prompt,
they held that virtuous persons should employ both anger and the
other passions of the soul, modified according to the dictate of
reason. On the other hand, the Stoics gave the name of passions to
certain immoderate emotions of the sensitive appetite, wherefore they
called them sicknesses or diseases, and for this reason severed them
altogether from virtue.

Accordingly the brave man employs moderate anger for his action, but
not immoderate anger.

Reply Obj. 1: Anger that is moderated in accordance with reason is
subject to the command of reason: so that man uses it at his will,
which would not be the case were it immoderate.

Reply Obj. 2: Reason employs anger for its action, not as seeking its
assistance, but because it uses the sensitive appetite as an
instrument, just as it uses the members of the body. Nor is it
unbecoming for the instrument to be more imperfect than the principal
agent, even as the hammer is more imperfect than the smith. Moreover,
Seneca was a follower of the Stoics, and the above words were aimed
by him directly at Aristotle.

Reply Obj. 3: Whereas fortitude, as stated above (A. 6), has two
acts, namely endurance and aggression, it employs anger, not for the
act of endurance, because the reason by itself performs this act, but
for the act of aggression, for which it employs anger rather than the
other passions, since it belongs to anger to strike at the cause of
sorrow, so that it directly cooperates with fortitude in attacking.
On the other hand, sorrow by its very nature gives way to the thing
that hurts; though accidentally it helps in aggression, either as
being the cause of anger, as stated above (I-II, Q. 47, A. 3), or as
making a person expose himself to danger in order to escape from
sorrow. In like manner desire, by its very nature, tends to a
pleasurable good, to which it is directly contrary to withstand
danger: yet accidentally sometimes it helps one to attack, in so far
as one prefers to risk dangers rather than lack pleasure. Hence the
Philosopher says (Ethic. iii, 5): "Of all the cases in which
fortitude arises from a passion, the most natural is when a man is
brave through anger, making his choice and acting for a purpose,"
i.e. for a due end; "this is true fortitude."
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ELEVENTH ARTICLE [II-II, Q. 123, Art. 11]

Whether Fortitude Is a Cardinal Virtue?

Objection 1: It seems that fortitude is not a cardinal virtue. For,
as stated above