Choose a topic from Part 2A:
1. In the same subject there may be a variety of habits which are specifically (that is, essentially) distinct from one another.
2. Habits are distinguished one from another on three scores: (a) their respective active principles; thus, for example, habits of intellect are distinguished from habits of will; (b) their own nature; thus knowledge differs from moral virtue; (c) their respective ends or objects; thus knowledge which aims at truth is distinguished from moral virtue which aims at moral goodness.
3. Habits affect their subjects with respect to well-being or ill-being. Thus habits are distinguished as good habits and bad habits. This distinction of habits holds in the physical order (health; infirmity), in the intellectual order (knowledge; ignorance), and in the moral order (virtue; vice).
4. A habit is a simple thing, and hence a single thing. No habit is a collection or coalescence of other habits. Many habits may, indeed, be found together in one subject, but they do not fuse into general or compound habits in the subject. A man is sometimes said to be "a bundle of habits." The phrase is often used as a description of what we call a man's "character." But no habit is a bundle of other habits.
"O Lord, my God, who will seek you with simple and pure love, and not find that you are all one can desire, for you show yourself first and go out to meet those who seek you?
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St John of the Cross, OCD - Doctor of the Church
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"God gives us some things, as the beginning of faith, even when we do not pray. Other things, such as perseverance, he has only provided for those who pray."
St Augustine
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"The one thing necessary which Jesus spoke of to Martha and Mary consists in hearing the word of God and living by it."
R. Garrigou-Lagrange, OP
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