potential intellect, is not that which is understood, but that whereby we understand, still it remains true that by reflection the intellect understands itself and its own intellectual act and the impression whereby it understands. Its own intellectual. act it understands in two ways, — in one way, in parti- cular, for it understands that it is now understanding; in another way, in general, inasmuch as it reasons about the said act. And likewise it understands intellect and the impression in intellect in two ways, — by remarking that itself is and has an intellectual impression, which is particular knowledge; and by studying its own nature and the nature of the intellectual impression, which is knowledge of the universal. According to this latter way we treat of intel- lect and of the intelligible in science.
*Arg. 3. The master transfuses the knowledge which he has into the scholar. Either then the knowledge transfused is the same in number, or different in number, though the same in species. The latter alternative seems impossible: because it supposes the master to cause his own knowledge in the scholar in the same way that an agent causes its own form in another being, by generating a nature specifically like its own; which seems proper to mate- rial agents. It must be then that numerically the same knowledge is caused in the scholar that was in the master; which would be impossible, were there not one potential intellect of them both.
Reply. The saying that the knowledge in master and scholar is numeri- cally one, is partly true and partly not: it is numerically one in point of the thing known, but not in point of the intellectual impressions whereby the thing is known, nor in point of the habit of knowledge itself. It is to be observed however that, as Aristotle (Metaph. VII, ix) teaches, there are arts in whose subject matter there is not any principle adtive in producing the effect of the art, as is clear in the building art: for in wood and stones there is no active power moving to the erection of a house, but only a pas- sive aptitude. But there is an art in whose subjedt matter there is an active principle moving in the direction of the effect of the art, as is clear in the healing art: for in the sick subject there is an active principle tending to health. And therefore the effect of the former kind of art is never produced by nature, but always by art, as every house is a work of art:* but the effect of the latter kind is produced as well by art as by nature without art: for many are healed by the operation of nature without the art of medicine. In these things that can be done both by art and nature, art imitates nature: thus if one is sick of a chill, nature heals him by warming him: hence the physician also, if he is to cure him, heals him by warming. Similar is the case with the art of teaching: for in the pupil there is an active principle making for knowledge, namely, the understanding, and those primary axioms which are naturally understood; and therefore knowledge is acquired in two ways, — without teaching, by a man's own finding out, and again by teach- ing. The teacher therefore begins to teach in the same way that the discoverer begins to find out, by offering for the consideration of the scholar elements of knowledge already possessed by him: because all education and all know- ledge starts from pre-existing knowledge, drawing conclusions from elements already in the mind, and proposing sensible examples whereby there may be formed in the scholar's soul those impressions of phantasy which are necessary for intelligence. f And because the working of the teacher from without would * Good or bad; but not necessarily a work of t Also by getting the scholar to use his eyes and fine work. other senses to observe typical instances of the things effedt nothing, unless borne out by an internal principle of knowledge, which is within us by the gift of God, so it is said among theologians that man teaches by rendering the service of ministry, but God by working within: so too the physician is called nature's minister in healing, A final remark. Since the Commentator makes the passive intellect the residence of habits of knowledge (Chap. LX), the unity of the potential in- telledt helps not at all to the numerical unity of knowledge in master and scholar: for certainly the passive intellect is not the same in different men, since it is an organic faculty. Hence, on his own showing, this argument does not serve his purpose.
CHAPTER LXXVI-That the ASlive Intellect is not a separately Subsisting Intelligence, but a Faculty of the Soul WE may further conclude that neither is the a&ive intellect one in all men, as Alexander and Avicenna suppose, though they do not suppose the potential intellect to be one in all men.* 4. Plato supposed knowledge in us to be caused by Ideas, which he took to subsist apart by themselves. But clearly the first principle on which our knowledge depends is the aftive intellect. If therefore the aftive intellect is something subsisting apart by itself, the difference will be none, or but slight, between this opinion and that of Plato, which the Philosopher rejects.
