Habits and Morality

Habits and Morality.—The importance of habits in man’s moral life is very great. (a) Habits are an index to a man’s past career, for the ease and facility he now possesses through them is the result of many struggles and efforts and difficulties overcome, or of defeats and surrenders and neglected opportunities. (b) Habits constitute a man’s moral character. Morally, a person is the sum of his moral habits and dispositions grouped around the central interest or idea of his life. He who would know himself, therefore, cannot do better than to examine what are his habits, and which is the predominant one among them. (e) Habits are a prophecy of the future. Habits are not irresistible and do not destroy freedom, but they produce such ease and readiness for acting in one particular way that the probabilities are, when habits are strong, that a person will continue to follow them in the future as he has done in the past, thus progressing or deteriorating, as the case may be.

Duties as regards Habits.—(a) Bad habits should be avoided and those that have been formed should be destroyed (see 138). The means to accomplish these victories are divine help obtained through prayer and the other instrumentalities of grace, watchfulness through self-examination, and the cultivation of a spirit of self-denial, as well as attack made on the habit that is forming or already formed (see 255 sqq.)

(b) Good habits should be acquired, and those already possessed should be exercised and put to the best advantage. The means to this end, in addition to those that are supernatural, are especially a realization of the importance of good habits, a great desire to have them, and constant and regular effort to practise them (see 137).

123. 1. Notion. Besides temperament and education, natural habits influence liberty; for since they are acquired by repeated acts, they increase the inclination to performing similar acts. - Here we treat only of natural habits, which are acquired by repeated acts, and not of supernatural habits, which are divinely infused; and indeed insofar as they affect a free act.

¹ St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 49-54; Suarez, Disput. metaphysicae, disp. XLIV; Meyer, t. I, n. 130-139; Bouquillon, n. 338; Vieux Moraliste, apud Ami du Clergé, XXI, 1899, p. 529-593, 673 sq.; Rabier, Psychologie, p. 571-587; F. Ravaisson, De l'habitude (thesis), Paris, 1838.

In this sense, habit is defined as a constant inclination acquired by repeated acts for producing similar acts. Already by the first act a certain initial facility is acquired for repeating the same; but when the same acts are often repeated, at a short interval, with attention and with a propension of the will, especially if it is a question of a delightful thing, soon a vehement inclination is formed and rooted; and this not rarely is acquired and strengthened much more easily by the law of ancestral heredity, concerning which above. This inclination is added to various faculties, and therefore can affect not only the sensitive appetite, but also the intellect and the will.

In moral matters one must carefully distinguish between voluntary and involuntary habit. (a) When a habit has been knowingly and freely acquired and has not been efficaciously retracted,¹ it can be called actually voluntary; indeed, if it had been acquired inadvertently, it becomes actually voluntary when it has not been retracted after the agent became conscious of this habit. (b) When an inclination was acquired inadvertently and retracted as soon as the operator was conscious of it, it must be called altogether involuntary. (c) If it was acquired or retained advertently, but afterward efficaciously retracted, it is called antecedently voluntary and actually involuntary, nor is it morally imputed to the agent.

¹ It is efficaciously retracted when means apt for overcoming the custom are applied, even if it is not immediately conquered.

124. 2. Concerning the influence of habits on liberty. (A) What is done from a voluntary habit, not yet retracted, is free and imputable: in itself indeed, if the habit is actually voluntary; in the cause, if it is antecedently voluntary.

(a) For he who actually wills to retain a habit of which he is conscious by that very fact freely wills frequently to elicit the acts which he foresees will naturally follow from that habit; otherwise he would retract the habit.

(b) But if he does not actually will positively to retain the habit, but formerly freely acquired it, without ever having retracted it, the acts which proceed from the habit can be called voluntary in the cause, insofar as the agent, by freely acquiring the inclination, by that very fact freely willed the effects which he foresaw would follow from it. But, as we noted above, n. 97, the free in the cause is less imputable than the free in act.

(c) Indeed, a habit actually willed increases the voluntary, and consequently merit or demerit; for he who is conscious of some habit, good or evil, and positively wills to retain it, by that very fact shows how vehemently he intends the acts proceeding from the habit; for knowing that they arise from the habit frequently and intensively, he nevertheless wills to retain the habit, and therefore intends this frequency and intensity.

125. (B) What is done from an involuntary or efficaciously retracted habit is less free and imputable.

For, on the one hand, the habit itself is not voluntary, and on the other hand, it so impedes the deliberation of reason and allures the will that it weakens its powers and greatly diminishes liberty. - Indeed, sometimes the habit is so vehement that, when it bursts forth into act, it anticipates the judgment of reason and free consent, especially if it affects the executive powers, as is evident in the example of those who utter blasphemous formulas without any deliberation. Not rarely also custom has sent down the deepest roots, so that, even if it does not wholly remove the use of reason, nevertheless it takes away that degree of liberty which is required for grave sin, as can be seen among certain drunkards who, even after the habit has been retracted, are impelled to drinking by a propension almost invincible.

