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(Latinvitium, any sort of defect) is here regarded as a habit inclining one tosin. It is the product of repeatedsinful acts of a given kind and when formed is in some sense also their cause. Its specific characterization in any instance must be gathered from the opposition it implies to a particularvirtue. It is manifest that its employment to designate the individual wicked act is entirely improper. They differ as the habit of doing something is distinguished from the act of that thing. Hence a man may have vices and yet be at times guilty of nosin, and conversely the commission of isolatedsins does not make him vicious. Such guilt as he may have contracted in any case is charged directly to thesinful act, not to the vice. Hence the teaching ofSt. Thomas Aquinas that, absolutely speaking, thesin surpasses the vice in wickedness. Even though thesin be removed byGod the vice, if there was one, may still remain, just as failure to act in any direction does not necessarily and straightway destroy the habit which perchance existed. The habit ofsinful indulgence of any sort is to be extirpated by unrelenting vigilance and the performance of contrary acts over a space more or less protracted according as the vice was more or less inveterate. Obviously this applies to vices antagonistic to acquired virtues, for so far as the infused virtues are concerned they can be recovered only, as they were originally obtained, through the gratuitous bounty ofGod. It is interesting to note that according toSt. Thomas, after one has been rehabilitated, in the state of grace and has received, let us say, the infused virtue of temperance, the vice of intemperance does not continue formally as a habit but only as a sort of disposition and as something which is in process of destruction. (in via corruptionis).
APA citation.Delany, J.(1912).Vice. InThe Catholic Encyclopedia.New York: Robert Appleton Company.http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15403c.htm
MLA citation.Delany, Joseph."Vice."The Catholic Encyclopedia.Vol. 15.New York: Robert Appleton Company,1912.<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15403c.htm>.
Transcription.This article was transcribed for New Advent by Rick McCarty.
Ecclesiastical approbation.Nihil Obstat. October 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor.Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
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