TEMPERANCE. - A moral and cardinal virtue that moderates, according to the order of nature, the tendencies, motions and actions; in a word, the appetites which in the sphere of the sensible exert a greater attraction, offer greater pleasure or a sum of pleasures to man, so that he, succumbing to their enchantment, does not put eternal salvation in danger.
Temperance, therefore, will have as its material object, around which it is exercised, in the first place the pleasures inherent in the preservation of the individual and of the species (sensible pleasures of food and drink, sexual pleasures of the generative activity), which, because of the close connection they have with the sense of touch, are also called pleasures of touch. They are the primary object of temperance, because they are the strongest and bring about the most burning deviations from the moral order. In the second place temperance will be exercised around the pleasures of the other senses: sight, smell, hearing, taste, insofar as the proper objects of these senses can increase the attraction and excitement toward all that belongs to the preservation of the individual and of the species (e.g., beauty, the ease of the person, the savory taste of foods, perfume, the silvery voice, etc.). In the third place temperance also moderates the internal desires, insofar as one cannot desire the pleasures of which we have spoken, except insofar as, in the manner and in the way that is conformable to the order of reason.
Therefore the formal object of temperance is the particular honesty that is found in moderating the use of these pleasures, in seeking them and taking advantage of them according to the right measure. And the right measure is deduced from their purpose, which with respect to food and drink is the well-being of the body and of the mind in order to their activity, and the good disposition of the soul in order to eternal salvation; and with respect to the generative activity it is the procreation of children and the attainment of the other ends proper to married life.
According then to the different fields in which temperance is exercised, and the various circumstances and degrees of its application, there are the various parts of it, which are called subjective, namely: abstinence (v.) with regard to the pleasures of the table; sobriety with regard to drinks, especially intoxicating ones (v. ALCOHOLISM), including also the other stupefying substances (morphine, cocaine, opium, chloroform, ether, etc.); chastity with regard to the pleasures of the generative activity; modesty, with regard to the accessory elements of it.
The opposite vices are, respectively, gluttony, drunkenness, lust and immodesty.
To guard and strengthen temperance, which is a precious safeguard of human dignity, one must have recourse to all the natural and supernatural means that serve to elevate and keep high our thoughts and ideals and to invigorate the will. Among these: the renunciation of some lawful pleasure, the custody of the senses, the thought of God's presence and of one's own dignity, the frequent use of the Sacraments, devotion to Mary. And in this regard it is worth noting that Catholic morality has never conceived of perfection as a suppression of tendencies and appetites, but as a right government of them.
Bibliography3 works
Celestino Testore
