B. To the Two Arguments adduced in the Second Article

75. Reply to the two arguments for the other member, in the article on the formal object of charity:

To the first [n.21] I say that the positing of two Gods destroys the nature of charity; for any habit tends of itself to one thing, and to posit that it tends to several things is to posit that the habit is not the habit - just as, if there is some habit proper simply to a first principle, then to posit some other habit of the first principle is to posit that it is not proper to it; I say then that positing several Gods involves positing that both and neither should be loved with charity.

76. To the other [n.22] I say that the more and less in any order are not like the most in that order as to extrinsic operation about what belongs to that order. For the operation of a thing can, so as to be perfect, necessarily require what is supreme in that order. Yet it need not have an order to other ordered things in that order (an example in colors; vision can only be most perfect if it is of the most perfect visible color; yet vision of the color nearest to it need not be the vision nearest to it in perfection). And the reason is that what, on the part of an act, is its reason for coming to rest is the most perfect idea of its total object, while in other cases the object is present in diminished fashion. And although one act may in some way surpass another, yet in these acts there need be no idea involved of being brought to rest, though the power is naturally free. Therefore, although the sole and infinite good quietens the will, and does so insofar as it is the infinite good, yet it need not be the case that any good lower in its own degree of goodness than the infinite good would quieten the will proportionally more and less, because these lower degrees are accidental as regard extrinsic quietening.