Thomas and the mediaeval architects had genius, the licet ipsa potentia, qua est intelkStus, nan est a&cujus fruits of which we still admire: but they had not at organi aBus, quia nihil ipsius operations communicat corpo- hand the manifold adminicula of the modern builder ris operatio (T>e imitate intelleftus, cap. iii). So also and the modern scholar. Nor was Averroes and the Chap. LXVIII, last paragraph, and in Chap. LXIX (already translated) the replies nn. 3, 4, p. 117* 2. Nor is this explanation inconsistent with Aristotle's words subjoined: "About the intellect and the speculative faculty the case is not yet clear: but it seems to be another kind of soul." * He does not hereby mean to separate the intellect from the common definition of * soul,' but from the peculiar natures of the other parts of soul: as one who says that fowls are a different sort of animal from land animals, does not take away from the fowl the common definition of 'animal/ Hence, to show in what respeft he called it "another kind," he adds: "And of this alone is there possibility of separa- tion, as of the everlasting from the perishable." Nor is it the intention of Aristotle, as the Commentator aforesaid pretends, to say that it is not yet clear whether intelleft be soul at all, as it is clear of other and lower vital principles. For the old text has not, " Nothing has been declared," or "Nothing has been said," but " Nothing is clear," which is to be understood as referring to the peculiar properties of intellect, not to the general definition (of soul). But if, as the Commentator says, the word 4 soul ' is used not in the same sense of intelleft and other varieties, Aristotle would have first distinguished the ambiguity and then made his definition, as his manner is: otherwise his argument would rest on an ambiguity, an intolerable procedure in demonstra- tive sciences.
3. Aristotle reckons c intellect ' among the 'faculties' of the soul.f Also, in the passage last quoted, he names 'the speculative faculty.' Intellect there- fore is not outside the human soul, but is a faculty thereof.
4. Also, when beginning to speak of the potential intellect, he calls it a 'part of the soul, saying: "Concerning the part of the soul whereby the soul has knowledge and intellectual consciousness." J 5. And still more clearly by what follows, declaring the nature of the potential intellect: " I call intellect that whereby the soul thinks and under- stands"^ in which it is manifestly shown that the intellect is something belonging to the human soul.
The. above tenet (of Averroes) therefore is contrary to the mind of Aristotle and contrary to the truth: hence it should be rejefted as chimerical. || In this later explanation St Thomas has the sup- H That Aristotle, in common with the plain man, port of Averroes, who says (De anima, III, p. 149): held every man's intelligence to be in him, of him, " But it has not been shown whether the body is and his, and not extrinsic to him, I think is evident perfected (or actualised) in the same way by all the from these citations. On the other hand, that Arispowers of the soul; or whether there be some one of totle did not take these separate human intelligences those powers whereby the body is not perfected somehow to be effluxes of one great Intelligence, to (actualised, or informed)." I am persuaded that the which they returned, and were re-united with it in retention of the paragraph as it stands in the text death, is not so clear. We are at a loss to assign his was due to an oversight on the part of the author, exact meaning in such passages as De anima, II, iii, 5; See note on p. 99. Ill, v, 3; and especially De gen. animal, II, iii, 10.
* De anima, II, iv, 10 (cf. 8). Ac/ttctoi B\ rov vovv fidvov QvpaOcv iirturianu ko!
t " Under the head of faculties we enumerate 0ciov clvcu fiovov (the conclusion remains, that intelthe vegetative, the appetitive, the sensory, the loco- ligence alone comes in from without and is alone motive, and the intellectual," De anima, III, i, 1, divine). Some pre-existence of the intellectual soul (cf. 5); to which we may add II, ii, 14: " Soul is that seems necessary in the Aristotelian system, as Ariswhereby we are apt to live and sensibly perceive, and totle nowhere recognises the notion of creation out understand, in the first resort." of nothing, any more than Plato. He differs from t ir€pl 8c rov fiopiov rov rife faxy*, <p ya^tncci Plato in being opposed to the transmigration of souls rc ^ *fox& Ka* ^povc7. De anima, III, iv, 1. (De anima, I, iii, 26); and in his reticence upon a $ Xiyt* Be vovv £ oWoctrcu koi vtrokapfikvu 4 point upon which Plato was very explicit, the indi- \pvxfj. Ib. n. 4. viduality of separate souls after death.
