II. To the Principal Arguments

119. To the principal arguments.

The first two [nn.2-3] I concede, because they include what was said in the first article [n.33].

120. To the third [n.4] I reply that although a certain quality is generated from ‘frequently acting in a certain way’, a quality that is of a nature to be a moral habit (because it is of a nature to be in agreement with right reason), and that it would be a virtue if it had right reason in the agent, yet because there is no right command in him, the rule of right action is lacking. And so his choice, which is of a nature to be right, is not right because not regulated by rule; and consequently, though it generate a certain quality, it yet does not generate a habit of right choice, and so it is not a virtue.

121. The fourth argument [n.5] I concede, because it concludes to what was said in the second article [n.72] about the connection of the moral virtues with prudence.

122. To the other following arguments about incompossible virtues [nn.7-8], I concede that although one could reply that no virtues, even in species, are incompossible yet, insofar as one relates them to the issue at hand, they include the fact that diverse species of the same genus, or diverse genera, of moral virtue are not necessarily connected; and this was conceded in the first article of this question [n.32].