I actually meant to post this second entry in the series I kicked off at the beginning of December last Sunday, but instead spent the whole day racing through airports. As such, it is now Thursday that I am getting around to posting a second musing on the matter of that most elusive of virtues, about which St. Augustine is credited with having said:

Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance.

Previously, humility was described as an attitude of serenity in the face of what can’t be changed, but also as an attitude of confidence — though not pride — in one’s own state, resources, and knowledge, and one’s ability to use these things wisely to surmount situations.

In many respects, the same holds true for one’s approach to other things that are virtuous; humility is the confidence that one has indeed conducted oneself honestly (without violating legitimate confidence or exposing others to undue harm), courageously (without being reckless), compassionately (without further enabling vice), justly (without being haughty), and so forth. But pace the great saint’s description of it, what humility is is almost better exposed in looking at what it is not.

Augustine remarks that humility is the antithesis of the character and nature of a hypocritical soul that merely pretends at piety, affecting the appearance of such without bearing any of the attendant fruits thereof. In like manner, consider the enumerated virtues above…beginning with honesty. Honesty in humility means not hiding the truth from any who have a legitimate right to it, but also means not bringing undue hurt and harm by the utterance of otherwise truthful statements, especially not in order to bring about that hurt and harm. Compassion in humility means avoiding what John Zmirak (and others) term “our age’s reigning sin”, that in our compassionate desire to do some good, we end up doing greater harm. A more clinical name for this is “enabling”: actions that are “intended to help but in fact may perpetuate a problem.”

We are often tempted to act ignobly through the virtues we desire to espouse; we desire to be virtuous, but are tempted to abuse virtue for our own catharsis. We desire to tell our good friend that his girlfriend has cheated on him, but we are tempted to do so in a way that ignores prudence, ignores privacy, and maximizes the drama and shock that she will be on the receiving end of. We desire to be help out the beggar with an offering of money that we have for spare, but we are aware that the real possibility exists that he will not use it to find a hot shower and some clean clothes, but rather use it to procure alcohol or drugs. And yet, it is honest to reveal the truth to our friend, and to strive by some means to lift the beggar from his state, if possible.

Prudence helps us navigate these narrow straits between lack of virtue and virtue gone astray, and humility is the port we arrive at.