GOD THE ORIGIN OF CREATURES CHAPTER LXII-Against the Opinion of Alexander concerning the Potential IntelleSt * UPON consideration of these words of Aristotle, Alexander determined the potential intelledt to be some power in us, that so the general definition of soul assigned by Aristotle might apply to it. But because he could not understand how any subsistent intelligence could be the form of a body, he supposed the aforesaid faculty of potential intellect not to be planted in any subsistent intelligence, but to be the result of some combina- tion of elements in the human body. Thus a definite mode of combination of the components of the human body puts a man in potentiality to receive the influence of the a&ive intellect, which is ever in a<St, and according to him,f is a spiritual being subsisting apart, under which influence man becomes actually intelligent. But that in man whereby he is potentially intelligent is the potential intelledt: hence it seemed to Alexander to follow that the potential intellect in us arises from a definite combination of elements. But this state- ment appears on first inspection to be contrary to the words and argument of Aristotle. For Aristotle shows (De anima% III, iv, 2-4) that the potential intellect is unmingled with the body: but that could not be said of a faculty that was the result of a combination of bodily elements. To meet this difficulty Alexander says that the potential intelledt is precisely the 'predisposition* (praparatio, farrjUvfov) which exists in human nature to receive the influence of the adtive intelledt; and that this 'predisposition' is not any definite sensible nature, nor is it mingled with the body, for it is a relation and order between one thing and another. J But this is in manifest disagreement with the mind of Aristotle, as the following reasons show: 3. Aristotle assigns these characteristics to the potential intellect: to be impressed by the intelligible presentation, to receive intelligible impressions, to be in potentiality towards them (De anima, III, iv, 11, 12): all which things cannot be said of any 4 disposition,' but only of the subjeCt predis- • Alexander of Aphrodisias (there were three it is called materialis. But with Alexander the potentowns of that name, one in Cam, one in Cilicia, and tial intellect is a bodily (organic) faculty: in feci it is one in Thrace) expounded Aristotle at Athens, a.d. silently confounded with the kovs wa&rjTucfo of Aris- 200. Among the Greek commentators on the Philo- totle; whereas in Averroes, St Thomas, and (we may sopher he holds the place that Avenroes holds among add) in Aristotle himself, it is a spiritual faculty, the Mohammedans: hence his similar surname of This is the great mistake of Alexander. He says, 6 kirjfftfrii^ (the commentator). Averroes, while con- iviTtfafrnp t/s itrriv b vAuco? kovs, coucm? wwtuclhi tinually wrangling with Alexander, especially on the 6ypa+f9 — in this agreeing with Aristotle, De anima, nature of the potential intellect, speaks of him with III, iv, 12: who says the potential intellect, to begin great regard. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries with, is like " a notebook in which nothing is actually the schools of Northern Italy were filled with eager written." The word ivirrfikurnp appears in St Thodisputants, Alexandrists and Avcrroists. St Thomas in mas a&pr*paratio (predisposition). To meet Aristotle's his later Qpuxulum de unitate intelleQus denies that saying that the potential intellect is Ajratffc (unim- Alexander held the view which he here ascribes to pressed by material things), Alexander distinguishes him: he says that it was falsely imputed to him by between the predisposition of the tablet to be written Averroes. Be that as it may, the opinion at present on, and the tablet itself: the tablet, he says, is impressed standing for confutation comes to this. The * potential and changed, but not the predisposition. This looks like intellect,' to all intents and purposes, is identified quibbling. Alexander made the ' active intellect * one with what Averroes, and St Thomas with him, calls for all men; and even identified it with God. the 1 passive intellect,' described in the opening of On the other hand, G. Rodier, Aristote, Traiti Chap. LX, which * intellect ' is admitted on all hands de V&me (Leroux, Paris, 1900), vol. II, pp. 457, to be in man, not extrinsic to him. 460, has a clear statement and able defence of There is a good account of Alexander in a Dis- Alexander's notion of iirm^cump. sertation by Augustus Elfes, published at Bonn t And also according to Avicenna, — Chap.
(Straus) in 1887, entitled Aristotehs doBrina de menu LXXIV.
humana, pars prima, Alexandri Aphrodhiensis et Joannis X That is to say, between the human organism Philoponi emmentationes. Alexander calls the potential and the (extrinsic) * active intellect,' the action of intellect vAuofe, as in the Latin versions of Averroes which imprints the universal idea.
posed. It is therefore contrary to the mind of Aristotle, that the mere 4 pre- disposition ' should be the potential intelleft.* 4. An effedt cannot stand higher above the material order than its cause. But every cognitive faculty, as such, belongs to the immaterial order. There- fore it is impossible for any cognitive faculty to be caused by a combination of elements. But the potential intelledt is the supreme cognitive faculty in us: therefore it is not caused by a combination of elements.
