it is to be inferred that he regarded the subject of Ethics as not on
the same level with other departments of philosophy. Moreover, even
when he is not appealing to Scripture, he is seen to display what is
for him a most unusual tendency to desert Aristotle, at the really
critical moments, for Plato or Plotinus, or any other authority of a
more theological cast.

In the (unfinished) _Summa Theologiae_, the Ethical views and cognate
questions occupy the two sections of the second part--the so-called
_prima_ and _secunda secundae_. He begins, in the Aristotelian fashion,
by seeking an ultimate end of human action, and finds it in the
attainment of the highest good or happiness. But as no created thing
can answer to the idea of the highest good, it must be placed in God.
God, however, as the highest good, can only be the object, in the
search after human happiness, for happiness in itself is a state of the
mind or act of the soul. The question then arises, "what sort of act?"
Does it fall under the Will or under the Intelligence? The answer is,
Not under the will, because happiness is neither desire nor pleasure,
but _consecutio_, that is, a possessing. Desire precedes _consecutio_,
and pleasure follows upon it; but the act of getting possession, in
which lies happiness, is distinct from both. This is illustrated by the
case of the miser having his happiness in the mere possession of money;
and the position is essentially the same as Butler's, in regard to our
appetites and desires, that they blindly seek their objects with no
regard to pleasure. Thomas concludes that the _consecutio_, or
happiness, is an act of the intelligence; what pleasure there is being
a mere accidental accompaniment.

Distinguishing between two phases of the intellect--the theoretic and
the practical--in the one of which it is an end to itself, but in the
other subordinated to an external aim, he places true happiness in acts
of the self-sufficing theoretic intelligence. In this life, however,
such a constant exercise of the intellect is not possible, and
accordingly what happiness there is, must be found, in great measure,
in the exercise of the practical intellect, directing and governing the
lower desires and passions. This twofold conception of happiness is
Aristotelian, even as expressed by Thomas under the distinction of
perfect and imperfect happiness; but when he goes on to associate
perfect happiness with the future life only, to found an