected from the use itself of virtue.

II. 1. Prudence, more broadly so called, is a certain art of attaining the intended end, which end can be merely human, indeed evil, so that the Lord could call the children of darkness more prudent than the children of light.

2. The virtue of prudence properly so called, in acting, presupposes the intention of good, and is accustomed to be defined: right reason of things to be done. Reason is the same as the representative form of the intellect presenting action as doable. - It is right insofar as it agrees with right appetite; or insofar as, after sufficient study, it says that that is to be embraced which appeared consonant with the rule of morals; and insofar as it proceeds from a good will. - Of things to be done. By this word there is assigned to prudence an object other than the object of art: art regards things to be made. But by the plural number the habit is indicated.

This right reason follows right inquiry and right judgment; and it is completed by the command of an honorable action.

3. Concerning eubulia. The solicitous inquiry of honesty, proceeding from the intention of the honorable, is an act of eubulia. If this solicitude is had easily and readily; if, for example, it is disturbed by no impulse of passions, it reveals in the intellect the acquired virtue of eubulia: indeed, its act is morally good, and no one uses it badly. For to inquire into the honorable from a will of acting honorably is necessarily morally good.

4. Concerning synesis or gnome. The sentence pronounced concerning the morality of such an action is also necessarily good, insofar as it too proceeds from zeal for the honesty of the action. If this sentence is founded in law or in a higher reason, it is ascribed to synesis or gnome. Again, if that sentence is easily sincere and firm, it will mark a virtuous habit of the same name.

III. Prudence, a Cardinal Virtue. The preceptive election of an action indicated as honorable, which election is composed of the practical conclusion of the intellect, that the action is to be done, and of the consent of the will, is the most proper act of prudence. This act is meritorious in the just man, for it flows from a free intention of the honorable, and by it one lives well. And if it has been prompt, ready, and efficacious, that election marks the virtuous habit of acquired prudence.

That we may set forth this process more distinctly: not otherwise than in the temporal order, so in the moral order, from the supreme judgment of synteresis, by which it is pronounced universally that the law of God is to be observed, that one must live honorably, the will freely inclines toward honesty, wishes to act honorably. - Consultation receives this intention of honorable good: what is honorable; that is, the inquiry of the honorable, which we are ordered to make solicitously, with the care which is fitting.

Judgment concerning the morality of the action completes the inquiry: this is honorable, good, or better. That judgment can be founded either in consideration of law, or in attention to a higher reason of the law. We are ordered to place a sincere judgment of this kind before our action. - Then the same judgment is offered by the intellect as to be followed practically, as if equivalently, with greater or lesser force of reasons, it had said: "Do this honorable thing."

The will assents; and there is had the election of an honorable action, which, from the motion of the will, is the command of that action imposed on the subject faculties. The honorable thing will be done according to such a command. Thus the idea of law in the Prince becomes, from the will of the prince, a precept for subjects and the exemplar of the actions of those who obey.

IV. Degrees of Acquired Prudence. The more vehement the intention of good will be, and the higher the good itself intended; then the more the intellect will be disposed to seek studiously, to recognize the honorable sincerely, and to discern better its lovableness in the light of reasons, the better and stronger the intellectual virtue will be.

It is necessary accurately to discern these superior dispositions of the intellect, by which it serves the will of the honorable, from qualities of mind, for example natural subtlety, which can be used for any use whatever. Thus a learned and acute man will more easily be able to find speculatively the reasons of the honorable; yet in true prudence he will yield to the duller mind of a more virtuous man, insofar as this latter is endowed with greater practical zeal for the honorable. For the moral value of the command must be estimated from the motive force of the intellect.

V. Corollaries. 1. A fuller description of prudence can be this: a virtue which perfects the practical intellect so that, with the will moving it, it promptly and easily commands things to be done which are apprehended as honorable and more honorable.

2. Prudence is not accurately described by acts of recognition or judgment. Wherefore Tanquerey, after, in II, n. 1049, he described prudence as the virtue by which the intellect is directed "so that in individual operations we may discern what is honorable and conducing to the end," is forced to correct himself, n. 1051, where he places the third and principal act of prudence as "the precept, by which reason practically not only pronounces what must be done, but commands it."

3. The province of prudence regards not the end itself but the things which are toward the end. For it supposes the intention of the end and ends in the election of the means.

4. The functions of prudence are: to consult well, or, under the respect of moral good, to investigate; to judge well, or, at the end of the investigation, to pronounce with certitude what must be done under the same respect; to command well, or efficaciously to order toward the work.