6. No bodily organ can possibly have a share in the adt of understanding. But that a<5t is attributed to the soul, or to the man: for we say that the soul understands, or the man through the soul. Therefore there must be in man some principle independent of the body, to be the principle of such an a<St. But any predisposition, which is the result of a combination of elements, manifestly depends on the body. Therefore no such predisposition can be a principle like the potential intellect, whereby the soul judges and understands.
But if it is said that the principle of the aforesaid operation in us is the intelleftual impression adlually made by the aftive intelleft, this does not seem to suffice: because when man comes to have aftual intellectual cognition from having had such cognition potentially, he needs to understand not merely by some intelligible impression a6lualising his understanding, but likewise by some intelledtual faculty as the principle of such activity. Besides, an impres- sion is not in a6tual understanding except so far as it is purified from particular and material being. But this cannot happen so long as it remains in any mate- rial faculty, that is to say, in any faculty either caused by material principles or aCtualising a material organ. Therefore there must be posited in us some immaterial intellectual faculty, and that is the potential intellect.
CHAPTER LXIV-TAtf the Soul is not a Harmony t THE maintainers of this view did not mean that the soul is a harmony of sounds, but a harmony of contrary elements, whereof they saw living bodies to be composed. The view is rejeCted for the follow- ing reasons: 1. You may find such a harmony in any body, even a mere chemical com- pound (corpus mixtum). A harmony cannot move the body, or govern it, or resist the passions, as neither can a temperament. Also a harmony, and a temperament also, admits of degrees. All which considerations go to show that the soul is neither harmony nor temperament.!
2. The notion of harmony rather befits qualities of the body than the soul: thus health is a harmony of humours; strength, of muscles and bones; beauty, of limb and colour. But it is impossible to assign any components, the har- mony of which would make sense, or intellect, or other appurtenances of the soul.
3. Harmony may mean either the composition itself or the principle of composition. Now the soul is not a composition, because then every part of the soul would be composed of certain parts of the body, an arrangement which cannot be made out. In like manner the soul is not the principle of composition, because to different parts of the body there are different prin- ciples of composition, or proportions of elements, which would require the * So argues Averroes against Alexander (Averroes tin Chap. LXIII an opinion, attributed to in Aristot. De anima, p. 159, ed. Venet. 1 574). Galen the physician, is rejected, that the soul is the t This doctrine, the first crude form of material- temperament {complexto), as ' sanguine/ * bilious,' or ism, is refuted by Plato, Pkaedo, 88b, c, 91, 94; the like. Aristotle, De attima, I, iv, 1-7.
several parts of the body to have so many several souls,— one soul for bone, one for flesh, one for sinew; which is evidently not the case.
CHAPTER LXV-TAat the Soul is not a Body LIVING beings are composed of matter and form,— of a body, and of a soul which makes them adtually alive. One of these components must be the form, and the other the matter. But a body cannot be a form, because a body is not in another as in its matter and subjedt. Therefore the soul must be the form: therefore it is not a body.* 5. The adt of understanding cannot be the a6t of anything corporeal. But it is an adt of the soul. Therefore the intellcdtual soul at least is not a body.
It is easy to solve the arguments whereby some have endeavoured to prove that the soul is a body. They point such fadts as these, — that the son resembles the father even in the accidents of his soul, being generated from the father by severance of bodily substance; and that the soul suffers with the body; and is separated from the body, separation supposing previous bodily contadt. Against these instances we observe that bodily temperament is a sort of pre- disposing cause of affedtions of the soul: that the soul suffers with the body only accidentally, as being the form of the body: also that the soul is sepa- rated from the body, not as touching from touched, but as form from matter; although there is a certain contadt possible between an incorporeal being and the body, as has been shown above (Chap. LVI).
Many have been moved to this position by their belief that what is not a material body has no existence, being unable to transcend the imagination, which deals only with material bodies. Hence this opinion is proposed in the person of the unwise: The breath of our nostrils is smofy, and reason a spark in the beating oj the heart (Wisdom ii, 2).
CHAPTER LXVI- Against those who suppose IntelleSi and Sense to be the same SENSE is found in all animals, but animals other than man have no intelledt: which is proved by this, that they do not work, like intellec- tual agents, in diverse and opposite ways, but just as nature moves them to fixed and uniform specific adtivities, as every swallow builds its nest in the same way.
