ellectual,
or moral. Now truth is not a theological virtue, because its object
is not God but temporal things. For Tully says (De Invent. Rhet. ii)
that by "truth we faithfully represent things as they are, were, or
will be." Likewise it is not one of the intellectual virtues, but
their end. Nor again is it a moral virtue, since it is not a mean
between excess and deficiency, for the more one tells the truth, the
better it is. Therefore truth is not a virtue.

_On the contrary,_ The Philosopher both in the Second and in the
Fourth Book of Ethics places truth among the other virtues.

_I answer that,_ Truth can be taken in two ways. First, for that by
reason of which a thing is said to be true, and thus truth is not a
virtue, but the object or end of a virtue: because, taken in this
way, truth is not a habit, which is the genus containing virtue, but
a certain equality between the understanding or sign and the thing
understood or signified, or again between a thing and its rule, as
stated in the First Part (Q. 16, A. 1; Q. 21, A. 2). Secondly, truth
may stand for that by which a person says what is true, in which
sense one is said to be truthful. This truth or truthfulness must
needs be a virtue, because to say what is true is a good act: and
virtue is "that which makes its possessor good, and renders his
action good."

Reply Obj. 1: This argument takes truth in the first sense.

Reply Obj. 2: To state that which concerns oneself, in so far as it
is a statement of what is true, is good generically. Yet this does
not suffice for it to be an act of virtue, since it is requisite for
that purpose that it should also be clothed with the due
circumstances, and if these be not observed, the act will be sinful.
Accordingly it is sinful to praise oneself without due cause even for
that which is true: and it is also sinful to publish one's sin, by
praising oneself on that account, or in any way proclaiming it
uselessly.

Reply Obj. 3: A person who says what is true, utters certain
signs which are in conformity with things; and such signs are either
words, or external actions, or any external thing. Now such kinds of
things are the subject-matter of the moral virtues alone, for the
latter are concerned with the use of the external members, in so far
as this use is put into effect at the command of the will. Wherefore
truth is neither a theological, nor an intellectual, but a moral
virtue. And it is a mean between excess and