Those frustrated with the generality of the guidance to “be prudent” may find specification helpful by considering various kinds of imprudence. Aquinas’s explanation of precipitation is helpful when one considers the hierarchically ordered nature of our capacities for human action:

Precipitation is ascribed metaphorically to acts of the soul, by way of similitude to bodily movement. Now a thing is said to be precipitated as regards bodily movement, when it is brought down from above by the impulse either of its own movement or of another’s, and not in orderly fashion by degrees. Now the summit of the soul is the reason, and the base is reached in the action performed by the body; while the steps that intervene by which one ought to descend in orderly fashion are memory of the past, intelligence of the present, shrewdness in considering the future outcome, reasoning which compares one thing with another, docility in accepting the opinions of others. He that takes counsel descends by these steps in due order, whereas if a man is rushed into action by the impulse of his will or of a passion, without taking these steps, it will be a case of precipitation. Since then inordinate counsel pertains to imprudence, it is evident that the vice of precipitation is contained under imprudence.

The meteorological origins of “precipitation” as applied to human action place in new light the inspiration for Aquinas’s inaugural lecture, Rigans Montes. The Bible verse for organizing this lecture:

Psalmus 103:13: Rigans montes de superioribus suis; de fructu operum tuorum satiabitur terra.

Psalm 103:13: Watering the mountains from your upper rooms; the earth shall be filled with the fruit of your works.