2. Sense is cognisant only of singulars, but intelledt is cognisant of uni- versal.
3. Sensory knowledge extends only to bodily things, but intelledt takes cognisance of things incorporeal, as wisdom, truth, and the relations between objedts.
4. No sense has reflex knowledge of itself and its own adtivity: the sight does not see itself, nor see that it sees. But intelledt is cognisant of itself, and knows that it understands. t # u We need not enquire whether soul and body highly intellectual object, — Aristotelian psychology, are one, as we do not raise that question about the for example, — if understood at all, is understood to wax and the impression which it bears, nor generally the improvement of the understanding; the underabout the matter of each thing and that whereof it is standing, as such, not working through any bodily the matter" (Aristotle, De animay II, i, j). organ.
t A fifth argument is alleged from Aristotle, Dt St Thomas however is far from confining dumb animOy III, iv, 6, which comes to this: — A sensory animals to mere sensation. He allows them sense- organ is damaged by meeting with its object in a high memory, phantasy, a sort of judgement called vis degree: vivid light is seen, and crashing sounds are aesHmativa (notes pp. 122, 12 5), and a certain power of heard, but to the damage of eye and ear; whereas a self-determination (Chap. XLVIII, n. 2). He dc- CHAPTER LXVII-jigain st those who maintain that the Potential IntelleEi is the Phantasy * PHANTASY is found in other animals besides man, the proof of which is that, as objefts of sense recede from sense, these animals still shun or pursue them. But intellect is not in them, as no work of intelligence appears in their conduct.
2. Phantasy is only of things corporeal and singular; but intellect, of things universal and incorporeal, t 4. Intelligence is not the a&ualisation of any bodily organ. But phantasy has a fixed bodily organ. J Hence it is said: Who teacbeth us abo^e the beasts of the earthy andaboTpe the fowls of the air instruSteth us (Job xxxv, 11): whereby we are given to under- stand that there is in man a certain cognitive power, above the sense and fancy that are in other animals.
CHAPTER LXVIII-ii/^ a Subsistent Intelligence may be the Form of a Body IF a subsistent intelligence is not united with a body merely as its mover, as Plato thought (Chap. LVII); nor is conjoined with it merely through phantasms, as Averroes said (Chap. LX); nor is the intelleft, whereby man understands, a predisposition in human nature, as Alexander said (Chap. LXII); nor a temperament, as Galen (Chap. LXIII); nor a harmony, as Empedocles (Chap. LXIV); nor a body, nor sense, nor phantasy (Chapp. LXV-LXVII); it remains that the human soul is a subsistent intelligence, united with the body as its form: which may be thus made manifest.
There are two requisites for one thing to be the substantial form of an- other. One requisite is that the form be the principle of substantial being to that whereof it is the form: I do not mean thzeffe£th>ey but the formal prin- ciple, whereby a thing is and is denominated ebeing.'§ The second requisite is that the form and matter should unite in one 'being'; namely, in that being wherein the substance so composed subsists. There is no such union of the effective principle with that to which it gives being. || A subsistent intel- ligence, as shown in Chap. LVI, is not hindered by the fa<St that it is sub- sistent from communicating its being to matter, and becoming the formal principle of the said matter. There is no difficulty in the identification of the being, in virtue of which the compound subsists, with the form itself of the nies in them intellect, free will, the powers of form- t Namely, the very same bodily parts which were ing general concepts and determining their own implicated in the original sensible impression, or imjudgements, and the immortality of their souls. pressions, which phantasy now reproduces. This is * Averroes, and after him St Thomas (II Sent, well brought out by Bain in his Senses and IntiUeB.
d. 17, q. 2, a. 1), attributes this opinion to Avem- § If a man is, let us say, a Master of Arts, the pace (Ibn-Badja), a Moorish philosopher at Seville formal principle, whereby he is such, is the degree and Granada in the early twelfth century. As making itself; the efficient principle is the authority of the the potential intellect a corporeal faculty, the opinion University which conferred the degree; while the is redolent of Alexander, and is rejected by Averroes. man, on whom it is conferred, is the matter. This t We may, nay, we always do, take a universal form is not substantial, but accidental: the man would view of a corporeal thing, as ' camel,' * steam-engine.' be a man without it. But without his soul he would It is a capital error in philosophy to make all uni- not be a man.
versals abstract ideas. All concrete things are univer- II Jones, M.A., does not bear about him the autho- rised in the mind. rity of his University. A son has not the life of his father, but a similar life.
said compound, since the compound is only through the form, and neither subsists apart.* It may be objected that a subsistent intelligence cannot communicate its being to a material body in such a way that there shall be one being of the subsistent intelligence and the material body: for things of different kinds have different modes of being, and nobler is the being of the nobler substance. This objection would be in point, if that being were said to belong to that material thing in the same way in which it belongs to that subsistent intel- ligence. But it is not so: for that being belongs to that material body as to a recipient subject raised to a higher state; while it belongs to that subsistent intelligence as to its principle and by congruence of its own nature.
