The intellect utters some false pronouncement, and there is nothing within the man that says otherwise. In the moral error there is a contradiction within, an intestine quarrel. The intellect pronounces a thing not good, not to be taken, and the sensitive appetite will throw a veil over the face of intellect, and seize upon the thing. That amounts to a contradiction of a man's own intelligent self. 4. It appears that, absolutely speaking, intellectual virtue is the greater perfection of a man: indeed in the act of that virtue, as we have seen, his crowning perfection and happiness lies. But moral virtue is the greater safeguard. The breach of moral virtue is the direr evil. Sin is worse than ignorance, and more against reason, because it is against the doer's own reason. Moral virtue then is more necessary than intellectual in a world where evil is rife, as it is a more vital thing to escape grievous disease than to attain the highest development of strength and beauty. And as disease spoils strength and beauty, not indeed always taking them away, but rendering them valueless, so evil moral habits subvert intellectual virtue, and turn it aside in a wrong direction. The vicious will keeps the intellect from contemplating the objects which are the best good of man: so the contemplation is thrown away on inferior things, often on base things, and an overgrowth of folly ensues on those points whereupon it most imports a man to be wise. To sum up all in a sentence, not exclusive but dealing with characteristics: _the moral virtues are the virtues for this world, intellectual virtue is the virtue of the life to come_. _Readings_.--St. Thos., 1a 2æ, q. 58, art. 2, in corp.; Ar., _Eth_., I., xiii., 15-19; St. Thos., 1a 2æ, q. 66, art. 3. SECTION IV.--_Of the Mean in Moral Virtue_. 1. Moral virtue is a habit of doing the right thing in the conduct of the will and the government of the passions. Doing right is opposed to overdoing the thing, and to underdoing it. Doing right is taking what it suits a rational nature to desire, and eschewing what is unsuitable under the circumstances. (c. i., n. 5.)