Wherefore, where habit prevails, it must be morally judged from all the adjuncts how great a degree of liberty remains in the agent.

126. 3. Concerning the manner of acting with regard to habits. From this it is given to understand of how great importance it is to acquire good habits and to eradicate evil ones. For by custom the powers of the will are increased a hundredfold, and acts are performed more promptly, more easily, more perfectly, and more delightfully, and thus the way is prepared for true and constant progress: for with less effort a greater effect is produced.¹ Those, therefore, who have obtained the custom of piety and virtue walk expeditiously in the ways of the Lord and ascend the arduous paths of perfection with a great heart; but those who have formed depraved habits fall easily into sins, undergo the tyranny of the passions, and can return to the practice of virtue only with difficulty and by heroic efforts.

¹ Concerning the utility of habit A. Lemoine says, apud Rabier, Psychol., p. 587: "If it were necessary for the will always to make the same efforts to direct the movements of the members, if no trace remained today of yesterday's exercise, man would not walk; he would scarcely drag himself along like a child of tender age. He would not speak, he would stammer. He would see without looking, he would learn without ever knowing. If it were necessary for him always to conquer the same resistance of instincts and passions without passion losing its force, without that of the will increasing, the most valiant man would soon be at the end of moral energy; he would succumb in this struggle ceaselessly renewed, and virtue would be only a word. It is thanks to habit that man can run instead of crawl, that the sciences are constituted and enriched; that virtue is acquired, that in all things progress is accomplished. In proportion as the act no longer requires, in order to be repeated, anything but a simple effort, the surplus of power, which the cause does not expend in order to reproduce it, becomes in some way available for new and superior efforts."

Happy, therefore, are those who, already from childhood, learn to cultivate, by repeated acts, honesty, piety, abnegation of oneself, charity toward others, and the other virtues!

But if depraved habits have already sent down deep roots, nevertheless one must not despair: custom is conquered by custom. In order that a depraved custom may be conquered more efficaciously, (a) there ought to go before it attentive consideration or meditation on all the motives which ought to move us to eradicate it completely; (b) when the evil inclination urges, we ought to divert the mind to other things, and, if an external occasion is present, immediately flee it and direct our whole attention to something honorable; (c) we ought to apply the means described above, n. 107, for overcoming the passions.¹

¹ Payot, op. cit., p. 200-222, after ascetics, explains how especially sensuality and pleasure can be conquered by the young.

569. 1. Notion. Habit (from the word habere, to have) in a general sense signifies a mode of bearing oneself. But in a more particular sense it designates a stable quality by which some being is perfected. But this can be completed in two ways: in its being and in its operations; in the former case, the habit is called entitative: thus, for example, health of body with regard to the natural order, habitual grace in the supernatural order; in the latter case, the habit is called operative: such are the virtues of prudence, fortitude, etc.

Here we treat of operative habits. In this sense, habit is usually defined as a stable quality which disposes and helps a potency for act. Therefore it is a certain reality, belonging to the genus of quality, added to some faculty, so that this faculty may become ready for acting. According to St. Thomas, it differs in some way from disposition, which is, as it were, an inchoate habit, but does not yet obtain that stability which is desired for habit properly so called.¹

¹ "Disposition is taken in two ways: in one way according as it is the genus of habit, for disposition is placed in the definition of habit. In another way according as it is something divided against habit. And disposition properly so called can be understood to be co-divided against habit in two ways: in one way as perfect and imperfect in the same species, so that disposition is said to retain the common name when it inheres imperfectly, so that it is lost easily; but habit, when it inheres perfectly, so that it is not easily lost, and thus disposition becomes habit, just as a boy becomes a man... From this it is clear that the name habit imports a certain lastingness, but not the name disposition." (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 49, a. 2, ad 3.)

570. Habit helps a potency to act in a twofold way; a natural and acquired habit helps it to perform an operation more promptly, more easily, and more delectably; but a supernatural and infused habit² of itself does not confer facility, but elevates the potency, which by its nature is unfit for certain acts, so that it may be able to perform these acts; thus the infused virtue of faith indeed does not give promptitude for eliciting acts of faith. Yet it must be noted that facility of operating is acquired by the exercise of infused virtues, for example, by repeated acts of faith, insofar as obstacles are removed, and the potencies are rendered more apt for eliciting these acts, as will be explained below.

² To understand rightly the distinction between natural and supernatural habits, there must be recalled to memory the things which we said in Theologia Dogmatica, De Deo Creante, n. 144-146, and above n. 85. Supernatural virtues are infused by God, - tend toward a supernatural end, - are exercised under the influence of actual grace, - and do not of themselves give facility, but only the power for acting supernaturally.

