(1) Whether incontinence pertains to the soul or to the body?

(2) Whether incontinence is a sin?

(3) The comparison between incontinence and intemperance;

(4) Which is the worse, incontinence in anger, or incontinence in
desire?
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FIRST ARTICLE [II-II, Q. 156, Art. 1]

Whether Incontinence Pertains to the Soul or to the Body?

Objection 1: It would seem that incontinence pertains not to the soul
but to the body. For sexual diversity comes not from the soul but
from the body. Now sexual diversity causes diversity of incontinence:
for the Philosopher says (Ethic. vii, 5) that women are not described
either as continent or as incontinent. Therefore incontinence
pertains not to the soul but to the body.

Obj. 2: Further, that which pertains to the soul does not result from
the temperament of the body. But incontinence results from the bodily
temperament: for the Philosopher says (Ethic. vii, 7) that "it is
especially people of a quick or choleric and atrabilious temper whose
incontinence is one of unbridled desire." Therefore incontinence
regards the body.

Obj. 3: Further, victory concerns the victor rather than the
vanquished. Now a man is said to be incontinent, because "the flesh
lusteth against the spirit," and overcomes it. Therefore incontinence
pertains to the flesh rather than to the soul.

_On the contrary,_ Man differs from beast chiefly as regards the
soul. Now they differ in respect of continence and incontinence, for
we ascribe neither continence nor incontinence to the beasts, as the
Philosopher states (Ethic. vii, 3). Therefore incontinence is chiefly
on the part of the soul.

_I answer that,_ Things are ascribed to their direct causes rather
than to those which merely occasion them. Now that which is on the
part of the body is merely an occasional cause of incontinence; since
it is owing to a bodily disposition that vehement passions can arise
in the sensitive appetite which is a power of the organic body. Yet
these passions, however vehement they be, are not the sufficient
cause of incontinence, but are merely the occasion thereof, since, so
long as the use of reason remains, man is always able to resist his
passions. If, however, the passions gain such strength as to take
away the use of reason altogether--as in the case of those who become
insane through the vehemence of their passions--the essential
conditions of continence or incontinence cease, because such pe