In this way a wonderful chain of beings is revealed to our study. The lowest member of the higher genus is always found to border close upon the highest member of the lower genus/ Thus some of the lowest members of the genus of animals attain to little beyond the life of plants, certain shell- fish for instance, which are motionless, have only the sense of touch, and are attached to the ground like plants. Hence Dionysius says: " Divine wisdom has joined the ends of the higher to the beginnings of the lower." t Thus in the genus of bodies we find the human body, composed of elements equally tempered, attaining to the lowest member of the class above it, that is, to the human soul, which holds the lowest rank in the class of subsistent intelli- gences. Hence the human soul is said to be on the horizon and boundary line between things corporeal and incorporeal, inasmuch as it is an incorporeal substance and at the same time the form of a body.
Above other forms there is found a form, likened to the supramundane substances in point of understanding, and competent to an aftivity which is accomplished without any bodily organ at all; and this is the intelleftual soul: for the a<5t of understanding is not done through any bodily organ. Hence the intellectual soul cannot be totally encompassed by matter, or immersed in it, as other material forms are: this is shown by its intelledtual aCtivity, wherein bodily matter has no share. The fa<5t however that the very a6t of under- standing in the human soul needs certain powers that work through bodily organs, namely, phantasy and sense, is a clear proof that the said soul is natu- rally united to the body to make up the human species. J • Let the compound be Jones graduate. The presses in the marble brought him the idea of some- compound subsists in the state and condition of a thing conceived in his mind, so with his intellect graduate: that state and condition is the being of the alone does man form intellectual cognitions," — i.e. compound. But the degree itself is identical with the universal concepts (Bodder, Psyckokgia, pp. 94, 95, state and condition of a graduate. Jones graduate translated). The intellect then (which must include exists, as such, only through the degree. The degree the rational appetite, the will) is a free faculty, inor- has no subsistence away from Jones graduate, nor ganic; \utpurr6s at least in this sense, that it does not Jones graduate away from the degree. actualise any body organ, as sight actualises the eye: t This is a static view of a series of gradations, as which led Aristotle to say that u were the eye an it were, crystallised, showing no indication of that animal, sight would be its soul " i^De anima, II, i, 9), vital progress from the highest of the lower genus to as being its ivr€Xd\€ta, or form. But, it may be obthe lowest of the higher, which is the idea of evolu- jected, from this it appears that ravt, or the intellition, true or false. This static view, which is also that gent soul, is not the form of the body. St Thomas of Aristotle, has been termed "evolution in co- would meet this grave objection by laying down, as existence," not in succession. he does (Sum. TheoL, I, q. 77, a. 1), his distinction bet " A man's intellectual knowledge stands to his tween the faculties and the essence (or substance) of sensory knowledge as a sculptor chiselling an image the soul. The soul, he would say, is one substance, out of marble stands to the workmen who bring the with faculties vegetative, sentient, and intelligent: it marble from the quarry. As the sculptor cannot is the form of the body in respect of these vegetative exercise his art on the marble unless the workmen and sentient faculties, and consequently in respect ot bring it from the quarry, so a man's intellect can the substance to which those faculties are attached, form no ideas of sensible things unless it has presented consequently also in respect even of the intelligent to it through the external and internal senses sensible faculties, which are attached to the same substance of images of the same. But as the sculptor alone im- the soul. For this distinction of faculty and substance CHAPTER LXIX-Solution of the Arguments alleged to show that a Subsistent Intelligence cannot be united with a Body as the Form of that Body* THE arguments wherewith Averroes endeavours to establish his opinion do not prove that the subsistent intelligence is not united with the body as the form of the same.
1. The words of Aristotle about the potential intelledt, that it is "im- passible, unmixed, and separate," f do not necessitate the admission that the intelledtual substance is not united with the body as its form, giving it being. They are sufficiently verified by saying that the intellectual faculty, which Aristotle calls the c speculative faculty,' J is not the adtualisation of any organ, as exercising its adtivity through that organ.