5. If the active intellect is an intelligence subsisting apart, its aftion upon us will either be continual and uninterrupted, or at least we must say that it is not continued or broken off at our pleasure. Now its adtion is to make the impressions on our phantasy aftual terms of intelligence. Either therefore it will do this always or not always. If not always, still it will not do it at our dis- cretion. Either therefore we must be always in the a£t of understanding, or it will not be in our power actually to understand when we wish.f But it may be said that the aftive intellect, so far as with it lies, is always in adlion, but that the impressions in our phantasy are not always becoming a&ual terms of intelligence, but only when they are disposed thereto; and they are disposed thereto by the aft of the cogitative faculty, the use of which is in our power; and therefore actually to understand is in our power; and this is why not all men understand the things whereof they have the impres- sions in their phantasy, because not all have at command a suitable a<5t of the cogitative faculty, but only those who are accustomed and trained thereto. J that he is to know: also by manufacturing instances, ment would not hold against him. It holds so far as which is called experiment. This passage would make he supposes the agency of this intellect indispensable a good text for a work on paedagogy. The educator, to our understanding things even the simplest and like the physician, should wait upon nature, and call most obvious. Cf. Ueberweg, History of Tkilosopky, forth the native powers of subject mind and subject I, p. 413: " Avicenna distinguishes a twofold devebody; not expect to do all things by manipulation, lopment of our potential understanding into actuality, like one kneading clay into an image. the one common, depending on instruction, the other * The reason being that Alexander did not re- rare, and dependent on immediate divine illuminacognise the potential intellect for a spiritual faculty tion."
at all; while to Avicenna it was like the 'fat boy' in t One may recognise the hand of Averroes in this Pickwick, always dropping off to sleep, remembering rejoinder. For the cogitative faculty see Chap. LX. nothing, and needing continual excitation from with- The rest of this chapter (cf. note, p. 99) is rather ram- out to make it understand. See notes pp. 122, 123, bling and confused, giving the impression of a com- 129, 132, 135, 137, 142, 143. It must be remem- position corrected and supplemented and pieced bered that Averroes also makes the active intellect one together, and never finally revised as a whole. We and the same for all men. miss the trim neatness and dainty order of the Summa t If Avicenna had said that the extrinsic active TAeo/ogica. I have therefore preserved only essentials, intellect came in only when there was question of and omitted what seemed less relevant, our mastering difficult and subtle truths, this argu- GOD THE ORIGIN OF CREATURES But this answer does not appear to be altogether sufficient. That the impres- sions in phantasy are marshalled by the cogitative faculty to the end that they may become actual terms of understanding and move the potential intellect, does not seem a sufficient account, if it be coupled with the supposition of the potential intellect being a separately subsistent intelligence. This seems to go with the theory of those who say that inferior agents supply only pre- dispositions to final perfection, but that final perfection is the work of an extrinsic agency: which is contrary to the mind of Aristotle:* for the human soul does not appear to be worse off for understanding than inferior natures are for their own severally proper activities.
9. In the nature of every cause there is contained a principle sufficient for the natural operation of that cause. If the operation consists in aCtion, there is at hand an aCtive principle, as we see in the powers of the vegetative soul in plants. If the operation consists in receiving impressions, there is at hand a passive principle, as we see in the sentient powers of animals. But man is the most perfeCt of all inferior causes; and his proper and natural operation is to understand, an operation which is not accomplished without a certain receiving of impressions, inasmuch as every understanding is deter- mined by its objeCt; nor again without aCtion, inasmuch as the intellect makes potential into actual terms of understanding. There must therefore be in the nature of man a proper principle of both operations, to wit, both an active and a potential intellect, and neither of them must be separate in being (or physically distinct), from the soul of man.