571. 2. The subject of habit. (a) Habits properly so called do not exist in subjects determined to only one thing in operating, or to acting always in one and the same mode: for then it can scarcely be conceived what habit adds to a potency which always does the same thing and acts in the same mode. But it can exist in all subjects which are not determined to one thing, but can operate in diverse ways, and exercise their operations more or less promptly and perfectly: for then it can incline and dispose the faculties toward one or another genus of actions, and toward eliciting those actions more or less promptly and perfectly.

(b) Hence habits can be in the human body, because, insofar as it is substantially united to a spiritual soul, it can be disposed and habituated to serve promptly the operations of the soul.¹ Thus by the assiduous practice of temperance, chastity, and mortification, the body becomes accustomed to obey the command of the will more promptly and more easily; wherefore it is of the greatest moment to subdue the body by good habits, that it may be made a docile instrument of the soul.

¹ Nevertheless St. Thomas holds that habits of this kind are principally in the soul, and secondarily in the body, because the body receives its movement from the soul.

572. (c) The intellectual faculties of the soul are properly the subject of habits, because they are not determined to operating in one way; but the will is the principal subject in which they are rooted, because it, as endowed with free choice, most greatly possesses the power of choosing. Nevertheless also the sensitive powers are the subject of habits, although less principally, insofar as they are subject to the command of the will (above, n. 73-75). This indeed is established by experience; through custom, the imagination is more or less subdued, or on the contrary is accustomed to wander; - through custom, passions are restrained or on the contrary are more easily borne toward illicit things. Indeed, with experience as witness, custom is conquered by custom: thus those prone to anger, by repeated efforts, become meek, the proud learn to cultivate humility, the ambitious turn themselves toward divine things, etc. (above, n. 107). Therefore it matters greatly to acquire good habits already from childhood, but utterly to eradicate evil ones.

573. 3. Concerning the origin and increase of habits. Some are supernaturally infused by God: concerning these below. Others are naturally acquired: and concerning these we must now treat.

(a) That natural propensions transmitted by heredity are given we already noted above, n. 116-117; inclinations of this kind can be called latent habits, insofar as they remain sleeping until, by an external occasion, they are aroused as though from sleep; thus sons born from drunken parents not rarely have contracted an inclination toward alcoholic drinks, which as soon as it is excited by libations passes into habit.

(b) According to St. Thomas,² certain habits are implanted by nature itself, at least inchoatively. Thus, with regard to first principles (for example, the whole is greater than its part, good is to be loved), we are so inclined to knowing them that the habit of these principles can be called naturally implanted. Likewise in certain individuals are found certain natural propensions which are, as it were, inchoate habits: for there are some disposed, from the proper complexion of the body, toward chastity, others toward gentleness, others toward fortitude, as was said above, where temperament and character were treated, n. 120-121.

² St. Thomas, I-II, q. 51, a. 1. - Others indeed, with Suarez (Disput. metaph., disp. 44, sect. 13, n. 7), do not wish these propensions to be called habits; but the question is more about the name than about the thing.

574. (c) But especially from multiplied acts habits are generated and increased, as experience establishes: namely, the more frequently, longer, and more intensely acts are repeated, provided nevertheless that the powers are not exhausted, the greater facility and promptitude are obtained for doing the same acts. The first act already produces some disposition, which the second increases; other acts will complete the generation of the habit. The reason for this is that any faculty is at the same time active and passive; insofar as it is active, it impresses a certain movement, and insofar as it is passive, it receives and retains an impression, by force of which subsequent acts become easier.

Nevertheless, according to St. Thomas,¹ an act does not increase a habit unless it is at least equally intense as the habit itself; for if it is more remiss, it does not dispose toward its increase, but rather toward its diminution; thus he who has already acquired the habit of fervor does not increase it, but rather diminishes it, when he prays remissly and tepidly.

¹ St. Thomas, I-II, q. 52, a. 3. - Yet some on the contrary hold with T. Raynaud, De Virtutibus, l. I, c. 2, that even remiss acts increase with some proportion the force of the habit.

575. (d) Habits can grow in two ways, extensively and intensively: extensively, when the object with which they are concerned is multiple and is successively amplified; thus the habit of knowledge grows when it extends itself to more things, and humility is increased when the various degrees of this virtue are reached; intensively, when they are rooted more deeply in the soul, so that actions are elicited more easily and more delectably. This indeed can be explained thus: through the repetition of acts, difficulty in acting is diminished, and therefore with the same effort subsequent acts are performed more easily, and consequently more delectably.² But how habits influence liberty we explained at n. 109-110.

