sin. Therefore sloth is not rightly
accounted a capital sin.

Obj. 3: Further, Isidore distinguishes the vice of sloth from the
vice of sorrow, saying (De Summo Bono ii, 37) that in so far as a man
shirks his duty because it is distasteful and burdensome, it is
sorrow, and in so far as he is inclined to undue repose, it is sloth:
and of sorrow he says that it gives rise to "spite,
faint-heartedness, bitterness, despair," whereas he states that from
sloth seven things arise, viz. "idleness, drowsiness, uneasiness of
the mind, restlessness of the body, instability, loquacity,
curiosity." Therefore it seems that either Gregory or Isidore has
wrongly assigned sloth as a capital sin together with its daughters.

_On the contrary,_ The same Gregory (Moral. xxxi, 45) states that
sloth is a capital sin, and has the daughters aforesaid.

_I answer that,_ As stated above (I-II, Q. 84, AA. 3, 4), a capital
vice is one which easily gives rise to others as being their final
cause. Now just as we do many things on account of pleasure, both in
order to obtain it, and through being moved to do something under the
impulse of pleasure, so again we do many things on account of sorrow,
either that we may avoid it, or through being exasperated into doing
something under pressure thereof. Wherefore, since sloth is a kind of
sorrow, as stated above (A. 2; I-II, Q. 85, A. 8), it is fittingly
reckoned a capital sin.

Reply Obj. 1: Sloth by weighing on the mind, hinders us from doing
things that cause sorrow: nevertheless it induces the mind to do
certain things, either because they are in harmony with sorrow, such
as weeping, or because they are a means of avoiding sorrow.

Reply Obj. 2: Gregory fittingly assigns the daughters of sloth. For
since, according to the Philosopher (Ethic. viii, 5, 6) "no man can
be a long time in company with what is painful and unpleasant," it
follows that something arises from sorrow in two ways: first, that
man shuns whatever causes sorrow; secondly, that he passes to other
things that give him pleasure: thus those who find no joy in
spiritual pleasures, have recourse to pleasures of the body,
according to the Philosopher (Ethic. x, 6). Now in the avoidance of
sorrow the order observed is that man at first flies from unpleasant
objects, and secondly he even struggles against such things as cause
sorrow. Now spiritual goods which are the object of the sorrow of
sloth, are both end and means. Avoidance of th