5. Some agents are without liberty of judgement, either because they have no judgement at all, as is the case with things that have no knowledge, as stones and plants, or because they have a judgement naturally determined to one effeft, as irrational animals. For by natural reckoning** the sheep judges that the wolf is hurtful to it, and on this judgement flies from the wolf. But whatever agents have their judgement of things to be done not determined by nature to one effeft, they must have free will. Such are all intelligent agents; for the understanding apprehends, not only this or that good, but good itself in general. Hence, since it is /through the idea in apprehension # Hence the doctrine of the Thomist school, that ment on the propriety of action is self-determined in the will is determined by the last practical judgement man alone among animals. That self-determination of made before action is taken. It seems to place freedom judgement means free will. Free will is due to the in the intellect rather than in the will. It is bound up power of forming universal ideas, or general concepts, with a further doctrine, that command (imptrium) is of the suitable and the good (or to what Plato might a function of understanding, not of will. These are have called the vision of the idea of the good — Rep.
grave questions, which I had rather not handle. VI, 505: cf. Phaedrus, 248, 249). Such is the momen- Enough for me to have translated this important pas- tous teaching of St Thomas in this chapter, sage fully and literally, and to have called attention to 11 I may have habitually in my mind the universal its significance. judgement, 4 Nuisances are to be abated.' From that, t That is to say, in all (higher) animals (above, no action can arise. Annoyed by a noise in the street, n. 2). I formulate a further judgement, more definite, but X All (higher) animals determine their own move- still universal: * The nuisance of bawling newsboys is men ts, and judge that certain things are good for them: to be abated.' No action is yet possible. But when I man alone determines his own judgement to this say to myself: 'The nuisance of this bawling newsboy effect (n. 2). is to be abated, trouble and expense notwithstanding'; \§ ' Some higher form,' that is, by some intellec- then and then only, upon this particular practical tual presentation, something above the presentation in judgement, action becomes possible and will ensue, sense, or phantasy, or Vis cogifativa, which is all that The argument shows that universal pronouncements other animals have. For Vis cogitativa see Chap. LX. of the understanding do not necessitate any particular Being intellectual, this * higher form ' will be a uni- action. It seems to me to show no more than that, versal idea, not particular. ## Naturali existimatione, the same as Vis cogjitatiVa.
Action is self-determined in all animals: judge- IIO GOD THE ORIGIN OF CREATURES that the understanding moves the will; and in all things the motive, or moving power, and the objedt moved must be proportioned to one another; it follows that the will of an intelligent subsistent being is not determined by nature except to good in general. Whatever therefore is presented to the will under the specific notion of good {sub ratione boni)> the will may incline to it, with- out let or hindrance from any natural determination to the contrary. There- fore all intelligent agents have free will, arising out of the judgement of the understanding; and free will is defined 'a free judgement on the matter of a specific notion, or general concept/* CHAPTER XUX-That Subsistent Intelligence is not Corporeal IF the understanding were a corporeal substance, intelligible ideas of things would be received in it only as representing individual things. At that rate the understanding would have no conception of the universal, but only of the particular, which is manifestly false.
4. If the understanding were a corporeal substance, its a&ion would not transcend the order of corporeal things, and therefore it would understand nothing but corporeal things, which is manifestly false, for we do under- stand many things that are not corporeal.
5. There can be no infinite power in any finite body: but the power of the understanding is in a manner infinite in the exercise of intelligence: for it knows the universal, which is virtually infinite in its logical extension.
7 and 8.f Of no bodily substance is the a&ion turned back upon the agent. But the understanding in its adlion does reflect and turn round upon itself: for as it understands an object, so also it understands that it does understand, and so endlessly.
Hence Holy Scripture calls intelligent subsistent beings by the name of 'spirits/ using of them the style which it is wont to use for the incorporeal Deity, according to the text, God is a Spirit (John iv, 24).
Hereby is excluded the error of the ancient natural philosophers, who admitted no substance but corporeal substance: which opinion some have endeavoured to foist into the Christian faith, saying that the soul is an effigy of the body, a sort of outline contour of the human body. J T!
