This is the third volume of four volumes designed to throw open the thought of St. Thomas to readers who are not by way of being professional philosophers. Their unique characteristics will be a combination of professional completeness and non-professional language - a complete exposition of the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas, no question being omitted, yet a dramatic presentation.
This present volume covers the Second Part of the Second Section. The whole of that Second Section in the Summas treats of Man's Way to God but where the first part is general this second part is more particular - it treats of the individual virtues and the vices by which we fail to achieve them.
Each chapter in the book is preceded by an outline which gives an analysis both of the contents of the chapter and of the thought of St. Thomas expressed in the parallel questions of the Summa. Each chapter of the book forms a distinct unit. Its particular advantage lies in its character of guide-book to the Summa Theologica. It explains, step by step, the thought of St. Thomas as expressed in his supreme work; but it also fills in what must inevitably appear to the novice as gaps in the Summa by its free use of the parallel passages in other parts of the Summa and in the other works of St. Thomas.