Brief Thomistic Note: Studiousness and Temperance
Introduction
Saint Thomas Aquinas defines temperance as the virtue that “withdraws man from things which seduce the appetite from obeying reason” (STh II-II, q. 141, a. 2). He also explains that “temperance directly moderates the passions of the concupiscible [appetite] which tend towards good” (STh II-II, q. 141, a. 3, ad 1). Temperance moderates and “controls” our natural human desires (STh II-II, q. 141, a. 3, ad 2).
Saint Thomas specifies further that temperance deals particularly with not just any desires, but specifically desires related to touch (STh II-II, q. 141, a. 4). He elucidates this tactile dimension of the virtue by observing, “temperance must needs be about desires for the greatest pleasures.”
The grades of pleasurable intensity found in diverse human acts vary according to their operative proximity to the needs of human nature: “Since pleasure results from a natural operation, it is so much the greater according as it results from a more natural operation.” Unsurprisingly, the three most natural human operations are those operations which preserve the individual and those operations which preserve the species. In other words, “temperance is properly about pleasures of meat and drink and sexual pleasures.” Pleasure of a tactile nature is the common thread uniting each of these (eating, drinking, and coitus), and thus “it follows that temperance is about pleasures of touch” (STh II-II, q. 141, a. 4).
An apparent incongruity arises when one considers this definition of temperance vis-à-vis the virtue of studiousness (and its corresponding vice of curiosity). Saint Thomas is clear: “studiousness is a part of temperance” (STh II-II, q. 161, a. 2). Studiousness, however, is (seemingly) unrelated to the acts of eating, drinking, or coitus. Furthermore, habits of study seemingly imply no tactile components or dimensions. Study, as a fundamentally cognitive act, would seem better categorized as a purely intellectual virtue. How, then, is studiousness properly categorized as a virtue of temperance?
Temperance in General
Upon initial inspection, the first article of the Angelic Doctor’s treatment of studiousness does not overly identify the link between the properly tactile nature of temperance and the virtue of studiousness. Saint Thomas summarizes this latter virtue with characteristic brevity: “Studiousness is properly about knowledge” (STh II-II, q. 166, a. 1). Saint Thomas explains:
Properly speaking, study denotes keen application of the mind to something. Now the mind is not applied to a thing except by knowing that thing. Wherefore the mind’s application to knowledge precedes its application to those things to which man is directed by his knowledge. Hence study regards knowledge in the first place, and as a result it regards any other things the working of which requires to be directed by knowledge. Now the virtues lay claim to that matter about which they are first and foremost; thus fortitude is concerned about dangers of death, and temperance about pleasures of touch. Therefore studiousness is properly ascribed to knowledge. (STh II-II, q. 166, a. 1)
Study is first and foremost about knowledge. Study denotes the “keen application of the mind to something”—and secondarily “it regards any other things the working of which requires to be directed to knowledge.” Far from explaining the unity between studiousness and temperance in this passage, Saint Thomas appears to separate further temperance and studiousness by contrasting the tactile nature of temperance with the cognitive nature of studiousness.
Aquinas proceeds in the next article (STh II-II, 166, a. 2), however, to describe the relation between temperance and studiousness. It belongs to temperance to order the movements of the concupiscible appetite away from excesses in those things “desired naturally” (STh II-II, q. 166, a. 2). This reference to appetitive motion is significant. Appetitive motion is not exclusively applicable to physical objects. Intellectual objects can also elicit an appetitive motion. Here Saint Thomas invokes a distinction of pleasures founded on the hylomorphic nature of the human person: “Now just as in respect of his corporeal nature man naturally desires the pleasures of food and sex, so, in respect of his soul, he naturally desires to know something.” The human desire for knowledge qualifies as a true and human desire. It is a desire grounded in the spiritual nature of the soul, and it is proportioned to natural spiritual goods. Thus, the desire for knowledge also requires regulation. “For on the part of the soul, he [man] is inclined to desire knowledge of things; and so it behooves him to exercise a praiseworthy restraint of this desire, lest he seek knowledge immoderately.”