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CHAPTER YMr-That in Qreated Subsistent Intelligences there is a Difference between Existence and Essence ^HOUGH subsistent intelligences arc not corporeal, nor compounded of matter and form, nor existent as material § forms in matter, still it must not be thought that they come up to the simplicity of the being of God: for there is found in them a certain composition, inasmuch as existence {esse) and essence {quod est) is not in them the same.|| # Liberum de ratione judicium. Ratio, as often in St $ Read material*! from Chap. LI. Thomas, is ratio formafts, or Xoyos, the specific notion, II In whatever reality essence and existence arc or rather the objeB of the specific notion, which is also identical, that reality is its own existence: in other the object of definition. So immediately above, sub words, it exists of itself, which self-existence is proper ratione boni. I need hardly add that every specific no- to God alone. That is the whole argument of this tion is also a general concept. Not until intellect has chapter. All scholastic writers agree in admitting some universalised the object of choice and viewed it as a sort of distinction between essence and existence in generality, is the will free. creatures: but as to the nature of that distinction as t I have made what Latin play-writers call a conta- it obtains in existing creatures, and the name by minatio, or 'commingling' of these two arguments. which the distinction should be expressed, there has X Corpus effigiatum, sicut corpus exterius figuratum, been fierce contention between the later Thomists where the autograph has in an erasure, bom exterior and other schools. Non nostrum inter Tw tantas componere jigura. lites.
in 4. Whatsoever reality subsists of and by itself, nothing attaches to that reality except what is proper to being as being. For what is said of any reality not as such, does not belong to that reality otherwise than accidentally by reason of the subjeft:* hence, considered apart from the subjeft in a particular case, the attribute does not belong to that reality at all. Now to be * caused by another' does not belong to being, as being: otherwise every being would be caused by another, which is impossible (B. I, Chap. XIII). Therefore that existence which is being of itself and by itself, must be uncaused. No caused being therefore is its own existence.
5. The substance of every reality is a being of itself and not through another. Hence a6tual illumination is not of the substance of air, because it accrues to it through another. But to every created reality existence accrues through another, otherwise it would not be a creature. Therefore of no created substance is it true to say that its existence is its substance.f Hence in Exodus iii, 14, existence is assigned as the proper name of God, He who is: because it is proper to God alone that His substance is none other than His existence.
CHAPTER lAll-That in Created Subsistent Intelligences there is AEluality and Potentiality IN whatever being there are found two elements, the one complementary to the other, the proportion of the one element to the other is as the propor- tion of potential to aftual: for nothing is completed except by its own adhiality. But in a created intelligent subsistent being there are two elements, the substance itself, and the existence thereof, which is not the same thing as the substance. Now that existence is the complement of the existing substance: for everything aftually exists by having existence. It follows that in every one of the aforesaid substances there is a composition of actuality and potentiality.
2. What is in any being, and comes of the agent that produced it, must be the a&uality of that being: for it is an agent's fun<Stion to make a thing be in a&uality. But, as shown above (Chap. XV), all other substances have their existence of the prime agent: indeed their being created substances consists precisely in this, that they have their existence of another. Existence itself therefore is in these created substances as a sort of adtualisation of the same. But that in which adluality is received is potentiality; for aftuality is such in relation to potentiality. In every created subsistent being therefore there is potentiality and actuality.
CHAPTER \N -That Subsistent Intelligences are Imperishable WHAT ordinarily and of itself attaches to a thing, inheres in it necessarily and invariably and inseparably, as roundness ordinarily and of itself inheres in a circle, but in a bit of brass metal only incidentally.! It is possible for a bit of brass metal to be other than round: # A barber may be black, but not as a barber, and the thing still remain. The distinction between His blackness has nothing to do with his trade, essence and existence is not physical. But created 'Black barber* is an accidental predication, inasmuch essence has not such a hold on existence as to be inas blackness and hair-cutting happen in this case both capable of losing it. This loose bold upon existence is to be attributes of the same subject. taken by the Thomist school to involve a real dist The conclusion might be expressed thus: In tinction between essence and existence in creatures, every created reality, or actuality, the actualisation, I For this use of ' ordinarily ' and 'incidentally' or realisation, is something distinct and separable as a rendering of per se and per aeeidens, see my from the thing actualised, or realised. This is not Aquinas Etbkus, I, 404. It answers to 'principal' and saying that the actualisation might be taken away, 'accessory' in English law.