² "In proportion as the act no longer requires for being repeated except a lesser effort, the excess of power, which the cause does not expend in reproducing it, becomes in some way available for new and superior efforts." (Lemoine, apud Rabier, Psychol., p. 587.)

576. 4. Concerning the loss of habits. That acquired habits are diminished or sometimes utterly perish is established by experience. (a) First, according to all, they decrease or perish through contrary acts, especially intense and long-lasting ones; thus the habit of temperance is gradually diminished and finally utterly taken away through often repeated acts of drunkenness. For contraries are destroyed by contraries, and custom is conquered by custom; thus facility of using food and drink moderately soon decreases when someone begins to indulge gluttony and drunkenness: for, just as by repeated acts of temperance a good habit had been acquired, so by frequent contrary acts an evil habit is contracted; now, when contrary habits are present, the stronger destroys the weaker.

577. (b) Moreover they are diminished and sometimes perish through long cessation from exercise, not indeed directly, as the more probable opinion holds, but indirectly, insofar as, exercise ceasing, impediments are multiplied, and little by little contrary habits are introduced which overwhelm the former ones. Thus memory is diminished unless you exercise it. The same must be said of moral habits: for when someone, for a long time, does not use the habit of virtue for moderating passions, these are accustomed to rise up against reason, and to transgress just limits; thus the inclination to good is gradually diminished, and depraved habits are born which can overturn good ones.¹ Nevertheless, if after some time new efforts are made before the habit is utterly extinguished, it revives more easily.

¹ St. Thomas, I-II, q. 53, a. 3.

But by accident habits impressed upon organic powers can be altered by an alteration of the organ itself; thus sometimes memory is diminished or perishes.

578. 5. Concerning the division of habits. (a) By reason of the object with which they are concerned, habits are good or vicious, according as their object is good or evil. Good habits are called virtues, but evil ones vices; here we treat only of the former, since we have already spoken of the latter, where sins were treated. (b) By reason of origin and nature, virtues are acquired or infused: concerning these we must treat separately.

438. Notion. Habit (ἕξις)² in a general sense signifies a mode of being disposed; but in a more particular sense habit is called a quality according to which some thing is well or badly disposed either according to itself or toward another; or, more briefly, it is a stable quality by which some being is perfected.³ Qualities of this sort affect either the nature itself with respect to being, or the powers with respect to acting. If they directly affect the nature, they are called entitative habits, for example health of body, sanctifying grace; but if they are directly subjected in some power, they are named operative habits, for example science, moral virtue. Habit, insofar as it includes both entitative and operative habits, is defined by Aristotle⁴ as "a disposition according to which what is disposed is well or badly disposed, either according to itself or toward another." Or more briefly, as has already been said: Habit is a quality by which a subject is well or badly disposed toward itself or toward another. But an operative habit⁵ can be defined: A quality difficult to move, by which man is disposed to acting easily, promptly, and with delight; or according to St. Thomas:⁶ "Habits are certain qualities or forms inhering in a power, by which the power is inclined to determinate acts according to species." Therefore habit is a certain accident, namely a quality, and according to St. Thomas it differs from a simple disposition in this, that the latter is something imperfect, begun, and not yet stable, while on the contrary habit is a perfect and stable quality.⁷ Thus, for example, a young artisan who has been formed imperfectly has the disposition of art; but an artisan furnished with long experience and complete formation possesses the habit of art.

The definition given holds for natural habits, which cause an expeditious facility of acting. But supernatural habits, such as the infused virtues of faith, etc., do not give such facility and promptitude of eliciting supernatural acts, but rather power and a certain inclination. Hence a man existing in the state of sanctifying grace indeed has the infused supernatural habit of all the virtues, but in the exercise of such virtues he can feel many difficulties. But facility in exercising the supernatural virtues is acquired through strenuous and repeated acts, insofar as obstacles are thereby removed and the powers are rendered more prompt for performing those acts.

² Philosophers take habit either a) as the last predicament, or b) as a postpredicament, or c) as a species of quality. We speak of habit only in this last sense.

³ Cf. S. theol. 1, 2, q. 49, a. 1.

⁴ L. 4: Metaphys. c. 20 (ed. Didot 2, 520). In German: predisposition.

⁵ Skills, aptitudes.

⁶ S. theol. 1, 2, q. 54, a. 1.

⁷ Cf. S. theol. q. 49, a. 2 ad 3.

439. Distinctions of habit are numerous.⁸ Let these be noted briefly:

1. By reason of the subject, habits are distinguished into entitative and operative habits.⁹ The former immediately perfect the nature with respect to accidental being, and only mediately perfect the powers, for example beauty of body, sanctifying grace, etc. But operative habits immediately perfect the powers for acting promptly, easily, and with delight, for example musical art, moral virtues, etc. Among entitative habits sanctifying grace holds the first place; it is received in the essence of our soul,¹⁰ which it renders a sharer of the divine nature.¹¹ Of itself and immediately sanctifying grace does not dispose one to acting, since it is an entitative habit, but it does so by means of the virtues which are infused together with it. The Angelic Doctor aptly notes:¹² "According to the account of habit, it belongs to every habit in some way to have an order to act." The reason is that every habit has an order to the nature of the thing. But every nature of a thing is ordered in some way to operation.