10. If the aCtive intellect is an intelligence subsisting apart, it is clearly above the nature of man. But any activity which a man exercises by mere virtue of a supernatural cause is a supernatural activity, as the working of miracles, prophecy, and the like effcCts, which are wrought by men in virtue of a divine endowment. Since then man cannot understand except by means of the aCtive intellect, it follows, supposing that intellect a separately sub- sistent being, that to understand is not an operation proper and natural to man; and thus man cannot be defined as intellectual or rational.
11. No agent works except by some power which is formally in the agent as a constituent of its being. But the working both of potential and of aCtive intellect is proper to man: for man produces ideas by abstraction from phantasms, and receives in his mind those ideas; operations which it would never occur to us to think of, did we not experience them in ourselves. The principles therefore to which these operations are attributable, namely, the potential and the aCtive intellect, must be faculties formally existing in us.
12. A being that cannot proceed to its own proper business without being moved thereto by an external principle, is rather driven to aCt than aCts of itself. This is the case with irrational creatures. Sense, moved by an exterior sensible objeCt, makes an impression on the phantasy; and so in order the impression proceeds through all the faculties till it reaches those which move the rest. Now the proper business of man is to understand; and the prime mover in understanding is the aCtive intellect, which makes intellectual impressions whereby the potential intellect is impressed; which potential * St Thomas refers to Metafh. VII, viii (now VI, beings attain to a certain completeness, proper to vii), apparently to such words as these: xadoXov 32 themselves, by a development of their own powers: icq! c£ ov <f>veist koI Kaff S ^vtfic, ro & yiy v6fi€vov they are self-contained and self-sufficient for their tyu tyvcriVy olov Qvrbv rj ($or (universally, the source own purposes: they draw indeed their supplies from whence a thing proceeds is nature, and the process is without, but they adapt what they receive to their nature, and the producl is natural, as a plant or an own purposes by their own activity, animal). This means that 'natural,' i.e. 'organic/ intelleft, when a&ualised, moves the will. If then the a6tive intelledt has a separate subsistence outside man, the whole of man's activity depends on an extrinsic principle. Man then will not be his own leader, but will be led by another; and thus will not be master of his own acts, nor deserve praise nor blame; and the whole of moral science and political society will perish: an awkward conclusion. Therefore the active intellect has no subsistence apart from man.
CHAPTER LXXVlI-That it is not impossible for the "Potential and the A&ive IntelleEl to be united in the one Substance of the Soul SOME one perhaps may think it impossible for one and the same sub- stance, that of our soul, to be in potentiality to receive all intellectual impressions (which is the function of the potential intellect), and to actualise those impressions (which is the function of the active intellect); since nothing acts as it is in potentiality to receive, but only as it is in actual readiness to act. But, looking at the matter rightly, no inconvenience or difficulty will be found in this view of the union of the active and potential intellect in the one substance of the soul. For a thing may well be in potentiality in one respect and in actuality in another; and this we find to be the condition of the intellectual soul in its relation to phantasms, or impressions in phantasy. For the intellectual soul has something in actuality, to which the phantasm is in potentiality;* and on the other hand the intel- lectual soul is in potentiality to that which is actually found in the phantasms, f For the substance of the human soul has the attribute of immateriality: but it is not thereby assimilated to this or that definite thing; and yet such assimilation is requisite for our soul to know this or that thing definitely, since all cognition takes place by some likeness of the object known being stamped on the knowing mind. J Thus then the intellectual soul remains in potentiality, open to the reception of definite impressions in the likeness of things that come within our observation and knowledge, which are the natures of sensible things. These definite natures of sensible things are repre- sented to us by phantasms, which however have not yet reached the stage of being objects of intellect, seeing that they are likenesses of sensible things under material conditions, which are individualising properties, — and besides they are in bodily organs. They are therefore not actual objects of under- standing; and yet since in the case of this man [or other sensible object], whose likeness is represented by phantasms, it is possible to fix upon a universal nature stripped of all individualising conditions, these phantasms are poten- tially intelligible. Thus then they have a potentially intelligible being, but an actually definite likeness to things, whereas in the intelleftual soul, as we saw, the situation was the other way about. There is then in the intelledtual soul a power exercising its adtivity upon phantasms, making them actual •This 'something* is * immateriality.' The in- these likenesses are ' dematerialised,' all likeness to tellectual soul is an actually immaterial being: while sensible material things is lost. The answer, I take it, the phantasm is open, or in potentiality, to being is that ' dematerialising' means only 'universalising.' dematerialised, or stripped of its material and I have a universal idea of a rainbow without blind- individualising conditions by the action of the a&ive ing my mind's eye to its colours, intellect. \ In other words, — for subject to know object, t 'That which is actually found in the phan- object must make upon subject some impression corretasms ' is ' definite likenesses of the natures of sensible sponding to and indicative of what object really is. things.' The objection may be raised, than when objedts of understanding; and this power of the soul is called the active intellect. There is also in the soul a power that is potentially open to definite impressions of sensible things; and this power is the potential intellect.