GOD THE ORIGIN OF CREATURES it is impossible for a circle to be other than round. Now existence ordinarily follows upon the form: for we call that c ordinary/ which the thing is inasmuch as it is itself; and everything has existence inasmuch as it has form. Substances therefore that are not pure forms may be deprived of existence inasmuch as they lose their form, as brass is deprived of roundness inasmuch as it ceases to be circular. But substances that are pure forms are never deprived of existence: thus if the ideal circle had substantial existence, that substance could never be made other than round. But subsistent intelli- gences are pure subsistent forms: therefore it is impossible for them ever to cease to exist.* 8. Everything that perishes, perishes by suffering something. Destruction is a sort of suffering. But no subsistent intelligence can suffer any impression such as to lead to its destruction. For to suffer is to receive something; and whatever is received in a subsistent intelligence must be received according to the manner of the same: that is to say, it must be received as an intelligible impression. But whatever is so received in a subsistent intelligence, goes to perfeCt that intelligence, not to destroy it: for the intelligible is the perfection of the intelligent. A subsistent intelligence therefore is indestruCtible.t 10. The intelligible is the proper perfection of the intellect: hence the understanding in the aCt of understanding, and its term, or objeCt in the aCt of being understood, are one. J What therefore belongs to the objeCt as intelligible, must belong also to the mind as cognisant of that objeCt; because perfection and perfectible are of the same genus. § Now the intelligible objeCt, as such, is necessary and imperishable: for things necessary, or things that must be, are perfectly cognisable to the understanding; while things contingent, that are but might not be, as such, are cognisable only imperfectly: they are not matter of science, but of opinion. || Hence the understanding attains to science of perishable things, only in so far as they are imperishable, — that is to say, in so far as they become to the mind universal*. Intellect therefore, as such, must be indestruCtible.f # The meaning of this impossibility has been explained in Chap. XXX, and appears again in the last argument of this chapter. For the doctrine that " subsistent intelligences [angels] are pure subsistent forms " see B. I, Chap. XLIV, n. 7, with note. The Platonic * idea,' existing apart from things, was per- sonified by the Neoplatonists, and became a feu/M* (spirit). But in becoming a spirit it still remained a self-subsistent 4 idea,' or 4 form,' to the Neoplatonist. The schoolmen held the doctrine of angels as part of the Christian revelation. But being much influenced by Neoplatonism through Arabian and other channels, they came to say of angels some things that the Neoplatonists had said of Scuporc?. The angel then was ipsa forma subsistens, it was substantia separata, it was a pure substantial form subsisting by itself. It stood in sharp contrast with Aristotelian 4 forms' that were in matter, the most noteworthy of which was the human soul, the 4 form of the body.'
t Yes, if the being be nothing else but intelli- gence, which St Thomas supposes throughout, calling it a 4 pure form ' (ipsa forma), X C£ I, Chap. XLIV, n. 4. This Aristotelian utterance means that the understanding forms within itself an idea expressive of the object: in that idea the mind expressing and the object expressed meet.
$ There must be some element of virtue in a mind that has any appreciation of virtue.
Thus Plato taught, and Aristotle cordially "3 agreed with him. See the seventh book of the Re- public, and the Puteritr Jnalytks. Plato, Aristotle and the schoolmen based their notions of science upon the exact sciences of arithmetic, geometry, and formal logic, these being the first sciences developed. With us, the name of science has been well-nigh monopolised by the study of physical nature. Physical objects certainly belong to the class of things con- tingent: they are, but might not be. This is true: but the physicist does not consider his science perfect till he has attained to the knowledge of the laws of physical necessity which govern the operations of those contingent things. Observation and experiment are preliminary steps to science. And physical necessities belong to the region of the eternal. A substance, such as chlorine, must act in this or that way under those conditions, if ever at any time it is to be at all. This is an eternal truth. This is exactly St Thomas's teaching, when he says: 44 The understanding attains to science of perishable things, only in so far as they are imperishable, — that is to say, in so far as they be- come to the mind universals." Cf. I, Chap. LXVII, with notes.
f The argument is, that the vehicle of the im- perishable,— that out of which the imperishable could not exist, — must itself be imperishable. Universals are imperishable: but these universals cannot be any- where in creation except in created minds: therefore created minds, as minds, are apt not to perish.
