not to consent? To consent to good thoughts or desires or passions becomes a virtue, the habit of doing good. To consent to bad thoughts or desires or passions becomes a vice or a sin, the habit of doing wrong. Virtues are beneficial to the soul, and vices are destructive to it. Some thoughts come into consciousness already as an emotion since they rise so quickly that we don’t note the signals at their first “rising.” Awareness of our thoughts allows distance from them, which is the first step in