As with all true desires, the “thirst” or “hunger” for knowledge must be regulated by a virtuous mean established by right reason. Hence, studiousness pertains to the virtue of temperance. Nonetheless, Saint Thomas also recognizes that studiousness is not to be identified with temperance in a univocal sense. Rather there is an analogical aspect to the virtue of studiousness recognizable in its classification as a potential part of temperance. “The moderation of this desire [for knowledge] pertains to the virtue of studiousness; wherefore it follows that studiousness is a potential part of temperance, as a subordinate virtue annexed to a principal virtue.” The desire aspect of the virtue of studiousness is supremely important. Indeed, Saint Thomas explains that “studiousness is directly, not about knowledge itself, but about the desire and study in the pursuit of knowledge” (STh II-II, q. 167, a. 1). It is this concupiscible aspect of knowledge that warrants the categorization of studiousness as a legitimate (potential) part of temperance.
Potential Wholes and Potential Parts
In Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 48 (“On the Parts of Prudence”), Saint Thomas Aquinas explains that “parts are of three kinds”: integral, subjective, and potential. Potential parts (sometimes translated as “power parts”) are distinguished from integral and subjective parts in that potential parts are “as the nutritive and sensitive powers are parts of the soul.” This explanation perhaps raises more questions than it answers. Fortunately, Saint Thomas offers a more extensive outline of the division of wholes and parts in his work, On Spiritual Creatures. His adumbration in this latter work affords the clarity and precision necessary for comprehending potential parts of the virtues:
We must note that there are three kinds of wholes. One is a universal whole, which is present to every part in its whole essence and power; it is properly predicated of its parts, as when one says: Man is an animal. But another whole is an integral whole, which is not present to any part of itself, either in its whole essence or its whole power; and consequently there is no way in which it is predicated of a part. As if one were to say: A wall is a house. The third whole is a potential whole, which is intermediate between these two: for it is present to a part of itself in its whole essence, but not in its whole power. And hence it stands in an intermediate position as a predicate: for it is sometimes predicated of its parts, but not properly, and in this sense it is sometimes said that the soul is its own powers, or vice versa.1
The median (“intermediate”) nature of the potential whole (between universal and integral wholes) merits attention. Potential wholes are analogous to universal wholes insofar as the entire essence (of a potential whole) is present in a potential part. Potential wholes are analogous to integral wholes insofar as the full power (of the potential whole) is not present in a potential part. It is here that the analogical nature of the potential whole is recognized. Francisco Muñiz, O.P., explains that “a potential whole, from the part of essence, bears a strong and necessary similarity to the universal whole, but on the part of power, it approaches the terms of the integral whole.”2 All potential parts share one and the same nature or essence, but they do not share the power to the same degree.
Following Saint Thomas, Muñiz offers the human soul in relation to its vegetative, sensitive, and intellective functions as an example. “It is the same human soul and the whole human soul which vegetates, which senses, and which enjoys intellectual knowledge.” Nevertheless, “its complete power is not active in each function, for in the function of vegetating, the sense and intellective powers play no part; and in the function of sensing the vegetative and intellective powers remain inactive, and so on.” The complete essence of the whole is found “in each and every one of the vital functions taken individually,” but the potential whole’s “full power is not active except when all the functions are taken together.”3
Saint Thomas explains: although temperance may be considered as “a special virtue having a determinate matter,” it can also be considered as “the moderation of reason, in any matter whatsoever.” Moreover, this aspect of moderation is described as “the general condition of every virtue” (STh II-II, q. 141, a. 4, ad 1). This carries significance insofar as “the principal virtue observes the mode in some principal matter” (e.g., the virtue of temperance in regards to food), while the potential parts of a principal virtue “observe the mode in some other matter wherein moderation is not so difficult” (STh II-II, q. 143). Material diversity leads to the particularity of a potential part, but it does not prohibit the maintenance of analogical unity even amidst such particularity.