13. It is impossible for a natural desire to be void of objeft, for nature does nothing in vain. But every intelligence naturally desires perpetuity ot being, not only perpetuity of being in the species, but in the individual: which is thus shown. jThe natural desire which some creatures have arises from conscious apprehension: thus the wolf naturally desires the killing of the animals on which he feeds, and man naturally desires happiness. Other creatures, without any conscious apprehension, are led by the inclination of primitive physical tendencies, which is called in some 6 physical appetite.' The natural desire of being is contained under both modes: the proof of which is that creatures devoid of any sort of cognitive faculty resist destructive agencies to the full strength of their natural constitution, while creatures possessed of any manner of cognitive faculty resist the same according to the mode of their cognition. Those creatures therefore, devoid of cognition, who have in their natural constitution strength enough to preserve perpetual being, so as to remain always the same numerically, have a natural appetite for perpetuity of being even in respeCt of sameness of number: while those whose natural constitution has not strength for this, but only for preservation of perpetuity of being in respeCt of sameness of species, also have a natural appetite for perpetuity. This difference then must be noted in those creatures whose desire of being is attended with cognition, that they who do not know being except in the present time, desire it for the present time, but not for ever, because they have no apprehension of everlasting existence: still they desire the perpetual being of their species, a desire unattended with cognition, because the generative power, which serves that end, is prelimi- nary to and does not come under cognition. Those then that do know and apprehend perpetual being as such, desire the same with a natural desire. But this is the case with all subsistent intelligences. All such subsistent intelligences therefore have a natural desire of everlasting being. Therefore they cannot possibly cease to be.
13. All things that begin to be, and afterwards cease to be, have both their beginning and their ceasing from the same power: for the same is the power to make to be and to make not to be. But subsistent intelligences could not begin to be except through the power of the prime agent. There- fore neither is there any power to make them cease to be except in the prime agent, inasmuch as that agent may cease to pour being into them. But in respect of this power alone nothing can be called perishable; as well because things are called necessary or contingent in respe6t of the power that is in them, not in respeCt of the power of God (Chap. XXX), as also because God, the author of nature, does not withdraw from things that which is proper to their nature; and it has been shown that it is proper to intellectual natures to be perpetual.
CHAPTERS LVI, LXIX-How a Subsistent Intelligence may be united with a Body, with a Solution of the Arguments alleged to prove that a Subsistent Intelligence cannot be united with a Body as its Form A SUBSISTENT intelligence cannot be united with a body by any manner of combination: for combined elements, when the combina- tion is complete, do not remain actually, but virtually only: for if they remained adtually, it would not be a combination, but a mere mechanical mixture.* But this combination and consequent cessation of a<5tual existence cannot befall subsistent intelligences; for they are imperishable.
It is likewise evident that a subsistent intelligence cannot be united with a body by any manner of contact, properly so called. For contact is only of bodies: those things are in contact, the extremities of which are together,t as points, or lines, or circumferences, which are the extremities of bodies.
Still there is one mode of contact whereby a subsistent intelligence may be mingled with a body. For natural bodies in touching one another involve a change, and thus are united together, not only in their quantitative extremities, but also by likeness of one same quality or form, the one im- pressing its form on the other. And though, if we regard only quantitative extremities, the contact must be mutual in all cases, yet, if we consider a&ion and passion, there will be found some cases of touching without being touched, and some cases of being touched without touching. Any cases that may be found of contact without contact in quantitative extremities must still be called instances of contact, inasmuch as they are instances of action: thus we say that he who saddens another touches' him. J According to this mode of touch it is possible for a subsistent intelligence to be united to a body by contadt: for subsistent intelligences a<St upon bodies and move them, being more highly a&ualised than bodies are.§ This contact is not quantitative but virtual, and differs from bodily con- tad in three respects. First, because in this contadt the indivisible can touch the divisible, which cannot happen in bodily contadt: for only that which is indivisible can be touched by a point, || whereas a subsistent intelligence, in- divisible though it be, can touch a divisible quantity by adling upon it. The point and the subsistent intelligence are not indivisible in the same way. The point is indivisible as a term of quantity, and has a definite situation in a con- tinuous surface, beyond which it cannot be thrown:^ whereas a subsistent # The old distinction (I think it it now being tional control? Or if to both, it the action of the challenged) between a * chemical combination 9 and toul upon the body the tame in both cases? a * mechanical mixture 9 answers fairly well to that || That is to say, point can only touch point, drawn here by St Thomas between mixtio (/ufit) and Hence we speak of the 4 point of contact,' which is conjksio (icpaiaris). Oxygen was supposed to become one, not two.