But the intellectual soul does not lie open to receive impressions of the likenesses of things that are in phantasms in the way that the likeness exists in the phantasm, but according as those likenesses are raised to a higher stage, by being abstracted from individualising material conditions and rendered adtual objects, or terms, of understanding. And therefore the action of the adtive intellect upon the phantasms precedes their being received into the potential intellect; and thus the prime agency is not attributable to the phantasms, but to the active intellect.
There are some animals that see better by night than by day, because they have weak eyes, which are stimulated by a little light, but dazzled by much. And the case is similar with our understanding, which is "to the clearest truths as the bat's eye to the sun" (Aristotle, Metapb. I, Appendix): hence the little intellectual light that is connatural to us is sufficient for us to understand with. But that the intellectual light connatural to our soul is sufficient to produce the aCtion of the aCtive intellect, will be clear to any one who considers the necessity for positing such an intellect. Our soul is found to be in potentiality to intelligible objeCts as sense to sensible objeCts: for as we are not always having sensations, so we are not always under- standing.* These intelligible objeCts Plato assumed to exist by themselves, calling them 'Ideas': hence it was not necessary for him to posit any 'aCtive intellect' rendering objeCts intelligible. t But if this Platonic position were true, the absolutely better objeCts of intelligence should be better also rela- tively to us, and be better understood by us, which is manifestly not the case: for things are more intelligible to us which are nigher to sense, though in themselves they are less excellent objeCts of understanding. Hence Aristotle was moved to lay down the doCtrine, that the things which are intelligible to us are not any self-existent objeCts of understanding, but are gathered from objeCts of sense. Hence he had to posit some faculty to do this work of making terms of understanding: that faculty is the aCtive intellect. The aCtive intellect therefore is posited to make terms of understanding propor- tionate to our capacity. Such work does not transcend the measure of intellectual light connatural to us. Hence there is no difficulty in attributing the aCtion of the aCtive intellect to the native light of our soul, especially as Aristotle compares the active intellect to light (De anima^ III, v, 2).
CHAPTER LXXVlIl-That it was not the opinion of Aristotle that the AEHve IntelleEl is a separately Subsist en t Intelligence y but rather that it is a part of the Soul\ # Sub-consciousness is not allowed for here. Is it I. On avayKt) kui iv r$ ^vyri vtriipxav ravraq enough allowed for in the scholastic philosophy toq cm<popaQ (these differences must also be in the generally? soul), St Thomas points out that the differences in t This valuable remark is borrowed, without question, to wit, the potential and the aclive intelacknowledgement, from Averroes on T>e anima> III leel, are both said to be " in the soul," which (p. 161, ed. Venet. 1574). Whoever first made it, it excludes either of them from being a faculty extrinmust commend itself to every Platonist and every sic to the soul.
