r by default, it will be sinful, as is
the case with the appetite for food which man desires naturally. Now
pride is the appetite for excellence in excess of right reason.
Wherefore Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiv, 13) that pride is the
"desire for inordinate exaltation": and hence it is that, as he
asserts (De Civ. Dei xiv, 13; xix, 12), "pride imitates God
inordinately: for it hath equality of fellowship under Him, and
wishes to usurp His dominion over our fellow-creatures."

Reply Obj. 3: Pride is directly opposed to the virtue of humility,
which, in a way, is concerned about the same matter as magnanimity,
as stated above (Q. 161, A. 1, ad 3). Hence the vice opposed to pride
by default is akin to the vice of pusillanimity, which is opposed by
default to magnanimity. For just as it belongs to magnanimity to urge
the mind to great things against despair, so it belongs to humility
to withdraw the mind from the inordinate desire of great things
against presumption. Now pusillanimity, if we take it for a
deficiency in pursuing great things, is properly opposed to
magnanimity by default; but if we take it for the mind's attachment
to things beneath what is becoming to a man, it is opposed to
humility by default; since each proceeds from a smallness of mind. In
the same way, on the other hand, pride may be opposed by excess, both
to magnanimity and humility, from different points of view: to
humility, inasmuch as it scorns subjection, to magnanimity, inasmuch
as it tends to great things inordinately. Since, however, pride
implies a certain elation, it is more directly opposed to humility,
even as pusillanimity, which denotes littleness of soul in tending
towards great things, is more directly opposed to magnanimity.
_______________________

SECOND ARTICLE [II-II, Q. 162, Art. 2]

Whether Pride Is a Special Sin?

Objection 1: It would seem that pride is not a special sin. For
Augustine says (De Nat. et Grat. xxix) that "you will find no sin
that is not labelled pride"; and Prosper says (De Vita Contempl. iii,
2) that "without pride no sin is, or was, or ever will be possible."
Therefore pride is a general sin.

Obj. 2: Further, a gloss on Job 33:17, "That He may withdraw man from
wickedness [*Vulg.: 'From the things that he is doing, and may
deliver him from pride']," says that "a man prides himself when he
transgresses His commandments by sin." Now according to Ambrose [*De
Parad. viii], "every sin is a transgressio