This is especially true, as will be seen, of Thomas Aquinas. His
predecessors can be disposed of in a few words. ALEXANDER of HALES (d.
1245) was almost purely theological. BONAVENTURA (1221-74) in his
double character of rigid Franciscan and mystic, was led far beyond the
Aristotelian Ethics. The mean between excess and defect is a very good
rule for the affairs of life, but the true Christian is bound besides
to works of supererogation: first of all, to take on the condition of
poverty; while the state of mystic contemplation remains as a still
higher goal for the few. ALBERT THE GREAT (1193-1280), the most learned
and complete commentator of Aristotle that had yet appeared, divide the
whole subject of Ethics into _Monastica, Oeconomica_, and _Politica_.
In this division, which is plainly suggested by the Aristotelian
division of Politics in the large sense, the term _Monastica_ not
inaptly expresses the reference that Ethics has to the conduct of men
as individuals. Albert, however, in commenting on the Nicomachean
Ethics, adds exceedingly little to the results of his author beyond the
incorporation of a few Scriptural ideas. To the cardinal virtues he
appends the _virtutes adjunctae_, Faith, Hope, and Charity, and again
in his compendious work, _Summa Theologiae_, distinguishes them as
_infusae_, the cardinal being considered as _acquisitae_.