Aristotelian. 2. On iv airaay rif tyvau, which in his transla- X This chapter is a running commentary on De tion appears as in omni natura, and which he takes to animay III, v, and may be more profitably presented mean, not as the Greek means, " in all nature," but by a description of its contents than by a translation, "in every natural substance," he argues that both t CHAPTER LXXIX-That the Human Soul does not Perish with the Body EVERY intelligent subsisting being is imperishable (Chap. LV): but the human soul is an intelligent subsisting being. 2. Nothing is destroyed by that which makes its perfection. But the perfedtion of the human soul consists in a certain withdrawal from the body: for the soul is perfected by knowledge and virtue: now in knowledge the vXif, or potential intellect, and the alriov tat by his Latin translation, qui vero secundum potentiam9 woirjriKov, or active intellect, must be in the natural at though the Greek had been 6 & Kara Ivvapuv vovq.
substance of the soul.
3. Upon the words, used of the active intellect, that it is tic c£cc nc, olov ro (as a habit, like light), he says that as a habit does not exist by itself, so neither can, on this showing, the active intellect. He adds that ' habit ' here does not mean ' habitual knowledge,' as when we speak of ' a habit (i.e., habi- tual knowledge) of first principles/ but a positive endowment, actual and formal, as opposed to priva- tion and potentiality.
4. Of the four epithets bestowed on the active intellect^woioTdCf &f"yfai &waOfcirrj'ovo~ia&vkvcpyeia (separate, unmingled, impassible, by essence being in ad), he observes that the first and second have already been applied to the potential intellect: see Chap. IV, n. 6, 6 cc \iapior6c: IV, 3, 4, a/juyfj tlvai...ohii fitfuyfiat Ty ewfiart. The third, he says, has been applied to the potential intellect with a distinction (he refers to iv, 5, 6): the potential intellect is impassible, as not being acted on by matter, having no bodily organ to receive direct impressions from material things: but it receives impressions from the active intellect. The fourth, he says, has been flatly denied of the potential intellect, which is said, iv, 1 2, to be tvvapu irwc ra vorira, dXX' ivrekexda ohSkv wplv tLv vojj (potentially identified with the intelli- gible forms, but actually nothing before it under- stands). He concludes that the word xupioros is only applied to the active intellect in the same sense in which it has already been referred to the potential intellect, iv, 9, ro fiev yap aicrBrjrucov ovk avtv ffayxaro?, 6 Ik xupitnoQ (the faculty of sense is not without body, but this is separate). He identifies yupLaTOQ with avtv awpaToc, as meaning ' operative without bodily organ.'
5. On ro & avr6 kariv $ icar* kvtpytiav emorf/firi r<j> irpaypari (actual knowledge is identical with its object), — which means that, inasmuch as objects of knowledge become present by representation in the mind, the mind in knowing anything knows itself, — St Thomas blames Averroes for taking this to be true only of the active intellect: he cites iv, 13, to avro ion to voovv teal ro voovfievov, fj yap Oewprjruc^ emcmqfJLti Kai to ovtwq kiriarrirbv ro ahro kartv (knower and known are identical, for speculative science and its object are one), where he says that Aristotle speaks, not of the active, but of the potential intel- lect. In the words ^ <ar kvtpytiav kmon'ifiri (scientia in a&u) St Thomas discovers a tertium quid, which is v neither potential nor active intellect, but a combina- tion of the two: he calls it in telle Bus in a8u, 'the intellect as actually understanding,' 'the concrete mind at work.
6. On fi £c jcara Ivvafjuv xf^yf irporipa kv r<p cW, cfAwc ovli xp6v<j) (potential knowledge is prior in time to actual knowledge in the individual, but all the world over it is not prior even in time), he is misled He takes it for a question of priority in time between the potential intellect and the concrete, actually thinking mind (intelletlus in aBu). The error is not serious.