2. By reason of morality, habits are distinguished into good and evil habits, according as they are stable dispositions either toward good or toward evil. In the moral order good habits are virtues; but evil habits are vices.

3. By reason of origin, habits are distinguished into natural, acquired, and infused habits, according as they are caused either from human nature itself, as it were, or by repeated exercise, or by supernatural divine infusion. Sometimes, however, natural habits are taken in another sense, namely insofar as they are divided against supernatural or infused habits and insofar as they include habits arising both from nature and from exercise. Natural habits taken in the first sense are certain natural propensities either implanted in all men having the use of reason or specially granted to some particular man. Thus all men have a natural habit of first speculative and practical principles, namely they immediately understand general principles, for example that the whole is greater than its part; that good is to be done and evil is to be omitted.¹³ The former is called by the Scholastics the understanding of first principles, namely speculative principles; the latter is called synteresis. Likewise in certain men there are found certain natural propensities which are deservedly called inchoate habits, for example toward anger, toward alcoholism, toward patience, toward chastity, etc.¹⁴ For the most part such particular inchoate habits arise from bodily temperament or from the heredity of parents.

Acquired habits are caused by multiplied acts elicited by some power of man. Thus, for example, the habit of science is caused in the power of the intellect from multiplied acts of study; the habit of the virtue of temperance is produced from acts of fasting; the habit of drunkenness creeps in from much drinking of wine, etc.

Infused or supernatural habits are liberally granted by God to man, although human nature has no strict right to them. These infused habits are supernatural either a) as to substance or b) as to the mode alone. A habit is supernatural as to substance if proper human powers are in no way able to elicit the acts corresponding to such habits, for example acts of faith and contrition. But supernatural as to mode is an infused habit which could also be acquired by natural virtue, but is now granted miraculously. Thus knowledge of the Scriptures and of languages was miraculously granted to the apostles, though it could also have been acquired by natural study.¹⁵

⁸ See L. Schutz, Thomas-Lexicon, s. v. habitus.

⁹ In German: dispositions of being and of activity.

¹⁰ S. theol. 1, 2, q. 110, a. 2.

¹¹ Cf. 2 Pet. 1, 4.

¹² S. theol. 1, 2, q. 49, a. 3.

¹³ Cf. ib. 1, q. 79, a. 12; 1, 2, q. 51, a. 1.

¹⁴ Cf. ib. 1, 2, q. 63, a. 1.

¹⁵ Cf. S. theol. 1, 2, q. 51, a. 4.

440. The subject of operative habit is all those human powers which are not determined to one thing, but are able to operate in diverse ways and exercise their operations more or less perfectly and promptly. But those powers which act necessarily, and always in the same way, cannot receive habits properly so called. The reason is that habit is superfluous if a power is wholly determined to one thing and of itself is sufficiently furnished for operating. Hence operative habits are in the intellect, for example science; in the will, for example the virtue of justice; and in the sensitive appetite, for example the virtue of temperance and the vice of intemperance.¹⁶ On the contrary, operative habits do not exist in the vegetative power, nor in the external senses,¹⁷ nor even, of themselves, are operative habits found in brute animals, but only insofar as they are directed by man. For brute animals always follow the instinct of their nature, unless they have been directed by man or previously instructed.¹⁸

But entitative habits can be in the body, as for example health, beauty, etc.,¹⁹ and in the soul insofar as it is furnished with the supernatural habit of sanctifying grace. But because the essence of the soul is a complete nature and cannot receive any new accidents, it therefore cannot be the subject of natural entitative habits.²⁰

¹⁶ Cf. ib. q. 50, a. 3, 4, and 5. For the sake of brevity we omit the controversy discussed among theologians, namely in what precise way habits and virtues are found in the sensitive appetite. See John of St. Thomas, Curs. theol. in 1, 2, disp. 18, a. 2.

¹⁷ Cf. S. theol. 1, 2, q. 50, a. 3.

¹⁸ Ib. ad 2.

¹⁹ Cf. ib. a. 1.

²⁰ Ib.

