constitutional and kingly": that is to say, as Aristotle elsewhere
(_Eth_., I., xiii., 15, 16) explains, passion often "fights and
resists reason, opposes and contradicts": it has therefore to be bound
by ordinances and institutions to follow reason's lead: these
institutions are good habits, moral virtues, resident there where
passion itself is resident, in the inferior appetite. It is not enough
that the rider is competent, but the horse too must be broken in.

(c) It is a saying, that "no mortal is always wise." There are times
when reason's utterance is faint from weariness and vexation. Then,
unless a man has acquired an almost mechanical habit of obeying reason
in the conduct of his will and passions, he will in such a conjuncture
act inconsiderately and do wrong. That habit is moral virtue. Moral
virtue is as the fly-wheel of an engine, a reservoir of force to carry
the machine past the "dead points" in its working. Or again, moral
virtue is as discipline to troops suddenly attacked, or hard pressed
in the fight.

5. Therefore, besides the habits in the intellect that bear the name
of _intellectual virtues_, the virtuous man must possess other habits,
as well in the will, that this power may readily embrace what the
understanding points out to be good, as in the sensitive appetite in
both its parts, concupiscible and irascible, so far forth as appetite
is amenable to the control of the will, that it may be so controlled
and promptly obey the better guidance. These habits in the will and in
the sensitive appetite are called _moral virtues_, and to them the
name of _virtue_ is usually confined.

_Readings_.--St. Thos., 1a 2a, q. 71, art. 1, in corp.; _ib_., q. 58,
art. 2; _ib_., q. 58, art. 3, in corp., ad 3; _ib_., q. 56, art. 4, in