7. Coming to 019^ brk fuv voei, brk he ov voii (it does not at one time think, and at another time not think), he says that this is spoken of the actually thinking mind, to mark it off" from the potential intellect. His conclusion is: "The mind comes to be actually thinking by being identified with the objects of thought: hence it is not open to it at times to think and at times not to think." This may mean — as undoubtedly it is Aristotle's meaning: 'There must be thinking so long as there are things: but there are always things: therefore there is always thinking.' Then the question comes: 'Yes, but whose thinking?' — to which St Thomas gives no answer. To interpret with Silvester Maurus, 'so long as the mind is actually thinking, it thinks unceas- ingly,' is to father no very profound truth upon the Philosopher.
8. Upon xwotflrfleic 8c kari fxovov rovd* tnrtp kari (when separated, it is only that which it is), St Thomas is altogether thrown out by his Latin, separatum hoc solum quod vere est (that alone is separate which truly is), as though xwpurOtiQ (separatum) were the predicate. He takes the meaning to be that the actually thinking mind in man, inclusive at once of potential and active intellect, is 'separate' in the sense of not operating through a bodily organ. On rovro jiovov adavarov rat iuBtov (this alone is im- mortal and everlasting), all his comment is "as being independent of the body, since it is separate." On the last sentence, ov pvtipovevontv?e K.r.A., he makes no comment whatever in this place, but see Chap. LXXX, arg. 5.
No one can seriously contend that, working under such disadvantages, St Thomas has succeeded in adequately interpreting this, one of the most difficult chapters in Aristotle. I recommend the reader to study it in G. Rodier's masterly work, Aristote, Traiti de Fame, 2 vols, text, translation, and notes (Lerouz, Paris, 1900). I offer these few final remarks.
(a) From ael yap to ovhk \p6v<p, is a parenthesis: as Philoponus says, rovro kv pitrp Ippiy^tv. The mean- ing is, as St Thomas well indicates, that though in the individual mind knowledge is first potential, then actual, yet somewhere in the range of being there is an actual knowledge prior to all potential. This is only a carrying out of the Aristotelian principle that ultimately the actual always precedes the potential: karl yap i{ kv€\t\ela ovrog iravra ra. ytyvofieva (De anima. III, vii, 1), a principle well put forward by Rodier, vol. II, p. 490. What actually thinking mind precedes all potentiality of thought, Aristotle does not tell us in this chapter.
GOD THE ORIGIN OF CREATURES there is greater perfe&ion, the more the view is fixed on high generalisations, or immaterial things; while the perfeflion of virtue consists in a man's not following his bodily passions, but tempering and restraining them by reason. — Nor is it of any avail to reply that the perfection of the soul consists in its separation from the body in point of activity, but to be separated from the body in point of being is its destruction. For the aCHvity of a thing shows its substance and being, and follows upon its nature: thus the aCHvity of a thing can only be perfected inasmuch as its substance is perfected. If then the soul is perfected in activity by relinquishing the body and bodily things, its substance cannot fail in being by separation from the body.
4. A natural craving cannot be in vain.* But man naturally craves after permanent continuance: as is shown by this, that while existence is desired by all, man by his understanding apprehends existence, not in the present moment only, as dumb animals do, but existence absolutely. Therefore man attains to permanence on the part of his soul, whereby he apprehends ex- istence absolute and for all time.
6. Intelligible being is more permanent than sensible being. But the sub- stratum of material bodies {materia prima) is indestru&ible, much more the potential intellect, the recipient of intelligible forms. Therefore the human soul, of which the potential intellect is a part, is indestruCtible.f 8. No form is destroyed except either by the aCtion of the contrary, or by the destruction of the subjeCt wherein it resides, or by the failure of its cause. Thus heat is destroyed by the aCtion of cold: by the destruction of the eye the power of sight is destroyed; and the light of the atmosphere fails by the failure of the sun's presence, which was its cause. But the human soul cannot be destroyed by the aCtion of its contrary, for it has no contrary, since by the potential intellect the soul is cognitive and receptive of all contraries. Nor again by the destruction of the subjeCt in which it resides, for it has been shown above that the human soul is a form not dependent on the body for