Brief Notices

BRIEF NOTICES hnprudence in St. Thomas Aquinas. By CHARLES J. O'NEIL. The Aquinas Lecture, 1955. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1955. Pp. 176. $!il.OO. H it be true that St. Thomas Aquinas' most original contribution-in the best sense of the oft misused phrase--to Christian thought is his moral theology, it can also be said that his treatment of prudence (H-H, qq. 4755 ) is representative of that originality to a high degree. In his treatment of the virtues in general in the I-II, Aquinas insists on the necessity of prudence for the perfection of moral life. ". . . an intellectual virtue is needed in the reason, to perfect the reason, and make it suitably affected towards things ordained to the end; and this virtue is prudence. Consequently, prudence is a virtue necessmy to lead a good life" (I-II, q. 57, a. 5). Yet, for some mysterious reason manualists give rather short shrift to prudence, despite its key location among the virtues. Even the earliest moralists recognized its vital importance and its role in the moral life of man. Thus, Epicurus writes: " The greatest good is prudence; a more precious thing than even philosophy; from it spring all the other virtues " (Letter to Monoeceus, Diogenes Laertius, Epicurus, Book X, sec. l3!i!). Perhaps the Roman philosopher is a trifle over enthusiastic, but the shift of emphasis on the part of the manualists from prudence to the other virtues remains baffling. It is, then, heartening to see a contemporary Thomist of Dr. O'Neil's stature in an incisive monograph analyze the nature of imprudence in St. Thomas' moral system. The distinguished professor of philosophy at Marquette University sets out to explain a divergence in Aristotle and St. Thomas. The Stagirite makes no provision for any treatment of the vice of imprudence while " St. Thomas is perfectly at ease in assigning the vice of imprudence its proper place, its special sin, and its various parts." (p. 3) It is the author's contention that this divergence between two moralists of such repute can tell us something of the nature of man. We might add that it also deepens our knowledge of prudence itself since, as Aquinas reminds us, "One opposite is known through the other, as light through darkness." (I, q. 49, a. 1) Dr. O'Neil first excludes the possibility that Aristotle had no word for imprudence or that he lacked a technique which he might employ to define it. He concludes that Aristotle very definitely ruled out the possibility of a vice opposed to prudence, one, that is, which might be called imprudence . The Aristotelian definition of prudence itself, insists the author, 402 BRIEF NOTICES 403 rules out the possibility of a vice of imprudence. " The logos which is prudence , therefore, is in its last analysis sheer intelligibility. It is essence. Now essence is other than many things: cause, for example, and multiplicity , and existence. It is also tolerable of many things: cause, for example , and multiplicity, and existence. But that of which it is utterly intolerable is contradiction. Therefore, if there were an imprudence conceivable with this prudence there would simply be no prudence. One should recall that a triangle which is a non-triangle simply is not. And a prudence which is a true habit and a straight logos admits no imprudence." (p. 18) Next Dr. O'Neil studies the structure of imprudence in St. Thomas utilizing Aquinas' Commentary on the Ethics, the Secunda-Secundae, and the Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans together with isolated passages from other works. It is this section that Dr. O'Neil displays a penetrating acuteness in delineating with clear precision the teaching of St. Thomas on the nature of imprudence. The author's examination of the development of the thought of St. Thomas as well as the implications latent in Aquinas' thought is worthy of high praise. He points out how St. Thomas transforms the Aristotelian moral man and makes him more beautiful " because in St. Thomas his intelligible beauty is that of the existing image of God." (p. 110) Despite his obvious attempt at a lightness of style Dr. O'Neil's lecture does not always...