2462. The Rule of Moderation.—The rule of moderation which temperance imposes on the carnal appetites is this: “Indulge only as necessity requires and duty allows.” For pleasure is a means whose end is some reasonable need of life, and it is therefore a perversion to make pleasure an end by indulging it apart from need and duty (see 85). But necessity is to be understood broadly, so as to include not only the essentials, but also the conveniences of life (e.g., seasonings and desserts with food).
(a) As to venereal pleasures, then, the rule means that they should not be used outside matrimony, nor in matrimony except for the procreation of children and the other lawful ends of marriage.
(b) As to the pleasures of the table, they should not be indulged except for the benefit of mind and body, and in such manner, quantity, quality, etc., as this purpose requires. But one may regulate one’s food or drink by the higher purpose of mortification, and partake of less than the body demands here and now.
2463. The Excellence of Temperance.—(a) Temperance is among the four principal or cardinal virtues. It keeps in order one of the passions that is most natural and most necessary for the present life, and among the virtues it excels in the quality of moderation, since it chastens the inclination that is hardest to hold within bounds, and guards the senses, the gateways of the soul (see 2441). “Wisdom teaches temperance, prudence, justice and fortitude, than which there is nothing more useful in life” (Wis., viii. 7).
(b) In its nature temperance is not the chief but the least of the moral virtues. For justice and bravery are of greater service to the common welfare, and the good of the multitude, as Aristotle remarks, is more divine than the good of the individual. But in accidental respects temperance has a superiority; for it is more tender and graceful than fortitude, more arduous than justice, and there is perhaps no other virtue whose exercise is so constantly called for.
2464. The Vices Opposed to Temperance.—(a) The vice of deficiency has been called insensibility, and consists in an unreasonable dislike of the inferior sensible pleasures, which makes one unwilling to use them when and as reason commands. Thus, the Stoics and Manichees believed that material joys are intrinsically evil, and there have been fanatical advocates of teetotalism (e.g., the Aquarians) and of purity (e.g., the Puritans who would not permit a man to kiss his wife on Sunday, the prudish and censorious who fear or suspect evil without reason, the Pharisees who think they are defiled if a sinner speaks to them, the misogynists who disapprove of marriage). The sin is venial _per se_, since it does not submit to passion; but it may be mortal on account of some circumstance, as when the marriage debt is unjustly refused or necessary nourishment is not taken. This vice is rarer than its opposite, and it must not be confused with austerity, which for the sake of a spiritual good foregoes some lawful but unnecessary sensible enjoyment.
(b) The vice of excess is immoderation, which includes gluttony and impurity. This is the most disgraceful of sins, because the most unworthy of a rational being; it enslaves man to pleasures of which the lower animals are capable; unlike other vices, it contains in itself nothing of intelligence, industry, generosity, and nothing that would at all liken it to virtue. The lowest depths of degradation are reached when immoderation is brutish even in its manner, as when one is gluttonous of human flesh or desirous of sodomitic pleasure. Immoderation is called by Aristotle a “childish sin,” because, as a child is eager for pleasures and will follow them unduly unless instructed and trained, so also an immoderate person thinks only of his appetite, and will go from bad to worse unless he accepts the discipline of reason. But the child is excusable, while the immoderate man should know better. Immoderation is worse than timidity; for, while the former seeks selfish delight and acts with willing unrestraint, the latter seeks self-preservation and is under some external menace.
2465. The Parts of Temperance.—(a) The subjective parts or species of temperance are two, since there are two distinct objects of the virtue. These objects are the two delights of touch that are ruled by the virtue, namely, those associated with the nutritive and those associated with the generative function. The first subjective part of temperance includes abstemiousness as to food and sobriety as to drink; the second part includes chastity, as regards the principal sexual act (copulation), and decency or pudicity, as regards the secondary acts (kisses, touches, embraces, etc).
(b) The integral parts are also two, since there are two conditions for the perfect exercise of temperance. These conditions are the fear and avoidance of what is disgraceful (shamefacedness, reserve, or delicacy) and the love of what is honorable (virtue of propriety or refinement). Shamefacedness is a passion, but, as physical fearlessness is a disposition for moral courage, so is the fear of incurring reproach a preparation for virtue. Hence, this delicacy is a laudable passion, and is ascribed chiefly to temperance, whose opposite is chief among things disgraceful. Propriety is also assigned to temperance, because it is an attraction towards that which is spiritually good and beautiful, a habit most useful for temperance, which must subordinate the delightful to the good, the carnal to the spiritual.
(c) The potential parts of temperance are its minor or servant virtues. They resemble temperance inasmuch as their chief praise is in moderation, but they are inferior to it inasmuch as that which is moderated by them is less recalcitrant than the sexual or gustatory appetites. First among these potential parts are those whose task of moderating, while not of the greatest difficulty, is yet more than ordinarily difficult; and here we have continence, which calms a will agitated by immoderate passion, and meekness, which governs the passion of anger. Next among the potential parts are those whose task of moderating offers less or ordinary difficulty, because they keep in order matters less removed from reason. All the virtues of this second group are given the common name of modesty. They are reduced to four: humility and studiosity, which moderate the internal appetites of excellence and of learning respectively; modesty of bearing and modesty of living, which regulate respectively the external acts of the body and the external goods of food, drink, clothing, furnishings, etc.