teness and
health; for everything that we apprehend, is not apprehended with the
notion of white and healthy. We must, however, observe that, as
accidents and non-subsistent forms are called beings, not as if they
themselves had being, but because things are by them; so also are
they called good or one, not by some distinct goodness or oneness,
but because by them something is good or one. So also is virtue
called good, because by it something is good.

Reply Obj. 2: Good, which is put in the definition of virtue, is not
good in general which is convertible with being, and which extends
further than quality, but the good as fixed by reason, with regard to
which Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv) "that the good of the soul is to
be in accord with reason."

Reply Obj. 3: Virtue cannot be in the irrational part of the soul,
except in so far as this participates in the reason (Ethic. i, 13).
And therefore reason, or the mind, is the proper subject of virtue.

Reply Obj. 4: Justice has a righteousness of its own by which it puts
those outward things right which come into human use, and are the
proper matter of justice, as we shall show further on (Q. 60, A. 2;
II-II, Q. 58, A. 8). But the righteousness which denotes order to a
due end and to the Divine law, which is the rule of the human will,
as stated above (Q. 19, A. 4), is common to all virtues.

Reply Obj. 5: One can make bad use of a virtue objectively, for
instance by having evil thoughts about a virtue, e.g. by hating it,
or by being proud of it: but one cannot make bad use of virtue as
principle of action, so that an act of virtue be evil.

Reply Obj. 6: Infused virtue is caused in us by God without any
action on our part, but not without our consent. This is the sense of
the words, "which God works in us without us." As to those things
which are done by us, God causes them in us, yet not without action
on our part, for He works in every will and in every nature.
________________________

QUESTION 56

OF THE SUBJECT OF VIRTUE
(In Six Articles)

We now have to consider the subject of virtue, about which there are
six points of inquiry:

(1) Whether the subject of virtue is a power of the soul?

(2) Whether one virtue can be in several powers?

(3) Whether the intellect can be the subject of virtue?

(4) Whether the irascible and concupiscible faculties can be the
subject of virtue?

(5) Whether the sensitive powers of apprehension can be the subject of