Aquinas begins the consideration of the irascible passions by treating hope and despair in a single Question. Aquinas is not treating the theological virtue of hope, or the sin of despair, but the passions that take the same names (§9.1). The causes of hope are multiple. Attending to concrete experience, as he does throughout the Treatise, Aquinas identifies both experience and inexperience as causes of hope, along with alcoholic intoxication (§9.2). Since hope's object is the possible but difficult future good, a person can never be certain that she will attain what she hopes for. This fact, however, has no tendency for Aquinas to undermine the important distinction between “false hope” and hope that is rational (§9.3). Aquinas concludes Question 40 by treating the effects of hope, identifying “love” as the principal interior effect and “activity” (operatio) as the principal exterior effect (§9.4). Though hope and despair, considered as passions, are distinct from the corresponding virtue and sin, the two are related, since the virtues are habits that perfect the powers of the soul, including the powers whose acts are the passions (§9.5).