That the Perfection of Humility and Other Virtues Lies in Doing the Acts Thereof with Delight and Pleasure, and How Important This Is for Perseverance in Virtue

| fa is the common doctrine of philosophers that the perfection of a virtue lies in doing the acts thereof with delight and pleasure. Treating of the signs whereby it may be known whether anyone has gained a habit of any virtue, they say it is when he does the acts of that virtue with readiness, facility, and delight. He who has acquired the habit of any art or science, does the acts thereof with the greatest readiness and facility. Thus we see that he who is a musician, having acquired by this time the habit of music, plays a stringed instrument with the greatest facility and readiness, and need not prepare it beforehand nor be thinking of what he is doing, so that he plays right well while thinking of something else. In the same way does he the acts of a virtue who has acquired the habit or that virtue. Thus, if you wish to see whether you have acquired the virtue of humility, see first whether you do the acts of that virtue with readiness and facility; for if you feel repugnance and difficulty in the occasions that offer, it is a sign that you have not gained the virtue perfectly. And if to meet these occasions well you need anticipations and considerations, you are well on the road to gain the perfection of that virtue, but it must be said that this is a sign that as yet you have not gained it. You are like a man who, to play a stringed instrument, must needs go thinking where he is to put this finger and where that, and remembering the rules that have been given him. He is well on the way to learn how to play, but it is a sign that he has not yet acquired the habit of music, for he who has acquired that habit has no need to think of anything of that sort to play well. So Aristotle says in his philosophy: “He who has perfectly acquired the habit of any art, finds it so easy to do the acts thereof that he has no need to set himself thinking or deliberating how to do them, to do them well.” Arte perfecta non deliberat. This moves philosophers to say that it is in sudden and indeliberate acts that a man’s virtue is known. Virtue is not known by acts that are done with a deal of study, but by acts that are done offhand.

Philosophers have yet more to say. Plutarch gives two signs to show when one has quite acquired a virtue. One of these signs is by the man’s dreams; so writes a great philosopher named Zeno. If when you are asleep and dreaming you have no bad movements, no unseemly imaginations, or if when they come you take no satisfaction in them, but rather are annoyed, and resist as though you were awake the temptation and pleasure that comes in sleep, it is a sign that virtue has taken root in your soul, not only the will being subject to reason, but even the sensible appetite and imaginations. Thus, when carriagehorses are well broken in, even though the driver slackens the reins and goes to sleep, still the horses keep the right road; in like manner, says this philosopher, those who have a perfect habit of virtue and have tamed and subjected all their animal tendencies and instincts, go the right way even when asleep. St. Augustine also teaches this doctrine. Some servants of God have such a love and affection for virtue and the observance of the commandments of God and such an abhorrence of vice, and are so well formed and accustomed to resist temptations in their waking hours, that they resist them even in dreams. We read of Father Francis Xavier in his Life, that in a temptation or illusion which came upon him sleeping he resisted with such an effort that by the effort he threw up three or four mouthfuls of blood. In this way some explain that saying of St. Paul: Waking or sleeping, we still live with him (I Thess.

v. 10), in this sense, that not only living or dying we still live with Christ, which is the common interpretation, but that the fervent servants of God must ever live with Christ, not only when they are awake, but also when they are asleep and dreaming.

Philosophers go further and say that the third condition or mark whereby it is known when a man has perfectly acquired and gained a virtue, is when he does the acts thereof delectabiliter, with delight and satisfaction. This is the chief sign, and in it consists the perfection of the virtue. If, then, you wish to see whether you have gained the perfection of the virtue of humility, examine yourself by the rule that we gave in the last chapter; see whether you rejoice as much in affronts and insults as worldly people in marks of honor and esteem.

Besides the fact of this disposition’s being necessary for the attainment of the perfection of any virtue, there is in it another very substantial advantage, that it has an important bearing on the durability and permanence of the virtue. So long as we do not attain to doing virtuous actions with satisfaction and cheerfulness, it will be a very difficult thing to persevere in virtue. St. Dorotheus says that this was the common teaching of the ancient Fathers. They took it for a well-established and certain fact, that he cannot go on long who does not do things gladly and cheerfully. It may well be that for some limited time you may keep silence and conduct yourself with modesty and recollection; but till such behavior proceeds from the innermost heart and becomes to you, aS we may Say, connatural by good habituation, so that you do the thing with pleasure and satisfaction, you will not carry on long in what will be an artificial and violent course. It is a thing that we may see with our own eyes that nothing violent is lasting— nihil violentum perpetuum. It is, therefore, very important for us to exercise ourselves in acts of virtue until the virtue is drunk in and deeply rooted in the heart, and looks like a thing of one’s own and, as they say, “comes natural” to us, and so we begin to do the works of the virtue cheerfully as having a taste for them; so we shall be able to get some warrant and security for our perseverance therein. This is what the prophet says: Blessed is the man whose whole content and joy and delight is in the law of the Lord, and such are his pleasures and diversions, for he shall bear fruit of good works, like a tree planted by the running waters (Psalm i, 2-3).