The Intellectual, Moral, and Four Cardinal Virtues
Excerpt from The Groundwork of Christian Perfection
In considering what is required for Christian perfection we must cultivate both the Intellectual and Moral Virtues, the well-spring of which are the four Cardinal Virtues. The Intellectual Virtues are those which perfect the mind - wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. The Moral Virtues are those which perfect the will. The Four Cardinal Virtues of Prudence, Fortitude, Temperance, and Justice are the heads from which all the Moral Virtues spring.
Yours in Jesus and Mary.
From the book The Groundwork of Christian Perfection by Reverend Patrick Ryan (Benzinger Brothers, 1910, pages 48-50).
The Intellectual Virtues
Intellectual virtues are habits which perfect the mind. Wisdom, Knowledge, and Understanding are the principal intellectual virtues.
Wisdom is a virtue by which our mind sees effects in their highest causes. It reaches to the conclusions of all sciences, as well as the principles from which they flow.
Knowledge is a virtue by which our mind sees things in their effects, in their consequences, and in their closest bearings on the human race.
Man, perfected by knowledge, values, judges, discusses, analyses, foresees; he traces effects to their causes, consequences to their principles, and by chains of reasoning, forms systems which lead to important discoveries, as well in the material as in the moral order.
Understanding is a habit which perfects our mind, and renders it capable of comprehending the principles of things, such as they are in themselves, abstracting from their consequences.
All these three virtues perfect our mind. The moral virtues, as we shall see, perfect our will.
Everyone is bound according to his abilities to acquire the intellectual virtues. Man is bound to acquire all the information necessary for the fulfilment of his duties towards God, towards himself, and towards his neighbor. Ignorance is an evil, and God expects people to use the talents which He has given to them, if they leave them lie idle God will make them render an account of them.
The Moral and Four Cardinal Virtues
The Moral Virtues are virtues which perfect our will. They deal with our inclinations and propensities.
These Virtues may be practiced from mere natural motives, so practiced they are fruitless for salvation. In order that the Moral Virtues may be meritorious of eternal life they must derive their motive from Faith, and thus become supernatural. Every other virtue must spring from and be directed by the Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity.
Four of the Moral Virtues, viz. Prudence, Fortitude, Temperance, and Justice, are called Cardinal Virtues because they are as it were the hinges on which the other Moral Virtues depend or hang.
All the other Moral Virtues can be traced back to one or other of the four Cardinal Virtues. In this way there are four groups of Moral Virtues, viz. the group belonging to Prudence, the Fortitude group, the Temperance group, and the Justice group. They are so named, according to St. Thomas, on account of their generality and importance. They are, as it were, the heads of the other virtues. Thus religion belongs to Justice because it gives God His due. Chastity comes under Temperance because it puts a restraint on certain passions; and so of the others.
By Prudence the ignorance of the intellect is removed and we are thus enabled to know what to desire or avoid.
By Fortitude we are urged on to duty when difficulty stands in the way.
Temperance restrains us, when passion excites us to what is wrong, and makes us moderate our natural inclinations.
Justice gives every one his due.
Prudence, Fortitude, and Temperance consider man in his relations to himself. Justice on the other hand considers man in his relations to his fellow man. It supposes a complete separation, and separate individual rights. “And if a man love justice, her labors have great virtues; for she teacheth temperance, and prudence, and justice, and fortitude, which are such things as men can have nothing more profitable in life.” (Wisdom 8:7)
St. Gregory compares these four great virtues to four streams irrigating and thereby fertilizing a field, because he says while by these four virtues the heart is cooled and refreshed all the heat of temporal desires is tempered and soothed (Moral 1, 2, C. 36).