ARTICLE 6

(26) "The phrase of Augustine's ('virtue is the order of love') is to be understood of virtue simply so called, not that every such virtue is love simply, but that it depends in some way on love, insofar as it depends on the will, whose first movement is one of love, as we have said above, (q. 25, aa. 1, 2, 3; q. 27, a. 4; I, q. 20, a. I)".--I-II, 56, 3 ad 1. This beautiful and profound reflection is thoroughly and typically Augustinian. For Augustine, at the root of virtue there is always, in effect, love! The basis for this truth is the fact that complete virtue exists only in the measure that the will enters into play. This action of the will in the intellectual virtues of faith and prudence (which reside in the speculative and practical intellects, respectively) is admirably delineated in this and the following Article. Enlightened by this doctrine, we perceive how even the love of a science or of an art can make it a point of honor for us not to prostitute one's art or science to bad uses. Nevertheless, as St. Thomas insists, the influence of willing and loving does not extend to the very heart of these intellectual habits. The latter can be formed, exercised, and developed independently of the will: in their regard love is not absolutely indispensable. Cf. Article 7 in the text, above.

             (27) "The intellect is moved by the will just as the other powers are: for a man actually considers something because he wills to do so. And so the intellect, according as it is ordered to the will, can be the subject of a virtue absolutely so-called. In this manner the speculative intellect or reason is the subject of faith. Thus the intellect is moved to assent to what is of faith by the command of the will; for 'no one believes unless he is willing.' The practical intellect, on the other hand, is the subject of prudence. Since prudence is the right reason of things to be done (recta ratio agibilium), it requires that a man be well-disposed towards the principles of this reason of things to be done, which principles are ends, and to which a man is well ordered through rectitude of will, as he is to speculative principles by the natural light of the agent intellect. And therefore, as the subject of science, which is right reason in speculative truths, is the speculative intellect, as ordered to the agent intellect, so the subject of prudence is the practical intellect in its ordination to a rectified will."--I-II, 56, 3.

             (28) "The truth of the speculative intellect consists in knowing; but that of the practical intellect in directing. And so the truth of the speculative intellect consists in this, that the knowledge adequate the thing known: while the truth of the practical intellect consists in this, that the direction adequate the directive principles. Now the determinative, and hence directive principle of art in its operation is the appetite, as we are told in IX Metaphys. (1048 a 10 ff; S. Thos. lect. 4). Therefore, since each thing stands to truth as it does to being, the act of direction, proper to the practical intellect, depends on the appetite both as to being and as to truth."--Cajetan, in I-II, 57, 5, no. II.