441. Origin and increase of habits. By the origin of habits is understood their efficient cause, which is threefold, as has already been said: 1. God, who causes supernatural habits by infusing sanctifying grace.²¹ 2. Nature itself, which causes both a) certain dispositions or entitative habits, such as beauty and health, and b) certain propensities in the faculties of the soul. Indeed, those natural propensities transmitted by heredity are not perfect habits, but are, as it were, latent and inchoate.²² The pedagogical art must pay the greatest attention to watching over those natural propensities proper to each man, namely by fostering or repressing them. Good natural propensities are to be fostered; but evil ones are to be vigorously and at the same time continually uprooted. We have already said above, n. 439, that propensities of this sort either are common to all men, namely the habit of first speculative and practical principles, or are particular to certain men, for example a propensity toward anger. 3. Exercise. It is clear from daily experience that habits are generated and also increased by multiplied acts. The more intensely, longer, and more frequently acts are repeated, the greater the habit, that is, the greater the promptitude of performing such acts, is wont to arise, unless, however, man's powers are exhausted from acts repeated too much. Thus, for example, from intense study of letters the habit of science is acquired, unless such study is so exaggerated that the powers of the brain are weakened.

The increase of habits is twofold: one extensive, the other intensive. The first is had when a habit extends itself to greater or more numerous objects. In this way only intellectual habits can be increased;²³ thus, for example, the habit of science grows when the number of objects of science is increased. The other increase, namely intensive, is present when a habit is more deeply rooted in its subject, so that the subject more easily and promptly elicits acts. In such a way both intellectual and moral habits can be increased. Thus, for example, the habit of the acquired virtue of temperance is increased when a man is more easily and promptly and perseveringly able to elicit acts of temperance. A habit can become as it were a second nature, and the more it approaches this naturalness, the more easily and delightfully it operates. For things which are done naturally are done easily and delightfully. Thus also depraved habits, namely vices, can become as it were a second nature inducing man to acting almost with a certain natural necessity. Examples are the vices of drunkenness, lust, anger, etc. On the increase of infused habits, namely of supernatural virtues, there will be a return below at n. 475. - The Angelic Doctor notes²⁴ that acquired habits are not increased by any exercise of acts whatsoever, but only by intense exercise. For if the exercised act, although often repeated, is remiss and more imperfect than the act which could be produced by the habit possessed, the habit is not increased, but rather diminished. Hence experience establishes, for example, that a musician who plays often but not very artistically not only does not grow in musical art, but gradually loses it.

²¹ Cf. below on infused virtues, n. 468.

²² Cf. S. theol. 1, 2, q. 51, a. 1.

²³ A moral habit or virtue cannot be increased extensively, that is, insofar as it extends itself to more objects, for virtue is not true virtue unless it extends itself to its whole object. Wherefore St. Thomas says: "It belongs to the account of virtue that in all things one should act virtuously; hence science can be increased either according to the number of objects, or according to its intensity in the subject; but virtue in one way only" (Quaest. disp. de virtut. a. 11, ad 10).

²⁴ S. theol. 1, 2, q. 52, a. 3.

442. Corruption and diminution of habits. 1. The habits of first principles, both speculative and practical, cannot be corrupted by any forgetfulness or deception. The reason is that such habits are as it were begotten from human nature, and therefore last as long as the nature of man exists. This is also established by experience; for there is no one so vicious that he does not know that good is to be done and evil omitted; no one of sound mind is so stupid that he does not understand that the whole is greater than its part, the principle of contradiction, etc.

2. Supernatural or infused habits can indeed be corrupted, but not diminished, as will be explained below, n. 476 sq., concerning infused virtues.

3. Natural acquired habits can both be corrupted and diminished. First of all, such habits are diminished and corrupted:

a) Through contrary acts, especially intense and often repeated acts. For contraries are destroyed by contraries, and custom is overcome by contrary custom. Hence, for example, the acquired habit of temperance gradually decreases and at last is corrupted by repeated acts of drunkenness.²⁵

b) Through long cessation from the exercise of acts. Thus experience makes clear in both intellectual and moral habits. "When someone does not use the habit of virtue for moderating the passions and proper operations, it is necessary that many passions and operations arise beyond the mode of virtue, from the inclination of the sensitive appetite and of other things which move externally. Hence virtue is corrupted or diminished through cessation from act. Similarly also it is on the part of intellectual habits, according to which a man is prompt to judge rightly about things imagined. Therefore, when a man ceases from the use of an intellectual habit, extraneous imaginations arise and sometimes lead to the contrary; so that ... a man is rendered less apt for judging rightly and sometimes is totally disposed to the contrary."²⁶ Thus, for example, the habit of speaking some language is gradually diminished and at last ceases through long non-use.

4. Per accidens, operative habits, even spiritual ones, are corrupted through corruption of the bodily organ which is necessary for the exercise of the act. Thus those who labor under certain diseases of the brain no longer have right judgment concerning the morality of acts.

²⁵ S. theol. 1, 2, q. 53, a. 1-2.

²⁶ Ib. a. 3.

St. Thomas, I, q. 83, a. 1, ad 5; I-II, q. 78, a. 2 and 4.