something other than actual oxygen, when it com- f The argument supposes the continuity of matter, bined with hydrogen to form water. The spiritual that is to say, that the ultimate elements of matter are soul is not lost in man in the way that oxygen is lost, extended solids without interstices of vacuum. The or was supposed to be lost, in water. dynamist theory on the other hand supposes that points, t 'Together' means 'indefinitely near': absolute centres of attractive or repulsive force, are indissolubly contact would be coincidence. bound up in primitive molecules, which molecules are X Read contritions tangit. The sun's action of extended, but not solidly continuous, there being vagravitation upon the earth, attracting it, would have cuum between point and point of the multitudinous furnished St Thomas with a better example, had he points which make up the molecule. In this theory, known of it, except that it is mutual, the earth like- action takes place from each point, or centre of force, wise attracting the sun. St Thomas will not allow upon all points within the sphere of activity, accorthat the body acts upon the soul. dingly to the law of the inverse square of the distance $ Is the reference to organic action or to voli- from the point, or centre of activity, attractive or re- "5 intelligence is indivisible by being outside of the category of quantity alto- gether: hence no indivisible element of quantity is marked out for conta6t with it. Secondly, because quantitative contact is only with extremities, but virtual conta6t is with the whole subje6t touched: for the subje6t is touched inasmuch as it is afted upon and moved; but that is inasmuch as it is in potentiality; and potentiality extends to the whole, not merely to the extre- mities of the whole: hence the whole is touched. From this appears a third difference: because in quantitative touch, which is of extremities, the touch- ing body must be outside of the touched, and cannot pervade it, but is stopped by it;* whereas the virtual contadl, which is proper to subsistent intelligences, reaching to the inmost recesses of things, makes the touching substance be within the touched and pervade it without let or hindrance. Thus then a subsistent intelligence may be united with a body by virtual conta6t.f Elements united by such contact are not absolutely one: they are one in a6tion and in being a6ted upon, which does not involve absolute oneness of being. Such absolute oneness may be in three ways: in the way of indivisi- bility, in the way of continuity, and in the way of natural unity. Now out of a subsistent intelligence and a body there cannot be made an indivisible unity: it must be a compound of two things. Nor again a continuous unity, because the parts of a continuum are quantitative. It remains to be enquired whether out of a subsistent intelligence and a body there can result such a unity as means oneness of nature. J But out of two permanent elements there results no being one by nature except that which results of the union of sub- stantial form with matter: for out of substance and accident there results no being one by nature, for the nature or essence of 'man' and 4 whiteness 9 is not the same.§ This question then remains to be studied, whether a subsistent intelligence can be the substantial form of any body. Looking at the matter argumentatively, it might seem that the thing is impossible.
Arg. i. Of two adlually existent substances no one being can be made: for the adluality of every being is that whereby it is distinguished from an- other being. But a subsistent intelligence is an a&ually existing substance: so likewise is a body. Apparently therefore no one being can be made of a subsistent intelligence and a body.
pulsive. Thus every point is in immediate Virtual con- sider the life of cells. This may be admitted or denied, tact with endless other points, but not in physical — it was a theme of endless contention in St Thomas's contact with any. Dynamism may be tenable or un- day, and the strife is not over yet, — but.at least it is tenable: either way it is well worth the psychologist's to be observed that these various powers are not co- while to consider what physical theory any argument ordinated to the purpose of one human life except by of his presupposes, and what it excludes; and con- the presence of the soul. Thus the body is thedeter- versely, what physical theory, if established, would minable, the soul the determining element, by virtue necessitate a modification of his argument. of which the whole compound becomes one human # St Thomas confines this speculation to solids, nature, one man. In this general popular sense, with- The diffusion of gases and the blending of liquids he out implication of the details of the Thomist system would have called, not contaBus, but perhaps conjusio; of matter and form, the General Council of Vienne and that he took to be no real union at all. As for the (a.d. i 3 1 2) defined " the rational or intellectual soul other alternative, mixtio> he has already shown that to be of itself and essentially the form of the human the union of spirit with matter is not that. body."
t But so are sun and earth united by the virtual X Ratione unum. Ratio here is not opposed to res: contact of gravitation. This virtual contact of mover it means first the definition of a thing, and then that and moved does not go far to explain the union of which is specially denoted by definition, the essence or soul and body. St Thomas happily passes to a further nature. This meaning of ratio is not uncommon in the explanation, identifying the union with that of* form ' Contra Gentiles, The word may often be rendered and ' matter,' that is, of active and determinant with 4 essential notion,' meaning the object of such notion, passive and determinable principle. Against which it See note on p. ill.
may be urged that the body has a determinate exis- § Man is not essentially white, but he is essenti- tence of its own, and powers all its own, mechanical, ally body and soul, chemical, and many would say, vital also, if we con- Arg. 2. Form and matter arc contained under the same genus: for every genus is divided into a&ual and potential. But a subsistent intelligence and a body are of different genera.