ne another.

Reply Obj. 1: Some moral virtues perfect man as regards his general
state, in other words, with regard to those things which have to be
done in every kind of human life. Hence man needs to exercise himself
at the same time in the matters of all moral virtues. And if he
exercise himself, by good deeds, in all such matters, he will acquire
the habits of all the moral virtues. But if he exercise himself by
good deeds in regard to one matter, but not in regard to another, for
instance, by behaving well in matters of anger, but not in matters of
concupiscence; he will indeed acquire a certain habit of restraining
his anger; but this habit will lack the nature of virtue, through the
absence of prudence, which is wanting in matters of concupiscence. In
the same way, natural inclinations fail to have the complete
character of virtue, if prudence be lacking.

But there are some moral virtues which perfect man with regard to
some eminent state, such as magnificence and magnanimity; and since
it does not happen to all in common to be exercised in the matter of
such virtues, it is possible for a man to have the other moral
virtues, without actually having the habits of these
virtues--provided we speak of acquired virtue. Nevertheless, when
once a man has acquired those other virtues he possesses these in
proximate potentiality. Because when, by practice, a man has acquired
liberality in small gifts and expenditure, if he were to come in for
a large sum of money, he would acquire the habit of magnificence with
but little practice: even as a geometrician, by dint of little study,
acquires scientific knowledge about some conclusion which had never
been presented to his mind before. Now we speak of having a thing
when we are on the point of having it, according to the saying of the
Philosopher (Phys. ii, text. 56): "That which is scarcely lacking is
not lacking at all."

This suffices for the Reply to the Second Objection.

Reply Obj. 3: The intellectual virtues are about divers matters
having no relation to one another, as is clearly the case with the
various sciences and arts. Hence we do not observe in them the
connection that is to be found among the moral virtues, which are
about passions and operations, that are clearly related to one
another. For all the passions have their rise in certain initial
passions, viz. love and hatred, and terminate in certain others, viz.
pleasure and sorrow. In like manner all the o