. xxiv, 8) that "the proud
observe other people's conduct not so as to set themselves beneath
them with humility, but so as to set themselves above them with
pride": wherefore it would seem that pride originates in undue
observation. Now observation pertains not to the irascible but to the
rational faculty.

Obj. 3: Further, pride seeks pre-eminence not only in sensible
things, but also in spiritual and intelligible things: while it
consists essentially in the contempt of God, according to Ecclus.
10:14, "The beginning of the pride of man is to fall off from God."
Now the irascible, since it is a part of the sensitive appetite,
cannot extend to God and things intelligible. Therefore pride cannot
be in the irascible.

Obj. 4: Further, as stated in Prosper's _Liber Sententiarum,_ sent.
294, "Pride is love of one's own excellence." But love is not in the
irascible, but in the concupiscible. Therefore pride is not in the
irascible.

_On the contrary,_ Gregory (Moral. ii, 49) opposes pride to the gift
of fear. Now fear belongs to the irascible. Therefore pride is in the
irascible.

_I answer that,_ The subject of any virtue or vice is to be
ascertained from its proper object: for the object of a habit or act
cannot be other than the object of the power, which is the subject of
both. Now the proper object of pride is something difficult, for
pride is the desire of one's own excellence, as stated above (AA. 1,
2). Wherefore pride must needs pertain in some way to the irascible
faculty. Now the irascible may be taken in two ways. First in a
strict sense, and thus it is a part of the sensitive appetite, even
as anger, strictly speaking, is a passion of the sensitive appetite.
Secondly, the irascible may be taken in a broader sense, so as to
belong also to the intellective appetite, to which also anger is
sometimes ascribed. It is thus that we attribute anger to God and the
angels, not as a passion, but as denoting the sentence of justice
pronouncing judgment. Nevertheless the irascible understood in this
broad sense is not distinct from the concupiscible power, as stated
above in the First Part (Q. 59, A. 4; I-II, Q. 82, A. 5, ad 1 and 2).

Consequently if the difficult thing which is the object of pride,
were merely some sensible object, whereto the sensitive appetite
might tend, pride would have to be in the irascible which is part of
the sensitive appetite. But since the difficult thing which pride has
in view is comm