Infused Moral Virtues

Besides the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity, St.
Thomas teaches that a person in divine friendship receives an
infusion of the moral virtues whose immediate object is not God
Himself but the practice of human actions conducive to man's final
end. Just as faith, hope and charity correspond in the supernatural
order to natural knowledge, hope and love, so there are other
divinely infused habits to supplement and match these theological
virtues; habits which are elevated counterparts of the acquired
virtues of prudence, temperance, fortitude and justice.

Aristotle was again the basic source on which St. Thomas built the
now familiar structure of the cardinal virtues which are reduced to
four because of the objective order of morality. The mind must first
discover this order and propose its commands to the will; prudence,
or the habit of doing the right thing at the right time, is reason's
helper. The will, in turn, must execute these commands in its own
field; justice, or the habit of giving everybody his due, is helper
to the will in its management of the appetite's aversions.

Just as there are four faculties which contribute to our moral acts,
intellect, will, appetite of desire and appetite of aversion, so
there must be four virtues to keep these faculties straight —
prudence for the mind, justice for the will, temperance for the urge
to what is pleasant, and fortitude for the instinct away from what is
painful. The Latins summarized their functions in the word,
<circumspice> [look around], <age> [act], <abstine> [keep away from]
and <sustine> [bear up with].

All other virtues in the moral order can be referred to this tetrad
as their potential parts. In view of their practical value as
possessions of nature [also infused by grace], it is worth examining
in some detail.