entities or qualities,--a circumstance which would be inexplicable if it
were true, what Cardinal Gotti asserts,(73) that the term "grace" applies
primarily and in the strict sense to these qualities, while the vital acts
are merely effects. Whenever Sacred Scripture, the Fathers, and the Church
speak literally, without the use of metaphors, they invariably apply the
term "grace" to these vital acts themselves and ascribe their supernatural
character to an immediate act of God.(74) In perfect conformity with this
teaching St. Augustine explains such metaphorical terms as _vocare_ and
_tangere_ in the sense of _credere_ and _fides_.(75) God employs no
"fluent qualities" or "non-vital entities" in the dispensation of His
grace, but effects the supernatural elevation of the soul immediately and
by Himself.(76)

{~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}) The theory under consideration is inadmissible also from the
philosophical point of view. A quality does not "flow" or tend to revert
to nothingness. On the contrary, its very nature demands that it remain
constant until destroyed by its opposite or by some positive cause. It is
impossible to conceive a quality that would of itself revert to
nothingness without the intervention of a destructive cause. Billuart
merely beats the air when he says: "_Potest dici qualitas incompleta
habens se per modum passionis transeuntis._"(77) What would Aristotle have
said if he had been told of a thing that was half {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} and half {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~},
and consequently neither the one nor the other? Actual grace is
transitory; it passes away with the act which it inspires, and
consequently may be said to "flow." But this very fact proves that it is
not a dead quality, but a _modus vitalis supernaturalis_. In the
dispensation of His grace, God employs no fluent qualities or non-vital
entities, but He Himself is the immediate cause of the supernatural
elevation of the human soul and its faculties. St. Thomas is perfectly
consistent, therefore, when he defines actual grace as a vital act of the
soul.(78)

5. PREVENIENT AND COOePERATING GRACE.--The vital acts of the soul are either
spontaneous