95. A habit is a firm and permanent disposition acquired from the repeated performance of acts, by which someone easily and promptly breaks forth into similar acts, and it can be defined: a facility and promptness, acquired by repeated acts, for placing similar acts. Custom is the very repetition of acts or the accustomed mode of acting; hence it is properly distinguished from an acquired habit and stands to it as cause to effect, indeed also as effect to cause: for custom is the cause of acquiring and strengthening a habit; but once the habit has already been acquired, it is itself the cause why the custom is continued. In the present question, however, moralists rather often use one for the other indiscriminately.

Custom can be contracted inadvertently and therefore without deliberation and involuntarily; or knowingly and freely contracted, and therefore voluntarily and deliberately. Moreover, once the habit has already been contracted, after its subject becomes conscious of it, either he retracts it efficaciously, that is, with a firm purpose of applying remedies suitable for uprooting it, in which case the habit is actually involuntary, although perhaps antecedently acquired voluntarily and freely; or he freely accepts and conserves it, or does not retract it but neglects to uproot it, in which case it is actually voluntary and free, although perhaps antecedently involuntary or not deliberate.

96. Principles. I. A custom that is not deliberate and is involuntary influences in the same way as antecedent concupiscence; hence it increases the voluntary as to propensity, but diminishes it as to freedom.

It should be noted: 1) if someone places an act solely from such custom and therefore altogether inadvertently, this will be non-voluntary and in no way deliberate, and consequently neither good nor evil; 2) deliberate custom, or custom freely admitted, if it is efficaciously retracted, that is, not by displeasure alone but by a firm purpose of acting to extirpate it, becomes actually involuntary; whence acts following from it alone are involuntary and not imputable, just as the cause itself or custom is; 3) if the habitual person afterward neglects in due time to employ efficacious remedies, the custom (from that negligence) again becomes indirectly voluntary and free, and consequently the acts following from it will be voluntary and free and imputable.

II. Deliberate and voluntary custom 1) always increases the voluntary as to propensity; 2) if, which is rarer, it removes all actual advertence and deliberation in the following acts, it diminishes freedom and consequently goodness or sin, because it removes the voluntary and free in itself and leaves only the voluntary and free in the cause, if the custom was deliberately acquired, or the indirect voluntary and free, if it was acquired without deliberation but is freely neglected so that it is not removed; 3) if, however, which is more frequent, it leaves sufficient advertence here and now, it does not remove freedom in itself but diminishes it somewhat, because ordinarily it clouds the intellect and its actual deliberation, and diminishes indifference; yet this diminution of liberty is perfectly compensated in the cause, because man freely contracted the habit and conserves it, and thus freely wills the very diminution of deliberation and liberty, which shows a choosing will intense and confirmed in good or in evil. Hence simply the voluntary and goodness or sin are increased. Hence St. Thomas says that one who sins from habit, that is, not from inadvertence or passion, but uses his habit by his free will alone, sins from mere malice. Hence two principles:

1. What is done advertently from an involuntary custom, or inadvertently from a voluntary custom, is under some respect more voluntary, but less free.

2. What is done advertently from a voluntary custom is not less free, but simply more voluntary.

97. Observation.

Good custom diminishes freedom toward evil; this, however, is an imperfection of the will; whence good custom perfects the will more.

1. A habit is a quality difficult to change, whereby an agent whose nature it was to work one way or another indeterminately, is disposed easily and readily at will to follow this or that particular line of action. Habit differs from disposition, as disposition is a quality easily changed. Thus one in a good humour is in a disposition to be kind. Habit is a part of character: disposition is a passing fit. Again, habit differs from faculty, or power: as power enables one to act; but habit, presupposing power, renders action easy and expeditious, and reliable to come at call. We have a power to move our limbs, but a habit to walk or ride or swim. Habit then is the determinant of power. One and the same power works well or ill, but not one and the same habit.

2. A power that has only one way of working, set and fixed, is not susceptible of habit. Such powers are the forces of inanimate nature, as gravitation and electricity. A thing does not gravitate better for gravitating often. The moon does not obey the earth more readily to-day than she did in the days of Ptolemy, or of the Chaldean sages. Some specious claim to habit might be set up on behalf of electricity and magnetism. A glass rod rubbed at frequent intervals for six months, is a different instrument from what it would have been, if left all that time idle in a drawer. Then there are such cases as the gradual magnetising of an iron bar. Still we cannot speak of electrical habits, or magnetic habits, not at least in things without life, because there is no will there to control the exercise of the quality. As well might we speak of a "tumbledown" habit in a row of houses, brought on by locomotives running underneath their foundations. It is but a case of an accumulation of small effects, inducing gradually a new molecular arrangement, so that the old powers act under new material conditions. But habit is a thing of life, an appurtenance of will, not of course independent of material conditions and structural alterations, in so far forth as a living and volitional is also a material agent, but essentially usable at will, and brought into play and controlled in its operation by free choice. Therefore a habit that works almost automatically has less of the character of a true habit, and passes rather out of morality into the region of physics. Again, bad habits, vices to which a man is become a slave against his better judgment, are less properly called habits than virtues are; for such evil habits do not so much attend on volition (albeit volition has created them) as drag the will in their wake. For the like reason, habit is less properly predicable of brute animals than of men: for brutes have no intelligent will to govern their habits. The highest brutes are most susceptible of habit. They are most like men in being most educable. And, of human progeny, some take up habits, in the best and completest sense of the term, more readily than others. They are better subjects for education: education being nothing else than the formation of habits.

