is not the terminal boundary of a
power, but the disposition of a power to an act as to its ultimate
term. Consequently one same power cannot have several acts at the same
time, except in so far as perchance one act is comprised in another;
just as neither can a body have several shapes, save in so far as one
shape enters into another, as a three-sided in a four-sided figure.
For the intellect cannot understand several things at the same time
_actually;_ and yet it can know several things at the same time
_habitually._
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SECOND ARTICLE [I-II, Q. 54, Art. 2]

Whether Habits Are Distinguished by Their Objects?

Objection 1: It would seem that habits are not distinguished by their
objects. For contraries differ in species. Now the same habit of
science regards contraries: thus medicine regards the healthy and the
unhealthy. Therefore habits are not distinguished by objects
specifically distinct.

Obj. 2: Further, different sciences are different habits. But the
same scientific truth belongs to different sciences: thus both the
physicist and the astronomer prove the earth to be round, as stated
in _Phys._ ii, text. 17. Therefore habits are not distinguished by
their objects.

Obj. 3: Further, wherever the act is the same, the object is the
same. But the same act can belong to different habits of virtue, if
it be directed to different ends; thus to give money to anyone, if it
be done for God's sake, is an act of charity; while, if it be done in
order to pay a debt, it is an act of justice. Therefore the same
object can also belong to different habits. Therefore diversity of
habits does not follow diversity of objects.

_On the contrary,_ Acts differ in species according to the diversity
of their objects, as stated above (Q. 18, A. 5). But habits are
dispositions to acts. Therefore habits also are distinguished
according to the diversity of objects.

_I answer that,_ A habit is both a form and a habit. Hence the
specific distinction of habits may be taken in the ordinary way in
which forms differ specifically; or according to that mode of
distinction which is proper to habits. Accordingly forms are
distinguished from one another in reference to the diversity of their
active principles, since every agent produces its like in species.
Habits, however, imply order to something: and all things that imply
order to something, are distinguished according to the distinction of
the things to which th