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a. Proof of the Opinion
25. The point is shown as follows:
For the need of an intellectual habit perfecting the intellect about things to be thought, and of a habit perfecting the intellect about things to be done, is proved by natural reason; and thus are got a speculative and a practical intellectual habit.
26. In like manner is proved by natural reason the need of a habit perfecting the appetite about desirable things in their order to oneself, and further about desirable things in their order to another; and thus is got the first distinction in appetitive virtue, namely in ordering these habits to oneself and to another.
27. As to what is in addition to these habits - although natural reason perhaps proves that man is not sufficiently perfected by these habits (which is something the solution of Prol. nn.62-65 rests on to show the necessity of another knowledge besides acquired knowledge), yet natural reason does not sufficiently prove with distinctness what intellective habit and what appetitive habit is different from the former ones. Still it is rationally held (according to the persuasive arguments set down in Prol. nn.13-18, 40-41) that, besides the former, there is need of the habits of the cognitive power and of the appetitive power that the Catholic Church teaches are necessary. And by faith we hold that three theological virtues are necessary, which are perfective of the soul in respect of the uncreated object [cf. Lectura d.23 n.48].
28. From these points I argue as follows: only those habits need to be posited in a wayfarer that he is (as to any object) perfected by to the extent that he can be perfected in this life. Of this sort are the seven virtues in general (ignoring the acquired speculative sciences). Therefore, besides the acquired speculative sciences, there will be no need to posit in the wayfarer any virtue simply other than the standard seven [sc. the three theological virtues and the four cardinal virtues].
29. Proof of the minor: the object about which the wayfarer can be perfected cannot be other than God and creatures.
As to God, the wayfarer is sufficiently perfected, and to supreme degree, by the three theological virtues (most perfectly so, as far as he can be, if those three habits are themselves most perfect).
As to creatures, ignoring the speculative virtues of the intellect, the wayfarer is sufficiently perfected by prudence - provided the prudence is most perfect, for then it is about everything doable as to every condition of the doable that is also most perfectly known. So, as regard appetite, the wayfarer is most perfectly perfected by the three moral virtues [justice, temperance, fortitude], if they are themselves most perfect, because then he is perfected both as regard others and what is desirable for others and as regard himself and what is desirable for himself (and this either primarily and directly, or secondarily because of the primary ones). And I understand by these four cardinal virtues not some numerically single habit in someone that would be at the same time universal temperance or justice (that is a temperance or justice about everything), but that the individual species of justice are present along with their proper individual singulars.8
30. Therefore a man who is perfected by the three theological virtues and by the speculative and practical virtues and by the moral virtues (which order him in respect of himself and others) - he is perfected as much as a wayfarer can be fitted to be. There does not seem, then, to be any necessity to posit any other habits than those that are the theological, the intellectual, and the moral virtues.