VI. Vices Opposed to Prudence. These vices are divided by St. Thomas, 2, 2, qq. 53, 54, 55, into two genera: imprudence, through defect either of prudence itself or of the previous acts which are required for prudence; and false prudence, which abuses the means of prudence insofar as it either pursues a disordered end, as the prudence of the flesh, or uses illicit ways, as cunning: these latter are opposed to the virtue of prudence by excess. That we may omit these latter things, defect can affect prudence in the prior acts of counsel or of judgment, or in the proper act of commanding. But counsel is impeded or vitiated by precipitation, judgment by inconsideration, right command by negligence or inconstancy (2, 2, q. 53, art. 2). Precipitation is in the impulse of will or passion, which passes over the elements of sound deliberation (*); inconstancy is defect of stability in commanding, or in a withdrawal from a good proposal previously defined; negligence is defect of solicitude or of prompt will.

(*) What precipitation is, and what mature deliberation requires, St. Thomas very beautifully explains in 2, 2, q. 52, art. 3, c.

But, just as natural gifts of mind effect a certain natural prudence which is without merit, so from defect of those gifts there results a certain imprudence which is without demerit. Blameworthy imprudence supposes a disorder of free will, as when by the impulse of passion it is carried away toward counseling, judging, or commanding badly. Yet conscious natural defect gives place to moral obligations of attention, precaution, and correction, which can be observed or violated.

In every sin a certain imprudence is committed; yet it is not a general vice, since it is concerned with special acts, i.e. acts of reason. But since it extends itself to every moral matter, it is not a special vice by reason of matter, and by accusing the sin committed, the imprudence itself is sufficiently accused, unless someone from formal contempt of prudence wished to be imprudent (cf. 2, 2, q. 53, art. 1, and 54, art. 1 c.).

VII. Concerning the Connected Gift of Counsel. In what way the Holy Spirit perfects our virtues through His gifts, we indicated in tome I, n. 497.

According to St. Thomas, 2, 2, q. 52, art. 2, prudence is aided and perfected by the gift of Counsel, by which we are moved by the Holy Spirit, as by a Counselor, toward inquiring rightly concerning things to be done. But why the gift of the Holy Spirit perfects the innermost act of the virtue of prudence, or consulting well, rather than the higher acts of prudence, St. Thomas brings this reason: judging and commanding, which are those higher acts, belong to one moving, not to one moved, while counsel can arise no less from another than from the one deliberating.

For since in the gifts of the Holy Spirit the human mind does not have itself as moving, but rather as moved (2, 2, q. 52, art. 2 ad 1), prudence must be perfected in that act which, from its nature, carries with itself the direction or admonition of another. But in consulting we are connaturally aided by the counsel of another. (Concerning the mode by which the gifts of the Holy Spirit act, cf. J. de Guibert, S.J., Dons du S. Esprit et vie mystique, Revue d'ascetique et de mystique, 1923, pp. 321 ff.)

— Prudence is to action what art is to making. Art is defined as right reason of things to be made; prudence is defined as right reason of things to be done. But this difference exists between each: art does not depend on a good will, while prudence properly so called, as every virtue, with the grace of God, lies in our power. For the rectitude of which there is question in the brief definition does not regard some human or temporal end: of this prudence, which is called prudence in a certain respect, even saints can lack or be deprived; but it is estimated in order to the good simply. Wherefore it is described more fully: a virtue which perfects the practical intellect so that, with the will moving it, it promptly and easily commands things to be done which are apprehended as honorable and more honorable. The practical intellect is that which truly, as a directive principle, is mingled with our action. It differs from the speculative intellect not in reality but in reason; the speculative intellect also can know practical things.

Furthermore, the functions of prudence are: to consult well or investigate, under the respect of moral good; to judge well, or, at the end of investigation, to pronounce with certitude what, under the same respect, must be done; to command well or efficaciously to order toward the work.

To the virtue of prudence there is opposed, by defect, imprudence, either in the prior acts of counsel, i.e. precipitation; or of judgment, i.e. inconsideration; or in the proper act of commanding, i.e. inconstancy or negligence. Yet blameworthy imprudence supposes a disordered will; and although it is special, since it affects special acts of reason, for the most part, when the sin to which the bad direction of the intellect has led has been accused, it is sufficiently accused.

Besides, the obligation either of paying more attention or of correcting a defect flows from a natural defect of prudence. To the same virtue of prudence there is opposed, by a certain excess, false prudence, which is toward an evil end, and cunning, which is materially prudent by illicit means.