3. Knowledge consists of intellectual habits. But the habits of most consequence to the moralist lie in the will, and in the sensitive appetite as amenable to the control of the will. In this category come the virtues, in the ordinary sense of that name, and secondarily the vices.

4. A habit is acquired by acts. Whereupon this difficulty has been started:—If the habit, say of mental application, comes from acts of study, and again the acts from the habit, how ever is the habit originally acquired? We answer that there are two ways in which one thing may come from another. It may come in point of its very existence, as child from parent; or in point of some mode of existence, as scholar from master. A habit has its very existence from acts preceding: but those acts have their existence independent of the habit. The acts which are elicited after the habit is formed, owe to the habit, not their existence, but the mode of their existence: that is to say, because of the habit the acts are now formed readily, reliably, and artistically, or virtuously. The primitive acts which gradually engendered the habit, were done with difficulty, fitfully, and with many failures,—more by good luck than good management, if it was a matter of skill, and by a special effort rather than as a thing of course, where it was question of moral well-doing. (See c.ii., s.ii., n.9, p. 10.)

5. A habit is a living thing: it grows and must be fed. It grows on acts, and acts are the food that sustain it. Unexercised, a habit pines away: corruption sets in and disintegration. A man, we will say, has a habit of thinking of God during his work. He gives over doing so. That means that he either takes to thinking of everything and nothing, or he takes up some definite line of thought to the exclusion of God. Either way there is a new formation to the gradual ruin of the old habit.

6. Habit and custom may be distinguished in philosophical language. We may say that custom makes the habit. Custom does not imply any skill or special facility. A habit is a channel whereby the energies flow, as otherwise they would not have flowed, freely and readily in some particular direction. A habit, then, is a determination of a faculty for good or for evil. It is something intrinsic in a man, a real modification of his being, abiding in him in the intervals between one occasion for its exercise and another: whereas custom is a mere denomination, expressive of frequent action and no more. Thus it would be more philosophical to speak of a custom of early rising, and of a custom of smoking, rather than of a habit of smoking, except so far as, by the use of the word habit, you may wish to point to a certain acquired skill of the respiratory and facial muscles, and a certain acquired temper of the stomach, enabling one to inhale tobacco fumes with impunity.

7. Habits are acquired, but it is obvious that the rate of acquisition varies in different persons. This comes from one person being more predisposed by nature than another to the acquiring of this or that habit. By nature, that is by the native temper and conformation of his body wherewith he was born, this child is more prone to literary learning, that to mechanics, this one to obstinacy and contentiousness, that to sensuality, and so of the rest. For though it is by the soul that a man learns, and by the act of his will and spiritual powers he becomes a glutton or a zealot, nevertheless the bodily organs concur and act jointly towards these ends. The native dispositions of the child's body for the acquisition of habits depend to an unascertained extent upon the habits of his ancestors. This is the fact of heredity.

8. Man is said to be "a creature of habits." The formation of habits in the will saves the necessity of continually making up the mind anew. A man will act as he has become habituated, except under some special motive from without, or some special effort from within. In the case of evil habits, that effort is attended with immense difficulty. The habit is indeed the man's own creation, the outcome of his free acts. But he is become the bondslave of his creature, so much so that when the occasion arrives, three-fourths of the act is already done, by the force of the habit alone, before his will is awakened, or drowsily moves in its sleep. The only way for the will to free itself here is not to wait for the occasion to come, but be astir betimes, keep the occasion at arm's length, and register many a determination and firm protest and fervent prayer against the habit. He who neglects to do this in the interval has himself to blame for being overcome every time that he falls upon the occasion which brings into play the evil habit.

Readings.—St. Thos., 1a 2æ, q. 49, art. 4, ad 1, 2; ib., q. 50, art. 3, in corp., ad. 1, 2; ib., q. 51, art. 1, in corp.; ib., q. 53, art. 3, in corp.; Ar., Eth., II., i.; ib., III., v., 10-14; ib., II., iv., 1, 2, 4.