Hence, the contours of the relationship between temperance and studiousness begin to emerge. The essence of temperance is located in its right-reason-imbued regulation of natural human desires of a concupiscible nature. This virtue is realized most fully in its guidance of what Saint Thomas considers to be “the greatest pleasures” (i.e., those pleasures of a tactile nature): “It belongs to temperance to moderate pleasures of touch, which are the most difficult to moderate. However, temperance is also a virtue of regulation in regards to pleasures of a less intense nature” (e.g., the pleasure derived from knowledge). These “potential parts of a principal virtue are called secondary virtues” because they are virtues which exercise “moderation in some manner or other, and restrain the appetite in its impulse towards something.” Any such “annexed” virtues, Saint Thomas says, “may be reckoned a part of temperance.” Saint Thomas sees no conflict in admitting the full virtuous legitimacy of the potential parts of temperance: “If a man can control the greater pleasures, much more can he control lesser ones. Wherefore it belongs chiefly and properly to temperance to moderate desires and pleasures of touch, and secondarily of other pleasures” (STh II-II, q. 141, a. 4, ad 1).
The moderation that characterizes the virtue of temperance is potentially related to any other virtue(s) in which moderation and restraint must be exercised (even if with lesser degrees of difficulty and in relation to non-tactile objects). The specific matter of temperance may vary, but the potential unity grounded in something akin to the analogy of unequal participation remains.
Conclusion
Fostering the virtue of studiousness is particularly difficult in our contemporary age. This should not surprise us. Saint Thomas Aquinas considered temperance in matters of food, drink, and sexuality to be the most difficult. If one does not appreciate temperance in the desire for food, drink, and sex, it is highly unlikely that he will appreciate temperance in the desire for knowledge. Tragically, not only does our culture lack temperance in regards to food, drink, and sex; we have lost virtually any esteem or desire for the virtue itself. The Internet in particular has become a common and dangerous locus for those who struggle with temperance in regards to sexuality and knowledge in particular.
Saint Thomas Aquinas offers us the moral principles necessary to explain why so many regular Internet users suffer from both pornography and the vice of curiosity (e.g., aimless and endless Internet surfing). Furthermore, because of temperance’s potential unity, one can reasonably expect that practices ordered to the cultivation of the virtue in regards to tactile pleasures are also applicable to the cultivation of the virtue in regards to pleasures of a non-tactile nature. The spiritual and pastoral implications of this virtue—even in our contemporary context—are far reaching.
The Angelic Doctor summarizes the heart of this brief inquiry beautifully: “Man’s good consists in the knowledge of truth; yet man’s sovereign good consists not in the knowledge of any truth, but in the perfect knowledge of the sovereign truth” (STh II-II, q. 167, a. 1). One could argue that although all truths are grounded in reality, not all truths are equal. Some things are worth knowing more than others (and, conversely, some things are worth knowing less than others). “There may be sin in the knowledge of certain truths, in so far as the desire of such knowledge is not directed in due manner to the knowledge of the sovereign truth, wherein supreme happiness consists” (STh II-II, q. 167, a. 1).
Happiness is the end of all the virtues. It is unsurprising that Saint Thomas characterizes the right ordering of the desire for knowledge by this beatitudinal goal. Only in the sovereign truth will one find true happiness—and only as ordered thereto is the virtue of studiousness fully revealed. The virtue of temperance is an indispensable component in the human search for happiness.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Disputed Questions On Spiritual Creatures, trans. Mary C. Fitzpatrick and John J. Wellmuth (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1949), a. 11, ad 2 (emphasis added).↩︎
Francisco P. Muñiz, O.P., The Work of Theology, trans. John P. Reid, O.P. (Washington, D.C.: The Thomist Press, 1962), 3.↩︎
Muñiz, 3.↩︎
